Kirsten 0:09

This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm curious to know the southern teach an educator and mom who is passionate about all things, social studies, I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. This episode is something that I've been planning for months now and has been on my content calendar. But it just hasn't. I haven't really been filled called to really talk about it and speak on it. And just like, for the last few months, I've just been kind of pushing it off pushing it off. And I think now I'm ready to talk about it. This time of year at the time this episode is being released. Sometimes it's like, it's that end of the year, you're questioning a lot about what you do. You're not sure if you may be wanting to return as a teacher. And you're just maybe a lot of reflection on what went well, during the year. what didn't go so well. And I have been wanting to share this episode with you. Because it's something that I do think about from time to time, I reflect on a lot of memorable moments in my teaching career that have defined who I am as a person and how I interact with others. And just lessons I've learned, and I want to share it with you, I'm going to try not to cry or get super emotional about it. It's just I've been thinking about it over the years. And I just kind of want to share it with you as like a, you're not alone. Sometimes things just don't go the way you plan. Regardless of what the situation is. And I'm just kind of sharing with you some of my stories about what happened to me during my teaching career. Some of it great, some of it not so great, some of it terrible, downright terrible, thinking back on it. But I wanted to kind of share with you something a little bit different than what we typically talk about on the social studies teacher podcast, I'm hoping maybe you can relate to something that I might share. Or you might have had a similar story. Or maybe you feel like you're the only one experiencing something, I promise you you're likely not. I know you're not alone. And even if maybe the stories I share with you are not relatable, or maybe you haven't luckily been able to have this experience, at least maybe just thinking about as you're going through your teaching career or you are continuing to teach. If it's something that you might experience or you just any lesson you get from it just to kind of take with you. I hope that can be something that's helpful for you. So I'm going to start off why I became a teacher in the first place. I initially was not going to school did not go to college to become a teacher. I got my bachelor's degree in psychology. So I was thinking I was going to be a neuro psychologist. No idea what I was thinking. But I think in the back of my mind, I mean, I never really thought of like teacher as a career. But it wasn't anything I wasn't not really wanting to do. If hindsight though I do think back as a kid, I was the kid playing school and with my stuffed animals and playing Sunday school with my stuffed animals and always wanting to help my teacher I was able to grade papers which I find really odd now like I actually graded students papers and like, you know, tallied up I had a little easy grader and it was able to tally up scores and gave it to the teacher and I was one of those you know, I don't want to say teacher's pet, but I was really loving helping out teachers. After school. I was in an after school program and I always like to stay behind with other friends and help you know, clean the teacher's classroom, clean the desks clean the chalkboard and wipe it and get ready for the next day and write the agenda. I did all of that stuff. I absolutely loved it. And maybe also I loved that we got candy after it after helping or teacher it was just also a way to get out of being in after school care, I guess. But it was just kind of fun. And then also thinking in my jobs as a teenager and My early 20s, before I even became a teacher, I saw that a lot of the jobs was always working with other kids. I was a swim instructor, I was a camp counselor, really most of my jobs related to like some type of summer camp or camp counselor position or swim lessons instructor. And so it's kind of funny thinking back now, like, why didn't I see the signs, I could have easily just gone straight into, you know, going to school for education. But that wasn't where my head was at the time. It really wasn't until I had a college job in the town that I went to school in working as a an after school camp counselor, walking, you know, we worked at an actual elementary school and I was walking down the halls and I had this epiphany of like, this is what I want to do, I want to be a teacher. And so what I did was kind of instead of, you know, completely starting over with a new major, I just went ahead and finished the major that I was in since it was already I had most of my credits and all of that. So I went ahead and applied for a master's program related to elementary education. And also, that program provided me with the opportunity to get certified as a teacher. So not only would I in the program with a master's degree, I would also have a teacher certification. So that is what I did. I applied. I was one of the youngest applicants. I was like, probably Yeah, I was 22. When I first started, not only I like I graduated early from college, I was 22. And I think maybe the next oldest was like 27. But most people in this program that I was in, they were in their late 20s 30s 40s. It was a lot of people who they worked in some other field, and they were in this program to get a teacher's certification. So it was some type of alternative certification program. So this was back in 2012. So we're, we're in 2012. Right now, I'm in this Mentor Program, taking classes and also doing student teaching. So this is 2012 2013 school year. And this kind of goes into my first memorable moment in my teaching career. It was my student teaching of 2013. And I had a really great experience as far as working with mentor teachers. Up until I was assigned my official student, mentor teacher. So I was officially student teaching was a mentor teacher, we had a connection at first, you know, she was she and I both went to the same college. And so we connected on that. And it was good at first until it wasn't it was very clear that she just felt that I for some whatever reason wasn't doing things exactly the way she wanted. And I'm all for you know, like making things your own. Like I remember specifically one time I was teaching about a concept in math to the third grade students. And it was a completely accurate way to teach like this particular math concept. I don't remember exactly what it was about. But because it wasn't the way she taught it, or the way she wanted, she literally in the middle of the lesson. She said, No, no, no, no, no, no, like, and then she corrected me in front of all the students. And that was not something I appreciated. It devalued my ability to work with the students. And I felt like she was kind of doing this thing where anything she does like we don't need to pay attention to the student teacher, like she had a lot of control issues. It seemed like and so it got it was just kind of this weird relationship, work relationship. She wasn't really letting go as much as she could have. The other thing about it, I guess, this school in particular had a large, big pressure in doing well in the star tests. The STAR test was fairly new, I think it was like this was the first year of star and so it was in the spring. So it was, I guess maybe a lot of pressure for her because she wanted her students to pass. For whatever reason she felt like she didn't have a lot of control and felt overwhelmed or whatever. And a lot of her feelings were taking on me and I could sense the tension and I just felt alone. Like I wasn't getting the right support and that even though I was being told what I was doing is fine by my supervising teacher related with the school. It just seemed like She had something against me, that's how I felt. And I remember I was at a meeting at my college, and I just broke down crying, you know, she is not really treating me, you know, professionally, she's taking control, I just feel like I'm shouldn't be doing this. I'm a terrible student, I shouldn't be a student teacher, I shouldn't be trying to teach. Essentially, she made me feel like I could not be a good teacher. And I would not do good as a teacher. And so my supervising teacher quickly swooped in, handled the situation, we had a meeting. And of course, I was able to get reassigned to a completely different school, different grade level. And I mean, the mentor teacher, she started feeling guilty, I guess. And she said, I have this sick feeling in my stomach, I think, basically, she got blacklisted and could not be a mentor teacher for the program I was at, in the future, I'm hoping. And so like, the crazy thing is, as soon as I went to a different school different, it was completely different experience, it felt so much better, I felt more confident in what I was doing, and that I could be a good teacher. And I'm still Facebook friends, like, I still keep up with my other my second mentor teacher to this day, we still keep in touch. And this is kind of like the turning point of like, I can do it. And sometimes you're gonna not be able to get, you're not going to be able to get along with everybody, and everybody's not going to be your friend. So the lesson I learned from this particular one is that if you know that you are being true to yourself, and you know that you can do something, don't let other people who barely know you, or you know, have a say and kind of dictate what you can do. I was able to teach for 10 more years after that. And I proved I had proved myself to be a perfectly competent teacher got, you know, those evaluations, great scores on my evaluation. So it was that one experience. But just imagine if I took that one person, the very first mentor teacher, oh, you can't you won't be a good teacher thinking about that, just how I if I were to feed into those thoughts, what would happen, I probably wouldn't be teaching for 10 years. And so that is my first lesson I have to share with you. The second lesson relates to one of the schools I worked at for a while, and it had to do with just this weird dynamic between teachers and parents, it felt

like high school drama. And I guess, in that moment, I was like, Well, you know, maybe I'm just not part of the in crowd. But the in crowd wasn't necessarily, they weren't really aligning with my values. I felt like it was kind of a mean girl situation, high school drama situation. And honestly, I am glad I decided I'm going to stay out of this and I'm going to, but at the same time, I was like, you know, it's that weird balance of I want to be friendly and friends with him. I want them to be able to invite me to places but also I'm just like, these are parents of some of my students or former students. And it just like, got muddy and it got messy. And that was one of the reasons why I had decided to leave the specific districts mainly one of them was distance but just a variety of scenarios, where it felt like I was in high school and I was just kind of you know, Oh being friendly just to be friendly, and you know, going to work doing my job and getting out of there. And so the lesson I learned with that is that, number one, not everybody's going to be your friend, unfortunately. And it may be you might really, you really want people to be, you know, have that really fun, friendly work environment. And everybody is like, you get to hang out on the weekends, you go to birthday parties, and all of that stuff. But I find that it's, it's so fine. It's like, just the favoritism. And just, of course, I don't know how it would feel like to be on this principles really bad side, I just kind of know how it feels like to kind of be neutral, not really the favorite, but not really, the not favorite. So I was just kind of in between. So it was just kind of a confusing few years at that particular school. And now I'm I sometimes I just like, it's like on Facebook groups with other TPT sellers, if there's some type of really big polarizing argument, I try to not get in the middle of it, like I don't want to be I kind of want to be neutral on it. I just don't like being in high school. Because in my actual High School, we did not have clicky, drama or anything like that. So it's just kind of funny of how I'm having, you know, at the school, I was at how there was more high school drama, than in the actual high school I went to, that's just something that I kind of remember. And it's not necessarily one moment, it's just like a, I just kind of put it all together because it was just all accumulating over a variety of years and instances. And, and of course, now I like I don't really keep tabs on them.If anything, you might have instances where you have teachers that are in some type of group or the principal's in the group with the teachers. And it's like a whole group of parents and teachers. And my recommendation is to kind of stay out of it honestly, like, just it prevents you from getting your feelings hurt, and people trying to turn on you and all of that. And unless you truly are really, really good friends with them. I think it's just kind of best to stay out of those type of toxic environments, toxic work environment, that was one way to describe it. All right. The third memorable moment I have had in my teaching career is related to hurricane Harvey. And this was in 2017, August 2017. This was probably one of the most stressful moments because it was so unpredictable. I wasn't sure what was happening in the moment and like what that will look like until later. So we were setting up for school, and I remember hearing wind of like, oh, yeah, there's going to be a storm or I think it was going to be over the weekend. I want to say maybe it was over the weekend. So I think it was Friday when I heard about this storm coming hurricane is coming. Like oh, okay, you know, I'm just ready getting set up and I think open house was happening. It was coming up and it was definitely a storm that's for sure. My my he was my fiancee at the time. my now husband, we were at a bar with some friends and it started to rain. And I remember the drive back man. It was very, it was very rough. We were driving pretty slow. It was windy rain, like, like you'd never you've never heard before seen before. We made it home safely. Went to bed were like, wow, I'm glad week because I know the friends like we left maybe around midnight or 11. And I know the friends that were there. They were like, yeah, the streets are flooded. And I was like Yeah, I bet because we were uh, we were really close. I mean, we probably couldn't have made it if we left 30 minutes later. And so then I wake up the next morning and I am looking in the Facebook group for our school and there's just pictures of houses flooded like Power Hour and people are trying to figure out what's happening to the school if the school is okay. And we're learning very quickly that it's not, I don't remember how many inches of water got into the school, but it was a total loss. Like, not only was the school completely flooded, and this is a this was a really old school. I think the school was established in 1960. And this was happening in 2017. And so strike Truly, like flooded houses, my students and my future students because this was right before school was starting their home, a lot of their homes flooded. And so just completely just, you know, it was really, really hard to see this happening in real time. Um, you know, everybody's checking to see if everybody's okay, and all of that. And after the water goes away, we're learning. I'm not sure like, are we going to be able to get back into school get our stuff in, we're learning within a few days or so that everything in this school is a total loss. I everything I had in that classroom, even things that I brought with me from home, like one of my Snuggies from college, it was completely like, we could not go in school and retrieve it, it was all gone and total loss. I lost everything in my classroom. And I think maybe an iPad was the one that was able, it was able to be saved. I think they were able to save the laptops and everything books, everything I collected over the years, was completely gone. And I was just so stressed, that was most stressful. Because we weren't, we didn't know where where are we going to start school? We can't, you know, use that building? Where

are we going to be what what's going to be happening? Like, how am I going to get my classroom ready if we have to start school, and this was going on for weeks, we didn't end up starting school until September 25. Because it was like, a few days after I had turned 27 I was in my 20. So it was the first time I had a birthday and school hadn't started yet. And also, something I did learn in the process is that your community just is stronger together. While this school was, you know, very toxic, and all of that, as far as relationship wise, we were able to band together parents, teachers, we all worked like as teachers, we went into the community to help get houses and clean and just kind of help out with food and all of that. And so we helped others in the neighborhood, move things to temporary houses and in turn these parents and other community members in my family and friends, they pitched in with Amazon wishlist and just got, you know, we got new, we got items that we needed to start the school year. And this was the top like, this is how I learned how to put together a classroom in like, it was not even like to date, it was like 24 to 40 hours, I had that classroom quickly, ready for school, because of the help. And just, you know, that was how I learned how to set up a classroom real quick. Because we had maybe like it was just this weird, like we couldn't be let in the building until a certain time. And so we literally had like three days of entry in the building before school started. And so it was just all in all really stressful. And the lesson I have for this one is just you can with the health of the community, you can band together and you can get by with the basics, basically. I mean, I was able to essentially build back, a library and all those stuff. Another lesson from this, you know, things are replaceable, even though I lost, you know, there are some things in the classroom that I never got to buy again. But for the most part, like anything's replaceable. It's not about what you have in your classroom. It's about how you make your classroom, inviting and welcoming, and just a safe space for your kids. And because I had a lot of students whose houses flooded and they were going through a lot of changes, and it was emotional from them. That was like my main priority is to make sure they're okay. It wasn't about like, Oh, I lost all this stuff. It was about how can I support my students? How can I support the parents of the students and the families in my community as a whole. All right, going into the fourth thing I have to share just like memorable moment is moving to fifth grade not expecting the move either. It was like a I think it was maybe April. I was teaching third grade loving it. I was like I love their grade. It's awesome. I this was at this point in time, I had never even thought to teach in fifth grade. Like I was like, oh, and they're scary. Um, I don't know about that. I should backtrack. One of the fifth grade teachers suddenly moved in the middle of the year and they were looking for somebody to replace that position for the following year. And they had a sub, I think for the remainder of that school year and so they were looking for somebody for the next year and It was this was not on my bingo card, let's just say that of being the one to be moved up to fifth grade. I know that, you know, there was a lot of interpersonal conflict in our team. And there were also a lot of new teachers in third grade, and fourth grade and fifth grade. And so in retrospect, I do think it was probably for the best. But in the moment, I was so devastated because I was like, not really wanting to move up to fifth grade. And now I am so glad I did, because I love not only did I love fifth grade, even more, I felt like there was, it's just more fun. I love those big kids that are like, some are taller than us. Some are smaller than you. And they're really fun and sarcastic. And also, US history, I would love teaching us history. And that was one of the things I loved about teaching it. So I taught the same subjects, it was just like a couple of years up moving up to fifth grade, I think only The other downside of it is like I knew I was going to be getting some of the same students. And that was another reason why I didn't want to move up to fifth grade, because I was like, I've already taught this group before, and then I gotta go back and teach them again. And it was actually funny because I started at the school at kindergarten. And then I taught third grade, and fifth grade. And I had a couple of students that I taught, they were in my class for kindergarten, and third grade, and fifth grade. And now looking back, I think that's really cool. Like, who can say that, like, yeah, my kindergarten teacher, and my third grade teacher, and my fifth grade teacher, they were all the same. So that was really cool to have some students, you know, for a second and third time. And I had learned to really love that particular group of students, because I've known them so well. And I just think that it was a blessing in disguise. So I know, maybe around this time you or somebody, you know, might be voluntold, it was a voluntold position, where you have to move up a grade level or two grade levels, or three grade levels, or maybe you're going from a testing grade to a non testing grade. And it's not something that was in the cards for you. It's not something you enjoy. But I would say give it you know, if worst case, just give it a year and see what happens. And if you end up liking it, awesome. Like, it's great. That's what happened to me, I ended up loving fifth grade, if you ended up hating it, you know, if there's any way you can go back to your ideal grade level, or it might be the time to move to another school or district with your ideal grade level. So that's just something to kind of keep in mind is really, really thinking about, even though we might have to be shuffled around, like, we get it that that might happen. Sometimes it's not the end of the world, sometimes it can be an actually really, it could be, it could be a good thing, it could be something that you may end up really loving. And I really love fifth grade just because of and if it weren't for that principal, making me move up to fifth grade, I wouldn't have known that I really enjoy fifth grade and that age group. All right. The fifth memorable moment in teaching we cannot go without saying COVID 2020 I know many of you listening might have been a teacher during this time. And this was also something not in the bingo cards for me is not being able to finish out the school year. This was I was teaching fifth grade at the time with the class that I had been with for the third time it was like Third time's a charm. Here we go. Let's do it. Let's finish it off. send you off to middle school was March it was right before spring break. We're hearing wind of this virus. And people are saying oh we may not be able to go back to school after spring break. Little did I know that we were not coming back to school for the rest of the year. And we are going to be doing some online zoom calls all that stuff. This was I'm gonna be honest and say that I we had a rough year not just me as a teacher, but like our grade level we were we had some really really intense behavioral problems behavioral students so like I hate to say that like it was kind of like oh my gosh, we just have to do zoom calls with them. Like that, you know, but at the same time, it was really sad because we didn't get to say goodbye. I did not get to see my homeroom again. I do not get to see my afternoon class again, all together. And that was the saddest part of it is not being able to say goodbye and wish them well especially because this is is the class that I had seen them since kindergarten. I've known them since kindergarten. And a lot of the fun things that you do before going to sixth grade, we have like a lock in, or I think we already did the login, we have like a trip to trampoline park and just the graduation and all of that. We didn't get to do it in the normal way. And so that was what was probably the saddest part. So there was good and bad to it is like, it was nice to not, you know, you only are on Zoom for like, an hour or two a day, and you're assigning some stuff. And we're done. Like, there, of course, there was a lot of stress on it. Like, you know, we all had to work from home, my husband had to work from home, and we had an almost one year old So, and this kid did not want to nap for the life of him. And so, like that was stressful in itself. But I almost kind of liked it until I got kind of older, I was like, Okay, I'm ready to go back to the classroom. But COVID was definitely a memorable moment. Because it was all new. We had no rulebook of how to teach during a pandemic, it was just different. And we had to be really scrappy on a lot of things.

And but it was kind of nice to work in pajamas. And you know, you'll you're only on for a while. And the lesson I guess I would learn from that is to definitely make sure you make sure your students know they are appreciated. And like, you know, give them a handshake, hug high five every single day as much as you can, because you never know when you're not going to be able to see all of them again, and just relish those moments, even the good, bad and ugly. I know even with the students who had a major behavior problems where like, admin was involved almost every day, I still would have liked to see them and just wish them well and as much as I can to help support them. But it is just something that you could have never predicted. And it's not something that I hope would happen again, I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I think it's just really hard, honestly, and just making sure your students know that you they're appreciated. And that, you know, supporting them in any way possible. Because I will say there were some students I was really worried about, you know, they wouldn't log on to zooms and I wanted to I was trying to check in with them to make sure they were okay. And I was you know, it was hard for a lot of kids and I know that they liked school was their home base, it was something that they really needed. Because their home life wasn't that great. And so I feel felt deeply for a lot of those students who, you know, school was their home base, and I hope now that they're doing okay, and that they are, you know, getting the support they need. All right, my very last memorable moment is towards the end of before I left the classroom before my son was born. And we were moving to a new city, new school, really excited about it. I was excited, I got a job in a really great district. And I was also very pregnant. I was in my third trimester. And we were starting the school year, I remember just getting excited to work in this really new school was like, brand spanking new school, it was like yes, a week, again, a nice little spot on the second floor. And then I get told that they don't have enough teachers, or it was just this really weird situation where they had to shuffle around teachers. And this is in the middle of the pandemic. There were some schools that they lost a lot of teachers and there were some schools that hired too many teachers. And so my school happened to be the one that hired too many teachers and they were trying to like allocate those teachers to other schools. Because I was last hired. I say that in quotation marks because I'm pretty sure I was not last hired. I was first to go to another school. And it was about to be another school that was way out of the ways of where I'm I go to school, I was able to negotiate with, you know, the principal to go to a closer school to where I was actually living. And it was just like, it was so I was like, Is this a joke? I am literally like, how is this happening? I'm very pregnant, about to go on maternity leave in two months. And I'm being told a week before school starts that I have to go to another school that I didn't even plan on, like attending, like, I had no idea that was even a thing. You could just do that to people a week before school starts. And so I was very stressed, very sad, like emotional. I had already started moving my stuff in that classroom. And I essentially had to move it all out of my classroom and to a new school. And because there was no communication, it was not connected with Tater. Well, I was being told that, basically, they're like, Yeah, we're moving you over right now. Or, you know, tomorrow, like, I was basically like, it was just the weirdest thing. And it got to the point, I was like, I have no idea what to do. So I'm no longer going to PD. So I'm just going to take my stuff out of this classroom. And I went to the district office, and like, I went up and talked to a specific person hire up to, like, let them know the situation. And they're like, yeah, no, this was not had, this is not how it's supposed to go, you're supposed to get a paper saying that you can be transferred over I'm so sorry. But it's like, you know, everything you're saying it's null and void. We are, it's what you know, like, bridges are burnt. I'm moving my stuff out of there, like we're good. And I ended up liking the school that I ended up that it was just the stress of moving right before school started. And it was not anticipated. Of course, you would think, you know, I could take unexpected things in stride. But there was another different scenario, it was just like, just the way it was handle. I don't, I really was really upset about the situation. And so, a lesson I guess I could share from this being suddenly transferred to a completely different school. I ended up liking the school, I think it was really great. I, I enjoyed the fact that it was, you know, the principal was very chill hands off. Like, like, they let you do what you needed to do. They're not trying to interfere, they're just trying to help other you know, they're just trying to like, especially because it was a new principal of the new school. And I wasn't the only one. So it was nice to have another team member who also had the same experience, like she was at her dream school. And then all of a sudden, she's saying, they're saying, Oh, we got to put you in another school. And we kind of like commiserated on that together. And so I had a buddy with me. And so just like trying your best to take unexpected things in stride as much as you can. And, you know, rely on a support system of a spouse or a family member to help you through it. And it may be just like, you know, suddenly being moved to a different grade level, you may end up liking the school better than the other school you might have initially better. So I ended up liking the school initially than the one that I was hired for. But then, of course, you know, circumstances as far as we did, we were on a waitlist for the nursery. And so I had to stay at home and for the remainder of the year. So I didn't get to finish that school year, just because we did not have a spot in the daycare. And so we kind of was like, you know, not by choice, but just kind of how the cards were laid out. But it was definitely memorable. Like, just really interesting how that transpired. But this is a really long episode, and just wanted to kind of share with you some memorable moments in my teaching career. If you have connections to it, or you want to share a memorable moment and what you might have learned or like maybe you had an aha moment, just from what I was sharing, feel free to DM me on Instagram at the southern teach, I'd love to talk with you. Just you're kind of like all these, these seemingly like, least crazy stories, I guess now thinking back and it's like, Did this really happen? It's just things are unexpected sometimes, and you don't have things on your bingo card. But number one, I feel like you know, teachers need to be paid so much more than just like, based off of all these experiences. I feel like I've lived a lifetime of just, you know, really interesting, stressful moments in teaching. But just despite what might seem really, really stressful and upsetting at first could end up really helping you in the long run or at least helping you with a trajectory of what could be even better than you expected. Not trying to like downplay anything because I definitely was in my feelings with things and I was not happy I was angry. I have been sad. I've been just a set and so feel those feelings but also think about possible opportunities that might come from negatives. This is not just in education, this is in life this this there's so many life things that happen to us and being in the classroom being a teacher is not an exception. So hopefully this episode has made you feel heard and seen like, you know, you're not alone. And just wanted to kind of share these experiences with others just so that they can also kind of learn from what I've learned. All right. Hopefully you have a wonderful rest of your week and I will talk to you again next week. Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode. For more teacher tips and strategies