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Student Leadership

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

Lesleigh Dye – Proud Director of the District School Board Ontario North East

Lesleigh Dye - Director of School Board Ontario North East
About Lesleigh Dye

Lesleigh Dye (@LesleighDye) was the Superintendent of Schools for Rainbow District School Board since 2006. She has been responsible for many portfolios from kindergarten program, to Indigenous education, Equity and Inclusive Education, adult education and leadership.

Prior to her work with the Rainbow School Board, Dye served as Principal and Vice-Principal of schools in Toronto and Ottawa.

With the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, she oversaw the implementation of the Student Success Initiative in literacy, numeracy and pathways. She also was involved with implementing expert panel reports aimed at improving student success.

With the Toronto District School Board, Dye served as the Central Coordinating Principal for literacy from kindergarten to grade 12.

She has a Master of Education from the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, a Bachelor of Education from Memorial University and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Carleton University. She also has a Certificat de français from Université de Grenoble.

Today, Lesleigh is the Proud Director of the District School Board Ontario North East. She is passionate about learning and teaching and the success of all students, in particular, those who identify as Indigenous.

Connect with Lesleigh: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

JACK chapters (mental health clubs)

District School Board Ontario North East

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 a very special guest on the podcast. Her name is Leslie Dye. Leslie is the proud director of the district school board Ontario Northeast. She has worked as a teacher principal system, principal and SO in various boards, such as the Toronto district school board, the Ottawa Carlton district school board, and the rainbow district school board.


Sam Demma (01:04):
Leslie is passionate about learning and teaching and ensuring success of all students. In particular, those who identify as indigenous. She enrolled as a PhD candidate at Trenton university. She has her master’s of education from the Ontario Institute of studies in education. She has a bachelor’s of education from Memorial university and a bachelor’s of arts honors from Carleton university. She has done so many different roles in different school boards and I think you’ll take away a lot from her experience that she shares on the podcast here this morning. I’ll see you on the other side. Enjoy.


Sam Demma (01:45):
Leslie. Welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. Please start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about your story.


Lesleigh Dye (01:54):
Good morning, Sam. I am the proud director in district school, board, Ontario, Northeast. We have almost 7,000 students and we span from Temagami to Hurston everywhere in between 25,000 square kilometers.


Sam Demma (02:09):
That’s amazing. And what brought you to where you are now share a little bit of your own story and journey through, you know, elementary school, high school university, and then getting into teaching?


Lesleigh Dye (02:22):
I would say my story probably really started in my elementary years of learning. And so as a student in west Vancouver, they were very focused at that time on experiential learning. I am the type of learner who needs direct instruction. And so I, with about half of my classmates in grade four, the teacher Mr. Dean found that half of us could not decode. And so that really influenced me as, as a learner thinking that, that I wasn’t, I couldn’t greed, I wasn’t a good learner. Fast forward in high school, started high school in British Columbia, moved to Ottawa in grade 10, found that move pretty hard. Fortunately, I met my best friend in kind of mid-September, but those first couple of weeks no one talked to me, which I found fascinating that staff wouldn’t say hello in the hallways to me, students wouldn’t say hello in the hallway to me.


Lesleigh Dye (03:19):
And then I grew up in a home where it was an expectation that I would go to university. I’m very privileged that way. Went back to Vancouver, finished my first degree in Ottawa had the incredible honor of living in France for a year to learn French came back to Canada and went to Newfoundland and incredible province and didn’t teachers’ college. And then started my very first teaching job in Toronto. Moved from Toronto to Ottawa. As a principal system, principal came back to Toronto. I became a superintendent in the rainbow board, which is Sudbury did that for about 12 years and then moved up to the new, learn new Liskeard Timmins area. And I had just started my PhD.


Sam Demma (04:07):
And what is your PhD in congratulations by the way.


Lesleigh Dye (04:11):
Thank you. I’m I’m engaged in interdisciplinary studies. I really wanted to branch out beyond education. And on my research question that hasn’t been honed yet is the relationship between collective efficacy. So that notion that by working together, we can make a difference for students and student achievement, particularly students who identify as indigenous.


Sam Demma (04:37):
That’s awesome. That’s so cool. And when you reflect back on your own journey to where you are now, did you have educators and teachers in your life that, you know, nudged you towards getting a job in this vocation? Or did you just know from a young age that you wanted to do this your whole life?


Lesleigh Dye (04:55):
So from a young age, I knew that I loved working with children. So I babysat at a very young age. I lifeguarded, I taught swimming. I was always involved with students. I think it’s probably my aunt, my auntie Pam, who in my primary grades. She, I would say she taught me to read and just knowing that she changed my life. I, that really was a motivator for me.


Sam Demma (05:22):
Hmm. That’s amazing. And you mentioned grade 10 when you first moved to Ottawa, I believe you said it was a little bit difficult. Take me back there for a moment. Like, what was it like being the new student in a new school? What was that experience like for you and how are you trying to avoid that for other students and you know, your school board now?


Lesleigh Dye (05:45):
Yeah, I have to say Sam, I found it brutal. And, and I, I mean, you can see me because we’re on video. I come with a lot of privilege. I’m white, I’m female, I’m, I’m fairly social. And so I’d never been in a, in a situation where for an entire day walking into a building. So my home, my father was the only one that wanted to move to Ottawa. So it was not a happy home in terms of, okay, here we are. No one talking to me for an entire day, except a teacher, perhaps to say, Leslie, sit down or Leslie, put your hand up and actually walking home from school, crying, thinking what, like, I, this, this can’t possibly be what high school is going to be for me. And so if I fast forward, many years later, as a teacher, as a vice principal, principal superintendent now as a director, what I’m in our schools, I say hi to everyone, every single person, I, I say, good morning. If I know the student has Korean heritage, I say, watch if it’s French immersion, I say bowl shool, and really try to just acknowledge everyone. And so that really comes from my, my grade 10 experience.


Sam Demma (07:03):
Oh, that’s awesome. That sometimes fascinates me how our own past issues turn into our inspirations so that someone else doesn’t have to go through the same experience. And it sounds like that was very similar to your own experiences and stories. What are some of the challenges that you’re currently faced with now in education? I know, you know, in front of all of us as the global pandemic, which has been a huge one, but what are some of the challenges you’ve been currently faced with and striving to overcome as a school board?


Lesleigh Dye (07:33):
I would say there are probably two, one, which has really been emphasized during the pandemic and the other one, I would say, not as much. So first of all, the mental health and wellness of our students and our staff that has always been something that we as a senior team have been aware of and are putting supports in place. Some of our students found themselves and some staff to some of our students found themselves in really challenging situations when our schools were closed physically. And we are trying to make sure that we have the supports in place for them, as well as for our staff. One of the things we put in place last year was our employee and family assistance program. So that staff have access not only for themselves but for their child or for their partner or their spouse. The other big struggle for us in DSP. One is that we have a very low graduation rate and we know, and we are working really hard, our staff, our teachers, they’re incredible. We just need to make sure that we are using all the current research in what supports students the best to move forward because we can’t be working harder. We have to figure out a way to work smarter.


Sam Demma (08:55):
That’s a really good point. I think especially because of virtual learning, it was probably challenging for a lot more students and then getting the motivation to come back in class and be social. Again, must be a little bit challenging. What are some, you mentioned one program that, you know, you ran for your staff and students, which is awesome. What are some of the other programs that you heard of schools bringing in that may have been successful in the past couple of years?


Lesleigh Dye (09:22):
So there’s a couple of things that our schools have done particularly around supporting mental health and wellbeing for students. And in many of our high schools, we have Jack chapters and that their focus is to support as you probably know, to support mental health and wellbeing. And then our students Senate with our student trustees last year for the first time ever, we’ve only, this is just your four for us, for our Senate. They in the spring put together a virtual conference, totally student-led for their classmates. And it was all about mental health and wellbeing. And the feedback from that conference from students and from staff has been incredible. I’m so proud of our student trustees for putting that all together during virtual.


Sam Demma (10:11):
That’s amazing. And so would that have been a board-wide event or was that something you did for every single school?


Lesleigh Dye (10:19):
It was for all our students grade seven to 12, and students have a choice whether or not they participated and staff had a choice. So we had a, we have a boat about 3000 secondary students. And I would say at the end of the day, we had about a thousand participate in at least one session. Oh, wow.


Sam Demma (10:37):
That’s so cool. And it run over a couple of days or was that a day long event?


Lesleigh Dye (10:42):
It was a day-long because it was the very first conference and very first virtual conference. They bred four different sessions just for one day. They felt that was enough.


Sam Demma (10:53):
That’s awesome. Oh, that’s so cool to hear, especially that it was student-led. That’s let’s give those students a round of applause. That’s awesome. Leslie, when you think back to yourself in your first year of education what are some of the pieces of advice and wisdom that you might know now that you wish you could have transferred back?


Lesleigh Dye (11:18):
That’s a great question, Sam. I often think of my first year of teaching and think, oh boy, I wish I knew. Then what I know. I think that, so I had the privilege of working with the city of York. It was king middle school, grade seven, eight, and I had a grade seven class and there was a student Jay. And every time I said, kill and Eglington, if you know the Toronto area, every time I gave the students a choice in what they would create, he always tied it back to his, where he had come from Korea. And at the time I thought, oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t appreciate in my very first year, how important cultural identity and, and country of origin. And so fast forward, about 10 years, I had the enormous privilege of being a principal at CHOC foreign public school. So we had 400 students, all the students were black except for one student.


Lesleigh Dye (12:25):
But in that group of students who are black, 50% were Somalian in terms of heritage, 25% were Trinidadi and 25% were Jamaican. And what I really learned and I, I already kind of knew, but I really learned the difference between the history and the experiences of those groups of students. So on the surface, they look like they might be similar and yet making sure as an educator that I understand and appreciate background heritage, and I would use that same example now, living in Northern Ontario in the last board where I served, we had 11 nations all over [inaudible] identity. And they were always very careful to say to me, Leslie, yes, we are on Anishinaabe land, but we are different than that nation down the road. And I really, I really understood, I know I have so much more learning to do, but that is front and center for me.


Sam Demma (13:26):
As do we all right. I think the learning is never-ending. That’s so cool that you take the time to learn those things about the different cultural heritages of the students in the school. Because even when I think back to my experiences in high school, the teachers that made the biggest impact were the ones that got to know us personally, like on a deep, deep level, and could understand our motivations and our inspirations and where we came from and where we aspire to go. So that’s a really interesting and, and, you know, cool piece of advice. You’re also someone who has done so many different roles in education. What inspires you and motivates you every day to keep going and reach higher. Right. see what you, you know, went from the principal, the superintendent to director of education. Now you’re working on a PhD. What, what keeps you going Leslie? Is it like five coffees a day?


Lesleigh Dye (14:17):
It is students. It is hearing their stories. I can remember, oh gosh, this is about 10 years ago. A student had the equity portfolio and a student had made LGBT bracelets. They’re very colourful. And he was, I think he was in grade eight at one of our schools. And I had said to the teacher, could you please let them know? I’d like to buy some. And so I bought some and I, I put it on my wrist and I sent the photo back to the teacher and she said to me, that was probably in may. And that student said, I can’t believe that Ms. DI’s wearing my bracelet. Like, I, I can’t believe that I’m going to keep coming to school till the end of the school year or even Jamal last year, our student trustee, who at the very beginning and our first board meeting, he said, miss, I, I’m not speaking. I’m terrified. I said, that’s fine. We, we want you here. And you know, you and I can have conversations later, too. He graduated from high school, he’s off to university. He’s now in his own nation. He has one of the elected position to represent youth. And he said to me, you know, I wouldn’t have never would have had the confidence to put my name forward for that position in my nation, if it hadn’t been for being a student trustee. So it is totally our students that keep making.


Sam Demma (15:39):
That’s amazing. And how do you encourage a kid to break out of that shell and get involved? Is it just as simple as tapping them on the shoulder and telling them you believe in them, or what does that process look like of helping them realize their own potential?


Lesleigh Dye (15:52):
I think it goes back to exactly what you said earlier. It’s getting to know the students. And so with Jamal knowing I know before his first student Senate meeting, he had said, you know, I’m, I’m really, I’m not feeling very comfortable about this. I think, you know, we could practice that. I have that portfolio. We, we could practice what you’re going to say ahead of time. He sent me the most beautiful, beautiful Christmas card with his family. And so I’m like, who’s, who’s in the photo. I said, I didn’t know you had so many brothers and sisters. And so he described them to me. I, I think it, and of course I’m not having that relationship with all 7,000 students because we have a thousand staff. And so when all our staff have those relationships with a few students that every single student knows that we care about,


Sam Demma (16:42):
That’s amazing. That’s such a good ratio of student to teacher, by the way, I guess that’s one of the benefits of not a small school board, but maybe slightly smaller.


Lesleigh Dye (16:54):
We would be smaller on the Ontario context. We’re on the smaller side and that thousand staff, those are our custodians, our educational, our indigenous student advisors, who all play such a key role in serving our students.


Sam Demma (17:07):
Amazing. That’s awesome. This has been a very great conversation, Leslie, thank you so much for taking the time to share a little bit about your own experiences in education. What are some of the challenges you’re faced with and how you’re overcoming them as well as some of the programs that your school has run that have worked out in the past where do you hope education will be five or 10 years from now? And this is a difficult question and, and one that I’m putting you on the spot, but I’m curious to know what your future, what you’re hoping it to look like.


Lesleigh Dye (17:39):
If I look at the one, my hope, my absolute dream is that we have every single student graduating or getting an Ontario certificate and following their positive feature story. And I know we can do it. We will definitely be in a much better place five years from now, 10 years from now honouring the important traits that some of our students are thinking, oh, that’s not for me. And yet it’s such an incredible pathway. And so I really, I know that each student through the hard work of our staff we’ll get there. We’re not there yet, but we will get there.


Sam Demma (18:19):
I love it. Awesome. Leslie, thank you again so much for coming on the show. If another educator is listening and has been inspired and maybe wants to reach out and ask a question or have a conversation, what would be the best way for them to get in touch with you?


Lesleigh Dye (18:33):
I would say the best way is through Twitter, through a private message. And so that’s @LesleighDye. I’m on Twitter probably once a day. I love to learn from colleagues and so would really be excited to meet new people.


Sam Demma (18:50):
Awesome. Again, Leslie, thank you so much. Keep up the great work and we’ll talk to you soon.


Lesleigh Dye (18:56):
Have a great day


Sam Demma (18:57):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest and amazing interview on the high-performing educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Lesleigh

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 6, 2021 by Director of Education Experiential Learning Student Success Superintendent Teachers 0

Lenora Poulin – English teacher, Librarian and Student Leadership Advisor

Lenora Poulin - English teacher, Librarian and Student Leadership Advisor
About Lenora Poulin

Lenora (@LenoraPoulin) has been teaching for 29 years in the Fraser-Cascade School District in Hope, British Columbia. She began her career as an English and Social Studies teacher but after an inspiring professional development conference about student leadership, she changed her path.

She and her husband began the student leadership program at Hope Secondary in 1997 and she hasn’t looked back since. Lenora is a mother to two incredible girls and is also now the Teacher-Librarian at HSS. She believes in encouraging her students to be “good people” and the rest of what they need for life will follow.

Connect with Lenora: Email | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Hope Secondary School

Lean in – Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Brené Brown – Daring Greatly

Angela Duckworth – Grit

Mitch Albom – Tuesdays with Morrie

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 another amazing guest Lenora Poulin, she’s an English teacher. She’s also a teacher librarian and the student leadership advisor at Hope Secondary School. Its 180 kilometers, just north of Vancouver, at a small school of 350 kids. She’s been teaching at this school since she was 23 years old. You’re going to hear all of this and a lot more in the interview. Leanora is someone who has high energy. She’s someone who strives to give her students amazing experiences that will boost their hope, right? Hope secondary school, doing things that boost their hope, it’s really what’s needed right now in education. I hope you enjoy this conversation. I’ll see you on the other side. Enjoy. Lenora, thank you so much for joining the high performing educators podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you. I know we’re separated physically and by distance, but thanks to technology, we can connect. Dave, someone who we both mutually know introduced me to you. And just briefly talking to you before this interview, I can tell you have super high energy. I’m super excited to have you, can you just share with the audience, you know, what work you do with young people and why you actually got into this work in the first place?


Lenora Poulin (01:18):
Awesome. Well, I’m really excited to be here and I’m honored that Dave mentioned me. It’s awesome. So I’ve been a teacher for 29 years in the Fraser cascade school district, which I teach in the town called hope, which is about 180 kilometers east of Vancouver, small town, small school. We have 350 kids. But I have taught here since I was like 23 years old. You can do the math. And yeah, I, you know, in the beginning, when I first became a teacher, it was for all of the really cliched reasons. Right. I wanted to make a difference. You know when I first got the job here at Hope Secondary School, I was the first new teacher in about five years. And so it was kind of exciting. The school was growing and we’ve declined now, but it was, it was amazing.


Lenora Poulin (02:12):
And then in about 1997, my husband whom I met here we got married and we decided we wanted to take over the student council and turn it into a leadership class. And that’s what we did that summer of 1997. And we haven’t looked back since, although he doesn’t teach here any longer, he teaches at a different school and I have a different teaching partner, but getting to teach leadership students is I think Dave said that he feels like he has the best job. And I think I actually have the best job. I wouldn’t change it for anything. I teach English as well. And I’m also the school librarian. So you can tell we’re a really small school cause I wear lots of hats, but it’s, it’s amazing. It’s amazing work.


Sam Demma (02:55):
Hope secondary. I think the name of your school is what’s needed now more than ever in education.


Lenora Poulin (03:02):
We can play with that name a lot. It’s awesome.


Sam Demma (03:05):
That’s really, really cool. And you sound like someone who’s full of hope and I’m curious to know what makes you a hopeful, what, what keeps you going during tough times? Like the challenges we’re facing right now with COVID?


Lenora Poulin (03:18):
Oh, you know, it’s funny because even without COVID we get asked this question a lot, like, why do you keep doing what you’re doing? And you know, it, honestly it takes just one kid and it can just be a one thing that they said you know, you can be having the worst year and believe me in my 29 years of teaching, I’ve had years where I did not want to be a teacher very much. But then you have that one kid who lets you know, that, you know, your class was their favorite or for me coming to the library, these kids that come in here every single day to sign out a book or to just read and hear and or the leadership kids who are excited about an event that they’re trying to do. And that’s, that’s what gives me hope. Right? That’s what keeps it going every single year. Why I keep coming back because they make it worth it. For sure.


Sam Demma (04:14):
I love that. And you’re right. What the statement of putting on many hats that you mentioned earlier that you run the role of a teacher, you run the role of a library and you’re on the role of the head of the leadership class. One of the things that changed my life when I was a student and brought me a lot of hope again, playing on that hope theme was reading books. I started reading books when I was 16 and it’s changed my life ever since. And I’m sure you can attest to the same thing. Do you have any books? This is off topic question, but do you have any books that you think are worth reading for other educators and other students?


Lenora Poulin (04:52):
Oh, there are so many. Currently for me it changes all the time, right? Depending on people that I’ve heard speak or other books that I’ve read. One of the ones that’s impacted me the most, probably in the last 10 years is Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean in” which she’s the COO of Facebook. And it spoke to me because it’s about women in the workplace and I recommend it to so many young female leadership students and people that I work with because it reminds me that as women, we need to lean into the table. So often because we have these other roles as women in society to take care of our families and have the baby back the day, we back away from these positions because, oh, I’m going to have a baby in the next couple of years. So I shouldn’t take this job or you know, I’m going to be going on maternity leave or, you know, my family is doing this and, and we, we back away from the table instead of leaning in.


Lenora Poulin (05:57):
So that’s one of my favorites to recommend to young women. Bernay, Brown’s, didn’t daring greatly as, you know, a phenomenal read for anyone. And I also really like Angela Duckworth’s grit. There are some things in there that I don’t totally agree with, but our school is really trying to work on our students’ resilience and their grit. So we read it as a staff and that was really important because it gave us some common vocabulary and it was really cool. And it’s awesome because any of these books that I read for my own professional development just instantly become lessons for us to use in our leadership class, which is great.


Sam Demma (06:31):
Th that’s what I was going to ask you. When you mentioned all the staff, reading those books, did you spearhead that initiative after reading that book?


Lenora Poulin (06:39):
A little bit. The grit one came from my principal. It was funny because she came with it and I was literally holding the book in my hand and I’m like this one, which was awesome. And last year we actually got to hear Angela Duckworth speak at the California convention which was really cool. Unfortunate. It was virtually, but not because of COVID just because she couldn’t be there. But I try to give, actually every summer I get the start of the summer. I give every staff member, a book to read over the summer, sometimes it’s fiction. Sometimes it’s nonfiction, some of them might read them and some of them don’t, but I just think it’s just such an amazing way to be constantly learning and growing. And I think that that’s what makes me happy and satisfied in my job is because I’m always looking for ways to be better.


Sam Demma (07:30):
I love that so much. And I think it’s important in education. That’s a needed, that’s a needed feeling and I applaud you for that. And teachers that have impacted my life embody the same philosophy. And this conversation has reminded me of a book. I read one time called Tuesdays with Morrie. I don’t know.


Lenora Poulin (07:46):
That’s a favorite.


Sam Demma (07:47):
Ah, okay. That’s so cool. So I had an educator tell me to read it. And I think the actual storyline of the book with the student visiting you tell us every Tuesday, before he passes away and I’m not going to spoil it too much. I guess I just gave away the


Lenora Poulin (08:05):
It’s been around for a long for a while now. And I think that it’s just, it sings to so many people. It’s awesome.


Sam Demma (08:12):
And it’s so I think it’s so applicable to any teacher, whether you work in a school outside of school, you teach people something it’s, it’s so cool to see the relationship between an educator and a student. And you get to, you get to drive those relationships every day. And like you mentioned earlier, sometimes you don’t see the impact, but maybe 10 years down the road, someone tells you something or in the middle of a terrible year, one kid says something that just makes the whole year worthwhile. Yeah. Those moments are so important for educators to remind them why they do what they do. And there’s so many educators listening to this inspired by you already. And I want you to sh I want you to share one of those stories in as much detail as you can, except you can change the student’s name. You can replace the name so you can keep it private, but the more open and vulnerable we share it, the more able it will be an impact and influence someone else. So I’m curious to know you have a story where something you’ve done is it’s had a huge impact on a student and would you be willing to share it.


Lenora Poulin (09:09):
As story


Lenora Poulin (09:16):
To favorites? Okay. The first one, I’m not going to change their names because they’re amazing. So the first one with was with a student named Jessica a few years ago. One of the perks of being a leadership teacher is we often get to travel with students. We take them to conferences all over the country. And our favorite obviously is the Canadian student leadership conference. And a few years ago the conference was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which for us VC girls, that’s an amazing experience. And my teaching partner and I took three young women that year to Halifax. And we always go early because we think if we’re going to travel all that way, we need to get the most out of this experience. And the interesting thing that students on the west coast don’t experience in the same way as the east coast is the actual history of our country starts on that east coast.


Lenora Poulin (10:10):
And so there’s so much for them to learn back there. So we arrived in Halifax on the Saturday and the conference started on the Tuesday and on, I believe it was the Sunday. We decided we were going to do three provinces in one day. So we were going to drive all the way from Halifax, Nova Scotia to prince Edward island. And we’re like, we can do this. It’ll be awesome. And D people think nothing of driving, like it’s two hours for us to drive to Vancouver. That’s a day trip. Like we don’t think anything about that. Yeah. So we drove, it was awesome. We got lost a couple of times. This is before GPS was as good as it is now. I don’t think our data plans included the east coast, so we might not have had our phones. Anyways, we made it to prince Edward island is about two o’clock in the afternoon.


Lenora Poulin (10:56):
We’re having lunch on the water on this dock and we’re eating mussels. And Jessica says there are kids back at school right now in a math class that they will never remember. And I am sitting here having a day. I will never forget. And like, I just get goosebumps every time I think about her saying it. I tell everybody that I know about that experience because it truly captures what is so amazing about leadership class and about the stuff that we do at our school, because we’re always telling kids that we get to create the stuff that kids remember about high school. You don’t remember a math lesson. I teach Shakespeare, no one is ever going to remember my McBath lesson. You know, maybe the time I wear a goofy hat and dressed as a witch, I don’t know, but they will remember those experiences. Right? Remember the time we participate in the pumpkin pie, eating contest, remember the time we went to Halifax and everyone else was in school and we were together learning about our history and having this great experience. And that is, that’s just, that’s my favorite story to tell about how important it is, what we do in connecting with kids. So, wow.


Sam Demma (12:16):
Absolutely love that I might be wrong. So correct me if I’m wrong. You mentioned there’s two stories and that one was phenomenal. I’m curious to know about the other one. Now


Lenora Poulin (12:26):
I’ll call you the other one too, cause it’s really so in, in my teaching career, unfortunately, because I’ve been teaching for 29 years, we’ve had some tumultuous political times and I have been on strike a few times in the last time was in 2014 when it was really bad. And we were on strike from the beginning of June until the end of September. It was, it was a terrible time. And I received a letter from a former leadership student who was just finishing up her teaching program at that time. And it was, I started this hashtag at that time on my social media called this is why. And it was exactly why she just talked about how, and I didn’t know this about her when she was in my class. And she was just this really cool person, super smart, very, very focused and driven goal oriented.


Lenora Poulin (13:24):
You never had to remind her about anything. But she was quirky funny and just really quick witted. And I loved being around her. And I loved watching her from grade eight, till grade 12, growing as a leader, you know, she never would have held a microphone or spoken in front of the school and those earlier days, and by the end of it, you know, you could just hand it and walk away. And she wrote me this letter about, and she talked about how her parents had these really high expectations for her at home. And she felt a lot of pressure. And she came from a great family. It wasn’t like that, but they just had really, really super high expectations. But that she was thanking us for bringing out these qualities in her that she didn’t know she had, that were more about, more than about the academics.


Lenora Poulin (14:12):
And it’s led her in this amazing career that she has now, and she’s actually not even teaching anymore. She’s doing she has her own private practice in counseling, which is really super amazing. And, but it was just so nice of her to just to get that acknowledgement and remind you that, you know, even when you’re in these terrible times that there are lots of people out there who you impacted. And for every Jessica and Sierra, there are hundreds more who just, you know, maybe don’t have the courage to let you know or think about you often, but they just haven’t reached out yet. And I just remind myself of that all the time, because I think about the teachers that I have, that I have never contacted and there have been some that I have. But I just had such positive school experiences. And I think about those people all the time. So I remind myself of that.


Sam Demma (15:04):
And now you have an excuse to reach out to those educators that were in your life. You can say, I was, I was talking on this podcast and you know what, you’re someone who changed my life. And I want you, I want you to know that now this is what I’m doing. And I’m sure it would bring a huge smile to their faces. You mentioned, you know, Sarah and Jessica at the beginning of their leadership journey would not in a million years, grab a mic and speak in front of the room or speak in front of the school. I’m sure now things are totally different. And I’m curious to know, you’ve actually, you’ve been doing this for longer than I’m alive, which is pretty cool. You, you know, you’ve definitely worked with dozens of speakers. You mentioned going to California, maybe it was CATA. I’m assuming maybe I can call you. I know you go to CSLC, you’ve probably been to OSSE before and all the other leadership conferences, and you’ve probably brought speakers into your school as well. I’m curious to know other educators that are listening are wondering how do you choose someone to bring into your school in front of young people?


Lenora Poulin (16:08):
Can I say the cost for a small school actually, unfortunately, that is a huge part of it, but I, you know, I, I listened to what Dave said about this and, and it really rings true for me as well. I really want an authentic message and it’s interesting because I’ve been doing this for so long and we have had, so we’ve had amazing speakers at our school and seeing some incredible speakers at national and provincial conferences. But it’s interesting when you get to see a speaker 2, 3, 4 times, and you start to realize that it’s a script, and I do understand that that is necessary in, in public speaking, for sure. You have your talking points, you have your things that you want to say, but I want to feel like that moment where you teared up is genuine. Not that it’s part of what you’re saying.


Lenora Poulin (17:08):
And so I really rely on the other people that I trust as leadership advisors in the province and in the country. And I trust my own instincts as well. And, you know, sometimes they’re not always right down. I do have to remember that because I’ve seen a speaker three or four times, they’re kind of stale to me, but for our kids that have seen them the first time it’s powerful. And it only has to, you know, the speaker only has to really connect with a couple of kids and I’m happy, right. Because they’ve made a difference, which is really cool. But yeah, I do really look for that authentic piece. And that when they’re talking to me as the person that’s looking to hire them that they’re going to work with our small school situation within our parameters, you know, especially, you know, when I, I mentioned cost, but that is a real factor for small schools and so many of us, and we often try to double up together and, you know, piggyback, okay, this person’s coming out here. Where else can we get them to come in? Even for horizons for CSLA right. Trying to work geographically with that, because there isn’t another high school close to us to, you know, that you could get to in the afternoon. And so, you know, those kinds of things are important, but yeah, I really liked that authentic story.


Sam Demma (18:29):
Hmm. I love that. I think authenticity is so important in anything that you choose to do, right? Not only speaking, but whatever your work is, whatever your project is, be authentic with it. Have you experimented with trying virtual stuff? I know a lot of educators are scrambling, not, not only with bringing in speakers, but just teaching online. I know you’re a smaller school. I talked to Jenna Fisher, who’s an advisor out in Saskatchewan and they’re doing a hybrid model in school, out of school. What are some things you’ve noticed that help your students participate in engage virtually.


Lenora Poulin (19:00):
The virtual thing? I mean, personally, that’s actually a real struggle for me. I, one of the things I learned the most in the spring is that I am an in-person teacher. I need to see people’s faces. And now we’re, we are actually back in person here. But we’re all wearing masks. So I’m really learning to look into people’s eyes. But the, like some of the speakers have really adapted well to the the virtual platform. And I really appreciate that. One of the things that’s the hardest is learning to look into the camera on your face and not at the picture in the zoom or whatever. And I, again, got to participate in the virtual global conference that Stu Saunders did. And it was really interesting to, to watch the different speakers and see, and that was right at the early beginnings of us, all kind of transitioning, watching the speakers who were quite gifted at looking at the camera.


Lenora Poulin (20:03):
And you felt like you were actually there while they were talking and maybe just looking at a screen off to the side, but then there were the other people who obviously had another screen next to them and were kind of just reading off that screen. So those are the kinds of things. We, we haven’t taken advantage too much of the virtual presentations yet. It’s actually one of my, I don’t know one of the things that’s bothering me about this, there’s this sense of urgency that we, we are all bored and we all need to be super engaged during this time instead of just letting people kind of figure it out. And I, I don’t want more meetings and virtual and, you know, I don’t want pro D virtually. So I need to figure out other ways to adopt and what work.


Sam Demma (20:52):
Yeah, no, I love that. That’s an awesome point. And if, if you’re listening right now and I mean, if you hear me say that you are, that one tip is, is gold to make sure you’re saying it the camera, and it’s a, it’s a constant struggle. Something you can do to help is get a sticky note and draw a smiley face on it and stick it above the camera. And


Lenora Poulin (21:16):
He’s very good out of it.


Sam Demma (21:17):
Oh, cool. I love that because it does make the world of a difference. If your audience feels like you are staring, whether it’s a whole auditorium or a classroom, it doesn’t make a difference. It feels more personal, which is, which is a great point. So thank you for sharing. This has been a great conversation. You’ve shared stories. You’ve shared tips. You shared why you got into education. I’m curious to know a little bit more about your decision to get into teaching. I know we talked about it briefly at the beginning, but was there a moment when you were in school? I know you mentioned that there was educators that had an impact on your life. Was your decision to get into teaching made at a young age when you were still a student, or was it something that happened after?


Lenora Poulin (22:01):
Actually I probably right from the very beginning of school my mom was a school secretary and so it was school was glamorous to me. Like it was just this awesome place. My mom loved her job and she was very good at it. And so I was always surrounded by this positive experiences of school, which is interesting because like my father didn’t graduate from high school. My mom did, but had no post-secondary different generations. Right. my grandparents didn’t graduate. And so all through school, I I’m the oldest of the children as well. So I like to boss people around. And so, you know, I just, I wanted, I liked school so much. I always wanted to please, my teachers, their jobs seemed so cool. And then I got to high school and same thing I did well you know, had a really positive high school experience.


Lenora Poulin (22:55):
But by about grade 11 or 12 my dad was, you know, you talk so much, you should be a lawyer. And my grades were great. Not as like, oh yeah, I should be a lawyer. And so I got into UBC and I was like, I’m going to be a lawyer. And then I took stuff that I had to take to be a lawyer. And I did not like that. All I can Nomex and yeah, I actually failed out my first year of university, which is always a good story for me to tell my grade 12 students I failed economics, I failed math and I failed French. I know it’s terrible. I should have taken French 12. That’s always my advice. I didn’t take it in high school, so I take it in university. And so I sat back and so I didn’t give up, I didn’t quit school.


Lenora Poulin (23:39):
I, I was, it says on my transcript forever failed year retreat required to, so I went to, at that time was community college. There weren’t as many universities then. So I went to community college and I was like, what are you doing? What do you like? And I love to read, I love English and I loved history. And so I started taking English classes and I’m like, Hey, this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to be a teacher. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. So I had to write a letter to get back to UBC and I did, and it turned out for the best and I just never looked back. Like it was what I was supposed to do. And I remember when I was student teaching in Burnaby, which is a very large district here in British Columbia.


Lenora Poulin (24:22):
And there were actually 13 student teachers at the high school that I was at at the same time, which is a lot. And this were sitting in the staff room and this girl looked at me and she said, you really love this, don’t you? And I’m like, oh yeah. I said, I never want it to be anything else. This is what I’m supposed to be doing. And it’s really sad. But the next day she wasn’t there. She actually quit. But but it was good because, you know, she realized that she didn’t love it. And it’s one of the keys. Teaching’s not a job. It’s not something that just pays the bills. And, and I am not somebody who like, I am so happy with the money that I make and what I can provide for my family. I’m so fortunate. My husband’s a teacher as well. So of course our lifestyle just goes together so well. But this is a passion. This is, this is a lifestyle there. Isn’t a moment in the year that I do not think about school even, you know, in the summer, you know, I’m out with my friends, we’re talking about school. We, you know, I’m in a bookstore. I see us, I see advertising signs that I take pictures of. Cause I think that will be great for leadership. So yeah, like that, that’s why I do it. It’s, it’s what I’m supposed to do.


Sam Demma (25:40):
I love that. So so much. And this is actually really crazy. And as you were speaking, it kind of was coming together in my mind, my girlfriend, her name’s Nikki. And if she listens to this and I tell her, I’ll tell her to shout out to Nicki, Nicki. She went to LA pre-loss school at Carlton U for two years before I met her. And then she basically decided to take a break because she was following her parents’ passion for her. And the reason that the reason we got in touch is because she watched my TEDx talk on YouTube and she reached out to saying, Hey, can we chat? Because I think a very informal route after post-secondary or sorry, after secondary. And she ended up talking to me and I dunno, one coffee chat led to the next. Then we started dating. And now she’s in school for English. Like, I don’t know when he told me the story, I was like, wow, this is so aligned. And she doesn’t know what she wants to do with it yet. And she’s doing English and power of politics, which is close to history. It’s like, you know, kind of but after I saw, I saw the resemblance when you explain that, which is.


Lenora Poulin (26:45):
And often people think, you know, oh, what am I going to do with an English degree? But just like I say to the kids today, you know, like sure, I went a traditional way and became a teacher, but there are really cool jobs out there. Heck you should just be an editor on social media and correct. Everyone’s grammar. That would be awesome. But you know, there are so many jobs and careers and passions that you don’t even know yet. Like they don’t even exist yet. So why not study what you want to study? And then, you know, look out there and say, well, where could I use this? And, and, and, you know, like I have a student who, you know, works for a very large company, but she does their social media and she has English and history degree. Right. But she understands how people think and how they want their information. And she’s a strong communicator. And, you know, there’s so many different ways that, that, that can go.


Sam Demma (27:41):
I once had a mentor who was an educator, tell me that there’s opportunities in every field. You don’t find them, you create them. And I think it’s, it’s so true. Lenora, this has been an amazing conversation. I could talk to you for hours and I’m sure everyone listening, can say the same. And I’m curious to know if an educator wants to bounce some ideas around with you have a cool energetic conversation and maybe from even another country or another province how can they reach out to you?


Lenora Poulin (28:10):
Well, the great thing about having an uncommon name is I’m actually fairly easy to find. Because I didn’t have to have weird email addresses and things like that. So even Twitter, I’m just, @LenoraPoulin. Facebook is the same, although I probably wouldn’t add you as a friend, because I only have friends on Facebook that I actually know. And young people don’t use Facebook anymore. Same with my Insta, my Instagram, but Instagram is mostly books for me. But also my email is lenora.poulin@sd78.bc.ca. Or you can just Google my high school and the Hope Secondary School website and all of our contact information is there as well.


Sam Demma (28:53):
Awesome. Laura, this has been awesome. Thank you so so much. And I would love to know, you know, you can shoot me an email afterwards about some books to read cause it would be, it would be cool.


Lenora Poulin (29:03):
That’d be great, Sam. I love that.


Sam Demma (29:06):
Okay. I’ll talk to you soon.


Lenora Poulin (29:08):
Thank you.


Sam Demma (29:09):
Another episode of the high-performing educator and the books. I hope you enjoyed this fruitful conversation with Lenora, So much amazing insights. She had to share so much inspiration in her own journey into education. I hope you really took something away from this and took notes. And as always, if you are enjoying these interviews, please consider leaving a rating and review. It helps more high-performing educators, just like you find these, this content, and benefit from it. And of course, if you are someone who has ideas and insights to share, send me an email at info@samdema.com and we’ll get you on the show as well. Anyways, I’ll see you on the next episode. Talk soon.

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

December 4, 2021 by Student Leadership Student Success Teachers Teaching Tips 0

Manny Figueiredo – Director of Education at the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board

Manny Figueiredo, director of education HWDSB
About Manny Figueiredo

Manny Figueiredo (@manuel__fig) became Director of Education at Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on August 1, 2015. Manny has more than 25 years of teaching experience. He began his career as an Educational Assistant in a secondary school and then taught grades 4, 5, 7 and 8 in the Waterloo region.

He spent his time as a school administrator in Hamilton, where he became focused on building learning communities that used data to improve instruction, assessment and culture. He led work to enhance blended learning while an Executive Superintendent at
HWDSB.

As Director of Education, he proudly implements a set of strategic priorities that include Positive Culture and Well-being, Student Learning and Achievement, Effective Communication, School Renewal and Partnerships.

He is honoured to have led HWDSB as it built on these priorities to launch an Equity Action Plan, which envisions a culture shift built on recognizing and critically challenging historically built-in inequalities and injustices that contribute to inequitable outcomes in education.

Connect with Manny: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

The Hamilton Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)

Hamilton school board director leaving to lead local YMCA as president-CEO

Crises as Learning Triggers: Exploring a Conceptual Framework of Crisis-Induced Learning

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 is Manny Figueiredo Manny became the director of education at the Hamilton Wentworth district school board in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, on August 1st, 2015. Manny has more than 25 years of teaching experience. He began his career as an educational assistant in a secondary school, and then taught grade four or five, seven and eight in the Waterloo region. He spent his time as a school administrator in Hamilton, where he became focused on building learning communities that use data to improve instruction, assessment and culture. He led work to enhance blended learning while an executive superintendent at the Hamilton went with district school board as director of education.


Sam Demma (01:02):
He proudly implements a set of strategic priorities that include positive culture and wellbeing, student learning and achievement, effective communication, school, renewal, and partnerships. He is honored to have led the Hamilton Wentworth district school board, as it built on these priorities to launch an equity action plan, which envisions a culture shift built on recognizing and critically changing historically built in inequities and injustices that contribute to inequitable outcomes and education. I hope you enjoy this in-depth conversation with Manny and I will see you on the other side, Manny, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. A pleasure to have you on the show here today. Please start by introducing yourself.


Manny Figueiredo (02:10):
Yeah, Sam, my pleasure. Thank you. My name is Manny Figueiredo and I live in Hamilton and Hamiltonian who grew up in Cambridge and a child of immigrants, family who came from the ASRS and in the mid sixties grew up in Cambridge and studied at McMaster university kinesiology and entered into education in 93, 94 as an educational assistant in Kitchener and then 95 became a teacher. And then in 2002, I moved to Hamilton where I was fortunate enough to become a vice principal, then principal and I hold the current job as director of education for the Hamilton Wentworth School board since September of 2015. So I’m entering into my year in this privileged role.


Sam Demma (03:01):
That’s awesome. I actually wanted to get into kinesiology when I was still an athlete and I applied to everywhere, Mac Queens Waterloo, and like a bunch of different universities. I’m curious to know what, what stopped you from getting into something more related to kinesiology as opposed to teaching or what directed you towards teaching?


Manny Figueiredo (03:21):
Yeah. Great question Sam. So, you know, when I was in high school, I was confused on what I wanted to do. So I, I loved athletics. I love sports, but I also love music. I hack around with guitar. I love the arts, I love everything, but I was inspired by some teachers who really encouraged me to teach and I loved young and I loved kids as well and young kids. So, but when I went to Mac, I knew I wanted to teach. I knew for sure I wanted to teach, but when I graduated, I didn’t get into a faculty of education my first year. So I actually took a job at the YMCA in Cambridge as a full-time program supervisor. So it actually reinforced that I wanted to teach because I was overseeing not only adult programs, fitness, recreation, but I was also overseeing youth camps, youth leadership programs. So that was then the following year I went to York university and I still work part-time at the Y. But when I landed a permanent job in teaching, I still volunteered at the Y for about five and six years to stay connected as a fitness instructor. So I figured I could sort of pursue both of my passions of fitness as well as as education. And that’s sort of where I landed education, but it was really inspired by some key teachers in my career.


Sam Demma (04:43):
You mentioned before we hit the record button, you hear that growing up, you played sports and sports were one avenue that kept you in school. And you had some really key teachers at that young age who I would, I would assume believed in you and maybe things weren’t going so well. Maybe bring us back there for a second and tell me more about that experience growing up and also what those teachers did that had such a significant impact on your progression.


Manny Figueiredo (05:07):
Yeah, my reflect upon what, you know, sort of drives me and motivates me, I think back as a student and I really did enjoy elementary school. And I think now what I’ve learned from that and think about the newcomers that have come into our communities. So for me, Portuguese was my spoken language at home. When I went to school, I spoke English, I didn’t speak English. And so the resource in supports weren’t there like they are today and a lot of the curriculum content wasn’t culturally relevant to me. So I couldn’t make the connections to the curriculum, to the, to the literature because it wasn’t my lived experience living as a, as a child of immigrant parents who spoke Portuguese and you know, my parents who are still with me today, we’re only, we’re only able to be educated to a grade three. So, but the turning point for me was my grade seven teacher and Mr.


Manny Figueiredo (06:10):
Dowling and he called me last year, ironic Mr. Dowling. he understood my lived experience and what do I mean by that? He was an immigrant. He was from Jamaica and he understood what island life was like, what it was like for immigrants to come here, who, you know, who, who were blue collar workers who left their home country due to oppression and poverty. And he spent the time he has a caring adult who said, Hey, Figueiredo smart, knock, figure it out, come see me after school, I can give you some extra math, help, figure it out. Are you getting involved in sports and athletics? So grade seven is what I joined the basketball team and started to really become engaged because if it wasn’t for school athletics or school extracurricular, my parents just didn’t have the means to pay for me to be involved in community sports.


Manny Figueiredo (07:10):
So so high school athletics and extracurricular were key to keeping me engaged. And because of that my grade seven teacher, and then later, Mr. Anderson, when I went to grab you park in Cambridge was my grade 10 teacher. He also said what’s your pathway? What are you thinking? And I didn’t know, because what I saw around Portuguese males in my town was many of them went to 16 and went to work in construction or they might’ve gone to become auto mechanics, but he would always remind me is explore all options. All pathways are available to you and don’t let people pigeonhole you into pathways that might not be matched to your skills or your passion or interests. So I always look back at Mr. Dowling and grade seven, and then Mr. Anderson in grade 10, that really were the caring adults and educators in my life that helped me navigate because my parents who sacrificed so much had to work, they worked shifts, they’re blue collar workers, and they could navigate the system. And one of the reasons they didn’t have that lived experience and nor could they speak the language.


Sam Demma (08:23):
Time was probably a barrier. You know, like my dad still tells me stories about my own grandfather, who as well, came over from Italy on the boat. And he worked at GM and he, you know, he would do a night shift. So you would be sleeping with my dad. And when my, when his son, my dad got home and the only time they would have dinners Friday nights at 2:00 AM, when my, my grandfather would wake up all the kids to eat a pizza that he brought home, you know? And so I totally understand the situation that makes a lot of sense. Those two teachers sound like they had a pivotal role in your life. You mentioned that one of them, you last week, what was that conversation like?


Manny Figueiredo (08:58):
It was actually last year, sorry, last year, sorry, last school year, which was in this past spring I got a call the office here and my assistant said, do you know Mr. Dowling? And I said, yeah, my, my grade seven teacher from Cambridge. Wow. She said, yeah, he left a message. He saw you on some news, clipping, Googled your name and he wanted to touch base with you. So we spoke. And he was so proud, but it gave me a chance to show my appreciation and to let him know the impact he had on my life at a very pivotal transformational time as a young adolescent. And he inspired me and reminded me that I said to him, you reminded me that no job is below. You remember that from your parents as immigrants, no job is below you. And no job is above you. Don’t let people limit. You put boundaries around you. So we had a conversation and we said with COVID is over this fall, we’re going to get together and have have breakfast face to face. So I’m looking forward to that.


Sam Demma (10:03):
It’s amazing. And roughly how many years would it have been?


Manny Figueiredo (10:08):
I know you’re going to ask that I was actually fricking that I, I, you know, I’ll be 51 next month. Okay. And so when I was a great seven, I would have been 12. So we’re talking 39 39 years ago.


Sam Demma (10:22):
So, and I asked you that not to ask your age, but I asked you that because sometimes in education, we think they’re supposed to be this instant ROI, make an impact on a kid, hear about it right away. It took your teacher 39 years to hear about, you know, the impact that he, that he had on you. And I think it’s so important to realize that in education, our role is to plant the seed and water the seed. And sometimes we don’t see it grow for a long period of time, but that doesn’t mean it’s not growing, right?


Manny Figueiredo (10:51):
No, I, but you make a great point. You know, the return on investment. I always tell educators, you are making a difference. What difference are you making? Sometimes you don’t see the fruit of your labor in the moment, but everything we say we do, our kids are watching us as role models and rightfully so they should be we’re educators. We made this choice to be professionals. So sometimes you don’t know the, you don’t see the immediate impact, but there’s always a long-term impact. Make sure it’s a positive one.


Sam Demma (11:27):
Yeah. So true. And you mentioned that Mr. Anderson was one of the first teachers who kind of challenged you and asked you, Hey what is your future pathway look like? And in the moment you weren’t really certain about something. And at a young age, we get asked that question a lot. I find that as we grow up, people, stop asking us what your pathway is because they think that you’re in it, you know? And you’re obviously someone who continued, you know, pursuing different pathways and moved from teaching to administration. So how did you continue navigating your career pathway and how did it evolve to where it is now?


Manny Figueiredo (12:03):
Yeah, you know, I tell my, my own children. I tell everyone mentors always have people to talk to doesn’t matter what age. So I recall when I went to Mac, I teaching with something I thought I wanted to do. So I had someone I knew who was a teacher and every Friday afternoon I began to volunteer in their classroom. I did have classes to see if this was what I wanted and that person as of today, or we’re still friends, he’s retired, but he was a mentor for me. But then when I went, graduated and I wasn’t fortunate enough to get into teacher’s college or the faculty of education my first year, either, you know, I participate as a, at the YMCA. I was there as an adolescent. I could play basketball. And I did a bit of a co-op placement there in one of my courses.


Manny Figueiredo (12:59):
So I thought I would reach out and I landed a job there. And I had, I had a mentor through the Y organization that I’m a big fan of the Y only because I worked there, but because I also, as a youth, it was a safe place that my parents could afford for. I could go shoot hoops. Right. but throughout my career, I’ve always had critical friends. What I mean by that critical friends or mentors who are going to guide you, but also give you some pretty objective feedback when things aren’t going well. So if I could send one message, we’re never too young or too old to have critical friends or mentors. And sometimes that is your parents, but sometimes in my case, my parents provided a great loving environment, but they could help me navigate because it wasn’t their experience. So who else could I reach out and take a risk and ask to mentor me and provide some guidance. So that’s been key in my life and it is still key today. As I have critical people, who’ve been directors of education, current ones, the ones who’ve retired, who continue to be there as mentors to provide guidance.


Sam Demma (14:05):
You raised a smart point, right? It makes me think about you know, airplane pilots, you know, a pilot would want to seek the counsel or mentorship from another pilot. You know, they wouldn’t ask a passenger. Hey, can you help me fly the plane? So yeah, you’re right. There are certain mentors who could help a lot. You know, there might be an educator listening to this right now thinking that sounds great Manny, but how do you find those people? How did you find them in your experience?


Manny Figueiredo (14:32):
Yeah. You know, I have, I find them like, you have to be intentional and sometimes you have to take a risk. So when I thought I want to teach, I went to the local school and said, Hey, do you accept volunteers? And, and I was placed in a classroom for a teacher who was willing to have me as a volunteer on Friday afternoon. So I maintain the relationship, right. I’ve volunteered in his classroom for four years. So I maintain the relationship. So I think that’s a key and, and, you know, you have to take a bit of a risk and go outside your comfort zone at times. And, and sometimes you might need another adult when you’re young to, to guide you. And sometimes that’s what teachers are can do as well. Sometimes it might think of the high school students to teachers can be that connection or that navigator to, to someone who might be a mentor in a different sector. Right.


Sam Demma (15:27):
So that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense and education right now as a whole, it looks a little different than it did three years ago, two years ago. Just because of the global pandemic, what are some of the things that, or challenges that you think the schools in your board are faced with right now? And how are, how are you striving to overcome those challenges?


Manny Figueiredo (15:48):
Yeah, I think that the most obvious one that every organization is dealing with, but especially education is you know, digital, remote learning. So we were fortunate in Hamilton prior to the pandemic. About seven years ago, we started to really push the teaching needs to be blended. And what I mean by blended is that if we live and work in the physical and digital world, we need to teach and learn in the physical and digital world. So we had a provision already in our school board when students with a device and our, and our secondary teachers. So when students entered grade nine, they were provisioned with a iPad that they would carry forward until they graduated, because we really believed that a blended learning had to occur would provide a bit more flexibility. Sure. You have to come in school, but we know the reality of life that some students might miss a class, do the athletics, extra curriculars or a part-time job.


Manny Figueiredo (16:49):
And if there’s a hub or a learning management system where things can be posted where they could access in case they miss the lesson, then there’ll be some continuity of learning. So now that was accelerated when last year we had around 9,000 students in elementary, where a district of 50,000 students chose remote. But what it forced us to do through feedback from parents was to say, Hey, standardized your platforms. I can’t have three kids on different platforms depending on, on the educators choice. So we did, we, we already had the hub, which is Brightspace desire to learn. We had that as an LMS, but then Microsoft teams was second. And now, as we entered this year, every teacher’s classroom was not only set up in the physical world as teachers do. We made sure through our infrastructure, that students’ names were attached to the virtual Microsoft teams classrooms.


Manny Figueiredo (17:43):
So it was by default it’s there, it’s ready to go. So whether the student this year chose remote and we have around 2000 this year, that the blended learning is there. If a child misses a class due to illness, or if a child has to self isolate now for 10 days, because they’re determined to close contact, because then they can continue their learning because the classrooms already set up. So that was always our vision. So we took advantage of the opportunity. Sure. There were challenges. And what we hear from our teachers is a lot of support was provided around the technical aspects of it. So thumbs up, but where we need to focus more is now, what is the pedagogical practice look like? What does effective teaching look like on these platforms versus in the physical world? So that’s the power of teacher networks. That’s where we get teachers to share best practices. So that’s a bit of our focus this year is to keep on leveraging those best practices from our educators.


Sam Demma (18:43):
In those moments where you feel burnt out. You know, there’s a lot of educators listening who had a tough two years. And I think in those deepest moments, the thing that keeps most people going is remembering why they do this. It’s like, you know, you know, what is the motivation and the purpose behind the work we’re doing here. And I’m curious to know yours, you know, what is the thing that keeps you motivated every single day to pursue this work and solve the problems as they come up?


Manny Figueiredo (19:09):
Yeah. And I I’m, I’m glad you mentioned around mental health and wellbeing educators too. So, you know, for myself personally, it was a diff it’s been a difficult 15 months. So going back to mentors, you need to find a place to vent. And, you know, my wife is a teacher, so I’d see her. I had a learning loud at home every day. She teaches court French and had 150 students that she had to support each day. So for me, a place to vent, right? Where’s that place I can vent. And I, it also forced me to say, be patient with yourself. You know, I’m a big believer of conceptual frame frameworks to manage change and where we are in a crisis. So we can’t ask for perfection when we’re in a crisis. So we need to be patient with ourselves and realize that things are going to change.


Manny Figueiredo (20:02):
And that we as organizational type, sometimes need to bring some stability by managing the multiple priorities coming from all different inputs. But for me, it was a reminder to myself to be patient, find some time to disconnect, you know, away from the screen. And, you know, for me, because of my fitness kinesiology background, it reminded me of importance of being physically active as much as possible during this time, not just for my physical body, but for my, for my mental health as well. But your question of the why I think I shared with you the stories of my parents as immigrants and my sisters who were immigrants as well, and their journey reminds me that education is an equalizer. It has to be an equalizer at times. It’s not, at times it has systemic practice that actually disproportionately impacts students, but we have to continue to challenge those systems and those structures because public education is it’s been key in my life. And I know that many newcomers who choose Canada, it’s one of the foundations of why they choose Canada is because of the opportunity through public education.


Sam Demma (21:22):
Yeah, it’s so true. So, so true. I think that’s why, especially, so in immigrant families, education is a very high value, you know my grandparents like, oh, the priority in their household was always school and that’s what got them out of poverty per se. And it’s so true. I think you’ve raised some really good points. If you could bundle up all your, you know, wisdom and experience and advice and, you know, walk into a classroom and instantly teleport 39, not 39 years back with back to your first year of teaching and speak to younger Manny, like knowing what you know now, what advice and feedback would you give your younger self to set yourself up for some success?


Manny Figueiredo (22:09):
That’s a great question. So if I could go back and speak to a younger version of me when I was 24 years old entering into my first permanent position. Yeah. Yeah. I think the first piece of advice I’d give myself is remembered to always be student-centered. In other words, there’s a lot of curriculum to cover, but you’re not a teacher is not about teaching a curriculum, a teacher’s about meeting the needs of kids and matching the curriculum to their needs. So I remember when I felt overwhelmed the first year or two is how do I cover everything until I gain more experience and said, you know, I can integrate things, get to know your students, what are their needs? Don’t let the curriculum be the driver, let the student be the driver.


Sam Demma (23:00):
Wow. That’s a great piece of advice. I love the way you kind of phrase that yeah. Meet the needs of the students and then match the curriculum to the students’ needs. That’s that’s powerful. Manny, if someone’s listening to this and they’ve enjoyed the conversation they love some of your philosophies and education and they just want to reach out what would be the best way for them to kind of get in touch with you.


Manny Figueiredo (23:25):
Yeah. They can just send an email mfigueir@hwdsb.on.ca to me or reach out on Twitter @manuel__fig they’ll see on Twitter. I’d love to connect.


Sam Demma (23:50):
Sounds great. Awesome. Again, Manny, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Really appreciate your time. Keep up the great work. And I look forward to talking to you again soon.


Manny Figueiredo (23:58):
Yeah. Thank you, Sam, for taking the time as well. My pleasure.


Sam Demma (24:01):
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.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Manny

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 3, 2021 by Director of Education Student Leadership Student Success Superintendent Teachers 0

Michelle Strube-Hauser – Vice-Principal and Student Council Advisor at Melfort Comprehensive School

Michelle Strube-Hauser, Principal
About Michelle Strube-Hauser

Michelle started her teaching career in 1991 in Outlook, Saskatchewan teaching Business Education.  Her career then took her to Manitoba and then eventually back to Saskatchewan.  In 1998 she took a teaching job at Melfort Comprehensive and has been there ever since. 

In 2004 she became Vice-Principal and now splits her time between administrative duties and the classroom.  She has been involved with Student Council from the first day of her career and still loves it to this day.

Connect with Michelle: Email | Pinterest

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

SASCA Leadership Association

SASCA Facebook Page

Melfort Comprehensive 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):
This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. Today’s special guest is Michelle Strube-Hauser. Michelle started teaching in 1991 in outlook, Saskatchewan teaching business education. Her career then took her to Manitoba and then eventually back to Saskatchewan in 1998, she took a teaching job at Melfort comprehensive and has been there ever since in 2004, she became the vice principal and now splits her time between administrative duties and classroom activities. She has been involved with student council from the first day of her career and still loves it to this day. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Michelle and I will see you on the other side, Michelle. 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?


Michelle Strube-Hauser (01:30):
Hi Sam. I am Michelle Strube-Hauser. I am vice principal and student council advisor at Melfort comprehensive collegiate in Melfort, Saskatchewan. What else do you need to know? I have just started officially my 30th year in education. So that was…


Sam Demma (01:53):
I’m going to, I’m going to give you a round of applause real quick here. That’s so awesome. Congratulations. And what, what led you into education? I’m going to ask you to think back for a second to when you were younger and going through school yourself and trying to figure out what you want to do with your life. You know, how did you land upon teaching?


Michelle Strube-Hauser (02:17):
I landed on it. I started high school at Carleton comprehensive and prince Albert, and for anyone who knows that institution, that is a huge comprehensive school with lots of offerings and I want it to be a hairdresser and I took cosmetology 10 and went, oh, am I bad at this? And then I took a class called accounting and loved it and thought maybe I wanted to be an accountant. And then I realized, geez, accountants are in their office by themselves, a good part of the time. And I knew I wouldn’t like that. And so I was talking to my accounting teacher one day and I said, I think I want to do what do, and so kind of went into it blindly. I wasn’t one of those people that have them as a calling since they were 12 years old or anything like that, I went into it, blindly thinking, let’s try this and, and this just lucked out and it turned out very well. I’ve enjoyed my 30 years and it has gone so, so quickly that, that I must like it because it it’s blinked and it’s gone by. So I was lucky. I was.


Sam Demma (03:30):
That’s awesome. And did you have educators, teachers along the way that kinda mentored you or that kind of told you, you would make for a great teacher Michelle? Or did you just pursue it after those great experiences?


Michelle Strube-Hauser (03:42):
You know what? I pursued it after some great experiences, but, but at Carlton, yes, I had a couple of those businesses at teachers that really said, yes, you should do this. You would be great to have it. And, and really kind of helped me make my decision. I just needed that little push and they, they helped me make that, that decision. So I, I appreciate them immensely. And actually when I got to my internship, I got to work with a couple of them again and, and have stayed in touch with a couple of them along the way. So yeah, they meant a great deal.


Sam Demma (04:17):
That’s awesome. And what was your, what did you teach initially and did it ever evolve or was it always like lined up? Is it always, always the same kind of subject or how did your, your career kind of evolve?


Michelle Strube-Hauser (04:30):
Quite a few of the same sub subjects I taught my first year in outlook, Saskatchewan, and I taught every grade from grade seven to 12, nice keyboarding accounting history, a little bit of history back then. Then my career took me to Manitoba for a few years and, and same thing, everything in that business genre called different things and that type of thing. And then I found actually took two years off and did my masters in educational administration and, and kind of fully immersed myself into that experience. And so I did a little bit of teaching at the university during that time in the education department. And then that led me to Melfort and I’ve been here ever since. And for the first few years I did accounting the information processing, personal finance and now I’m, I’m basically part-time in the offices, vice principal and part-time classroom.


Sam Demma (05:32):
And out of all the rules, do you have experienced or worked in they’re all different and they all offer great things, but what trends have you personally like enjoyed the most and why?


Michelle Strube-Hauser (05:44):
Well, I hate to say this, but probably being student council advisor has been my favorite and that has nothing to do with my classroom, but, but it is my favorite part of the weekend of the date is working with the student council kids, which it, which here in Saskatchewan is extracurricular. So we spend a lot of new, a lot of new hours and a lot of after-schools together. And then the other ones, even out I do, I do enjoy being vice-principal. I do enjoy helping the teachers be the best teacher that they can be. But between the two, the best part of my day is still walking into the classroom and, and being with the kids. I, that’s still the best part.


Sam Demma (06:32):
Tell me more about the love for student council. So what is it about the student as student leadership and student council that really fires you up?


Michelle Strube-Hauser (06:42):
You know, what, just seeing the potential of the kids and what they can do and seeing how excited they are for certain activities just trying to help coach them along on their journey. We’re at the very early stages here of the year. We have our first event tomorrow. Our first big event is tomorrow it’s grade seven, welcome a B grade third grade twelves of planet. The grade 10 and 11 room reps are helping them with it. And it’s always a really fun way to start the year. And then after that, I make them sit down and tell me what their goals are for the year. And then I very much see my job as helping them meet those goals. So if they have an event they want to do, if they have an initiative, they want to do whatever it is, they join for a reason.


Michelle Strube-Hauser (07:34):
Let’s, let’s try to make that come to be th th the other thing is, is helping them learn that leadership is about helping others kind of servant leadership mentality and, and just watching them, watching them grow and watching them figure that out and seeing their successes and having them learn from a few mistakes. We’ll have some bumps. And how do you learn from that? Yep. And I’m sure, I’m sure Sam, you were part of a student council. So, you know, the student council kids are the most energetic, most fun group of kids you will ever be around and you feed off their energy gives you energy, you just feed off of it. So the more excited they get, the more wound up buying it. So it’s, it’s good.


Sam Demma (08:26):
That’s awesome. I love that. And student leadership has so many qualities that sometimes are more geared towards in-person school. And I know it’s been probably difficult over the past couple of years for student councils or for student leadership in general. What has your school been doing like for student leadership and how things changed?


Michelle Strube-Hauser (08:50):
Well, we’re really lucky this year. We’re face to face. We’ve got everybody here and our restrictions are, are ever changing in Saskatchewan. We had very few at the start of the school year, our right now we, we have a few more that we’re abiding by. So right now we’re able to do quite a debt last year. However, we had cohorts and we had no mixing and we had a lot of health and safety guidelines that we have to follow. And I won’t lie to you. It was tough, a lot of virtual competitions. We did a lot of things where, you know, each group, we, we brought them down a group at a time and timed them or stuff like that. We had to kind of be a little bit creative. The teachers were amazing because if the teachers got geared up and, and said, come on, let’s go. The kids kind of followed suit. So we, we had still had some good things going. We just needed a little bit more help in doing them. Yeah, there, I, I, it, it was tough, but we did the best we could. We’ll put it that way.


Sam Demma (10:06):
Yeah, I totally agree. Oh, sorry.


Michelle Strube-Hauser (10:09):
Go ahead. Yeah. And then, and this year we’re off to a much better start in that things have changed just enough that, that it kind of allows us, allows us a little bit of wiggle room. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can kind of keep going.


Sam Demma (10:23):
Yeah, I hope so too. I hope so, too. Speaking of, you know, continuing and keep continuing to improve and keep going there might be an educator listening right now who is hoping to improve and continue their own teaching and their own, you know their own craft of being a teacher. And maybe they’re in like their first year of teaching or second year or third year. And, you know, it’s probably been a little difficult for them. If you could go back in time and give your younger self advice, maybe the first year you ever got into teaching, but with the advice and experience that you know, now, what advice would you give your younger self that would have been helpful for you to hear?


Michelle Strube-Hauser (11:03):
Oh, man, that is a good question. What would it sound like self my younger self, you know what, take one day at a time at the end of the day, sometimes you have to take a deep breath release your shoulders and let the day go and kind of step away. I think first year teachers and I was no better. I was at school 24 7. I was, I was always there planning and prepping. And every once in a while, you need to take a little bit of time for yourself and, and take a deep breath and do that thing that feels you and feels your energy, whether that’s a walk outside, whether that’s a sport that you play, whether that’s spending time with your family. But don’t forget that there’s that, that other side. And you, and every once in a while, it’s okay to let it go and, and, and step away from the student that challenges you or the situation that’s challenging you, or just work work in general, you need to find a little bit of a balance. And I think as first year teachers, we have a really tough time finding that balance.


Sam Demma (12:19):
Yeah, I couldn’t agree. I think getting into education right now would be a very interesting experience just because it’s, I guess I want to say it’s more difficult. Like, would you say that this year, the past two years were a little more difficult than past, or is it just different?


Michelle Strube-Hauser (12:38):
W you know, it, both, it, I, I would say it was more difficult but maybe it was more difficult because it was so different. When we all got sent home in March of 2020, the learning curve of online and how to reach out to the students. And for those of us who are kind of all call us old dogs, learning new tricks, just the technology that we have to use and how to get the kids hooked up to it. And all of that was just completely overwhelming. I think this past year, and even a little bit now what’s overwhelming is that we still have kids that have to go home for a week or two at a time. So you, now you’re doing both, right. You have a classroom of kids that you’re teaching face-to-face, but you’ve got three or four or five that are at home. And so you’re kind of trying to do a little bit of both. And, and that’s the part that gets difficult is you’re is you’re doing both jobs now. So different. And, and I would agree with you a little bit more difficult as well. Not only that, but this year has found a lot of kids coming back to school that have been online, and it’s a difficult transition. Yep. Then teaching yourself one-on-one, and now you’re back into a class with 25, and that in itself has been a difficult adjustment for some people


Sam Demma (14:11):
Not to mention the difficulty of teaching yourself to be social. When you haven’t seen people for two years, you know, like


Michelle Strube-Hauser (14:19):
Absolutely how to work in a group again, how just absolutely how to be social. And, and I think even we, as adults have had a hard time with that, because now over the summer, we’ve been, I’m going to use the word allowed, but we’ve started to become more social and you really do use you sort of forget what it’s like to be in a large crowd. And so if it’s, if it’s a learning curve for us adults, can you imagine what it’s like for, you know, a 12 or 13 year old? Yeah.


Sam Demma (14:52):
So true. So, so true. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to come on here and share a little bit about your own journey into education. Some of your advice for new educators and also how you guys are dealing with the challenges you’re faced with right now. If another educator is tuned in listening, what would be the best way for them to reach out in case they had a question or just wanting to connect with you?


Michelle Strube-Hauser (15:14):
Probably email me. It’s probably, I always answer my email. And if you are a student leadership advisor out there, we have a great Facebook page. It’s called Sasca leadership. It’s the Saskatchewan association of student leaders. And there is a few of us that are on there quite often, and we share ideas and we share what’s going well, and what’s not going well. So if you’re a student leader and you’re looking for a great point of access, you should follow that Facebook page.


Sam Demma (15:48):
Sasca leadership. Awesome, Michelle, again, thank you so much for coming on the show. We appreciate it and keep up the great work and we’ll talk soon.


Michelle Strube-Hauser (16:00):
Thanks.


Sam Demma (16:03):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest and amazing interview on the high performing educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Michelle

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 Principals 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Connect with Bridgit: Email | Facebook | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Bitmoji’s Explained

Shoe Box Float Parade Idea

Example of the ABS Advisor Manual

PHAST (protecting health and slamming tobacco)

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
This is your host and youth speaker, Sam Demma. Today’s special guest on the podcast is Bridgit Moore. Bridgit Moore is the leadership teacher and activity director for Grace Davis high school. She has been an educator for 20 plus years and has done a variety of positions, such as math and psychology teacher school, counselor, and coaching. She is married and has four kids age 9, 10, 14, and 16. And this year has a 15-year-old exchange student living with her from Germany. She loves her job and enjoys helping and inspiring students to become the best leaders they possibly can. I hope you enjoy this interview with Bridgit. I will see you on the other side, Bridgit. Welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here today. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself?


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Sam Demma (15:53):
The district.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Sam Demma (22:39):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest and amazing interview on the high-performing educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network, you’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Bridgit

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

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

Greg Firth – Coach and Department Head of the Career Path Regional Program

Greg Firth - Coach and Department Head of the Career Path Regional Program
About Greg Firth

Greg Firth(@coachfirth) is an experienced educator with a demonstrated history of working in special education and with at-risk youth. He is also the Coach and Department Head of the Career Path Regional Program.

Skilled in educational leadership, coaching, Secondary and Elementary education, assessment, and team building, he is a strong education professional with a Bachelor’s Degree focused in Elementary Education and Teaching from the University of Canberra.

Connect with Greg: Email | Linkedin | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Bachelors of Primary Education – Canberra University

St. Edmund Campion Secondary School

Brumbies Rugby Team

DGN-Kilters (Spirit Wear Company)

The Transcript

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

Sam Demma (00:00):
Do you want access to all the past guests on this show? Do you want to network with like-minded individuals and meet other high-performing educators from around the world? If so, go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Sign up to join the exclusive network and you’ll get access to live virtual networking events and other special opportunities that will come out throughout 2021. I promise you I will not fill your inbox. You might get one email a month. If that sounds interesting. Go to www.highperformingeducator.com. Welcome back to another episode of the high performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have today’s guest on the show. Funny enough, I actually met him on Twitter. Now. I don’t use social media very much. Twitter is the only platform that I’m really utilizing right now to stay in touch with people in education. And I came across Greg Firth’s page and I was intrigued instantly by the thumbnail picture that appears on his profile header in big bold letters.


Sam Demma (01:04):
It says, don’t let your dreams be dreams. And that immediately caught my attention. And as I explored his profile a little more, I realized that he is the department head of career path regional program at Ed campions school. And he helps students transition and find their passions on and off the court. So aside from his role in helping students find their passion, he’s also a coach and being someone who grew up as an athlete myself, and that someone who was very interested in helping students, you know, answer the questions, who am I, what are my opportunities and how am I going to accomplish them? You know, I thought that me and Greg would have a phenomenal conversation and my thought turned out to be correct because we have an amazing discussion on today’s episode, a little more about Greg Greg is an experienced educator with a demonstrated history of working in special education.


Sam Demma (01:59):
And with at-risk youth. He is skilled in educational leadership, coaching secondary and elementary education, assessment, and team building. He’s a strong education professional with a bachelor’s degree, focused in elementary education and teaching from the university of Canberra. All of that aside, Greg is an awesome human being. He is someone who thinks outside of the box. A little inside joke, he was wearing a shirt that says, think outside of the box during today’s interview. And it’s evident that he does that in his day to day work in his role. So without further ado, here’s the interview with my good friend, Greg. Greg, thank you so much for coming on the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show. I think the thing that caught my eye from you was seeing your Twitter header that was talking all about dreams and as someone who was chasing my dreams since I was a young kid and who’s still chasing my dream, and seeing that you support other students chase theirs was really cool. And I’d love for you to introduce yourself, share a little bit about who you are with the educator listening and how you got into education and the work you’re doing today.


Greg Firth (03:10):
Awesome. Thanks again, Sam, for having me I’m really excited to be here. My name is Greg Firth. I’m a teacher in Brampton at St. Edmund Champion Secondary School in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic district school board. I’m currently the department head of a regional program that we call the career path program. The career path program is a grade 9-12 program for special education students who are looking into exploring the world of work. So we have such an amazing team around us who are supportive of not only teachers, but educational resource workers, child/youth workers, social workers, psychologists, and an amazing administrative team, and some amazing teachers again in our, in our greater building. So my journey to becoming a teacher was not as kind of clear. I went to Brock university and did sport management. I played rugby a Brock. My whole goal was to get into the sports field.


Greg Firth (04:11):
I had dreams of being an event planner or working for a professional team traveling. But in the background I was always working at summer camps and I was always either running a camp or working for an organization with kids. I did teacher’s college in Australia and I worked for what is equivalent to, I guess, the Toronto maple Leafs, which was the the, the camp or ACT Brumbies which is a professional rugby team there. And again, I was running rugby camps there and it just seemed, I got accepted to go to Kenesha, to do my master’s in sports sport management. But I took it. I had to take a little bit of break and I sat and I really thought about, okay, well, is this really what I want to do? Went back and got a job in Dufferin-Peel as an educational resource worker for a year.


Greg Firth (05:01):
And during that year I had some you know, I loved it. I just loved that. Helping kids, working with staff, working with parents, working in the greater community. All the other things that come with teaching and being in a school just just kinda excited me. So that’s how I ended up in Australia doing teacher’s college, came back, connected with a few past principals and vice-principals and was able to walk in. I got hired on labor day, Monday for a grade three job on Tuesday. And and that’s kinda, that was my entry into, into Dufferin-Peel and to, to teaching.


Sam Demma (05:41):
At what point, though, in your personal career journey, when you were still going through school, figuring this all out, did you make the decision it’s going to be education, I’m going to work in education, whether it’s a teacher, a principal, whatever it, you know, it turns out to be when did that decision happen and what spurred you to make that decision?


Greg Firth (05:59):
You know what, I don’t know if there was a specific time because I’m going to be honest. I came back from Australia after doing teacher’s college. I ended up coming back in June. So I had a summer, I needed to make some money and pay off some bills that I incurred in Australia. And I worked at a, at a law firm in Toronto in the mail room. So I was, you know, shirt tie getting on the go train from Mississauga, going downtown in Toronto. And I was like, well, maybe this is kind of the lifestyle I want. So the one thing that I, that I, that I’ve followed the one thing that I preach and teach to kids is that there is no clear path. Sometimes things change. Sometimes it’s a moment, but you have to kind of recognize those opportunities, go for it, see what lies ahead and, and take those opportunities as, as they’re brought to you.


Greg Firth (06:52):
And sometimes you find things behind the door that you never expected. And, and sometimes there’s a challenge and sometimes, you know, the grass isn’t always greener, but that will you know, you’ll grow from it. And it isn’t a 20 year journey. I do believe as a lifelong learner, whether it’s an occupation or whether it’s just personal growth. I do believe that that learning happens over an eternity. And so I don’t know if there was a clear part and, you know, I’m continuing to, to reflect and to see, and to challenge myself even as a, as an educator and how I can move forward professionally in this career.


Sam Demma (07:39):
I’m assuming there’s a reason why your Twitter handle is also coach Firth. Where does coaching and athletics come into the story? You know, you mentioned you were a rugby player growing up, did you end up coaching sports in schools? And what did that teach you about also being a better educator? Did you learn some lessons from being a coach or, or w you know, you have a diverse perspective being both a coach and an educator, and I’m curious to know how it’s impacted your teaching style and, and where sports kind of come into the picture for you.


Greg Firth (08:11):
So, yeah, you know what, sports has always played a huge role. I have four brothers if we weren’t, you know, battling playing hockey outside or playing baseball outside or, or competing, even playing Nintendo NHL 93 or whatever it was, sports was always has always been a part of me. My dad coached me growing up. I umpired baseball. That was kinda my first leadership opportunity was umpiring baseball as a 14 year old and having a courageous conversation with with a father that he was not allowed to use that inappropriate language around these kids. So I grew from that and, and being in those, those opportunities coaching was kind of like the next step by a good friend and former teacher. Paul Newfeld, you know, allowed me to come back as a, as a, as a university student and help out with the rugby team.


Greg Firth (09:10):
And we ended up taking that rugby team to to also, we ended up taking that rugby team to England and to, and it just created so many friendships and memories and opportunities, opportunities because of rugby. I was able to go to Australia and meet some people, have a conversation that about a sport, it was in, it was an initial draw to, to have a conversation with people. So coaching has always been and still is a huge part. I think we can teach the lessons. I think you know, the roles that I’m in, sometimes I’m not with the with students in a day-to-day basis in a classroom, but it gives me an opportunity to teach to, to learn from them to compete and to bring life lessons. I, I’m a, I’m a strong believer. You know, we talk about sports being great, but it has to be purposeful as a coach, a sport. I believe that a sport does not bring life lessons in itself. You know, anyone can go play baseball, anyone go play basketball. It’s, it’s, it’s the adults, it’s the organizers, it’s your teammates that bring those life lessons. And I do believe that it has to be purposeful. You as an adult and as a coach need to have values and you need to, you need to teach lessons and there’s, and sports is a great opportunity for those.


Sam Demma (10:39):
Did you have a coach growing up that had a huge impact on you and maybe one jumps to mind? And I’m just curious to know what you think that coach did. That’s strongest string with you, if you have, if you have one in mind.


Greg Firth (10:52):
Yeah. You know what? I I’ve been lucky. I’ve been some, had some amazing coaches, but the one I met just mentioned before Paul Neufeld from John Fraser secondary school he was a, a phys ed teacher. He started a rugby program when I was in grade nine, I had no one had any clue what rugby was like, no idea. So we went out there learn the game. He taught it to us. There was a cup of some other grapes, but he was kind of the one funny enough. He was a relatively young teacher at the time. And, you know, we kept in contact and I graduated and he brought me in to help coach with him with a couple other buddies who went on to the school. And to this day, I’m still friends with them. We did the ride to conquer cancer last year, and we rode bikes for 65 kilometers.


Greg Firth (11:35):
And he’s, you know, he’s always been a, and it’s funny because you see the impact that these, these coaches and the teachers have on students. And I got an amazing message from a student three days ago who just signed a scholarship for basketball. And and her note to me was, was immense a lot. And you know, to see that other side that, you know, in the moment, sometimes it’s pretty thankless. And you know, it’s not always easy, you know, having a player, you know, there’s not enough time for everyone to play. And right now I’m spending a lot of time coaching basketball. And and it’s, it’s not always easy, but those moments, you know, maybe it’s not an in the moment directly, but five years, 10 years, 15, 20 years down the road, you know, they remember that offs a trip to London where they remember that fun bus ride, where the coach got up and danced and made a fool of themselves. Those little moments sometimes, or the, I had a, had a good friend who plays professional lacrosse telling me that he does remember too many of his championships as a kid, but he does remember all the hotels and the, and the team parties. This is a professional athlete that told me that once. So I thought that was a, that was kind of trouble.


Sam Demma (12:51):
Oh, that’s awesome. I love that story. And it’s a personal one for me because I played sports growing up as well. And I could name the coaches that have also had a huge impact on my life. That’s so cool. I know these days, things have changed for you in your teaching role, and you’re now doing more of the career focused stuff, but you mentioned that note that the student sent you, you know, and it felt like a really touching moment. And sometimes educators don’t actually ever hear about the impact they’ve made, although it’s still as real as it ever would be. But you know, those moments where you get a note or someone reaches out, whether it’s five years later or 20 years later is like, it’s like icing on the cake, you know? I could bet it makes you feel like a million bucks.


Sam Demma (13:37):
And I’m curious to know if you have any stories of transformation, whether in your new role now, or in any of your previous roles that stick out to you. And if it’s a serious story, you could change a student’s name or just not use a name to share it. The reason I’m asking is because there could be an educator right now, listening, who is thinking about getting out of this vocation, this calling, because of what challenges they’re faced with this year and a transformative story, you might be what they need to inspire them to keep going. Danny stories come to mind that you can think of.


Greg Firth (14:10):
So, because of my experience teaching, I taught grade three, I’ve taught, I’ve taught nine to 12. I’ve had a, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to, to work with a wide variety of subjects, a wide variety of students from a wide variety of settings. There’s a couple situations that I can think of my head, but I think, you know, what, what has recently, what is re what I’ve really focused on is the role that I’m in, in, in the high school setting is I used to go and I still do go to a lot of meetings of, of transitioning from grade eight to grade nine. So you hear these stories you know, you, you know, students struggling and literacy students, struggling, math students, not motivated. And, you know, we, we try to plan appropriately for that student. It is amazing going back and talking to elementary teachers and sharing the success stories.


Greg Firth (15:16):
Whether it’s been the student has found a passion, whether the student has found a teacher, a construction teacher, or an auto teacher that they’ve, that they’ve linked to, and they’ve taken a great liking to, to the trades. And now they’re going to continue and continue on with that trade. Those are the things that, that stick with me is that it is a path. It is a, it’s a, it’s a journey. And you know, every day’s a new day and, you know, I’ve had a teacher once told me the best teachers are, you know, we’re, we’re all drama teachers. We all have to, you know, start fresh the next day. It’s another play. It’s another day. You know, you don’t carry grudges. Kids have bad days. Kids will say terrible things. And, you know, you have to know where that get to know who the student is, develop those relationships and understand where that struggle comes from and, and, and continue to move forward and continue to guide them and continue to be on that journey with them.


Greg Firth (16:18):
And I think that’s, that’s no kind of the, the takeaways from it. All. I had a parent, an aunt actually call me at the beginning of September, just to give me a head you know, just wanted to touch base, let you know what, what my son’s doing now, or sorry, my nephew. And I shared with everyone who taught this, this child, and it was it was amazing. Everyone had huge smiles on their faces and, and his journey was different than a someone else’s. And, but that’s success. It comes in a variety of ways and and fighting those little moments to make a difference is is key. And it’s not always easy. It’s not always easy.


Sam Demma (16:58):
It’s definitely not easy now as well. I find teaching virtually presents its own different, unique challenges. I’m curious to know in today’s learning environment, how do you make a student feel seen, heard, appreciated, valued? You know, do you have any ideas around that?


Greg Firth (17:18):
Yeah. You know what, so when we started in March with the, the online learning, I don’t have a classroom, so I can approach things a little bit differently. But I set that my role is to be there if a child needs to talk or it needs to be in the air, you know, I need to be there and listen. And it may be every single day for 10 minutes. In some cases it was, and that’s okay. I, I feel that it’s so important to be, to make a connection in the school and that’s no different than online, you know, I think it’s, it all starts. I’m not, I’m a huge relationship person. I think you get so much by building positive relationships and it’s that whole concept, right? Like a co like, just going back to the coaching, like, you know, you have to develop that relationship with those players, if you want to get the most out of them, because there are times when you’re going to have to challenge them.


Greg Firth (18:16):
There are times when you’re going to have to, you know, address the elephant in the room and whether that’s playing time or whether that’s look, I don’t know if you’re ready for that next level. If you don’t have that relationship, you can never have that conversation and move things forward. So who I am is it’s, I’m a relationship builder. I, I try my best and I try to be present and I try to address everyone’s needs and a need to have a student who just can’t figure out how to log into Google classroom for the 15th time. That’s okay. We got it, we’ll work through it. And that’s what I’m here for. You know, we got to understand the stress that they’re going through in their homes and, and this new learning environment. And some of them it’s very, very challenging and, you know, the mental health behind it is it’s huge. And also recognizing who the other professionals are that I can tap into who I can call up and say, child, youth worker, Hey, you know what, I think something’s off right here. Like, can you connect or finding a club, an online club that, that, or community organization that they could tap into is, is all extremely important.


Sam Demma (19:24):
I saw on your Twitter profile for bell let’s talk day, everyone was holding up white boards there in your, in your, in your virtual class. I’m curious to know what was going on in the school board there, what were all the students doing? So that,


Greg Firth (19:37):
That was our I believe that was our student council and our student council. Again, just, we’re trying to find ways to connect with the students. And that it’s so important. You know, we just talked about our highlights in our high school, right. You know, we were involved in teens, we were going to pep rallies. We were going maybe to, you know other social events in the school. We’ll all of those kinds of just got taken away. Great twelves are missing their grad tens and elevens might be, or it might be a semiformal at the school. Great aids never had their grad. So coming into a, to this school, it’s just tough. And I think we, and I think the teachers are doing amazing, amazing work. And I think we’re being creative. I think we’re trying new thinking outside the box. And we’re trying to find ways to get students connected with the school, because we know if a student is connected to the school, great things will happen. That sense of pride, that that is, you know, school becomes easier. It’s a better place to come to. The more comfortable the confidence is built up. So I think finding those little things of of getting our students involved and letting their peers know, Hey, you know, we’re all in this together. And and, and we’re here for you.


Sam Demma (20:52):
I love that. No, that’s awesome. And in the role you’re in now with the career work that you’re doing, what’s kind of motivated you to take on that role. Like I know you’re someone who believes in following your dreams. As I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, why is this role a crucial one for you personally?


Greg Firth (21:14):
So I used to be a department head at another school another school in the department of special ed there. And the posting came up, the lady before me retired and this posting came up and I just, I saw it as a great opportunity to not only work with students in one community, but a wider community. We have students coming anywhere from, we have a student in grand valley. We have students in Shelburne in the past. We’ve had students in Bolton. We’ve had students in kaledin all over Brampton. So students are getting bused into our school. And it’s just an amazing opportunity to work with a great staff and a great school with great administration to to take something work with it, create it. And my whole goal has been to try to provide opportunities or provide experiences or you know, we created a few little in-house businesses and we worked with amazing partners and we created our spirit where we brought in a company called DJ and killers who they came in and they worked with our students and they, they created spiritwear for the entire school.


Greg Firth (22:24):
So it was kind of like we had a program, but there was a bit of a blank canvas to move it forward to, to, and those are the things that really inspired me to work with a different different students. And again, if I’m preaching, get students and out of their comfort zone or players out of their comfort zone, you know, I have to live by those words too. And, and I was, I had a great school. I was at Cardinal LeShae and, and amazing staff and loved it, had some great friends friends to this day, but from my myself, I needed to grow and and take on a new challenge. And and yeah, it’s, it’s been an amazing five years.


Sam Demma (23:06):
And if you could go back to younger Gregg and speak to yourself when you’re just starting your journey in education, what advice would you give yourself?


Greg Firth (23:20):
So I think I would, I would you know, tell my, I think when I was younger and I think this happens with a lot of us, no matter what profession there’s, there’s doubt, right? There’s doubt we’re not as experienced and we’re not as, you know, seasoned, and we’re not just like a rookie jump jumping on a team. Right. There’s always going to be that doubt. And, and that’s okay. I think you have to question what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. But I would also encourage, like, continue to talk to those teachers who have been there, but not just, not just your teaching partner, talk to that teacher, make that connection, continue to network, find out what’s going on in other buildings, find out what’s going on in other school boards, you know, there’s so many amazing, and that’s why I’m a huge fan of Twitter.


Greg Firth (24:08):
Like I’m a big fan and it may not even be posting material. It may just be sitting there going. That’s a really cool idea. That’s a really great belief or, Hey, I don’t know if I agree with that. And, and, and that’s, I think there’s some positive in, in the other side of it too, where you see people’s opinions and you were like, okay, well, why, why are they, why is it that, and you got to start, you know, getting deeper into these conversations. And but I would say, yeah, continue to network. Don’t take, don’t throw anything to the side, take it in and then decipher all that information and continue to move forward.


Sam Demma (24:45):
That’s awesome. And if someone is listening to this thinking right now that they’re inspired and they would love to connect with you and have a conversation about anything we talked about, what would be the best way for them to reach out to you?


Greg Firth (24:57):
You know what, we can go to Twitter @coachfirth, F I R T H. You know, that’s how you and I connected and happy to communicate that way. Email is a great way too. It’s greg.firth@dpcdsb.org . Anything teacher related happy to, to create that that learning network and and share and learn from you as well.


Sam Demma (25:29):
Awesome. Cool, Greg, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate you coming on and chat about your whole journey and what you’re up to these days. It’s really inspiring and keep up the awesome work kids. Kids need it now more than ever.


Greg Firth (25:41):
And Sam, same to you, man. You know, you’re doing a great job and guts. I know you had, you had Jason, the that’s, how we got got connected, and he’s a, he’s an amazing teacher and a great guy. And so, you know, thank you for what you’re doing outside of the school system as well. Appreciate it.


Sam Demma (25:57):
And there you have it, another amazing guest and amazing interview on the high-performing educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and signing up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities and I promise I will not feel your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Greg Firth

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 0

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

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

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

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

Connect with Bob: Email | Instagram | Twitter

Listen Now

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

Resources Mentioned

Huron Heights Secondary School

Ontario Student Leadership Conference

Jeff Gerber

Terry Fox Run

PickWaste

The Transcript

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

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

Join the Educator Network & Connect with Bob Kline

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

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

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