fbpx

Student Activity Director

Becky Stewart – Music Director at Yuba Gardens Intermediate School

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

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

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

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

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

Connect with Dave: Email | TikTok | Instagram | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

The Caring Teacher Award (CTA)

California Music Educator Association (CMEA)

Cazadero Performing Arts Camp

Spartan Racing

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Becky Stewart. Becky is starting her sixth year as the director of music at Yuba garden’s intermediate school in California. She graduated with honors from California state university Sacramento with a bachelor’s degree in flute performance, studying with Laurel Zucker and music education.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Sam Demma (22:41):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the high performing educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please is consider leaving a rating in review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Becky

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

December 31, 2021 by Music Educator Student Success Teachers 0

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

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

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

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

The Force is strong with her. 

Connect with Sara: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Ellen Caldwell (Sara’s University Professor)

Anaheim Union High School District

TikTok Challenges

“These Kids are Killing me” (Tumblr) Blog

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the High Performing Educator Podcast. This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Sara Daddario. Sara is a teacher in Southern California who believes that all students can achieve if they know that they are seen, supported and have a voice. She has been working with teens for 15 years, teaching resilience, success maintenance, and integrity through the subjects of English and student leadership. When she was little, she told her parents, she wanted to be a Jedi when she grew up and figures that teaching is just about as close as you can get to that. The force is strong with her. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Sara and I will see you on the other side.


Sam Demma (00:47):
Sara. Welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself to some of the educators that are tuning in?


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Sam Demma (25:44):
Yeah,

Sara Daddario (25:46):
But I feel


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Sara Daddario (28:52):
Thank you.


Sam Demma (28:53):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the high performing educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2 20 21 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Sara

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

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

Tina Edwards – President of the Saskatchewan Association of Student Council Advisors

Tina Edwards - President of the Saskatchewan Association of Student Council Advisors
About Tina Edwards

Tina Edwards has been an educator in Saskatchewan for the past 27 years, but still considers herself a rookie in the education game. Student leadership has been a passion of hers since she entered the teaching profession in 1994.

Two highlights of her career are hosting the Saskatchewan Student Leadership Conference in 2012 and again in 2019. Projects like these prove that students can accomplish anything if they are willing to work hard and work together as a team.

Tina believes that every person has the ability to be a leader, as long as they are willing to work on being a good human first. After that, anything is possible!

Connect with Tina: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Saskatchewan Association of Student Council Advisors

Winton High School

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 special guest was referred by a past guest and her name is Tina Edwards. Tina has been an educator in Saskatchewan for the past 27 years, but still considers herself a rookie in the education game. Student leadership has been a passion of hers since she entered the teaching profession in 1994. Two highlights of her career are hosting the Saskatchewan student leadership conference in 2012 and again, in 2019. Projects like these prove that students can accomplish anything if they’re willing to work hard and work together as a team. Tina believes that every person has the ability to be a leader as long as they’re to work on being a good human first after that, anything is possible. I hope you enjoy this amazing conversation with Tina Edwards and we’ll see you on the other side.


Sam Demma (01:32):
Tina, welcome to the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. You are highly recommended by not one but two past guests. Why don’t you start by yourself?


Tina Edwards (01:44):
Oh my goodness. The pressure you’re putting on me. So earlier, my name is Tina Edwards and I’m a teacher at Winston high school in Saskatchewan. I’m also the president of SASCA, which is our student leadership in Saskatchewan and yeah, that’s kind of me!


Sam Demma (02:05):
When in your journey, did you get involved in student leadership and what prompted you to move in that direction and get more, more engaged?


Tina Edwards (02:14):
Well, I, I was a student leader when I was in high school myself, so that’s kind of where my journey started. And I just, as I got into the teaching, that opportunity opened itself to me and I began taking students to leadership conferences and 20, some years later the opportunity came up that I decided let’s try and host the conference, which is a huge undertaking. Did that in 2012. And when you are hosting, you automatically go onto the SASA executive and then they just couldn’t get rid of me. And I stayed and eventually became president and hosted the conference a second time.


Sam Demma (02:55):
Ah, that’s amazing. And let’s go back for a second to you as the student leader in high school. Yeah. So if you could think back what as a student prompted you to get involved as a student leader, did you have a teacher who tap you on the shoulder or how did that journey look like?


Tina Edwards (03:12):
Well, I grew up in a small town and, and when I say small town, I’m saying under 200 people, oh wow. I, and it really just became that every project we did in that town, it needed everybody to, to make it happen. And so I grew up just watching and participating and knowing that you needed to be an active member in whatever the project ahead of you was. So that’s kind of where it started. And then I think I just had some really strong leadership skills and I wasn’t really afraid to take action. So it just kind of flowed naturally for me. And it, nobody really told me, I just thought, Hey, why can’t I, so why can’t I be a student leader? And I couldn’t come up with a good reason. So there we go.


Sam Demma (03:59):
That’s awesome. And do you still remember the teachers that were overlooking student leadership and student council back when you were in high school?


Tina Edwards (04:06):
Yeah, definitely. I do. And, and I guess I always kind of looked up to them and, and allowed them to show me what it was like to be a leader, but not necessarily being in charge and working with other people. And I really kind of admired that.


Sam Demma (04:24):
Oh, that’s awesome. And let’s continue down the journey. So you finished high school and did you know at that age that you wanted to get into teaching or how did you navigate the career search for yourself?


Tina Edwards (04:34):
Yeah, I didn’t really have a choice. It teaching career found me and I, I always coached, I taught swimming lessons. I babysat, it just was a calling and, and it, there was just no question about it. I was going to be a teacher and I had to work really hard to get into university for my first year. Cuz at that time the marks were really high to get in and I just worked hard and kept going. And that was a really easy decision for me.


Sam Demma (05:04):
Well, tell me more. Did you have like teachers tapping you on your shoulder saying, you know, Tina you’d be a great educator. Did your parents work in teaching or Nope. How did it, how did it exactly find you?


Tina Edwards (05:15):
You know, it just, I grew up wanting to be a teacher and I loved kids and I always found ways to engage in, in working with kids, whether it was volunteering or summer jobs working in a living in a small town of 200 people. You just, everybody was family and that’s, that’s what I knew I wanted.


Sam Demma (05:39):
That’s amazing. And you mentioned coaching a little as well, was four, it’s a big part of your own childhood.


Tina Edwards (05:45):
Yeah, definitely. In a small town there isn’t much to do other than the sports that happened to be in that season at that time. And, and you know what, I was never a great athlete. I, I just really enjoyed the team aspect and being part of a team and I was just happy to be there and do my part. Hmm that’s awesome. And the coach, the coaching just kind of evolved and it’s coaching and leading was never something I had to work really hard at. It just, it just felt natural for me.


Sam Demma (06:17):
And do you think coaching and leading a group are two very similar things like whether or not you’re teaching a sport, you know, working as the, you know, president of SASCA is probably similar to coaching a team in some way, shape or form. Is there a lot of similarities between the two?


Tina Edwards (06:32):
Well, I always say I’m lucky because when I think when you coach a sports team, you’re given some, some opportunities or some, some times where you have to make some really hard decisions where you’re not gonna make everybody happy. And I feel in the, in the job I have and all the, the positions I’ve had, I, I’ve never had to make somebody unhappy. Mm I’m. Just there to be a cheerleader and, and get us working towards a common goal. And, and I selfishly really appreciate that. I get to live in my happy land. Mm . I don’t have to make any game day decisions.


Sam Demma (07:09):
Yeah, I okay. Yeah. So there is one stark difference. Everyone’s happy. yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s so cool. And so start teaching or you go to teachers college, it’s a tough first year. You work through that. What did your first job in education look like? Let’s go back there for a second.


Tina Edwards (07:27):
Well, my first job was actually in another small town of Combs where actually I do live right now. Nice. I, I just took a, a maternity leave for just a few months there and I knew it was coming to an end. And so then I took a job. I was in Carlisle for two years, which was about a four hour drive away. So that was really great. It got me definitely out of my comfort zone, met some new people, really had time to figure out what I wanted my teaching career to look like. And I dove right into the community there right away. And of course, such great positive connections were made. And, and then it was just straight on from there. And then I knew I was wanting, I was going to be getting married and eventually took me a few years, but I made my way back closer to where I was getting married and where I actually live now. And now I’m in Watchers high school, Winston high school in Watchers. And this has been my 22nd year in this school.


Sam Demma (08:32):
That’s awesome. And education has had many, you know, turns and twists. And I would say most of them happened over the two and a half years. what, what are some of the challenges that the school has been faced with over the past two years? And you know, how have you strive to kind of overcome those things as a community?


Tina Edwards (08:52):
Well, our, our school really prides ourself in being a family. First, we talk about the Wildcat family and, and usually when, when people say we’re a Wildcat family, they might think we’re talking about sports. And really it is sports is a piece of it, but it is just a piece of it. We work really hard in our school to make sure everybody feels connected. We started something called wild cap pride, where all the students are divided into color groups, mixed within different grades. And we do projects every couple, couple times a month and where we get the whole group family together, a whole school together and just work together on as a team at, and we do projects like we’ll play outdoor games. We might volunteer in the community. And so when COVID hit our family, we talk about isolation and that’s what our family had to do. We, we had to break apart. We, we could no longer get together as a whole, a whole family. And, and that was really hard on us. Mm.


Sam Demma (09:59):
Yeah. And I, I couldn’t imagine, it seems like every school I talked to has had a similar, but sometimes different experiences based on location. Was your school closed down? How long did you have to isolate or did the school ever close?


Tina Edwards (10:13):
Yeah, we, we closed from may until, or sorry, March until June of 2020. Yep. And then we, where we were online a little bit in there, but that it definitely was optional for students. Mm. So it was really hard. We were trying to engage people. We were trying to get connected with our students and some didn’t wanna be you connected with, and some, maybe couldn’t be connected with cuz where they were living rural. They didn’t, their families maybe didn’t have internet connections. So it was just, it, it was a tough time cuz we were trying to make it seem normal and it, it just wasn’t.


Sam Demma (10:52):
And you were also juggling SASA at the same time. So how did that yeah. Adjust or pivot or change, you know, based on the situation, you know.


Tina Edwards (11:01):
Really ironically our school hosted the last leadership conference in, in 2019 in September, 2019. And had we known what was to come? I, I don’t know, like we were able to host it. We were so very lucky. We had to province with us. We had a thousand leaders in our town of about 2000 people. Wow. they’re


Sam Demma (11:25):
All bill it out into like different, oh,


Tina Edwards (11:27):
Bill it out. Yeah. It, it was a great experience, but we did had no idea what was coming down a few months later. So then juggling Saska was really hard because what do we do? What do we do with this poor host community Goll lake that is supposed to be hosting in, in 2021 and, or I guess it’d be 2020. Do we, do we try to make it go? Do we cancel it? What do we do with the money that they’re out? It, it was, there was just no answers. We had to really struggle hard.


Sam Demma (12:00):
Yeah. That’s a tough situation. Did did, did the conference go on in 2020? Was it postponed or yeah,


Tina Edwards (12:08):
We actually gave them the option. They could postpone it, they could cancel it. They chose to cancel it just given the group of students that they were kind of framing the conference around would then have been graduated. So and they were, they were fairly far in their planning, but money wise, they weren’t too terribly invested. Mm. So we, we supported them in counseling it and trying to just make things balance out at the end and, and call it a year. And then Melfort was, had the next host bid host and they ended up canceling theirs as well. They were just really hadn’t even really started their, their planning. So it, it, it was okay. The problem we have now though, is how do we pick this up again? Yeah. How, when, who, how, where, and that’s what we’re struggling with right now. Mm.


Sam Demma (13:06):
So future planning is currently happening. Some, some in some way, shape or form


Tina Edwards (13:11):
well and, or no planning. We, yeah, we just don’t. I mean, how does a school take upon this venture when you don’t know what tomorrow’s gonna look like? Right. And, and it takes a good solid two to three years to plan a conference like this. Yeah. So I, I have some fear that I’m not sure when the next one is going to happen.


Sam Demma (13:31):
What does the planning look like? Like give some insight into people, people listening to what a thousand person conference building and the homes in your community, the what kind of planning looks like for something like that oh,


Tina Edwards (13:43):
The planning itself. Oh my goodness. I don’t wanna scare anybody off, but it is, it is, it is so much work, but it is so rewarding at the same time. Yeah, it , I don’t even know where to begin, but yeah, it, it is, it is a lot of work, but it is, it is great to see those kids coming together and planning and, and, you know, if I always tell the students, you can’t write a marathon tomorrow, you can’t think about up that marathon. You gotta break it down into little pieces. And, and that’s what we really did. And, you know, we got our group, our planning group together. We got our community behind us, started thinking about what we wanted our conference to look like. What, what things did we wanna give to our attendees? What what are the date? What are the activities? And just broke it down into little chunks. And before you knew it, the three years of planning was over and it was go time.


Sam Demma (14:45):
I was telling you before the interview started, that, you know, I felt that when COVID initially hit, it seemed like all the emphasis and support was being placed on the students and PE you know, educators getting supported as well. But maybe it was a little more behind the scenes. And I’m curious to know, what do you think the struggles and challenges were for educators during that time, and even now coming out of it? Maybe some of the things you experienced personally, but saw your peers going through as well.


Tina Edwards (15:11):
Yeah, our, I don’t think the average teacher goes into teaching for the academic part of it only. Yep. We, we are here cuz we like, we like kids, we like, we like their energy. We like seeing what they’re capable of. And that was really difficult to see everything come to a halt and, and not being E even able to interact with the kids. Like we used to be able to last year we were in cohorts, we were all in different times and schedules and breaks and noon hours. And we literally did not see each other. And, and that was lonely. And, and you just, you’re on a little bit of an island.


Sam Demma (15:53):
Mm. And did, does SASCA also support staff or is it solely towards the student?


Tina Edwards (15:59):
It, it is advisors. Yeah. It, it is geared towards advisors. Our, our main, our main purpose though, is supporting advisors in leading and leadership in, within their schools. So we did do an online conference for students and advisors last year. I, I think we’re, we’re getting to the point though, where everybody’s had enough of online, everything like, we it’s, it’s hard to stay engaged and, and have students just stare at a computer all the time. And so we’re actually in the middle of planning, what this year’s gonna look like for SASCO we’re, we’re hanging on, we’re trying to keep our membership strong. We’re trying to offer different activities, but it’s, it’s hard.


Sam Demma (16:44):
Yeah, no, I hear you. If you, if you do something virtual, just make sure there’s some, there’s some music and dancing. Yeah.


Tina Edwards (16:53):
Our conference last year was really good. Nice. And I think the people who attended it were, were really appreciative of having that opportunity. I just don’t know if we can do it two years in a row and, and still engage the people that we’re trying to engage. So we’re really struggling on where we go from here and what it looks like, and, and it’s important. And we don’t wanna say, all right, we’re not gonna do anything for the next three years. That would be terrible if all these years of leadership conference and the memories kind of go on, go forgotten. And, and that’s what I’m trying to work hard at right now is making sure SASA and student leader stays at the front, even though we can’t do a lot of, of those typical activities.


Sam Demma (17:40):
Yeah. I think it’s an important conversation to have and start having. And it’s cool to hear that you are having it. I think that extracurriculars student leadership clubs, all of those things just add such a huge student experience to yeah. Everyone in your school, you know? Yeah.


Tina Edwards (17:55):
And students, they don’t come to school for the academics. Yeah. There’s a small majority that, that do, but I would say the most people come here for the other things, the other activities and, and , you know, the kids have been doing so well that last year they had everything canceled. Mm. And we were able to focus more on academics and they just, they did what we needed them to do. And there, there was no pity parties. We were just moving on. And so appreciative of what kids are able to do and how resilient they can be.


Sam Demma (18:31):
If, if, I guess if education was like a three course meal, academics would be like the appetizer or the dessert and oh, a


Tina Edwards (18:37):
Hundred percent. Absolutely. Yeah. And yeah, it’s just, it’s just hard cuz we know that a lot of students are struggling either in their home life or in their peer circle and or their academics. And we try to help students as a whole, not just as one part. So we’re really trying hard to connect all of those pieces and COVID is not helping us.


Sam Demma (19:02):
And why do you think student leadership and you know, everything else aside from academics is a school in a school is so important because there might be someone out there who’s not fully bought into the idea that, you know, student leadership can change a kid’s life or extracurriculars can help them build skills. They would never build elsewhere. Like why do you think student leadership and extracurriculars are important?


Tina Edwards (19:23):
Well, you know, when you look at academics, not everybody’s an academic student, they could work. So, so very hard and still never improve their academics. That can be said as well with athletics. Mm-Hmm , some students are not athletic. They could work every day and still not improve. Their athleticism student leader is about being a good human. And I really believe that everybody can be a good human. And so it’s so something that everybody can achieve and it makes a, it’s a, a fair playing ground and everybody can feel like they have an important part. And, and like I said, at the beginning, it’s like, I’m coaching a team, but I never have to make any hard decisions. Yeah. Or it’s happy


Sam Demma (20:11):
Land. Yeah. No disappointing decisions.


Tina Edwards (20:14):
Yeah, absolutely. We’re just here to make everybody’s day. Just a little bit better.


Sam Demma (20:18):
Love that. I love that. And I wanna ask you, so if, if like, if you could try and pinpoint things that teachers did for you growing up that made you happy as a student, that if you can remember, like, what do you think some of those things are that teachers can do to make their students feel good about themselves to help students realize their own potential? Because another educator might be listening and wanting to have a similar impact on their own kids.


Tina Edwards (20:45):
I just think I remember teachers who would know my name and I, they didn’t actually teach me or I, I was in a larger school and, and I just thought, you know, there’s taking a moment to say hello to me, I’m the only person with this name. They are, they’re connecting with me. And I just always thought that was really special. and I, I remember too going on sports trips and thinking this teacher is spending the whole weekend with me instead of at home with their own family. And I knew, and I knew that was something that I wanted to be able to do for other students.


Sam Demma (21:24):
I love that. So the investment of time, and also, so the personal relationship to a point where, you know, teachers go out of their way to remember your name or even like know personal things about you.


Tina Edwards (21:35):
Yeah. Yeah. And, and that’s, that can go such a long way in, in a student’s life. And, and that’s what I really miss the most about COVID is when students are in my, in my classroom, in our school, I kind of have my eyes on them. I know I can see when they’re struggling. I can see when somebody hasn’t eaten a very good breakfast. I can see when somebody’s had a fight at home. I can see when somebody’s struggling academically. But when I had to stay at home, I had no idea what, how my students were doing like really doing, I could, would tell maybe academically how they were doing, but all of those things that I worry about, and I wanna connect with students, I was completely removed from that. And I, I struggled with that.


Sam Demma (22:19):
And I would argue, you know, back to the name example as well, remembering people that remembered your name. I think it just applies to being, like you said, a good human people appreciate when you can address them by their name. I’ve been at the grocery store and I’ll say, hi, and address the person behind the cash by their name. And they’ll look up and be confused and say, do I know you, are you


Tina Edwards (22:42):
Shock me? yeah.


Sam Demma (22:44):
I’m like, no, I just, I just used your name. It’s on your name tag there. And you know, then they end up, you know, bursting out the biggest smile and you end up having a good two minute conversation before you put your groceries in your box and leave. Yeah. And I think when you take interest in other people, it just builds good relationships. Right?


Tina Edwards (23:01):
Absolutely. And, and what, what, just imagine what you can do once you’ve connected with somebody, once you’ve, you’ve been able to have a, a one on one conversation with them, the rest of their day, you just, you don’t know what’s gonna come after that.


Sam Demma (23:16):
Yeah. And you also never know what someone’s carrying, which is why I think kindness is so important, you know, just because you can’t see, it doesn’t mean they aren’t carrying it. And that’s something I always try and remind myself because yeah, we, we, you know, you only see them in the school building and now with COVID, you know, like you’re saying you don’t even see them in the school building, so it’s even, you know, even more important to be you.


Tina Edwards (23:35):
Luckily for us, the COVID like COVID is still here obviously, but we, we have been able to have our extracurricular activities within our school and our clubs. We can have, we, we are cohorted, but not quite as much as we were last year or as strictly, we’ve been able to do some outside whole group activities while mask. So this year’s already better than all of last year put together.


Sam Demma (24:04):
Yeah. Ah, you’re right. That’s and it’s good to see the positives too. even if they’re in a smaller.


Tina Edwards (24:10):
And that’s what, like I said to the, the students last year, we’re not having a pity party here this year. It’s, it’s, it’s different, but we’re gonna make the best of it. And, and through leadership, we, we did bingo virtually we, we did some trivia contests virtually. We did, we did our pep rallies virtually. We, we still wanted to make it, you know, those activities part of our, our school year. Although, you know, they’re not the same this year. We’re already noticing that people have a little bit more of a pep in their step. Mm. They can still have their football games. They can still go to their volleyball tournaments. There’s been a little, so some hiccups along the way, maybe a, a tournament has had to be canceled or a football game, but we’re just moving on. We don’t have time to sit and dwell in the, the negatives, no


Sam Demma (24:56):
Pity party focusing on the positives. Those are two great, no pity partying, no two great phrases and pieces of advice. I’m gonna ask you to put your thinking hat on for a second. And if you could like travel back in time you know, back to the future, but back to the past, actually. Yeah. Yeah. And you could speak to first year, Tina, when you just started teaching, but with all the wisdom and experience that you have now, like if you could walk into your own classroom, you know, that first city that you taught in that was really small, and you could walk into your own C and speak to yourself and give yourself some advice. What are a couple things that you would share?


Tina Edwards (25:32):
Well, I know for sure, I would not focus so much on the academics. Mm. Of course, when you’re coming out of university and you have your teaching degree and you’ve done your student teaching, that’s what it was about. It was about academics and I I’m a teacher and this is what I’m going to teach. Yep. And it really didn’t take me long to realize that there’s so much more to teaching than just the academics. And so I think if I could give myself a little bit of advice, I would just say, let’s not worry about that. Let’s, let’s focus on just the students themselves, the P the academic piece. We’ll talk about that a little bit later. I love, but of course, as a new teacher, you thought it was all about academics.


Sam Demma (26:15):
Yeah. And, and what does focusing on the student look like in the classroom? Is it making time for them to share their stories or like, what do you, what do you think that other time looks like?


Tina Edwards (26:24):
Yeah, just, just connecting and really appreciating where some of these students are coming from. I didn’t know what their home lives were like, and I didn’t even stop to even think about it. I just thought, okay, everybody’s coming into my classroom at the same level. And it, it really didn’t take me too long to realize that yeah, you know what, this is not quite the case. Mm. They’re not coming with the same skillset as the person may be sitting next to them.


Sam Demma (26:52):
Yeah. It’s a really smart reminder. That’s a good piece of advice to share with you, younger self. Awesome. Tina, thank you so much for coming on the show. If an educator listening and feels inspired or just wants to reach out and chat, what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?


Tina Edwards (27:09):
My email is probably the best way at work. It’s tina.edwards@horizonsd.ca. And it’s funny cuz when, when you said that if somebody would wanna reach out, I often think, you know, I’m in my 27th year of teaching, but what do I really know? I wonder like what would somebody ask me? I don’t really know, but yeah. I I’m here. I’ll do my best.


Sam Demma (27:35):
That’s called the curse of knowledge. yeah,


Tina Edwards (27:38):
Yeah. Maybe.


Sam Demma (27:39):
But again, Tina, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been awesome conversation. Keep up with the great work with school and SASA and I look forward to seeing whatever happens with the conferences and events.


Tina Edwards (27:51):
yeah. I think our, our paths are good across again, Sam.


Sam Demma (27:54):
Awesome. I’ll talk to you soon, Tina.


Tina Edwards (27:56):
Okay. Take care.


Sam Demma (27:58):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest, an amazing interview on the high performing educator podcast asked as always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you wanna meet the guest on today’s episode, if you wanna meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperforming.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Tina

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 12, 2021 by Association Director Experiential Learning President Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Leslie Loewen – Campus Culture Manager at Fresno Unified School District

Leslie Loewen, Campus Culture Director
About Leslie Loewen

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

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

Connect with Leslie: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

California Association Directors of Activities (CADA)

Fresno Unified School District

Icebreakers & Team Builders to Build Community (August Webinar)

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the high-performing educator podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest on the show is Leslie Loewen, or as her 75,000 students would call her MommaLowe. Leslie is the campus culture manager at the Fresno unified school district. She’s also a wife and a Momma. She loves her job and family is one of the values that is high on her list, which is why it’s no surprise that even her students refer to her as Momma Lowe. She prides herself in building relationships with kids and providing them with opportunities and experiences that can have a significant impact on their life now, and also a future development. I hope you enjoy this amazing conversation with Leslie and I will see you on the other side.


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


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


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


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


Sam Demma (02:56):
That’s it?!


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Sam Demma (29:03):
Cool. Awesome, Leslie again, thank you so much. This has been a pleasure. Enjoy the rest of your day and we’ll talk soon and there you have it. Another amazing guest and amazing interview on the high performing educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www dot high-performing educator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Leslie

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

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

Matt Sanders – Experiential Lead Learner at the Lambton Kent District School Board

Matt Sanders, Experiential Lead Learner Lambton Kent DSB
About Matt Sanders

Matt Sanders (@mr_sanders78) is currently the Leader of Experiential Learning for the Lambton Kent District School Board.  In his role, he creates engaging experiences for students to participate in, reflect upon and then apply insights in meaningful ways. 

Matt has been an elementary teacher for 10+ years, passionately searching for ways to incorporate technology and creativity into every lesson!  Here are the resources he mentioned: 
Bit.ly/reflectionstrategies

Connect with Matt: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Matt’s Suite of Reflection Strategies (FREE)

Chris St. Amman (Another Experiential Lead Learner)

The Reticular Activating System Explained

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 educators podcast. This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s guest is Matt Sanders. Matt is currently the leader of experiential learning for the Lambton Kent district school board. In his role, he creates engaging experiences for students to participate in, reflect upon, and then apply insights in very meaningful ways. He’s been an elementary teacher for 10 plus years, and he passionately searches for ways to incorporate technology and creativity into every single lesson he delivers.


Sam Demma (01:08):
Not only that, but this teacher, Matt, this high performing educator has a Rolodex of resources that you can find in the link of the episode here today, if you check the show notes, you can click on his personal website. He has a ton of free resources and virtual events, virtual activities that you can do with your class. I think you’ll find it very useful without further ado. Let’s jump into the interview, Matt, thank you so much for coming on the high-performing educator podcast. It is a huge pleasure to have you on the show. Why don’t you start by sharing a little bit about yourself and how you got into the work you do with young people today.


Matt Sanders (01:46):
Sam, thanks for having me on, I do appreciate you asking me to come on. I’m again, as you said, my name’s Matt Sanders I’m the experiential experiential learning coordinator for our board. I work with young people. I’ve been an elementary teacher for a long, long time previous to that. And to be honest, like the reason why I got into this gig is because I love working with young people. Like more than anything no offense to the adults I work with today. But to be honest with you, they’re the coolest and awesome as clientele there is. So just like all that for those that maybe don’t know what an experience learning coordinator would be, basically I’m engaging community partners in schools, in planning. So I’m bringing community partners. We have looking at student and school needs and then, then trying to create opportunities for kids. I think you and I have listened to a bunch of your podcasts by the way, absolutely loved your session on homework extension. And actually I had a couple of conversations recently where I was able to kind of like structure the negotiations with perspective, taking at the core because of that podcast. So and I think you and I have similar hearts and I think that in itself is the reason why we’re doing what we’re doing.


Sam Demma (03:00):
Yeah, absolutely love that. And I’m glad you got some takeaways from the negotiation episode. Definitely don’t share it with your, with your kids because they will, they’ll get more out of you than they should. But what point in your journey did you know, I’m going to work in education because you know, having a big heart and being of service and wanting to help others can land you in a job in so many different areas, how did you end up being, you know, an employee and a person working in education?


Matt Sanders (03:32):
No, it’s funny, Sam. I, a lot of my days I spend working with kids on career and pathway planning. So having conversations with kids on what things make you awesome, what things do you love? What things make you excited? What skills do you have and how can we leverage those things into a future career for you so that you wake up every morning? And you’re like, I am just totally geeked up to go to work. I am so excited because I love what I’m doing. I remember when I was, I want to say like grade seven grade eight, my grandma and my grandpa lived next door to me, our house. And we’d walk over there and we visit hang out and play cards and whatever. And I remember going there when I was in grade seven and I said to, I was in their house and I looked at the, the table and there was a reader’s digest magazine.


Matt Sanders (04:18):
And for those who don’t know what that is, I mean, it’s a, it’s an old school. It’s still around town, but it was definitely something that she had in her house regularly. And I remember looking at the cover of it and it said 10 Canadian teachers and the impact that they make on their kids top 10 Canadian teachers or whatever. And I remember looking at my grandma at that point and saying, I want to be in this magazine one day. And I mean, that was, and so coming back to my first part of this answer I knew at that point I wanted to be a teacher and here I am, and I’m always telling my students, like I know a lot of students will say, well, I’m just only 12. Like it’s not going to impact me. I can, I can dream, but like, it’s not gonna actually happen that way. Well, it did happen that way for me. And if you have a goal and you set forth, you know, planning and thinking and reflecting on that and then push yourself towards that, anybody can do anything you want to.


Sam Demma (05:14):
Yeah, I agree. I agree.


Matt Sanders (05:16):
So I should also say Sam that I think that, and I should say that the human aspect of education, I mean, I love curriculum and I love teaching and I love the knowledge piece, but I think the human aspect of education also really driven, drove me into that. It’s like teaching the life skills, it’s inspiring change and growth in young people. It’s having them think about their future and what their pathway might look like going forward. Looking at passions and interests and seeing how that can be a lightning rod to future success and fulfillment. So it’s all that stuff that makes me love my job.


Matt Sanders (05:59):
I have not.


Sam Demma (05:49):
That’s awesome. Have you ever played the yellow car game with your kids when every time you see a yellow car, they punch you on the shoulder when you’re


Sam Demma (05:59):
Okay. It’s similar to, you know, punch buggy, no punch back. When you see a Volkswagen, you know, punched by a young the highway and when you start playing those games and you look for the car, you realize that you start seeing them more often. It’s like when you start looking for something, it shows up more. And I, I started getting curious because I’m a big advocate for what you mentioned about, you know, dreaming and creating a vision for yourself and setting goals. And I came across this research about the reticular activating system, which is a part of your brain that basically filters through your conscious and subconscious thoughts. So you might have 2 million subconscious thoughts a day, but if your RAs system knows that you’re looking specifically for yellow cars, when it notices a yellow car, it makes that a conscious thought and you’re there for aware of it. And so there is a science behind what you just mentioned and why maybe you ended up in teaching because of your vision back when you read the reader’s digest magazine. So I think that’s awesome. You know,


Matt Sanders (07:01):
I never heard that research before either. That’s awesome.


Sam Demma (07:03):
I’ll send it to you afterwards. But when I’m sure when you got in education and you first started things have changed, you’ve learned a lot you’re not working in a different role. You started as an elementary teacher. What are some of the learnings you have, you know, in this industry that you could share with other educators and maybe it’s things that have worked very well for you or things that have been challenges and you’re still working on figuring them out.


Matt Sanders (07:33):
Yeah. Yeah. I’ll just, I just want to say this, cause I just thought of this and I, it is something that I think is worth mentioning to all young people or did educators that are listening. My dad’s a pretty like wise dude. And I listened carefully when he talks because he’s got valuable things to say. And I remember him saying one day to me about, you know, there are not many people that are lucky enough to go to work and are able to change the world. And I think that’s one of those things where, you know, getting an education, that’s something I feel like I’m able to do. And that’s, I mean, that’s pretty cool challenges as far as COVID are interesting. Cause I think as an experiential learning coordinator, we really do want kids to manipulate with their surroundings and fix things and move things and be creative in their thinking.


Matt Sanders (08:17):
And as well as to reflect on their learning from that, that process of experiencing whatever it is they’re experiencing. I think the absence of experiential learning in schools today is what is making school so challenging. So it’s, it’s missing that togetherness and that collaboration and kids are bottled up kind of working independently and it just doesn’t make for a good learning environment, I guess. It’s so it’s, it’s that challenge that teachers have kind of had to grab hold of and, and work towards making it a positive change. You know, one thing as far as COVID goes, cause I guess I’m going down that pathway right now. There are obviously no silver linings around a worldwide pandemic, but as far as education goes this process of coming back to school through a pandemic has really made educators at least to myself.


Matt Sanders (09:17):
And I would think most educators reflect on every aspect of education and drill down to the core of everything about school and critically think about best practices. So it’s like saying goodbye to that like mindset of we’ve always done it that way, and this is why we’re going to do it. And actually saying like, is this best? I’ll give you a really quick example of my own reflections and my own learnings through this process. I used to send, you know, 40 kids to an event on a bus and I’d get a $600 bill for that bus and I’d go, okay, that was an awesome day for those 40, well, we can’t do that now because of COVID. And so now I’m realizing that the 600 I could have spent on the bus, I can have a community partner come in and work with all 600 kids at that school for the exact same price. So it’s just like stuff like that where we like, no, there’s no silver lining because of this pandemic, but we are probably going to grow and change for the better on the other side in education, at least I think


Sam Demma (10:23):
That’s so true. And not to mention the amount of unique ideas that will come out of this time period, that will be used far after the pandemic ends. You’re someone who actually has a fricking Rolodex of ideas, the website you sent me, can you shed a little bit of light on the bank of resources and what inspired you to create that and where are there educators can get access to it?


Matt Sanders (10:49):
Yeah. So it’s interesting. I mean, we’ve presented that. So a colleague of mine from a different board and I his name is Chris St. Amman. He’s an amazing dude like the best. And he’s also an experiential learning coordinator in Ontario. And we were getting a lot of questions from teachers as far as ref. So we were really pushing reflection and I think all of your, anybody that’s listening to this right now, like make reflection a part of your everyday look at don’t dwell on your mistakes. Like that’s not what we’re looking for, but really like that reflection piece and developing our reflective mindset can help us decide to be optimistic in certain situations. It can help us control all the situations we come through because we’ve been there before and remember thinking through it, it’s that process of like setting goals, taking action and reflecting on those actions and then like doing it again and just everyday growing, I listened to your podcast the other day, Sam, about pain and like bringing on the, and I’m like, that’s in a way that like mistakes are that right?


Matt Sanders (11:57):
The mistakes we make, we can grow from as long as we think through those mistakes. So anyways, back to that, so people were reaching out, we were pushing reflection and people reaching out asking about strategies to get kids reflecting. So not just saying like, yo go reflect, but like legit, like what can we do? What can that look like? So Chris and I started developing basically a bank of strategies and that turned into like essentially a labor of love for helping people digitally. And so we developed this enormous kind of resource it’s called the suite of reflective strategies. Maybe I can send you the link later, but it’s a Bitly it’s bit, bit dot a bit dot L Y backslash reflection strategies. And it’s like, it’s got so many things in it. I was thinking though, Sam, about your audience, if it was young people listening, what could they get from that?


Matt Sanders (12:55):
I do tweet every day, what I call, I call them like five days of reflection or something. And I tweet out a question every day through my Twitter it’s Mr. Underscore Sanders seven, eight. And so I tweet out every day at reflection question and those are in there as well. I call that chatterbox, but it’s basically a box of resources for people to think. So reflection, questions for discussion thought and growth. So I’ll give you a real quick example of what one of those might look like. Yesterday I just pulled it up three things I’d like to change immediately. And three things I’d keep exactly the same as they are now. So just like it could be dinner table conversation with mom and dad. It could be like, I’m going to think about this before I go to bed. For teachers that could be like, throw it up on a screen and have a conversation as a class or like journal about it. Whatever. So anyways, so that reflection resource is, you know, it’s gotten really big. My favorite moment of the summer was I logged on and there was like 45 people on it all at once in August at one time. And I was like my, like my happiest part of school-related summer. So it was pretty cool.


Sam Demma (14:08):
That’s awesome. So cool. That’s amazing. And I’ve dug through those resources a little bit, so I can assure any teacher listening or student it’s worth the time to check them out. If you’re a student, share it with your educators. If you’re an educator, share it with each other. There’s a lot of great information in there, you know, without, without experimentation, there’s no failure without failure. There is no pain without no failure and pain. There’s no reflection and learning. I think all learning is experiential. Meaning you try something, you fail, you learn, you iterate, you try again. A lot of educators have been telling me the state of education is like, you know, thinking and then throw spaghetti against the wall and seeing if it sticks. And I’m curious to know what have you, what have you thrown on the wall? What have you tried that has stuck so far and on the other end, what has not worked out and what have you learned from it that might be valuable for other educators?


Matt Sanders (15:09):
So I, I think it’s interesting. So this whole process as, as really we’ve tried a lot of things there’s I mean, there are things that you try and education or you want to have happen and then they just can’t work out whether it’s, you know, funding or whatever. But I will say you know, one thing I’ve really learned is that best practices in education, whether you’re teaching face to face or virtual are absolutely the same. It’s, it’s building relationships. It’s encouraging students to use their voice. It’s providing engaging content for kids. It’s connecting content to real life and showing students why it’s meaningful to them. It’s honestly, my favorite thing in the world is allowing students to be experts, finding situations where students can be the experts and lead like every day. So it’s stuff like that. Like I know you try stuff and you like, oh, this, this is, I hope this really works out and it doesn’t, but I always come back to those like that, that idea of give kids a voice, allow them to see themselves in their own learning, allow them to be experts and take, you know, positive, make positive change.


Matt Sanders (16:22):
You know, I will say I was reflecting on this the other day. Cause I, you know, I love young people and I think they’re all amazing. And one thing that gives me a lot of hope going forward about our world in general is our young people. It’s such an, it’s so inspiring. Like when you turn on the news and you look at, you know, people protesting injustices in our time, it’s typically not 60 year olds that you see standing outside, you know, it’s, it’s our young people, it’s their drive to make a difference in the world and be a catalyst for worldwide change. It’s them pushing equity and inclusion and acceptance. I have a five-year-old at home and she has autism and I couldn’t be happier that she’s growing up in this time when we are just so we’re getting better at being inclusive as a society. I want to say, at least from my own experience within our schools. So you know that, I mean, that’s in general, that’s, that’s where I’m at right now with, with all of that.


Sam Demma (17:30):
That’s awesome. I love it, man. I absolutely love it. And in fact, I had a teacher Mike loud foot who inspired me to try and be the change I want to see in the world by teaching this simple lesson that a small, consistent action can make a massive change. And that led to a whole thing about picking up garbage, but it’s so true. It’s, it’s the wisdom of people like yourself who pass it on to youth who then go out there and want to make a difference. And I think that’s just like, it’s such a beautiful process to witness and to watch a young person make an impact and then stand in their belief in themselves after saying, wow, I did do something that I thought maybe before wouldn’t have been possible that has a huge impact on others. So I think that’s amazing in your experience as an educator, you know, teaching young people, mentoring young people because a teacher is not just a content facilitator.


Sam Demma (18:22):
Sometimes you take on the role of a second parent or a guidance counselor or a coach or a mentor. Have you had any experiences where you’ve seen a student transform and maybe you had a huge change in their self-esteem in their life, in their direction and you can change their name if it’s a very serious story. And the reason I’m asking you to share this is because another educator might be listening, forgetting why they actually got into education. That’d be burnt out listening to this and a story about transformation might remind them why they actually started.


Matt Sanders (18:57):
Yeah, I think, you know, I’ve got, you know, dozens and dozens of situations where I’ve seen enormous change. You know, I, I mean most educators, if they’re building relationships and really deeply diving into those relationships and showing kids that they care, you’re going to see positive change, no matter what, you know, it’s the, it’s the teachers and I am sorry. It’s, it’s my own teachers. What I was a kid I’m not going to, I don’t want to critique teachers in the world today, but it was my own teachers that thought the way to get through to others, other students was to punish them or to yell at them or tell them to put their head down on the table, like kids today, students today, adults today don’t want to do what they’re told. If they’re being told it in a negative or rude or disrespectful way.


Matt Sanders (19:48):
Like we all want to just get along. And sometimes kids reach out in a negative way and behave in a negative way because of just wanting attention, wanting love, wanting to be respected. And so, you know, I, as, as far as you know, situations right now you know, in my role right now, I’m not teaching all the time with kids, but I say that I always really pushed. Like we talked about already in this conversation today, we’re always really pushed students to think about their mistakes, to have a growth mindset, to reflect, to make decisions based on those reflections. And I, and I also, you know, always gave every bit of myself to my students. And I think I always, I mean, I shouldn’t say I sound like I’m bragging a little bit, but I definitely always saw positive change in my students because of the relationships that I built.


Matt Sanders (20:44):
And I think for any educator that’s out there today, you know, I’ve heard a couple of times and not educators on my board. I remember when I was in teacher’s college, I remember a teacher saying to me, don’t smile until December and that’s the way you get through to your kids. And I was like, that is still not the way it goes, man. And because of the relationships and you know, I’ll stay in at recess and help you with this and I’ll stay after school. If you need support and I’ll coach basketball and I will give you love every day. And I will tell you that I care deeply for you and I want what’s best for you. And that’s the way I’m going to teach every day. That’s the process that I’ve always had success, even with the kid. That’s like, you know, we’re that kids are gonna have a real struggle. It’s going to, he’s going to be taking people off task and it’s going to be a challenge every day. I was like, no, just, just show them. You love them and that you care and that you want what’s best for them. And they’ll be your best friend. Yeah.


Sam Demma (21:39):
So true. Everyone’s human needs are the same, whether it’s an adult, an 80 year old man or a 10 year old kid in a classroom. So that’s a great philosophy to live by and teach by. If, if another educator has been inspired by anything we’ve talked about today and wants to reach out bounce ideas around, have a conversation with you, what would be the best way for them to do so?


Matt Sanders (22:01):
Great. I would love, love, love, love to connect with any other educator. That’s interested probably either through Twitter, Twitter’s easiest. Mr_Sanders78. Check the reflective resource. I’m not making a dime off of it. It’s all a labor of love and it’s all a drive to make a change in the world. And that’s bit.ly/Reflectionstrategies check it out. I mean, my emails on that as well. If somebody is looking to connect with me or have questions about that resource itself, happy to have a conversation and students that you, if you’re listening right now, you know, don’t give up on yourself ever, you know, be the best you can be reflect the great overachieve smile. Think positively. Here’s a story for you, Sam, before we sign off. Totally. This is a perfect example of me saying to myself, I will think about things in a positive light.


Matt Sanders (23:02):
Two weeks ago I dropped my phone at a gas station, brand new iPhone fell out of my car. I think that’s what happened to it. I spent like three hours trying to find it. Couldn’t find it. It was gone. I called, I used the like find my app, all the things. And I was like, I left it for the night. I’m like, well, I probably won’t ever see it again. Like I’m just going to have to move on. And by the next day I had actually got myself to realize that maybe it was a sign that I needed to put down my phone more often. And I was going to get out of my old iPhone seven. I had a crack in it and I was going to be just fine. And I had completely moved on and it was just me saying to myself, you know, it’s, it is what it is.


Matt Sanders (23:43):
You gotta be more careful. I learned from that. I need to be more careful with my stuff and that maybe it was a sign I needed to just like, not be so technol, technologically inclined. And and then five days later somebody had found it on the road and called me and said, I’ve been looking for you for four days. We tried everything and they messaged my wife through Facebook to get it back to goodness lady inside them. She found on the side of the road. So like I had completely moved on. I had changed over my, until my old iPhone seven and I was totally good with it. But it’s an example of like that like mindset, like just it’ll be okay. Just push. So anyways, that’s just a funny story.


Sam Demma (24:26):
On the other side, seeing the good in people, right? Like that lady looks for you for five days. That is less.


Matt Sanders (24:33):
And then she ended up, she just found somebody had texted me and sorry, my wife had texted me and then her, she saw the name and then looked up my wife’s name on Facebook to find to message her, to see if she knew me. So. Cool. Incredible. Yeah.


Sam Demma (24:52):
Yeah. Selfless, selfless lady. That’s awesome. All right. Perfect. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, Matt, it’s been a huge, huge pleasure. We’ll definitely stay in touch and I look forward to continuing watching your labor of love and all the positive impact your work has and all your teachers from your school have in your board on all the students you guys would like that look after. Thank you. So, and there you have it. Another amazing guest and amazing interview on the high-performing educator podcast. As always, if you enjoyed these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www dot high-performing educator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Matt

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

November 29, 2021 by Experiential Learning Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 1

Scott Kirkness – Classroom Teacher in the Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division

Scott Kirkness, Educator
About Scott Kirkness

Scott Kirkness is an educator living in Southeastern Saskatchewan. Raised and educated in Ontario, he moved west in 2013 after teaching in the UK. Scott is married with three beautiful children and enjoys training for marathons in his spare time. He graduated with BA (History) from Laurentian University in 2010 and a B. Ed from Lakehead University in 2011.

Scott has plans to obtain a Master’s of Education in the near future. Previous to his work as a teacher, he was a construction site Superintendent for Century Group Inc, a position he obtained after starting out as a labourer. Scott is a firm believer that nothing in this life will come easy, and hard work is the only way to get what you want.

He is passionate about education, athletics, and self-improvement. Scott believes that technology can alleviate much of what ails this planet and the people on it.

Connect with Scott: Email | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Camp Kodiak

Nishnawbe Aski Nation

Stoughton Central School

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


Scott Kirkness (00:12):
That sounds great. So my name is Scott Kirkness. I’m originally from Toronto and I grew up in Sudbury, Ontario got a teacher’s degree at Laurentian university and Lakehead university very excited to be here. Kind of how I got here. You know, it was one of those things where people, they never know what they want to be when they grow up until they’re faced with it. Right. And I had it in my head. I was going to be a paramedic. And then all of a sudden grade 10 science, wasn’t going so well for me. But grade 10 history, I had, my teacher pulled me aside and she said, boy, you know, in 30 years, I don’t think I’ve ever given a a hundred on an exam. So a what do you want to do with your life? I said, you know what? That sounds really good. So I got on the teaching express and here we are.


Sam Demma (00:54):
Speaking of Laurentian, it seems like you loved school so much. You went back there and ran events for them too.


Scott Kirkness (01:00):
I did, I did. I was the vice president of student services for a year with a student general association. It was great.


Sam Demma (01:07):
So you finish school at Laurentian and then what did the path kind of look like from there?


Scott Kirkness (01:16):
Well yeah, I graduated from Laurentian with my honors in history in 2010. So then I spent the next year at Lakehead university getting my faculty of education, my, my B ed. And that’s my first experience really in a classroom. Cause that’s when you have your practicums, right? That’s when you’re a student teacher. And my first experience was, was phenomenal. I got really lucky. I got to work at a place called Dennis Franklin Cromarty high school thunder bay, which is an all indigenous high school run by the Northern Nishnawbe education council. And they run it really different that they fly their students from remote reserves. They board them in thunder bay. And so as a result, they’re actually only at school, eight months to a year instead of 10. So their day is longer, their semester ends at Christmas instrument. Yeah. So I only got a five week placement, but my five weeks for longer than everyone else’s because my day was longer.


Scott Kirkness (02:08):
So that was an incredible experience. And then of course in the second semester I have another placement. It was at closed garden school also in thunder bay. Really enjoyed that experience as well. Nice. And then I was faced with the great crushing Ontario right now. Right? It’s, it’s seemingly impossible for new teachers to get work. And so I kind of went back to what I’d been doing on and off throughout university. I was a laborer for construction companies and about a year and a half after that, I just decided I had to throw my hat in the ring. And I went overseas. I taught in, in London, in England for about a semester. I had a five-year work visa. I was very fortunate. I have, I have family from the UK. So it was easy for me to get a visa, but you know, ultimately all my family’s here, the money isn’t quite the same. The experience is very different than what we have in Canada. I’m very grateful for it. But while I was over there in 2013, we didn’t quite have zoom, but we still had Skype. And I did an interview and I I landed in Saskatchewan and I’ve been at the same school, stout and central school here in Stoughton Saskatchewan since September, 2013.


Sam Demma (03:16):
Awesome. And did construction run in your family or was that something you just jumped into?


Scott Kirkness (03:22):
No, no, I was, I’m very fortunate, very privileged. My father worked construction, so he was able to usually get me work and I was not very grateful for it. Initially. I wanted to just kind of go to the bank of mom and dad, like all my friends, but to be honest, you know, you swing a shovel and a sledgehammer for eight hours a day or longer, you really start appreciating the going to class a little more.


Sam Demma (03:46):
Yeah, it’s true. My dad is a contractor. He was a licensed plumber. And in the summer times I would do some work with him. And I used to hate when he would ask me, can you help us with this unfinished basement? I mean, we have to, we have to move the stones to put some what do you call it? Like some pipe in the ground. And it was always a, a very physical job, so I definitely can relate to the experience. So at what point in your journey did you go back to Laurentian and do like student services and run events? There was that after the construction or before?


Scott Kirkness (04:18):
Oh, it’s before, during and after. Oh, cool. I actually graduated from high school in 2004 and I went back for a semester that was around the time that Ontario had dropped grade 13. And so they called it the year before me. It was the double cohort were twice as many people were going into university and I, I didn’t have enough money to be honest. So I went back to high school for a semester, tried to upgrade some credits, maybe get some scholarship opportunities. And while that didn’t really work out, I really didn’t need the second semester. So I was, yeah, that’s when I started, I was my first foray into construction. I was 18. And you know, a part of you thinks I really don’t want to take a whole gap year because I don’t know if I trust myself to go back once you get a taste of the money, but you know, sure enough, you find yourself freezing there in minus 40 shoveling.


Scott Kirkness (05:04):
And again, those classrooms looked mighty inviting for some people. And, you know, I, I have utmost respect for those people who choose that path and that’s what they want to do. Everybody is there’s great opportunities in it. But it wasn’t for me. I was really glad that I was able to make my dream come true and become an educator. That’s awesome. That actually puts me in 2005. I’m at Laurentian. I go through it and I was kind of one credit behind the whole way. And so I didn’t actually graduate in 2009, I needed one more credit or class from however they split it up. And so I did the vice-president of services while I was getting my last credit, because it’s a full-time job. You’re working 30, 40 hours a week.


Sam Demma (05:49):
And what was that like? Like if you have to put, but, but if an educator listening and want us to put themselves in the shoes of a event planner or students or head of student services at you know, a university.


Scott Kirkness (06:01):
Yeah. Well, I guess in a word, a learning experience, if I can make an eight, it, you know, it starts with, okay, so you have to get the frosh kits ready. Okay. Well, what do I put in the frosh kits? Well, this is what they did last year that doesn’t tell me what I’m supposed to do. You know, you’re really figuring a lot of this out and our executive director, God bless her. She’s a Saint who worked for peanuts for longer than she ever should have. Her name was Tanis logon and she was on maternity leave. So sure she kept coming in with the baby and everything, but I’m trying not to bug her too much. There’s a whole story about ordering lanyards. And I thought I got us a great deal. And I accidentally kind of screwed over a product user we’d been using for a decade and, you know, learning experience. But the best thing that came out of that was I got media training. How to deal with an interview on the phone, you know, get the questions in advance, don’t say yes to any interview right away. Think about it, things like that. Cool. Yeah.


Sam Demma (06:54):
That’s amazing. That’s so awesome. I know from speaking to buddies who go to university, they, they love events, but little, do they know the amount of work that goes into them from behind the scenes?


Scott Kirkness (07:05):
Little did I little, did I know that frosh concerts are usually paid for, with a briefcase of cash? Really? Yeah. You give the band a, you know, 25 grand in cash in a briefcase at the end of the night and their rider kits are phenomenal too. That’s fricking cool.


Sam Demma (07:18):
That’s awesome. You also did some stuff with camp Kodiak. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how that kind of shaped.


Scott Kirkness (07:26):
You as well? For sure. So camp Kodiak is, you know, one of the happiest places on earth, they are essentially a camp for children with different learning disabilities, primarily who are on the autism spectrum. It’s run for, I believe kids about eight to 18, and then they even have club Kodiak for it. You know, adults who had been part of the program which is also really cool. It’s incredibly expensive. But part of the reason it’s expensive is because they have an incredible camper to counselor ratio in my cabin, you know, it’s a three to one ratio, there was three kids to every adult and you, you can’t get that anywhere to summer camp. You know, it’s, it’s international. We had kids flying in from Russia, the Arab Emirates, Venezuela half are from Ontario, but a lot are not. Wow. And so you get a lot of experience, you know, waking up at 7:00 AM meds for some kids while other kids are getting them throughout the day, the programming is very rigid.


Scott Kirkness (08:22):
You start learning the how important routines are to a lot of the kids on the spectrum. Right. And it just teaches you compassion on a level that you wouldn’t have expected. Right? You, you read about it and patience and understanding, but until you’ve lived it, you know, the kid does not have his X-Box at camp. Right. And so his routine is already totally thrown into the woods, but you know, they, the relationships they’re able to form. And then I was able to form with them. You know, I, I only did it the one summer, but I still have campers who were in cabinet year. They were 16, 17 years old. And you know, they still reach out to me occasionally and, you know, Hey, you know, God, I’m dating myself now, but you know, they’re 21, 24 years old now all of a sudden, right. Some of them are older now than when I was, when I met them. That’s so cool. Yeah. Yeah.


Sam Demma (09:11):
And you know, speaking of international flying kids and our kids were coming all over to camp when you were in London. Yep. What was that experience like? I know you mentioned it’s very different. Give me an idea.


Scott Kirkness (09:24):
Well, here’s an idea of different. So I got off the airplane, not knowing where I was sleeping that night. Wow. Yeah. I was newly married. I got married in January. I flew over there and I love my wife very much, but we all knew that the idea of living in a hostel for a few weeks was just not something that was going to work for her. So the plan was for me to go over there and get established and she’ll come join me in the fall. And that didn’t end up happening. You know, like I said, I came to Saskatchewan, but you know, I, I thought I had this big joke. I was going to tell all the people I’m moving to England to teach the English kids how to speak English, you know, little did I know, I understand cosmopolitan metropolitan cities, but I didn’t realize just how diverse London is.


Scott Kirkness (10:10):
You know, about a third of the kids were English as a second language, maybe more. And so that was just my first thought was okay. Not every kid in my English class in England understands the English I’m speaking. And so again, the level of patience and I had a lot of hubris as a young teacher, like, all right, I got this like, look at me like, they’re going to want to learn from me. I have this figured out. I was just recently a student, you know, like every new teacher thinks. And again, it’s, it’s, you need to be patient. You need to be flexible. And the idea that every single kid in your room is going to do the same thing is just a fool’s errand.


Sam Demma (10:48):
Did you end up watching any soccer games while you were there?


Scott Kirkness (10:50):
You know what I did? I’ll try it. I’ll always try and watch the language here. But one of my first days I’m going down to a pub and I said, oh, you know, my friend is a big football fan. And he said, you got to get down to a pub. It’s all right, man, you versus man city for the premiership title, you got to go watch it. And I said, all right. So I’m in north London and I walk into a pub and I said, oh, are you gonna put the match on? And he just looks me right in the eye and says after United and F city, this is an arsenal bar.


Scott Kirkness (11:21):
Not putting the match off, dude. That’s amazing. Okay, cool. I got some culture, but I’m feeling a little homesick later in the year and I’m a Toronto boy in the Toronto maple Leafs make the playoffs for the first time, since I’m in high school and it’s 2013 and they’re on the dream season and they’re going to win it all. Well, the game start at midnight. So I come home from work. I have a nap. And then at midnight, I’m like, I’m going to watch the hockey games. And then I go to bed at 4:00 AM and wake up and go to work. So then I’m real excited to have this place called the maple leaf Tavern. And I’m excited to go watch a hockey game there. I take the subway. I go over there, bars closed at midnight. Wow. Taking this Canadian pub hockey game, maybe Burton now didn’t work out. But it, it was just, I wouldn’t trade that experience in London for the world. It was so good for me professionally and just the personal growth of, you know, living in a foreign country.


Sam Demma (12:16):
That’s awesome. Would you recommend other educators try and do the same?


Scott Kirkness (12:18):
So particularly early in your career, I had through the company I worked with, I got guaranteed supply work. They called it. So I was guaranteed four days a week, but I was a substitute teacher. So I was in different buildings all the time. And it’s, it’s almost like an apprenticeship, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re not the one making the planning and the decisions, but you’re still there doing the work. And I think that’s an important skill. And I think a lot of times new teachers really get rushed to the front. And I think that’s part of the reason there’s a big burnout.


Sam Demma (12:53):
Yeah. I couldn’t agree more, especially right now. Things are so different. Things have changed a lot. I’m curious to know what are some of the challenges you’ve been facing personally or as a school in education right now and how you’re striving to kind of overcome those things or deal with them?


Scott Kirkness (13:08):
Yeah. lots of things, right. I mean, in my personal life, I’ve had three children who are under the age of five. You know, one of them was born during the pandemic. You know, the sleep is still not quite a part of my life, but professionally it’s the same challenges. I think educators face all over the place. We’ve been fighting for a few, a few of the same things forever smaller class sizes and, you know, greater compensation. And while yes, in Canada, our teachers are taken care of, and I’m not here to complain about money. I’m quite happy with what I’m doing, but money is a factor in class sizes, right. You know, there are not standard class sizes across the countries, across the province. They vary so dramatically. And you know, in some of these small rural areas, you have three and four grades in a same class.


Scott Kirkness (14:03):
And that’s an incredible challenge. I’m fortunate and I’ve never dealt with a triple or a quad split, but every class, almost every class I’ve taught in my career has been a split class, just because of the nature of the size of my community. It’s rare to have more than 10, 12 kids in the same grade. Like I work in a K to 12 school, it’s kindergarten, grade 12, and we only have about 160 kids. So do the math. I’m not saying it’s viable for you to have a class of 10, but every educator, every educational theorist in the world would tell you, you’re going to have a better learning experience if you were to have some of the smaller classes. So that’s the big challenge. And then of course the other challenge staring us in the face is the global pandemic. You know, I got a lot of friends back east and it was hard in Ontario.


Scott Kirkness (14:52):
It really was, you know, they had such strict lockdowns and this whole thing came out of nowhere, but ultimately they were largely able to shift online that isn’t the case in rural areas. Our, our internet is just not really capable of you know, live video streaming everywhere. So the kids can do it, but it wasn’t a reality for everyone. And so I guess the greatest answer to how to overcome some of these challenges is a, the answer is more technology, right? Get the upgraded internet systems. You know, you hear the federal government talking about, you know, making high-speed internet and an essential service. You know, we kinda got a flash forward and what the future of education looks like with the pandemic. And I didn’t like all of it, but you know, as long as the technology works out and you’re not having inequity with some children not having access to it, some of it wasn’t all bad. Yeah.


Sam Demma (15:50):
Yeah. I agree. All right. Can there be more you raised a lot of great points and I’m curious to know if, when you initially started out your career as well, you had someone kind of mentoring you and guiding you like a, another educator or people that you would go to and kind of ask questions. If you weren’t sure about certain situations.


Scott Kirkness (16:08):
I was really fortunate to walk into a veteran building. You know, there was another rookie teacher on staff with me who has since moved on to Alberta. I had to add Alberta cause they didn’t want people to think she had died. Yeah. So, you know, we had some rookie conversations, but we had a lot of veterans in the building. Right. It was a matter of what do I do when this happens. And, and there’s also a lot of kind of falling off the horse. Sometimes you really do just have to screw up initially and I’m not talking about, you know, oh, well, you know, I just decided I didn’t want to read the novel in advance. And we watched the movie, you know, I, I don’t mean that, but you know, there were things I didn’t understand about how to take what’s in the curriculum and put it into the classroom.


Scott Kirkness (16:50):
And I, I made some mistakes along the way, and I’ll never forget. I have a colleague who I sure would want to remain nameless. And they had a prep period and they were sitting next door and my door was open and they heard me talk and doing my lesson. This said, so what, what class you teach in there as well? That’s great. Eight social studies. She chuckles and she says, no, it isn’t, that’s not part of it. And so, you know, she gave me the, you know, the fact that life conversation very gently about, okay, well know, I understand how you, you got X for that answer, but really it’s why, and they were able to share resources. And it’s just one of those important things you need to build comradery and culture within the room.


Sam Demma (17:35):
That that’s amazing. That’s actually a very helpful person.


Scott Kirkness (17:39):
Yeah, yeah. That could have been terrible. I mean, they could have completely thrown me under the bus, backed it over a few times, but we’re very fortunate that education, it’s not a cutthroat competitive field, a field where everybody, you know, I’m not fighting with her for a salary demand next year. Yep. So we both have the job, we’re all in this to make other people’s lives better. Right.


Sam Demma (18:02):
That’s awesome. And if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, you know, rookie Scott in your first year teaching, but then wisdom and advice and you know, experience you’ve had, what advice would you give your younger self?


Scott Kirkness (18:14):
I would undo a lot of the advice I got from unsolicited people going into education. One of the things I had a professor telling me at the faculty of education was as a young teacher, don’t smile until Christmas. They won’t, they won’t take you seriously looking at it as like what they were trying to foster an atmosphere of intimidation. And, you know, I have a loud, booming voice. I wear a suit. I stay, I stood at the front of the room. I taught really old school initially. You know, it was okay, desks in rows and we’re gonna teach like this. And I thought I was all futuristic because I was having them, you know, use Microsoft office 365, a congratulations. You’re gonna use a shared document. That’s my modern teaching. That’s it? As opposed to the idea of small group instruction, as opposed to the idea that relationship building is the most important part of this job.


Scott Kirkness (19:11):
People somewhat more salient than I said something along the lines of people will rarely remember what their teacher taught them, but they will always remember how their teacher made them feel. And people who are in a good Headspace who are happy to be there. You know, the learning happens a lot easier. I’m not saying it happens by osmosis. You can’t just be friends with them and Powell around and put on the basketball game, but you need that positive relationship. It’s the whole Maslow before bloom theory, right? If the, if their immediate needs are not being met and often those needs are for an adult relationship outside of their family, it’s real difficult to get to the higher levels of thinking.


Sam Demma (19:53):
Yeah. I agree. I think back to the teachers that have the biggest impact on me and a lot of them got to know me on a personal level, built really strong relationships. And that’s why I felt more interested in, you know, engaging in their lessons and everything they had to teach.


Scott Kirkness (20:08):
Yeah. And that’s it. It’s the old data Ms. Frizzle, right? Take chances. Make mistakes and get messy. Yeah. I remember being real proud of the fact that when I was a first year teacher, I was deducting marks for kids who didn’t underline the date on their notes. Like, why did I even care? Why am I evaluating their notes? What their notes, show me, congratulations. You know how to copy not congratulations. You thought of something and showed me something.


Sam Demma (20:34):
Yeah, I like that. That’s a good point. That’s a really good point. Scott, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. I I loved it and this was a great conversation. If another educator is listening and wants to reach


Scott Kirkness (20:47):
Out what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you and do so? The best way to get ahold of me would be to access our websites, find Stoughton central school. And you’ll find my lovely photo there. You can give, shoot me an email. It’s the best way to get ahold of me or find me on LinkedIn. I’m Scott Kirkness.


Sam Demma (21:07):
All right, Scott. Thank you so much. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon. I appreciate your time.


Scott Kirkness (21:11):
Thanks very much for having me. It was great to be here.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Scott Kirkness

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 Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

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

Aubrey Patterson, CEO Warm Demanders
About Aubrey Patterson

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

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

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

Connect with Aubrey: Email | Linkedin | Website | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

The Principals Seminar

Simon Sinek’s TEDx Talk

David Allen; Getting Things Done (book)

Getting to Inbox Zero

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:03):
Aubrey, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and also sharing a little bit behind your journey? What brought you to do the work you’re doing today?


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Aubrey Patterson (09:25):
Right.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Aubrey

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

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

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

Shonna Barth – Principal of Crescent Heights High School

Shonna Barth - Principal CHHS
About Shonna Barth

Shonna Barth (@ShonnaBarth), is the Principal at Crescent Heights High School. She is a recipient of the 2020-2021 Distinguished Leadership Award presented by the Council for School Leadership of the Alberta Teachers’ Association. She started at Cresent Heights eight years ago as a counsellor and moved into her role as vice principal after three years and is now the Principal of the school. 

She cares and works with ALL students in the school. She enjoys all aspects of the Grade 7-12 life including student leadership, drama, band productions and athletics. She coaches volleyball and is an avid supporter of other CHHS extra-curricular events. Shonna believes it takes a variety of life experiences and a village to help students grow and develop into their best potential. Student and staff wellness is a passion of hers as she continues to work to find balance and fulfillment in her own life.

Connect with Shonna: Email | Twitter | Linkedin

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Council for School Leadership

Alberta Teachers’ Association

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):
Shonna, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit behind your journey that brought you to where you are today?


Shonna Barth (00:13):
Awesome. Well, thanks for having me. I am the principal of Crescent Heights High School and medicine hat Alberta. I have worked in kind of all levels of education. I spent a good chunk of the first part of my career in elementary, mainly grade six, and I really found with grade six. So you had that real opportunity to build student leaders at that age. They’re the oldest kids in the school, and they’re just really keen on giving back to the community and being part of the school as a whole. So I often led the student leadership with, through the schools and just try to really branch out with student experience to not just in the classroom. How can we impact their lives beyond that and how can we help them impact the world beyond that as well? So that’s been a passion of mine, right from probably about the third or fourth year when I started teaching before too long, I moved into the role of part-time counselor.


Shonna Barth (01:02):
So I was half-time teacher part-time school counselor, not a, I don’t have a mental health background per se, but just, I always told the kids, I’m an adult that gets along with kids. Well, and so through that platform, I was able to really get to know what some of the real concerns kids were going through. You have more time to sit and talk with kids and chat about what’s going on in their lives. And then from that, we could work with the student council kids to, okay, we’ve got a lot of kids going through this. What could we do to try to support those students? Although I still put a lot of time into my classroom and my teaching that side of my career started to really feel like a passion for me. So I spent about five or six years as a school counsellor.


Shonna Barth (01:41):
And then I moved into what we call mental health capacity building, project program in Alberta. So we had three for three years. We worked in the schools to try to work in the universal side of supporting our students and families. So we would go into classrooms with programs. We would work in small groups on things that were going on, and that was funded by Alberta health. Recognizing that teachers don’t go to school in order to be able to work with a lot of these things. We don’t get taught a lot of that. So we were building capacity within the teachers to support their students through some of these challenging times, the administrators, the families we’d offer family nights. So I was really immersed then in that whole world of mental health, then resiliency and building grit. So that has been an excellent resource for me moving into high school. I moved into that after that, with working with the grade nine through 12 counseling and teenagers are a whole different breed and, you know, just as exciting if not even more. So I think grade six and then I’ve been in administration the last about five years, I guess, and just moved into being a principal this year.


Sam Demma (02:43):
Awesome. And did you know, like from a young age that you wanted to get into education and teaching, or like what kind of steered you in that specific path?


Shonna Barth (02:51):
Well, my whole family, pretty much your teachers. My father was an administrator, my aunt uncle. So I actually didn’t want to be a teacher cause I was determined to do my own thing and make my own mark on the world, but it was fairly early. Obviously I wanted to work with people and that I am on that side of the spectrum of working with things. So I had at one point really wanted to be a social worker. And my mum was worried about my, my soft heart in that world. Cause that’s a real challenging world at times. And I big props to anybody who is doing that work has that is a, it’s a challenging area, but man, you can really make a difference. But once you got into education, I realized that that side of me could also come out through my teaching as well. Once I did my first round of student teaching, I was hooked when I got to know those kids. And there’s no looking back after that.


Sam Demma (03:39):
That’s awesome. And you mentioned at the beginning of your response that you thought grade six is like the perfect age to start introducing students to student leadership. Like what does that look like in grade six? Is it getting students involved and engaged in planning events? Yeah, like take me back there for a minute and kind of explain what that looked like or why you thought student leadership was so important to introduce at that age.


Shonna Barth (04:01):
Yeah. So in our curriculum, a big part of grade six, social studies is about government. So there’s kind of a natural fit to start forming some sort of student government. I was always reluctant though to do the whole voting thing. Like I know there’s some value in learning of that, but I also know there’s value in rejection and how bad that can feel to be begins a popularity thing. So my philosophy has always anybody who wants to get involved, come on, we just called it leadership. And yeah, it was a lot of planning, looking at the fun events in the school and the extra activities and really started with that part of it. Cause to me, that kind of gave them the hook with the other kids in the school. It also gave me a hook with the other kids in school. I never had to deal with discipline because kids knew I was the lady who planned the fun stuff.


Shonna Barth (04:42):
So they don’t want us to get in trouble with her. And then we kind of branched out as I got to see how these kids had influence in the school and really started to work with them on how can you use that, that for good, rather than for evil, because you don’t want these kids thinking they’re a big deal and bullying the grade fours because they’re in grade six leadership and taking a look at those kids who maybe didn’t have a buddy to sit with or that sort of thing, like really encouraging get some of them aren’t at that maturity to be able to think outside themselves. But there definitely was ones that good. So we kind of balanced it out between planning Western days and school, spirit days with also, okay. We’ve noticed a lot of kids like really kind of on their own, what can we do to help those kids?


Shonna Barth (05:24):
So try to balance that they were lunch hour meetings. We also rounded once I moved to a more of a six to eight school, we ran a leadership class. And so within that class, the students chose to come to that. So we could go in a little bit deeper about what it looks like to be a leader, looked at traditional leaders in our community as well as throughout history and just try to pull out some aspects of things they were doing. So just tried to really branch out on the interests that they already had past planning, school dances and fun days.


Sam Demma (05:54):
I love that. It’s amazing. And when did volleyball come into the picture? I know you also coached now. And did you play when you were younger or where’d that passion?


Shonna Barth (06:02):
I did. And that I told this story a few times, I guess, but I went to a smaller high school where my dad was a principal and I tried it on grade seven and I didn’t make the team, which if your dad’s a principal, you gotta be pretty bad not to make the team in grade eight. They brought me on as a manager, cause I think they felt sorry for me that I still kept coming out and trying. And I would go to camps in the summer and I kept working and I’ve made the team of grade nine. And by grade 12, I was the captain of the team and never have I ever received an MVP trophy. But through my, my years of volleyball and different sports, I played most improved or more sportsmanlike. And I tell it to these young kids that I coach a lot that a lot of the real rock star volleyball players that I played with, they’re not playing anymore.


Shonna Barth (06:47):
As soon as they came up against somebody that maybe was as good as them better, they got frustrated and they were done. I had always been in it because I love the game. I liked being part of a team. I like part of that atmosphere. So once I got out of university, I knew I wanted to provide that opportunity for other students. So the first, probably five or six years, I coached a team of the kids. Who’d been cut from other teams. So we would just form a team, our own little team and so that they still get to play and we’d go into the league and we didn’t win a whole lot, but the kids were just so happy to be there. Mandy of them still played right through, up till about grade 11. And now we’re playing as young adults and I’ve ran into them because I still play in the ladies league, not at tier one or anything anymore, but I still play and I’ll run into those kids and they quite regularly say like, thank you for providing that opportunity. So I, the reason I stay with it now, as much as it’s a little bit overwhelming time commitment wise is that’s where I really get to connect with kids. You don’t get to, you don’t have too many kids coming back to a school going, oh, I remember when you were my principal. Like, it’s more about the coaching and the times that we get to spend with them, then.


Sam Demma (07:55):
That’s amazing. And you know, it’s cool because you are a student who tried really hard and didn’t make the team. And I’m in a situation you’re probably in yourself is, you know, you have to bring on some kids and turn down others. How do you do that effectively? Like how do you know, how did it, how did, how did the other coach do that for you when you were in growing up and maybe your dad helped a lot there? Cause he was the principal. And, and how do you do that now? Just to make sure students still feel motivated like you were to keep trying.


Shonna Barth (08:22):
We we added another team here again this year, once we got to the cat. So we try to find as many adults as possible. There was a few that just, unfortunately there’s just not enough gym time and not enough coaches to enable everybody. We try to be as respectful as possible. We don’t post a list where somebody has to read it at eight in the morning and deal with rejection all day at school, you get a letter at the end of the day and you’d take it home. And we would list all the other things that are going on in the school that we encourage them to try out. So that we’re hopefully that if volleyball, wasn’t their thing, we have a really strong drama program. We have a cross-country program, things that there aren’t as many cuts having to be made. So we try to encourage them, okay, this wasn’t your thing, but that’s all right. Try something different. And on student council here too, we’re always like, Hey, come join us. You can still be part of things. So a lot of times when kids come and they don’t have the skills, you’re not necessarily coming because they love volleyball. They don’t necessarily even know volleyball. They just really want to be part of something and be part of a team.


Sam Demma (09:18):
And you mentioned that students, some of their fondest memories are with extra curricular activities and you know, that’s, that’s how you really get to connect with kids. Like, do you think it has a huge impact on students and like, have you seen the impact be realized like you have students come back and say like, oh, the volleyball team made a big difference. And were there any stories that may have been like very impactful that stick out to you and maybe even to the point where you could change the student’s name, if it’s something really serious?


Shonna Barth (09:44):
Yeah. Well, I am a for more, I guess the teaching has so much more one-on-one impact than you do as a principal in that sense. So I reflect back on that era, maybe a little more. So through that grade six era, like we would go for outdoor ed trips where we’d stay for two or three nights out at camp and be together, we’d go to Calgary and go to the Calgary science center. So you’re sitting on a bus, you’re walking around the science center with kids. You’re walking around the zoo with kids. We did a lot of just, oh, I used to have science sleepovers where the kids would stay overnight in the school. And we do science experiments and they get to have races up and down the hallway. And just like lot of work on my part, like I was tired, but the bucket feeling you get as an adult from that.


Shonna Barth (10:25):
So what I’ve found now that I’m able to go out places where you can have adult beverages and things like that. And you run into students that you have taught at those ages. They come sit down and they had me a beverage and that like, they want to talk about, remember when we were walking on that hike and elk water, and we were talking about blah, blah, blah, like, and they can remember almost word for word in their mind what they felt. I said, I can barely remember the conversation. I can almost always remember the student, but those are the times you really get to have those real conversations with kids and they get to have a glimpse of you as a human. And you get to see them as a human as well. And I can count how many cards I’ve been sent over the years or kids who’ve stopped to have those conversations.


Shonna Barth (11:08):
Just about things that we talked about, the difference I made in their life. I’m like, wow, like you were such an easy kid. I never really felt like I was doing anything super impactful for you. Or on the flip side, sometimes the really challenging kids I’ll see them a year or two later. And they act like they’ve never met me before. And I do think some of that is they don’t want to remember who they were at that point in their life. And you’re kind of a reminder of that. We still kind of hope that some of the conversations you had maybe had some impact, you’re not going to affect every kid for sure. But yeah, I think this one young lady who I, I, I should move down for grade four, five and six on charter all three years. So I had got to know her very well.


Shonna Barth (11:49):
And then I remarried her again in grade 10. At that point, she was kind of going sideways in life, just making some bad choices and we just run into each other somewhere. I did not recognize her because she was pretty changed the makeup and the hair. And didn’t look quite as innocent as she did in grade six. And she just came over and talked and we talked for about an hour and I’ve heard from message from her about three years later about that, that conversation was that I’ve changed time for her. It just reminded her who she used to be, where she wanted to go. And she couldn’t. I asked her if she had any like specific thing that I said and said she couldn’t remember, but just having that conversation and that connection with the person that she was and where she wanted to go. And just that summer, I didn’t just walk away and ignore that. I spent some time with her time for a lot of these kids is, is a huge value. And it’s not always easy if you have 32 kids in your class to be able to have those one-on-one. So if you’re not able to do some of the extracurricular, you miss out on those really cool opportunities. Yeah.


Sam Demma (12:50):
Yeah. It’s so true. I even think back to my own high school experience and I play on the soccer team cause I was a big soccer player. And I remember building not only deeper relationships with the coaches of the team, but also the teammates I find that you don’t, unless you proactively schedule time with the friends in your class to hang out, you don’t really have another opportunity during class to build super deep relationships. Because if you talk, the teacher starts yelling at you and it’s like stop talking, I’m teaching, you know? And the soccer field enabled that as well. So I ended up building relationships with so many other students which is why looking back. I wish I got way more involved in high school. I was just way too focused on soccer that I didn’t really join anything except for the soccer team. And it’s like one of my regrets when I talk to students now and encourage them to get involved. But what are some of the, like, education has changed a lot in the past two years, it’s been a lot of challenges. What do you think some of the challenges are that your school and yourself as a principal are currently faced with? And then how are you trying to overcome those things?


Shonna Barth (13:52):
I think, I guess from a personal part I’ve really pride myself a year and a half, two years ago that even with 1300 kids in the student school, somebody walked down the hall that wasn’t part of our school. I would recognize that. And now with the masks, it’s just, it feels like we’re so much more anonymous. Like kids, I normally smile everybody that walks by, they can’t tell if you’re smiling and like, we’re just losing that personal connection. And I worry about that because for some kids that just those little conversations in the hall might be the only time they talk to an adult during that day, like on a one-on-one sort of thing. Definitely the loss of some of those extracurricular this last year has been really concerning. Like they we’ve had kids not come back. Finding jobs has been really important part of high school because for some of them they’re the sole breadwinner in their home.


Shonna Barth (14:43):
So they’re, excuse me, they’re not going to leave their job and come back and play soccer or volleyball or join the band cause their family needs them. So it’s become kind of a place right now of just come get your education because that’s what you have to do. And then go back to your real life. So we don’t have the pep rallies. We don’t have this th the school assemblies everything’s done over zoom. And I do think that depersonalizes us. It’s also on the positive side, it’s encouraged us to be creative and try to find some new ways to connect with kids. I think some students, when we were online, being able to talk one-on-one with their teacher over screen was a little less intimidating than having to put your hand up in class and potentially say something down with your teacher can only hear you when you can only hear them.


Shonna Barth (15:31):
It’s it allows for some really positive relationships, but I do worry just about the students’ physical health, their emotional health. It’s been a lot of sitting in front of screens these last two years, and that becomes very easy to do. It’s when you’re a teenager, especially there are junior high kids who struggle a bit with anxiety to start with staying at home can feel really comfortable and safe, but then learning how to push through that and learning how to deal with difficult kids is, is unfortunately, this is a skill that we need, like adults, don’t all of a sudden become nice. When you turn 18, 19, you’re still gonna have difficult coworkers or difficult bosses. And so I think we’re missing out on some of those skills as well, that would benefit them in the work world.


Sam Demma (16:15):
And like what I know this has been ongoing for two years. What, what are some programs or things that you did in the past year that were successful despite the challenges or things that the school adjusted or that the teachers might’ve tried that worked out kind of well.


Shonna Barth (16:32):
Oh, we still through our school student council still been trying to organize some sort of spirit day. Sometimes it’s like, even when we were at home, like dress up and we’ll take pictures of you over zoom, like we’ve tried to encourage that sort of thing at home. We really tried to keep up with our any sort of justice projects that we can to make sure that the kids aren’t getting so insulated into their own world, that they’re forgetting what’s going on in the world. So within our English and social programs, they do a lot of work in, in those areas. We still managed to pull off a musical at the hand of last year. Our she was just amazing, like they’d practice over zoom, which of course is delayed and backwards trying to do dance. Like the creativity that they have come up with has been just incredible.


Shonna Barth (17:15):
So the last two days of June parents were able to come in and watch a performance. So those grade twelves who’ve been part of musical theater since grade seven, got to still have their, their audience, which meant a lot to them. We still ran some sports in the fall and the winter when we were in the real lockdown, not so much, but we just kept it to more of an intramural type things. We didn’t go play schools from other places, but we took more kids. So we had a guy coach guy seven last year, we had like 30 grade seven kids that came out. We just broke them into teams and they played against each other where in the past, we would’ve broke back down to only 12 students. So we had 30 students that, you know, maybe the only time in their life, we’re part of a team and got to have the shirt and take home the shirts and that sort of thing.


Shonna Barth (17:59):
So just really trying to keep things as normal as possible. We did manage to pull off a graduation both years. First year was very, I felt very personal and we had a lot of positive feedback from that group of parents took us about three days to get through it. But each parent and students and their parents and family come up on the stage, the parents handed the diploma to the student. We stood in the back and clap for them to pictures. So the parent didn’t have to sit through 200 other kids getting their diploma was very personal. We had a couple of photo booth set up and then this year was more of a traditional one in our, one of our larger convention centers, which I know the parents and kids appreciated my, the kids appreciate it because they got to have their peers with them. But it last year definitely was very, it was kinda heartwarming. Cause we, we got to those kids that really had a tough time getting to that diploma and worked their butt off together. We could really celebrate that student heart and cheer and congratulate them and made it really personal. So those are some good things have come out of this.


Sam Demma (18:57):
Yeah, I agree. I think with every adversity, there’s an equal opportunity somewhere. It’s got to be creative to find it and figure it out. What keeps you hopeful? Like what, what do you think inspires you to continue doing this work with a big smile on your face and show up every day and lead others and coach and try and make an impact in these young people’s lives?


Shonna Barth (19:18):
Definitely from the, I picked the hardship of missing my first seven days as a principal cause I was home with COVID and not being able to see people face-to-face and having to do it all over zoom or just join into assemblies, made me appreciate the energy of the kids, the resiliency of the kids. They continually amazes me. Like we really thought coming back to school this fall with mass mandate being implemented again, we had thought when we left in June, we’re kind of done with all this and we’re going to be more back to normal. And we’re really our numbers are really high mess. Not right now. We thought the kids were we’re going to be fighting with the kids and they’ve been amazing. They’ve just, I just continue to remind you why you’re doing what they’re doing. You’re doing, they’re so positive.


Shonna Barth (20:01):
And they are sometimes they’re teenagers and they’re going to grumble about things. But honestly I find the adults gumball more than the kids do. So I just, I think being able to watch those kids walk across the stage, being in a seven to 12 school where we get to Washington through their junior high axed and struggles. And then by the time they come to grade 12 and I know every one of those kids walking across the stage and like this time, we’re like, oh man, I wish I could give you a hug. Like, you know what so many of them have been through. So I think being able to watch the growth and how they learned to be grateful, even by the end of grade 12, not always grateful and grade eight, but by the time they hit grade 12, like know to just recognize what everybody in the school is doing for them of that.


Sam Demma (20:42):
I love it. And there’s a lot of younger educators listening to this podcast as well, who might be just getting into education. And I think there’s a lot of value in sharing your experiences and also your mistakes. You know, like when I talked to high school, because when I talked to high school students, I say like one of the mistakes I made was not getting involved enough and I can reflect on that and encourage students to get more involved as an educator and like a, you know, a teacher. Do you have any mistakes that you’ve made or actually learning opportunities that you’ve experienced that you think are worth sharing with other educators that are listening?


Shonna Barth (21:14):
Yeah. I think for new educators, a couple of things that I would stress is get involved. Like I’m not going to say this one mistake, cause I definitely I’ve been involved. I’ve been doing things my whole career. It is a balance though, of your personal wellness and the students. I worry sometimes now where we’re putting our personal wellness. So high up on the scale that we’re missing out on opportunities that would make us feel better. I think we don’t necessarily recognize that. Yes, physically. I was tired Saturday night when I walked home at 7, 7 30 at night after coaching all day, but just sit and reflect on how the kids improved throughout the day, playing volleyball and their excitement and their cheering, that bucket feeling kind of stuff really can. It makes you feel really good too. So I guess that’s been a vice like mistake can be thinking that putting time in equates to being tired, you gotta put your time in the right places.


Shonna Barth (22:10):
I know when I first started, I was, I’m not artistic, but I put insane amount of time into my bulletin boards in my classrooms. Like every month I’d completely change the theme of the room where I spend five hours on a Sunday, making a game of some sort for the kids to play that would take them about three minutes to play. They would never appreciate it as much as I felt they should, because I knew how much time I had put in to making that thing. I thought they should be bowing to me and saying like, you’re just the greatest teacher ever. They don’t value that stuff as much as they value the one-on-one the time you spend with them. So a beginning teacher having that Pinterest perfect classroom might make you feel good. Your kids don’t really value that as much. You know, they don’t want to come in and see a bare walls or a total disaster either. But thinking about where you spend your time, like time spent with kids will always pay off. Always time, spent marking all that stuff has to happen. But if you can find ways to make that less in your life and time one-on-one connecting with kids, you’ll have a great career.


Sam Demma (23:15):
I love that. That’s awesome. That’s amazing advice. Well, Shauna, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been a great conversation. If another educator is listening and wants to reach out, ask you a question, bounce, some ideas around what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you.


Shonna Barth (23:31):
Probably email. And I would love that. I really love exchanging ideas. People always tell me I’m a creative person, but I’m an idea stealer. I like to take stuff from people and adapt it from where it’s at and I’m more than willing to share that we’ve done as well. So my email address is Shonna.Barth@sd76.abb.ca. I think what you’re doing is great here, Sam. I really appreciate it. I think we need more people spreading the positive things that are happening in education and sharing ideas. So I really appreciate you taking the time to be doing this.


Sam Demma (24:07):
Pleasure, and it’s been great chatting with you. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.


Shonna Barth (24:12):
Sounds great.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Shonna Barth

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 17, 2021 by Principals Student Leadership Teachers 0

Dulcie Belchior-Demedeiros – Principal of Student Success at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board

Dulcie Belchior
About Dulcie Belchior-Demedeiros

Dulcie Belchior (@MsDBelchior) has been in education for the past 20 years. She is currently the Principal of Student Success, Learning to 18 and Secondary Program at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board where she is able to share her passion for instructional leadership, teacher development and student success. Wife, mother, educator, and bookworm!

Connect with Dulcie: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Specialist High Skills Major Programs

Principal’s Qualification Courses

The Edwin Platform

Bee-Bot Programmable Robot

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


Dulcie Belchior (00:14):
Sure. Thank you for having me, Sam. So my name is Dulcie Belchior. I’m currently the principal of student success learning to 18 and secondary program at Dufferin-Peel Catholic district school board. And how I got here. Wow. That’s very complicated. I think sometimes when you talk to teachers in terms of how they, you know, they decide on their vocation, it’s kind of a twisty, twisty, turny path, and there’s so many different things that happened in their life that, you know, make them reflect on the fact that, you know, you know, I can, I can do this type of job. I can work with kids. I can be a teacher and for me, I think it, it did start early. And I think if you ask a lot of teachers and starts early, when you’re a small child, when I was four years old going into JK, I grew up in a family that spoke Portuguese.


Dulcie Belchior (01:16):
So I went to school, basically. I was born in Canada. I was born in Toronto, but I only spoke Portuguese. So I basically entered school as an ELL student. And what happened from there is I did, was able to learn the English language quickly. And so in JK, I became a mentor for the other ELL students by the end of the year, trying to teach them to speaking with, Hey, you say this, do this. This is how you say that. So I think I remember that experience even though I was very young because I think it was very important to how I became a teacher. And so it started very early there, I think in elementary school too. I was that student that kids could go to for help. So if you didn’t want to go, you know, some kids don’t want to ask the teacher, they want to ask a friend or student.


Dulcie Belchior (02:11):
So I was that kind of go-to student, but they knew that if you went to Dulcey, you weren’t going to get the answer. That’s not what you went to Dawson. I was like, I’m not going to give you the answer. I will show you how to do this. For me. That’s very important. I think as a teacher, as a person, you know, that old saying where if you teach a person to fish, you know, they will be able to survive their entire life. You don’t just give them a fish. And so even in elementary school, I, I would show them how to do it. This is how you do the math problem, for example. And I think that was, you know, that helped them more than just giving them an answer and them walking away. So I think that’s another as to, you know, my reflection as, so I can be a teacher.


Dulcie Belchior (03:03):
I, I think that’s a good vocation for me in grade seven and eight, I helped in the JK class, you know, yours do that volunteer work in, in junior kindergarten class. When I was in university, I took a bachelor of science. But throughout university, I, you know, I was able to be lucky enough to teach international language program. So I taught elementary school kids, Portuguese. So I was doing that, not as a teacher, but as a late person, teaching them the language working for Dufferin-Peel at the time. And and I am a student of deaf from as well. I know a lot of teachers go back to the board that they were a student at and that’s the same with me. So I’m a different field graduate and very proud of that. And also in university at that time, they still had emergency supply teachers.


Dulcie Belchior (03:53):
So I was doing that throughout university, even though I was taking my bachelor of science. And after graduating with a bachelor of science, then you decide, okay, well, what can I do with the bachelor of science? What, or where am I going to go? So I had my eyes set on probably maybe pharmacy. I did work at shopper’s drug Mart in the pharmacy as an assistant pharmacy assistant for my whole entire high school career in university career. So again, you know, you’re doing something, you know, you can do it, you fall into that. Maybe I’ll be a pharmacist. So that was a choice that, you know, and in life sometimes you have disappointments and that was a disappointment because I was never able to get into the program. So I did apply then to nursing and I applied to teaching. So I did have a choice then between teaching and nursing.


Dulcie Belchior (04:52):
And that’s, I think, you know, where you get to that point where you really truly have to reflect, this is my future. One of my best stat. And I think both of those careers, their careers, where you can help people in different ways, but you can help people. So I, you know, there was a lot of conversations with family, with my fiance. Who’s now my husband with some teachers. And I did decide that teaching was probably the best vocation for me. And so with all of that that long journey, I went into the bachelor of education program at York university. So that is my complicated story of how I got into teaching.


Sam Demma (05:34):
Oh, that’s not such an awesome story. I’ve never had someone tell me about mentoring other students in JK. So that’s such a cool, like origin for the story. Thank you so much for sharing. No problem. Like what happened after university? So you go into your bachelor’s at York, did you return directly to Dufferin-Peel and what different positions did you work in before getting into student success? Right.


Dulcie Belchior (05:57):
So after I graduated from New York with my bachelor of education, I was lucky enough to get a position as a teacher at Jefferson Peele. So I started my career teaching grade seven and eight at a school which no longer exists in the board. So it was near the airport in Mississauga, and it was actually called our lady of the airways, which I think is such a beautiful name for a school. But that school sends closed down. So I taught grade seven and eight for two years, and I was teaching science as well. So I was doing some rotation science because I was lucky enough to have that background. So that was an opportunity to share my talent and my joy, because I love science with the students there. So I did that for two years and in those two years, I decided to apply for the master’s program at Boise.


Dulcie Belchior (06:53):
So I started doing that part-time within the first two years of me starting teaching. So I got my master’s a couple of years later, curriculum teaching, learning department and specialized in teacher development. So I started that in my first couple of years of teaching. After that, I I applied for a position at St. Francis Xavier secondary school in Mississauga. So I was successful with the interview. So I became a high school teacher teaching science, which I love. So I was able to teach chemistry, biology grade nine and 10 science. And I was also trained to teach in the international baccalaureate program there. So I taught biology with the students there. So I got a lot of different types of experience there as well. I was able to help support the student council there cause I love student council because I was the president of student council at father Michael Gates when I was a high school student.


Dulcie Belchior (07:57):
So I thought, you know, I think that’s something that I can help students with. So I supported them there as well after teaching at St. Francis Xavier for many years, I decided it was time for a change time for another challenge. So I started taking my principal’s qualification courses and I got my PQP part one and part two. And I went into the interviews for a vice principal position at the board and was successful. And my first position as a vice principal was at St. Margaritaville secondary school in Brampton. So I worked there for approximately four years, and then I was a vice principal at father Michael Gates. The school that I actually graduated high school from, which was a little weird sometimes, sometimes going back as a VP within some of the teachers who were still there, but it was a great experience. So I was a VP there for years. Then I became a principal and I was a principal at St. A Dustin secondary school in Brampton for one year. And from there, I became the, my current time in the current position. Now the principal student success learning to 18 and secondary program. So that’s how, again, I found myself where I am to.


Sam Demma (09:18):
That’s awesome. What does the role entail? You know, student success and secondary programs, you know, certain educators are sitting might not be familiar with it, especially if they’re outside of Canada. So what does it, what does it entail? What does it look like and why are you passionate about it? What do you think student success means?


Dulcie Belchior (09:38):
I’m passionate about student success because my model, or, you know, what motivates me is that I want to inspire a love of learning in every student. Students need to see themselves in the learning. They need to see themselves be successful in the learning and our jobs. As teachers, as educators, is to provide the environment where they will be successful, not where they can meet, where they will be successful. And I think having this position at a system level really helps me help the principals, the administrators in the schools, and helps the teachers in the schools as well to provide professional development, to provide resources, to provide critical and culturally responsive resources for schools that will have students be able to number one, see themselves in the learning and number two, be successful at that learning. So again, that student success encompasses a lot of things that are in campuses, programs like, oh, yeah.


Dulcie Belchior (10:45):
Program programs like SHSM and even programs where students who may not have been successful in the past, I may have left school without graduating can come back and we invite them back to finish and to graduate and to get that opportunity to do that at a time in their life where they’re ready to do that. So I think there’s so many layers to this job where it it’s exciting. It’s exciting. And it’s a job where you can show people that teaching is not just filling a bucket full of knowledge. And here you go, that’s your knowledge, okay. It’s igniting a flame in students and in teachers and in all educators where everyone loves to learn, they see themselves as learners, they see themselves being successful and they can move forward and do what they are passionate about. So they have an opportunity to actually see what they’re passionate about, to experience things, different things so that they can make choices for their future, which is the most important thing.


Sam Demma (11:54):
I love that. And where did your passion for student success come from? Was it originally something that you wanted to explore and try, or did you know that it was something you were, you know, extremely passionate about?


Dulcie Belchior (12:07):
It’s something I’ve always been extremely passionate about. And as you know, when I became an administrator was an opportunity to become that instructional leader for teachers. And so when I started having that opportunity to pass on this passion, I guess, for students success for, you know, instructional leadership for assessment, for evaluation, for rich tasks, just doing a lot of great teaching whenever I had the opportunity to share that with others, I took it. And I think now in this position, it’s, it’s just a perfect place where I’d love to share different experiences, different resources, different opportunities, different types of professional development so that our educators can, you know, we’ll be able to ignite that flame in all of our students.


Sam Demma (13:05):
I love that. That’s awesome. That’s so cool. And what do you think right now are some of the challenges that we’re faced with in education and on the other coin, also some of the opportunities that these challenges may be bringing to us and, you know, a very difficult scenario.


Dulcie Belchior (13:23):
Well, I think, you know, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, which is COVID-19. And I think that’s been a huge challenge in education, especially since we’ve had to pivot sometimes on a daily basis and where educators have had to really, really change their mindset on what teaching and learning looks like. And students have had to change their mindset on what learning looks like. And, you know, going into a digital type, only learning has really pushed everyone to a new level. We really have been forced to become 21st century learners. And I think that is an opportunity in itself. So it is a great positive where we’ve learned how we can leverage digital technology as a wonderful tool to help students learn because that’s how they learn. That’s how they interact. That’s how they socialize. So it’s something they’re familiar with, which helps them be successful.


Dulcie Belchior (14:29):
Now, I don’t think that it should become the only thing that’s not what teaching and learning is about, but it is a wonderful tool that we can leverage in our classrooms. And I think so that’s been a challenge in itself, and I think it’s also an opportunity for the future. I think coming back in September, some of the challenges are going to be that, you know, students and staff, even though, and we’ve heard this before, we’ve all been in the same storm of COVID-19. People have been traveling through this storm in different vessels, different boats, sometimes a dinghy, sometimes a piece of driftwood. And now they’re coming back and we’re all going to be interacting with each other and we need to be kind, we need to be compassionate. We need to listen, and we need to understand that everyone is coming from a different place.


Dulcie Belchior (15:26):
So we are, we cannot, we cannot come back into our classrooms and expect everyone to be at the same level of learning at the same level of knowledge, at the same level of mental health and wellbeing, we are going to all be in different places. And I think so we have to come back with that understanding. And I think that’s the most important thing is to go slow, move slowly, listen, talk to students, get to know your learners, who’s in your classroom and what are the needs of every student in your classroom. We’re not going to go forward until we know what the needs of all of these students are because they’re all going to be different. And I think we have to change our mindset. We can’t think about it as a deficit. So, you know, the knowledge that they don’t bring in now because of COVID, that’s a deficit.


Dulcie Belchior (16:18):
No, we have to look at it as what are they coming in with and how can we move them forward? So how will we move them forward from where they’re at? So it’s not a deficit model, it’s a model of where are you at? We’re going to move you forward from there and we’re going to move everyone forward. And we’re going to use the best of our abilities to do that, but we have to do that with kindness and we have to do that with patients. And we have to know that it’s not going to happen in a day and it’s going to take a long time and that’s okay. That’s okay. Because we need to ensure that our students in our classrooms are healthy and that their well-being is taken care of and also our educators. Okay.


Sam Demma (17:06):
That’s amazing. The, you know, the cool thing, I think about student successes, that you have an opportunity to really impact a young person and not to not to say that, you know, every educator doesn’t have that opportunity. They all do, but when you’re focused solely on the success of the students, it’s, it’s a cool opportunity to make a big difference. Have you, you know, over the past couple of years being able to see the impact of some of the programs on the students directly and maybe you can share a story of one in particular that sticks out in your mind, and if it’s a serious individual, you can just change their name or just use Bob or something. Yeah.


Dulcie Belchior (17:45):
And, and in general, you’re right. It’s a great opportunity to see success and to see successes everywhere in the board. So it’s not just, you know, in one school it’s, if you have a, a program that you introduce, it’s how this supports a larger group of students or educators. So some of the things that we have done through program, number one, it has been we introduced the Edwin platform in our board for elementary students. So for grade seven and eight students, and what this platform did was actually provide students with one-on-one technology. So every student gets a laptop, a Chromebook, and the amazing things that I have been able to see, the amazing presentations, the research projects, just everything that’s coming out of the ability to change the mindset of learning and having students able to work together in a different way. And to have that one-to-one technology as a tool, it’s also helped the teachers change their mindset in how they teach in the classroom.


Dulcie Belchior (18:59):
And this was introduced before COVID. And I think that it benefited when we went into COVID with students already being kind of immersed in this type of learning. So it changes the way that they learn. It changes the way that they can present their ideas. You can do so many rich tasks using technology when students have it one on one. So I think that’s been great. And you see it, I see it in a large capacity, right? And students in general, families in general teachers saying how wonderful it is to have these things in their classrooms and how it has opened their minds to so many different ways of teaching and the different things that students can do. Students in JK, for example, coding, using the computers, we introduced a lot of different types of coding resources. And we, for example, the Bee-Bots, so it’s a little B that junior kindergarten students can actually code to move around a carpet or a floor.


Dulcie Belchior (20:15):
And they are learning coding at four years old, five years old. And that’s just, it’s amazing. So when you see videos that teacher’s tweaked videos, that teachers send us of their students working together in groups using these, Bee-Bots knowing that number one, they’re having fun. You can see that they’re having fun. Number two, they love to do it. And they’re learning a new language. This is a completely new language, and they’re learning it at four years old. It’s just amazing to that happening. So that was another thing that we did. I think another important thing in program that we’ve worked on is ensuring that, you know, we’re working on getting co culturally responsive and relevant resources into our secondary classrooms and our elementary libraries as well. But especially into our English classes, getting books where students can feel like they’re being represented, like they’re being reflected in the learning different characters relevant topics.


Dulcie Belchior (21:25):
And, you know, the letters that we have received from different students who were asked, here’s a book, let’s read it as a class. Give us your feedback on the book. What do you think, do you think students in your grade will like this book? Do you think it’s culturally responsive? Do you think it’s relevant to your generation right now? And the letters that I received from students saying, wow, thank you for actually asking that question. Thank you for having students involved in what we’re going to learn. You know, thank you for asking us, is this relevant to me as a student? And so again, I come back to that listening, understanding, knowing where kids are and, and asking the questions, you know, is this good for you? Will this help you learn? Will this help you love learning? Will this help you be successful? And I think that’s one of the biggest things that we’ve worked on that I find has been very rewarding. And we’re still working on that. It’s a large project obviously, and, you know, it takes time, but we’re working on it. So I think that’s been wonderful.


Sam Demma (22:37):
That’s amazing. And if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, like, you know, first year teaching, but what the advice and knowledge you have now, what advice would you give to your younger self?


Dulcie Belchior (22:50):
I think when you’re when you’re a new teacher, and I think back when I was a new teacher, it’s almost like you’re in survival mode and you, you think, oh, I just got to get through all of this information. I just have to teach, you know, I have to ensure that everything in this book is done and the kids get it and they all understand it. And it’s all good and done. So if I’ve covered it, I’m good. I think the advice that I will give is to take it slow, to take that time, to talk to every student, to get to know every student. So get to know what they love, what they’re interested in, how they learn, what they like to learn. What’s their favorite subjects and base your whole year. Everything based on that, because you can teach whatever. It doesn’t matter what you teach, but if you are not connecting with your students, they will not learn.


Dulcie Belchior (23:48):
They will not learn. So I think taking that extra time, cause I know time is always an issue and it is time is always an issue for everyone in every career. But that is so important that time that you take initially with those students will make a difference for the rest of the year and for years to come, they’ll come back. And I think that’s the one thing that students will come back and say is you took the time to know me so that I could be successful. So that’s the advice I give to any new teacher.


Sam Demma (24:21):
Love that. Awesome. They’ll see. Thank you so much for sharing some of your stories, philosophies, perspectives. If another educator is listening right now and wants to reach out to you and bounce some ideas around, talk about cool programs, what would be the best way to get in touch?


Dulcie Belchior (24:36):
Well, they can get in touch with me on Twitter. So it’s at @MsDBelchior, or they can email me at dulcie.belchior@dpcdsb.org.


Sam Demma (24:55):
Keep up the amazing work. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Best of luck with the next school year.


Dulcie Belchior (25:02):
Thanks so much, Sam. Have a great day.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Dulcie Belchior-Demedeiros

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 15, 2021 by Student Activity Director Student Leadership Student Success Teachers 0

Join Over 2100 People Subscribed to Sam's Newsletter

Download Sam's Debut Bestselling Book (For Free)

https://www.highperformingeducator.com/contact