We all have stories about our favorite teachers. Sometimes those memories are about how they led their classes, making everyone feel accepted and valued, and sometimes we recall a humorous moment, or maybe a hat or other accessory that became that teacher's "brand." More often, however, we look back fondly on how that teacher made us feel, what he or she did to help us learn, or the way their concern and understanding was conveyed to us. If you are a great teacher now, you are also building a storehouse of memories. Thank you. If you don't serve in a teaching role, you know someone who does, regardless of their job title. Take a moment to share a word of appreciation with that person. Great teachers make a difference. Let them know that you've noticed.
Show Notes:
00:15 - Teacher Appreciation Day 2024
00:25 - eight encore excerpts from seven guests
1:15 - Julia Roland - college student, art student, artist (segment 1 of 2)
3:00 - Lana Camiel - pharmacist, herbalist, professor, podcaster
4:30 - Mike Shannon - retired U.S. Army officer, current university president
6:25 - Joy Robinson - former teacher, staff member with the Professional Association of Georgia Educators
7:25 - Megan Golden - world language teacher and author
9:00 - John Beede - mountain climber, author, public speaker
11:00 - Kristin Hatcher - writer, runner
12:25 - Julia Roland - segment 2 of 2
14:35 - "Thank you!" to great teachers
Links:
Julia Roland episode - An Artist's Audio Self-Portrait (38 minutes)
Lana Camiel episode - Rx for Health, Living, and Learning (45 minutes)
Mike Shannon episode - Grit, Excellence, Leadership . . . Purpose (41 minutes)
Joy Robinson episode - We need more Joy in teaching! (37 minutes)
Megan Golden episode - Learning is THE World Language (38 minutes)
John Beede episode - Keep on Climbing! (36 minutes)
Kristin Hatcher episode - Tell Your Story (34 minutes)
Episode 7 - Host on Mic Episode - Teachers Matter (23 minutes)
Episode 16 - In A Moment - Changing the World (4 minutes)
Episode 24 - In A Moment - Thank You! (6 minutes)
Episode 34 - Many Voices, One Message - Teachers Matter (15 minutes)
Episode 38 - Great Teachers - Everyone Knows One! (13 minutes)
David Reynolds (00:14):
This episode's release date coincides with teacher Appreciation Week 2024. Yet it can be shared anytime. We want to acknowledge appreciation for great teachers. Today you will hear from seven podcast guests whose comments are worth revisiting when I listen to these guests. The themes that emerge are wrapped around the importance of building relationships, employing kindness, and treating others, especially students as we would like to be treated. Your takeaways could be different of course, but whatever you lift from these excerpts will undoubtedly bring to mind a great teacher that you know and that great teacher might be you. Consider taking a few minutes today to share a word of gratitude with a teacher who made a difference in your life. Let's get started. First, we are reminded that great teachers sometimes surprise students by sparking interest in a topic in an unexpected way. Listen to Julia Roland, young artist extraordinaire from episode 35.
Julia Roland (01:17):
I was having a conversation about this topic in preparation for this conversation with my mother the other day, and we were talking about how teachers can make learning a more engaging process for students. And from my view as a student, my favorite classes from high school and some from this past year weren't even art classes, but I think a lot has to do with the teacher's approach to the content. I had to take an art history class this year in college and art history can be very, very boring. So going into my art history class this past year in college, I was really not excited, but my teacher, my professor came into it just so excited about teaching us about not only the specific artworks, but the actual culture and everything and experience she's had, things she's seen that has to do with the work. And I mean, I started looking forward to that class and it was insane. If somebody told me five years ago, you're going to be sitting in an art history class fully interested in what your teacher has to say just based on her energy and her passion for the content alone, you could have fooled me. I would not have believed that. So I think it's really important for teachers to care about what they're teaching and it helps for the student to feel the same way.
David Reynolds (02:47):
Great teachers bring together a community of learners and build relationships and understanding over time. Here's Lana Camiel, pharmacist, herbalist, and teacher from episode 31.
Lana Camiel (03:00):
You should bring students and you should bring the community together, and that always has been very inspiring to me. And then when I was a teenager, before we left Soviet Union, I was studying software engineering, I was studying computers and one of my favorite teachers was this woman that was teaching us how to program. What I loved about her approach is that she would teach you how to draw a human body like a little stick person. That would be number one. That would be the first step, and then she would take you one step further and one step further and one step further. And so by the end of semester, we would have a bustling city with cars and buildings and shops and whatever, but it all started with that stick figure with this person. And so that really stayed with me. This ability to simplify things and make them very easy to digest and process and get that win early on that you can actually build that city at the very end.
David Reynolds (04:11):
Great teachers have a way of bringing a subject matter to life, and they have an immeasurable impact for a lifetime on those they teach. Here are a few thoughts from Mike Shannon, US Army Officer, retired and president of the University of North Georgia from episode 54.
Mike Shannon (04:29):
So Mr. Jones, I know I had him three of my four years of high school. I think it was history one, history two and something else. He was just an incredibly impactful person. This was 40 years ago. I remember right now what he would say in the hallway. He'd be out in the hallway in between classes and you'd be walking down the hallway and he'd yell stuff like, Hey Shannon, what are you doing today after school? Just stuff like that. The way he brought the classroom to life, and it's interesting, I went on to become an engineer and was always intrigued by science, but I loved history and I loved going into his classroom and he would talk about it was American history, so it was all of the revolutionary period and post reconstruction and all this kind of thing, and he would just bring it to life.
Mike Shannon (05:22):
He was magical about it. I also had the privilege. He was one of my coaches. Just those people, and I know people like this exist today in our high schools. The impact that they have is priceless. It is priceless. And I'm sure you could have anybody sit here in my chair today and give you that same feedback. But Mr. Jones was incredible. He was encouraging, he was tough and he chewed me out. I mean, he was one of my coaches. I can remember just things I'm probably not supposed to say here would say to me, but I couldn't wait to get back into his classroom and to be in that environment and to be a part of that.
David Reynolds (06:06):
Great teachers do things that sometimes amaze their students and they lead students to want to learn more, much more. Next, a word from Joy Robinson, a former teacher, but always a teacher at heart and now serving educators as a PAGE staff member from episode 20.
Joy Robinson (06:24):
My sixth grade teacher, Ms. Prince, she was the first language arts teacher that I had that played music like R and B music in her classroom. We thought she was so cool. It was a writing assignment. And I remember she said, we're going to listen to this music and we're going to do some journaling. And she ended up turning on Lauren Hill, which was the popular artist at the time. And I remember the whole class just sat there and kind of stared at her like, this is amazing. Being able to make those connections. Mr. Hines in ninth grade was the teacher that I spoke of about sitting on his desk and actually being able to teach me Shakespeare and working through Lord of the Flies on more of a thematic level that I didn't even realize there were so many themes in Lord of the Flies until his class.
David Reynolds (07:10):
Great teachers tell stories to make connections for students across subject areas and they provide great explanations for new content. Megan Golden, world language teacher from episode 43 shares a few ideas.
Megan Golden (07:25):
In terms of a favorite teacher. I'm going to have to give a shout out to Mr. Bob Pollock from Lakeside High School in DeKalb County, Georgia. I was lucky enough to have him two different years, and what was most exciting for me about Mr. Pollock was his enthusiasm. He was a history teacher and he was just a storyteller and he would get so excited and so animated. I was always excited to show up and listen to what he had to share. And the depth of his storytelling really inspired a love of history and the context around those historical events, which was the most fascinating part to me. I think I was always interested in history and language and context and literature. I'm very much a humanities person, but I think what most got my attention in his class was the backstory to those things, the things that brought them together that coalesced that moment. I think that has definitely permeated what I do in world language because a lot of times textbooks will have a cultural tidbit or a factoid, and I really want my students to go deeper than that and say, why is that the case? To question what circumstances generated that moment or that fact to understand the bigger context? And I think that was what Mr. Pollock really helped me develop and pursue in my own work.
David Reynolds (08:47):
Great teachers make personal connections with students and treat students with genuine respect and offer much needed encouragement. Next, an observation from Mountain climber author and public speaker John Beede from episode 36.
John Beede (09:03):
I was an acne ridden chubby middle school student, and I got pretty resoundingly ridiculed as a result. And there was a science teacher, his name was John Enrico, and he would greet me at the door every single day without fail. He would be standing at his door to greet his students as they walked in and he would look each one of us in the eye. You would not enter his classroom unless you looked him in the eye, shook his hand and he said a little word of encouragement to you. And then you got to go into his classroom and he would frequently take my hand, shake it, look me in the eye, and he would just say, John, I'm glad you're here today. Now go sit down. And that acknowledgement, that recognition of you're a human being, you're here. I'm glad that you're in my presence. And that sense of a pause, that something beyond, Hey, what's up? And something beyond student. How you doing today? That individual, you matter. My life is improved because you're here. That message that he gave me and every student was profoundly impactful in getting through that year and in a large way of forming of my personality. If you're out there, Mr. Enrico, I'm glad that I had you in my life. Thank you.
David Reynolds (10:46):
Great teachers make creative connections ensuring that their students are seen and heard and they take time to make students feel valued. These lessons are highlighted by writer and runner. Kristen Hatcher from episode 53.
Kristen Hatcher (11:00):
I was listening to some of your previous episodes and thinking about teachers. I had so many really, really good teachers growing up and I was trying to think what made them great. Why do I remember the teachers that I remember? And many of the anecdotes were just because I felt seen as a human and more than a student. I had a high school art teacher my senior year. I broke my arm and I had to miss a lot of my senior season of softball, and that was really, really important to me and I was pretty heartbroken about it. And my art teacher painted my cast. He painted a scene that was sort of like starry night on this cast on my arm. And I feel myself welling up thinking about it now because what a human beautiful gesture. I'm sure in his life he had much more important stuff going on than missing some softball games. But to me that was a really, really big deal. And I think his ability to use his gift and his medium for teaching to meet me where I was, that was extraordinary.
David Reynolds (12:06):
Great teachers go above and beyond to demonstrate care and concern for those they teach and they overcome difficult circumstances to make sure that learning continues no matter what. We close this episode with another word from Julia Roland, the artist and college student from episode 35.
Julia Roland (12:24):
Covid really started to hit at the end of my senior year, which was really tragic. We weren't able to have a traditional graduation. One thing that was cool though, my principal, he actually, we set up kind of a motorcade kind of graduation. So students that lived in certain areas had certain days and times where they would come outside and in their attire and he'd drive around and actually come to our homes or our neighborhoods and flip our tassels. And that was just amazing and it just really showed me how much teachers and these adults in our community really care about their students. So I really loved that. And I want to say starting college, it was kind of sad because I was still at home. I had planned to move into the dorms and everything, but obviously that wasn't going to happen anymore due to the state of Covid and everything.
Julia Roland (13:17):
So I was taking my classes on Zoom. I think what really got me going was, yeah, I don't really want to roll out of bed just a few feet over to my desk and sit at my computer. But I mean, everybody was going through the same thing, and I just saw how much effort my teachers were putting into the content and trying to engage us in information, and I just wanted to reciprocate that effort. That's really what kept me going and kept me strong academically this first year. And also, I think the main struggle for me with Covid probably was more on a social stance. I wasn't able to interact with new students and other people the way I wanted to, so I really just honed in and focused on my work, and I looked forward to creating things that I could talk about with my professors. So I think Covid definitely helped me to develop a relationship with my professors through my work.
David Reynolds (14:15):
Links to the complete conversation with each of these gifts can be found in the show notes, and you can peruse other episodes via the link found there as well. The show notes include links to five additional episodes because those installments also highlight the value of great teaching. On a personal note, I want to say thank you to all great teachers who selflessly share their talents with anyone who wants to learn, who consistently extend kindness to others and whose generosity makes real progress possible. Thank you for what you do. Thanks for listening today. Find the Lead Learn Change podcast on your search engine, iTunes or other listening app. Leave a rating, write a review, subscribe and share with others. In the meantime, go lead. Go learn. Go make a change. Go.