What's Your Motive?
In the Trenches of Learning and Teaching
As we navigate the trenches of education, listen in on the secrets to forging meaningful relationships amidst the necessity of order in the classroom. We recount stories of mentorship, the trials and rewards of urban education, and the indispensable process of continual professional development. This episode is not just a guide but a testament to the resilience and dedication required to master the balancing act between connecting with students and steering the educational journey. We honor the silent victories and confront the pivotal challenges, from economic strains on families to the unique pressures that come with standardization in educational approaches.
Wrapping up our discussion, we extend an olive branch of advice for new teachers, armed with the spirit of perseverance and a treasure trove of strategies to emerge victorious in the face of adversity. Our dialogue serves as a beacon for those seeking to refine their craft, highlighting the importance of extracting wisdom from every learning opportunity and the collective pursuit of shaping young minds. So tune in and join our passionate pursuit of education, as we share tales of triumph and the unwavering commitment to the nobility of teaching.
As we navigate the trenches of education, listen in on the secrets to forging meaningful relationships amidst the necessity of order in the classroom. We recount stories of mentorship, the trials and rewards of urban education, and the indispensable process of continual professional development. This episode is not just a guide but a testament to the resilience and dedication required to master the balancing act between connecting with students and steering the educational journey. We honor the silent victories and confront the pivotal challenges, from economic strains on families to the unique pressures that come with standardization in educational approaches.
Wrapping up our discussion, we extend an olive branch of advice for new teachers, armed with the spirit of perseverance and a treasure trove of strategies to emerge victorious in the face of adversity. Our dialogue serves as a beacon for those seeking to refine their craft, highlighting the importance of extracting wisdom from every learning opportunity and the collective pursuit of shaping young minds. So tune in and join our passionate pursuit of education, as we share tales of triumph and the unwavering commitment to the nobility of teaching.
Welcome back to another episode of the what's your Motor Podcast. Today I have a repeat guest, my man on my right hand, especially in education and everything like that. I know him as Holloway. You can call him Will, will Holloway.
Speaker 2:How you doing, will, I'm good man, how you living bro.
Speaker 1:Good, it's about time. It's been a long time, man. Yeah for sure. We finally been able to scratch out some time in the schedule, the busy schedule, and been able to get together.
Speaker 2:So you know it feels good. It's an easy Sunday today.
Speaker 1:No question, nice little easy Sunday. Got some things going on with the fellas, with the boys today.
Speaker 2:Saturday. But you know it's all good. Look at that, I'm all out of whack. But that's a testament to how things be going. It be going great. It be a lot going on. Yeah, man, to try to sit down and really get into it we normally get into it because we get a wrap-through after the day, but to be able to sit down and pot about some of the issues and stuff that we see, it's been a struggle to get to that point. But taking advantage of the time, yeah, exactly, taking advantage of the time.
Speaker 1:I mean pretty much. What we're going to talk today I'm sure is going to resonate with a lot of people on both sides of the coin, right, especially in terms of just the climate of education, how it looks, the perception, the perspectives and the thoughts and the ideologies behind what people believe education to be. So you know, for starters, you showed me, you sent me a video the other day. What was that? Last week?
Speaker 2:I think it actually might have been.
Speaker 2:A couple weeks ago I sent you a video in regards to and actually it's a couple videos that we probably should reference here. I know the first one was the guy that, after a year of working in a high school setting, was calling me quits, and you know I didn't have a problem with that if that's just not really what you wanted to do. But, like, when he started to go into why he was quitting, he was just saying how difficult it was. And you know, a lot of times he was feeling like it was the kids. It was the kids fault, but not only the kids fault, but the administrators fault for the kids not being able to make progress.
Speaker 2:And my thing was dang like after a year you made that decision, huh, and then, like in your description of what was wrong or what was going on, you took no onus, like you took no, no responsibility for what was wrong or what was going on. You took no onus, like you took no responsibility for what was happening. And again that to me was like and again I hate to even like really be saying it, but it's a sign of a weak teacher- oh yeah.
Speaker 2:That after one year at one school. So this is your only example that you're going by, you calling it quits and saying that the students and the administrators are to blame for it right and not only that, but the parents as well.
Speaker 2:So he, you know he pointed fingers at a lot of people, but never once did I hear him take any responsibility for the students that were coming into his classrooms every day, and so for me I just kind of took a little bit of an exception to what he was saying. Um, I do get what he was talking about because I, you know, I felt a certain way about certain parents sometimes. Before you know, I definitely had issues with administration. But, like, even when I was in in schools and I was working in a classroom, if I had issues with administration that was me and the administration's issue it had nothing to do with the children that were coming into my classroom that I had to serve.
Speaker 2:So first and foremost in my mind was that we're here to serve these students that are coming in right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so we're trying to do that to the best of our ability. These students are connected to the families.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so we're trying to connect the families to whatever resources that they might need in the community to be able to get the help that they need. Absolutely we sometimes take this attitude that everybody is on this level playing field and that when they come to you, that they already know what to do and they already know and they already been taught. And like you can teach kids at home, but you still have to show them what that means to you in your classroom.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, because I think we talked about it before. You know, respect looks differently in your classroom versus at home. The expectations are different, absolutely, you know, and even just the way in which they interact with each other, with different students Socially.
Speaker 1:You know because they've got siblings at home, Absolutely so the way they interact with their siblings is different than you know what is expected at school. But I think, like you said not to be mean, but it it does show like a sign of like weakness as a teacher. And, before we even delve into it, when we think about teachers, this just always goes back to that saying where it's like um, about like being a teacher is more than just teaching content so.
Speaker 2:So the best educators don't just teach content. Even if you're not the best, if you really are in tune with what you're doing, you really just can't teach content, right, it don't work. You have a group of people that are coming in with all these different levels and things, and so, again, if the playing field is not level and some are up here, a lot of them are down here. You know a lot of them when you're working in these schools, they're down here. You know what I mean, and so, and your baseline is here, and so, like, how am I supposed to get them up here by teaching the material that's here?
Speaker 2:That don't work like that, right, and then, if I only teach this material, so let me just say this real quick I always would tell my classes and I've done middle school, primarily when I was teaching fifth through eighth grade yeah, at home, I know you can just get up and walk to your refrigerator and get something when you want to, right, you're not at home, okay, so I need you to raise your hand and let me know what your intentions are before you actually even get out of your seat. That's a rule, it's a boundary that we have to set while we're in here, right? So that's the classroom.
Speaker 2:But I'm also preparing you for when you leave this classroom and you actually go into other social settings, that you know that there's rules that I have to follow there, because that's what kind of setting that I'm into right it shouldn't be that I get to come everywhere and behave the way I behave at my home, in my personal life, in a professional setting or a school's academic setting where people are supposed to be, so it has to be rules there, right? So some kids come in with a level of understanding about that and a lot of kids don't a lot of them don't.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the nature of what you're dealing with. So when I heard that teacher, when we're talking, going back to the teacher from the, from the instagram example, when I heard him talking about that, it's your job to help them understand those nuances. It's your job to help them come into the classroom. You know, we we say teacher but we want teacher just to be associated with whatever it is the content that we're teach them.
Speaker 2:And that's it and that's it, and I don't really you know we're going to delve into this a little bit deeper, but I don't see how that works.
Speaker 1:That doesn't. That doesn't define a teacher man. Um, we hate cliches or we despise cliche, but we're talking about teaching the whole child. It's not just academic man, no, it's. You got to teach them the social part. You got to teach them the emotional intelligence part absolutely emotional intelligence. How do we um? How do we deal with our emotions? How do we, you know, um reflect? How do we interact with somebody? How do we handle a dispute? Yeah, you know what I mean. How?
Speaker 1:do we come back? How do we and as teachers, you got to provide that opportunity for in that space, for them to do that and to redeem themselves, even if they do mess up in your class.
Speaker 2:In your teaching, the way you illustrate some of these things. What you're teaching in your content is by showing them how to actually perform those things. Right, Absolutely. And so, like you said, so we're going to have a debate. There has to be rules to the debate. It can't be just one side shouting against the other side, right? Yep so there has to be ground rules that you set in order for that to happen. If you set the ground rules, you can have debate about anything.
Speaker 2:Could be something that they're interested in and they'll be more passionate about what they're talking about right relatable but we always have to come back to the rules that we established or whatever, to be able to have the debate right. So, but somebody has to teach that, that, don't? You don't just say, okay, I'm gonna run this stuff, I'm gonna say this stuff to you guys today, I'm gonna expect that you take it in and that you know it yep you know we might be doing it all week, right, yep, but we didn't do anything to actually apply what we talked about.
Speaker 2:You know, there's there's one place where you actually have to do that, and that's a lot of times I say math and I say one place, but now I'm tripping. Now it's plenty of stuff that you could do with these subjects and put the application, but math you kind of forced to do the application, right, absolutely, and so that's why I use the example. So you, there's no way from you for you to get away from the example. But if I'm doing a history test, I can just read all facts to you, right, and expect you to know it but that's that's not how that works, though right.
Speaker 2:So sometimes you have to delve into the character. You have to find out about what their personality traits was. Find out what you had in common with them, what what you didn't have in common with them, what their philosophies were and how they changed from yours, right?
Speaker 2:what did you feel when you were reading about adolf hitler and nazi germany? Right, okay, I was a little angry. Now let's figure out how to use that anger, emotional intelligence, right, yep, and put it into something that'll be constructive to. When we talk about adolf hitler, it's not just us saying random facts in our opinion and hate and everything else about not raging.
Speaker 1:We actually being able to articulate ourselves and articulate our emotions absolutely you have to teach a kid that.
Speaker 2:No question.
Speaker 1:I think one of the biggest things that we hear is you don't know that, you didn't know that already. And I'm just talking about behaviorally, I'm just talking about socially.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, you know it's like you didn't know that your mama didn't teach you that? No, their parent actually didn't. As a teacher, when you recognize that, if you're a true practitioner, what are you going to do? I'm actually going to start before I do anything. What are we going to do? We're going to create a classroom community. Yeah, and the community have these laws that are binding. Do I want to say laws? I want to say rules rules laws are governing.
Speaker 2:You know bylaws whatever you want to say don't step over this line don't do that and this is our classroom community we close this.
Speaker 1:This is what we abide by in terms of this learning space here, but you, as a teacher, you have to do that. I'm not saying that man might not have done that, but it's your first year. You're going to have some problems, man.
Speaker 2:No question, it's going to be a lot of ups and downs. When I first got into teaching which was a long time ago or whatever I noticed like I'm two days in and I'm like they not listening. I'm trying to come in and I'm prim and proper. I just came out of a college class and I'm thinking they just gonna listen because I look like them, I'm showing up there. They should be appreciative of that right. It's not enough. That's not in their brain. They're not thinking about that.
Speaker 1:And I don't care what grade.
Speaker 2:It don't really matter what grade you have to prove to them that you actually care about them enough to show them like, okay, he actually is coming here and showing up and he's going to advocate for me, he's going to do these things for me, he's going to support me, he's going to encourage me, encourage me. He's not going to let me step over this line, which, again, I'm trying to push the line.
Speaker 1:He's not going to let me step over his line and he's trying to actually move me forward right, and even if he has to reprimand me or scold me, he's still going to show me some compassion and come back in full circle and talk to me later.
Speaker 2:That's the relationship piece though.
Speaker 1:Because he's not taking anything personal.
Speaker 2:That's the relationship piece, though, and so, again, going back again the Instagram post. You work at a high school. Chances are you got rotating classes coming in. There's a lot of students that you're going to see over the course of a day. I've been in those situations where I didn't have classes coming in and classes coming out and you got to learn a new 30 coming in and a new 30 coming out, and the same rules apply. Yep, I still had to have. See, I did all this work in the beginning, or whatever, chastising and setting these rules and making sure that these rules was there and making sure that everybody abided by these rules, and you know how you take the needle off the record and you make the noise like no, we going back because everybody tripped, everybody tweaked, we didn't do what we were supposed to do.
Speaker 1:Let me reteach that.
Speaker 2:Let's do that all over again. We got to reset, you got to do that all over again. We got to reset, you got to do that again, or whatever. So I didn't did this in the first couple of months of school. So by the time I get to the third month, when I had to reprimand somebody, now they know already like, ok, he doing this, in love, it's not right and it's understood.
Speaker 2:It's not something that he's doing just to be doing it. He not just saying it because he irritated. He, you know, he didn't come in this morning with a whole attitude because he had to teach students or whatever. That's not what it was. It was not. We've been talking about this. He established these rules and we've been doing it all together as a community. I overstepped the line or whatever. Now he got to say something to me about it.
Speaker 1:Right, and what's even better is when we have this community of kids that will even let you know, absolutely Let each other know.
Speaker 2:Before you say it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's even better for the environment when the kids will hold each other accountable.
Speaker 2:No question.
Speaker 1:They can speak up and be like. You shouldn't do that. What are you doing?
Speaker 2:No question.
Speaker 1:Now, when they get out of hand, like shut up, you don't want that.
Speaker 2:It can go a little too far. It can go crazy.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day, if you govern your community the right way and you actually allow those kids to have that input and have that flexibility to move around and figure out like how are we going to operate in this space, I think it really does a lot. But that goes back to the teacher training.
Speaker 1:So if my man is a, first-year teacher and this is how he feels after his first year. What supports did he not get? He got the academia, obviously, no question. But it goes back to what we were always talking about, that qualitative. Once we get in that space, yes, are you giving them the real-time application? Are you giving a real-time um toolkit for them to actually get into this classroom and know that I'm not just gonna be up there and I'm gonna say this is what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Turn the page 36 and they're gonna do it yeah, some spaces that may work, but if you're working in should I say it if we're working in inner? City. We're working in urban and urban education um I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna just say this real quick. I'm because we urban education for real, that it happens in urban education. But if you come in there and you're robotic and you're just reading from a script, it don't matter who your your subject like, unless unless exactly what we talk about, right, it take a village to do this or whatever. So when you do come from good parents and the kids had his understanding and the knowledge that I'm coming here and I have to do these things, I have to get a's, I have to get A's. Oh, okay, those kids most likely Going to be locked in.
Speaker 2:You're going to still have problems in that particular school, though. You're still going to see certain things, it may not be the same thing that you're going to see.
Speaker 2:But you can go into any school, you can go into a suburban school, and if you don't do, if you don't do these things that we're talking about, you're still going to have problems with those kids. It may it may take on a different way, but kids are still gonna lash out in certain ways when you don't do, when you don't set those steps up right. And so you going back to the teacher what supports didn't he have?
Speaker 2:management is a big piece huge relationships are a big piece learning how to actually establish those relationships and keep those relationships going and not take it personal is a huge thing. People have to be taught those things. It's not something that necessarily, if it's not in your makeup, you're not going to necessarily take that into your profession, and so you have to learn those things right. Somebody has to teach those things, somebody has to fine tune those things, and sometimes the skills are right there, but because nobody has really said, have you tried that? Or here let me show you really what I would do in this situation, and then you can take what I did and tweak it to whatever your liking is right, but somebody has to actually show you. Somebody has to work with you throughout that process. Now, for me it was a lot of trial and error.
Speaker 2:It was a lot of trial and error. It was a lot of trial and error but fortunately for me, I was around good teachers all the time, gotcha, and so I could leave my classroom on my break or whatever, and go watch a good teacher and see how they was really putting things in check and in order and made sure that their class was running like a machine. Now, in those classrooms with the good teachers, all of those good teachers still had a student that was below, they weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing. They, all of those good teachers, still had a student that was below, they weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing. They all had one of those students still right, yeah, but that student knew that student knew that student wouldn't disrespect.
Speaker 2:Now that student might go to a different teacher and be wild with that other teacher, but when they got to that room, even if they didn't do their work, they knew Don't disrupt this environment. Because they got it running like a machine in here, where this teacher is on top of the encouragement, they on top of the checking in with the students, they on top of the academic piece, but but like the students almost are like no, we can't do these bad things in this classroom because it's gonna have a poor reflection on what our teacher has taught us right, we know better we know better than that we're not going to do that right, and so when we, when we, but when we do it all in unison, we head towards this way, our teacher is.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm saying we feel better about it, and most likely our teacher is going to reward us with something anyway, absolutely, and so and two things that you said.
Speaker 1:Uh, because you know we got, we have that professional development that we got to do and what you were doing in presentation for that school.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think we might need to incorporate the importance of not taking things personal too. So when we talk about that because we're doing a professional development on anti-racism in the classroom yeah, so that would be important because obviously we were talking about the policies procedures, how you govern your classroom and things like that that would be important because obviously we were talking about the policies procedures, how you go from your classroom and things like that. But also when you were talking about what did you just not not taking things personally but you said something else.
Speaker 1:I just drew a blank man.
Speaker 2:The blanks do be coming sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:But not taking things personally, learning how to manage the relationships, maintain the relationships, continue with the encouragement, continue with the academic piece, and just realizing there's going to be a time that we're going to need to reset. There may be times that we need to kind of walk away and think about this other piece, but then there's other pieces where you have to also look inward and say, okay, let me go see it somewhere else, let me see what it looks like in a different classroom, let me see what it looks like with another professional, because everybody keeps saying Ms Benton is doing this really well, let me go see what Ms Benton is doing right. And again, I'm going to say something else real quick.
Speaker 2:We got a lot of people that are great at management but they can't do the academic piece. We got a lot of people that are great academically but they can't do the management piece. What we attempt to do in terms of our training is meld that together.
Speaker 2:Yes, get you a system based on what we talk about and the principles that we talk about. That's comfortable for you, so that you can make sure that those two pieces mix, because I've seen a lot of people that were great at management but the kids didn't really learn a whole lot.
Speaker 1:They sat down. They were compliant. No question.
Speaker 2:They sat down and they knew they couldn't do this or that in that room but they didn't really move forward academically. And then I saw teachers where teachers where you know if you really listen to that teacher you was going to learn something. So three or four kids really got something out of that class and if the rest of the class would have really tuned in, yeah, they'd have been straight, but like they were a little bit more interested in not listening and pushing it for whatever reason, and I've seen because it was because of the teacher, I've seen because of the environment there was not a lot of um, excuse me, support, right um in those particular areas where students were may have been sent out, needed to refresh um, but they were sent right back in and that teacher just didn't know how to to refocus and get it back together and so I feel for my man's um yeah maybe he just, he just don't know.
Speaker 1:No better you know, because it does take a lot to be a teacher, especially this day and age. It's just like when you think about teaching, you think about just instruction.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean yeah in general, people just think about I'm instructed. They don't think about the classroom management, they don't think about the relationship piece and all of that and um, I think it's disheartening that he had that experience. But it was like this is your first, your first year. Take that experience and go try it again. Let's come back to the drawing board. Let's give it a chance again.
Speaker 2:I mean you in high school, maybe younger kids. Maybe try with some younger kids, maybe try with a different administration, maybe go into a little bit more professional development to see what you could do to be able to remedy some of the issues that we're talking about. We're not going to be able to change the things that happen with many of the families and societies as a whole, but when students are in our classroom we do have a unique opportunity to be able to turn that light on.
Speaker 2:We do have a unique opportunity to be able to get them something that they've never been exposed to before and help them have a passion for something new that they've never seen, and then push that skill forward. And so you do have an opportunity once those students are have come to you. But you got to do something, sometimes a little radical, to get their attention. You got to do something a little out of the ordinary to be able to make sure that they understand that. No, this, mr holloway class, no, I, I'm not doing that with color.
Speaker 1:I know color not going it's an art, though to it right, it's no question. And that goes back to um us having our conversation just about how teaching is becoming so scientific to where they think that you can give a teacher a script, any teacher a script, and they can read it and it's just gonna work out wonderfully. When that's not the that's not the case, it's a wild take. That's a wild take. And then it's just like we talk about embracing diversity, cultural responsiveness and things like that.
Speaker 1:Right, but you want every teacher to say this to read from one thing to read from one thing verbatim, and if you don't, you gotta do it again in coaching practices which is robotic, monotonous, super boring and it's like what happened. I'm not gonna say what happened. They've stripped away so much autonomy and personality from the teachers to where they can't even be artistically special anymore. So therefore, like you say, if they go to mr holloway room, they know they're gonna get some some humor. He gonna, he got his line, he gonna try to make it interesting, but he's also going to provide the instruction that you need you go down to miss bender class.
Speaker 1:She's not doing none of that. You gonna sit and get. You gotta sit and get it you come you go down to Miss Stacy's class. Miss Stacy gonna give you a little bit of of all of it but depending on the day, she might not be in her right mind. She got something going on she's upset.
Speaker 1:She might be a little wacky with it, but those kids need to navigate those different individual people and those different individual people in those different individual settings of instruction, because when they step out into the world, when we're dealing with different people, it's a diverse group of people, so why would we take away that experience for the kids in education?
Speaker 2:makes no sense. We, we, a lot of times we go to whatever we think is the ideal thing, and then we try to focus on that ideal thing, and there are so many steps before you get to ideal, there's so many nuances and ins and outs before you even get to that, and so it'd be so many things that we miss along the way because we got our eyes on the big prize and not the journey that goes along with it right and so it's just weird that we think we can give out information and input it like we're robots and everybody's just going to be okay with that.
Speaker 2:You get a room full of personalities when you get a classroom right and everybody don't. So let me ask this what was the big thing that people pushed to you that would be the money makers as occupations when you were growing up? What would people say? What would be the two big things that people said Outside?
Speaker 1:of sports Outside of sports Doctor lawyer.
Speaker 2:Same two. So I just want you to stop here, because I just need you to understand that, right. But so that's the things that we pushed so many years for people to understand, like, oh, these people make a lot of money right yep, we didn't talk about engineers. We didn't talk about architects. We didn't talk about chefs. We didn't talk about therapists. We didn't talk about uh, any anything electricians, electricians. We didn't talk about therapists, we didn't talk about anything.
Speaker 1:Electricians.
Speaker 2:Electricians. We didn't talk about carpenters, we didn't talk about any of those things that you can do to actually really make a living, and that's actually representative of what you see when you go outside into this world right these different array of people? So how can you say one thing for everybody? I'm a teacher, you're a teacher. We got 20 teachers. Everybody has to read from the same script. Where's the personality and diversity?
Speaker 1:I'm not a script guy I don't have to take that I do not have to take that. Don't do not give me a script. You hear me? I have to stand for this and I don't, and I don't like it for the teachers man it's crazy's crazy, the script stuff is out of hand.
Speaker 2:It's wild to me.
Speaker 1:Data has a place, science has a place. Get out of the way sometimes so we can actually and granted, listen, some teachers actually need the script, no question.
Speaker 2:Some people need that because that's how they flourish in that particular environment, absolutely. So I need somebody to script it out for me so I know exactly what to say and that's how I'm gonna, that's how I'm gonna get it done and again, so I want you to understand there's a place for that. It's a place, it's a person that does that right. So, like when I'm dealing with people on the phone or I'm walking into an office and I need to talk to people, you can tell like, oh, they strictly from the, they buy the book, they buy the book, they on the script, they not deviating off that script, right. But there's other people that you come into contact and they know how to actually talk to you and work with you. Go back to the script, jump off the script.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And then still get you to that same place. And they didn't do anything wrong. They didn't take a shortcut, they didn't take an alternative route in terms of something that was negative. They took an alternative route, but it still got you to the same place. And then you felt a lot better about it because we can actually have a conversation on our way to it do you think?
Speaker 1:it's crazy, you think buddy had a script.
Speaker 2:You think he was a scripted type thing no, I don't think he had a script, I think what he was, again Because I know he blamed some of the parents too.
Speaker 2:So again you're coming into that and you're a young man, you're a young lady and you haven't had a whole lot of interactions with people, with children. It's difficult sometimes, right? So these parents work a lot of times and these parents sometimes you're not dealing with a parent, you're dealing with a grandparent. They don't know technology, they're not answering text messaging, you know, they don't know nothing about zoom calls or google meet. They're not doing none of that. So they have to come up there, right, but they don't know the dates to be able to come up there or whatever, because the kid will hide the stuff. How many kids do we know that will manipulate their grandparent, their aunt, their guardian?
Speaker 1:oh, too many.
Speaker 2:So again, or whatever, sometimes we don't connect a lot of times. You know, the last school that I worked at, the last school that I was a part of, they kind of shun parent involvement.
Speaker 2:And so that voice really wasn't a part of what was going on. But the expectation is that we're going to, you have to take care of all of these things that we say you got to take care of at home, and that don't work. You can't talk to them, parents, that way. So again it's. It's the same thing with the students is getting an understanding, is trying to figure out what's going on with this parent? How can I be a help if? Is there resources that I can offer? Um, you know, we we've heard situations where, right, 90% of the parents are below the poverty line, and we both was like no, no, no, ain't no 90%.
Speaker 2:Some of these kids living better than us. Some of these kids, they got more resources and things than us. So you got to be careful. So don't make assumptions about what do you think this kid is this or that or whatever.
Speaker 2:Sometimes or whatever, I'm both, you and I, working parents, two parent households right, we got kids that still do things that they're not supposed to do in school. It's not it's not so egregious in our case or whatever, because we stay on top of that, but like they go to school and they still make mistakes and everything else, there still has to be a process in place for those kids too, right, and so I just, I just. It is weird to me, whatever, going back to you know the script thing that we think that we can give a one-shot deal to a room full of experiences from all over the place and that works on the flip side. I've been in places where the teaching staff and the academic staff and the building staff was so colorful it actually made up a beautiful thing at the end of it, because this person can have his personality and still be a good teacher, but it's different from this person over here this person was still a good teacher, absolutely, but they didn't have the same personality.
Speaker 2:They didn't have the same rules. The kids knew, though, when they switched over from this person to this person, what the change was. They saw the nuance right yes and again. If you see enough of that growing up, right when you get to be an adult, it is not a shock to you when you have to enter into these places. So a lot of these kids want to be all kinds of things where you have to interact with people from all walks of life.
Speaker 1:All walks of life. You want to be able to allow those kids to have different conversations with a variety of people in a variety of different under um circumstances. But you get that. You can get that in school right from the different teachers you interact with right, I remember mr graph was funny, but he was strict. Miss brokowski, she just didn't play no games.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean I knew what teachers miss pfeiffer was like your mama. You know what I mean. I knew, based on the personality of what I was getting into. When I walked in there, miss gastro, I knew he was gonna have a field day up in there.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I'm throwing in there. You know what I mean. I'm throwing paper balls. Absolutely you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:But I also knew that my homeroom teacher was going to be looking like okay, what are y'all doing over there? And I'm still a representation of her, but also an extension of my parents, yep, and I'm representing myself first and foremost.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:But you need to kids the opportunities to actually go through those things, redeem themselves when they do mess up build on it yeah, and I wish I'm not sure what you know um our man's circumstances was or what his training was like, but I'm sure if he had something like you said, like some kind of maybe a mentor teacher or just being able to, like you said, um, go observe another teacher that's doing it well, I think he would fare better and may think differently and it probably would have been a different outcome maybe. But when you in teaching, you gotta be, I hate to say, but you gotta be built for it, man you really gotta be built for it, and it's not something.
Speaker 1:I hope people don't take it wrong. It's not something. You just you go to school for it and that's it it is, it's not. You know.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting that you say that, because I wanted to say, like, highlight you in a sense, right. What you said and what we just talked about was students that have these diverse experiences, or when they get to be an older person or whatever. You can drop them into any environment and they can survive, they can have a conversation and you're a testament to that, like you've been to so many schools when you were younger and I ain't trying to put you on blast, but you had a lot of experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was crazy you had a lot of experiences going to those schools, right? So by the time you come out of high school you're such a well-rounded individual because you've been around so many different experiences right. Then you go on to college or whatever. Do your college thing. Get out of college you're getting health care. You go back to school to get your master's degree right. Get that figure out like dang. I kind of want to become a teacher.
Speaker 2:Go back and get another master's degree right think about the number of diverse people that you had to meet in all of those experiences to lead you to becoming the person who you are right, absolutely, and so I want. I just I wanted to highlight that because when we talk about this you, you just ran off a a gang of teachers who you remember, like I remember being in that room and you couldn't do that here but if I went down there I knew we was gonna get a little bit of fun.
Speaker 2:In right, we was gonna do what we had to do, but we, we was going to get our fun in Shout out, ms Gastro. Shout out to all those excellent teachers back in the day, man, we had a lot.
Speaker 1:Shout out, ms Roslindberg.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying we have a lot of Shout out, mr Reeves, or whatever. Mr Reeves used to check us on the way in. When we went in there you knew you couldn't play with him, right. We had teachers that would rib you like, roast you and let you have it. You need that At the end of the day. They was humbling you and made sure that you knew you had to come back down or whatever, and really focusing on what you was doing and it was loving, in love, in love.
Speaker 2:I never had a teacher who I felt like I had to do something too because they was ribbing me or whatever.
Speaker 2:But I've had teachers like really flame me though right and it was just like at the end of it, like no, I gotta eat that, like I gotta take that one or whatever. So it just made you a well-rounded individual too, because it's people in in your life right now as an adult. They're not gonna play with you, they're gonna let you have it right if you, if you come out and you slip, and they gonna let you know about what's going on?
Speaker 2:they're gonna let you know it. So it's funny, man, but at the same time it's like you gotta have those experiences or whatever, and then you get to a certain point and they can put you anywhere. They can put you in any environment. You'll be able to have a conversation with anybody about anything. You can find the commonalities, even if there's differences. You're going well. Just tell me about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Right, it feeds into what you're doing right now and all the good work that you're doing on the what's your Motor podcast. So I just really wanted to illustrate that, because that's really what we're doing, and to change gears a little bit. That's what you and I do as far as our consultation when we want to go in and we're working with these schools and we want to work with these educators. We want to be able to illuminate some of this stuff to you guys, because we see that there are a lot of people that are struggling and there are a lot of people with a lot of misconceptions and there are a lot of people that didn't get the type of training that you really need to be able to sustain yourself throughout a school year and throughout a career. Doing this. I've been in education since 1998.
Speaker 1:It's 2024 you've been here for a minute.
Speaker 2:So it's over 25 years of working and with, with different groups and people and different things. So we've seen a lot of things, yeah, and I've seen you flourish in every academic setting that you've been in, and so, um, you know, it's just really time for us to be able to step out and really try to get some of this information, because, at the end of the day, we're really trying to get everybody forward. If we teach teachers how to be better teachers, then we get better teaching environments, which that helps the students and, at the end of the day, that helps our parents yeah and so we create these better environments?
Speaker 2:right, so we may not be able to go all the way up to the top and change legislation about everything that's going on with schools, right? We just had the mps referendum where people were voting yes or no to increase this tax money to be able to pay, and so many people were like, well, we're never going to even see the benefits of that. Yeah, the students, we, the students may never come up. It may take a whole four years for that to implement, so that four years of students that went through that they may not even see the benefits.
Speaker 2:They may not even see it, and that's how it works and so that's the biggest things that we talk about. So we need to be able to do something so that we can make an impact on the inside of it. Now, despite the money, despite whatever the red tape says, despite because, at the end of the day, we still need to build these communities up we still have to change the narrative about what's going on in the city. It was Milwaukee, wisconsin, like we got to change some of the things that's going on here, and that starts by really trying to impute into the people who are supposed to be pouring into our future every day.
Speaker 1:And really trying to get to individuals like my mans that you know felt the way you felt and wanted to walk away no question especially, you know, like you said, he doesn't know any better um especially putting the onus on parents. And granted, you know, uh, the parents do have um some influence and they're, they're definitely responsible to it.
Speaker 2:But sorry to say it takes a village major stakeholder in what happens, right. But like that part is the part that we seem to not understand is is a really, really, really difficult part. You know, we we have so again just talked about the referendum, right. So if that goes through, taxes go up. That person who's struggling on the line is struggling even more. Now they got another thing that has to come out of their check.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So that may mean going and getting another job. That may mean less exposure and time with your child.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:If you have a bigger family and again we can go back to why have children in the first place, all right, the children here.
Speaker 1:now they're here?
Speaker 2:What are we going to do with the children that are here now? How are we going to help these families actually overcome these hurdles to be able to sit down with their children at dinner time? I got just enough time to pick you up from school, drop you off and say get started on whatever you got to get started on, and I got to go to work and I got to do what I got to do and, as a teacher like you, can help mitigate some of this stuff. No question.
Speaker 1:And not say you can always eliminate it, but you definitely can help. You know help with some of it and we did a lot of it during COVID. You know you know making deliveries and things like that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I just you know somewhat disheartening that you know he has to feel that way and nobody kind of like tugged and grabbed his coat to try to help him understand it, because we do have families, that they are struggling you know what I mean. And we have families that that aren't struggling just will turn a blind eye to everything we know that for sure.
Speaker 1:So we I'm never going to give them an excuse or let them off the hook, but this is what we kind of like dealing with and when, in teaching, you got to immerse yourself in that because at the end of the day, remember during the school year, that's what they're with you most of the time.
Speaker 1:So the things that you're trying to inculcate the things that you're teaching, the things that you're providing, that social, emotional you know, emotional intelligence and, um, the way we supposed to carry ourselves and conduct ourselves. That's you know. Sad to say, that's on you a lot of times.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you should. And as a teacher I need the teachers to kind of embrace that and like want to do that and want to feel that. But I can't give them my fervor. I can only tell them what happened. You know what I mean. I can only tell them how my experience, like you said, when you first started it was hard to get these kids to even be quiet. My second grade class made me lose my voice. I thought you just tell kids to sit down and be quiet and that was it, to be quiet.
Speaker 2:That wasn't the reality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, but guess what I'm like? Let me try that again. No, I gotta try that again, y'all it's on me to flip the switch.
Speaker 2:Y'all got me today, but tomorrow I'm on something else it's kids here.
Speaker 1:They got impressionable minds. We can't continue to complain about what the kids are doing if we're not even trying to get to them early absolutely we're really not trying to put our hands on them. Be like uh, come back and standing on it, even when they try to resist, and trying a different approach, and bringing them back again. And bringing them back again. That's what kids, that's what they do in school no, question this is where they make.
Speaker 2:They make mistakes continuously it's supposed to be allowed for that school is allowed for you to make a mistake and be able to learn and grow from the mistake what it's for.
Speaker 1:I thought that's what it's always been for you fall and get back up. You teach them, you let them know. What are we doing right.
Speaker 2:What is this?
Speaker 1:educational. It says teach, I have to teach and instruct. I may have to provide some kind of discipline, some kind of consequence for whatever is going on, but guess what? I'm still gonna show that compassion, I'm gonna show that love, I'm gonna show that guidance because, at the end of the day, I need you to become a great human being, the best human being you can be.
Speaker 2:I have a whole blanket around you, right yeah, the whole child right it's not one thing. So, like exactly what you, what you're speaking to is just not one thing.
Speaker 1:So how do we get so far away from that ideology, though? You know? I mean, it, has it been the the new innovations? Has it been that? I don't know, I just recognize that and, like I told you the other day, I called you and told you I was listening to ray allen on jj's podcast and he said something that was like exactly like you have to be, you know, a man willing to plant a tree under whose shade they may not ever be under. That speaks volumes to teachers.
Speaker 2:No question.
Speaker 1:I could tell this kid every day hey, don't do that, let's do this, do this, help me better in this, try that harder, come back, do it over, sit back down. Let's try that again, let's try it again. I may not see him actually do it. You might be able to see it. I don't get to see it, but guess what? I planted that seed.
Speaker 2:You were part of the spark that helped that light bulb go off.
Speaker 1:That's all I'm saying, man.
Speaker 2:Again. You may not be in the room when the light bulb go off. You may not ever see it right. I've been fortunate enough to be in this long enough to have kids that pop up. Some of these kids are real gangsters and will stop and be like Holloway, right? Yeah, what's going on? Oh man, I knew that was you. Man, I don't forget a face. You know you was always one of the ones that tried to do this and tried to do that.
Speaker 2:Even when we was doing this and even when we was doing that, you was the one that told us, you was the one that tried to make sure, and that always resonated with me.
Speaker 1:Right, it'd be wild to hear them even say that, because you'd be looking at them like they're not living that lifestyle, but like they remembered that and that's important, because during that time, when I was saying it, even though I was repeating it, I'm like man, he ain't gonna get it, that boy, I can see where he going with it.
Speaker 2:He ain't going to get it. That boy, I can see where he going with it. He ain't getting it.
Speaker 1:You know, and it's not like to, you know, place him in a category, but it's just like you can see it.
Speaker 2:It's unfortunate but, like you can see, like they not changing the habit right, yeah, yeah, yeah and you getting closer and closer to adulthood, right?
Speaker 2:And so, again, in my capacity, with what I do right now, I who come into these spaces and they can't talk, they can't have a conversation, they don't know what to ask for. They have an email in front of them and they haven't read the email except for the one line where it told them to come to our office. They didn't read anything else where it told you exactly what to do in that particular email. They don't have the skills. I mean the range is crazy. The age range is crazy.
Speaker 2:And again, that's not to be like I'm trying to talk down on, on those people that come in and they need that help or whatever, because when they come in here I got to be willing to help them, just like I will be willing to help a 12 or 13 or 8 or 9 year old. Absolutely right, I have to be able to walk them through that. But, like, at at the same time, when you get to a certain age and you go into certain places, they're not going to treat you all again. The diversity and how you actually are going to be treated once you get to be an adult and the expectation that you're supposed to know right you're supposed to know this already, so I'm not
Speaker 2:gonna walk you through this. I'm not gonna hold your hand, I'm not gonna. You're a grown man, you're a grown woman, I'm not gonna do this for you, and so we. So, again, it goes back to that again. Right, we don't have the grace and the patience to be dealing with no grown-up that don't have these skills, right? So it's imperative that we reach them early and teach them these traits early, absolutely, if we don't have but. But how are we gonna do that with just the home? So for the people, again and again, I I felt like buddy that wanted to quit after the year.
Speaker 2:Right, but if we only rely on the home to do that part, then we're going to really, really, really have some problems absolutely so because unless we're fixing the homes then we're not going to make that much of an impact with just the home that's only one sector, that's it and we talk about we just how many times we said it's a cliche, but it does take a village, it does take a village, like we need a whole team the whole, the whole shabama land man, the whole wing thing.
Speaker 2:so I don't what, I don't know why we even think that, but again you had a bad day, a string of bad days. I've been a teacher who's had a string of bad days. And then somebody asked me a question, same here, and somebody asked me a question and I was ready to sound off.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I didn't really care too much about what I was saying.
Speaker 1:I don't want to hear it.
Speaker 2:Until I went back and reflected and said no dog, that's you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't do that.
Speaker 2:Them kids was wilding because you didn't set the tone Exactly, you didn't put something in place.
Speaker 1:You didn't go back to the drawing board, you got to tighten up.
Speaker 2:You have to, and again, as teachers too. This was another issue that I was having. That made it be difficult. I was fiercely independent and had a hard time asking somebody for help. So I was fiercely independent and had a hard time asking somebody for help, so while I was going and watching and observing other teachers, that was my way of not having to ask them what you do, right, so what you do to make them sit down, let me go and sit and watch them real quick, hey what's going on, Ms Culp.
Speaker 1:Let me sit down here for a minute.
Speaker 2:I just came to see some of your kids, right?
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:So you got to be able to ask for the help. But you can't ask for help if you don't see any holes in your game, so somebody has to critique you. You do need a mentor. You need somebody who's gonna have some tough conversations with you, and you gotta be willing to take that right. As a teacher, you give out criticism and that kind of thing all day to students.
Speaker 1:You got to be able to take some, so you have to be able to take some.
Speaker 2:I know we get to an adult and we think we're not supposed to have to do that anymore. That's a bad way of thinking about it.
Speaker 1:And I'm not even talking about in the form of, like a teacher evaluation. We're just talking about actually going out and summoning some information from somebody else and you taking an initiative to do that, versus you waiting for the two times or three times that an administrator comes out to observe you and then you reflect on it and then you write down some stuff on it and they give you goals. I'm not talking about that. We're talking about actually seeking out this on your own.
Speaker 2:Or the PD that they make you go to when everybody is dog tired and don't feel like listening. Pds was always done at the most random focused times so inappropriate.
Speaker 1:Let them have the time, bro, go home.
Speaker 2:Let them have the time. So administrations do have a piece to do with this, because we talked about this a lot.
Speaker 1:I used to talk to my principal.
Speaker 2:What can I do? People want time back or they want money, yep.
Speaker 1:They don't want a reward, that, that, a gift card is nice, a food, a meal or anything.
Speaker 2:A pizza party is nice. I can afford my own pizza. I don't want you. You can tell me good job and all that, but that needs to come with an incentive that actually makes an impact on me in my household. Absolutely so. Either give me the time back so I can go take care of me in my household, or give me the money that will allow me to take care of me in my household. Those are the two things that that teachers to me generally wanted. They didn't. They didn't necessarily want all that nah flash.
Speaker 2:And some people do like the attention. Some people do want to be put up on a pedestal in regards to that. We know that. So we but like, and again, those are those. Again, that's the different levels of diversity that you got in your building. Some people do want that attention. Some people do want to win all the awards, but some people are really just satisfied with you saying you know what? Go ahead and take half a day. Y'all been working hard, go home and try to enjoy the rest of your day. Or you know, I seen you've been working hard, or whatever. Here's an extra whatever. Yeah, we're gonna throw that on your check, or we're gonna give you a little bonus this month because we see. We see what you've been doing right.
Speaker 2:We use that stuff so to me that's what that's what it's about, or whatever, because you got to do something to help them be able to move themselves forward too. So, um, sitting there and making them go to a PD on a Friday afternoon when everybody could just be at home grading papers or doing what it is that they want to do at that time makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 1:Or even going to pick up their kids. Sometimes they don't get to pick up their kids.
Speaker 2:And I'm saying this as a person who comes in and wants to do PD. I'm saying this as a person that actually wants to do PD, as a person who comes in and wants to do PD. I'm saying this as a person that actually wants to do PD as a thing.
Speaker 1:Hopefully your administrator doesn't do it at a really inopportune time, I mean.
Speaker 2:and again we've been in classrooms where it started out a little like yeah, I don't really feel like being here, but you gotta turn it up a little bit, give them a little bit of something.
Speaker 2:And again, I remember being in pds and being like I don't really want to be here, but always hearing something in the pd, to be like I'm gonna try to see if I can take something away from this, like I heard what you said about that. I'm gonna see if that worked or I'm gonna, I'm gonna tweak it in a way to where I can actually incorporate it into my practice. So, um, but yeah, man, I, I think it's, it's a lot that goes into it. It's a lot of shareholders, it's a lot of people that have to be able to have a seat at the table in order for kids to be able to see success. So it can't, while those people that he pointed out do share some blame you at the front of that table too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we at the forefront, you right there.
Speaker 2:You right there and again I apologize to that guy, that young man or whatever, for his experience, but if you do something after one year and it's your first time doing it, maybe that really wasn't for you to begin with. It's a lot of difficulties that you're gonna have when you come into these these positions. They don't really matter what, what profession that you're going into, you're gonna have ups and downs, and if you, if you're dealing with people, you're definitely gonna have ups and downs. You know what that? Remind me of what profession that you're going into, you're going to have ups and downs, and if you're dealing with people, you're definitely going to have ups and downs.
Speaker 1:You know what that reminds me of. What's that? Before we get out of here, remember that meme I sent you when he's like God. You know that job I prayed for I'm about to quit. I'm about to quit. I'm feeling quick, it's over with, I can't do it, but don't quit, uh, if you, you know, I mean really reflect, do some reflection first, um, before you just give it up and try to get some more perspective. That's, that's the main thing I want to leave find a mentor it's very, very important that you do that.
Speaker 1:You know, um, look at, try to reach out and find some people that you might want to observe, you might want to connect with.
Speaker 2:Really try to, you know, build your, your, your resource group for some people that you can actually maybe try a different grade, maybe do summer school at a different school and and see if you can get to a younger grade and and maybe fall in love with with teaching that particular age range. Um, I know, for me, whatever I started out, I started out too low, they. You know, I started out with a fourth grade class and and I was like they a little too squirrely for me.
Speaker 2:I jumped to 5th grade. I was like this is a little bit better. When I got to 6th, 7th and 8th grade, I was like yep. Here they go. These are the ones. Especially when I was teaching, when I moved into the guidance counseling Of course I had to deal with the whole buildings.
Speaker 2:But the majority of the students that I was working with were six, seven and eight grade students or whatever, because they could actually articulate, they could understand a little bit better. Um, and then you know they valued those activities and actually got the the point of the activity. So, um, it was a lot. It was a lot more to work with them. So you really got to find your niche. Yeah, you really got to find like-minded people. We come into these spaces sometimes and they're veteran teachers. They're so disgruntled. So you really got to find your niche. You really got to find like-minded people. We come into these spaces sometimes and there are veteran teachers there that are so disgruntled and they have every problem under the sun and they're going to load you up with it. And you just got to that space and so you have to make up your mind for yourself.
Speaker 1:And try to stay away from some of them.
Speaker 2:This is what I'm saying. So sometimes you got to say know what? That person's been here and they ain't seen some things that I ain't seen. So they may be beat down by the profession a little bit. Let me try to come up With these fresh eyes. I heard what they said. I want to take note Of what they said, but I don't want that To dictate my practice, right?
Speaker 1:So for the new teachers, keep at it, do some reflection, reach out, do some research. Reach out to us at ice consultants to calm. Also, we're on Instagram at ice consultants please reach out to us. Holidays on there and you know, keep on, keeping on, keep on, keeping on keep pushing you, I keep pushing alright, until next time. What's your motive?