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Speaker

Chelle Travis – Executive Director of SkillsUSA

Chelle Travis - Executive Director at SkillsUSA
About Chelle Travis

Chelle Travis (@TheChelleTravis) is the executive director of SkillsUSA, a national organization of nearly 400,000 teachers and students within career and technical education. Travis was appointed in 2019 to lead a staff of 35 that manages a federation of 52 state and territorial associations. SkillsUSA’s mission is to empower members to become world-class workers, leaders and responsible citizens. It improves the quality of our nation’s future skilled workforce.

With more than 17 years’ experience in career and technical education, Travis has served in a variety of academic settings, including secondary institutions, universities, and technical and community colleges. Most recently, she was the senior director of workforce and economic development at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC), where she was charged with building partnerships with employers, workforce agencies and postsecondary institutions. She was the primary point of contact at THEC due to her knowledge of technical education, work-based learning experiences, alternative credentialing, competency-based education and experiential learning. She also managed all external workforce grants issued by THEC.

Formerly, Travis served as associate vice chancellor for students for the Tennessee Board of Regents College System of Tennessee, where she provided leadership in promoting student initiatives across 40 technical and community colleges.

Travis holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance, and a master’s degree in business administration, from Middle Tennessee State University. She is a doctoral student at Tennessee State University.

Connect with Chelle: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

SkillsUSA Organization

What is Career and Technical Education (CTE)?

SkillsUSA Membership Kits

SkillsUSA New Chapter Guide

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma today’s guest on the podcast is Chelle Travis. She is the executive director of skills USA, a national organization of nearly 400,000 teachers and students within career and technical education. Travis was appointed in 2019 to lead a staff of 35 that manages a Federation of 52 state and tutorial associations skills. USA’s mission is to empower members to become world-class workers, leaders, and responsible citizens. She’s been in this work for more than 17 years, and it is my absolute pleasure to bring her on the show here today, to talk about her journey into leadership and all the challenges that they are overcoming at skills USA during this tough time. I hope you enjoy the interview. I’ll see you on the other side, Chelle Travis, thank you so much for coming on the high-performing educator podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you start off by sharing with the audience who you are and why you got into the work you do with young people today.


Chelle Travis (01:07):
So I’m Chelle Travis. I’m the executive director of skills USA, and I’m very excited to be here with you today. Thank you for having me, Sam. I actually got into education and specifically career technical student organizations because of an advisor I had in high school. So like many of our students across the nation, there is that one person, their advisor that makes an impact on their life. And Ms. Webb was that for me that she taught me leadership skills. I was very shy. Didn’t necessarily like to speak in front of people. And she opened me up to a world that I did not know that would exist for me. She took me on my first my first trip in, in a plane to a student conference, a leadership conference and, and actually started my journey there, so wanted to reinvest in and pay it forward for what someone had done in my life. So I would a lot to her.


Sam Demma (02:21):
That’s awesome. Shout out, Mrs. Webb, what point in your journey did you know I’m going to be a worker in education? Was there like, was there a certain moment you made the decision that you can remember or was it just a lifelong decision?


Chelle Travis (02:37):
So my mother was as Siki educator and I said, I would say there were two very strong women in my life. I’ve Ms. Webb. And then my mother my mother was CP educator for 40 years and a CTSO advisor. I watched her advocate for CTE my entire life. And so I always was very impressed by her passion and her dedication to her students. However like many young adults, you don’t necessarily want to do what your parents did. Right. So thought it gets that thought it gets that for, for a while. And then I met my next mentor Dr. Williams when, my first about first day actually on my college campus, I became his student worker. And he was in the office of student services again, working with students organizations. And then at that time I realized that you know, this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I started I stopped fighting it and started running towards it. And and really embracing that at that point.


Sam Demma (03:48):
And I know you’ve been doing this for years now. The challenges this year are unique to all the challenges you might’ve faced in the past. And I’m sure there’s things that have been very successful and things you have also learned from one of those huge successes, which we briefly talked about before this recording was the fact that you raised your organization and your partner, a partner raise over $300,000. Can you shed some light on that success during COVID and as well as some learnings, if you have any?


Chelle Travis (04:14):
Absolutely. So I would say that in this moment in time right now we can make a significant difference in elevating our public perception of the value of career and technical education. Now is really our time and our student skills have always been essential. But I think the pandemic has really put a light, a spotlight on the need for CTE in America and right now. And so our our partners very, very excited about the commitment of our partners. They really stepped up and, and saw this need and really wanted to help us elevate career and technical education and wanted to make sure that skills USA had the resources that it needed to actually be able to provide services for our students across the nation. We serve students across all 50 states two territories and the district of Columbia approximately 400,000 members, students and instructors every year and over 20 and about 20,000 classrooms in the United States.


Chelle Travis (05:27):
So so a very large large range and an opportunity to reach even more students every year as a, as we elevate CTE and they see the importance and we’re able to tell our story and they are, and Carhartt who is a great partner, longstanding partner of skills USA. So our labor day as an opportunity to really recognize the value of skilled trades to elevate CTE and to support skills and the mission of our organization. So I’m very excited to have such a great partner. They aren’t our only partners. We’ve had other partners that have set up during this time to really help our students and our instructors during very challenging times.


Sam Demma (06:15):
That’s awesome. And out of the smorgasborg of challenges we’re faced with right now, what are some of the ones that you’re currently facing as an organization? Maybe some of what you’ve already overcome, but some you’re still dealing with today.


Chelle Travis (06:29):
So a large challenge, as you say, across America, as we’re going into the fall and into a new school year is normally a time for if you’re an instructor, if you’re in education. And also if you’re a student, I have a, a second grader and, and, you know, you love getting that new if you have a elementary school student. And I think I even did in high school enjoy, you know, getting those new school supplies, getting that new backpack. And there was always this anticipation of the new year to come and, and for an instructor and advisor, that new group of students that you’re going to be able to impact their lives and, and really grow with them throughout the year. And it’s always very exciting and this year was a little different and then than normal it not knowing the, the difference from state to state and even within each district from district to district about what the move forward plans would be, whether classrooms would be all grounds virtual or a combination of the two in a hybrid classroom.


Chelle Travis (07:36):
And as we’ve seen that in, you know, our instructors concerned about their safety and their students and how they would put precautions in place if they were going on grounds to make sure that, you know, their students and the protection of their students and themselves their safety was first. And so those challenges and as students, you know, we’ve seen across our membership where students have gone on Graham one week and then instructors in their online the next weekend. And really, so the many challenges that our students and instructors space, we face as an organization and trying to make sure that we’re, we’re meeting them where they are. So we really did see in the summer making sure that we could pivot all of our resources to make sure that they were on all available to our instructors and to our students, no matter what that learning environment not be.


Chelle Travis (08:39):
And because we know even with all the challenges and, and our instructors and our students are so resilient and have been so adaptable during this time and very strong, I really do applaud everything that they are doing and make sure that they’re still able to meet their students’ needs in the classroom. But we, we spent a lot of hours and still are pivoting everything that we do from what they would normally receive possibly in person to making sure that all of that was available to our students and instructors in a virtual format and even more because not knowing if you’re going to have a chapter online or whether it’s online or whether it’s going to be virtual, or how do I meet with my students for my chapter, if they’re not going to get together, or if half of them are online and half of them on our ground.


Chelle Travis (09:36):
And so it’s such a challenging time, but we’ve tried to encourage our instructors about providing them resources for their classroom that it’s not time to pause. Our students really do need skills USA right now more than, than ever in skills USA. Not only do we, do we provide students with those personal skills workplace skills and their technical skills grounded on academics to really make sure that they’re ready to enter the workplace, but we give them a sense of belonging and a place you know, that, that they can be with their their fellow students. And at a time when so many things have been canceled and their, their life, we can, can be a positive a positive place for them to to belong in and also to make a difference in their lives, still in a virtual world. So we’ve really tried to provide those resources and continue to provide those to our instructors. And I think the challenging thing that we all face is just really continuing to adjust to what is our for now our new normal.


Sam Demma (10:57):
Yeah, I totally agree that this type of work, this selfless work is needed now more than ever when students are down, I think that’s when they need the most help. And with all the challenges that we’re facing, those three pillars of technical skills, personal skills and career skills are so important. And I would assume that a lot of the personal skills that are taught at skills USA are through live events, like case competitions and conferences and national conferences. How are you adjusting those? Are they being put online? Are they being put on hold this year? What’s the direction that your company has taken organization has taken to address that


Chelle Travis (11:34):
Again? We, we do feel that it is no time to pause for our students. So I’m very proud of the work of our state and of our staff at the national office to make sure that that can happen. So right now we, throughout the summer we trained our state officers virtually for our state. Now we are leading into season four. If states needed assistance, they would normally have all leadership conferences. We have assisted our states in making sure that they can have those virtual experiences for students for their leadership conferences and also with online as state officers and chapter officer experiences and making sure that they’re, they are able to, to have those leadership experiences as well. We have a, we have an empowering experiences team and that empowering experiences team have really, they’ve done a great job in making sure that that there are experiences all year long for our chapters.


Chelle Travis (12:46):
So while we know our our state and our capture advisors have a heavy list this year in trying to provide additional resources and additional activities that they can take in and put into their classroom. And why virtual events for their students to be connected through a series of task force and in, in looking at what our students would be interested in and would be engaged in and making sure that we can meet their needs. We also, for our instructors this year we elevated the number of professional membership resources that they have so toolkit that they can take videos that they can use lesson plans that they can use in their classroom to make sure that they’re still integrating that skills USA experience and that we are integrating all of those framework skills into the classroom and providing those resources for our for our advisors and also our our experiences also for our chapters, our program of work tool kit.


Chelle Travis (13:58):
So they are chapter activities can still take place. We have developed those chapter it tool kit, and then also in looking at their championships, cause you talked about those and local championship guides that can assist them in their classroom. During this time in technical in technical opportunities as well. So you, you asked about conferences, so we have those happening this fall. One commitment that we have made and that we’ve made to our membership is that we will have a national conference this year. So look for more information on that. And November 16th is, is the date that we shared with our membership at the beginning of this fall that we would share the decision of the delivery of our national conference. And so, so then our championship team and our education team, as well as our health staff has been working on what that national conference may look like championships is, is also looking at how we can deliver how we can help states deliver virtual conferences, if that is, is what their state is going to need or hybrid conferences and in assisting in providing resources and platform opportunities for that delivery.


Chelle Travis (15:21):
But we will be offering our national conference with, with sessions and and actually opportunities to connect with employers our textbooks, whether that’s on ground or online and, and also we will be offering competition opportunities and all of our trade areas. So we’ve really been working hard this year, not only to learn from those experiences across the nation and in what we can do for our students. But also we belong to a community of world skills and we’ve been learning from our, their nations and in what they’re going through as well. We’re not alone in this pandemic and skilled trades are needed not just in our country, but around the world. And and so learning from those nations and how they’re meeting the needs of their students as well have informed our decisions.


Sam Demma (16:22):
That’s amazing. I want to take you back for one second to Mrs. Webb and explore what she did for you. And you were a student that really lit a fire within your heart to, to, to chase this stuff. Where’s she, like, if you can pinpoint some of her character traits that really stood out to you, so other educators listening might be able to do the same thing for their students, that’d be really helpful.


Chelle Travis (16:46):
So I said that I was shy. So if somebody saw that and then you made it in high school, they would probably say that’s not true. Most people would have thought that I was, I was an extrovert. I love surrounding myself with people like making a difference in other students’ lives. However, I was say Saferight was as something that I had, and he might not have thought that either, but so Ms. Webb of one of the things is that she saw something in me and, and believed in me and actually instilled the confidence in myself that that I could become both a leader on our campus, but later a student later in our state and in our region and and, and believes in me and that was the first thing is that she gave me an opportunity.


Chelle Travis (17:44):
That is something that I share with, when I was in Tennessee and worked at the state director is skills USA. I’ll always said, it’s our it’s our responsibility. It was my responsibility as an instructor. It was our responsibility as as a state association to give students opportunity and it’s up to them what they do with those and a lot of times, but to come alongside them and to support them and help them. But sometimes that’s all it takes is to, to believe in your students, to give them the opportunity and to instill in them the confidence that they can do, that she showed me and helped me overcome my fears and, and helps me work through those. And, and that opportunity was mine if I was if I wanted to and would they committed. And so I will never forget that Phantom of the opera I’ll just share with you that was, she played that. So before any we would be in her car growing, going across the state, I would be getting ready to speak. And I came from a very small high school. So I was my high school, I graduated with 68 people. I was preparing to speak to 5,000.


Chelle Travis (19:03):
And so and so we played Phantom of the opera all the way across the state until we got until we got there to that conference. And then, you know, and then the next thing was to prepare me and one of my classmates to, to present to a to a national conference as, as well. So she took me on step to mentor Ernie and, and really made sure that that whatever it was that I needed to, to come on earth to get over that hurdle, she was going to help me find that and then and practice and, and make sure that I was ready for that opportunity. So


Sam Demma (19:46):
That’s amazing. I resonate with their story so much because I’ll throw a high school. I want it to be a pro soccer player. I ended up having some major knee injuries lost a scholarship to the U S and I had a teacher. I was supposed to go to Memphis and Tennessee, and my teacher’s name was Michael loud foot. And he believed in me when I was down. Like, I didn’t believe in myself. And he taught me this lesson that a small, consistent action can make a massive change and then challenged me to go out in the community and do something. And that led to a bunch of social enterprise work here in Ontario with picking up garbage. It’s a funny story. I’ll get into it a different time, but I so deeply resonate with you. And I’m curious to know if in your reverse role as a mentor for thousands of students. Now, if you have any stories of students that were just like you, who who’s who’s, who was impacted by the work you do with skills USA that you’d like to share. And it could be a very personal story of a student who has been profoundly impacted, but you can change their name for privacy reasons. The reason I is because an educator might be listening, who is a little burnt out, and I want to remind them why this work is so important, because I think it has the power to transform lives.


Chelle Travis (20:54):
It does. And so I often say in technical education, and especially when it’s coupled with skills USA is integrated into that opportunity that the work that we do is life changing. And so I can tell you that there’s not just one story. I there are many stories of not just changing that life of that individual student, but you can literally change the trajectory of not just that lie, but that student’s family and the community and the nation, because that confidence that you instill in them and the opportunities that you give in them, it doesn’t just impact that individual. It impacts an entire family and in the role that I have here and the way I, I see it, it can impact a generation of students across our nation, the work that we do from I love student stories.


Chelle Travis (21:53):
I would love as an instructor. Probably one of the the, the greatest gifts that you get is when a student returns and comes back to you. And with that first paycheck whether it’s that that a new car or a story about the house that they were able to buy, or they bring in their family for the, for the first time and you eat and you get to see that, that your work had somehow just a small, a small part and, and making that person, and that individual become who they are today. I’ve seen the changes in the lives, not just of our secondary students, but also in our post-secondary students that come back to us possibly after having first careers. And, and now they see, they may not have seen technical education as an option for them at the time.


Chelle Travis (22:47):
And then along the way they they come back to us, they see technical education as an opportunity for them, and you get them to to you get, to see them achieve what has been their lifelong dream. And, and just the change in them. And, you know, in going through this program and the leadership skills that they say I have several of those friends are, or former students are now you know, I get to watch their journey on on Facebook or something like that. And I get to see the difference and then get to see them achieve their dreams. And I think that’s so, so important. And, and I think if as an instructor, I know that it is a challenging as a former instructor myself, I cannot imagine what the classroom and the challenges are like, we do work alongside our instructors, but every day I know that it is, it is a challenge for them and I’m, so I’m encouraged by seeing what they are how they are trying to meet their students’ needs.


Chelle Travis (23:57):
I do know that you know, when I would say my instructors go from go from being classroom instructors to integrating skills, you’re saying to their classroom, and now becoming instructors that are skilled, she would say advisors as well. I could see a different, so it can take a a, an instructor that was a good instructor to an instructor. That’s a great instructor with a new renewed passion for for career and technical education and for the work that they do. I don’t, you know, in working with our students for a number of years, I don’t see how you can be in technical education and not just and not just be excited about the work that you do and the difference that you make in your students’ lives. If you just take a step back and, and look at the number of lives you’ve impacted and changed for the better every year.


Sam Demma (24:48):
And I think you mentioned it, you know, you hit it on the nail, impacting that one student life that could put them on a trajectory to impact another thousand. And if every student did something that impacted the lives of others, it’s this huge ripple effect that just goes on forever and ever which is so awesome. I think what you all stand for is amazing. If anyone’s listening right now and wants to bounce some ideas around maybe another national director from another student organization and wants to have a conversation, what would be the best way for them to reach out with you if you’re open to it?


Chelle Travis (25:18):
Oh, absolutely. Well, if you are interested in contacting me if you’ll just go to skillsusa.org you’ll be able to find my contact information. That’s cell phones. They’re also my my, my email. But it just, if, if you want to reach out and learn more if you want to know more about the stories of our champions, if you go to champions.skillsUSA.award there, you can very, you can see success stories of our students and the impact that our work has on students’ lives across the nation. And I think that is what is so exciting is, is just the it, seeing the work that you do have an impact on students’ lives and in our future generation or future workforce.


Sam Demma (26:08):
Nice. Awesome. Shelly, thank you so much for taking some time to do this has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you,


Chelle Travis (26:13):
Sam, thank you for the work that you’re doing. I think it’s a, it’s the right work in, I’m very excited to see where these podcasts late,


Sam Demma (26:21):
Amazing information insights and ideas for this current challenging time. And I hope her story into leadership really inspired you to reflect on, the personal impact you have on the young people in your life. We always have the opportunity to make a huge impact on the lives of everyone around us. And with that being said, if you enjoyed this interview and you enjoy this, please consider leaving a rating and review. It’ll help more educators just like yourself, find these episodes and learn from them. And if you are listening, thinking that you would love to share something on the show as well. Please send us an email at info@samdemma.com so we can get your insights and your ideas on the show as well. Anyways, I will see you on the next episode talk soon.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Chelle Travis

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

December 11, 2021 by Association Director Director of Education President Student Leadership 0

Bob Kline – Leadership Teacher, Speaker, and Advisor of the Year (2019)

Bob Kline - Leadership Teacher, Speaker, and Advisor of the Year (2019)
About Bob Kline

Bob Kline (@klinespeaks) is the Leadership teacher at Huron Heights Secondary School in Kitchener, Ontario. Currently, there are approximately 180 students in his school’s official student leadership program, with over 100 more in connected programs like Husky Pack, our orientation & mentorship crew.  His students, known as the Huskies, have been recognized three times as having the ‘most school spirit’ at the Ontario Student Leadership Conference (OSLC)!  

These days his cup is full, but he’s living the dream. In 2019, Bob was honoured as the Advisor of the Year. Today, he’s teaching Leadership all day every day and is also part of the coaching squad of the boy’s varsity hockey team. In his spare time, he’s an avid reader, runner, local hockey fan, camper, and proud uncle of two boys.

Connect with Bob: Email | Instagram | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Huron Heights Secondary School

Ontario Student Leadership Conference

Jeff Gerber

Terry Fox Run

PickWaste

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode on the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s special guest, Bob Kline was someone that I met back in 2019 at a conference called the Ontario Student Leadership Conference, OSLC. He was awarded the advisor of the year. That’s when I first met him, started talking with him and having amazing conversations. And I’ve come to realize Bob is a one of a kind type of person. You only meet someone like Bob once a lifetime. He has such a huge heart and does such amazing work with the students at Huron Heights Secondary School, where he teaches Bob is a teacher, a leadership teacher in Kitchener at Huron Heights Secondary School here on Heights. There’s approximately 180 students and his student leadership program. He has over a hundred or more and connected programs like Husky pack, their orientation and mentorship crew, and the students at his school known as the Huskies have been recognized three times, it’s having the most school spirit at the conference.


Sam Demma (01:06):
He didn’t understand or imagine that one day he’d be a leadership teacher. But these days his cup is full he’s in his 17th year of teaching. And he says it’s an absolute dream to teach leadership all day long. He’s also a part of the coaching squad for his boys, varsity hockey team. And he’s been developing a partnership with the Polish academy of Canada that facilitates cultural exchanges between European and Canadian students. Professional life aside, you can find Bob reading, running, watching hockey, playing hockey, camping, and being a proud uncle of two boys. This is an interview packed with actionable advice. Enjoy this with Bob Kline, Bob, thank you so much for coming on the high-performing educators podcast. It’s an absolute pleasure to have you on here. I remember when I was sitting in OSLC back before COVID and you won the award for advisor of the year which was phenomenal back then. I didn’t know you well since then we’ve had dozens of conversations and I thought you’d be someone that needs to be on this interview to spread some optimism with fellow colleagues right now, and just some of your good energy with other educators. Can you please introduce yourself, share with the audience who you are and why you got into the work you do with young people today?


Bob Kline (02:24):
Sure. well, thanks Sam. It’s really great to join you on the podcast. I’m really excited. This is my first podcast ever. So, so yeah, like you said, I teach leadership. I teach in Kitchener, Ontario at an awesome school called Huron Heights. I’ve been teaching for about 18 years now. And the way I got into teaching was honestly like I used to teach swimming lessons to little kids when, when I was a teenager and I just loved working with kids. So I became an English teacher first. I taught English for about 15 years and I loved every day of it. And then I stumbled into this amazing, magical world of leadership. And now every day, all the time, all I do is teach leadership at Huron. And I think it’s every leadership teacher’s dream. So I guess I’m living the leadership life and the leadership dream right now. That’s awesome.


Sam Demma (03:26):
Can you define leadership? What, what is leadership? How do you define leadership on a shot at something you’re passionate about sharing?


Bob Kline (03:35):
Wow, so you’re, you’re starting with the big question a, well, I guess something that I always say to my students at the very start of a semester of leadership is you could go on Amazon and search for leadership books and literally you’ll get thousands upon thousands of possible books that you can read. And there’s different. There’s different angles that you can come at leadership from. And I guess the, the teaching of leadership is, is a really, it’s a personal endeavor for all of us who are in this line of work. So I guess for me, like the foundation of leadership is, is for me just teaching kids, how to be a decent human being everything that we do, whether it’s, whether it’s planning a semi-formal dance or doing bingo at lunchtime, all of our work together comes back to us being decent human beings with each other and creating an environment where, where kids can thrive, kids can be themselves and, and PE kids can enjoy it themselves.


Sam Demma (04:52):
Yeah, I think that’s a beautiful definition. And, you know, I talked to other educators, Jeff Gerber talks about the importance of relationship. There’s no leadership without relationships. Everyone I talked to has a very personal definition, which is why I was curious to know your own. And I think just creating, you know, a holistic humans, great people is such an important way to look at it. And I’m curious to know right now during COVID, it’s tougher than ever to continue to do the activities you want to do. How can you still live out that mission of creating awesome humans during a time like COVID-19?


Bob Kline (05:29):
Oh yeah. Ah that’s. That is, that is the, that’s the hot topic right now? Well, in my school, we’re in a unique position, Sam like we, we just had our fifth case of the virus in our school and, and it’s a, it’s a very, very challenging day to day environment. There’s, there’s a lot of stress and so on. The nature of what we do in leadership at high schools has really changed. I’ve been, I’ve been telling people that it’s a, it’s a paradigm shift in education, but it’s also a paradigm shift in student activities across north America and across the world. And it seems like all of us are trying to, to make our way through this situation and figure out what works and what doesn’t work. So for, for us, we, we haven’t been able to do events what, what we’ve done, our approaches we’ve, we’ve started off by just focusing on getting all the students into the building and getting everybody comfortable being in that place.


Bob Kline (06:43):
Again we’re starting to enroll some things this week, like we’re, we’re going back to a very traditional thing at my school. We’re doing, we’re doing door holding and we’re going to do greeters at the door and creating energy in a welcoming environment at the, at the door, which is kind of a, a back to basics thing for us. We’re doing a food drive so that we can give back to the communities. So, so those things are, I guess, things that we can do that, that bring us back to the basics in terms of kind of doing leadership and, and getting the student body through it. I think just talking to kids is, is critical. It seems like the most basic thing. But just having conversations with them and figuring out where they’re at what their hopes and dreams are and, and what they want to do. I think young people also have a lot of ideas for, for what we can do right now, and we really have to tap into that. So, so yeah, it’s a complex beast that we’re, we’re dealing with right now. Isn’t it?


Sam Demma (07:51):
Yeah. I was going to ask, tell me a story where maybe the school or yourself has tried something, you know, the saying, throw spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks have you experimented with anything just yet, or do you know if someone who’s given something a shot and it could have totally failed. But we can all learn from the mistake. I’m curious to know if any story comes to mind?


Bob Kline (08:17):
Well, I guess something specific to our school is I really feel right now, like, like we’re starting a little bit too late. I was, I was thinking about this and I’ve had a lot of conversations with staff in my building and this, the same conversation keeps happening. It’s nothing fun is happening right now. And what is leadership doing to create fun in the building? And I think a mistake that our, our, our leadership team made is that we, we waited a little bit too long to start doing. And I, I think it would have been okay to start some of our, some of our stuff a little sooner. So, so that’s one thing because what we’ve experienced is we, we’ve completely focused on safety and we’ve completely focused on procedure from the beginning, but the cases are still rising within our school.


Bob Kline (09:18):
So we, we probably could have, and should have done some, some fun stuff to build that community a little bit sooner. And I, I think it’s okay to look critically and think critically about, about yourself and what you’re doing. So, so that’s okay. It’s, it’s never too late to start. But just where we’re a little behind and starting in terms of like ideas and cool stuff that people are doing, there’s, there’s lots of stuff that is going on across Canada, where, where people are doing digital stuff. Something interesting though right now is that students are really craving the human stuff. They want to do the human stuff, and that’s where we have to find our way.


Sam Demma (10:06):
That’s awesome. What is the human stuff? Is, is this like giving back is it, is it just talking to people? What is the human stuff and how like, yeah, I want to know more.


Bob Kline (10:21):
Well first of all, like at a really basic level, we know that students want to be together physically and the ones who are in our building right now the ones who opted to do in-person classes, they opted to do that because they want to see their friends and they want to be with their friends. So that’s the big challenge is, is finding stuff that they can do where they can be together. So one thing that a really awesome teacher at my school did was for Terry Fox throughout September, she created this school-wide spreadsheet and you could take your class out for a walk. She, she mapped out a one kilometer loop on campus, and that ended up being the highlight of the day. Often with my leadership class was when we would take a break from our discussion and our reading and our watching Ted talks, and actually just went outside and just went for a one loop or, or a couple of loops on campus. And the kids could just talk and connect and have that free time. And what we started to see was a lot of classes caught on, and a lot of classes started to do that. And not only did it kind of benefit us in mind and body, but it also gave us a chance to learn a little bit about Terry Fox and participate in the spirit of Terry Fox. So, you know, simple human stuff like that, where it’s a safer environment outside is it is a really great, important thing to do.


Sam Demma (12:01):
That’s awesome. I love that. I know some schools are doing staggered, staggered, Terry Fox runs or walks, which sounds pretty similar, but that’s awesome. And anyone who’s listening, you know, I think it’s a matter of going back to the basics. Walking is basic opening the door and greeting people is basic. What are the basic things we can do to, to greet these kids and make them feel welcomed on the same topic of helping students feel more human and do human things. Do you have a story, Bob, maybe over the past 15, 10, 15 years that you’ve been teaching? I might be even low-balling it. I don’t know how long you’ve been a teacher for now. You look certainly good for if you have been doing it longer than that.


Bob Kline (12:47):
Oh my gosh.


Sam Demma (12:49):
Do you have a story that you can share of a student who’s been just deeply touched and impacted by leadership? And if it’s a story that’s very serious and private and you can change the student’s name to share it, but I want something that’s hardy and vulnerable because when we share a story like this, it reminds our fellow educators, why it’s so important to do the work we do, despite the challenges we’re faced with. It gives other educators hope and inspiration. And do you know of any stories? Does any story come to mind when I asked that question?


Bob Kline (13:22):
Oh, so many, so many, like, you know, Sam, like I know that after you speak kids come up to you and they come up to you and they say, I just have to tell you this. I just have to tell you what happened. And sometimes it’s like this big deep thing. And other times it’s this simple, awesome story. Right? And all of those things that can tell you are, are truly amazing and truly valuable. So same thing, like we’re blessed stay in this line of work. We’re blessed to, to have kids sharing, sharing back with us, how leadership’s impacted them. But one thing that that often comes to mind is, is a story about this student. I, I taught a few times and I coached him on the track team and cross country. His name is Noah and Noah. When, when he was going for his license, he told me that the only thing that he wanted to do, like the first thing he wanted to do when he got his license was drive to McDonald’s and he wanted to go by himself for a meal.


Bob Kline (14:29):
And he wanted to go in and sit in, McDonald’s have the meal and then drive home. Like that was his thing. It’s it sounds silly and fun, but that was his thing. So Noah, a few days after he got his license, he came up to me and he said, I have to tell you about what happened at McDonald’s. I said, okay, great. So Noah went, he drove by himself and went in and had his meal. And as he was coming out of McDonald’s, he passed a homeless guy and the homeless guy said, do you have any change? And Noah said, the thing that most of us say is, sorry, man, I use debit. I don’t have any cash. So Noah told me that he got to his car and he just felt like garbage for just passing this guy by. So he went back and he invited the man into McDonald’s and said, how about, how about I buy you a meal?


Bob Kline (15:27):
So they ended up sitting together in the McDonald’s for about an hour and just having a conversation about life and the man shared with Noah, where he had been and how he ended up homeless, how his life ended up that way. And Noah learned tremendous human lessons from, from just that snap decision that, that simple snap decision that he made and Noah really, really was a changed person. After that. He, he got into global development work. He, he, he joined a class at our school called outreach and traveled to South America to, to actually do some youth development on the ground internationally. And you know, Noah was just, he talked differently. He thought differently has his worldview changed from that situation? And all of that was from a simple act of what I call personal leadership. So you know, like that, that’s one of the biggest stories that stands out to me that I love to tell.


Sam Demma (16:36):
That’s an awesome, awesome story. What prompted that thinking in Noah? Do you think it was from leadership class or the years of teachers that he had? Was it a characteristic that was driven into him by the school? What prompted that selfless act in Noah?


Bob Kline (16:54):
Oh, man. I, I don’t know. It’s hard to know kind of what drives people to do what they do. And you know, I think like in leadership, it’s, it’s funny because it, it, it seems like sometimes leadership and school spirit is all about wearing your colors and doing the rah rah stuff. And, you know, Noah came to OSLC with us, the Ontario Student Leadership Conference, and he heard, he heard all the great speakers and maybe it was just the, the accumulation of all those positive messages that was just inside him that, you know, prompted him to do something good himself. I think I don’t know, Sam, like knowing, knowing about your story and, and how you guys founded PickWaste. I mean, it’s almost a very similar thing. It’s like this, this simple act of, of picking up garbage and just going about that ends up looking and feeling amazing when more and more people do it and, and it feels amazing for yourself. Right. I think that’s maybe what was going on inside Noah’s mind.


Sam Demma (18:11):
Oh, that’s awesome. I love that. I, I want to talk to Noah now.


Bob Kline (18:17):
I can connect you. We’re still connected. He’s finishing university and he’s applying for the police. He wants to be a police officer.


Sam Demma (18:26):
Very cool. That’s awesome. Well, Bob, if you could travel back in time to the first year you were a teacher and give yourself advice based off the wisdom you’ve gained teaching over the past, however many years you’ve been teaching. What advice would you give yourself? Because there might be an educator listening who is in their first year of education right now, and they’re kind of scrambling, they’re lacking hope. They’re not sure what to do or what they signed up for. What pieces of advice could you share from an educator’s perspective?


Bob Kline (19:04):
Well honestly, Sam, I would pass on the best piece of advice that was ever passed on to me. I heard this from a teacher who retired. He was a math teacher and just an awesome guy. And in his retirement speech, he said in this line of work, you have to have fun every day to survive and on so many levels, that means so many different things. But you know, in your first year, you’re, you’re worried about the details. You’re worried about doing, doing things properly. You want the students to like you let alone teaching them the content. But honestly, a lot of times we can just let go and have fun. Some of the best lessons happen when you let go of what you had planned that day. And you’re just with the students. So, you know, like I’m in my 18th year now and you know, 18 years ago, my very first job was, was in Brampton at a really big school called Turner Fenton Secondary School. And I had hard time in that job. I was an English teacher and I was teaching basic English to grade nine. I was in grade 12, so it was tough. I couldn’t even relate to my students. And I wish, I guess that’s what I would have told myself is just have fun with those kids. I would definitely redo that if I could.


Sam Demma (20:45):
Tell me a story where you had fun, I want to amplify the feeling right now for you and hopefully in the minds of other educators that are listening, just to bring some hope back about this school situation.


Bob Kline (20:58):
Holy cow, I’m having fun right now. Ooh man. I like a lot of the fun comes from discussion and we have big life, life chats. Cool. And I mean, that is a form of fun, but it’s also a way of getting, getting to know students deeper or more deeply and, and them getting to know you, their future.


Sam Demma (21:27):
How do you start like a, a life chat? Do you just open up a discussion? What does that look like in your class?


Bob Kline (21:35):
So, so one thing that I did was I created a Google form and put question categories almost like a, a trivia game or a board game. So I just had cut glories, like friendship, family, relationships, sports fun and random pandemic. So I had a list of kind of the questions on the Google form, where we’re just basically topics and the students generated random questions that they came up with that they think would be fun to talk about. So one of the questions yesterday was what’s a food that you always crave. And so what I did was I, the Google forms is awesome because it populates a spreadsheet. So I would sit there with a spreadsheet and then the kids would pick a category almost like you’re playing a board game. And then you’d pick a random question to just toss out there.


Bob Kline (22:40):
And there’s ways that you could go into the discussion. You can have them turn and talk first to someone around them. And then everybody has a chance to say something and then kind of discuss as a whole class and say, well, what were the fun things or what was, what were the big things that you heard? You could even have them like use them as writing prompts and have students write down their thoughts again, so that everybody is thinking about the question and then have them share. So you know, it’s, it’s one of those tested in true teaching strategies to get kids to share and talk, I guess.


Sam Demma (23:17):
That’s awesome. No, thanks for sharing. I kept digging cause I knew there’d be some great information coming out and I think that’s a really cool, unique way to engage your class in a conversation right now. And Google forms is free for anyone listening. And if anyone wants to reach out to you, Bob and bounce, some more ideas around, maybe even pick your brain on that specific idea, how can they reach out to you and let you know, one that this episode inspired them and two, to get some advice from you?


Bob Kline (23:45):
Yeah. I love connecting actually. One thing Sam that I think you’re noticing about leadership teachers across Canada, as you connect with us, we all follow each other and we all like we look at each other’s Instagram and Twitter feed to get ideas, which is the best way to become a better teacher. So I particularly love Instagram. My Instagram and Twitter handle is @klinespeaks. Yeah, I have a website with the same name, www.klinespeaks.ca, which I use for just a couple of different things. I always love connecting with, with anyone really to talk about leadership and life and so on.


Sam Demma (24:11):
Awesome. Cool, Bob, thanks so much for taking some time to chat. It’s been a pleasure and I really appreciate all the energy you brought on the show.


Bob Kline (24:43):
Thanks Sam. It’s great to be with you. And I wish you all the best.


Sam Demma (24:48):
Talk to him though. You have it full interview with my good friend and colleague Bob Kline. He’s packed with ideas, packed with information and just has the biggest heart. So if you’re on the edge about reaching out, stopping on the edge, make the jump. I promise you, Bob will be someone who will impress you and turn into a lifelong friend. Anyways, hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did consider leaving a rating and review on the podcast to more educators like yourself can find it. And if you have ideas, if you have actionable inspirational stories that you’d like to share, please shoot me an email at info@samdemma.com, so we can get you on the podcast as well. Talk soon, all the best.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Bob Kline

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

November 26, 2021 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Teachers 0

Kelly Weaver – Director of Student Activities at Iolani School & Fo under of Soulvivor808

Kelly Weaver, Director of Student Activities lolani school
About Kelly Weaver

Kelly Weaver (@NaturalRedHead) is the student activities director at Iolani School in Hawaii. When she’s not in the school building, Kelly is a certified Law of Attraction Life Purpose Coach, solopreneur, writer, speaker, wife, and mother of two beautiful daughters. For almost two decades she has taught middle and high school students in both public and private schools.

In 2014, she finally took her own advice and moved from inner-city Reading, Pennsylvania to Honolulu, Hawaii to pursue HER dreams! Let her teach you how to reach new heights in all areas of your life through her amazing book, “Living Your Own Aloha: 5 Steps to Manifesting Your Dreams” and personal coaching services.

Connect with Kelly: Email | Linkedin | Website | Twitter | Instagram

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

The Law of Attraction Explained

Living Your Own Aloha: 5 Steps to Manifesting Your Dreams

The Dream Machine Tour USA

Charlie Rocket

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 (00:05):
Kelly, Aloha, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by just introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about what brought you to where you are in education today?


Kelly Weaver (00:23):
Sure. Well, Aloha Sam. Thank you so much for this opportunity. My name is Kelly Weaver. I currently live and teach in Honolulu, Hawaii at a private school. I actually am the director of student activities, but I had taught English for 16 years and my heart and soul was at the middle school level. I actually do work at both the local and national and state level for the middle school association. And so my career started right out of high right out of college, like most educators, and this is my 23rd year.


Sam Demma (01:06):
Wow. That’s amazing. I have to give you a round of applause for that. That’s amazing. And so tell me more about, you mentioned that middle school is it’s the heart of everything you do. And what brought you to that realization? Tell me more about where that passion grew from.


Kelly Weaver (01:26):
That actually grew from my own experience as a middle school student. So I had an incredible middle school experience, which I know most people that is like an oxymoron that doesn’t happen. But my favorites teacher, the reason I became a teacher I had both in seventh and eighth grade, my school did a looping, so the teachers really got to know us developed relationships with us and it was then that I just knew when I, when I student taught, I specifically said, I really want to teach middle school because I know that that’s what I want to do. And then it was exactly where I was supposed to be. I feel like those kids are in the middle, they’re misunderstood. I had a pretty rough growing up and if it hadn’t been for my middle school teachers and that age, those teachers that were supporting me, I would not be the success that I am today. So I kind of felt like I wanted to return it to those students. And yes, they are full of energy. Some days are hard, some days are crazy, but they really wants an adults and they need someone that cares about them. And so I just committed most of my career to really learning everything that I could about that developmental age.


Sam Demma (02:39):
That’s amazing. And I want to, I want to go back to when you were that student again for a second those teachers that had a huge impact on you, what is it specifically that they did, if you can think back and remember that you think made a big impact on you when you were going through those tough times? I’m just wondering, because if another educator is listening and wondering, they can be there for their kids or be that teacher like they were for you. Yeah. I’m just curious to know what those things might’ve been.


Kelly Weaver (03:06):
I know exactly what it was, and it’s one of the things that was always my philosophy as a teacher. They don’t care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. And I was going, like I said, through a very tough time in my childhood. And if it hadn’t been for them, recognizing it and taking a moment to say, you know, some of the things going on with this, with a student outside of the classroom, let’s develop a great relationship with her. Let’s figure out what’s going on. No one would have known what was going on. And so, and I don’t think I would be where I am today without that guidance. So I really encourage people. It’s building relationships is the absolute first key. And I spent a lot of time when I was in the classroom, making sure that I spent a lot of time getting to know my students as, as people and what motivates them before I could teach them pronouns and adjectives. They just, they’re not going to care about that stuff. That’s not what they’re going to remember about you. They’re going to remember how much you cared about them.


Sam Demma (04:10):
Yeah. It’s so true. And what does that look like in the classroom? Getting to know your students? Is it just like having everyone share a story or how do you encourage students to share about themselves so that you can kind of learn some more and start building that, that, that personal relationship?


Kelly Weaver (04:26):
It starts, the minute they walk in the door, it’s a personal greeting. It’s knowing their names, getting to know their names. I can say is the absolute first thing, you know, especially, I know it’s hard with teachers. We, a lot of us teach, you know, hundreds. Literally. I remember when I was in the classroom, I had, you know, like 180 kids on my team. You got to get to know their names. You got to ask questions every day. You have to be cognizant when they come in, you know, do you see them smiling? Do they look sad? Just really talking to them and getting to know them. And one of the other really cool activities that I used to do was actually involved the parents. It was called in a million words or fewer. So one of the first things I would send out to parents was asking the parents to write a, basically an essay about their kid.


Kelly Weaver (05:10):
And they could tell me in, you know, just a few sentences or I had people write pages, but that really got me to know the kid on a level that I would not have known. And then as a team I would share, I would share that with our team. So we would really get to know. And one of my favorite stories about that was a mother who wrote in that when she was in labor, she was a professor and she was actually in labor during a final exam and she couldn’t leave. She felt like she couldn’t leave. So she watched a Palm tree swaying in the wind to concentrate on her breath. And she swears the that’s why her son has such an easygoing and loving personality. So things like that, you wouldn’t learn right about your, about your students, but really cool stories and sometimes some really good information.


Sam Demma (05:59):
That’s so cool. And did you know when you were going through school that you wanted to be in working in a school in the future and be an educator yourself, or where did that career passion stem from?


Kelly Weaver (06:12):
A million percent. I wanted to be a teacher since I probably could talk. I just loved school. I loved it. But it wasn’t until middle school that I, I loved writing and I loved reading and it wasn’t until middle school. When I met my favorite teacher, the reason that I became a teacher, Mrs. Henrik, that I realized I could combine both love for reading and writing and be a teacher and teach that to other students.


Sam Demma (06:39):
Wow. That’s awesome. And did you have people or teachers in your life direct you in that direction and say, you know, Kelly, when you grew up, you know, please get into teaching. Did you ever consider anything else or was it just a straight arrow path? Like you’re saying like high school university, you go to teacher’s college, boom, boom, boom. Get into teaching.


Kelly Weaver (07:01):
There was one time. So when I got into high school, I was interviewed for the, our we had a wonderful TV program and I was interviewed about something that I did and the teacher of that came up to me and was like, you know, you did such an amazing job and you feel so comfortable on TV. Would you like to be a news anchor for our show? And so I did do TV news, both in in high school and then in college I did for a semester. And so I was really considering communication and maybe switching. But to me, honest with you, I’m glad that I didn’t because teaching is where it was supposed to be for sure.


Sam Demma (07:42):
That’s amazing. I love to hear that. And what did the first role that you took on in school? What was it, and then tell us about, like, tell me about the other positions you’ve worked in and then also what you’re doing now.


Kelly Weaver (07:57):
Oh my goodness. So my first year was the typical first year teacher. Where, how do you survive? I actually was teaching eighth grade and ninth grade and I was teaching journalism and speech. So I had four preps as a brand new teacher to different grade levels. It was a junior high model. So it wasn’t like the teaming model that we had. I coached track. I helped with the school play. Like I remember when I got the job, right. It was what you do as a new teacher. You do everything because you’re lucky to have a job. But my student teaching actually really prepared me for those preps. You know, I didn’t realize that at the time, but my mentor was losing her mind and administration saying, this is not fair to give those poor 22 year old. And you know, it was, I’m not gonna lie.


Kelly Weaver (08:45):
I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but it was a tough year because here I am 22, these kids are not that far in age, you know, ninth grade, they’re 14 and 15. And they gave me a run for by money for sure. But it’s solidified that absolutely. This is what I was supposed to be doing. So I started out at a small school, so I grew up, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania. So that’s where my career started. And then I got pregnant with my first daughter and I transitioned to a school that was much closer to my home. And I, I took on a reading course. So I was teaching reading for a year. Then I went back into teaching eighth grade on a team level. And throughout my career, I’ve taught seventh, eighth and ninth grade. I’ve taught English, journalism, drama, speech a class called communications. And then I had a dream and I wanted to move to Hawaii and I wanted to teach here. And so I applied and I taught English for one year. And then I moved into my dream job of student activities, where I direct all of the activities from grade seven to 12. So I like to say on the director of fun.


Sam Demma (10:04):
That’s amazing. And so your dream was to move to Hawaii. Where did the rest of the dream come from to do student activities? At what point in your career did you want to get more involved and be the director of fun?


Kelly Weaver (10:17):
Well, I did not know that that position existed because on the mainland, that’s not really a thing. And maybe it is, and I apologize to anyone listening that, but it wasn’t on the east coast. Right? I did all the things that I did on top of teaching, but all I do now is focused on student leadership and activities. So it wasn’t really that I was looking for the dream job in Hawaii. I didn’t, like I said, I didn’t know existed. I was moving thinking. I was going to just teach English. And that was my passion. And that was what I thought I was wanting to do. Actually, I started to get an itch that I wanted to get out of the classroom. I wanted to do something bigger. I wanted to do leadership. And so initially I started looking at becoming a middle school. I really wanted to move into the private sector because what I liked about the private sector was you could actually become a middle school director or the principal.


Kelly Weaver (11:09):
If, if public school people are watching, but you still could teach a class, you still had that realm in the, in the classroom, which I always felt as an administrator is important. You can’t lose touch with what it’s like in the trenches. So for me, I wanted another leadership position. And to be honest with you, the more I looked, I was like, it’s taking me away from the students. And that’s where my love is. So this job was perfect because it’s a leadership position, but my, my day involves kids. And that’s my focus all day, not all the politics and red tape, put the bureaucracy to the side, focus on the fun and the students.


Sam Demma (11:42):
I love it. You know, all of the educators that are tuning in potentially from Canada and some places in Ontario, they’re probably like student directors of fund student activities. Like what does this entail? It might be called something different in Canadian schools. So if you want to break it down, what do the roles and responsibilities look like for a, you know, director of student activities? Sure.


Kelly Weaver (12:07):
So our school, it’s basically student council, student government. So each class seven through 12th has their own election for president vice president, secretary and treasurer. And then we as a school community, elect what we call three pro councils, which are basically the student body presidents. There’s three of them. And then we have committees. We actually have 10 committees and they are different. They’re like spirit, big spirits, small. And all of those are very focused on something. So I’ll give you one example. We have a faculty relations committee, those students apply to be on the committee. They there’s an application process. And then we go through and vet them out. And what they focus on is strictly our faculty. So they create activities and all kinds of different things just for the faculty. So for example, right now we just welcomed a whole bunch of new teachers.


Kelly Weaver (13:01):
So they bought popcorn bags and they created this little tag that said, just popping in to say, have a great year. And we put that in all of the new teacher’s mailboxes. This will make some people very jealous listening out there, but because we are a private school and we have some funding, we actually have, what’s called one teen week, which is our teacher appreciation week. And that’s the week that my faculty relations committee really delves into. So they plan teacher dress stays like fun days. Like it might be what we call fashion. No, no day. They we’ve. We’ve done gone so far as we’ve brought massage therapists for our teachers, we do food giveaway, we have lunches. So basically it’s, what’s the kid’s imagination is the limit. And they come up with really amazing things to do, you know, in that particular committee. And that’s one committee, but I have nine others that focus on other aspects of the school. So we really make sure we reach the student body as well as our teachers and stuff.


Sam Demma (14:03):
Oh, that’s amazing. And


Kelly Weaver (14:04):
Then we do all the activities. We do, homecoming proms dances any kind of activity nights assemblies. We do it all from my office. So we really teach students the leadership skills and the qualities that they need to run events and what’s required of those so that they have those skills when they go on to college and do things like that.


Sam Demma (14:27):
That’s amazing. And is this your, this, this doesn’t sound like it’s your first year in this position? How long have you been doing school activities?


Kelly Weaver (14:35):
This is my seventh year in student activities.


Sam Demma (14:38):
What was it like on year one?


Kelly Weaver (14:40):
Oh, my gosh, year one was like my first year teaching. I remember sitting down in front of, so my, I have a partner and she actually is, what’s called daughter of the school. So when a student goes from K to 12 and graduates, they are a son or daughter of the school. So she is an alumni. So she knows the school and the culture very well. And I remember the first year I sat in front of my computer and it was the first time. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. And I mean that sincerely, I was like, I’m looking at her. Like, I don’t even know what to do. You know, with teaching, didn’t matter what school you went to, you learned the school and you learn their systems, but I knew, okay, I got to do a lesson on this.


Kelly Weaver (15:25):
This was like, what? So thankfully the person before me wrote meticulous notes and a blueprint, and I had been here you’re for one year as an English teacher. So I saw all of the activities that we did, but it was very, very overwhelming. But now my partner and I, we are a well-oiled machine. We don’t even have to like, it’s like, she knows, this is my lane. This is what I’m working on. I know this is what she’s working on. You know, things we do together, but we really are an amazing team. And then we have amazing students. It’s like, I can’t shout them out enough because if it weren’t for our students and their ideas and creativity, my job would be way harder.


Sam Demma (16:08):
Oh, that’s awesome. I love that. And you can tell that you enjoy the job. Like, even while you’re talking right now, you seem so happy and like energetic about it, which is so important. You know, putting teachers in positions that they actually love. And you’re definitely going to make teachers jealous, talking about massage therapists, bringing them in.


Kelly Weaver (16:27):
I can’t believe I lived this life. I’m just like really


Sam Demma (16:30):
Well, you know, it goes to show that you, I mean, it started in your head, right? You created it. It started in your head. You, you decided what you were going to do and Aloha now we’re here. You know?


Kelly Weaver (16:41):
Well, if I could say something to that, cause you just triggered down my next love. So I’m also in my free time, which I really don’t have free time. I’m a law of attraction coach. So I believe very much in deliberate creation. And I actually wrote a book, my first book called living your own, aloha five steps to manifesting your dreams, which is on Amazon. And it’s the method and the steps that I created to use to manifest my dream life here in Hawaii and my dream job. So I love that you said that because you’re exactly right. We have a vision, we take action toward those steps and we can really create the life that we love


Sam Demma (17:18):
Kelly, you and I are going to be best friends!!


Kelly Weaver (17:24):
Together for a reason.


Sam Demma (17:25):
Right. It has. This is so cool. And what when in your career did you write your book and what prompted the creation of it?


Kelly Weaver (17:32):
So I wrote the book it just got published in March, so it’s been out. I started the book actually finished it really during COVID. I was writing every single Sunday. I was making a point to it. What started? It was just that I just love the law of attraction. I love how it has actually, to be honest with you. I know this is not about teaching, but I had my spiritual awakening in 2009 here in Hawaii. I dislocated my ankle in the airport, coming home from a 10 year wedding anniversary trip with my husband. And it really broke me open to healing that I needed to do. Like I told you about my childhood and I wanted other people. I just, I saw so many people and teachers, especially, especially during COVID so burnt out, not feeling like they have any control in what they can create in their life.


Kelly Weaver (18:23):
And I was like, you know what? I need to share this with people, how I did it. They need to know that no matter what their life has started as, as a child or whatever they’re going through, they can, they can create this beautiful life that they want to live. And it’s what I’ve taught my students over the years. Like I use these principles with my students and I’ve helped them get into colleges and help them get more money for college. And so it’s just something that I love to pass on to people. And I thought, you know what a book is the best way. It’s the fastest way. It’s the cheapest way. Let’s get this information out.


Sam Demma (18:55):
And how do you explain the law of attraction to a teacher? So there’s an educator listening right now and maybe they’re not familiar with the concept. Can you break it down a little bit or maybe even using some of the ideas from your book?


Kelly Weaver (19:05):
Yeah. So law of attraction is just about what you put out. You get back, whether that’s good or bad, and you are a Dilbert creator, you have the ability to create your own life. So in the book I use the word Aloha this and see, this is where my teaching has paid off because my book is very much a handbook, a guide. I give you very tangible tools. That was very important to me as an educator. It’s like, I don’t want to just spell, you know, theory and rhetoric to you. I want to give you tangible what I call inspired assignments that you can actually do. And so the five-step process is a low hot ask. Listen opportunities, how, and act as if, and those are all the principles of the law of attraction that you can take. So basically you set an intention.


Kelly Weaver (19:51):
You believe, you feel that you’re going to receive it and you trust in divine timing. You don’t know, worry about how it’s going to come and you bring it into your life. That is how I got the job here. When I was initially hired here, I applied for the student activities job. I did not get it. I went home. I was convinced Sam. I was like, I told my husband, I’m like pack your bags. The guy that I met here had family and connections in Pennsylvania. We had this amazing connection. My husband’s like, I can’t believe you’re going to get this job just because you know someone at Pennsylvania, I didn’t get it. I was, I was, I was denied the job. And then I, I was so angry at the universe. God, higher power, whatever you believe in. I, I was like, that’s it.


Kelly Weaver (20:35):
I throw in the towel, I’m over this. Why is nothing happening? I had been trying to get a new job. And a week later they called me from the school and they said, we know you were looking to move into leadership. And we know you applied for this other job, but you, you amazed us at the interview. And we would love to have you as an English teacher here. And at first my husband said, we’re not moving for you to teach English. We’re not moving all those miles away. You’re teaching English now. And I said, that job is going to be mine. And guess what happened? I had the clear intention. I knew it was mine. And several months later the man that interviewed me he left, he left the island. And not only did he leave, but his assistant left. So not only was there one job now, there were two. So it works. You know, it works how it comes about and what timing. That’s what we have to let go of. But if we are, if we know and we have a sense, it will work out. And so I want to encourage educators. If there’s other things out there that you’re passionate about, that you love, like put it out there, you know, and take some action. You gotta take some steps. You can’t just sit around, but you can make it happen a hundred percent


Sam Demma (21:48):
And Aloha act as if is that for acting as if it’s already happened?


Kelly Weaver (21:52):
Yeah, this is really weird. But I write about this in the book. I literally, when I got, when I found out that the job was open again, I actually would, anytime I would pretend to answer the phone, I would say, hi, this is Kelly. Student activities would say that all the time. I envisioned myself in the, in the deck at the desk. I mean, just really put myself and my feelings into that. And I’m telling you, it worked multiple stories like that in the book of like, that’s the other thing in the book. I don’t just, this, isn’t all just theory. This is what I’ve had to go through. And what I’ve done to prove to you that, that whatever that assignment is, it works


Sam Demma (22:37):
Well. I have goosebumps because I live by the same philosophies and there’s a guy actually, who’s going to be driving through who I assume named Charlie rocket. And he has this bus called the dream machine. And he goes around in the U S and make people’s dreams come true. And I wanted to reach out to him because I speak in schools and he was doing all this work, but he wasn’t talking to students and I had this idea and this was like a year ago. Wouldn’t it be so cool. If in all the states he stops in while he’s doing amazing work, I kept like, you know, speak to the students of the schools in the local cities and spread the, you know, initiative on the ground. But the issue was, you know, he has 500,000 followers. You know, he’s super big. And it’s like, how is, how am I going to get ahold of this guy?


Sam Demma (23:18):
And so I started writing down in my notebook, Charlie and I are working together. He just doesn’t know it yet. Charlie and I are working together. He just doesn’t know it yet. And low and behold, I got so obsessed with the idea because I was acting as if it already happened. Your mind starts racing and the obsession led to some ideas. And so I realized he had his own podcast was 62 episodes. So I made a, I took two weeks to listen to all 62, made a page of notes of every single episode, stapled them together, put a cover letter on it that said, Hey, Charlie, my onboarding is done. When can we get started? Put the notes inside a custom printed box with his logo all over it. Then I interviewed his co-founder, who was more of a behind the scenes kind of guy to try and get a mailing address.


Sam Demma (23:58):
We had a phenomenal conversation at the end and he’s like, here’s the mailing address? I got the mailing address, got the box, shipped it off a week and a half, two weeks later, Charlie FaceTime me on my phone. We had a full hour and a half conversation and, you know, things didn’t work out for different reasons, but I wanted to share that story with you because I think that I manifested that into my life. The same way you’re explaining you as an educator manifested your role and the work you’re doing now. And I think it’s such an important thing to remind ourselves that we are the creators of our destinies. And at any moment we can change something we’re not happy about. So I just want to share that story as well. Real quick.


Kelly Weaver (24:36):
Yeah. I literally, they had, they called chicken skin here in Hawaii. I mean, that is a cry. Yes, you totally did. And you know what, that’s another good point. Even if something doesn’t happen at the end of it, right. You just never know what it’s going to eventually, you don’t know, like it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s over. It could, it happened to me. Like I won’t bore you with another story, but I do a radio segment here in Hawaii on Tuesdays. And I initially, you know, was asked to just do one episode and they weren’t they weren’t calling me back and they were calling me back and I like got really upset. I’m like they said, they were going to put me on. It was, you know, to help me promote my book. And then sure enough now only am I now on one episode, if through a whole other story, I’m now on the show on Tuesdays. So again, when I thought I was mad that they weren’t calling me for one thing, the universe was like, you said, you want it to be on radio. It was already working in the background for me. And it was working better than I expected. So sometimes you just want to say, okay, you know,


Sam Demma (25:40):
Yep. What if things could turn out better than you expected? That’s the question you ask yourself. Right. And, and it’s funny, like, I, I was thinking the same thing. So like what ended up happening is I had the choice to make it was to leave what I was doing now and do something very different that I wasn’t as passionate about or to continue doing the work I’m doing now. And so I ended up not going, so I didn’t want to give up something that I love here, but we still stay in touch and who knows what’s going to happen four or five years down the road. Right.


Sam Demma (26:09):
So we just keep living the Aloha lifestyle. I love it. Well, this interview is taking an amazing turn. I’m so glad we touched upon this. If you could give your younger education self one piece of advice, if you could go back 23 years and speak to Kelly, when she just started teaching, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your younger self?


Kelly Weaver (26:31):
Oh, my that’s a great question. I think it would be to not to be able to say, and I know that that maybe sounds counterintuitive, but I now live by the mantra. Does it tire or does it inspire me? And I think early on in our careers, as you know, we want it, we want to be the model teacher, which is great. We want to do all the things, but we burn ourselves out, you know, when we take away from ourselves and our own self care. And so it would just be that it’s, it’s okay to say, no, you’re not a bad person. You’re setting you’re setting boundaries because you need that. And I think it with COVID this past year, I’m hoping a lot of educators were able to do that. They were able to set those boundaries because otherwise, you know, I think that’s, you know, you just would burn out. And I see that in so many younger people, they feel obligated to say yes to everything, you know? So I would just tell myself it’s okay to say no, sometimes


Sam Demma (27:39):
Amazing love that. Awesome. And if someone’s listening to this love, the conversation wants to either buy your book, get in touch with you, ask a question, what would be the best way for them to reach out to you?


Kelly Weaver (27:50):
I do actually have a website so they could, you know, email me on there. It’s www.soulvivor808.com. And you can also just email me at soulvivor808@gmail.com as well. I’d love to connect if anyone has any questions at all.


Sam Demma (28:16):
Amazing Kelly, thank you so much again for taking some time to chat about all this on the show. Enjoy the rest of your school year and well, we’ll talk soon.


Kelly Weaver (28:25):
Aloha. Thank you, Sam.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Kelly Weaver

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

November 24, 2021 by Experiential Learning Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Joshua Sable – Student Activity Director at TanenbaumCHAT

Joshua Sable Student Activity Director at TanenbaumCHAT
About Joshua Sable

Joshua Sable is a veteran educator, speaker and memory maker. His personal teaching philosophy is to: “give students a reason to come to school tomorrow.” Joshua is also the Student Activity Director at TanebaumCHAT.

The way he fulfills this philosophy is through the memory-making machine of student activities and school culture. In this episode, Josh shares actionable strategies to help you students make memories, right now!

Connect with Joshua: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Tanenbaum Chat High School

Theater and Performing Arts at York University

Mentor College

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today we have on a very purpose driven and passionate educator. His name is Joshua Sable. He is a veteran teacher, speaker, and memory maker. As you’ll hear about on this show, his personal teaching philosophy is to give students a reason to come to school tomorrow. And the way he fulfills this philosophy is through something he calls the memory making machine of student activities and school culture. In this episode, Josh shares actionable strategies to help your students make more memories right now. I’ll see you on the other side, Josh, thank you so much for coming onto the high-performing educators podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you. I want you to first introduce yourself to the audience, tell everyone who you are, what you’ve done in education up until this point and why you initially got started in the work that you’re doing today with young people.


Joshua Sable (01:03):
Thanks so much for having me here today Sam. Its a real, real pleasure. My name is Josh Sable. This is my, let me do the math. This is my 26th year teaching. So I’ve been teaching for 26 years. I’ve spent the last 23 years at a school called chats or TanenbaumChat in Toronto, which is a high school in Toronto. And I’ve spent most of those years as a teacher of dramatic arts in English, but mainly as the director of student activities, which I’ve been doing there for the last 22 of my 23 years.


Sam Demma (01:42):
Nice. That’s so cool. What initially got you into education. Was there a teacher in your life that heavily impacted you and swayed you in that direction? Is it something you knew you wanted to do since you were a little kid? Everyone’s story is totally different. I’m just curious what yours is.


Joshua Sable (02:00):
It’s a great question. I was really into performing theater drama entertainments as a teenager. And a young person was very involved in student leadership, sports arts at my high school and outside of the high school. And then when I went to university, I knew I wanted to study theater. I wanted to study performance. I wanted to develop my craft, but when I finished my four-year degree in theater and performing arts at York university, I knew that there was something else I still wanted to do. I was working at summer camps at the time and I loved working with young people. And the idea of working in the arts exclusively was exciting. But at the same time, I knew that there were other things that I wanted to accomplish and other things that I wanted to do. And all of those seem to surround working with young people.


Joshua Sable (02:51):
So I got my teaching degree, started teaching right away at the age of 22 and I’ve been teaching ever since. That’s awesome. That’s great. And then my first year asking about teaching philosophy and what got me started or what got me energized. Can I tell you a quick story about my first year teaching? Absolutely. That’s why we’re here. My first year teaching, I was teaching grade seven. So my first three years I taught at a school called Mentor College in Mississauga, which is a great school. And I was teaching a homeroom. I was teaching grade seven and I was, I wasn’t feeling that inspired. I knew why I got into teaching. I didn’t know if I was making a difference. I didn’t know what sort of impact I was having on the young people in my classroom. And I was, I was struggling a little bit going through a little bit of a down period in my first year teaching.


Joshua Sable (03:43):
And one of the things we had to do on a regular basis at this private school was called parents once a month, just to check in, give them an update about how their students, how their children were doing. So I called one student in particular, not on our regular day and not as part of our regular monthly call because he had been missing a number of days. And I introduced myself. Mum recognized me. We had met before and I said, is everything okay with Chris? I haven’t, haven’t seen him as frequently as we normally see him is everything okay? And mum then starts to tell me how Chris Chris’s parents, mom and dad were, were going through a really bad divorce. And I didn’t know. And Chris was really, really struggling with it. So I said to mom, I said, look, tell Chris to take as much time as he needs.


Joshua Sable (04:38):
You know, we’ll be here for him whenever he comes back to school, how can I help? What can I do to help? I am happy to do anything that you need me to do. I can call him over the phone. We can, we can work on his math, his English on the phone. What can I do to help? And she said, well, she said, no, you don’t understand. She said, the only reason that he wants to come back to school is to see you and to hear your jokes and to be part of your classroom experience. She said, thank you for giving Chris a reason to come back to school. And I got those goosebumps like we do sometimes. And I had no idea that I had been part had played any role in having such an impact on him. And it hit me, hit me pretty hard.


Joshua Sable (05:29):
And at the time I was taking some courses at Boise for personal education and development and they kept asking us, what’s your personal teaching philosophy? I don’t know, be nice. You know, so don’t, don’t get hit by the chalk. You know, I, I didn’t know what my teaching philosophy was. And it was at that moment, not to sound too cheesy, but I really had an aha moment there where I said, that’s it? What Chris, what Chris’s mom said to me was, was my PR became my personal teaching philosophy, which was give someone a reason to come back tomorrow. And I started to think, how, how cool would it be? If everyone in our schools, student leaders, staff, custodian, support staff, if each of us just gave one person a reason to come back to school tomorrow, how much better what our school environment be. And, and you can have that impact in so many different ways, small, medium, or large, but that became a personal teaching philosophy for me.


Sam Demma (06:32):
I love that. And sometimes teachers and educators don’t see the impact they’re having until decades down the road. So I think it’s so cool that you highlighted that was in your first year that’s, that’s phenomenal. And I’m sure you’ve had dozens upon dozens of more stories, just like that one. And I was actually going to ask you that later in the podcast, if you want to hold on to one or two more stories that you have, that you think would be really impactful, and we’ll share them a little bit down this down, this journey that we’re going on with this podcast right now, a lot of teachers are faced with challenges. One of the challenges being to give students like the student, you just mentioned those opportunities to want to come back to school during COVID. How do we create those scenarios? How do we make a student feel appreciated and cared for when sometimes you can’t do it in person and the virtual stuff is kind of different and difficult?


Joshua Sable (07:23):
Well, first of all, it’s not easy. None of us have a magic wand or a genie in a bottle where we’re all trying. And there’s so many amazing educators across the province, across the country who are doing whatever they can to create a sense of comfort, a sense of peace, a sense of fun in their classroom and in their schools. We’re all trying, everyone’s trying their best. I start by trying to smile with my eyes because we are now limited in terms of our smile, our smiles now go from about the bridge of your nose up to the top of your forehead. So I, I honestly try to smile with my eyes when I walked down the halls, when I’m in the classroom, when we’re engaging with students and student activities I really try to do that. I, I’m trying to learn as many names as I can, which we should all do as educators.


Joshua Sable (08:16):
People, people need to know that other people know your name. And it’s so hard in a time when once again, you’re only limited with the top party or face to face threat face recognition is even more difficult. So I’m trying to learn as many names as I can. We’re giving out as much free food as we can, even with the limitations due to COVID. So, first day of school, we gave our students a wrapped fortune cookies, and they were personalized fortune cookies, not personalized, but they were personalized for our school. So we had our student council come up with 25 specific fortunes that would be heard for our school environment. And we handed them out to the students on the way. And normally we’d be handing out free food, like cookies or chips or things that we putting our hands into. And obviously we can’t do that right now.


Joshua Sable (09:03):
So we’re trying to find rap snacks that still have a sense of fun in the sense of a culture we did pajama day, the other day, we usually do cookies and milk. So we found some packaged cookies that we got donated, and we were given out free packaged cookies for anyone who was wearing their, their PJ’s. A couple of other COVID ideas just before the summer, we were looking to do some, like everyone’s doing a lot of videos of social media during COVID for sure. The mass singer was big. So we came up with our own version of the mass singer, where we got as many teachers as possible to record themselves singing, wearing masks of any kind they could be wearing their they could be wearing a Darth Vader mask. They could be wearing their kid’s sweatshirt over their head COVID mask, whatever they prefer.


Joshua Sable (09:54):
And I had them record themselves, singing twice one with the mask and then a big reveal where they take off their mask. So we edited it together. We sent it out to the student body. Students had to guess whose voice belong to whom. And then we had a second episode of the mass singer where we revealed the identity of the mass. So we’re just trying to keep things moving, keep them light, look, students, they’re smart. They know we’re in the middle of the pandemic. They’re not expecting us to move mountains and perform miracles, but what they appreciate is any student leader or staff member who is trying to make a difference to connect with them, to learn their name and to give them a reason to come back tomorrow night.


Sam Demma (10:36):
I love it. The philosophy rings through even in all those principles. And it’s evident, you’ve practiced this for a long time and people would argue smiling with your eyes. How do you do that? Well, the first thing is with an intention, if you have the intention to do so, it comes across that you’re caring that you’re happy. You know, maybe we get some see-through mask or some magic material that allows you to see the mouth. But without that again, it’s just the intention behind it. And you have all the right ones, which is awesome. What are some of the challenges that you’ve seen in your school so far? I know virtual engagements, definitely one common one among all the educators I’ve spoke to. But what are some of the challenges you’ve been presented with or have faced?


Joshua Sable (11:18):
Well, like most high schools, we, we have limited our attendance on a daily basis. So at our school, we’ve got 50% of the student body attending each day and they’re only attending to lunch afternoons or virtual learning, which is similar to what other schools across Ontario are doing. But the biggest challenge, look, we all, we’re, we’re human beings. We crave social interaction, human interaction. We need to get close to people. We need to sense that they care about us. We need to interact. Sometimes we need a high five, a hug, a handshake, whatever way we’re comfortable communicating. And I think that’s, that’s difficult. It’s been really difficult for people to not be able to gather together as a community in the ways that they are used to gathering together at our school. Especially we have a great sense of community sense of traditions and at lunchtime or during break times, we gathered the students together or as many as we can in common spaces to do fun things.


Joshua Sable (12:24):
And it’s been really challenging, not being able to congregate as a group. So especially once again, we’re only half the student body as attending on day one and half the other half is at home. So that’s been really, really challenging. But as I said before, everyone’s frying, whether it’s synchronous, learning, asynchronous learning reaching out to the students, I have noticed an increased level of kindness and tolerance amongst people in educational settings, getting less frustrated in front of students or at students, because I think most people do realize that yes, we’re all in this together. Be this too shall pass. But see, the biggest thing we all need right now is human kindness, a little bit of tolerance, support and understanding, and, and not, not to be short with people or a short tempered person.


Sam Demma (13:20):
Showing us what really matters. And it’s about the relationships with our students and our fellow educators or student leaders. What keeps you going? What keeps you hopeful? You have this positive aura, this enthusiasm, this energy, even when things are difficult, I would imagine you’re the teacher lifting everyone else up. What, what keeps you hopeful and motivated?


Joshua Sable (13:40):
Well, I, you know, I mentioned before this, you know, part, one of the teaching philosophy, this idea of, of giving people a reason to come back tomorrow, when we meet with student leadership at our school at the beginning of the year, I often ask them, what’s, what’s, what’s your role this year? And they’ll say, oh, I’m, I’m the VP or I’m the treasurer I’m in charge of communications. And they usually don’t guess the next question, which is, well, that’s, that’s your title, but what’s, what’s your role within the school? What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to do? What sort of difference do you want to make in other people’s lives? And one of the things we talk about is this amazing opportunity that we have to make memories for other people. And I call student activities and student leadership, the memory making machine, you know, we’re in our school and yeah, as a teacher, it’s great.


Joshua Sable (14:32):
If you teach French, you can teach them how to conjugate a verb. If you teach math how to do algebra, if you teach science, you know, how to dissect a pig. But we all have this other amazing opportunity to actually create memories for other people. And yes, the memory can take different shapes and forms. The memory can be doing this great program at lunchtime and a kid got to wear a funny hat or get five more face or pay money to his teacher in the face with a sponge. And that’s part of the memory making machine. But part of the memory making machine is also opening the door for someone or, you know, smiling thumb when they’re having a bad day or asking them how their test was last period, or talking to them about the leaf game, because, you know, that’ll be a good distraction from whatever else is going on in their life.


Joshua Sable (15:25):
So making memories is not limited to being the most creative dynamic person who grabs the mic and talks in a big, you know, game show book. It’s about who’s overstayed checks, you know, which some of us can do, but that’s, that’s only a small piece of the memory making machine. So I encourage our student leaders to make memories and so own this idea of the memory making machine as much as possible. And, and that’s what keeps me going. This is challenge to make a difference in young people’s lives and to give them a reason to come back tomorrow through the memory making machine. That’s all


Sam Demma (16:01):
Awesome. And I want you to recall those stories now where you have helped other students make their own memories for themselves. Maybe they wrote, you wrote you a letter, 10 years down the road. Maybe they told you right when it had an impact on them, but recall a couple more of those stories that you think would be worth sharing to remind some fellow educators why it’s so important, the work they’re doing.


Joshua Sable (16:20):
Sure. And, and, you know, educators don’t do these things for the letters. We do everything just for the money. No. we don’t do things for the paycheck. We don’t do things for the, for the nice letters we do it because, you know, generally we, we care about young people and we were trying to give them an experience that’s maybe a little bit better than the experience of the students the year before or better than our experience. And we’re just trying to leave this school, this world a little bit better than, than how we found it. So. Sure. Yeah. I’ve got a bunch of stories. I’ll share a few and you can cut me off or tell me to keep going your, your, your call. Th the, the other thing I challenged student leaders to do when we come into meetings, I tell them my, my five favorite words to hear at the beginning of a student council meeting are, wouldn’t it be cool?


Joshua Sable (17:10):
If so, I want them to start a phrase with, wouldn’t it be cool if, and they finish that sentence. So oftentimes they’ll come into a meeting and they’ll say, and we had a student council president about 15 years ago, who said, wouldn’t it be cool if we slept at the school? And he was a bit of a, I don’t know, he was a bit of a showman. And he had all these crazy ideas. And sometimes the ideas didn’t necessarily come to fruition, but we all sort of laughed. And he said, no, no, no, I’m serious. Wouldn’t it be cool if we have a sleepover at the school? And we talked about it at first, everyone thought he was joking. And I said, well, you know what, Adam, we run a United way fundraiser single year. We don’t have a kickoff event for it. What if we had students pay money or raise money through their neighbors, friends, family, to sleep at school and we can run, you know a sleep over in the gym.


Joshua Sable (18:04):
We could have all these activities, we can play sports, play games. We can also decorate the school for United way. And then in the morning when people get up in the morning we’ll give everyone shirts that say, I slept at school for United way, and they’ll be wearing these big red shirts. And throughout the day, yeah, their eyes will be closed. They’ll be sleepy. There’ll be yawning and flat because they didn’t get much sleep, but that will be our big kickoff. Sure enough, the event came to fruition. Adam had the biggest smile on his face. He felt so good that this program was his idea. Sure. It’s our job as educators to help deal with logistics, to make sure the custodians know where to be, to make sure, you know, no one gets hurt, but we need to develop our ideas or to be energized by student ideas.


Joshua Sable (18:50):
And that was a classic example of that, you know a couple of years ago during the winter Olympics, students said, wouldn’t it be cool if we gave out some gold medals to to students for being great leaders at the school. So we brainstormed this at a student council meeting, we talked about it and they said, oh yeah. So how many would we do? Well, let’s do one per grade. We’ll give it to one student per grade. And another student said, well, wouldn’t it be cool if every student in the grade got a gold medal and that they, the kids said, yeah, that would be great. That would be amazing. And then other ones said, well, wouldn’t it be cool if each gold metal was actually personalized for the individual student? And they said, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they said, well, wouldn’t it be cool if it were not only personalized, but referenced a specific skill or traits or characteristic that the person had and the kids say, yeah, let’s do it. So we’ve got a thousand kids in our school. We took these student council members from each grade. They’ve divided themselves up. They took old CDs, which if you have a young audience members there, I don’t know. How would you describe it, Sam? What’s, what’s a CD.


Sam Demma (20:02):
It looks like a disk, the hole in the middle.


Joshua Sable (20:08):
Oh, we got our computer. Some departments that donate all these old CDs that they weren’t using anymore. We took a grade list. We had the students write down something specific about every single student in their grade. So it said, let’s say your name was John Smith says John Smith, great smile, right. Or Toby Toby Rosen is you know, great at dance or whatever it is, you know, has a great slapshot, nice hair, whatever it is. Then we had the student council come and set up all the classes all at the same time. And they handed out these specific metals on strings, put them around the kids. And every single kid in the school had their moment, their gold metal with these personalized metals around their neck. And I remember a moment where I was peeking into a class, taking some pictures during this. And one of the kids looked at his metal and he looked at someone else’s and he said, Hey, my mine’s different from yours. And he said, do you think that they wrote a specific trait or manual for every single student in the grade? And the kids said, yeah. And then said, how cool is that? So it was a great moment for the student leadership because they got to see a program start from the ground up and come to fruition. But it was a great moment for the students who received the metals, which was really, really, really awesome. Really great.


Sam Demma (21:31):
No, that’s amazing. I love that story. And I was just on the cusp of being too old to know what a CD was, but I did use them in my former earlier years for sure. That’s awesome. Now you’re also somebody who’s been responsible for bringing in external presenters, bringing in organizations from the community to come and work with students. Do projects, fundraise, someone that we both know you brought in was Blake fly. I remember I was there watching him when he presented over your 26 years of education, you’ve probably worked with dozens of speakers. How do you bring someone in, or what are your grounds for deciding, you know, this is a message that I want my students to hear. And I want to put her in front of them.


Joshua Sable (22:13):
There’s so many events, six speakers out there, and we know the impact that a great speaker like yourself or someone who has a message and idea that they want to share. How, how, how impactful that can be. So we just look for someone that we think is going to connect with young people, someone that has a message and idea, something that’s going to make a difference in a young person’s life. Sometimes they can inspire a hundred percent of the audience. Sometimes they’re only inspiring 5% of the audience to make change, but if they can help just a few people in the audience make their day a little bit better, switch their perspective, switch their focus, give them a new angle, a new, take, a new taste. We’re excited about it. So, yeah, I, I, you know, every once in a while we try to bring in someone and whether it’s to work with a specific grade or leadership group or with the entire student body we’re happy to bring that in because it can make a huge difference.


Sam Demma (23:10):
Cool. Yeah. It’s helpful for people who maybe just be getting into a role or into education to hear that kind of stuff. And in relation to the messages that you’ve seen that have had the biggest impact, is it the message itself, the delivery, is it how they interact with the students? What leaves the greatest impact on the audience?


Joshua Sable (23:28):
Look, it’s it’s, you know, as, as the audience may guess who are listening today, it’s, it’s oftentimes a combination of those things, combination of the contents and the delivery. But young people are smart. They know when they’re being talked down to, they know they want to be respected in the same way that you were, I want to be respected and they want that sense of trust and that sense of community we all want to be liked. So I think if they feel like there are parts of the speaker’s worlds and that they are not being talked down to that they’re being respected as an interesting young adult with ideas and plans and hopes and dreams for the future. There’s a good shot that we’re going to, we’re going to have a connection along the way. Cool.


Sam Demma (24:13):
Awesome. And there’s an educator listening right now. Who’s been enjoying the entire conversation. We’ve almost been talking for 30 minutes now, but I want you to imagine they were your age when you just started there 22 years old listening, just start in education. And this is their first year teaching, very different from your first year, very different from so many other educators. First year of teaching. What would you tell your younger self, if this was your first year, what words of advice would you have?


Joshua Sable (24:41):
Three words, take a nap. You got to rest up, you know and I’m not joking. What I mean by that is we, we all want every lesson, every program, every game, every show, anything we do in school to be perfect, to be 100% and it won’t always work out. So yeah, you can prepare for your English class or your math class or your history class or the game you’re about to coach or the kids. You’re about to direct in a play. You can do all that, but there are going to be curve balls along the way that you’re going to have to adjust to. So you need to be in it for the long haul. You need to have patients, you need to be able to have the resilience to bounce back on a daily basis. And if, and if you can do that, if you can stick with it for the long haul, the rewards are, are unbelievable.


Joshua Sable (25:40):
And, and many of them fall in that memory making machine worlds, because you get to hold onto this unbelievable collection of memories from your career, and you get to make a difference in the life of a young person and perhaps be ingrained in their memory as a person who made a difference or a program who made that made a difference or an idea that inspired them to get into politics or teaching or mathematics or construction or whatever they want to get into. We have this amazing responsibility as educators to pass these people on to the next stage in their life. And it’s, and it’s an amazing opportunity to make a difference and to ultimately make the world a better place.


Sam Demma (26:25):
Some of them wants to reach out to you and hear a little bit more about anything that we talked to today. That could be from a different province, different country, want to bounce some ideas around what’s the best way to reach out to you and have that conversation.


Joshua Sable (26:36):
Yeah. I, you know, I’m slightly embarrassed to say that you can’t find me on Facebook. You can find me on my wife’s Facebook. I do have an Instagram account, but it’s not public it’s private. Email is the number one best way to do that right now. I probably will have a website coming out a little bit later on this year for student leadership and training and workshops and all that fun stuff, but that’s not out yet. So the best way is through email I’ll it’s a long one. So I’ll say it a bit slowly. It’s jsable@tenembaumchat.org, and hopefully no one falls asleep or takes a nap now. So it’s great. S as in Sam, a B as in Bob, L as in Larry E that’s my name jsable@tanenbaumchat.org, which is my school. She hasn’t Tom a N as in Nancy, E N as in Nancy, B as in Bob eight U M as in Mary, C as in Charles, H as in hello, a T as in tom.org.


Sam Demma (27:37):
Awesome. Josh, thank you so much for taking the time to chat. This has been phenomenal, and you’ve definitely done many interviews before, and I can’t wait to see your website.


Joshua Sable (27:46):
Thanks so much for having me, Sam and good luck with everything. You’re you’re an inspiration for many people. So thanks for, thanks for doing this.


Sam Demma (27:54):
Another action packed interview with veteran teacher and memory maker, Joshua Sable. So many actionable ideas that you can take away from this episode. If you want more, definitely reach out to Josh and please consider if you enjoyed this taking a minute out of your day to leave a rating and review some more educators. Like you can find these episodes of this podcast and benefit from the conversations we’re having right now with all these educators. And if you are someone who has ideas to share an inspiring stories about the impact of education on young people, please reach out, you know, email us, info@samdema.com. So we can get your stories and actionable ideas out on the show ASAP. I’ll see you on the next episode. Talk soon.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Joshua Sable

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

November 20, 2021 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Melissa Wright – New Brunswick Student Leadership Association President

Melissa Wright New Brunswick Student Leadership Association President
About Melissa Wright

Melissa Wright (@WrightMelissa_)is a passionate educator and speaker that is driven to help schools create a place where students belong and everyone feels like they matter. Melissa is also the president of the New Brunswick Student Leadership Association President.

By sharing ideas that work in her school, she helps educators and students see they can improve their culture and climate. She is known for her passion and desire to see students succeed, and find their inner leader.

Connect with Melissa: Email | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Kennebascis Valley High School

Jostens Renaissance Program

www.melissawright.ca

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):
Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today we have on a very special guest. Her name is Melissa Wright. She is a passionate educator and speaker that is driven to help schools create a place where students can belong. And everyone feels like they matter by sharing ideas that work in her school. She helps educators and students see they can improve their culture and school climate. She is known for her passion and desire to see students succeed and find their own inner leader. Along with all this, Melissa is also the new Brunswick student leadership association president. And on today’s episode, she has so many unique ideas and inspiring moments to share. I hope you enjoy it. Let’s get in with the interview, Melissa. Thank you so much for coming on the high-performing educator podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you here. We were just talking about some salsa and bachata and dancing early morning. Can you share with the audience who you are and why you got into the work that you do with youth today?


Melissa Wright (01:08):
Yeah. Thanks so much, Sam, for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. I think it’s absolutely wonderful that you’re doing this. I’m so kudos to you. But yeah, a little bit about me. I’m a high school educator at Kennebascis Valley High School. This is year 16. I’ve been fortunate enough to have my whole career here and I mostly teach math, but I also have a local option of dance. So that’s super fun to teach because, you know, we do classical styles like tap and jazz, but then we also have a vice principal in our school that had learned but shadow from a previous relationship. And I had never done that style before. So he taught me and then we taught it to the class. So now he comes in and guest teaches that.


Melissa Wright (01:47):
So that’s a super fun class, but you know, it’s so great every day to be able to come and do something that you love. You know, I got into teaching because of dance. So when I was about 13 or so, I started assisting at my local dance school. And then by the time I was 16, I was teaching classes on my own. So that’s where I fell in love with teaching. And then, you know, I love math as well in school. So I said, well, I’ll become a teacher. And then once I became a teacher saw that, Hey, there’s an opportunity. You can write your own curriculum because in new Brunswick don’t have a dance course it’s written by the province. So I took that opportunity to, to write that and got it approved. So it’s great that we, that we have that here, but also part of what I do in love is, is student leadership as well.


Melissa Wright (02:30):
So when I was in high school, I was fortunate enough to have an educator and she always gets embarrassed every time I say this, but Heather Malco was my student council advisor in high school. And she really, really inspired me to be a teacher and pushed me to be the best version of myself. I could be. She was my, she taught me French in grade 10, but she was my student council advisor in high school. And, you know, it’s just amazing that she got me into that and pushed me to go through that. And we now work together, actually the pneumonic student leadership association. So it’s come completely full circle. And you know, it’s so great to have those people that inspire you to do those things that you know, that you love and that they sometimes can see in you that you can’t see in yourself.


Sam Demma (03:14):
I love that. That’s amazing. I have a similar story with the educator in my school named Michael loud foot. He just retired, although we don’t stay in touch to this day. So I think it’s awesome. And shout out to Heather and make sure you reach out to her after this and tell her that her name’s on another show. I was reading on your website before this interview that you want an award and your whole, your whole messaging in schools and for students is to help them feel like they matter. And I’m curious to know how do we make students feel like they matter during a time like COVID-19?


Melissa Wright (03:50):
Well, you know, it all comes down to relationships. It really, it really, really does. And, you know, I was fortunate enough when we closed in the spring during COVID that, you know, we’d had some time to build those relationships in the classroom so that the students trust you you know, coming into a new school year, that can be a little bit more difficult if you haven’t taught the students before. But I think it’s the fact of, you know, if they know that you’re there and that’s, you’re supporting them, you know if they have things going on outside of school and they come to you and say, you know, can I have an extra day to write before I have this test? You know, give them some grace, right. Then that’s really going to help them feel comfortable. And the thing of it is we are, we’re finding that so many of our kids with this whole cause we’re a hybrid, right?


Melissa Wright (04:35):
We’re there one day in the classroom and then the next day at home. So they’re getting stressed out about, you know, the workload and that sort of thing. But you know, sometimes we just have to take them aside and say, listen, you know, you have this math assignment, but what’s going on outside of school because this math assignment pales in comparison to perhaps the thing that you have going on in your personal life, or, you know, and I always tell the kids, they always ask me, you know, like, where am I ever gonna use this math? And I said, you know sad as it sounds, you might never learn, need to know how to graph a parabola in your everyday life. But I said, the skills that you use to do that, like grit and perseverance, and you know, this is a challenge and working hard, all of those skills, I guarantee you, you can use in any field that you go into. So I think we need to build those relationships with kids and show them that these skills and the resiliency it’s going to take them to get through this situation. And this school year is going to be something that’s going to stick with them for a lifetime.


Sam Demma (05:34):
Awesome. I love it so much that the social emotional learning side of subjects is not talked about enough and you did a great job just now explaining that. So other educators, if you get that objection by your students, definitely quote Melissa, what did Heather do for you when you were a student that pushed you? Did she tap you on the shoulder and tell you to get involved? What was it that she did if he could travel back in time that lit a fire within you that maybe another educator listening might think, wow, let me try and embody that thing, whatever she did to also light a fire under their, their own students.


Melissa Wright (06:10):
Well, when I first had her, she came into our school when I was in grade 10 and I had her for grade 10 fringe and she was just, she was a young teacher, bubbly personality, full of energy. So obviously, you know, her personality for one I gravitated towards right away. But the second thing was, you know, she, I had been involved in student council in grade nine and you know, I was lucky enough to be involved again in grade 10 and she ended up coming to take over. So, but when it came to grade 12, I was like, oh, you know, maybe cause I’d been a rep in grade 9, 10, 11. I was like, well, you know, maybe I’ll run for an executive position, but you know, I’d be okay with just being grateful type thing. And she’s like, no, you know, Melissa, I think you should run for president.


Melissa Wright (06:52):
So she was kind of the one that just said, you know, like the, what if you take those what ifs and turn them into, you know, I can’t, you know what I mean? So she was the one that said, you know, why don’t you run for president? I said, well, I’ll give it a shot. Cause you know, if I didn’t get elected, then the recollections were after that. Right. So I had a, I had a second chance type thing. So because of her just saying, you know, like, why don’t you do this or try this sometimes it’s just planting that little seed and that idea in a person’s head that makes them think a little differently, that things, wow. Maybe I should take this opportunity.


Sam Demma (07:28):
Yeah. That’s a great point. And I think back to my story as well, and my teacher did the same thing, it was a challenge. He challenged us. I think young people love challenges. They always want to show other people up, especially their teachers. So a little tap on the shoulder. A challenge is a great way to do that. Speaking of challenges during COVID, there has been many, I know you’re doing hybrid learning. Has there been a challenge that you have overcome that you think is worth sharing with another educator? Maybe you had a unique idea to solve a certain problem. And then I’ll ask you a follow-up question about, have you had any students who have been impacted during this time in a major way, and you can change their name if you want, but share a story and it doesn’t have to be during COVID.


Sam Demma (08:09):
It could be in your whole journey of education, share a story of a student who has been deeply impacted by something that’s happened in the school. Because another educator might be starting school this year and this might be their first year teaching and they might be thinking, oh my goodness, like what did I just sign up for? And a story like that might just light a fire in their belly to remember, no, the reason we do this is to change lives. And although it’s tough, we develop that grit and resiliency. So long question, first part share some unique ideas about overcoming COVID challenges. Second part student story changed their name for privacy reasons if you’d like,


Melissa Wright (08:43):
Okay. So yeah, ideas for, for COVID. So when I’m actually, I’m involved here at school, we have what’s called a Renaissance. So it’s all about school, culture and climate. So Jocelyn’s, everybody knows Jocelyn’s further rings in yearbooks. They’re kind of the ones that they don’t like determine what your program is, but they help with resources and that sort of thing. So we’re lucky enough to have the Renaissance team here at the school that I, that I run. And the big thing that we did was to make sure that the kids were still connected. So in those first two weeks, when for here in new Brunswick, when they closed in the spring, the first two weeks were kind of treated like snow days. Everybody was just home. There was no schoolwork, but as the advisor, one of the advisors, I have another advisor, we felt it was still important for us to stay connected to our team.


Melissa Wright (09:33):
So we kept continue to meet virtually, even though we didn’t really know what was going to happen in terms of our events and that sort of thing, we said, okay, we still need to meet with you guys because it’s just a, check-in say, Hey, how you doing? Do you need anything? But then the kids were the ones that said we’d brought in a guest speaker and a fellow educator, friend of mine from Wyoming Bradley Skinner. And he sparked them to say, why can’t we still do what we were going to do, but do it virtually. And I’m like, that’s phenomenal. Let’s do it guys. How do you want to do this? So we did all, like, we still did almost all of our events that we would have in the spring virtually. So we did things like in the springtime, we always do something called Kisa grad goodbye.


Melissa Wright (10:15):
So it’s, it’s quite cute. It’s normally it’s a piece of cardstock with a grad cap on it and people can purchase them for 50 cents. They write who it’s to who it’s from. And then they can write a little note on the back and we stick a Hershey’s kiss to it. So, and we usually deliver it to their homeroom class, but we weren’t physically in the building to do that, but we still want it to be able to have that because that’s become a tradition for our grads that, cause it doesn’t matter what grades you have, you know, how long it’s taken you to get to the finish line. Anybody can get a kiss goodbye. And our advisory teachers love it because it’s very affordable because you have the same kids until they graduate. And it’s a nice little, just a little something that they can that they can get.


Melissa Wright (10:59):
And so we said, well, we have to do it digitally. So we set up a Google form and people filled it out and we thought, you know, we shared it on social media. We thought, okay, you know, teachers will fill that out. Probably some students, but it was amazing because not only teachers and students did it, but there were also, you know, grandparents or aunts or uncles or friends that, you know, they might not even have been coming home for graduation, but they were like had normal time, but they were even still able to send those wishes and congratulations virtually. So the, and then we did the opt to look like they did on the paper copy and we emailed them to all their advisory teachers. And then that way they could send them to them through email or teams or however they can get ahold of them.


Melissa Wright (11:40):
So that was something that became very positive. And because of that, I think now this year we’re still, you know, in the building, we will do it like we normally do on paper, but then there’ll be an option for people to also it virtually, it won’t be as fancy. We won’t do it as fancy because it takes a lot of time, but it’ll still be an option. And I think, you know, it’s something important that we give those options because it’s important to celebrate our grads. It’s important to celebrate our students and our staff. So any way that we can continue to do that even during the, especially during these times is, is gonna make a huge impact. Another thing that we normally do in person is called thank a staff number. And we do this in may because everybody knows that may is a grind and educator.


Melissa Wright (12:26):
It really, really is. Everybody is exhausted and you know, they’re looking towards summer vacation. So what we usually do when we’re in the building is in advisory, people get slips of paper and they can write a nice note about any staff member in the building. It could be teacher custodian, cafeteria worker, you know, office staff, anybody that works here at K VHS and kids are allowed to fill up more than one. So, and the kids were like, well, we still have to do this, especially now because the teachers are working like mega overtime more than they normally would. So same thing, we set up a Google form, people filled it out. And then we even had parents that were filling it out, you know, not just students and teachers for other teachers. And it was just so nice to see the appreciation that everybody had and we thought, okay, so we’ll do these up and email them out.


Melissa Wright (13:16):
But we were lucky that teachers came back, just teachers in new Brunswick came back to the building in June. So as the advisors, we were able to hand deliver those, the teachers and some of them were like, what? This still happened. I didn’t even know. Right. And we make sure that every, every single staff member in the building gets at least one, because if, if there isn’t one for them, then members of our Renaissance team take minute, a few minutes and write one for everybody that doesn’t have one. So, you know, I have, I have stacks of them. I found them when we were home at a stacks in the home, I keep them in my desk. Teachers have told us when they’re having a bad day, they pull out and read those notes. And sometimes they’re not signed. Sometimes they’re anonymous and that’s perfectly fine.


Melissa Wright (13:57):
We tell the kids, you don’t have to put your name on it if you don’t want to, but if you want to that’s good. And there’s one other idea I’m going to share with you. And that leads into my student story. So we always do something in the spring called Crusader champion and what that is. It’s a ceremony to recognize students that have made improvement in their attendance, their their behavior or their attendance. So students are nominated by their teachers to come. So we have a population of approximately 1100 students. And the last one that we did in-person we were at about 120 kids. So that’s over 10% of our population got nominated to go to this, which was amazing. So, and they, so they get an invitation in their homeroom class and they don’t know. It just says, you’re invited on this date to the mini gym at this time to be celebrated as a Crusader champion.


Melissa Wright (14:45):
And the kids are like, I thought after 15 years they would start to catch on. They always forget. It’s okay though. So they get the little card and they get to get out a third period class. And they, they love that part, first of all, but they have to have the invitation to show their teacher and to give it to us when they come to the ceremony. So they come to the ceremony and they get free lunch and there’s, you know, door prizes that we draw for, but they also get a bunch of swag. So our parents school support committee sports, we have a little rewards card and they’re the only kids that get that for that month in the school. And there’s six spaces on it. So there’s two that are one more day on a homework assignment, pretty simple. Two of them are best seat in the house.


Melissa Wright (15:24):
So they get to choose where they sit for that class. Most of the time in my class, if they use it, they get, take my teacher comfy chair to their desk. That’s usually what happens, but in the middle of the two in the middle are the favorite. So there’s one, that’s a fi it’s just a five minute break away so they can leave one class five minutes early. But the other one, which is the most coveted square on that card, and I’ve actually had kids try to get their cards early because of it it’s called a KD quick pass because the church at the top of the hill, every Wednesday serves free craft dinner for our whole school population for anybody that wants to come. So after third period, it is a mad rush to get up that hill, get Kraft dinner, like the beat the line.


Melissa Wright (16:07):
So if they have that one space, they get to leave once on a Wednesday, five minutes early to beat the rush. Now, unfortunately this year because of COVID, the church is not doing craft dinner, but we’re hoping that eventually we’ll be able be able to get back to that. And then there’s usually, you know, swag from, we have sponsors like dairy queen gives us gift certificates and that sort of thing that we give them. And then usually there’s some sort of cavies way, whether it’s a t-shirt or a bag or a water bottle or something like that. But they’re kind of when they come into that ceremony, like the deer in the headlights thing, cause one year they walked in and our superintendent was there and a bunch of officials from district office and they were kind of like what’s going on here. So, but when they, when they find out why they’re there and that a teacher has nominated them to be there, it completely changes everything.


Melissa Wright (16:51):
You just see the smiles, you know, on their faces and we, and the wonderful thing about that ceremony, it doesn’t matter what your academics are. Right. You know, teachers just want to nominate you for your improvement. Right. We’ve had all different kinds of students there, you know, from students, you know, special needs students to our we’ve had high academic Florence, but we’ve also had those kids that are the middle of the road, you know, that are working their tail off, making an improvement little by little. But yeah, like I was saying that that leads into my story and I will change the student’s name for privacy. And where’s the student probably, oh gosh, probably three years ago now. And we’ll just call him John. And he, he was having, he was having a rough go. So I had him, I had him first semester in math and his mom came in.


Melissa Wright (17:35):
She said, you know, for me, the teacher, I’m very worried about him. And when I said, you know, don’t worry, we’ll do whatever we can to help them to try to get through. And so the semester came and his attendance wasn’t that great. But when he was in the classroom, like he worked hard, but he wasn’t a behavior problem, but he just missed a lot of time. And so, and you miss so much that, unfortunately he wasn’t going to get the course, but he still came and he wrote the exam and he wrote a note on the exam. You said, you’ll see, I’ll do better next semester. Cause you knew I had the repeater class. So second semester came, he was doing great. He had like 85 working hard. And then one day he came into class and something just seemed off, you know, how you can tell when one of your friends or something that just seems something’s off.


Melissa Wright (18:24):
So I said, you know what, I’m going to call mom and do a positive phone call. So I called her and I said, hello, this is Mrs. Wright calling from KVA. Jess, do you have a moment to talk? Oh yes. Just a second. You can hear like running down a hallway and she’s like, okay, I’m somewhere quiet is everything. Okay. And I said, everything is wonderful. I’m just calling to let you know how proud I am of John and the work he’s doing. And you know, when the improvement and the turnaround that he’s made, and she said, you do not know how much this phone call means to me today. She said, this weekend, John saw his father for the last time. You will not see his dad again. And she said, you know, we’re in the process of selling our house. And this morning, you know, when he went to leave for school, there was a big kerfuffle and he couldn’t find his cell phone.


Melissa Wright (19:11):
She said the things that you guys have done for him, like, cause when they go to that Crusader champion, he had been invited there, they get a certificate. She said, he’s a grade 11 boy. He came home and put that certificate on the fridge. He said he didn’t even do that in elementary school. So we never know what impact, like it was a, it was a piece of paper that we photocopied a slice of pizza at a lunch ceremony. You know what I mean? And our little rewards card, but we don’t, to us, it seems so insignificant. But to that kid, it was everything right. You, you don’t realize the impact sometimes your ha having. And sometimes we don’t hear those types of stories, but when we do, man, those are the little golden nuggets that you, that you have to hold on to. Wow.


Sam Demma (19:59):
A phone call,


Melissa Wright (20:00):
Just a phone call, one simple phone call.


Sam Demma (20:04):
That’s so amazing. And I think even just thinking about most calls home are for negative news. Changing that script and doing, doing a positive phone call can make a huge impact as well. And that’s an amazing story. And for anyone listening, who’s just getting into education. Those stories happen. I spoke to dozens of educators on this show. Melissa is not an anomaly. That’s a great story. But you’re going to change lives. It’s, it’s, it’s a part of this job. You’re not just a teacher, you’re a mentor. You’re sometimes a perinatal figure to some students. I would even believe in a certain to a certain degree and you never know what a student’s going through. So that small action like Mike lab would set a action can make a massive global change. That’s an amazing story. I honestly think we should just end the podcast right here. This is, this is a phenomenal way to close it up. If if another educator is listening, do you have any last words you might want to share with them? Imagine, let me put it this way. Imagine you were starting teaching this year and you wanted to be Heather for yourself and you would give yourself some advice. And this is a crazy first year of teaching. What would you say?


Melissa Wright (21:18):
First of all, just in the teaching world, give yourself some grace. You’re not going to be able to do it all. And that’s okay because those students need you in the classroom. So like you might not have the perfect lesson plan, you know, try something new and if it flops it flops, but you have to take care of yourself so you can take care of your kids. And be there if you have a family as well for your family. You know, and the biggest thing of it is if you see that potential in a student, tap them on the shoulder because you don’t want to regret not doing that. You know, it’s sometimes, you know, sometimes it’s a, it’s a hard thing to approach. Like you’re not sure how to do it. And it might take a couple of times a tapping the kid on the shoulder, but don’t lose sight of that.


Melissa Wright (22:06):
Like seriously do that. And you know what I mean? You have to find when you’re a teacher, especially in your first couple of years, find your thing and find your people. Like you need to find those people that lift you up and inspire you to want to be better every single day in that building because yeah, teaching is tough. Teaching and COVID-19 is even tougher. It’s seriously, seriously is. And those people that support you and are going to be there for you. Those are the ones you always want to have around you. If they inspire you to be better, those are the people you need to be hanging out with. And don’t, and don’t lose, lose sight of who you are. You know, if ever, you know, I’m myself, I’m a very positive person. And in these times it’s so easy to get sucked into the negative.


Melissa Wright (22:53):
Try not to find the joy and every single day that you can, even if it’s one little nugget, like maybe a kid told a funny joke in class, I had a kid last week, somehow he got off topic and was talking about Donald Trump and his dad sent him a text and said, stop talking about Donald Trump in class. So he was short. So that was a funny for me that day that I took home and was laughing about it. You got to find those little moments of joy and seriously, seriously, you will make an impact even though you might not hear about it until years later. So they take it one day at a time and drink lots of water.


Sam Demma (23:33):
That’s awesome. I did a recent podcast with Dr. Greg Wells. It’s like a performance expert and he said the biggest biohack is a drinking water, drink, more water. I, that was a great way to close it. Make students feel like they matter small actions, small acts of kindness. This episode has been amazing. Listen, thank you so much for spending some time on the show with me. If another educator, maybe from another province or country is listening and wants to reach out to you to just bounce some ideas around and borrow some of your joy and enthusiasm. How can they do that?


Melissa Wright (24:07):
Well first they can, you can find me on my website, just www.melissawright.ca, or you can find me on social media. I’m on Twitter and Instagram. It’s @wrightmelissa_ on both Twitter and Instagram, or if I’m on Facebook, I’m under Melissa Sue Right.


Sam Demma (24:24):
Awesome. Thank you so much, Melissa. It’s been a pleasure.


Melissa Wright (24:26):
My pleasure. Thanks


Sam Demma (24:28):
There you have it. Another action packed interview on the high performing educator podcast, Melissa would love to hear for you from you and have a conversation. So definitely reach out if you have the time and also consider leaving a review on the podcast so that more educators like yourself can find these conversations and benefit from the inspiration and ideas. And if you are someone who has either of those things to share on this podcast, either inspiration or ideas, or, you know, somebody who would be a perfect guest, please email us, info@samdemma.com. So we can share those stories and ideas on the show until then I’ll see you on the next episode.

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

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

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