leadership

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk – Founder and Executive Director of Polish Academy of Canada, Educator and Passionate Canadianist

About Alina Deja-Grygierczyk

Alina is a passionate Canadianist, energetic English Coach Confidence, Positivity Purveyor, and Passionate Home Cook. She has Silesian-Polish roots, fell in love with Canada, and currently, lives in Berlin with her husband where they enjoy the German cultural diversity and share Canadian values.

Her mission is to inspire and empower today’s young Europeans to leave a positive impact on our world through their involvement in leadership exchanges. She also dedicates herself to strengthening EU-Canada bilateral relations, by developing multilateral applied educational projects in areas of common interest for both Europe and Canada.

She studied English philology at the University of Silesia, Poland, and also finished there my doctorate studies in Canadian Literature and Cultures. She is the recipient of the Competitive Government of Canada Program Grant and EU-Canada Study Tour Thinking Tour. She studied the EU – Canada bilateral relations in such prominent institutions as the European Parliament, European Council, European Commission, European Court of Justice, and the Canadian Mission to the European Union, as well as many think tanks and NGOs.

In 2012 she undertook an internship at the Polish Consulate in Toronto where she was responsible for the promotion of Poland in Canada. After a few years of working as an academic teacher and English coach confidence, she decided to pursue my passion for promoting EU-Canada bilateral relations and founded the Polish Academy of Canada to create excellent international leaders.

Connect with Alina: Email | Instagram | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

University of Silesia

Polish Academy of Canada

Dave Conlon

Ian Tyson

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Do you want access to all the past guests on this show? Do you want a network with like-minded individuals and meet other high performing educators from around the world? If so, go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Sign up to join the exclusive network and you’ll get access to live virtual networking events and 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.highperformingeducator.com. Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Alina Deja is the founder and executive director of the Polish Academy of Canada. She’s also an educator and a passionate Canadianist. If that’s even a word she fell in love with Canada when she traveled here years ago on an exchange and her passion for the opportunities that exist to here and the people she met pushed her to start the Polish Academy of Canada, where she brings students from Poland and other areas in the European union over in Europe to bring them here on exchange, to provide them with co-op and internship opportunities, or even just, you know, work opportunities or exposure and trips.

Sam Demma (01:23):
So kids have access to different experiences and options. Now she is someone who is extremely passionate. She, after a few years of working as an academic teacher in English confidence coach, she decided to pursue her passion for promoting EU Canada bilateral relations, which led to her founding the Polish academy to create this excellent international leadership opportunities. She has huge energy. She is working on so many different projects. I hope you enjoy our conversation today. I will see you on the other side, Alina, thank you so much for coming on the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to, to have you on the show all the way from Berlin. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about what makes you passionate about the work you do in education today?

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (02:15):
Yeah. Well, that’s a great question. I have to tell you. And I love the word passion cuz I’m really passionate about all the work that I do and with the young people here and what makes me so passionate you know, it’s a very long story when it comes to me. The first thing that really I love when, when it comes to young people is just like a love giving them something, you know, to believe in. I mean like Simons, you know, the leader always said that we should always like give people, you, you know, something that they keep going in life. They, they believe in something. So I think that we as educators which we are really highly responsible for the youth right now, especially the times right now, you know, we have COVID 19 race, you know, democracy is falling and we have got, you know, technology and instead of humanology and that sometimes techn management, it comes to technology.

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (03:09):
So I think that they really need our help and my experience that educators and the people that we surround ourself with most important for the youth. So we should really like try to navigate them help them to navigate their life, you know, their emotions and and just help them to be happy. So what I do with the young people I do create exchange programs between Europe, between Canada. And so I bring both, you know, like Canadians to Europe as well. Like Europeans, it’s mostly like Polish students to Canada and they just came both, both students, they just come, come back very, very happy. So the thing that also got, got me to work with the young people, it’s probably, I would say I was also very lucky. Since I remember to have a good family, he was always motivating me, my uncle through the United States.

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (04:10):
He always likes, he was like charging my Barry when he was like visiting me in Europe. And as I, since I remembered, yeah, it’s funny. I know. So as I remember it, I’ve been always very ambitious. I’ve always been a dreamer, a dreamer, and I had my own visions and I always wanted to create something unique and something that’s gonna give back to the community, something that’s gonna like, you know, like make other people happy because I got a lot, I’ve been traveling around the world as I was working with you as well as Canada, when it comes to international exchanges of students, I mean also university lecture. So I’ve made a lot of contacts and as my uncle said you know, I think that it’s very important. The people that we surround ourself with. So thanks so much trouble.

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (04:59):
I’ve managed to build a huge network of leaders around the world. And as I know that it’s very important. The people that we surround ourself with are very important. I just wanted to that the youth that I know they’re gonna get the same so that they’re gonna be able to navigate their lives and just be happy and to are positive emotions with others. So what is more those travels and those positive experience that I got both in Canada and somewhere else. They brought me also to the idea of Canada study tours. So we bring young people from Europe to Canada and we do a tour so that there’s universities, high schools, they go to institutions governmental institutions. So we try to get them familiar with Canada as you know, like most Europeans, I don’t know if that, if you’re aware of that, but probably maybe yes. They just think that Canada is like Netflix.

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (06:04):
So it’s like, so they always have the feeling that whatever, wherever they are in Canada, join us in the Netflix. So we are trying to help them to follow their dreams. And just to help them also, you know, to, to make their careers, to set up their lives in Canada a little bit. Of course we work with them when it comes to work and and balance because, you know, they, sometimes they dream about, and they let’s say they imagine Canada or north America in a different mind that it really is right. So we try to help them to follow their dreams, but also in a reasonable way, I guess. So, so just to sum up I think that I’ve become very, very passionate about working with the youth. So all the positive emotion that I got from the people like who were showing me the way, and there should be. So, you know, and so energetic, I just wanna like give back on how to tell you just to make them happy, make all the possible for them. I couldn’t live in Canada. I was living in Canada for a while, but right now I live in Berlin. So I just want them to be happy, let’s say. Hmm,

Sam Demma (07:16):
No, I absolutely love that. I’m actually curious to know more about your uncle, who you mentioned. Did he play a huge role in inspiring you to start this work? Like where I understand what makes you passionate about it today, but what drove you to start your own organization and to start doing these tours with European students and to give them the opportunities they might not have elsewhere?

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (07:37):
Yeah. Well, I it’s always been my dream. I mean, like, it’s funny when I was driving the car, I was going to a conference in Brussels. So I was driving the car between Brussels and Berlin. I’ve asked myself a question, what you really like doing. So at that time I was working with the university students, you know, so like being an academic teacher, and I just said to myself, what you like really doing? You just like flying to America. So I think that this it’s funny, but this brought me to the idea of Canada study tour and my uncle. He’s been the only my motivator. So I mean, like as, as, since I was little, I mean, doesn’t remember him coming back, you know, to Europe reading books, to me talking about like life and you know, like making choices in life.

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (08:21):
So he was really like a good educator. So I was pretty lucky let’s say that he was like my innate leader, like, so and what brought me to outside of my company well, my company has been at the very beginning language school, and then I just wanna something more for the kids. So it was not only about the language, but I just wanted that they gonna start grow mentally when it comes to English, as well as to help them to change their, let’s say, fixed mindset into the growth mindset. Yes. Which is a huge work and introduce to them how they can work on themselves.

Sam Demma (09:03):
No, that’s awesome. And what led you to meeting Dave Conlan and all these amazing people that work in student leadership here in Canada? I’m curious to know.

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (09:14):
Well, in 2016, I went to Canada with two girls. They were private students and I was on my own academics doing my own academic research. And those girls, they wanna study in Canada and this is so they we contacted Ian Tyson, the motivational speaker, right? So Ian Tyson, he invite me to come to, to London for the global leadership conference. First of all, I was just like, I thought, he’s crazy said, I’m not gonna be, you know, like a part of kids, you know, to Canada who are like 18, you know, and 17, you know, said like, no. And but then I started really to work on thats and the kids that I talk with them, they really wanna go. Hmm. So and that’s how it all started. So, you know, I’m a person who is very energetic and also very communicative.

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (10:07):
And I’ve always had a kind of, you know, like vision. I mean, like something, you know, that you believe in, you go there, you just believe that you wanna do it sometimes are not sure about your vision yet, but when, when you meet and communicate with people and you know, your vision is just like, it’s just more clear to you. Hmm. And so Dave conman from the leadership Ken leadership association I contacted him because well, Canada study tour has become very famous here in Europe and all the schools, they were just impressed with the that the kids are so happy and they, the attitudes they changed because they contact, you know, the leaders the best. Yeah. And they speak with them. And so they just wanted that we gotta create a program which is gonna be online for the kids here so that the kids there are more kids engage into like into some positive action. So, so I just thought about that. I’ve met the treasurer of Canadian association ones. Nice. And I said like, okay, so why not contact, you know, like Dave conman, who is, let’s say hat and is kind of important when it comes to leadership in Canada and to learn more from them even from him. Yes.

Sam Demma (11:28):
Ah, that’s awesome. That’s so cool. And what is coming up soon? Things that you’re working on that you’re very excited about and that you have poured lots of your energies into?

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (11:39):
So right now, well, first of all, it’s I’m kind of a positive about that. I mean, like managing that, you know, yeah. I cannot fly right now, international, like flights are very difficult to manage but I’m very positive about, you know, the new opportunities for me. So saying that, having said that so we develop right now a course for the schools. And so we just wanna, let’s say, create a movement in Europe and as well as to bring some changes when it comes to education here. Hmm. So that might be might be, let’s say both challenging for us as a very positive, I mean, like when it comes to young people so that they gonna start thinking about, you know, like, like things like like about their life in a different way. Hmm. So, I mean, like in Europe, the education is more academic, so we just focus, you know, like on studying on cramming reading like books. And so there are not many schools who offer like courses or help students to human up or to just grow mentally. Mm. So this is what we wanna change right now. So I’ve already contacted some people like from media and some journalists from some like super Hebrew educators. And then we were just planning, you know, to let’s say kind of a movement to, to bring some positive changes right now.

Sam Demma (13:12):
Hmm. Oh, that’s awesome. I absolutely love the at and when, what, what inspired you to get involved in education? So bring me all the way back to when you were a student yourself, there’s, you know, thousands of careers you can get into, you chose to get into working with young people. Why at that point in your life, when you were so young, did you decide this was the thing you wanted to do or did, did you work a different job at first and transition? Like I’m, I’m curious to know about your own path?

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (13:40):
No, I mean, like never, it’s, it’s funny because since I remember I was, I, well, I think that I’m just lucky I’ve been, I was always playing you know, like the school. I mean, I was always a teacher as a kid. Yep. So I had my own like register and over was putting some marks. So my mom, she’s also a teacher. So I think that I, maybe I took after her a little bit and she she’s she’s still teaching right now. I mean, she lost her job. She doesn’t wanna give it up, although she could already get retired. And and so I think that family as I said, I mean like family that was always supporting me when it comes to education. So I can see the differences sometimes when we teach some parents, you know, there’s a lack of I don’t wanna say like, but it’s true sometimes of lack of good parenting at home, a good leadership. So I’ve been lucky to grew up in a family which gave me a lot. And my mom, she’s a teacher, my uncle, I mean, like for United States, he’s also a university teacher. So I think that I had a kind of a, let’s say have had always like, kind of a natural gift of just working with the youth.

Sam Demma (14:55):
Oh, that’s awesome. I love that. And if you could go back and speak to your younger self, when you just started working in education, what would you tell yourself? What pieces of advice, knowing what, you know now, would you impart on your younger self?

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (15:10):
It’s just like, what do you mean? Like younger self? When I was like 15, I was 25 or two.

Sam Demma (15:17):
When you started working. So like the first year you started working with young people?

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (15:24):
I think that, you know what it’s about the fear, I guess. So a lot of people and me too, I was always very shy. Mm. And this is the same thing happens when I come with young people to Canada or anywhere else, they’re very shy. They’re afraid to act. They’re afraid to be themselves and be authentic at that time. I would like to hear our voice, that be yourself, be authentic. You should follow your intuitions. You should follow your dreams. I mean, like you should do what you like and don’t be afraid. So, I mean, like, I’ve been always like growing up in a kind of environment that was trying you let’s say to act against me a little bit. And so I’ve, you know, I wanted to do stuff. I was always different. I was always more ambitious than the others or had just different to dreams.

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (16:13):
And so there were voices who were trying to suppress me. So I think that I would just tell myself, like, keep going that way, keep being yourself, because this is important. Stop pretending a different person, because this is also, I mean, like something that I can see, but a lot of students, they pretend to be somebody else that they really are. And, and I guess this is, and what I have learned more, I guess, so like be more patient. Hmm. Oh, that’s awesome. Because I mean, like, yeah. I mean, I think that being, being patient is also very important. I mean, like a lot of kids and me too, I’ve always wanted everything very fast though. I don’t belong to the generation that, you know, like, like clicks all the time. Yeah. And but but yeah, I have it too. I mean, like sometimes, you know, you wanna get to the end of the movie very fast. Yeah. But I think that patience is is very important. So I’m like no fear, you just be authentic and don’t be scared to be yourself.

Sam Demma (17:11):
Ah, I love that. That’s awesome. And I know that you’re someone who is a lifelong learner. Can you tell me why you think that’s important and what are some of your favorite books that you have read? I know the last time I spoke to you, you showed me your wonderful bookshelf. And tell me, what do you think it means to be a lifelong learner? Why is it important and what are some of your favorite books?

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (17:32):
Well it’s very important the first, like what you said it’s like, it’s very important. I mean, there is a coach in Europe who says that when you just don’t grow and you don’t learn all the time, you just go back. And this is the feeling that I sometimes also got, you know, that there was a time when I was busy without a project and I, you know, stopped like learning or reading and I really felt bad. So the more you contact people, the more you read, you just grow, you just feel more happy. You just have the feeling of being, let’s say of doing something, right? Yes. So I’m a person like that. I am, I, I’m not able to imagine myself being a vegetable. Mm. And so that’s, that’s what is important because if you just stop learning reading you know, you are just, you just gonna start, stop being, let’s say.

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (18:28):
Right. Because I, I mean, like we don’t know our potential. I mean, like we can have a great potential. I mean, like, so the more we read, the more people we meet, we just grow and we can be really happy because I mean, like we never know our final destination. Right. Hmm. And my favorite book well, it’s a good question. I have to tell you that I have it even like here on my desk, in my Canada room I got it from my husband, honestly, I’ve, I’ve read a lot of books, like canal, literature, I mean, European literatures, et cetera. But the thing that right now, I have a new, like new new poet. I really like though, I’m not like into poetry so much. Her name is, I mean, like homebody she’s right now a Canadian poet, she’s Indian. And she’s writing for women about buddy about leadership, about heart and about rest and away. So I think that my that’s my favorite book right now. Oh, that’s awesome. So she’s, she’s she’s really, I mean, like her poetry is very simple and it just picks your mind and it’s about, you know, all the problems that sometimes, you know, like we as human, we we, well we go through.

Sam Demma (19:45):
Love that in a very simple way. Yeah. That’s, that’s amazing. And the next time you come to, can you better let me know. Definitely. Yeah. So we can do some stuff together.

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (19:56):
It’s gonna be 2022.

Sam Demma (19:58):
Well, hopefully it comes, comes, comes here sooner. But in the meantime, if someone is inspired by anything you’ve shared today on this interview whether it’s a little bit about your personal story or they love the work you’re doing, what would be the best way another educator or somebody listening to reach out to you and have a conversation?

Alina Deja-Grygierczyk (20:16):
Definitely, I mean, like I check emails all day. So it’s alina@polish-academy-canada.com. I’m on Facebook and Instagram too.

Sam Demma (20:33):
Yeah. Perfect. No, that sounds, that sounds great. Alena, thank you so much for taking the time to chat. I, I really appreciate it and keep up the awesome work. I hope to work with you in the future and keep doing great things. I’ll stay in touch. Thank you. And I’ll talk to you soon. And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like your, of 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 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 Alina Deja-Grygierczyk

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.

Breanne Oakie – Teacher at Wolf Creek Public Schools

About Breanne Oakie

Breanne teaches grade 7/8 in a smaller town in Alberta. Instead of giving you a formal bio here, take a moment to read the below email highlighting the story she shared with me over email…

“Sam,

Thank you for an amazing session today. It was emotional and I loved how you had us all involved. The way you presented made it feel like we were actually together, which I think many of us needed to feel. I’m sure you are going to get bombarded with emails today but I wanted to tell you a short story that touches on what you said about our worth.

I teach grade 7 and 8 in a smaller town. One year, my supervision schedule had me as the detention room supervisor. This seemed very weird to me as I am not known to be a hard disciplinarian and I’m a bit of a talker and it’s not supposed to be a social time in the DT room. On the lunch hours I supervised, I saw the same kids over and over, many from the year before who were in my grade 7 class so naturally I wanted to catch up with them, find out why they were there, what they needed help with etc. Over time, they just seemed to present this sadness. I decided to email them telling them that I hoped they didn’t judge their self worth by the time they spent in the detention room, with the conflicts they had with their teachers, that were worth so much more and in time they would recognize it. They never responded to me but they were in grade 8 so emotionally, they aren’t always up to discuss their feelings.

A year later, I ran into one of the boys who was in high school now. He said he thought I would be happy to hear that he had figured some things out and was doing really well at school and was feeling successful. He said he hadn’t realized his role in his own learning – that he was responsible for attending class and actively listening to the lessons, for participating in discussion, for reviewing his notes, for being prepared. He is graduating this year.

The other boy was struggling with family trauma, drug use as a coping mechanism, and touched base with me when he was in high school. We try to touch base every few months to just check in. He messaged me to not let Covid dim my light:) He is on schedule to graduate but has some challenges ahead for sure.

Both boys said they got my email when they were in grade 8 but that they didn’t know how to respond to that level of emotion but now that they are older, welcome any kind of motivating letter from their former teacher. I’m pretty sure Covid will prevent me from attending their graduation but I am working on their grade 12 letter to send them on their way into the real world and I think I’ll reference some of the points you highlighted in your presentation.

Thanks for starting my day off perfectly,

Have a good one,

Breanne Oakie”

Get excited! This was an amazing conversation!

Connect with Breanne: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Wolf Creek Public Schools Website

Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA)

Alberta Teachers’ Conventions

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. Friday, February 19th, I got this email from today’s guest, Breanne Oakie. She was a part of the teacher’s association that I was keynoting at, speaking at a teacher convention out in Alberta, and she reached out and she ended up sharing this really long story over email which I thought needed to be heard by you, by other educators, by people that work with young people that might be inspired to hear this transformational story.

Sam Demma (01:13):
And so I invited her on the podcast and she came on and we had an amazing conversation about so many different things. She is a grade seven/eight teacher in an elementary school that’s a part of Wolf Creek public schools in the Alberta area, North Red Deer. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Breanne and I will see you on the other side. Bri, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit behind the reason why you’re so passionate about the work you do today?

Breanne Oakie (01:48):
So I’m a junior high teacher and I kind of fell into that by accident. My degree is in elementary and I, I taught kindergarten one year and then after that I was teaching grade seven grade/eight grade/grade nine, and I’ve been doing that for the past 15 years. And I actually really love that grade cuz it’s kind of this juxtaposition, I guess, of emotions. You know, they’re going through a lot of hormones. They don’t wanna talk to you, but they need to talk to you. And it’s just a, you know, people always say that that’s a hard age but it’s actually one of my, my favourite things to do is spend time with teenagers. Just you feel really validated when they choose you to listen to their stories.

Sam Demma (02:34):
Hmm. I love that. And I’m actually curious to know why you got into teaching. Did it, did you know from a young age, were you one of those people that just knew or did someone nudge you in that direction? How did you end up landing in education?

Breanne Oakie (02:46):
Ah, it was completely by accident. I actually wanted to be a veterinarian course and I went to university and was recommended to go through a conservation biology course degree through, through agriculture, which you could get into vet school if you had taken the right the right classes. And so my first two years were in science and I kind of got my butt whooped by statistics and math and the labs. And I was like, I don’t belong here. Like there’s things I love about this. I love the animal courses. I love the nature courses. I love all of those things, but living in the lab and, and the scientific method and I just aren’t agreeing like it was very hard. Yeah. And I don’t know if it was just because I didn’t spend enough time studying. I wasn’t prepared or maybe I just inherently it wasn’t for me.

Breanne Oakie (03:37):
Hmm. So I actually got asked by the university to take some time off and I took the year off and I was like, what am I gonna do? And I was pretty stressed out because I always thought like, you have to go to university like, this is, you have to end up back here. What the heck are you gonna do if you don’t go there? So I worked at a whole bunch of different jobs that year and I did take some night classes just to get some credits and I wrote a letter to the university and they let me come back on probation. Nice. for the same program. But I took all the options for education, but mostly because I asked my friends, I said, I don’t know what to do with myself. And they said, well, I don’t know why you’re not spending it with people because that’s what you like to do. And they were like, you should either do psych or why don’t you be a teacher? Like you love spending time with kids. So I got into education and immediately it’s completely different. Like there’s, there’s nothing really scientific about it. It’s all about talking, sharing philosophy. And I definitely belonged in that realm a lot better.

Sam Demma (04:40):
Ah, I love that. So growing up, did you have teachers that had a huge impact on you or would you say that most of your drive came from your friends pushing you in that direction?

Breanne Oakie (04:49):
I did have amazing teachers and I loved school. And I remember my kindergarten teacher. My grade one, two teacher was the same teacher for two years. And , I remember when I had to move, she had a big special day for me and I went to her house and spent time with her kids and, and I just remember feeling so loved and having so much choice in the things that those teachers offered. My grade four teacher, my grade six teacher, I just, they were doing so many things that we’d talk about now, like mindfulness, you know, taking that time to set intention for your day, sun salutations in gym class. And I remember thinking nice, like, man, we’re just talking about that stuff now. We’re still trying to implement that stuff now. But when I was, you know, nine years old, my teachers were doing that and I just feel like they were kind of ahead of the game and and they never really inspired me to be a teacher, but I definitely remember how I felt out around

Sam Demma (05:43):
Them. Hmm. Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. Maya Angelou always says you, you might not remember what people said, but you’ll remember how they, how they make you feel. Yeah. Which is awesome. How do you think we can make students feel how you felt back when you were in school today? Like what do you think is important to focus on as a teacher?

Breanne Oakie (06:04):
I think we have to realize for a lot of kids that they’re not like us, like not a lot of kids love school for academic reasons. Yeah. not a lot of the kids wanna go to university or that’s their plan, so they’re not, they’re not mirror images of us. So the very first thing we need to do is make that connection with, you know, what, what interests you. So if they play hockey, I spend a lot of time with hockey players in my school. Watching them play hockey. I don’t understand anything about hockey. I don’t have a favorite team. I don’t watch any NHL games, but I watch a lot of minor hockey. And they’ll be like, did you see my goal? Did you see this? And I’m like, I did see that, you know, and they wanna talk about it and they know that you will take the time and then it, it kind of segues into, you know, when they’re having a really bad day stress maybe about that or anything in their life, they know that, you know, maybe I’ll take some time to listen to their problem.

Breanne Oakie (06:54):
So I think it’s more just like that reconnection the heart to heart.

Sam Demma (06:58):
Yeah. Like

Breanne Oakie (06:59):
Listening. It’s not all, it’s not all curriculum. It’s not all academics.

Sam Demma (07:02):
Yeah. No, that’s awesome. I love that. Tell me more about what teaching right now specifically looks like for you is COVID having a big impact on the way you teach right now or is, is it still in person for you? How does that look?

Breanne Oakie (07:15):
It’s in person now. However, like our school is a 6, 7, 8 middle school and it used to be, we all had the same recesses and so the gym would be open and we’d all get to the kids, could all play in there at recess and the teachers could go in there and play basketball with, with them. And you could have relationships with kids in all different areas. Like I used to, I teach grade eight, but I coached grade six volleyball in the past. So I would know some of the grade sixes. And you can just have those, those ranges. And now we run our system on the grade, sixes have a completely different schedule. The sevens have a different schedule. The eights have different schedule. There is no mixing of grades. And so you can’t really connect with those kids. And like, it’s been a talk like a topic, get staff meetings, or the grade six teachers are like, you know, these grade seminars wanna come back to talk to us, but we’re teaching because their recess break is during our teaching time. And so we’re losing those connections when we’re trying to encourage them to have a person in the school, but the person is not necessarily the teacher that they have at the moment. It’s the person that they were connected to last year. And there’s a, there’s a gap there, right? Yeah. And we can’t have our classes intermingling. So if you know somebody from a different grade eight class and they wanna talk to you about a problem, they, they can’t come in your room. So you have to, it’s kind of hard.

Sam Demma (08:34):
Yeah. It’s a, it’s a weird time. And I’m gonna ask you, like personally, what has helped you with your teaching and what has helped you just stay positive during during the, the turbulence

Breanne Oakie (08:49):
Acts of service. I think it has affected me a lot. Like I remember crying because last year we were at home for three months and then we came back in September and then things started getting aggressive again. And they’re people like, I think we’re gonna shut down again. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, we can’t do that. And I found out during a parent teacher meeting that the, like the, the government was having their meeting that night, that my husband was texting me. And he’s like, I think you guys are gonna be back at home next week. And I was like, what? I’m talking to parents right now. And one parent said, well, I just heard the news. So now, and I was like, what’s the news? And, and I, I remember crying cuz I was like, I do not like teaching kids because they disengage or they don’t have the internet.

Breanne Oakie (09:30):
And you don’t hear from them for so long. Mm-Hmm that it’s not the same as being in person. So for me to, to make myself feel better, I have to give back. So I did a lot of COVID drop offs. As soon as I heard that, I was like, okay, I’m gonna mark my calendar. And in two weeks I’m gonna, I’m gonna do these little drop offs for these people that I know are gonna need a little boost. And it makes me feel better, but I like to do it as a surprise, but they always know it’s me. Their parents always know to check the doors step, but it makes me feel better. And I know it’s ridiculous. Like some of the things that I put on their doorsteps are very,

Sam Demma (10:01):
Very funny. What do you put on them? Tell me .

Breanne Oakie (10:03):
Oh, well, so like I started last year, so like Easter, I made little Easter bunny eggs and I glued ears on the Ziplocs and I just dropped them all off and left a little message from the Easter bunny and then nice one summer was coming. I, my friend cleaning air basement. And she gave me this book of paper airplanes. So there was like premade ones, you just had to fold them. And so I folded like, like 10 of these airplanes and I had packages of sunflower seeds and I made a little tail and I just said just a little bit of sunshine for your day. And then I thought, well, they could flat them. So one of my students pictures over the summer of these sunflowers, like grow against her house. And then at Christmas I made little salt dough ornaments for their trees and just stuck them on their doorstep.

Breanne Oakie (10:43):
And it was actually a lot of work, but I think I needed to keep busy. I needed something to make me feel connected because we, we can’t see anybody. We can’t even talk to people in our school really. Like the teachers can’t have staff meetings together. You’re really not in proximity of people. You know, you can’t hug each other and I’m, I’m a very physical person. Yeah. That it’s hard when you’re going down the hall and they’re like, we have to be away from each other. So I just try to make people’s days in, in the smallest of ways, I guess.

Sam Demma (11:14):
I absolutely love that. It’s the whole idea of like being at the taco, right. yes, exactly. But such cool ideas, like who would’ve thought that a, something as small as a sunflower seed that a kid would be passionate about it, it plant them and send you pictures and now you, you can probably bond over that thing all the time. Like if they bring it up or if they send you a new picture or, you know, oh yeah.

Breanne Oakie (11:35):
If they always think that they’re my favorite, but I tell them that they’re all my favorites so I’m like, cause you got sunflowers. Someone else got something else. Like I love everyone. So yeah. But it is fun because then I, I get to have those relationships for years to come.

Sam Demma (11:48):
Right? Yeah. No, it’s so true. And sometimes, you know, a students like a sunflower, you know, sometimes you see them flourish, sometimes you don’t and, and sometimes they flourish 20 years later and, and you don’t really know the impact that you had, but I’m curious though, over your years of teaching, have you had any, have you witnessed any student transformations due to the, the love and attention from a caring adult? It could be you, it could be someone else in your school will. And the reason I’m asking is because there might be an educator listening, who’s burnt out and mm-hmm needs to be reminded why this work is so important. And I think, you know, seeing students transform and seeing students grow and become successful or become their best selves is one of the most rewarding things that this, this calling gives teachers. Mm-Hmm so when I ask you that question to any stories or students come to mind and, and if it’s private, you can change their name.

Breanne Oakie (12:39):
Yeah. yeah. I have ive had a few students. I have some students now that are either their twenties. I taught grade seven, two. Nice. And I was there for a couple of years and sometimes you, I like, and I taught friends. I was actually the French teacher, so I was teaching English. But then the school was like implementing this mandatory French program and they hated it. They lived in this like small little town and they’re like, this is so ridiculous. We have to take this. And I was like, oh, I love French. Like, this is my passion. Like, and this kid, he was like, and I remember he was always like skipped school to go to these farm. I don’t know, you call ’em symposiums. Right. He come back with all these free pencils and like talk about these tractors. And like, I’m not coming to school, I’m helping my dad with a Hey, like okay, whatever.

Breanne Oakie (13:22):
And like just last year. So he would be like 20, 24. And he sent me a message on Instagram and it was like some weird meme and was like, did you ever really experience high school? If you didn’t have a crazy French teacher? And I was like, dude, I haven’t heard from you in 10 years. And he’s like, do you remember? He’s like, I could barely get through English and you were making me learn French I, and I was like, this is coming at a really good moment because I had applied to take the year off because I, I was kind of burnt out and I was like, I just needed to figure out I, if I needed some more time or maybe I just need something different. And it was like the day before the last day of school and I was really emotional about saying goodbye to everybody.

Breanne Oakie (14:04):
And he was just like, you know, even though I hated French, like you were really like, you really made a connection with me. And I was like, I can’t believe you, like, after all this time you were reaching out. And it wasn’t like there was, he didn’t have any trauma or anything like it wasn’t like, but he didn’t, he wasn’t like a school person. Right. So the fact that we still had a positive relationship where he could think of this funny memory really made me smile, cuz I was like, man, I didn’t really know that you ever thought of me after all this time. 10 years. Yeah. Like a long time. But I mean I, and I know his family. I still try to keep in contact with a lot of people. But I’m trying to think if I can think of other people, sometimes you’re really amazed of the transformation.

Breanne Oakie (14:48):
Like if you only have a tea, a student for one year and you just pass them off and you don’t really have a relationship with them, you might not see that difference. Mm-Hmm . But I do have some students that I’ve been purposely in their lives or have taught their, their siblings. And I know their parents and you’re really happy that you stayed along the journey for those years, because then you do realize that they needed to you. Mm. I have a student who’s who’ll message me. He’s like, I really hope that when my cousin comes up to you that you teach him the way you taught me. Hmm. That you open up your heart and you, you talk about the hard things with him, because talking about the hard things is what really helped him because he wasn’t talking about those with his parents. But just being vulnerable. Yeah. I think is it’s very hard for people, but sometimes you have to be that person right. To kind of force them into, to opening up. Cause it’s a lot of pain if you keep it all inside.

Sam Demma (15:44):
Oh, it’s so true. And I’m curious to know the student who, who was skip class and go to the farming symposiums like what did, do you, what do you think you did while you were teaching him that had such a significant impact on him?

Breanne Oakie (15:57):
Well, we talked about chickens a lot. He was really into chicken farming. Nice. And I, I had moved to an acreage and I was like, I really wanna start chickens. Like, I don’t know how, I don’t know anything about chickens. And he was like, it’s like, you’re overthinking this. I have 100 chickens. I was like, I want five chickens. I just he’s like, yeah. So he made like a slideshow, him and his friend made a slideshow like how to build a coop and like what you had to do. And it actually took me seven years before I actually got chickens. And it’s true. Chickens are really low maintenance. They’re lower maintenance cats. and I told him, I said, well, I finally have chickens. I still five chickens. They only took me seven years to follow your slideshow to build this chicken. But yeah, I think just like kind of those interests and being fun like

Sam Demma (16:39):
That. No, that’s like, that’s so cool. Curious, do you still have the chickens?

Breanne Oakie (16:44):
I do. And I actually have, we still have one chicken that is still alive from the very first time we got chickens. So she’s like four or five years old. Yeah. but yeah, we, we always get a few more chickens every year.

Sam Demma (16:55):
Are the eggs good?

Breanne Oakie (16:57):
Well, mine are lazy. So they don’t really and they’re old. Like, I think that’s why most people get rid of them after a year. And then they get new ones. Yeah. But we get them, we get babies, but then they all grow up to be rooster. So now we have five roosters and then it’s really

Sam Demma (17:09):
Loud at our house. Now, now it’s an alarm clock system.

Breanne Oakie (17:11):
Yeah. And they do find their way into the house. Like they come out of their pen and they like, they know they eat the dog food. And then I found one in my, my kitchen the other day. Cause it came through the dog door so they’re not afraid of anything. So, but it’s fun, Mike. That’s awesome.

Sam Demma (17:27):
No, that’s awesome. So you would think it’s mostly about connecting with students on their particular interest

Breanne Oakie (17:34):
At the so yeah. Yeah.

Sam Demma (17:35):
Cool. I love that. And when you think back to the teachers that you had in, in, I think you mentioned them that grade one and kindergarten grade two, do you think they did the exact same thing?

Breanne Oakie (17:47):
Yeah, they did. I remember when we have journal time in grade one and you have those little booklets with half page of blank space for your drawing and then half lines for you to write your three sentences on. And I was always right about animals, about how I saw a deer or I was walking in the woods with my dad. And I remember she once wrote in there, like, I think when you grow up, you’re going to be like a wildlife biologist or you’re gonna be in a college just you’re gonna really observe nature around you and I, when I was 20 and I was in that program, I was like, you know, I love this, like listening to these CDs of bird sounds. And my dad is a birder and that’s just kind of inherently in my life. Hmm. Like thinking like how does she know that that was gonna be such an important piece of, of who I was. Right. but like other, their teachers I think mostly when they were with me during hard time, my parents separated mm-hmm I remember just like their actions when they found out that that was happening of how they treated me and how they were there for me. Really impacted me too.

Sam Demma (18:43):
Yeah. It’s tough to have hard conversations. How do you think you should initiate a tough, a tough conversation with a student?

Sam Demma (18:51):
It’s a tough one, right?

Breanne Oakie (18:53):
Sometimes it’s really scary. Yeah. And sometimes even though we’re adults, we try to avoid hard conversations. Like I, I do sometimes, like I know there’s kids, I need to talk to about hard things and I’m like, I really don’t know how to approach this. But sometimes I’ll be direct. If I, I can, if it’s, or sometimes you can just tell if you’re like an observer and you watch them come in the, in the morning and they sit and their head is down or the bell rings and they don’t leave for recess right away. And they’re kind of lagging around or they ask to stay in multiple times and you can kind of infer that something’s going on with their friends. And they’re not spending time with those people. Then it’s time for a talk. And some, sometimes I’ll be like, so let’s just lay it out straight, like something’s going on.

Breanne Oakie (19:36):
And you don’t have to tell me what it is, but I want you to know that I’m sensing that something is off. And, you know, if there’s someone in the school that you wanna talk to, then please let me know and we can facilitate that conversation. Hmm. Sometimes you wait too long and then like something happens and a, a kid runs to the bathroom and they don’t come back. And, and there’s, you have to have that hard conversation while they’re in tears because they waited too long to talk to somebody about it. Right. So you just have to be make space for them to be able to talk about their feelings. We do talk a lot about making safe space and trust. And I know a lot of students are afraid to say like one student told me a couple weeks ago, he’s like, I’m kind of afraid to talk to you because I’m afraid of what you hear.

Breanne Oakie (20:22):
You’re gonna make a phone call and things are gonna change for me. Hmm. And it’s like, really, like sometimes you’re amazed that you spend so much time with people and so much time’s gone by and you have no clue of what is happening. And so, I mean, I’m lucky I have two teachers like I have a partner teacher, so we split. So she sees those kids. We have two EA who get to work with some of those kids. The four of us adults can, can group and be like, something is, something is off. And one of us can at least make a connection with those kids. And then we have a counselor at school who does talk to them. But I think as an adult, you have to kind of get over that fear and just approach gently.

Sam Demma (21:04):
Yeah. Well, so true. And I think that students, like, they want to be treated like adults also. Right. So being able to have those real heart to heart conversations that are just super authentic, they probably connect to those too. Right.

Breanne Oakie (21:19):
Yeah. And I would hate to have a kid be like, you know, you, you were my teacher for two years and you never once reached out to me when I was struck. Mm. You know? And I’d be like, yeah, I couldn’t, I think that’d be really hard on me. Like I never reached out to you because I was afraid to talk about something hard with you. That’s my job. Like I’m supposed to, to make space for you to feel free, to cry or talk or just get it all out and, and then assess. Right. Sometimes I think they think, like he say something and, oh, no, shouldn’t have said it. And then there’s like not a plan. I’m like, you know, like let’s just sit and talk and let’s make a plan. And if certain things come up, then we do have to talk to a higher power. But sometimes it’s just, let’s just get it out and let the leg guys come because you’re obviously carrying something that’s very heavy. And if you don’t talk about it, then that’s, it’s painful for you.

Sam Demma (22:10):
Yeah. It’s gonna weigh them down. Mm-Hmm , if you could go back and give your younger educator self advice from when you just started teaching, like what would you say?

Breanne Oakie (22:23):
I, I think I would be more, more gentle mm-hmm I remember being like, you know, like even for something is public speaking, like the anxiety of, of kids crying and breaking a kid and being like, you know what, this kid’s gonna remember me forever for the wrong reasons. There are things that are more important than accomplishing certain tasks. Like I remember I had one, one little guy and in grade seven and he caught me a lot of grief and I, I’m probably not his favorite person. And he’s graduated since, but he was very smart and he just felt like he didn’t have to do what we had to do in class. He wasn’t gonna take the notes. And I think, you know what, maybe I wouldn’t have fought him so much. Like, you know what, if you think, you know, it, I’m not gonna sit there because eventually it escalated.

Breanne Oakie (23:07):
And he was suffering from a lot of turmoil. And I just thought that he was in there to dig it to me every single day. And then one day it, all, this came to a head with another student and he was bawling. And I was like, oh no. And it was going to the vice principal, this, this problem. And he was terrified. And I was terrified for him because I was like, I don’t know, at this point, if people have the strength to give you space to, to, to feel how you’re feeling right now, people are upset. They’re angry. They want you to have consequences for your actions. But it’s kind of haunted me ever since, because I remember sitting with him that moment and he’s telling me his story. And I’m like, I wish I had known this earlier. Hmm. You know, because right now you’re gonna get suspended. probably, and this is the way I wanna end everything. But I know he’s okay now, like he’s he’s grown up, he’s graduated. He’s he’s doing okay. School was never really his thing still, but he got through it. But I’ve never talked to him since. And I, it’s kind of one of my regrets that

Sam Demma (24:18):
I couldn’t be gentler at an earlier stage in my life. I think that it was just like, like teaching’s not a pres I think before it was like, we have to do this. Like we, this is our lesson. It has to get done. We can’t just abandon the lesson like this is, but now I’m more like, you know what, throw it out. We’re going to the forest. You guys need a mental health hour. Like, let’s just go and let’s go play. You guys need to run around. We’ll come back. We’ll regroup and we’ll get this done to. Yep. But I think when I was younger, it was more like they had to get done. Ah, that’s such good advice. And the, the mental health hour in the forest, is that something that you, you try and do now?

Breanne Oakie (24:57):
Well, because I do have like outdoor time with them. We’re supposed to be like outdoor education, but we just call it outdoor time because they only have gym three days a week. So we have this forest behind our school a little bit down the ways, and the kids love it, cuz it’s completely wild. It’s like dead fall. And they just, and we, we just play games in there. So we’ll play sometimes it’s camouflage or sometimes we’ll play infection tag and we’ll run around. And sometimes we just be quiet in there. There’s lots of deer in there. It would be nice if, if the grades could settle down enough to just do like journaling in there or read our novel study in there and, and be happy just being in outside. Right. But a lot of those guys have a lot of energy. So we do a lot of tag games in there, but they love it. The flag just for running around and like, I love it cuz our classroom has no windows cause we’re kind of inside. Yeah. And I don’t like not walking every day, so it’s just good for us to get out and just expel all that energy. Right.

Sam Demma (25:51):
You ever seen a bear in there? Pardon me? You ever, have you ever seen a bear in there?

Breanne Oakie (25:56):
Oh, there’s no bears in there. No, just lots of deer. Okay. We don’t have bears in town here. We’re in bear. We’re definitely in bear country, but not in town. Cool.

Sam Demma (26:05):
Cool. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat. Good conversation flew by. It’s almost been 30 minutes. Thank you so much for sharing some of your stories, some of your personal philosophies on teaching the advice you would share to yourself. If another educator is listening and was inspired by anything you said, or just wants to connect about something, what would be the best way for them to reach out to you?

Breanne Oakie (26:27):
I don’t have any special platform. You can send me an email at my at my work email is fine, breanne.oakiecarriere@gmail.com.

Sam Demma (26:42):
Awesome Bri. Thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on the show.

Breanne Oakie (26:44):
Thank you.

Sam Demma (26:46):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating in review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity to, 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 Breanne Oakie

February 4, 2022 by Sam Demma Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Nadia Irshad – Co-founder of Glarea Elevated Learning and the future of education

About Nadia Irshad

Nadia Hasan’s (@nadia__irshad) educational background is in Environmental Studies focusing on Sustainable Development and Urban Planning. She pursued a career in Art & Design working in Magazine Print Design and web design for a decade before opening her first early learning school. She is the Founder and CEO of Academics Educational Systems; The Academics Edge System that incorporates proprietary curriculum, programming and innovation in centres called Academics preKindergarten.

She is a founding partner of Glarea Elevated Learning; A NEW KIND OF SCHOOL. Glarea is a K-6 School in Surrey BC growing with the students yearly up to Grade 12.

As a resident of the South Surrey area, Nadia has had the privilege of being a board member of the Peninsula Community Foundation. She was a member of The Women’s Presidents Organization for years, before focusing on her current role as a Board Member for Arts Umbrella, Canada’s non-profit leader in arts education for young people, providing access to the highest quality arts education to communities as a basic human right. She is specifically dedicated to expanding the non-profit’s reach in the City of Surrey.

Nadia is passionate about her industry as a change agent for women, children and families. She is drawn to education and childcare through her own personal story. She finds passion in human connection, civic activism and more specifically causes that relate to women. Nadia’s interests include mobilizing women and girls by confronting cultural barriers that limit and harm women in closed communities.

Words, poetry and screenwriting is her passion. Maxwell’s Muse is where she spends some of her free time, on projects that give voice to untold stories, creating safe spaces and giving a platform to marginalized people through the production of art and film.

Connect with Nadia: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Glarea School Website

Academics PreKindergarten

Peninsula Community Foundation

The Women’s Presidents Organization

Arts Umbrella

Maxwell’s Muse Website

Systems Thinking Leadership Certificate Program at Cornell University

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today I had the honor and pleasure to interview and chat with Nadia Irshad or Nadia Hassan. She has an educational background in environmental studies, focused on sustainable development and urban planning. She pursued a career in art and design working in magazine print and web design for a decade before opening her own early learning school.

Sam Demma (01:05):
She is the founder and CEO of academics educational systems, the academics edge system that incorporates proprietary curriculum programming and innovation in centers called academics pre kindergarten. She is one of the founding partners of Gloria elevated learning, which is a, a new kind of school focused on the K/six to K to six grades in Surrey, BC growing with the student yearly up until grade 12. She has kids of her own that are part of this school system and we talk all about why they created this innovative school, why she was a founding partner, and what their school looked like and how it differs from typical schools. And I think we can learn something from everyone we talk to. And I definitely learned a lot talking to Nadia, so enjoy this conversation and I will see you on the other side, Nadia, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about how you got into the work you’re doing today with young people in education?

Nadia Irshad (02:09):
Oh, that’s a big loaded question. well, pleasure to be here. How did I end up in the world of education? So I took a really interesting path of my passion for education lies within two sort of spheres. One is I’m a parent, so I never actually envisioned being a parent. It was a complete surprise to me. I never touched a child until I had one, never changed a diaper until I had one. But it, everyone, I think as it’s a transformative moment, it is a transformative moment. I’ll, , I’ll say it’s a moment where, you know, suddenly everything that you never thought was relevant to your adult life is and it also takes you back to your childhood in a really strange way. Children are your own child or other children to me are they’re kind of an opportunity to look in the mirror.

Nadia Irshad (03:12):
I think it’s an interesting, I always kind of reflect on my own parenting and my own kind of the things that I’m drawn to in relation to education and children, all I think really do are things that my child’s self are, is drawn to. Yeah. There are things that the gaps that I felt as a child, I feel suddenly responsible for ensuring that my children and children in my community don’t feel that gap. So that’s kind of how I landed here. I went. So I, so I started my career in environmental studies. It’s not even a career, my educational journey in our environmental study urban room planning and things like that related to sustainable development was more interested in the developing world. But I was, I I’m really interested in urban environments as well. And then I landed in a graphic arts and print design because my parents weren’t really happy with me traveling for work or leaving home or going too far.

Nadia Irshad (04:16):
And at that time there were no options available to me. So my other passion has always been art. I followed that I did print design for, I’d say close to even 10 years. I absolutely love the feel of paper. I love glossy magazines. I have none in my house. They’re not something that I, that I, that I keep, but I love, you know, I just, there’s something tactile about it. I love color. I love, you know, so many things I could talk about art all day, but then I had a child and it changed everything and I wanted to work. So I think I’m really in really, really fascinated it by how family structures are, how people pursue purpose and, you know, it’s really difficult being a woman and pursuing a purpose outside the family home. Mm-Hmm, , it is it’s a challenge in a world where you there’s expectations.

Nadia Irshad (05:21):
I know all the expectations that people around me had was that I was going to stay home and I was going to focus on being a good mom and cooking, cleaning, and ensuring that they’re brilliant, amazing, loved children. I, I don’t think that that humans need to box themselves into like specific little frames of reference that way. I think we can be lots of things. I, I, I’m quite proud of the type of parent I am, but I’m not the type of person that could sit at home all day. It’s just not in me. So after about a year, a half, two years of staying at home I started looking for childcare and preschools so that I could go back to work. I was feeling really antsy and stir crazy. And I ended up coming upon at that time, I lived in the was Washington DC area, and I came upon this really amazing little preschool that I ado and that allowed me to fulfill, you know, my other needs, intellectual creative, and leave the family home.

Nadia Irshad (06:25):
And so through that, I fell into preschools and childcare. So I started academics pre kindergarten when we moved to Vancouver, BC in, around, I started the company in around 2009. So that, that flourished from that personal experience. And I really do in that, in that sphere. So I, I, I touch education in multiple ways. I’m met a teacher, I’m an outsider to all the industries. I’m currently a part of, I absolutely door being an outsider. And the reason why is I can, I can ask questions. I don’t feel shame or guilt for not understanding things. I question things all the time. You know, it’s easy to when you’re in an industry for a long time to see things as this is the way they’re supposed to be. So I never under, I don’t understand that in this industry and I, I love it.

Nadia Irshad (07:20):
I think it I think children are deserve the utmost respect. I think children are capable. I think that what, what really fires me up inside is, you know, I’d say most adult, as I know, carry, you know, stories and sometimes trauma from their childhood homes and their families, and are the educational spaces that we provided academics, or, you know, I’ll talk about Gloria as well. You know, for me, the essence of it is to provide a safe space. And if you think about the fact that a lot of children, schools and preschool educational environments are where they spend most of their time you know, we, you know, we can be, we can be that, I don’t know what, what the right word is. We can be.

Nadia Irshad (08:20):
Yeah, so that’s kind of where that came from. So from there, I have an interesting story of how I landed in the K to 12 space. So one of my first students in preschool that, that enrolled in my first preschool that opened in 2010 I became really good friends with their parents. This was boys parents, and he is that couple, their developers in, in the province of BC. They mostly work in the health tech and health sphere. So with hospitals and care homes and you know, they, they kind of carry their purpose with their development projects. They’re always about community and empowering people, boldly elevating people. And it links well with healthcare. So randomly a dinner table conversation, I think at this point, it’s probably six years ago saying, you know, I have this D dream of a school and like, you know, just, just fun, philosophical, random chatter about what would your dream school look like?

Nadia Irshad (09:22):
What would it be? And this friend of mine told me, okay, well, I’m gonna do this. What do you think? And at the time, you know, I noded, I said that sounds great. Sounds so interesting. I’m so happy for you. Like, I I’m here if you guys need anything. So he went on his little journey and we had a hilarious chat years later where he called me and he said, okay, so my team, they do construction and they develop big buildings and they’re telling me we don’t operate schools. So , so I, I, they, they basically sat me down and said, you need to find somebody who, who knows schools and knows children. So he called me up and he asked me if I’d be interested at the time I was married. So it was something I was looking into for, for about a year, kind of doing a discovery, just looking into where it would be, what it would look like.

Nadia Irshad (10:13):
And then I ended up going through quite a high I conflict divorce. And he asked me if I wanted to do the project and, and if we want to you know, move forward in a concrete way and it was my anchor. And so the project became my anchor through a really tumultuous time in my life. Nice. and the amazing part about it is I don’t know how to best, describe how we formed Gloria except to describe a table of well, who I believe are the smartest, most innovative almost revolutionary type thinkers from different industries who sat around a table and said, well, what would be the most amazing school you could ever imagine? What would be the educational space you’d wanna be in? And yeah, we put together, you know, our purpose is at Gloria to empower indomitable spirit. And you know, that, that kind of, I think, sums it up really well. That’s, that’s what we envision for all of our students.

Sam Demma (11:20):
I love that. Can we go back all the way for a second, when you were telling me about when you were a child, you said there was gaps in your childhood that led you down this path. If you’re comfortable to share, I’m curious to know what those are, because I’m guessing those gaps are what inspire you to make sure that those gaps aren’t present and I other students or other young people’s lives.

Nadia Irshad (11:40):
Yeah, I think huh, I’m not, I’m comfortable talking about it. I think I was always the shy kid. I was always the kid that picked last for every sports activity known. And it’s interesting. I reflect on upon it now. I’m the child of a, of a, of an athlete. So my dad was a major athlete and I know looking at my brother and my father, I have the gene. I know that now as an adult, I know I could do all those things, but I nobody noticed me and my extreme shyness. And so I would pretend to be sick. I would have a tummy ache and not one teacher ever thought and stopped to reflect. Maybe she actually needs somebody to pay a little bit more attention to her and help include her. I was ne and, and so those are some of the, you know, I remember this will sound, I think crazy now.

Nadia Irshad (12:36):
I don’t think people, hopefully people don’t go through this now, but being told I’m stupid or, you know, I’ll never get it. Or, you know, you’re never gonna do more than be a secretary. I used to hear things like that as a child. Yeah. So those, and, and, and I, I’m an introvert and I’m a, I’m, I’m a bookworm. So I would just kind of spiral into my books and in my room and nobody paid much attention to me. So I kind of, I have a soft spot for introverted children, for sure. Mm-Hmm, I think it’s easy to, or, or the good kids. I always point out to people that, you know, it’s the kid that never or breaks the rules that never does anything, you know, that sometimes is negative attention worthy that we sometimes forget most. So the kids who are struggling and screaming and, and, and, and for attention, we give it to them. But sometimes it’s those kids that are so quietly kind of lost in the corner, but do you know, get the, as do everything right? That we never pay much attention to, but deserve it for sure to be seen is a big thing. And I think that’s through my, my educational entire journey, I’ll say all the way through university, nobody ever really saw me. I felt quite invisible. So that’s really important to me to see. I love that.

Sam Demma (13:55):
No, I love that. And, and at Gloria, you talk about challenge based learning. I was reading your website, and I know that’s a huge component that you’re very passionate about at the school. Can you tell me, or define what you think challenge based learning is and why it’s so exciting and important?

Nadia Irshad (14:13):
So the way I like to do describe challenge based learning is people are familiar with inquiry based learning or international BA programs. So those programs and that type of learning pushes questions. So it’s like the Socratic method it’s pushing, you know, asking questions, questions, questions, which is amazing, which I think we should all do all the time. Challenge based learning is problem-based learning. So everything we do in life, you know, every day we tackle problems all day. And I think that’s what we that’s, that’s what we pick challenge based. Learning challenge based learning is gritty. It means it, it’s not, it’s an environment where there isn’t a no. So if there’s an idea, it’s, it’s about failing reiteration learning. It’s about a it’s it’s challenge based learning for me is creating a space where failing you’re safe to fail. You’re safe to try again. You’re safe learn. Cause I do think in general, generally I’d say is true. And for most traditional educational models, it isn’t safe to fail. It, it isn’t encouraged. Kids need to get that a and there’s a lot of shame and attached to not doing it. Right.

Sam Demma (15:26):
I, I wholeheartedly agree. I even think back to my European parents, like you don’t come home in less, you have over 80 average, you know, like it was

Nadia Irshad (15:34):
The most, most scary day is the report card day. I remember that.

Sam Demma (15:37):
Yeah. Right. And, you know, knowing what I know now and looking back, I realize how backwards that thinking is. Right? Cause there’s a difference between learning and memorization. And I mean, throughout all of high school, I can memorize everything and finish a semester and look back at buddy and say, I’m not gonna remember anything I did. I’m not gonna use anything I learned, but I’m glad I got the nineties on my test. Like it’s so it’s so backwards at your school, what else do you provide the students with to create an unbreakable spirit, as you mentioned? Like, what does that mean and how do you young person? Yeah. Indomitable spirit. So

Nadia Irshad (16:16):
Gloria came from the word grit in Latin. So grit is something that’s important to all the founding members of Gloria elevated learning. Nice. And so indomitable spirit for was when we, when we sat around this table to talk about what model would we create? We talked about what made, what made the most successful. And when I say successful, I don’t mean in monetary terms or, you know, in successful, in happy, joyous living their best life terms. What made those people? And a majority of us, all that those were people who were comfortable with being uncomfortable, were comfortable with taking risks, were gritty, people, people who, who fell got back up, tried again, didn’t take no for an answer. And so in this world of helicopter parenting and lawnmower parenting, it’s a really hard children have a lot of anxiety and social media and all those things don’t help.

Nadia Irshad (17:19):
But so we created an environment. So challenge based learning, you know, is something that, that supports that type of environment. But we have academics, we have sports and we have art. So in our academic model, all those three things are equal. There isn’t a imbalance of, you know, your math mark means way more than, you know, athletics or arts. We really do feel that all those things come together to create whole gritty humans. And you know, what I love about the program is, you know, my, so my daughter’s in the program. She said, always, I hate skating. I’m never gonna get on skates. It’s cold. I don’t like it. And what I loved about it is I kept telling her, you know, but that’s the point, the point is you’re not gonna like everything. And that life, life is gonna throw so many different things at you. And it’s about your attitude. And it’s about pulling on those skates and making it happen. And what I love is she, so we’re now in almost in March and she loves skating and she’s talking about being a hockey player and I keep, you know, I’m being the annoying mom and I keep reminding her well, interesting.

Nadia Irshad (18:29):
But but I think, you know, I think we create an environment where, so parents like to push the things they love. Mm-Hmm of course, you know, soccer parents probably played soccer when they were young or wanted to be a soccer star or hockey parents wanted to be a hockey star. You know? So you kind of, because those are the things, you know, so what I love about gala Gloria is it’s a place where it’s a multi-sport multi art place. Children get to learn for themselves what they actually love, what actually fires them up, what they’re passionate about. And they’re able to kind of carve their own path, be their own spirit, right. Instead of feeling the shadow of all of the people around them who love them, who adore them. I know, but to me, that’s you know, as an adult, that’s the most, that’s the most exciting opportunity. I love that opportunity today, but

Sam Demma (19:18):
That’s awesome. It’s funny when you’re mentioning your parents always push your passions on you. I’m thinking about my own family and my own situation, right? My dad was hockey player growing up, always wanted me to play hockey. He tried for a whole year, a whole, whole year putting skates on my feet and I cried every time and he finally just gave up, put a soccer ball in front of me and I couldn’t stop kicking it. And I pursued a pro soccer career since I was six years old. I, I lived in Italy for six months when I was 13. I ended up having three major knee injuries, two surgeries, and totally lost my full ride scholarship, lost the ability to play. And I was just connecting with you on so many levels. You were talking about Latin phrases. I have a Latin phrase on my bicep right here.

Sam Demma (19:58):
It says, VIN key pat tour. It’s a phrase that means he who endures our, the person who endures conquers. And I had it after my second knee surgery, not because I was gonna go to the end of the earth to play pro of soccer, but because I made a decision in that moment that no matter what I chose to do with my life arts, academic sports, whatever it might be, I’m gonna give a hundred percent of my effort all the time. But I do have a question for you. How do you ensure that your students don’t attach their self worth to their cha their, their talents or their achievements or their accomplishments? Because at the end of the day, I think it’s still important that a student doesn’t come home and say I’m worth nothing because I didn’t play well or I’m worth nothing because I didn’t get a good grade. So I’m curious to know, how does the teachers and you at Gloria ensure that students don’t attach their self worth wholly to those things.

Nadia Irshad (20:48):
So I think, and that’s really interesting that you brought that up for me, the fact that we teach through challenge based learning, meaning we push trying, failing, reiterating failure is a success. Failure is something we completely celebrate. Risk taking is something we celebrate that, you know, walking through something you’re afraid of. And so for me, those are the things that we celebrate as an organization. We do not celebrate, you know, I love that’s great. You got a 99, but that’s, that’s not where we celebr. We celebrate your, we celebrate the spirit and we do have, you know, we a a health and wellbeing program. We have Dr. Doan, who is the president of BC doc doctor’s of BC right now who’s on our board. And she supports us with trauma informed practice. And she supports us on, in lots of, kind of mental health initiatives.

Nadia Irshad (21:44):
But I will say that, you know, child learning makes it really hard to do that. It really doesn’t even our sports, you know, for sports it’s, we, we focus on how you got better or what you did or what, you know, you tried that and you fell and you figured it out and you know what, that’s awesome. You, you know, you took the risk cuz sometimes the kids won’t even take that first step to fall. They don’t want to. Fall’s so scary. Mm-Hmm so while talking through those scary things, those are the celebrations for sure.

Sam Demma (22:11):
I love that. And you’re so right. I guess when you’re focused on learning from the failure, there’s nothing you really to attach yourself worth too. Like you’re not, you’re not celebrating an achievement, you’re celebrating the learning and the growth which is so unique and so cool. Cuz when I look back to my own experience in school, like that was one of my biggest hurdles. I remember the day that I had my second knee surgery and the voices just went through my head of all my parents, aunts, uncles, coaches, Sam, one day, you’re gonna be the player that we hopefully watch on TV. You’re gonna be the first person from our family who gets a scholarship. And then all these voices started becoming like weights on my back. Because I thought by myself that if I didn’t fulfill those things, that I’d be worth nothing as a human being. And it sounds like you guys are doing the exact opposite of Gloria, which is, which is so cool. Tell me more about what the average day looks like for a student at the school.

Nadia Irshad (23:06):
So an average day, so I’ll say for example, what’s today, today’s Thursday. So school starts at 7 45. The kids hit the rink first thing in the morning, so cool. and so we always, we always start the day with athletic athletics. We all, you know, I think there’s a lot of research to prove that that’s a good thing for you. So we, we try really hard to yeah, to follow kind. We break all the norms and we do it the way we think is the right way to do it. I like that. So yeah, so the kids hit the rink, they do that for an hour, power skating sometimes hockey and they get off the rink, then they hit their classrooms. We do have, so the difference between Glar in a lot of schools is we don’t have, you know, some schools have rules where you can’t eat until it’s snack time and you can’t eat until it’s lunchtime.

Nadia Irshad (23:58):
So that’s normal humans. That’s not how, yeah, it doesn’t work. so kids, you know, we’ll break out their snacks and they’ll eat and they’ll go to class. And so it’s challenge based learning, meaning math, science, English all the subjects that they’re learning. We, and we do Mandarin as well are integrated. So sometimes they have an engineering project. Maybe there’s a challenge. How would you create a Rover on the moon? So they have to use math. They have to use science. They have to use, you know, English to write up the report communicate. So, so it’s learning, but it always, so whenever I go into the school, it all, it looks too fun. It looks like campus can school, nobody everybody’s on their feet. We also have transitional learning spaces. So it doesn’t feel like we’re stuck in classroom and this is your classroom and now you don’t move all day.

Nadia Irshad (24:49):
No, all the entire school is, is a student school for learning. So you’ll see them in the hallway. They’ll use, they’ll use spaces in the cafeteria. Yeah, it’s, it’s a really cool actually environment. And what I love most actually about going to the school is because of the way it’s, it’s transitional and open and project based students interact. So the kinds love chatting with the grade five kids and they, and the grade five kids love mentoring the little kids. And it’s a really I can’t wait to see these kids in like 20 years to see how, you know, they interact. I imagine they’ll be really close for for a lifetime. That’s how I see the relationships that build as a family. It’s really, you know, we’re all learners. So part of the mindsets that, that, that we try to instill in everyone is we’re all learners. So the teachers are learners, the students, our learners, the grade fives learn from the kinds the teachers learn from the kindergarten, kindergarten kids. It’s not there. Isn’t a hierarchical kind of, you know, setup where there there’s a teacher up there and we’re down here, we’re all here and we’re all learning together.

Sam Demma (26:03):
That’s so cool. I love that. And I think in traditional education, sometimes students work in silos, especially when you get into university and people start th saying things like, oh, I’m not gonna share my work with you because it’s, it’s a challenge and I need to have better work than you so that I can get the position. And you don’t. And it sounds like what you’re fostering is a collective group to build team, to work towards solving a bigger problem. And I think, you know, there’s a proverb that says, you wanna go, you wanna go fast, go alone. You wanna go far go together. And I think it’s so wise and you know, from a young age teaching students that they need to, you know, be able to function in a team is so important because they’ll use that skill for the rest of their life, which is so, so cool. I’m I have so many questions. This is fricking awesome. It sounds like

Nadia Irshad (26:56):
It sounds like what you just said. You brought up about knowledge and university students. I have similar experience in university, but what’s interesting. What I always think of is people like that. See the world as a pie. I, you, you know, there’s only eight slices, so I get a slice and now there’s only seven left, so you can’t have, you know, so to me, knowledge, isn’t an asset. It isn’t property it’s for everyone. And so I think it’s interesting being an outsider in the world of education. I know I confront it confronts a lot of people to have non-education people in the world of education, but for me, learnings for everybody there’s no, there shouldn’t be any kind of boundary set. It is in a pie it’s endless. It’s, it’s abundant.

Sam Demma (27:42):
I love that. The way I look at it, just, you just gave me an idea of like a future analogy with the pie. So the way I look at it is like, there’s a pie on the table, right. And we’re all. And like people traditionally go and they take a piece, but in reality, every person has specific gifts and talents which could be a kid to an ingredient. So you come and take a piece from the pie, but you’re the flower and someone else comes and they’re the milk. And if you didn’t just realize that you all got together, you could make more pie, you know, like using everyone’s unique gifts and talents. So that just came into my mind while you were speaking. And I think it’s so true. Like, I, I don’t really talk about this much on this podcast because a lot of teachers listen, but I actually dropped out of university.

Sam Demma (28:23):
I did I did two months of formal school before I broke down in front of my laptop, crying, telling my parents, look, I have this passion for speaking to young people and I need to follow it. And there was this initiative I was building at the time catered around service learning and serving leadership. And at first my parents were like, what the heck are you doing with your life? And very, very quickly as things started to progress, their whole mindset shifted and changed. And so sometimes I think it just takes one example one success story to shift the narrative. And I think there will be hundreds coming outta your school supporting that idea. What is some of the things you’re most proud of so far that have come outta the school?

Nadia Irshad (29:04):
Hmm, interesting. That’s a interesting question. Be careful cuz it’s a small school environment. I, you know, can’t have confidentiality too. We’ve of course I’ve had I think one of the, one of the proud moments for, you know, it’s a small thing, but watching a ma you know, 85% of our students, couldn’t skate, couldn’t even, you know, they need a chair and now watching them months later, we open in September, we’re in February, they’re in power skating and they’re starting hockey. And these are like little like month, like little guys, five year old guys. And it’s so amazing because I think it underlines the fact that kids are underestimated. They have endless capabilities. They have endless energy, their brains are so from either this brilliant, you know, organisms that are constantly making connections and growing and how I, how sad I think it is when people limit that growth.

Nadia Irshad (30:08):
Mm-Hmm yeah, so there’s yeah, it’s, it’s it’s the little things, it’s the little things for sure. It’s and it’s watching the kids, you know, they put together performances, they, we have martial arts and watching the kids who never once, you know, did a punched something or did anything or now suddenly, you know, yellow and orange belts. those are it’s it’s, it’s amazing. And it’s, they take so much pride in it and I just love watching them. And I think I love that they never walk in and I never hear them say I got 99 on test. I never hear that. I hear today. I drop, I, I, I jumped up and I did this kick and, and, and, you know, I’ve watched them go through this journey where they couldn’t do any of those things and how much pride they are. And I think it builds so much self confidence to think, you know, to know, even for five year old, two months ago, I couldn’t even do that. And to so how endless are my capabilities? Right. So it’s yeah. I, I absolutely adore being around them that that type of energy is just, it’s like, I wanna see.

Sam Demma (31:14):
Moment. Yeah. It’s infectious. Right. you mentioned redefining purpose, right? I know this idea of finding your purpose, embracing your purpose. It sounds like you guys do it a little bit differently at your school. Do you have any opinions on the word purpose or, or what that means and how to encourage students to pursue it?

Nadia Irshad (31:34):
I think so is a trendy word too. Sometimes you, I always feel like I have to tip toe around it and be careful. Yeah. You know, if it puts fire in your gut, that’s the way I look at it. Put, puts fire in your gut and you can’t sleep until you do it, probably your purpose. And it’s probably not, you know, going fast on the ice and it’s probably not. It’s probably you, you know, you have to stretch to think what exactly is that mm-hmm and I do you think all of us and maybe I I’m an ideal idealist, I I’ll admit it. I think we’re all here to leave the world a little bit better. And so if you can find that little gift, you have that thing that puts fire in your belly to leave it a better, a better place.

Nadia Irshad (32:21):
And that’s why, you know, that comes back to challenge me, is learning. So what makes challenge based learning so special to us is it forces kids to think community and global mm-hmm . So it’s not the problem about you today. It’s how, you know, a problem that affects the people around you, your school community, the people down the block in your, in your world, and ask them to problem solve. And, and, and because the reality is, is it’s easy to be apathetic and it’s easy to think we can’t do anything. This is the way it is, but we, you know, people did it to get us here so we can, we can change and flip it around, make it go a different direction. Yeah, I dunno if that makes any sense.

Sam Demma (33:03):
No, it does a hundred percent. I, I had a world issues teacher who changed my life when I was in grade 12, who started the first day of class by walking in front of us and saying, don’t believe anything I tell you. But if it makes you curious, I want you to go do your Reese search and verify facts to yourself. And it was the first teacher I ever had, who said anything like that. And instantly like snap of a fingers. I was hooked. I was like, this is gonna be the best class ever. He made his own curriculum. He taught us his own curriculum. He retired the year after he taught me, but there was one lesson he taught us in, in April of 2017 where he was breaking down the lives of figures in history, trying to prove to us that they all had this common trait.

Sam Demma (33:47):
Grit was definitely a part of it. And the, the way he said it was, they all took thousands of small, consistent actions. And he said, if you wanna make a difference, you wanna challenge status quo, just, just choose a problem and take thousands of small actions towards solving it. And that challenge changed my life. I talk about him to this day, me and Mike Loudfoot, he’s retired now. We still stay in contact. So I wholeheartedly agree. It’s definitely, it’s definitely possible to make a difference. Especially when you just start with a small step, if an educator has been listening to this conversation and is just amazed by what’s going on at your school, loves your energy, wants to connect, have a conversation. What would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Nadia Irshad (34:29):
The best way would, they should go to our website. So they should go to Glareaschool.com and they can always shoot me an email. So my email is nadia@glareaschool.com. That would probably be the easiest way to reach me. But we are currently recruiting teachers. We’re in the midst of growing our little teaching community and it’s, it’s exciting to see the types of people that are drawn to our program. They’re really unique, unique individuals, which, which is exciting.

Sam Demma (34:55):
Can you just spell the URL of your school? Just so people don’t mess it up?

Nadia Irshad (34:59):
Yes. So Glarea is Glareaschool.com.

Sam Demma (35:04):
Awesome. Nadia, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show, share some of your wisdom, energy and stories. I really appreciate it. And I look forward to the day that I can come skate with the five year olds oh, totally.

Nadia Irshad (35:16):
You need to come out to BC and visit us here.

Sam Demma (35:19):
I will. I will. I’ll talk to you soon.

Nadia Irshad (35:21):
My pleasure. Thank you.

Sam Demma (35:23):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities, and I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Nadia Irshad

February 4, 2022 by Sam Demma Founder and CEO President Student Leadership Student Success 0

Chris McCullough – Teacher and Vice-Principal in Red Deer, Alberta

About Chris McCullough

Chris McCullough (@mccullough9) is a Teacher / Vice-Principal in beautiful Red Deer, Alberta. Chris has a broad range of educational experiences, having taught in elementary, middle school, and high school in mainstream programming, as well as in inclusive education and behaviour management programs.

Chris is actively involved in the community by volunteering his time to coach hockey, ringette and baseball. Additionally, Chris works alongside teachers from across Alberta to organize the annual Alberta Teachers’ Association (MYC) Middle Years Conference.

Chris’ wife Kristie is also a teacher and they have 3 teenage children to keep them busy.

Connect with Chris: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Alberta Teacher’s Association (ATA)

Alberta Teachers’ Association (MYC) Middle Years Conference

Chris’s Personal Blog: thepocketeer.blogspot.com

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 Chris McCullough. Chris is a teacher and vice principal in beautiful Red Deer, Alberta. He has a broad range of educational experiences having taught in elementary, middle school and high school in mainstream programming, as well as in inclusive education behaviour management programs.

Sam Demma (01:03):
He has a very interesting start in education as well, which I think you’ll really enjoy hearing about on the podcast. Chris is actively involved in the community by volunteering his time to coach hockey, ringette, and baseball. He also refs and he’s been a ref for a long time, which is something that I learned about on the podcast. And he also works alongside teachers from across Alberta to organize the ATA. The Alberta teachers associations middle years conference. Chris’s wife Christie is also a teacher and they have three teenage children to keep them extremely busy. I hope you enjoy today’s podcast interview with Chris and I will see you on the other side. Chris, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. You know, one of the NHLs free agents as I’ve heard, why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about why you got into the work you’re doing in education today.

Chris McCullough (02:00):
Wow. That’s a long podcast you’re in for . As you said, I’m Chris McCullough. I’m in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, and I grew up in central Alberta, just south of red deer in a town called Olds. And I’m hearing the question as, why am I a teacher? And I guess as a, a child myself, I always enjoyed running around and playing with my young cousins and stuff like that so it seemed like a good fit. I got, I got along well with people and you know, I’ve got to I’m not saying I love every aspect of my job, but , I do enjoy coming to school every day and working with kids and how many people get to say they get paid to do that every day. So

Sam Demma (02:42):
I love that. And being that you were someone and who enjoyed, you know, spending time with your younger cousins, that passion could have taken you in various directions, social work could have taken you to camp counseling, could have became, you know a youth speaker, like there’s when, when it comes to working with young people, there’s so many different ways that you can impact them. What drew you towards, like teaching specifically? Was there teachers in your life that inspired you? Or did you just say, let me try this and see how it goes?

Chris McCullough (03:12):
I think it was a couple things for me. One was I think just naturally as a relational person, I wanted to work with people. Yeah. If you were to read my high school yearbook, it would say that I was gonna be a golf course, superintendent, interesting position, a job that runs in my family. Okay. My dad actually taught that at a small college at old college turf grass management. And that was the plan, but I think him being a teacher I himself kind of pushed me in that direction. And, and actually I had a teacher I mean, I wasn’t as well put together as you are Sam at 21, I was still making bad decisions. and I remember my grade 12 teacher asking me what I was doing in his math class, because I really was kind of being your response and I didn’t need that class to be a golf course. Superintendent was what he said to me and he was absolutely right. And after that moment, I kind of decided that I was gonna pursue education and being a teacher. And along the way, I had a few bumps and bruises, but I ended up meeting my wife and she helped me a lot get through university. And the next thing, you know, go through the interview process and you get a job and here I am, 19 years later,

Sam Demma (04:31):
Happy international woman’s day, right. yes,

Chris McCullough (04:33):
Yes.

Sam Demma (04:35):
For sure. That’s awesome. Very cool. And when you first started, what were you teaching and how did the journey kind of evolve? I know somewhere along the way, you decided to get involved in the Alberta teachers association and really spearheaded some cool events and initiatives with the organization.

Chris McCullough (04:51):
Yeah. Along the way, I, my first job was a maternity leave. I taught grade six. Nice. And that led to which was at the time middle school age. And then in my, my school division, they, they opted to build some middle schools and moved to the middle school philosophy more formally. So there was a big middle school conference and a lot of teachers at that level were going to it and, and my wife ended up going and just, I think, I think my principal did allow me to go to the conference, even though I, I wasn’t necessarily guaranteed a job the next year, but I, I did go. And from that point on, I was really involved in middle school philosophy cause I ended up getting a position later in June that year. And then of course my involvement with the middle years council has been pretty consistent for, I could say 17 in my 19 years just in different roles and wow, largely it just comes from our core group of friends that worked on the conference and a desire to, to create a, you know, an event for teachers every year in a local context, I also got involved with my ATA, the ATA provincial and local and a variety of things at the time in our school division, I believe there was no vice president of the ATA local, and I just was off for that position and like a dummy, someone who didn’t know his AST from his elbow, he took it.

Chris McCullough (06:23):
And and I think it was a second year teacher at the time. And then of course the president had me at that point. So he retired and moved on to other things. And then I became the president of the, the red Catholic local. And I just learned a ton of great things. I, from some really great superintendents, I were, I worked with some great teachers on ATA stuff, union stuff, association stuff. And that was in red deer and Edmonton and Calgary. And that’s just been a nice bit with the middle years council as well. So I’ve always kept busy with that.

Sam Demma (06:55):
That’s awesome. And when you, initially we decided to take on one of the roles with the middle years council, was it because someone tapped you on the shoulder and said, you’d be great for this? Or you just saw the opportunity and decided I’m gonna try this out.

Chris McCullough (07:09):
I remember a colleague yeah. Tapped me on the shoulder and you should try it. Sure. And then I, one of the principals in my school division, I asked him if this was a good, I did because it was getting pretty real. And his answer at the time was, yeah, you’re gonna learn, you’re gonna learn a lot. So I’m probably guilty of getting too involved and, and having too many irons in the fire, if you will, cuz I have three kids on my own and I like to coach their sports and I’ve always been involved in that stuff. So again, it’s international. I couldn’t have done any of these things without support of my life, but overall I’ve learned a ton and yeah, I, I wouldn’t change anything that’s for sure.

Sam Demma (07:50):
Ah, that’s awesome. That’s, that’s such a good way to look at it over the years. I’m sure there’s been changes in teaching and education, especially when you introduce a global pandemic over the past year and a half. How has education shifted in your school area or in your school over the past year and a half? And what are some of maybe some of the challenges you’ve faced or have started to overcome?

Chris McCullough (08:17):
Yeah, so many challenges, honestly, I think as I look back over the, the course of the year, cuz I guess just almost a year to the day that we left school in Albert anyway and had that pause and shift to online education, I’m pretty proud of the work that teachers have done. And in my seat here as a vice principal, yeah. I, again, I work with some really great teachers that pivoted and really made that experie for the students. So that would’ve been March to June of last year. And then again, this year we’ve had our challenges with classes and situations where whole classes have to go home. But you know, at the end of the day, just the ability of these teachers to, to pivot and, and make it work for their students. Now I’m amazed every day by ’em to be honest. And it’s good to see. And I think moving away from that question, I guess broader in my 19 years, I, I think teachers in education improved a lot in terms of assessment practices, relationship with kids and understanding trauma and how that impacts student learning. I, I think we’re just getting in as a whole, whole lot better at meeting kids where they’re at and helping them with their needs. So

Sam Demma (09:33):
I love that and I, I would agree too. I think this, especially this year, the forced innovation through the pandemic has forced all of educators in education to focus on what matters most. And I think what’s been highlighted is the fact that the relationships are so important and sometimes building those virtually is a little more difficult. But how do you think schools or even educators can, you know, make their students feel heard, valued and appreciated. Now in, in this situation, is it a matter of checking in with the students on a daily basis or a weekly basis just tapping them outside of class saying, Hey, how are you? Is there anything we can help you with? Or from your perspective, what do you believe is the most important thing for educators to continue doing?

Chris McCullough (10:19):
I think from my perspective, you know, relationships matter, I, I once had a principal and she told me the number one thing she looks for in a teacher is their her or their ability rather to build relationships with students. Mm. The rest of it, you can kinda teach. And I, and I’ve seen that in a of tweet here and there, how important relationships are, whether it’s Sam or Robinson or, you know, it just matters a lot how you treat people. And I’m not saying you have to be nice to everyone because I think that’s a very broad term. And some teachers are very strict at the same time. They’re very effective and they, they don’t disrespect anyone. Yep. And other people, you know, are very good with people and maybe they can improve that they’re teaching. So I’ve kind of seen a lot of that too. So yeah, I think overall people care about kids and they, they work to make their school successful.

Sam Demma (11:16):
Ah, I love it. Very cool. And if you could, if you could travel back in time and speak to first year, Chris, when you just started teaching, knowing what you know now and with the wisdom you’ve gained and garnered, what would you tell your younger self?

Chris McCullough (11:32):
I would tell my younger self to listen, listen, slow down and listen. Nice. There’s a ton of knowledge. And I think, yeah, I guess as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten more mature, but you know, my school’s really focused on mindfulness this year from a school improvement plan perspective. Nice. We’ve done a lot of work on trauma training too, but you know, I think just learning to breathe and learning to pause, really look at situations in a whole context is an important skill for anyone, for me, for kids, for anyone. So we’ve done a lot of work on that. And I, I think if I was talking to my former self, I would’ve been more mindful of really not so much kids because I was always good with kids. And I feel like I connected with them well, but just being this is the wrong word, but sympathetic to maybe me being a little more understanding of what my former principals were trying to achieve and more or superintendents and current superintendents and politicians even I think at the end of the day, everyone wants schools and kids to be successful people. So yeah, just focus on listening and, and trying to make it work for everybody.

Sam Demma (12:48):
Love that. So cool. And I’m sure over the years teaching you’ve seen student transformation. I think that one of the coolest things about education is that it can change a student’s life. Now, sometimes you water that seed and it doesn’t flourish for 20 years. You might not ever know the impact you had. Or 20 years down the road, a kid writes you a note, letting you know that this one thing you said in class totally changed his life. Sometimes you hear about them, sometimes you don’t. I’m curious to know though, have you seen any student transformations within your school? Within the 20 so years you’ve been in education. And the reason I’m asking is because another teacher might be listening to this, burnt out, forgetting why they got into education and sharing a transformative story. Might remind them why they’re doing the work they’re. And if it’s a serious story, by all means you can rename the person to Chris or Sarah or change their name for privacy reasons.

Chris McCullough (13:44):
Yeah. I, to be honest story, I’m thinking of, I can’t even think of the kid’s name right now, thats. Okay. It was a high school situation and he was very struggling with school in general. He hated a, he hated school. He hated being there. And this is a great 11 boy who was in tears. I, I wasn’t even his teacher, I don’t think. Yeah. Other than one course like an option course. Anyway, he was balling his eyes out to me and we long story short, we, we changed his timetable so that he could do work experience cause he wanted to be a welder . So we got him outta school in the afternoons and set him up with a company. I don’t know if it was his dad’s company or a company his dad was kind of familiar with and you know, he loved it.

Chris McCullough (14:26):
He could come to school in the morning to leave at lunch. He started, started working on getting his ticket for, for welding. I think it was. And you know, I think that situations like that, making school work for someone, so he had a kid crying and in tears, that’s super frustrated to a situation where he is just happy, happy he can leave at lunch, go make some money. And I assume he is still working in the trades, which I think is a great avenue for a lot of students. And I think schools worry a little too much about academics sometimes where there’s lots of different possibilities where people can you know, think about their future.

Sam Demma (15:06):
Yeah, totally agree. I love it. And my dad’s a plumber and he loves his job and he builds homes. So there’s yeah, there’s so many, there’s no one pathway for all students. And I think it’s important to remember. So I love that you shared that story. If an educator listening or someone listening is, is enjoying this conversation is inspired by, it wants to have a conversation with you. Maybe Talk about your, your fandom for Calgary flames or star wars. what would be the best way for them to reach out to you and connect?

Chris McCullough (15:37):
Probably, I hesitate to say it a little bit because I find it to be a very angry place these days but Twitter is probably the best place to reach out. My handle’s @McCullough9 and I like Twitter. I find, I’ve learned a lot from it. There’s lots of good articles and inspirational messages and stuff like that. Sometimes I get caught up in the politics of the day or whatever and, and I’ve had to really reflect on what that looks like. But overall I think social media is a powerful force. It is a two-way sword and I enjoy it, but sometimes I have to take a, take a break from it and stuff like that. That’s kind of the best place, I guess, to find me.

Sam Demma (16:20):
All right. Got it. And what’s the first thing you’re looking to looking forward to once COVID ends.

Chris McCullough (16:26):
I think just general social situations, you know, being with family and friends and not having to worry about masks and social distancing and all that kind of stuff so sign me up for a vaccine as soon as you can get it, Sam, you know.

Sam Demma (16:43):
I’ll send it your way if I do. All right, Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to chat. I appreciate it. And look forward to talking to you soon and hopefully meeting you in Banff one day.

Chris McCullough (16:53):
Cool Sam. Take care of yourself and thanks for doing this.

Sam Demma (16:58):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show, if you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities and I promise, I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Chris McCullough

February 4, 2022 by Sam Demma Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Jennifer Lemieux – Teacher, Guidance Counselor and Student Leadership Advisor

About Jennifer Lemieux

Jenn Lemieux (@misslemieux) feels blessed to serve the staff and students at St. Peter’s Catholic Secondary School in Barrie, Ontario (SMCDSB). She has been a teacher, guidance counselor, and a student leadership advisor. As an educator for the past 22 years she continues to be inspired by the students and staff she works with.

Her favourite quote is by John Quincy Adams, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” The actions of educators have a large impact on the lives of students, families, colleagues, and the community. As educators, we are gifted with many opportunities to be able to inspire others to dream, learn, and become more. It is one of the most amazing jobs in the world!

Connect with Jennifer: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St. Peter’s Catholic Secondary School

Ontario Student Leadership Conference (OSLC)

Youth Leadership Camps Canada (YLCC)

Canadian Student Leadership Association (CSLA)

Canadian Student Leadership Conference (CSLC)

Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques

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 Jennifer Lemieux . I met her a couple years ago, presenting at a conference in Ontario, known as the Ontario student leadership conference. She was one of the teachers that were in my breakout room and we stayed connected and I thought it’d be really awesome to have her on the show.

Sam Demma (01:00):
She has such a diverse experience in teaching. She’s a teacher, a guidance counselor, and a student leadership advisor, and also an Ontario director of the Canadian student leadership association. Her teaching roles occur at St. Peter’s Catholic secondary. She lives out in Barrie and she’s a part of the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board. I have an awesome conversation with Jennifer on today’s episode about so many different topics and her philosophies about teaching and education. And I hope you truly get a lot out of this interview and reach out to her towards the end when I, when I give you her email address. So without further ado, enjoy this interview with Jen and I will see you on the other side. Jenn, thank you so much for coming on the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing the reason behind why you got on why you got into education?

Jennifer Lemieux (01:56):
Well, thanks for having me. It’s an honour to be here. You’re doing amazing things, so that’s pretty awesome. I just got noticed that my internet actually is unstable so that’s how this goes. Why I got into education? Well, when I was young, my mom was a teacher, so that’s sort of where some of it, I guess would’ve begun. She taught elementary school. So we’ve had our share of being in classrooms; helping mom out. In high school of my history teacher, Mr. Adia, he was one of my inspirations in becoming a teacher. He was just an amazing individual who could inspire us to do awesome things with history and I actually majored in history and then ended up, it was either law school or education. Those were my two sort of goals. And after three years of school I was liked, I really wanted more and education was calling my name and so that’s where I begun. And I’ve been at the same school, this is going on 22 years. I haven’t had to leave and so it’s been a pretty awesome experience.

Sam Demma (03:06):
That’s awesome. And at what point in your own career journey, did you know that you were gonna be a teacher? Like, was there like people who pushed you in this direction? Did you know it since you were a little kid or how, how did you make the decision that it was gonna be education?

Jennifer Lemieux (03:25):
I don’t think, I mean, I just loved always. I mean, coaching when I was young doing thing with youth and, you know, it was just part of a natural habit to, to want, to help people. And though I think, you know, having the inspiration of, of course my mom and Mr. OIA was, was lovely to have and just wanting to be able to make a difference in the lives of people. So that was that I think was my go to.

Sam Demma (03:53):
I love that. And if you could pinpoint what the things were that Mr. O did that had a huge insignificant impact on you? Like, what would you say was it that he tried to get to know his students and build relationships? Or what was the main thing he did that made you feel? So, you know, stern, a scene heard and appreciated and inspired you so much so that you wanted to get into education yourself.

Jennifer Lemieux (04:20):
He was definitely human first teacher second. Right. So, so you could see those connections. He tried to make, I’m also from a fairly small town in Northwestern, Ontario, and he was also my driving instructor. nice. And he taught me how to drive . So he just, you know, sometimes people, he didn’t coach me he did coach golf where we were from. But he was just, just authentic and human and he cared and he challenged our thinking. And so it just was a great relationship we had.

Sam Demma (04:54):
Hmm. That’s amazing. And funny enough. He was also your, your driver’s teacher, you were saying, it sounds like he was a teacher in all aspects of life.

Jennifer Lemieux (05:03):
You betcha.

Sam Demma (05:04):
That’s awesome. Very cool. And so then you grew up do you still stay in touch with him today? Do you still talk to him?

Jennifer Lemieux (05:13):
I’ve seen him because I still have family in the small town we were from actually just saw him. Last time I was home in the grocery store and just had a little convers and with him, you know, in the aisles of the grocery store, I mean, that’s not a, a constant communication, but he knows he was pivotal.

Sam Demma (05:30):
Yeah, no, that’s cool. I was gonna say sometimes teachers see the impact that they, that they’ve created. Sometimes they, they don’t see it. Sometimes it takes 25 years for a student to turn around and, and let the teacher know. And I’m sure you of that, I’m sure you’ve, you know, had stories of transformation and maybe some that are, you know, 10, 15 years out of school and then they come back and they, they speak to you and tell you about the impact you had. I’m curious though out of all the students that you’ve seen transform due to education, maybe not directly in your class, maybe in your class or on your sporting teams do you have any stories that really stick out that were really inspiring? And the reason I ask is because another educator might be listening, being a little burnt out for getting why they got into education in the first place. And I think at the heart of most educators it’s students, right. They really care about young people and the youth. And so do you have any of those stories of transformation that you’ve seen that really inspired you? And if it’s a, if it’s a very personal story or serious story, you can, you know, give the student a fake name. just to keep it private.

Jennifer Lemieux (06:35):
Well, I mean, there’s, there’s many in instances. I mean, I wear two hats right now. I still teach classes, but I’m also a guidance counselor. Nice. so you have, you have two sort of different things to look at. I mean, as a teacher, you work with your students and, and I just love to see them gain their confidence and grow. I mean, I taught history. Then I went in and taught psychology G and so I say, I teach the life courses. My husband says I don’t teach the real courses of math and science. So I like to think leadership is life and psychology is life. Yeah. And just watching some of the students, especially in the leadership classes that they come in and they’re not really there. Some are make it, and they don’t know why they’re there and just a watch their confidence grow throughout the time you have with them.

Jennifer Lemieux (07:22):
I mean, we’re in the business of human connections. Yeah. I struggle sometimes to really think about, you know, I’m a, a task person and I like to do my tasks. And, and so I really have to consciously think sometimes people first tasks later same with, I think all teachers, we need to think students first curriculum later, mm-hmm . And I know a lot of my colleagues probably agree with that as well. But it’s really hard to do that sometimes. And so, I mean, I’ve watched students who have passions in their high school career go in, I mean, I’ve got one student working at Google in Cal now. Wow. So he’s working, he’s working there in high school. He was that kid who created websites, created videos for the school. Nice. So, you know, you have these kids who have their passions and to foster them and provide those opportunities and let them grow.

Jennifer Lemieux (08:14):
Those are some big transformations you see in kids. And then you also have the kids that, you know, have no family support and no, you know, they rely on the caring adults in the school to be their family to speak and to help push them to grow. Right. And you have those kids too, that have a lack of confidence or are the introverts who join your classes and you give them opportunity to try to shine, even though they don’t wanna do those presentations, you know, you provide some safe parameters and boom, off they go. So, you know, to say that there’s one specific, there’s a lot in the very many categories, if that makes sense. Yeah. That we can, you know, providing, I like to think we provide opportunities for students to grow. Yeah. In the very different capacities that we have. Right. And I, you know, kids come back and say, thank you so much, like you did this. And I’m like, all I did was provide the opportunity. You took it. Yeah. And you lost them. Right. So that’s sort of where I like to think we have the huge responsibility and opportunity for, to provide opportunities for our students to, to flourish and blossom.

Sam Demma (09:28):
What does and support them. Yeah. No, I agree. What, what does providing the opportunities look like? Is it a, to cap on the shoulder? Is it an encouraging, you know, word? Like what does that actually look like from a teacher’s perspective?

Jennifer Lemieux (09:42):
Well, it varies from giving them opportunities to attend conferences, right. To actually plan and execute and deliver a full event from start to finish, to provide them your full trust that you believe in them that they’re going to be able to do. Right. I mean, I had one student, we have a massive event in our school called clash of the colors and it’s a big, loud, crazy event. That’s four extroverts. And this one student had entered my grade 11 class and was like, but I’ve her bin. And I’m like, that’s okay. Right. Mm-hmm so how do we make you go? And so she was like, well, I don’t know, like maybe a board game room. And so we were like, okay, let’s create a board game room. And so we created this board game room and, you know, we ended up having kids that we never had and she then felt included.

Jennifer Lemieux (10:37):
Right. So she, she spoke up, had the courage to say, yeah, well, you know, I’m in this class and here we’re planning this thing I’ve never attended. Right. And I also had the flip where I had a brand new student come in last year or two years ago cuz COVID he came in and has no idea what our school culture is about and he’s lumped into a leadership class. Right. And he’s just like, yeah. Okay. And he ends up leading an entire assembly when he really knew nothing that was going on. Wow. You know, and I’ve had an ESL kid come in who couldn’t speak English. So basically they were put in my class for socialization and just to watch the, the student engagement and the support and students helping each other. I mean, those are the opportunities we get to provide for them to build confidence.

Sam Demma (11:28):
If that makes sense. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. You’re you are the person that provides the opportunity for growth, whether it’s the planning of an event, whether it creating inclusive opportunities where everyone, whether introvert or extrovert feels included and can use their specific gifts to make a difference in the school. That makes a lot of sense. And I, I appreciate hearing a little bit more about your philosophies. I, if we wanna call them that, you know, I think that everyone builds their own personal philosophies based off their experiences. And it sounds like one of the philosophies you have around education is that, you know, humans first curriculum, second, like you were saying, and I’m curious to know, what other philosophies do you have around education? Or what other things do you believe, you know, over the last 22 years of, of teaching that you think might be beneficial to reflect on personally, but also to impart upon another educator listening right now?

Jennifer Lemieux (12:23):
Well, one of my biggest flus, I have a few that are speakers. So Mark Sharon Brock, he used a quote that I order forget to leave things better than you found them. Mm. Right. So he uses it cuz that’s apparently how we use leave camp sites is better than how you found them. Nice. Right. So I heard him say that in a speech one time and I was so excited to actually see him at an Ontario student leadership. One like conference one year I was as like a kid, like meeting their idol anyway, nice. I use that now even with, with the kids at school and and just as a philosophy in general, to always try to get them to leave our school better than they fit as well as people. Right. So to just try to leave the people and places better than you found them. And that is something we, I do try to impart when I meet people is to try to do that. Right. So that’s, I mean, not a huge philosophy per se, but it, it was a line from him that I won’t ever forget that has stuck with me and is now in my day to day living.

Sam Demma (13:38):
Yeah. I love that. I it’s so funny. You mentioned Mark Sharon Brock a few months ago. I just picked up my phone and called him and his wife. Wow. Yeah. His wife answered the phone and she’s like, hi, and I can’t her name now, but it was on his website on the contact page. She was holding up a Phish on the contact page and we had a beautiful conversation. And I, I said, you know, you know, would it be crazy to think that mark might talk to a young guy who’s 21 years old who just has some questions? And she’s like, let me check. And she put me on hold and she called his office and he answered the phone and, and gave me his time. He gave me 30 minutes of his time, answered a bunch of questions. And I just remember thinking to myself like, wow, this is someone who owes me, nothing who doesn’t know who I am, who just took 30 minutes out of their very busy day to just share some wisdom. And I, I, I sent them a handwritten thank you note for, for, for giving me some time. But I think that that relates also to education that when we give students time to, to make them feel seen, heard, and appreciated when we go out of our way to show them that we care. Despite the fact that we all have our own busy lives, it, it makes a huge difference and a huge impact. I’m curious though, it’s

Jennifer Lemieux (14:55):
A nice bike story right there.

Sam Demma (14:57):
So for everyone who doesn’t know what that is, you wanna summarize it?

Jennifer Lemieux (15:03):
Oh, mark. always talks about nice bike. How he was at a big bike, I guess, convention, I guess. Yeah. And all you have to do is, you know, come up to big Burley guys who drive bikes and say nice bike and they kind of don’t seem so intimidating anymore. Yeah. it was a nice bike story.

Sam Demma (15:23):
That’s awesome. I like it. it’s so true. Right? A little, a little compliment, a little, a little appreciation, I think goes a, a really long way for an educator who’s listening right now and might be in their first year of teaching. right. During this crazy time, knowing what you know about education and about teaching and the wisdom you’ve gained over the past 22 years, like, what would you tell, like, imagine it was your yourself. Imagine if you just started teaching now, but you knew everything, you know, what would you tell your younger self as some advice?

Jennifer Lemieux (16:01):
Well, it’s interesting. Cause I remember being in teachers college and they like to tell you, you know, to set that stage when you enter that room and don’t smile until Christmas and all of those sort of things. And I would yes. Agree that there needs to be structure and parameter in a classroom and boundaries. But I also think it’s okay to be you and be your authentic self. I remember teaching an ancient history course and I never studied ancient history. I mean, I had, you know, American history, Canadian history and they plunked me into one of those and I was struggling in this grade 11 course knowing nothing. And I had to not lie to them. Right. Like it was like, okay, we’re gonna learn this together. We’re going to be okay. You know, because they’re going to see through you. So if you, you can be your authentic self.

Jennifer Lemieux (16:57):
I think sometimes we’re scared to let students see we’re human. And one of the first things I always try to remind them on the first day of school is yes, I’m your teacher, but I’m a human being. Right. And I have two rules in my classroom about respect and honesty and just, just be you because we just need to be us and be our authentic selves as scary as that is. Right. Yes. Again, we have boundaries. Like we don’t talk about what we do outside of school and you know, our lives to an extent, but for your, your personality and what you’re comfortable with. I think it’s fair to, to share some of those things with students and be okay doing that. It’s not about don’t smile until Christmas, at least in my world now. Right. When it, you know, when I first started, I think I was a bit scared and to lean on lean on your peers, like lean on people that have been there a while that are willing to help. Because it’s a pretty, pretty powerful thing. If, if you can be mentored, had huge mentorship in my career. I look at like St. Saunders, Phil Boyt one of my old athletic director partners I mean, they’ve all mentored me, right? Dave troupe was a huge mentor of mine, Dave Conlan. So they’re, they’ve all gotten me to be a better person and a better educator. And you want to be able to rely on those things and not be afraid to be you.

Sam Demma (18:30):
Hmm. That’s awesome advice. That’s such, such great advice. You mentioned that you created two rules in your classroom. Can you share exactly what they are and when you, when did you create those? Was that something that you started right when you first started teaching or did that, was that created some years in?

Jennifer Lemieux (18:46):
Oh, when I first started teaching, I of course had every rule they tell you to do. Right? Yeah. And like, and sign this contract. And then later as I developed, it was, I mean, honesty that was rule number one, be honest to yourself, me and everybody else. And if you know, your homework’s not done because you were too tired to do it, or you just didn’t get it done. Or it was a bad night. Don’t lie to me. I don’t wanna be lied to. Mm. Just tell me life is happening or something’s going on, you know, don’t have your parents write me a note. That’s not telling the truth, you know, try to just be, be real. And of course, to me, respect encompasses everything being prepared as a student. So again, I’ve remind them to respect themselves, to respect others. And of course it’s a mutual respect between all of us and, and we’ll get along.

Jennifer Lemieux (19:40):
Right. And sometimes you have to have those tough conversations with kids. I remember where a uniform school and I remember one student didn’t really love wearing her uniform. And so we butted heads a lot. Mm. Right. Because I was following the rules and that was not, that happens sometimes. And so often when that happens, students think you’re targeting them or you’re after them. And I always try to remind them, it’s the behavior. I’m not impressed with. It’s not their personality. It’s not them. Right. It’s their behavior. That’s not driving with me. And so I ended up having a tough conversation with that kid and we ended up figuring out a way to, to exist and coexist and be okay. Right. Because it’s not the behavior. It’s, I mean, it’s not the person, it’s always the behavior. I usually, you know, don’t, don’t like, so if you can separate that with students too, I find that’s helpful.

Sam Demma (20:33):
Right now there’s a ton of challenges. But in the spirit of leadership, we always try and focus on the opportunities. And I’m curious to know, from your opinion and perspective, what do you think some of the biggest opportunities are right now in education?

Jennifer Lemieux (20:51):
Well, in trying to stay positive, I think some of the biggest opportunities we have right now is challenging our creativity. We are being forced to, to change the, the things that we know to be right. So our course is how we deliver them. When I speak to many staff, they’re, they’re a bit challenged and discouraged that they’re having to destroy their big, awesome courses because they just can’t do the same in person activities and things just aren’t the same. And so we have an opportunity as educators to use different tools jam boards Google interactive, Google slides with para deck. So we’re using a lot more technology and having to force ourselves to be a bit more creative than we’ve ever been when it comes to teaching the things we love to teach. And of course, we’re, you know, challenged to keep our, our person surveillance up and just to keep plugging away. But I think we have to look at, you know, while we’re facing all of these challenges, now we are still growing. And we have the opportunity to become better differently. Yeah. If that makes sense?

Sam Demma (22:04):
It does. It makes a lot of sense. And I love that. And the piece about creativity D is so true. I actually, right now I’m reading a book, it’s a handbook that helps you become more creative. It’s called thinker toys. And the whole book is about different strategies and techniques to bring creativity out of you. The author believes that creativity isn’t something that you, you are born with, but it’s something you can create within yourself. So it’s an interesting book and I think it’s so true. Everything’s changing. The world is changing, which is bringing out so many different ideas and so many different innovations and I think education is at the forefront of a lot of it. Awesome. This has been a phenomenal conversation. If someone wants to read out to you, ask you a question, have a phone call, bounce, some ideas around what would be the best way for somebody to get in touch with you?

Jennifer Lemieux (22:59):
Well, I’m not really active on Twitter, but I have a Twitter @misslemieux but my school email is probably the most frequently thing I access. So that’s jlemieux@smcdsb.on.ca, it’s for the SIM Muskoka Catholic district school board. That’s what the SMCDSB stands for. Yeah, I don’t know if it’s been helpful, but that’s, that’s who I am and how I roll.

Sam Demma (23:32):
Thanks, Jen. Really appreciate it, you did a phenomenal job.

Jennifer Lemieux (23:35):
Thank you for the opportunity.

Sam Demma (23:37):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator Podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Jennifer Lemieux

January 29, 2022 by Sam Demma Association Director Guidance Counsellors School Counsellor Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Tania Vincent – Chaplain at St. Michael Catholic Secondary School

About Tania Vincent

Tania Vincent (@stmchaplaincy) is the Chaplain at St. Michael Catholic Secondary School. She is good friends with Angelo Minardi, a past guest on this show, and both of them share a very obvious passion for giving young people the best opportunities for future success.

Connect with Tania: Email | Instagram | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

St.Micheal Catholic Secondary School

What does a Chaplain Leader do?

Role of retreats

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 Tania Vincent. She is the Chaplain or the Chaplaincy leader of St. Michael Catholic Secondary School. She was someone who was also introduced to me by another past guest on the podcast. If you go back to the early days, this show was launched, I interviewed a good friend of mine.

Sam Demma (00:59):
His name is Angelo Minardi, and he gave Tania, Tania’s name as somebody that he thought I should speak to. And I’m so glad that I did because we had such a passion filled conversation. You can feel the authenticity and the genuine desire to impact her students in Tanya’s voice. And she shares so much amazing wisdom and advice from her own past experiences and for what she thinks the future might look like in education. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed speaking to Tanya to create it and I will see you on the other side. Tanya, welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. It is a huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by sharing with the audience who you are and how you got into the work that you do with young people today?

Tania Vincent (01:47):
Sure. So thanks. First of all, Sam, thanks for having me. So my name is Tania Vincent, and I’m currently the Chaplaincy leader at a high school in Bolton, Ontario called St. Michael Catholic Secondary School. Before I was a Chaplaincy leader, I was a high school teacher for about nine years and I I taught religion at a few different schools in Brampton. How did I get into this? I studied religion in University. And who in the world does that? And what do you do with that after you study religion and university? Well, I had no idea and I ended up going to teachers college and it turned out that I really, really loved the idea and loved the actual work with students, particularly with teenagers. And here we find ourselves today, you know, still doing it, still going at it, still trying to do it. And it’s been, it’s been great.

Sam Demma (02:42):
That’s awesome. At what point in your educational journey did you know, you know, yes, chaplaincy leader, that’s what it’s gonna be. Was there a defining moment for you or a progression?

Tania Vincent (02:54):
So I when I started teaching, I I just come outta teachers college and I worked with someone who kind of inspired me to go on to do some graduate work that I had never really thought about before. And so I started doing that and then I realized that this role that I have now in chaplaincy, that there was such an opportunity there to connect with to, with, to, to connect with young people in a very different way. It’s one thing when you’re a classroom teacher and you’re delivering curriculum, but you form a very different kind of relationship and rapport with students when you’re a chop and sea leader. And when you’re, you know, trying to encourage and help students kind of find their way in their journey of faith, even in adults in that matter. So that’s kind of how I ended up where I am today and what kind of inspired me to do. So

Sam Demma (03:43):
That’s cool. And I’m sure when you first started in this role it definitely looks different this year, as it does for anyone working in a school. What are the current challenges your school is facing? And there might be similar challenges in all schools and maybe what are some of the ways some of those challenges have been overcome, that’s working for you guys and you think might be valuable for other educators to hear?

Tania Vincent (04:07):
So I think first and foremost, the biggest challenge that I’m finding is that, or that I’m noticing in our school anyways, is student engagement because, you know, right now the way the model works in our school board in different field is students. It’s a hybrid model. Some students have chosen to stay home and, you know, be totally virtual a hundred percent. But for those that are in a hybrid model, they come to school for about two and a half hours in the morning. You know, they, they go straight to class and then they leave and there’s no, you know, you, there’s no, you know, leaving class to, you know, wander the hallway for 30 seconds or five minutes or whatever. There’s no there’s, there’s no opportunity to interact with other staff, with other students. You just come to go to your class and leave.

Tania Vincent (04:57):
And so students don’t feel engaged. They feel disengaged because it’s really become a building. You know, schools are, are these kind of great places for communities to develop, whether it’s because of co-curriculars or sports or athletics, all of these things, none of those things are very few of those things are happening right now. So we have a problem with keeping students engaged in anything beyond education. And even when it comes the educational piece, you know, we, and, you know, the, the, the adults in the building, if you will, are still figuring out how to do some of the same things that we would normally have done when we were physically all together in a school. And so I think, I guess, you know, the challenge really is how do we now continue to move forward and continue to learn and, you know, try to keep these students engaged, not only in the academic part, but in the other kind of stuff that happens at school.

Tania Vincent (05:52):
So like me being a child, for example, I, my role is to try to continue to keep students engaged in the faith aspect of school and of, you know, and of their lives. And that’s been its own challenge. But one of the things that I’m seeing is working is I know for, for me, and even in speaking with other colleagues is a willingness on our part as the educators to really kind of do things and step beyond our own comfort zones when it comes to being virtual, when it comes to being accessible in a virtual platform. So even something like, you know, I used to run retreats, for example. So how do you now, how do I now run retreats when I can’t physically take students out of the building, or I can’t necessarily see them face to face? Well, now I, I deliver retreats.

Tania Vincent (06:39):
I lead retreats virtually. It’s not, it’s not amazing. But it’s, it seems to be working. And I think it’s something that, you know, I can continue to build on. And the same thing goes for, you know, class for teachers in their virtual classrooms. You know, initially I think a lot of teachers were, you we’re there and they were, you know, sharing PowerPoints and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, again, this issue of student engagement, but as we become more comfortable as the adults with the technology, then we’re able to kind of infiltrate a few more ways to, you know, maybe make students more involved in their own learning processes. But that’s something, you know, we have to work on too, right. Because we’re not, you know, like you said, you know, a lot of, a lot of things have changed since March and we need to be willing to move past what we’re used to doing. That’s the thing, right. Everybody wants to kind of mimic what we did before, what we did in person. And I think part of the challenge is recognizing that we can’t necessarily mirror or mimic what, what we did before, but we need to look at other ways to still keep students engaged and still remind them that we are a school community.

Sam Demma (07:47):
Yeah. That’s so true. And the community piece is huge. You know, how do we ensure as educators, as people that work in the school that the students still feel appreciated and heard. And I know that’s a big part of chaplaincy as well, because you’re almost like, you know, an extra guidance counselor that they might come to before going to a guidance office. You know, yeah. How do we make sure the students still feel appreciated? So I think,

Tania Vincent (08:15):
So I think, you know, I think first and foremost, I think they need to recognize a real, I should say that we are still accessible so that even though, you know, they can’t leave class to come and see me in my office, for example, or they can’t leave class to go and talk to a guidance counselor. That doesn’t mean that, that they’re still not able to contact me or contact, you know, a guidance counselor or whatever. So, you know, if I’ve kind of found more creative ways for them to do that. But I, I really think it’s really important that I continue, at least what I’ve been doing is I try to make, make sure that they realize that I’m available even virtually, you know, my DMS are open on Instagram, for example. Right. So I know it, it sounds kind of funny, like to hear someone say that , but it’s true because a lot of people, a lot of students will reach out to me that way as, Hey, miss, can I come and talk to you about something?

Tania Vincent (09:06):
Absolutely. And then, you know, you can use that that’s, you know, just an opening door for them, but letting them know that they’re still, their, their voice is still being heard. Their concerns are still being heard and addressed, and we wanna hear their concerns. I think that’s part of it too. Right. We, they need to know that not only are we accessible, but we wanna hear what they have to say. I know when I, when I meet with students, when I meet with a, you know, a small group of students once a week, I always kind of ask them, it’s not even, you know, I asked them, what is it I can do for you that maybe I’m not doing or something that I did before when we were, you know, in total lockdown that you really appreciated that I can maybe bring back that I haven’t been doing, but what is it that you wanna see as students in our school to, you know, to ensure that you feel appreciated because students are a huge part of our school be community.

Sam Demma (09:57):
Yeah. I would argue almost the whole part , but yeah, without the, without the teachers and educators, but and you guys play a huge role in organizing the community and keep it moving along and transforming the community. I think a huge part of school is also, you know, helping students become self com confident in their abilities, because a lot of the time they don’t know what they’re doing. We don’t know what we’re doing. We have to learn as we go, you know, a student gets a new assignment, they have to learn the, the barrier is for them to say, I believe in myself enough to find the information, to figure this out. And I think, you know, that transformation is a, a huge part of, of school and of education. Do you have any stories of transformation that you’ve seen as a direct result of education in your school? And the reason I ask is because another educator might be a little burnt out right now thinking like, I don’t know what’s going on this year. You know, maybe this is their first year teaching and they’re like, what the heck am I doing here? And those stories might motivate them to remember this work is so important.

Tania Vincent (10:59):
Yeah, I think, you know, in my, in my own personal experience, one of the things that I do every day, one of my jobs, if you will, is to lead the school in prayer every morning. Mm. And so what I do with my, so I write these reflections and you know, on a very personal level, they become all was therapeutic, I guess, or they’ve allowed me to kind of exercise a muscle that I haven’t exercised in a while, but I digress. And so I, you know, I see them every morning at school, but we have a large, you know, number of students that aren’t in the building. So I also post them on Instagram. Hmm. And, you know, I, I spoke before about making sure that students know that I’m accessible. And so one of the things that I’ve had happen a lot, whether we were, it happened when we were sort of in lockdown and schools first shut down and it continues to happen now is me, you know posting these reflections and they’re about all kinds of things.

Tania Vincent (11:53):
And I try to make them kind of relevant to, you know, to students and to, to younger people, to young people. But sometimes they kind of trigger something or, you know, you say something or I write something, I should say that somebody needs to hear that day. And they send me a message. They send me a D and that says, Hey, you wrote something to today. This kind of really, I really appreciated that. And it starts a conversation mm-hmm . And I think that whether you are like me and have to, you know, lead people in prayer every morning, or whether you are just starting off a class online that day I think it’s really important to try to say something that’s not necessarily even curriculum based, even if it’s just, Hey, how’s it going today, everybody, right. How are you feeling? What, you know, one thing I do when I meet with my group weekly is I ask them to give me their highs and the low, their lows for the week.

Tania Vincent (12:47):
And, you know, it’s amazing to know sometimes their highs are really great. Sometimes it’s like, Hey, you know, I did well on a quiz today. Something that might not seem so important in the grand scheme of things, but it gives a student an opportunity to, to think about something positive. And it also gives ’em the opportunity to share something that’s maybe not going so great. And as the adults, as the educator, you know, you get a, you get some insight into your students that you might not otherwise get. Right. Instead of being so curriculum focused, you’re so focused on getting things done. You know, the thing I feel like we’re so worried about making sure we get everything done, because we’re trying to mimic what we would normally do. And we, we have to, we have to try as a collective, I guess, I don’t even know, but we have to try to move past not, and remember that right now. I think the, the importance of relationship and building relationship with our students, I think that is paramount over everything else because everybody’s finding it, tough adults, kids, administration, we’re all finding this challenging. But if we realize that we’re all in this together, and if we just vocalize that with our students, I feel like that really can breed some really great things.

Sam Demma (14:02):
That’s amazing insight. And I’ve had so many other guests give such similar advice on relationships and building relationships. And I think that’s so powerful because when someone trusts you, they, they’re more open to tell you things. And that comes through a strong relationship that you build with them over time. You shed some great advice on the fact that we can’t continually focus on education, being something that we have to solely focus on shoving curriculum, you know, through the day and making sure we finish it but adjusting and allowing the students to speak or, you know, slightly adjusting to what they might need that day. If there’s an educator listening who’s in their first year, and maybe they got into a role where they took on that mentality of here’s the outline here’s what has to get done. What other advice would you give them, maybe even to your younger self when you first started?

Tania Vincent (14:55):
First take a breath that would be the first thing to take a breath and be open to trying new things, and don’t be afraid to, to fail. And I guess at the end of it all, really, what is, I guess, what I’m getting at is be patient with yourself. Mm. Cause I’m finding that even now, because we’re all trying new things and we’re all kind of figuring out this new mode of, you know, delivering education and building community, be patient with yourself. And if something doesn’t work oh, well, so it doesn’t work. So you don’t do it again. You know we have to be willing to kind of make mistakes and giving, granting ourselves a little bit of grace and patience when some of those things don’t work, but it’s gonna get easier. You know, that’s what I would tell them. That’s what I would tell my my first year self is it’s gonna get easier and in, you know, enjoy your students or enjoy your time with your students while, while you have there, because you can learn so much from them too. And you’re all experiencing this together. Like, you know, I said that already, but you, we’re all kind of figuring this out together. Don’t be afraid to make those mistakes and be patient with yourself when you do.

Sam Demma (16:05):
I love that. That’s such a great piece of advice. And if another educator is listening and wants to hit you up in the DMS or, you know, get in touch and just bounce some ideas around what would be the best way for them to do so?

Tania Vincent (16:20):
It’d either be on Instagram or on Twitter and you can find me there @stmchaplaincy.

Sam Demma (16:26):
Okay. Perfect. Awesome. Tania, thank you so much for making some time I chat on the show. It’s been a huge pleasure doing this, and I look forward to seeing all the work you continue to do in the school.

Tania Vincent (16:36):
Thanks so much for having me.

Sam Demma (16:38):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review so other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise, I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Tania Vincent

January 29, 2022 by Sam Demma Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Natasha Daniel – Program Coordinator at MCG Careers Inc and Certified Career Development Practitioner

About Natasha Daniel

Natasha Daniel is a bilingual (French and English) project manager in the Youth Skills and Employment Program at MCG Careers. A Certified Career Development Practitioner, Certified Work-Life Balance Coach, Certified Strengthening Families Coach and a Trained Trauma-Informed Community Facilitator with a strong passion for community and working with people.

Her passion for empowering others began while working as a Trainer and Restaurant Manager for Burger King Canada, working as an Educator in an Adult High School and working in Human Services managing programs.

In 2013, after several years of gaining expertise in Program Management, Career Development, Family and Youth advocacy in Montreal, her family relocated to Edmonton. Joining MCG Careers in 2013 with a wealth of knowledge she believes her career has further evolved in program management and process managing while empowering youth to increase their strengths, become more resilient and accomplish goals through the REBRAND PROGRAM.

She is motivated and driven to excel by incorporating a hands-on approach. This allows her to focus on the needs of others and their potential which results in stronger engagement, trust and stronger relations with stakeholders and the community. She loves bringing awareness and educating individuals in areas related to career and employment, mental health and any aspect to enhance one’s wellbeing.

Passionate about human relations and volunteering, she is instrumental in bringing strategies and resources to Non for Profits by serving on different boards and volunteering on Youth projects. Natasha enjoys learning and is constantly broadening her knowledge through training and certifications. Natasha spends time honing her creative skills by writing poems and loves working around fun people.

Connect with Natasha: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Natasha Daniel

Resources Mentioned

MCG Careers Website

The REBRAND Youth Development Program

Small Consistent Actions TEDx Talk

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 (00:02):
Natasha welcome to the High Performing Educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Please start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today.

Natasha Daniel (00:13):
Thank you Sam, for having me. So my name is Natasha Daniel and I work at a wonderful company called MCG Carrer as an employment center. And I am the youth program coordinator for our program called rebrand. And by the name rebrand, it gives youth an opportunity to rebrand themselves to really change their lives. And it’s a great journey to be on working with youth, supporting them and encouraging them to really be the best that they can be, and really be empowered to realize that, you know, the world is out there, that they can conquer. So that’s called REBRAND. So what led me to the journey of wanting to work with youth and when we say youth, the, the category of the clients that I’m working with there are between the ages of 17 to 30. So that’s the federal go? My definition of youth.

Natasha Daniel (01:03):
And you know, I started working with you very early in my career as a trainer and manager for burger king several years ago. And I had the opportunity to really hire and, and train youth to just maybe in their part-time jobs as they were accomplishing their ed educational goals. And I moved further from there into working in an adult high school, again with youth who are trying to accomplish a high school certification and stuff like that. And, and really seeing that youths need support and that youths are smart. They are innovative, they’re creative and they’re open to challenges and experiences. So that really empowered me to wanna continue working with youth then fostering an opportunity to support them into their career and employment journey.

Sam Demma (01:52):
That’s awesome. So bridge the gap between burger king and MCG careers for us, what was the journey in between that brought you to MCG?

Natasha Daniel (02:01):
So burger, I was my first career, my first employment opportunity in Canada. So I started off with cashier, but I have the passion for learning and I always wanted to be a teacher when I was younger from since elementary school, because I had a wonderful male elementary school teacher, nice. And my passion for learning and reading and all of that. So when I was burger king, I took time to learn everything on the job. So which within two years with working in a company, I was a shift supervisor because I really learned everything that they had to do like managers did and on the operation of the business. And then I just worked my way up into becoming a restaurant manager. So having an opportunity to hire youth more, also youth to wanna work in a fast food you know, in a fast food restaurant, I want, want to get that opportunity to have extra money while they’re studying so high school youth or post secondary youths.

Natasha Daniel (02:55):
And then from hiring, then I started training as a corporate trainer for burger king. So Alberta was one of my places I came to for a couple months to train people. So that’s kind of my part in terms of with youth and then going into when, when I, whilst I was studying for my post-secondary, I went into adult. So working again in the, in the education facility where you are helping people to learn and helping people to get their educational goals and stuff like that. And then I transitioned into community. I used to be a big brother, big sister at, for boys and girls club for many years. Nice. And being a big sister all also really empowered me and, and, and helped me to really understand that younger people need some additional support. And I taught about what can I bring from my experience?

Natasha Daniel (03:49):
What can I bring from my background? What are the values that they have that also Correl to my values and how could I empower them? So always working the community and working families. I had the opportunity to work with families and interventions in the school and child and family services and stuff like that. So again, I saw that, you know, sometimes as a child you mightn’t get the foundation that you need, but when you get into your youthful age, you’ll still require some of those foundational skills to help youth get into a stronger adulthood and life management. And that’s how I’m here at rebrand right now.

Sam Demma (04:29):
I know it makes you upset when people don’t treat youth with the same respect and I guess, general treatment as they might another adult. and I think what’s really awesome is you explained earlier that you, weren’t only focused on people getting jobs and working shifts at burger king, but you were also making sure they focused on their education. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Natasha Daniel (04:55):
Yes. And I, I think sometimes in society older, you know, adults, so people in general, sometimes we underestimate the power that a youth have. And we also, there are a lot of biases against young people also, you know in society. And I believe that how could you just be open to learning about a youth and learning that a charity that they come from and how they can contribute to society and how you can support them? So, one of the things I know that was imperative for me was I work at burger king, as education is very fundamental or at least acquire high school education on the first level is important to, you know, looking at a career path possibility or helping you with your learning goals. But I, when I worked at burger king, I wanted to make sure a part-time job wasn’t, you know, the main focus for everyone, you will have to have that life balance.

Natasha Daniel (05:50):
So I believed in life balance from really early. So I supported the students who were to get that life balance by, you can make your money part-time or full-time work, but you can also go to school. So in the, at burger king, we had a lot of post-secondary college students, and I would have them, we kind of opened a little tutor session within our diet, within our our work employee room. And they were free to bring their assignments. And I kind of them with another worker who in college could help so that they can get support and help with their assignments as they were going through high school. And that’s just because also some of the youth, they didn’t have that support at home. It’s very difficult when your parents are just trying to make money to put food on the table. And especially if it’s an immigrant parent also, they really sometimes don’t understand the whole structure of the Canadian system. So their goal is just that I need to feed you. I need to keep the house going, but what about all of the other needs and needs? And looking at the challenges that your, your child might have. And a lot of them didn’t have that knowledge and didn’t have that skillset. So that’s where I kinda stepped in from that early, early times, being in burger king and moved on into community and stuff like that.

Sam Demma (07:03):
Your experiences in burger king, in different community organizations and clubs has all led to the perspective that you have in working with students in rebrand. Can you talk a little bit more about the rebrand program, why it’s so close to your heart and what’s compelled you to continue working on it for the past eight years?

Natasha Daniel (07:25):
So rebrand again, you know, be why is it so close to my head when I came from Montreal to Edmonton and got a job at MCG, they had this beautiful program and it’s so really one of the foundational programs and I, that MTG offers. And I think it’s about 15 years in ENCE in the, in our current employment center. So there’s a great knowledge about the program in Edmonton is a program that a lot of agencies and support workers and stuff they know about because of the strength of the program and how the program helps you. So with looking at rebrand and going through many cohorts and many you know, participants with different challenges and experiences and background, you understand that really youth, they need the support and they need to really be allowed to have the resiliency. And they need that part where they see that there’s more to life in the world, or there’s more to what I could accomplish.

Natasha Daniel (08:24):
And I always say to my youth, like, how do you define accomplishment? Not don’t define accomplishment by society’s, you know, definition of accomplishment, because what did, what have you done? It doesn’t have to be that you’ve gotten a trophy, or you was, you, you were in the, you know, the football team or you had a scholarship and many of them do, you know, they had those, but what other accomplishment, how, what, how do you see accomplishment from your, your perspective and how can you think out of the box and bring those skillset to your life? So with rebrand because rebrand, we allow them to have many experiences in the program by having a mixture of, of training that they don’t get in school. So we focus on the life management and with the life when it comes with the basic things about budgeting, the basic things about, you know, those communication skills, the basic things about being more self aware.

Natasha Daniel (09:22):
So, you know, who are you and what can you bring to the table and how, you know, what part, what are your goals that you wanna accomplish? So we focus on those great ma life management skills now at COVID and a lot of youth, they go through mental health challenges, and sometimes they’ve gone through those challenges from early childhood and, you know, not having the right supports, the challenges, the mental health challenges increase and increase and increase. Yeah. So really getting them to understand that, yes, you can have a mental health challenge, but what is the best strategy that you are going to incorporate? And what supports do you need to really cope with your mental health challenge? Because not everybody who, you know, you do have coping skills when you have mental health and sometimes society label, you, you have mental health, you depressed, but with that, the, you can still achieve something as long as you have the, the right strategies.

Natasha Daniel (10:21):
And as long as you have the support, so rebrand provides all of that to the participants. And then we fo we help them to focus on employment. What skills can you bring to an employer what’s out there that you would like to learn on the job? You know, what are some of, of the values that you have that another employer might, you know, wanna bring into take you on because that value kind of meshes with their work value. And then what are your long term goals? So what are your current goals? So what are your employment goals, or, you know, so what do you wanna go back to school? What would you like to do? So helping them to really have a broad rate of experiences through training, through you know, sessions like having a good motivat speaker, like you, you know, through financial literacy programs first aid, computer programs, computer training, and volunteer experiences, and just basic, you know, everything their experiences an adult might have, or have had to bring them to a successful journey. That’s what we brand helps them. And then we support them in all aspect, as they’re, you know, being trained and gaining more of self and becoming, you know, looking at the path that, oh, I needed this to help rebrand my life to start a new journey.

Sam Demma (11:39):
The name is so appropriate for the purpose of the program, which is so cool. And I’m honored to have been a part of a few of them. And another one this week, I’m always super excited. One thing that I love about the program is the diversity. It seems like the students all come from very different cultures, different walks of life. How do you get through to students, you know, from the get go and make sure that they understand it’s a safe place where they can be themselves and share the truth. Even if it’s one that’s a uncomfortable to talk about.

Natasha Daniel (12:14):
I, I, I believe for myself, it’s just, I’m open. And, and I, I say, you know what being open is the first time. So I’m no longer youth, but I was a youth at one point in time. And I know some of the experiences that they might have might have be maybe a similar experience that I had, or also by my dive first experience in working community, working, you know, with intervention services and all of that, all of the prior work that I’ve done, you know, I let them know that it’s okay. That as a youth, that everything wouldn’t be smooth it’s okay. That you are gonna make challenges. It’s okay. That because you didn’t critically think about the consequences that, you know, like hitting someone in the head, you didn’t critically think about it, and then you gotta arrest for that.

Natasha Daniel (12:58):
And then you got a criminal record is okay. You know, and because of the challenges that you have, it doesn’t mean that your life stops right there. What it is is that, how can you cha take those challenges and make them into opportunities? So when they, when I connect with a youth, you know, it’s just to see I’m here to support you. And let’s have that open dialogue. Let’s talk about, just be upfront, put it on the table, lay on the table. I’ve heard it all. Like I tell him, I’ve heard it all. There’s nothing. I think that you would come and tell me that like might be a shocker with working with youth you know, from the different backgrounds and different challenges. I had a youth who came to Canada from from a, from the con African continent. And this kid was so resilient.

Natasha Daniel (13:46):
And when he had a story of this kid, he was a war soldier at 13 years old. And they him to kill someone and he didn’t want to. And he ran away. He ran from two weeks, no shoes on his feet, in the jungle for two weeks. Wow. To get to the border of another country for safe Haven. Wow. And this kid came into the program, was really resilient, you know, new immigrants. So he had to learn a lot, but he took to the supports and that, that, you know, everything that the program was offering, he got employment. He got a hand of learning how to understand money because his things that I need to work as I had to money for my mom, I need to take care of my family. And then, you know, two, three weeks into the program, he had one of those days where, you know, he was himself and I’m like, what’s up, he’s always a child.

Natasha Daniel (14:46):
He’s like, you know, I just got worried. One of my best friend got killed, trying to escape and trying to leave, you know, the, the world off that they grew up in with all of the hardship and he felt really guilty. And I says, you know what? It’s okay. It’s okay. Because he felt that I got freedom, my friend didn’t. Mm. And I says, you know what? Take a mental health day. It’s okay. You can go home. You can probably go, just call your mom or talk to the people that you need to support from culturally. And when you feel better, come back tomorrow. And so some of these are just some of the small things that allows, because when you give them those kind of supports, then they’re able to start planning the next step forward. And he moved on into employment. And a couple weeks ago I was outside and he is like, Natasha, Natasha.

Natasha Daniel (15:34):
I’m like, who is that is me? Like, what are you doing? He was doing skip the dish, but he’s a university student. Oh, wow. he is a university student. And he was just doing, skip the dish to make extra cash. So that’s just kind of some of the, the, the people that we experience in rebrand. And one of the things that I can say that learning working with youth is youth are so open. There’s never judgment in my classroom. They never judge. There’s so much support from one youth to the other, even though life experiences are different. They are one of the most open, hated group, I should say, within our society that a lot of people don’t know. A lot of people think that they’re lazy. A lot of people think that you’re paying for your games all day long.

Natasha Daniel (16:22):
And a lot of people think that, you know what, they, they just don’t wanna do anything. They just wanna BU around and all of that stuff. I don’t think they use the word bumming anymore. you’re showing your age, be careful. yeah. I don’t think I don’t that they would like, you know, and the thing about working with you, sometimes I say a word and like, like the other lady they said in my classroom, I’m like, what social media? Do you guys, you know apps and stuff, do you guys think that I have, and like, yeah, Natasha, we know you only have Facebook and one of them she’s like, and because you’re from the Caribbean, I know Caribbean, people love to talk to their family members and they only do WhatsApp and like, like yeah, know that, you know, on Instagram, you and I was, and I was like, whatever guys, whatever, , that’s so funny.

Natasha Daniel (17:22):
Yeah. And, and that’s to take, and, and even the fact that sometimes I said, sometimes in rebrand, I said, okay, tell me some of the I’m like, okay, well, let’s just, just, just, just, just write it down a little bit. You guys write some of the words that you say that we probably, that I probably wouldn’t know of, you know? And then they make me a whole list of kind of the, the, the, the pop culture words, and some of the regular words that they use now, so that I can be on the same lingo with them. yeah. , you know, and I think, so these are some of the things that, so for me, it’s just being open with them and making them, letting them know that you know, I’m not here to judge you. I want you, so I never forget that I was a huge, and I know we gonna all, sometimes we messed up.

Natasha Daniel (18:06):
Sometimes we make mistakes. And sometimes we, I says, you know what? I know. I know the days where, when I was in university, cuz I lived in Montreal and New York was right there, leave Montreal on a Friday, go club in Friday, Saturday sat up until Sunday night, you drive back into Montreal, you go to Tim Horton’s bathroom, wash up, you run to class. And then when school is finish on a Monday evening, you crash I’m like, and they were like, what? I’m like, those are some of the experiences, but how do you do things positively? You know, you can still experience live, but how do you do it in a positive way that it can help you increase your life management and become more aware of the part that you wanna go? You know? And every journey is a different journey. There’s so many, you know, youth and rebrand mental health, as I say you know, one of my rebrand pats was actually just from 2019 and this came, he came through the foster care system.

Natasha Daniel (19:09):
And when he came into rebrand, a smart kid, oh my gosh, like, cuz he has all, one of my, one of my coworkers say he reminds of Scooby duke because he was like, you know, bigger than my parents. But he was so he is such a smart kid and he would be there in the classroom. You teach him and is part of his ADHD and all of this FST and everything. But he’s there, he’s probably building a website, but he can tell you everything that you just said. And he wanted to go when we were part of the coach is looking at where do you wanna go? He says, you know, I really wanna do physio, arts. I wanna become a pilot, but I can’t afford it. And I says, but do know that there’s a program here in Alberta because you were in care, they can pay, you know, they can help you with your supports for education. I got him connected. We get to, we apply, we did the forms, we did everything. And he went forward into doing his assessments and everything to go to school as a pilot. So this is 2019 two weeks ago, cuz I’m not on Instagram again. he sent my other coworker, a video on Instagram to give to me, he was crossly he was flying cross Canada. Wow. yeah. And she came and she’s like, look at this. I’m like, what is that? And she’s like your student gauge. I’m like what? She’s like. Yeah.

Natasha Daniel (20:40):
He’s I on Instagram. And he was, he got yeah. And is accomplishing his goal of becoming a pilot. Wow. And this was 2019. Wow.

Sam Demma (20:54):
It, it sounds like the program really helps students lay the foundation for future success.

Natasha Daniel (21:01):
It does. And, and, and, and there, and no there’s by no means I wouldn’t say some of them drop out, but with me I am a high achiever. So from the get go, I, you know, they know that they have all of the supports that I said to them. Like, you know, I’m not working for you. We are working together. Yeah. And that’s my mantra when they come in, like I’m not working for you, we are working together. So with that, we, we have I used to have 12 for, for every four and a half months now I have 10. And for the most part I have eight, eight successful achievers all the time. Nice that they would go through the program, they would go into employment and figure their life part. And the thing about rebrand, because some of them who’s not completed high school cuz there’s a percentage of non high school completers.

Natasha Daniel (21:48):
They probably in school had negative experiences. Yeah. But coming into rebrand, it gives a different shift. Hmm. And then they, so, so for many of them, and I remember one of my UT said, you know what? After being in rebrand, I realized that I can go back to school now. Ah, because they have a lot of assignments that they’re given. There’s still some of the written work and the teamwork where you have to collaborate to the team and come up with ideas and, and you know, and also your critical thinking, what do you bring to this case study? So they do have work. That’s not structured like school, but they do have some work together increasing their knowledge and to get them to really articulate on pair with, you know, on the computers or whatever, what they’ve learned or how they would approach something.

Natasha Daniel (22:36):
And that helps someone who probably had a lot of challenges in school, realize that, you know, what, if I really am motivated and I can recommit myself, I can go back and complete my high school. So that’s one of the things that I know of, of a couple people who struggled in school and coming through rebrand and they realized that, oh, okay. And one of the things they always said, why did we learn this at school? Why did we learn this at school? And I says, you know what, sometimes school doesn’t, but you have the opportunity where you are here to, to, to get supports. And when we talk about what we are looking at now, we have mental health counseling that they can, you know, that we have a counseling session services that that we, the program pays for. They have also supports when they get employment.

Natasha Daniel (23:26):
So everything to remove the barriers from, you know, to keep them out of work. So they have so support for clothing to get them into employment. They have supports, they get bus tickets and stuff like that to help with the transportation. So every little thing that might become a barrier for a youth to not get in a job or not faking a job, the program tried to decrease those barriers. And then another, the other bigger support for them is that in comparison to a youth who has a job search on their own, we help with some of the employment connection. So if you are in the pro, if you are my participant in the program and I’ve seen your computer skills, I get a test, your time management. I know that you ha you have great communication skills. I know that you have a lot of leadership skills.

Natasha Daniel (24:10):
I, when we are looking for employment for them, I would market you to an employer and say, you know, this is such and such. I remember one of my UAN, she had some trauma was going to post secondary. And she stopped because of you know, being a domestic father and relationship. But then after she bounces back with con and all of that, and she she got with one of the employer connections I made. And he left her after three weeks to manage his driving school and insurance business. Wow. Because she had the skills. Yep. But its just that she didn’t know how to really formulate those skills into the language and then demonstrate them in the workplace by having that opportunity. And she excelled at her at her job and she’s still there today, you know? So that’s one of the things that we do with Reba when we have employers who we know, and especially when it’s an employer who have a hat for community, it makes it so much better and so much easier to really support a you to say you could accomplish all of this.

Natasha Daniel (25:15):
You know, I’ve had youth who came into the program and they got promoted from just being a regular employee to manager, warehousing manager. And so getting them to really become more self aware is one of the goals of the program. Because when they’re more self aware, we focus a lot on their strength. And that’s my thing. I wanna focus on your strength. I know you messed up a lot, Sam, but that’s not, that’s not who you are. You know? And my thing I also say to them fail means your first attempt in learning. Mm. So what did you learn from that? What did you learn from the jobs when you wouldn’t get up on time? What did you learn from, you know, and again, and I say to you, Dr. I know that when you don’t have anything to look forward to, you can go to bed at 2:00 AM in the morning, 3:00 AM in the morning.

Natasha Daniel (26:06):
When I try position from Montreal to Edmonton, that was my life. Cuz what, I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have to get up early to go anywhere. So I would stay up and I would be job searching at 2:00 AM, go to bed at three sleep all the way through, get up at 2:00 PM cuz I know my husband’s about to finish. And that’s how I, so it’s natural. And I think people have to admit to all of these things because it’s be, you know, adults do. I did it like I, them, I did it because I didn’t have any set schedule. I didn’t have any programs. I didn’t have anything to look forward to. Hmm. So I know that a you as a youth might do stuff like that, but how do you not stay in the moment? How do you not stay and dwelling it and look forward to something else?

Natasha Daniel (26:57):
And that’s what weand helps them to do. Look forward. I remember I had a tute rebrand. He was gonna have an assessment to join the program and he had finished full secondary doing graphic design. So website design and he forgot his appointment at 6:00 AM. He left me a message and he said, Hey Natasha this is Nicholas. I can’t remember what time is my appointment. But I’m now about to go to bed. Don’t call me during the day, cuz I’m going to bed at 6:00 AM, but you can text me and let me know what time is my appointment. Mm. So then I did call him later on in the day and I says to him, you got the oddity to tell me, don’t call you cuz you’re just going to bed. And, and that’s again, 6:00 AM. He’s going to bed because he’s still of all night playing for your game.

Natasha Daniel (27:49):
And I said to him, you know what, if you want to be in rebrand, you have to change the sleeping habits. Mm. The program is about to sat in two weeks. You’re gonna be in the program. I need you to start going to bed at a regular time. Yeah. So you can be in class by eight 30. Yeah. And you know what? He did it. Then he got his job as a first, as a, as a graphic designer. We got him this job, the kid was so happy and he called me a couple. I think it was last year. And he’s like, I missed you. I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. Don’t miss me. Stay on the job. and him, he, he was so happy to get because after he graduated from post secondary, for two years, he had, was doing nothing, playing for games.

Natasha Daniel (28:32):
He was so happy and was driving well in the job that he moved closer. So he to the employment. So he would have a for time. And I would say, I says, no, don’t call me. Don’t miss me at all. Don’t miss me, me stay on the job. And that’s just some of the small changes that’s required for you. So me saying to him, we adjust your sleep in habit. Because again, if you’re going into employment, I don’t think you’re gonna start. You know, you have to be depending on what way you wanna work, you have to be grounded to really be successful by just doing small, consistent action, which is one of your words. Yeah. Thank you. Consistent actions. Yeah. also a word that I like to tell him now and that small, consistent action is that adjusting my sleep in time. That’s all he needed. Yep.

Sam Demma (29:22):
Be successful. That’s awesome. I, we could talk for like two hours. Thank you so much for taking the time to share some of your stories. One last question. If you could speak to younger Natasha, not that you’re old, but if you could speak to, you know, first year working in the rebrand program, but with the knowledge and experience, you know, now what advice would you give your younger self?

Natasha Daniel (29:49):
What advice I would give my younger self and the advice I would give my younger self is from learning from the rebrand participants. I would tell myself right now, you know, take on more, get out of my comfort zone. Mm. Because I remember like I’m a personal even, you know, I, I get comfortable in my zone and then you know, that’s my zone. Oh. I would tell myself also shine myself, more shine, more like, you know, I write poems, I love writing and stuff like that. And everybody’s like, why don’t you? We didn’t know you. Right. We didn’t know you. Right. why don’t you publish a book and, and that’s just me just staying within my zone. Yeah. You know? And, and so I, soon as I write my poems and I share them more often, so that’s what I would tell myself, just be, get out of the comfort zone.

Natasha Daniel (30:37):
And, and, and this is what this generation of youths are teaching me how open they are and how open they are to new experiences. And not even just owning new experiences, how open they are to each other, like, you know, working with youths who are diverse cultural background, youth who are L G B T youths who have, you know you know, being maybe a criminal record history, two in a gang and they just embrace everybody and they just open to the experiences mm-hmm . So I would, that’s what I would tell myself as a younger, you know, back a youth back, you know, just younger again, like just be open, be more open. Now I became I’m open right now, but you know, if I, if it started back then, like, you know, the younger Natasha, I think I would’ve been like I would, I flourish. Well, I think I would just be like, Hmm That’s awesome. That’s what, and that is just all from, from the experience of working with youth and also you know, I, I, I tell them this now. And it’s just because from my experience was said, don’t let others define who you are. Don’t let others define who you are. You define who you are, because at the end of today, you would want, that has to live with you and not others.

Sam Demma (32:09):
Natasha, this has been a great conversation. Thank you again for taking the time to come on here. I really appreciate it. I look forward to future programs and working with you and the students keep up the great work, happy holidays. And we’ll talk soon.

Natasha Daniel (32:22):
Thank you, Sam. I do appreciate you. You know, I appreciate just, just the work that you’re doing to empower others and, and, and sharing your story. Like I was, you know, the other day when you sent me sent me the, the invite my son who’s nine. He was like, who’s the guy, like I’m gonna do a podcast. And so then he, I, I said, listen to his video, my son listened to one of your TED talks. Oh, wow. He’s into the he’s nine years old. He’s into stuff like this. And then he says to me, mommy on Saturday, he’s like, did you do the podcast?

Sam Demma (32:54):
That’s awesome.

Natasha Daniel (32:55):
And you know, and I, and then I, I was to him. Yeah. So Sam, you know, I think he used to, he used to play football and then my son, he corrects me, like he says, mommy, you know, he played soccer. was not football.

Sam Demma (33:11):
He’s attentive. That’s good.

Natasha Daniel (33:13):
yeah. Oh no, no. I, I was like, so I said to him, you know, like, so that’s just to show you, I don’t a nine year old kid is also empowered by what you do. Ah, thanks for sharing that. So I would just say, you know, keep up the good work and the fact that, I mean, coming from Reeb, right. Again, when you come and speak to our youths, a lot of you, they don’t see youths who can bring and shed light to a lot of what they go through. Mm. And this is what, from having you into rebrand from having a young computer instructor, we as MCG, make sure that we have, we get them to get that balance. Yeah. So that they’re not just learning from our experiences, but they also, so learning from people who are dear generation and people who can really identify to what their struggles and what their challenges are, you know, within living in the 21st century as a young person. Yeah. So thank you again for the good work that you’re doing. You too.

Sam Demma (34:19):
You too. And thanks for sharing those stories! We’ll talk soon.

Natasha Daniel (34:22):
No problem. Thank you.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Natasha Daniel

January 28, 2022 by Sam Demma Cooperative Education Education Consultant Experiential Learning Student Leadership Student Success 0

Pamela Pereyra – CEO & Founder of Media Savvy Citizens and Media Education Expert

About Pamela Pereyra

Pamela (@aducateme) is passionate about helping youth and adults in their drive for transformative experiences through critical thought, creative expression and hands-on play. Pamela is a leading voice in media education with over 20 years of experience as a designer, trainer, consultant, educator and advocate.

She is an authority in comprehensive media and digital literacy working with schools, nonprofits and companies to transform learning with media and technology. She has received the 2021 Media Literacy Community Award by the National Association for Media Literacy Education and the 2019 Media Literacy Champion Award by Media Literacy Now. As the chapter chair of New Mexico Media Literacy Now, she advocates for media literacy education for all students.

Pamela is the founder and CEO of Media Savvy Citizens, which facilitates understanding, positive participation and meaningful media interaction for learners. Their work is centred on building the capacity and resiliency of youth and adults in a changing technological world through media education and technology training, facilitation and consulting through hands-on experience. Media Savvy Citizens worked with 30 New Mexico school districts transitioning them into digital learning into 2020 and 2021.

She is also an adjunct instructor at the University of New Mexico and holds an MA in Media Studies.

Connect with Pamela: Email | Linkedin | Website | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Pamela Pereyra

Resources Mentioned

The National Association for Media Literacy Education

New Mexico Media Literacy Now

The Journal For Media Literacy Education

Media Savvy Citizens Youtube Channel

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:01):
Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s special guest is Pamela. And I’m so excited to have her on the show here today. Pamela, why don’t you introduce yourself and share a little bit about who you are?

Pamela Pereyra (00:19):
Okay. So my name is Pamela Perrera and it’s Pamela. That is just pronounced in Spanish, just for the people out there who are wondering what’s going on. Yeah. I am the founder and CEO of Media Savvy citizens, which works on media education initiatives and the understanding positive participant and meaningful media interaction for all learners. I’m also I live in the states and I’m the chair of New Mexico chapter chair of New Mexico media literacy. Now, which advocates for media literacy education in the state of New Mexico.

Sam Demma (01:02):
You’re like the media ninja, the media expert. What is media, how do you define and explain media to somebody else?

Pamela Pereyra (01:12):
That is a great question. And I think everybody has their own conceptual ideas depending on like when they were born so when they came into this world and what their experiences are, there’s like media legacy, right? Which is like broadcasting and television and radio and the, but there’s also new media, right? Which is digital technology media. And so media in this broader scope is any form communication that is not face to face. So, if you think about it, any, if it goes through a medium, any communication that goes through a medium is a form of media. Mm. So a podcast is media, a, brand on a t-shirt is a form of media that has a communication, right? Mm-hmm so it’s like a billboard is media, a poster is media and ucell phone is media. And also like all the apps in the cell phone are different forms of me. So like most of what we do in our lives, especially now,uin 2022 and 2022 are, mediated communications. Right? Most of the work that we do, even our schooling is through mediums. Right. We go on the internet, we search things. We, participate in social media. We take pictures, we share, means all of those things are media and mm-hmm.

Sam Demma (03:01):
Yeah. It’s, it’s a big concept.

Pamela Pereyra (03:05):
It is a big concept. Right. So literacy like media literacy, right. Is being literate, being able to read and really read in like a conceptual way. Right. So being able to like, understand how these, all these different technologies work how we participate with them, how we act with them and also like you know, how we create with all of these technologies, right. So we can be passive or we can be active depending on our mood.

Sam Demma (03:39):
And I think whether you’re passive or active with the media, it’s important that you understand how it works and you understand, and are aware and media literate, like you’re saying, why do you think it’s important that someone is media literate or, and understands media?

Pamela Pereyra (03:58):
Well, we’re bombarded we with media, right? We live in a mediated world. We have people who are creating messages for us with different intentions. Right. And are they, and being aware and just taking the time to reflect and understand, is this a fact, is it an opinion, am I being persuaded who think a certain way or behave in a certain way? And so part of that, like media literacy is just taking a moment, you know, and taking a, a, you know, breathing space to understand what is happening. And also like, am I gonna participate? Am I gonna share this information? And if I share, how does that impact people? So yeah. And so like, is it not, you know, important to understand the world in which we live and the world in which we live is, is impacted by all different forms of communication, whether it’s entertainment or whether it’s work related and doing any kind of internet search, you know, or working like a two or three year old who have, you know, who are given tablets, right. These are tools that we use. And so being media literate just makes us a stronger, more engaged citizen, conscious of what’s happening and possibly even a more engaged in civics and possibly society and our democracies.

Sam Demma (05:27):
What got you inspired to work in this vocation to spread media literacy as much as you can, because it’s important work and you’re obviously extremely passionate about it. So what prompted you to start and get into it?

Pamela Pereyra (05:44):
Well, it’s been a process. I started out back in the nineties as a journalist, I studied communications. I understand, I understood and had studied public relations and like how messages are put together from the ideas of like layout to colors and the psychology of color to influence people, to make them feel certain things, to give, you know, provide certain headline, to engage people to, you know, and so everybody has different motivations, right. For putting messages together. And I realized that I didn’t really wanna do that. I wanted to work with youth and talk about a lot of these things and talk about how media function. And so it kind of started with a, well, it started with me like working in film and journalism and moving in publicity and then realizing I didn’t really wanna be a producer so much as I wanted to discuss a lot of these things with, with youth and, you know, how have a different kind of impact I am a producer, we’re all producers, you know, if we press like that’s producing something, it’s producing a message.

Pamela Pereyra (07:05):
Right. And, and so for me, like really working with students and like getting into a classroom, I did that through a film festival. I worked for this film festival and expanded their education programs. And so I worked with a lot of teens and we made all kinds of media and films and audio pieces, but we also discussed the impact of, you know, FM messages and the impact of media. And I felt like it was a good, well rounded form of like working with youth and seeing how positive, what a positive impact it had on teen’s lives and how they were thankful, you know, for being, going through the process and, you know, discussing things that for them felt really real and like authentic and things that were relevant to them. And so that has been, my driving force is really working with teens and seeing like the impact, you know, that that being media literate can have on people. And so I have not stopped because I feel like it helps, there is like a balance there, right? Like if we are just sitting back and only consuming, what does that do for us, you know, as a society. Right. So it’s great to consume. It’s also great to produce, and it’s great to do both and to consume with a consciousness and an awareness around like what’s happening.

Sam Demma (08:42):
It’s important, regardless of what subjects students are learning in school that they’re taught and explained, I think in some sort of context with global awareness with what’s going on in the world with media literacy. And I’m wondering what you think some of the key concepts are that you can pull from media literacy and, and apply to classroom learning that maybe an educator listening to might explore, look into or think about how they could tie into their own classrooms.

Pamela Pereyra (09:13):
Yeah. Well, media education fits into any subject, right? Yeah. Whether you’re working with math and like graphs and data and statistics, or whether you’re working in a social studies classroom or a English language arts classroom, or a health classroom, there are different concepts that educators can different concepts that educators can implement in their classroom. So there are different ways. So one of ’em is like, before I get into some of these concepts, one of ’em is like using media as a, as a way to like spur discussion, right? Like using a video or, you know, using media in the classroom and, you know, discussing things, making media, like making a video for instruction. So the educator can make a video for instruction or an educator can ring in media and like work on different projects and have students participate with that media as a learning tool and then even make, there are little podcasts in the classroom about like what the reflection was.

Pamela Pereyra (10:29):
Right. So when looking at different media we have like to discover meaning and it is, we go through a series of like questions. So there are like five major, key media literacy questions to look at. And this is like when you’re studying different ideas. So let’s just say somebody brings in, in a math class, a statistic and an infographic, right. On something, whether it be math class or science, I mean, it could be COVID right. So it could be like a COVID related science message and, and statistics. Right. So you, you could look at it from different way, but one of the things that you would look at the first one would be author and authorship who created the message, like who is the author who paid for that message. That’s also part of the authorship, right? Like where is this message coming from?

Pamela Pereyra (11:34):
So that’s one, the other the other thing would be purpose. Like why did somebody create this message? Were they trying to inform, were they trying to entertain? Were they trying to persuade have you think a certain way or act a certain way. Right. So discovering purpose, symbols and techniques is another, like, what symbols are they using? What techniques are they using to, to hook you, to hold your attention? So this may be you know, it could be D different words that are being used, different length, which like is their language loaded, is are the symbols like, are they using certain colors, like lots of red? Are they, you know, like, you know, what, what symbols and techniques are they using? If it’s a YouTube video are people you know, using sources and do, you know, does the information is the, you know, you’re looking at context as well, right?

Pamela Pereyra (12:43):
So like what are those techniques, even within like a, a YouTube video or something like that. Right. So then you’re looking at representation, point of view, whose point of view is this coming from? Right. So is this point of view whose point of view is being presented and who’s this not like who’s being represented and who’s not, you know, if you’re looking at a historical piece of writing to look at point of view is like fascinating. And, you know, when you bring in the concept of global right. A global world in which we live, and especially since we’re living in a network world, we are, we are, you know, global, right. So we are way more connected to anybody anywhere in the world and at the touch of a fingertip or cell phone. Right. so we are looking at like, what it, you know, what, what historical perspective would they be presenting this information from, if you’re so that’s representation, right.

Pamela Pereyra (13:49):
If you’re looking at different messages, right? Like, or a text and a history book, where is this text coming from? Mm-Hmm so you are really kind of decoding in order to code, right. It like looking at all this stuff, the, the last part would be interpretation. And like, what did I learn from this message? Like, how did that change me? How did, how might different people interpret a message? You know, being a woman and being a brown woman in my interpretation of certain messages are sometimes just the frame in which I look at my world, come from that place. Also being media literate, I continually continually ask questions of any, you know, infographic or piece of data, where did this, where’s this coming from? Is this credible? Is it not like who’s the author, you know, all of those things, but also you can have, like, teachers would have students make a certain infographic, right.

Pamela Pereyra (14:46):
For a, a science class or a, and so understanding the process of what goes into media making and also deconstructing the, to then construct, right? Like, why am I making this infographic? Who I, who am I whose point of view am I representing? Even with numbers and data, people represent a point of view. And so it’s like, seems a little bit kind of hard to conceptualize, but going through a process of like practice and practicing these, these questions like where you ask the questions and you decode, but then you also encode, right? You also code these things. You also can make an infographic. You can make a meme, you know, know and make it funny and make, you know, and bring that into learning and talk about point of view, you know, in a, in a meme, or you can pull a meme and kind of deconstruct it as a form of text.

Pamela Pereyra (15:43):
So a lot of what we do is like bring in these PE pedagogy, right? The pedagogy in the classroom and have teachers go through this process of like becoming and embodying the concepts of media literacy so that you know, where they’re consuming and decoding, but they’re also constructing so that then they can like help their students construct for the classroom for learning. There are more concepts, you know, and some of ’em are like media construct, our culture, you know, they shape culture, right? Mm-Hmm and media messages, do they affect our thoughts or attitudes or actions? They are, are most powerful when they operate on an emotional level and have emotional power. They Def always reflect the point of view, right. They always reflect the values, the viewpoint and intentions of media makers. Right. So anybody who’s making a message has a point of view that they’re shared and they have values and viewpoints.

Pamela Pereyra (16:56):
And so understanding that is important. So media messages contain texts, but they also contain subtexts. So what that means is there’s like what is said, but is also what is not sad was like implied. Yep. Right. So these are like, this is part of that framework for media literacy and like kind of going through a process of using media, but also like when I have students in, in the classroom, when I have students make something like, let’s just say, we’re gonna all make memes today and we’re gonna make memes on, you know, any subject matter that would be relevant. That is being studied. Like we’re making memes on the American revolution. So you study the American revolution you make, possibly will make a mean, but then you deconstruct a memes and understand like, what is a mean, you know, and what, you know, and, and how do they function to be able to make a meme, but then it’s related to whatever is being studied.

Pamela Pereyra (18:02):
Right? Mm-hmm so it might be related to the American revolution. And you know, what, if you, okay, everybody make a meme from this point of view, or from that point of view, make a meme from the point of view of a revolutionary or make a meme from a different point of view. And so it really helps bring, drive home the concept of like, what is being studied, but also that, like the understanding that there are different points of view and that there are different authors and there are every author has a purpose. Yeah. And every per, you know, and every message can be interpreted in a certain way. And so those are some of like the conceptual pieces that we put into practice, right? These are just like theory, right? These are concepts, but then to put them in a practice and to really bring that have teachers, like when we work with teachers, we have teachers use a lot of these concepts. They go through a process of a hands on decoding and then a hands on like making stuff. And it’s really fun. And they, they get to plan, you know, a lesson, they take a lesson and maybe like revamp it and be, make it media literacy focused. Uand that’s always really fun for teachers because they get to like sit down and like plan and figure out like, how can I make this more of a media literate lesson when I I’m already it’s some that already exists. Right.

Sam Demma (19:33):
Tell me more about the importance of the author. I think that’s a really cool concept. And I’m curious if any examples come to mind where you think it would’ve been very helpful for society to know who the author was of a certain message. I think about nutrition. And, and I watched a couple of documentaries on, and this is two years ago, and this is also, again, if I asked myself these questions, I would’ve had a better perspective on the documentary itself, but it was a documentary about not being vegan, but it was a document tree on reducing our intake of meat. And they started showing that behind most of the dairy and meat industry is like one sole company or like one massive company that has like 50 brands under it. And it’s like really one author. But then if I ask myself who made the documentary, there’s a whole other author who made, who made that with a whole different purpose. I’m curious why you think it’s so important that we ask ourselves who the author is when consuming a piece of media.

Pamela Pereyra (20:44):
I mean, this is like, authorship is like, it’s huge, right? Yeah. So, and a piece of media could be a lot of different things, right? Yeah. You were watching a documentary. And so to have that understanding of point of view, right? Like it’s all kind of related. Yeah. Because the author has a point of view. Right. And it’s made for a purpose and the purpose of that documentary for you, it was possibly made. So people could stop eating meat and become vegan because they were influence and it was meant to influence people to feel certain things. So they showed you certain images, those are symbols and techniques. Right. And they were presenting a certain point of view that was who have you be against eating meat. Right. Yeah. And so understanding the author really helps you understand the message right. And where it’s coming from and why it’s being put together.

Pamela Pereyra (21:40):
So when we’re looking at like a post truth world, right. We’re looking at like, what is, you know, when we’re discerning, whether it’s a piece of news, whether it is a presidential speech, whether it’s you know, a meme, a silly meme. Yeah. You know, if you are looking on know a lot of young people get their news from Instagram, right. So it’s like a caption and actually it doesn’t give you the whole story. So you don’t actually get the whole story. You only get a tiny component of it. So that also is like, has almost a different kind of authorship than the actual story. So when you’re looking at author, if you’re looking at you’re also thinking for me, you know, when we dig deeper and you go deeper into this kind of work, we’re looking at bias, right. So we’re looking at like, where is the bias and what is the bias?

Pamela Pereyra (22:44):
And like, even like, if I look at a media or article, right. A news article, the bias, like first I might be looking at like, okay, the author is Sam Demma. Right. That’s the byline, but, and Sam Demma may have written the article, but also Sam Demma works for a certain company. Right. That has certain point of view that they’re, you know, trying to relay. So if you’re looking at, you know, is I always look at, when I look at news, I think about, is this left leaning? Is it right? Leaning? Is it more central? Do these people stick to the facts? Do they not? Like there are a lot of a few different, and for news literacy, there are like media bias fact check. Right. Mm-hmm like, so there’s you can go and look at media bias and figure out like, where’s the bias in this company.

Pamela Pereyra (23:45):
Right. But also like, so you might realize like, oh, this is extreme, right. Or this is right leaning, or this is extreme, left or left leaning. Or this is, you know, they’re presenting news. Especially if you look at news, cuz it’s supposed to be centered, right. It’s supposed to be objective and presenting both sides of the story, but is it trying to influence you still to look at a, in a certain influence you to, to, to lean in a certain way? And so when you’re looking at author, I look at the byline who the person is. I look at the company and who the company is. I look at the bias and what the biases of that company also, like it might be the funders like of different like organizations or companies, like how is this project being funded? Who’s funding it.

Pamela Pereyra (24:38):
And like, where’s the money coming to back up, you know, to back the, that project. And so it’s, you know, it’s, it’s really quite complex because there are many authors to one piece of news or one documentary, like you said, right. So it might be like the person, the director of that documentary and the writer of a documentary, but also like the, you know, like, is it whoever put out that memory, right. Is it like 21st century Fox or is it, you know, Warner brothers or is it Disney? And you know, like who’s putting that out and you know, and so there are, there are many authors yeah. To, to a piece of media, you know? Uso that, and also when you’re looking at stuff that could be,unot credible, I guess, would be the, the right word when you’re looking at information that could be not credible.

Pamela Pereyra (25:37):
That lacks credibility, the lacks validity then is, is important to understand when you’re looking at authorship to know like, how do you find something, whether something is credible or not, how do you know if something is reliable? How do we know if something is valid? And there’s a whole process that we go through, which is gonna take me to train you Sam you’re probably, and you know, like that, because it’s, it’s a process, you know, and it’s practicing the, these skills. Like it’s not a one time shot. It’s not even like a one semester shot. It’s ongoing from kindergarten through college and onward on through your life, you know, to continually practice these skill sets, you know, to ask questions and be curious about media and message and like, you know, and what that is a, a book, a textbook is a piece of media that has a point of view and has, you know, authors and, you know, if, and so who are those authors?

Pamela Pereyra (26:46):
What is their point of view and how is it being presented whose point of view is being presented. So all of that can be decoded from a textbook and also what’s inside that textbook. Right. And so to understand that just means that we begin to understand, like by and begin to understand point of view and representation and begin to understand our world in a different way. When we ask questions, when we go through the process of inquiry, you know, of of communications, right? And like question our world and question our, you know, question the Instagram posts that we see and we, you know, and we question it in a curious way, it doesn’t need to be negative. Yeah. It doesn’t need to be like bad. It’s just like, I, media literacy, doesn’t tell people what to think. It just helps people to go it through a process of how do you go through the process of critical thinking, right?

Pamela Pereyra (27:48):
Yeah. Like, how do you do that? How do you, you know, ask questions of authorship to understand if something is credible or not credible. Right. Got it. And if something is like a conspiracy or not like, how do you figure that out? You know? And there are, and so we have to continually go through the processes. And I do a lot of research. I of like, when I look at an author, I don’t just look at like, who is Sam Demma? You know? I mean, I actually, don’t just look at the author and like read the article I go through and figure out who is the, you know, the author’s name, right? Who is Sam? What is he? You know, what do other people say about Sam? Like, and like, I, what is called what used to be called, like triangle reading. And, but now it’s called lateral reading.

Pamela Pereyra (28:36):
When you do the research and you read across and you open up a bunch of tabs to figure out who is the telling the story about this documentary, like, yeah. Not just like who is the director, but is like, who is this company? And who is, you know, and who are these brands that are trying to influence me to, you know, to drop eating meat and to be vegan and, you know, and what’s, you know, all of that. So I think in the end know, authorship, I know this is a long, you know, I know this is a really long answer, but I think authorship is like so important because understanding who is putting messages together and why really helps us understand what’s credible. What’s not especially right now, you know, and we’re, we’re living and I’m just gonna repeat myself where we’re living in this in a, in a world that is complex.

Pamela Pereyra (29:31):
And it’s hard to understand, like there are a lot of authors there, EV anybody’s a producer, anybody could put, you know, could produce information. And is there information credible? Like when sometimes within a piece, somebody might quote a doctor. I go and figure out, is this doctor who is this doctor? You know, is it a doctor, a philosophy that’s actually being quoted for a, you know, for a scientific, you know, opinion, you know, piece, is this like, so then a doctor of philosophy would then make that person that credible, right. If they’re being quoted in something that just because they’re a doctor, doesn’t make him an expert in COVID, doesn’t make him an expert in like, you know, whatever is that they’re talking about. So even within a piece, I go, I might search different people different because they’re also, you know, part of the whole story.

Sam Demma (30:24):
It, I got it. And media literate, like citizens in society is so important. If educators are listening and want to integrate media literacy more into their classroom, one way they could do it is by going on your website, media savvy citizens, and getting in touch with you but how else can they learn? How, what, what can they read? What other pieces of media have you found very insightful in your own journey of learning about media literacy? any books, courses, videos that you think educators should check out as a, or to start their own journey.

Pamela Pereyra (31:04):
Yeah. And I’m glad you asked that there there’s a lot of information out there. Media literacy has become more and more popular. And just to clarify, there are media literacy is this big umbrella, which looks over news literacy, which is a subset information literacy C, which is also a subset digital literacy, digital citizenship. So depending on what they’re looking at, they’re looking for, they can find different information. Some people call digital media production, media literacy. Well, it’s just like a small component of it, but it’s not all of it. And then, you know, and so, you know, it’s, it’s, I just wanna make that distinction. Sure. Because if you just look up the word media literacy, like you’re gonna find only news literacy or only certain, you know points of view that it’s not the whole scope. So the national association for media literacy education is a great resource.

Pamela Pereyra (32:01):
That is a resource for educators. That really breaks down a lot of these concepts that I talked about, the key media literacy questions and like resources there. They have they put together a journal, which is a journal for media literacy education. I think it’s called. And so they, you know, you can go through them. There are also the I’m the, like I said, I was, I’m the chapter chair for New Mexico media literacy now, but media literacy now is an advocacy organization and they also have a ton of resources on their website. So it’s media literacy now.org. And they have a lot of resources on their website to access different information and courses and different things. And not courses necessarily, but just entities, you know, that are media receive media education entities. So yes, media savvy citizens, which is my project.

Pamela Pereyra (33:06):
We have a lot of resources, our YouTube channel, lots of webinars and different resources on our highlights page that people can access for, you know, for free and different like information specific to media. Like I, the scope of media education. Hmm. Yeah. So those are some places to go to. And, you know, and now if somebody wants to just specifically deal with news, then you know, they’d be looking at news literacy. You know the center for news literacy is a great place, you know, for just news literacy resources, but media literacy overall in general and resources for media literacy, I think is net national association for media literacy education is a great place to start. Sounds

Sam Demma (33:57):
Good. And where can someone send you a message by email online? What would be the best way for them to get in touch?

Pamela Pereyra (34:07):
Yes. Thank you for asking. So Media Savvy Citizens is the name of my entity. And so my name is spelled like Pamela. So they could just email me pamela@mediasavvycitizens.com. You can, most people can just go on my website, https://www.mediasavvycitizens.com/ and go to the contact page. You can, people can subscribe there and they can just peruse the website, my, my events page and my past events page. I have tons of resources there as well. So any talk that I have done this specific piece of in this interview, I will put a link together there once, you know, I get the link. So any interview that like media savvy citizens has been involved in, and there was a lot of information there as well. So as far as resources, and then as far as contacting me, go to the website to the contact page.

Sam Demma (35:12):
Pamela, thank you so much for taking your time to come on the show. It’s been a pleasure. Keep up the great work and all the best in 2022.

Pamela Pereyra (35:20):
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate your time.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Pamela Pereyra

January 28, 2022 by Sam Demma Experiential Learning Founder and CEO President Student Success Teaching Tips 0

Larry Tomiyama – Consultant and Retired Administrator with 32 Years of Experience in Education

About Larry Tomiyama

After spending over 30 years of his life as an administrator in the Calgary School system in Canada, Larry (@TomiyamaLarry) was gifted the opportunity to work with some of the most vulnerable and behavioural students in his school system. Through that experience, Larry learned so much about trust, trauma-informed teaching, and how to build really deep relationships with kids.

He believes that his opportunity to work in this environment was a gift from God because it truly changed the way Larry understood education, leadership and life. He was so motivated to share his discoveries, he left the school district so he could speak with other educators and leaders about what he had learned.

Connect with Larry: Email | Website | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Robert Greenleaf’s book – Servant Leadership

Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education – Book

What is Trauma-Informed Teaching?

Calgary Board of Education

In Everything Give Thanks (website)

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:01):
Larry welcome to the high performing educator podcast. Please introduce yourself and share a little bit about the work you do in education.

Larry Tomiyama (00:11):
Thanks. It’s a pleasure and privilege to be here, Sal. It was great to meet you the other month and I’m happy to be here today. So I’m a,, I guess a lifelong educator, if you count of when I was in school it would be 55 years almost that I’ve been in school as either a student a teacher, a university professor. And I guess even the speaking that I do right now and the everything that I get to do right now is due to the path that God provided the opportunities that he provided for me. And it all kind of culminated in the last two years of my K to 12 teaching career with the Calgary Catholic school district. And in those last two years, I got to work with, be the principal of a school that educated the most behavioral, the most vulnerable, the most volatile students in the city of Calgary.

Larry Tomiyama (01:19):
But those students and the staff that I got to work with taught me changed and transformed the way I think about education, about life and about leadership. And I believe it’s been my calling for the last five or six years to go share this information with anybody who wants to listen because it’s it, to me, it was, it just put everything into perspective. It made sense to everything, to that part of things. So I don’t know if you want to hear anything a little bit about my, how I grew up and things like that, but really everything is kind of culminated. And the purpose of, I think why I’m on earth is occurred in, in that little space of time. I’m in, in the last five years,

Sam Demma (02:06):
What a beautiful realization to have and to still be able to share and have the time to share these things, which is phenomenal. I think you’re doing an amazing job. Please take us back to when you were growing up, tell us a little bit about your upbringing and also what got you into education in the first place, or should I say made you never leave?

Larry Tomiyama (02:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, my, parents were both, Japanese. My mom was born in Japan. My dad was born in, Canada and, so I grew up in a small Alberta town of Taber, Alberta. 5,000 people there. It was a fantastic place to grow up. Small town, you went to school there. My dad owned a service station in a town, just, just east of the city. my mom worked in a canning factory, canning vegetables when she wasn’t, at home chasing us around, I have two brothers and a sister and, get to hang out with them in Calgary. So that’s, it’s great. both my parents have passed at this at right now, but, certainly the work ethic and the example that they provided will live on. And I hope, and I know that, they’re in heaven right now and I’m happy with most of the stuff that I do.

Larry Tomiyama (03:34):
But I’m sure wanna criticize me as well, too. So I’m, I’m okay with that. I’m okay with that. I went played a lot of baseball and basketball as I grew up and sports is a big part of my life and was able to pass that on to our kids, my own kids as I grew up. So went to the university of Calgary, started my teaching career in Calgary and never left and had a really, really fulfilling career as a teacher, as a principal worked at the, our central office for a little while and then kind of only moved into the post-secondary world. But that’s been part of it, but really the again, things really culminated in basically 2015 to 2017. And in those two years that I got to work with those students. My wife was gonna kill me, as I said, right after that, then I know I have to go share this information and I decided to leave the district. And that was not part of our retirement plan, but it had to be done. Luckily I’m still married. So,ushe was okay with it.

Sam Demma (04:57):
Hey, sometimes you have to ask for forgiveness and not permission, right.

Larry Tomiyama (05:02):
That was definitely one of those occasions sound I don’t re I don’t recommend it, but it worked out. Okay.

Sam Demma (05:09):
Bring us into the environment of the school that you had the opportunity to work in. I don’t think every educator understands the feeling, the experience. Tell us a little bit about, and also what you learned

Larry Tomiyama (05:23):
You bet. I think if it’s okay with you, Sam, I’ll tell you a little bit about it and then I’ll tell you a story. And it really it kind of, I think people get a better visual visualization of what’s there. Sure. So our lady alert school was created to educate those students because of their behavior, because of their brokenness, because of their issues that they were having. They couldn’t be successful in any other school. So they needed a place to go to do things maybe a little bit differently than other schools but to see if we could help them provide some type of therapy for them to get them to the point where they might be able to integrate themselves back into regular school. So most of the time these students been suspended or expelled from other schools and there’s really no else, nowhere else for them to go.

Larry Tomiyama (06:22):
So we got to educate them in our building. So we had 60 students. Half the building was for really cognitively delayed and students with severe, severe autism. And the other half was the students who, and I called them to screw you kids because they had no problem telling to, to screw off and many other things as well. But they were just students who had experienced no success in school. And as we found out lots of trauma that they experienced that caused them to not be able to function. And it was our opportunity that we got to help them function in a way that they can be a little bit more successful. So the story that kind of illustrates this really, really well is a story. I call this student little G I gave all my students nicknames and Ralph was really, really good then, and the kids really liked it.

Larry Tomiyama (07:31):
So they liked, they liked that name. So this guy was little G little G came to us in kindergarten. Story is that at the age of two little G had to be removed from his biological parents because his biological father was sexually abusing him. At age of four he was in the foster system and social services felt it was important for little G to be with a sibling to try and get a family connection. So little G was moved into a foster home with his 12 year old brother. He was four at the time that lasted about six months and he had to be removed from that house because his 12 year old brother was sexually abusing him. Enter us. We normally didn’t take students that young at five, we usually took them at grade three.

Larry Tomiyama (08:31):
We wanted them to go into a regular system and see if they could function. And then if there was a problem we would try and step in, but myself and our psychologist went to go see little G in his school that he was at. And we saw this cute, angry, sad, outta control, little boy. And I looked at her and she looked at me and we looked at each other and said, we gotta take him. So I entered little G into our school. I, he started in September. The hope was that we would hear at some point that little G was gonna be adopted. That was really the goal, social services working super, super hard to try and make that happen. And it was like November. And in November, we got the word that little G there was a family from out of town that was extremely interest in little G.

Larry Tomiyama (09:38):
It was like a party at our school. We started planning the party. His last day was gonna be December 22nd. I think it was the last year of school. And then he was gonna leave school with the family and go to their help. And in in conversations and therapy sessions little G had mentioned over and over and over again that he just wanted to call somebody, mom and dad again. And so we heard this news, we did everything. We invited the family in. We saw, we let little G be with his perspective parents. As many times as we could at school, things were looking really, really good. And I remember it so clearly it was December 21st, the last day before school was to let out. And I got a call from Steve, the social worker, and Steve said, Larry, I’ve got some bad news. I said, what’s that? The parents can’t take little G they’re not ready. They don’t want ’em. I don’t know what the reason was, but they can’t take ’em. So I’ll be there tomorrow morning, the last day of school tomorrow morning to let little G know that that’s what the situation was.

Larry Tomiyama (10:55):
Selfishly, selfishly, on my part, I it’s, Steve, this is. You’re gonna come to school at nine o’clock wreck this kid’s life again, and we’re gonna have to deal with them for the rest of the day. I’ve got no choice, Larry. We gotta do it. Fair enough. So December 22nd rolls around we’re in the conference room, I’m sitting across a little G little G’s teacher is sitting across from Steve. The social worker. We bring little G in our little G’s teacher is she’s crying already. And we’re just waiting. So the meeting starts and Steve communicates the little GE gee, I’m sorry that the, the adoption didn’t go through the, family’s not gonna take you and you’re not gonna be going home with them today. And I just put my head down and waited for the explosion and to everyone’s surprise, LGI jumps up onto the table that we are at jumps into my lap and says, that’s okay, Steve, Mr. T that’s me, Mr. T you’ll be my dad. Right.

Larry Tomiyama (12:23):
And I had nothing and I was praying to God, what the hell do I say? What do give some words, gimme some words. And what came outta my mouth was absolutely. I will always be your dad at school. G always, always, always. And he jumps outta my, laughing into this teacher’s lap who can’t even talk and says, and miss G you’ll be my mom too. Right. And I, and she couldn’t even breathe. So I took her head and I motioned it for a nodding action. So she would say, yes, I think that was a yes. G you’re doing okay.

Larry Tomiyama (13:03):
So the, the reason why I tell that story is because we got to work with these students who experienced trauma and everything else that no student should ever, ever have to experience, but we got the chance through the model that we used to get that kid to the point where he thought enough of us thought enough of me thought enough of his teacher, that he might be able to call him mom and dad. And we have that opportunity every day. And this is an extreme case for sure. But every day, as educators, as teachers that we have, when we get to step in front of our students, there’s lots of little G’s out there, lots. And in order for us to be able to tee each them, those kids need to feel safe and they need to feel that somebody cares about them.

Larry Tomiyama (14:04):
And I don’t care if you’re in grade, if you’re in kindergarten and grade 12, that, that model, that formula in order to make those kids safe and secure prior to teaching them and get them to trust you. It just spoke volumes to us as a staff. And we got to do this every day. Not that it was easy. In fact, it was brutal sometimes, but to be able to do that, it showed me why we got into the business at educating and teaching kids and how we can get them to learn to like themselves enough to be productive in the, in, in whatever that they do. So, like I said, I can go into the model a little bit more if you want, but certainly he’s a great example of teaching us what needs to be done with these, with some of these kids.

Sam Demma (15:08):
Wow. But before we jump into the model and talk about that a little bit, can you share in your perspective how you believe you’re able to build trust with students? Not only the challenging ones, but also the easy ones. You shared some experiences on our previous call that really highlighted how I believe, you know, sometimes building trust is a long process and can be very challenging, but once you have it, like you just explained with little G it becomes a beautiful thing. How do you think you build it?

Larry Tomiyama (15:46):
It doesn’t matter if the, I mean, if, if a student is traumatized or not, sometimes, I mean, and, and the model speaks to it really well at the bottom of the model before anything happens, it’s safety. So the student needs to feel safe and how we define safety. When we worked with these kids was that the student needs to be able to predict what’s gonna happen next. That’s what safety is because in their lives, in their homes, in their situations, you’re not safe. If you can’t predict, I don’t, they can’t predict how mom’s drunk boyfriend is gonna act. They can’t predict if they’re gonna have supper that day. They can’t predict if they get in trouble, what that’s gonna look like. So we are able at school will be able to create an environment where they can predict what’s gonna happen regardless of, of how they act, what they say or what they do.

Larry Tomiyama (16:41):
They’ll be able to predict how we’re gonna act towards them and that’s respect respectfully, lovingly whatever we need to do that doesn’t, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t consequences. Cause there consequ are critical, but students need to feel safe. The next step that we need after we got them to feel safe, we called it security and security is that they’re willing to do things, even though they might fail, they feel secure enough because of the adults in the room or their teacher or whomever that even though if they fail, it’s gonna be okay. And kids, especially kids who struggle in school, they don’t, they’d rather not try than fail. So we need to get ’em to that point where you know what it’s okay to. And I actually, I was listening to another podcast and people didn’t like that word failure. So they used the word falling instead of failure.

Larry Tomiyama (17:46):
And I kind of like that, cuz falling gives the connotation that that you followed, but you want to get up as well. Mm like that. I like that. Yeah. So, so first safety, security, and then trust and trust was vague. They knew how we were going to react in every situation, even though it was a consequence and, and there were, there were students that I suspended. But they knew that what was gonna happen, they were able to predict that part of things as well. The reaction of, of somebody when things didn’t go right. And once that was there ex that’s when the magic happened, but that sometimes that took years, but even, even in a regular classroom, their kids that, that are trustworthy already, just because they’ve had pretty solid background, loving parents, et cetera. But they still used to it’s they still gotta trust you so you can prove it to them.

Larry Tomiyama (18:54):
And it comes pretty easy for a lot of kids and teachers. But it’s that bottom third to bottom quarter where it’s not easy. So we have to work a little bit harder. We have to make an effort. They might be the kid in the class. And you might think that kid is the greatest kid in the world. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t bother me. He’s fantastic. But he might not feel safe. So we need to go and make an effort to create those relationships with those kids. It’s easy for the kids that you, like. I tell the kids that, you know, the teachers in training that you think you’re gonna, like all the kids, you’re not gonna like all the kids. In fact, you might not, you might dislike a lot of them or some of them, the key is they can’t know that every kid in that class needs to think that you’d love them. Your inside voice might not say so, but it’s okay. They just need to know that you care about them and yell. And then, like I said, that’s where the joy of teaching comes from when you get that pack from the students. So hopefully it might be kind of confusing, but hopefully I explained it.

Sam Demma (20:13):
Okay. You did a phenomenal job explaining that. And it leads me to my next curious question, where have your principal’s ideas come from? It sounds like a lot of them have come from your past experience. The two years spent in this school and the 55. So or so years you spent in education altogether, but what resources, what courses, books programs, anything have you used or consumed that have been very helpful in helping you make a bigger impact on kids in the classroom and also as an administrator?

Larry Tomiyama (20:53):
Yeah. You know what it’s to say that there was I mean, a, a big on Robert Greenleaf’s book, servant leadership was certainly influential in my life, but you know, most of my stuff and, and most of the things that I speak about is from firsthand experience stuff that I screwed up royally as a principal, as a thing, and then to be able to think back record it, document it and understand, okay, that’s, that’s why I messed up on that. I should have it this way, or I should have asked for more input this way or they didn’t trust me yet. So I’ve taken what those kids taught me and the model that we used there and brought it back to the way that I was a leader in the way, the, the successes that I had and the failures that I had. And it’s all the same thing when I messed up.

Larry Tomiyama (21:51):
And, and I thought my staff should act this way and they didn’t it’s because I didn’t take the proper steps to get ’em safe. They didn’t feel safe. They didn’t certainly didn’t trust me. After a year, two and a half, they trusted me and then I could, then we do anything and everything. And we created culture. That was amazing, but it took me that while. So like I said, it was a culmination of those two years, but all the years that I was a principal and as a, a leader with the district and things like that, it all made sense to me when I got to live it with these students. And it made sense why I fell or failed in that situation. And it made sense why I am success. I was successful in many of those ventures. If there’s another book that I’m, that’s really influential in my life, right, right now it’s called neuro teach and is written by educators.

Larry Tomiyama (22:55):
And it’s all about brain-based research. And, and again, all the stuff that I thought is now reinforced by recent brain research. That that’s why we are able to help these students said we did. That’s why many of these kids were so stuck that when they were traumatized and they were young, their brain was damaged, physically, physically damaged. But research also shows that we have an opportunity to create neurons in the brain. That’ll help switch or flip their script, that all these people hurt me in my life. So I’m not lovable. I’m not likable and switch that to your more than lable. You’re more than likable, more than worth it. And we’re gonna show you why you’re worth it. So it, it, I don’t know. I I’m just, most of my life is cuz I’m a little bit messed up and that’s how we kind of evolve for me that those two years risk reinforced all the things that I had done before. And it’s really created and given me a a platform and a foundation to be able to share some of this information.

Sam Demma (24:18):
And you do a phenomenal job sharing it and telling it through the old art of storytelling in a way that’s engaging and fun for the audience. And last time we connected, you shared the story of I don’t know if that made a good representation of the sound or what happened, but, man you share that story before we wrap up today’s uhonversation and what you learned from it personally, if remember,

Larry Tomiyama (24:46):
Yeah. W was that with the I’m trying to think of which story that I had told was that with the little guy that I was in the timeout room with, correct. Ah, okay. Okay. So let’s, let’s call this student OB. And so OB was a grade three student who came from a war torn country. And his life was basically before he came to Canada, was running and fighting in refugee camps. So he comes to Canada and not functional in a regular school, kicked out of a number of schools or Exel from a number of schools just because he wasn’t able to, to function in a regular classroom. So we arrived at our season grade three and as most kids are, they’re not really that happy when they start in our building, because it’s just another place that they’re gonna be unsuccessful at and they’re gonna get kicked out of.

Larry Tomiyama (25:54):
And that’s where their head is at. So I got a call from the classroom saying that’s coming down and it doesn’t look like he’s very, he’s very happier. He is not ready to start class. So I said, fine. So I leave my office and O’s coming down the stairs and I know he’s not doing really well because he’s sucking his thumb. And that was his coping mechanism for when he was stressed or anxiety rid. And he comes down the stairs and I said, OB, how you doing? Just take a seat on the chair and we can get started with the day when you’re ready. You let me know. And he had his thumb in his mouth and everything. He just says, sure, up, shut up, Mr. T screw you. So it went on and, and on to that nothing that was pretty tame to some of the names I was called.

Larry Tomiyama (26:48):
So I was okay with that. And he came down, so it came down the stairs and was really, really angry, started throwing chairs, throwing things around and then went after a student. So we had intervene and when a student gets violent, we have a room that we call our calming room. And it’s basically a six by six cinder brick wall room with a door and a window in it. And so we brought him in there and he lost his mind in there. Kickings spitting, anything that you can think of. And usually they calm down after a while. So when they calm down, we enter the CLA enter the room and, and see if we can work with them. And so I walked into the room and he was lying in the corner of the room and started to get violent again. So I had to leave. And so I just waited and waited them out and got quiet. And he was mumbling and mumbling. I said, OB, are you okay? What are it’s gonna happening? Oh, I felt, tell me MRT. And I said, what’s that OB what’s happening, whatever you need. And he says, MRT, I’m gonna take their outta your and rub it right in your eyes.

Larry Tomiyama (28:23):
I couldn’t even talk. I was laughing so hard. I, I thought that’s so brilliant. How can and someone be so elevated? So, so mad and think of something like that. It took me like five minutes before I could collect myself. I looked in there and he’s crying again in the corner. So I walk, I walk in, open the door and I just sit on the floor and don’t do anything. And,uhe looks at me and I look at him, he puts his head down and nobody says a word for another five minutes. Uand then I see him army crawl over to me and put his head on my leg. Cause I’m sitting down in the ground. So he sat there for a few minutes and he’s crying and crying. And then he kind of collects himself. And he says to me, Mr. T, you can hurt me now.

Larry Tomiyama (29:24):
And I said, OB, what are you talking about? No, one’s gonna hurt you. That’s not why you’re here. We’re not doing that. Cuz he said, when I’m bad like that, and I say bad things, my brother or my dad beats the. And so I, I said, OB, listen, it doesn’t matter what you say, what you do, no one is gonna hurt you here. That’s not gonna happen. So we sat there for a few more minutes and in my work sense of humor, I said to him, I said, you know what, OB, you know, that stuff said to me, you know, with this and putting in my eyes and stuff like that, I go, I don’t know how possible that is. Do you think you could really do that? And there was a pause and he says,uand then he just starts full out,ubelly laughing.

Larry Tomiyama (30:29):
Yeah. Things like that. I said, OB, go clean up and get your to class. Mm. And so it went off to class. The, the, the big thing with that again, is the safety piece. Mm. That a, in his mind he was predicting what was gonna happen. Yeah. So when he acts like this, then he gets hurt and we had to flip that and we had to convince him that doesn’t matter what happens and how much you lose your mind that you’re gonna be safe here. So that was a huge, huge step in creating that safety for him. And again, this is an extreme story, but we can do little acts in our classrooms that show students that it doesn’t matter. What’s gonna happen. Whether whether we reprimand you or not how we say it or whatever. But you’re gonna be safe in my class. And that’s really, really the that’s the place to start

Sam Demma (31:27):
Love that. That’s such a powerful story along with the other one you shared and I’m sure there’s hundreds upon

Larry Tomiyama (31:33):
Hundreds. Yeah, no, it’s some of ’em are, are so ridiculous. They’re funny. Yeah. ,

Sam Demma (31:42):
That’s so true. Well, Larry, this has been such a pleasure with you about the, you know, the philosophies, the principles you have, the way you view education, the framework from which the school functioned. It’s really interesting. And if another educator is listening and is inspired by this conversation or has enjoyed it and wants to ask you a question or invite you to their event, what would be the best way for, for them to get in touch with you?

Larry Tomiyama (32:08):
Probably. I mean, if you need more information, I mean, my website’s not great, but it’s okay, but certainly it’s there. And my web website is https://ineverythinggivethanks.ca/about/. My email address is larry20ltomiyama@telus.net.

And shoot me an email take a look at the website that my contact information is on there. I’d be happy to talk to anybody. I talk to a lot of educators just about working with, at risk students about what, what I believe in leadership and what I, what I know works. And so I would be willing to share with anybody because it’s that’s what God God has asked me to do. And I don’t want to, I don’t wanna make him mad.

Sam Demma (33:06):
Larry, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate the time, effort and energy you put into your work and appreciate you sharing some of it here. Keep up the amazing job. And I look forward to our next conversation, hopefully on a golf course.

Larry Tomiyama (33:20):
My pleasure. Thanks.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Larry Tomiyama

January 24, 2022 by Sam Demma Education Consultant Experiential Learning Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Steve Bristol – Assistant Head of School for Enrollment Management and Strategic Planning

About Steve Bristol

Steve Bristol is the Assistant Head of School for Enrollment Management and Strategic Planning at the Hun School in Princeton, New Jersey. He is a coach, mentor, and someone that deeply cares about the success of the young people in his school.

Connect with Steve: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

The Hun School Website

US College Expo

Maine Summer Camps

Who is Gary Vee?

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 great episode of the High Performing Educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today we, you have on someone that I met through an event called the US college expo. He was one of the US admissions representatives who was speaking to students about how they could pursue their education in the States. And he is the director of admissions and financial aid at the Hun school of Princeton in New Jersey.

Sam Demma (00:59):
He is also a former coach, a mentor, and someone who really cares deeply about the success of his students. It’s very evident in this episode that Steve Bristol, today’s guest has a mission to help as many students as he can while also, you know, keeping himself young by being surrounded by the contagious energy of today’s youth. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it, and I will see you on the other side. Steve, thank you so much for coming on the High Performing Educator podcast. It is a pleasure to have you on here. Start by sharing a little bit about who you are and why you got into the work you do with young people today?

Steve Bristol (01:38):
It’s my pleasure Sam. Thanks for the opportunity to, to chat with you. I’d love to give you an altruistic reason about why I work in schools and, and how I wanna shape the youth of America and of the world so that, you know, they’ll take better care of the world, and all of that, but really my motives are pretty selfish. It keeps me young. Oh, working with kids is, you know, it keeps you in touch with your own youth. I, I took a couple of years in my career where I went and I worked business schools and in those four years, I think I gained 15 pounds, my eyesight went, I had to start where and glasses, you know, that lifestyle just didn’t work for me. I felt like I’d aged 20 years and four years. And so I came back into schoolwork because it does keep you energized and keeps you young. So my motives are, are purely selfish. I do care about the future and I think kids are, are gonna lead that charge. But but I can’t be as generous with that as I probably should be.

Sam Demma (02:46):
That’s awesome. I love the authenticity. I’m curious to know, at what point in your own career search, did you make the decision? Yep. I’m going to work in education. Was there a defining moment or was it just a progressional choice? Yeah,

Steve Bristol (02:59):
There was actually was a kind of a moment there. I’m a product of the system. I went to a, a, an independent boarding school in, in the us nice for high school. And as I worked with a college counselor there who was helping me sort of decide what kind of colleges to go to. And, and at one point, you know, I was a little bit lost and , and he said, well, you know, what would you like to do after college? And, you know, at that point, I, I wouldn’t been exposed to very much. So I said, yeah, maybe I’d like to come back to a place like this and, and teach and coach. And he said, well, in that case, you know, go here, come back in four years and I’ll give you a job. So that combined with I did a, a lot of summer camp work as a teenager. And and so you get sort of your experience working with kids that way and living with them. And, and so when I did graduate from college, I, I went right into boarding school work where I ran a dorm, coached a couple of seasons and taught classes. And so I, I was the stereotypical, triple threat. They call it boring schools where you do a little bit of everything.

Sam Demma (04:08):
That’s awesome. Tell me more about the summer camps. Were you young when you did those? Not that you’re old now, but well

Steve Bristol (04:17):
yeah, I started working summer camp camps, probably in maybe 11th and 12th grade. I think I started, I did it for I was a camp counselor for three or four years, and then I took some time off and I came back and sort of became an administrator and ultimately became a co-director of a, kind of a traditional summer camp in Maine, which, you know, little SPO, little waterfront, little camping trips, you know, a very sort of, you know, very boarding school-like kind of place where you, you want kids to have a balanced experience and, and, and get exposed to a lot of different things. One of my worries with our kids today is that they, they need to be specialists. They need to be great today. You know, as eighth grader, they need to have found their passion and pursued it and, and be a young little expert. And, and I would rather kids keep trying some new things and to continue to be beginners at things for as long as they can. And I think summer camp and school can do that for kids.

Sam Demma (05:23):
No, it’s so true. There’s advice that this marketer, Gary V always gives, and he says, you don’t have to find what you like right away. That’s why when you go to a buffet, there’s a thousand options. And the way you figure out what you enjoy is you take a little piece of each little bin, you try it and you stop eating what you don’t like, and you keep eating what you do like, and yeah, I think sometimes kids limit themselves to one little portion of a buffet instead of trying all of it and

Steve Bristol (05:47):
Absolutely true. I, I actually used the buffet analogy in my own work here as I talk to families and I talk to them about, you know, hun, where I am now being a, a, a buffet where, you know, there’s lots of different clubs and activities and sports and music and art and all of those things who knows what’s gonna capture your attention. And, and if, if there’s anything we learned, it’s, you know, kids are gonna change as they grow up. They, they don’t need to lock in quite so early.

Sam Demma (06:16):
That’s so true. And right now at hunt, I know there’s some very unique challenges that all schools are facing. And I’m curious to know someone recently told me the state of education is like throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks . And I’m curious to know out of the spaghetti, you’ve already thrown in the challenges you’re facing, what seems to be working really well. And what are some earnings you’ve also had.

Steve Bristol (06:39):
It’s a great question. And, and it is, and the spaghetti analogy I think is, is a pretty accurate one. there’s a little more thought behind it before we throw it, but yeah. You know, obviously, you know, the hunt school, Princeton, where I am now, we’re a, we’re a boarding in day school in Princeton, New Jersey. And so we have local kids who are day students. We have domestic borders. So kids from around, you know, 18 different states in the us. And then we have kids that come from, you know, 20, we’ve got, these are trying to manage. What we’ve done is we put our kids into two teams and they come to school on alternate days. So kids come every other day for in-person classes and that’s reduced the density in our classrooms. A lot of our international kids are, are studying virtually and they’re logging in from home and attending classes that way.

Steve Bristol (07:44):
It’s, it’s a phenomenal challenge for teachers that are on the, the, the ground floor of this that are standing in a classroom with, you know, five kids sitting at a table in front of them and another seven kids on a screen behind them. And, and how do you serve both of those groups and, and, you know, and work intentionally in our classes are small and we, we want to give personal attention. And so they’re trying to engage all of those kids into the conversation and into the class, and, you know, and, and into practical work, instead of, you know, the old kind of teaching where the teacher just lectures and the kids take notes, we’ve moved pretty far away from that to where our classrooms are really dynamic and active and interactive trying to do that. Both virtually and in person at the same time is I think is a phenomenal challenge on top of that. You know, we’ve gotta keep everybody safe. You know, we, we’ve got, we’ve put in a phenomenal amount of safety and health protocols. We all get screened every morning before we come to school. Yeah. You know, I get my temperature checked and I get a little bracelet that the screener gives me that says, I’m, I’m good to go for today. But it’s, you know, the health and safety piece is, has dominated our work all summer long and, and on a daily basis.

Sam Demma (09:07):
Yeah, no, that’s, that, that makes a lot of sense. Things are definitely changing really, really fast. And sounds like unschool was doing a great job of adjusting on the fly and trying to still be of service to students as much as they possibly can. I’m curious to know when you were a student, did you have someone in your life who like maybe a coach who guided you, who pushed you that helped you when you were at a low point in your life? There might be a coach that sticks out in mind. And the reason I’m asking is I’m curious to know what that coach did for you, so that other educators listening might think about doing the same thing for their students.

Steve Bristol (09:45):
Yeah. I, I, I have a very specific experience that really set me in a lot of ways. It’s been the foundation of my own teaching coaching. I was a senior in high school and, and was a pretty serious soccer and lacrosse player, but I didn’t really play a sport in the winter. I’d done a little basketball, but, you know, I peaked on the JV team I think was as good as I ever got. And the athletic director came to me one day and asked if I would help coach the freshman basketball. They had a lot of kids out there. They had a teacher that wasn’t really, you know, he was more of a science teacher than a coach and, and kind of needed someone out there to help keep order. So, because the athletic director was also my advisor, I thought it would be a good idea to, to sort of do whatever he asked me to do.

Steve Bristol (10:34):
He where I knew it, I was coaching my own basketball team and we had a group below the freshman, you know, sort of freshman B is essentially who I was coaching. So these are the least athletic kids in the school. I’m doing it in a sport where I don’t feel a tremendous amount of confidence. You know, it, it was a recipe for disaster. So we went to our first away game and the athletic director drove the van and, and brought us there. And, and he just sat in the bench and he didn’t say a word the whole time, and I never shut up. I mean, I talked those kids through every step, every pass, every shot, I was just a, a constant voice in their ear in, in, you know, my trying to help them, you know, be successful and win the game and do all of those things.

Steve Bristol (11:22):
And, you know, when the dust settled, we, we lost by about 40 points. It wasn’t even close to being competitive. And I, you know, I’m destroyed, I, this is my first experience. It’s very public, you know, all, any coach knows, you know, your, your work is public. And so when you have a bad day, you know, there’s people watching. And so I’m kind of hanging my head and the athletic director came over to me and he said, you know, you actually did a pretty good job. He goes, but you make the kids nervous. You talk too much. Sometimes just let the kids play. And that idea that sometimes just let the kids play mm. Has guided, you know, I’ve done a lot of coaching since then and have had a fair amount of success and not every day was like that. But I can, I can think of specific games where I used that advice, where I realized I kids are doing a great job. They didn’t need me to keep coaching. The part of my job was to step back and let them be successful. It was about them, not about me coaching a win, and, and to tell yourself in those moments to just be quiet and just let, what you’ve been hoped would happen happen. Yeah. But I think coaches and teachers forget to recognize.

Steve Bristol (12:37):
And as a parent now, sometimes I gotta let my kids play and sometimes they’re gonna fail and fall and all of those things, but, you know, that’s part of teaching. And part of teaching is knowing when to keep your mouth closed and just let kids experience things.

Sam Demma (12:52):
I love that so much. That’s, that’s an amazing piece of advice. And have you in your role now maybe you can even talk about this as a coach or as a head of enrollment. Have you used that same advice personally with your students and have seen any massive transformations or some students that have been deeply impacted the same way your coach impacted you? And if there’s a serious story about how someone’s life has been changed, you can change their name for privacy reasons, but the reason I’m digging for it is because an educator might be listening right now. Who’s a little burnt out. And I wanna remind them that the work we do in education and coaching it has the power to transform lives. So if you have any stories that this take out to you it would be cool to hear. And so,

Steve Bristol (13:37):
And, and I think particularly as, as you say, under these circumstances, this is really hard. And the challenge for teachers under the best of circumstances is you don’t typically see the results yeah. Of your work. You know, you’ll have somebody come back 10 years later and tell you how impactful you were and things like that. And, and but in the moment there’s days where it just feels like I’m not making a dent here, you know, they’re, they’re just coming back. And they’re the same kids today that they were yesterday, despite everything I tried to do. So I think my best advice, advice to teachers is, is to remember, there’s a long game here. Yeah. That you, you, aren’t gonna change kids in a day, but being steady and being consistent and approaching your work with their best interests at heart does pay dividends. And, and part of that is you just have to trust that, that it will.

Steve Bristol (14:37):
For me personally, there, there’s been a lot of times where, you know, kids have come back and, and surprised me in, in what they’ve remembered that I said at one point, or, you know, a lot of times it’s embarrassing stuff where they’ll say, oh, I remember that time you did that. And I’d be like, yeah, those were the things I’ve tried to forget. . But I had a, a, a tremendously talented and had a really, really difficult time. And , and he, and I had sort of exchanged messages and I didn’t realize the extent of it. And he came into my office and, and began to talk to me about things where I could really tell something was very, very wrong and, and I didn’t realize it. And after he left his mom called and as a woman, I had a really good relationship with, for many years and, and said, I’m so sorry.

Steve Bristol (15:33):
I didn’t, you know, I didn’t tell you in advance, so you could be prepared. Mm. And what we found out is he, he was bipolar and they didn’t know it. And that came out and he was home from college with nothing to do. And, and I said, well, come to look, cross practice every day. And you’ll be my assistant coach, and you’ll stand next to me and you’ll learn how to coach and work with kids. And, and he came every day and, you know, he, as he’s learning to adjust to his new situation and medication and things like that, he had safe space to come to every day. Mm. And, you know, and to this day, you know, he’s the father of twins and in his, you know, probably mid thirties we still talk about that spring. You know, we’ve stayed in touch, he’s in great shape now. And he tells me, his mom still sends me a note once a year, that says, you know, you changed his life because you, you took him in when, when he was lost. And, you know, it was, to me, it was sort of an obvious thing to do. He is a great kid, you know, I love having him around. And, and, but it was at a time in his life when he needed somebody to invest a little extra in him.

Sam Demma (16:43):
I love that. That’s an amazing, it’s an amazing story. And you mentioned, you know, small actions in there somewhere. My teacher, Mike always told me, you know, small, consistent, massive changes. Absolutely. And it applies to education. It applies to mentorship with young people, and it just applies to everyday life, whether you’re trying to change something personally or something in a school or student’s life. If there’s a, that’s

Steve Bristol (17:07):
Interesting, I think one of the big to do is to sort of teach through the positive as opposed to the negative. I think we’re all very quick to point out when kids make mistakes and candidly, that’s really easy to do. You know, I, I can, I can watch a field hockey game and tell you when somebody makes a bad pass. I don’t have any idea how to teach someone to play field hockey and I can think the more we start to celebrate the positives that kids do and teach through their successes. That’s where I think we start to really generate a lot of momentum. And if we spend all our time just pointing out when they make mistakes, well, then that’s what they’re gonna hear.

Sam Demma (17:48):
Hmm. No, that’s so true. And on the topic of great advice for educators, if someone’s listening, who is maybe teaching for the first year and thinking like, what the heck did I sign up for? This is not what I was expecting. What advice would your current self have to give your past self or someone else listening?

Steve Bristol (17:58):
Boy, that’s a really good question. My when I started, I think it, it was, as I sort of said earlier, it was all very personal to me. Yeah. It was, you know, am, am I a good teacher? Am I doing this? Are, are they responding to me? It was very me centric. Mm. And I think, and you know, obviously, you know, you look at it now, it’s, you know, you have to get to know your kids and, and get to know them personally. So that when, you know, I, I talk about working in boarding schools as sort of being, you know, a surrogate parent. And, you know, when my kids come home from school and they’ve had a bad day, I know it.

Steve Bristol (18:49):
But before they’ve even opened their mouth, I can read their body. I can feel it in the air that this was not a good day. And we’re, we’re gonna have some work to do tonight. If teachers can get to that point with their kids in class, where you can kind of read their body language and know when they’re with you. And when they’re not boy, you can ha you know, now you can create an at fear where they can be comfortable, and if they’re comfortable, they’re gonna find a voice. And when they find that voice, they’ll start to engage with each other. And that’s when, you know, that’s when the magic happens and finding a way to make kids comfortable in your class as opposed to uncomfortable. And I think when I started teaching, I wanted them to be uncomfortable because I was so uncom, I, I just needed to control things, making sure they’re comfortable.

Sam Demma (19:40):
Hmm. That’s a great piece of advice. If I was teaching right now, I would say, thank you. good. That’s amazing. And if anyone’s listening and they, they’re inspired by this convers, they wanna reach out, maybe bounce some ideas around, or get some coaching advice from a former or former or current basketball coach. What would be the best way for them to reach out?

Steve Bristol (20:02):
I’d love doing that and I love, you know, as you can tell, I love talking about education and would welcome anyone that wants to reach out on anything. Along these lines, you know, you can reach me through the, the Hun school website at www.hunschool.org and under the admissions tab. There’s a, a funny picture of me in my email address. Or my email is SteveBristol@hunschool.org, and would welcome strangers, reaching out love, talking about this stuff.

Sam Demma (20:32):
Awesome. Steve, thanks so much for taking some time today to chat. It’s been a huge pleasure.

Steve Bristol (20:36):
My pleasure Sam. Thanks so much for creating the opportunity and, and sharing all of this information with, with folks. I think it’s real important today.

Sam Demma (20:44):
Cool. Thank you. And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the High Performing Educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise, I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

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January 22, 2022 by Sam Demma Association Director Athletic Director Experiential Learning Guidance Counsellors Student Leadership Student Success Teaching Tips 0

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