Episodes
Thursday Nov 04, 2021
Parent Teacher Conference, Upper School Edition: The Power of a Story
Thursday Nov 04, 2021
Thursday Nov 04, 2021
This episode of “Parent Teacher Conference” takes us to the Upper School, where Emmi Sprayberry (chair of our arts department) facilitates a conversation with Raymond Huang, current senior; Tangela Chambers, mother to two upper school students (a senior and sophomore); and Dawn Denham, senior seminar English teacher.
High school is full of challenges...and for many students it is where they start to figure out who they are and grapple with the idea of identity and belonging. In the past 19 months, our students have had their worlds deeply changed by a pandemic that redefined what was our new normal as well as the murder of George Floyd that sparked a movement. In this podcast, we feature a meaningful conversation about what diversity, equity, and inclusion look like in a high school setting and how we can create spaces that build deeper connections and community:
- What diversity, equity, and inclusion mean to our guests (3:00-7:00)
- Bringing people together in a positive way (7:00-13:09)
- Encouragement for listening and fighting against fear and the “what if’s" (13:15-17:00)
- How educators can help communicate to students where the safe places are that students can go to have conversations (17:30 - 21:30)
- The power of a story (21:35-23:35)
- Personal experiences in relation to DEI (23:45-31:30)
- The need for more educators of color and systems that impact who end up teaching (33:00-36:15)
- Self reflection; where it all begins(36:30-42:00)
- Being comfortable with being uncomfortable (42:00-45:00)
- Suggestions from each guest for one small change in a classroom environment that would help promote more diversity and inclusion (46:10-51:30)
Wednesday Oct 27, 2021
Parent Teacher Conference, Middle School Edition: Positive Classroom Environments
Wednesday Oct 27, 2021
Wednesday Oct 27, 2021
Thanks for stopping by to check out the first episode of Parent Teacher Conference! This episode features a thoughtful conversation with 5th Grade History Teacher—and St. Andrew’s parent—Meriwether Truckner, Haydenne Archie, a current 8th grader at St. Andrew’s, and Katie Hathcock, a parent of two St. Andrew’s students, Stella and Carter. We chat about classroom management styles and student behavior, centered around an article in Edutopia by Ben Johnson. It was such a privilege to sit and chat with these three ladies. Mrs. Truckner has been a colleague I’ve looked up to since I started at St. Andrew’s because her organizational skills and her classroom management are among her many talents, and I loved hearing Katie and Haydenne’s perspectives on parent involvement in student success in the class as well as what students can do to be more successful stewards of the classroom. Hope you enjoy the episode!
Our conversation is time stamped below:
- What makes for the best classroom environment (1:45 - 7:00)
- Self-care & its impact on behavior/teaching (7:20 - 14:00)
- Parent & Teacher communication (14:05 - 19:20)
- What do you do when things go amuk? (19:30 - 24:00)
- COVID’s impact on management & behavior (24:05 - end)
Tuesday Sep 14, 2021
”Do it Anyway”: Stories from two third year teachers
Tuesday Sep 14, 2021
Tuesday Sep 14, 2021
We end our mini-series, “Living it: Stories from the Teaching Life” with a laughter and truth-packed episode featuring two of my favorite humans (not to mention educators) in the Jackson Metro Area: Shamia Hopper & Lucy Kaplan. I had the pleasure of working with both of them while at Millsaps College, and I can quite honestly say that both Lucy and Shamia feature the killer combo of being simultaneously (1) real (2) brilliant (3) 100% committed to more equitable spaces for teaching/learning for all youth (4) super fun to be around.
Shamia Hopper is a founding fourth grade teacher and grade team leader at Smilow Collegiate. Her passion is teaching black and brown kids that live in low-income areas in our state. After school she runs a vegan meal prep business called Shamia’s Food Diaries (Find her on Instagram). Lucy Kaplan is entering her third year teaching middle school ELA in Jackson, MS. She is passionate about teaching writing, creating an accessible and inclusive classroom, and education policy. After school, she self-publishes her own writing and sings in a punk band. Both have taught for three years which puts them squarely in that sweet spot of “knowing stuff” and “still discovering stuff.”
During our conversation, we discussed:
3:31-5:15: How Lucy’s experience with challenges in her own schooling led her to a career situated in the classroom.
8:32- 10:50: Why the best teacher education is steeped in community engagement; Shamia’s story of becoming inspired to educate.
11:20- 14:17: Why Shamia loves math, and when it comes to math instruction, multiple strategies beat out one-size-fits-all recipes.
15:19-18:32: Real talk about what it was like teaching kindergarteners at-home and in-person concurrently during a global pandemic.
18:32-20:03: That oh-so-recognizable-teacher-feeling of “I KNOW THIS COULD BE BETTER!”
22:25-26:33: Stories from Lucy’s first year of teaching seventh grade English: on the feeling of being “coached” and the vital importance of just being yourself as an educator.
28:10-32:04: The most valuable lessons Shamia learned with her five and six year olds first experiencing school in the midst of a pandemic; “it wasn’t me versus them; it was us together.”
33:50-36:55: The time Lucy raced one of her students during recess.
37:05-41:10: Two reflective teaching practices you have to try, courtesy of Lucy: (1) keep a list of something good you observe each day when teaching in tweet form and (2) ask your students for “one piece of advice you’d give youth taking this class next year.”
44:58- 45:33 : Shamia’s final tip, bound to inspire us all: “Do it anyway.”
Wednesday Sep 08, 2021
Meeting Students Where They Are: Mentoring as Teaching
Wednesday Sep 08, 2021
Wednesday Sep 08, 2021
This week's podcast features Tonja Murphy, Community Engagement Coordinator for the Mississippi Book Fest. Tonja is an amazingly passionate and talented woman who uses her skills as author, consultant, and motivational speaker to give back and invest in the community of Jackson, MS. I first met Tonja at a banquet for Red Door Jackson, an after school tutoring program for kids in JPS. I was serving as a coordinator and she had come as a community member and JPS parent to support the work that Red Door was doing within the community. From the moment we met, I was blown away by her heart to empower others to be their best selves. This theme is at the heart of anything she does, whether it is helping kids navigate what books they need to get and how to do online schooling in the middle of a pandemic, mentoring young teens, or promoting a love for reading. I could go on and on with her list of accomplishments and why you should know her if you don’t, but I’ll let the podcast speak for itself. I always come away from my time with Tonja inspired and challenged. I hope you too are able to come away with some strong nuggets of wisdom.
During our conversation we discussed
- The wonder of teaching middle school (2:00)
- Guidance for middle school students vs. telling them what to do (3:00-4:00)
- Expectations vs. rules (4:00-5:00)
- Mentoring and tutoring in the middle of a pandemic, using the platforms that students already used to connect with them , and the power of meeting students where they are (6:20-11:00)
- Using Tik Tok as a means to get students to analyze music, apply critical thinking, and engage in textual analysis (11:00-13:15)
- How Tonja came to do working in community, where passion met vocation (14:00-16:25)
- The importance of having something outside of you to inform your work (17:00-17:30)
- What do you wish educators knew? (17:45-20:)
- What advice would you give teachers coming back into the classroom this year?(21:00-21:25)
- Grace (21:25-22:40)
- The importance of community engagement (23:00- 25:50)
- Instances that have stuck with Tonja (28:20-30:08)
- Was there an interaction that was a pivot moment that moved you to turn outward vs inward? (31:30-32:47)
- Avoiding the scenario of “when helping hurts” and cultivating mental health (33:05-38:08)
- Living what you preach and teach; fostering the skill of reflection. (38:08-44:10)
- Socio-emotional-learning and the loss during a pandemic -- getting to know the students and where they are at now (46:15-50:00)
- Fostering community within a classroom and knowing who is in the room (50:01- 52:05)
- What book should every educator read? (52:20-53:25)
- Don’t let your experience frame how you help them navigate theirs (53:45)
- Organizations to connect your students with (54:50-56:25)
Wednesday Sep 01, 2021
Finding Your Jam When You Feel Like an Imposter (Featuring Josh Brister)
Wednesday Sep 01, 2021
Wednesday Sep 01, 2021
This week we’re pumped to release our second episode of "Living it: Stories from the Teaching Life" featuring Josh Brister, a great human and an even better Spanish teacher at St. Andrew’s. Josh Brister came to St. Andrew’s in perhaps one of the most challenging years for educators in a century. In the episode we discuss being a new teacher, being a new teacher in the time of COVID-19, the joys of teaching middle school, and developing meaningful relationships with kids. Personally, I’m honored to be able to call Josh a friend, I’m even more fortunate to call him a colleague, and I had the pleasure of being his mentor last year during his maiden voyage at St. Andrew’s. Hope you enjoy the episode!
During our conversation, we discussed:
- Being a teacher, especially a new teacher, in the time of COVID, Imposter Syndrome, and working at a place like St. Andrew’s (1:30 - 12:00)
- The educational value of YouTube for Teachers (13:00 - 16:00)
- “Show me you’re a middle school teacher without telling me you’re a middle school teacher” + Why Josh hates baseball (16:00 - 25:00)
- Building relationships with kids and dealing with setbacks/conflict (26:00 - 36:00)
- Burnout & managing other interests/hobbies while teaching full time (36:30 - End)
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
Leading with Love (Featuring Dr. Anita DeRouen)
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
Tuesday Aug 24, 2021
This week we are proud to kick off our second series (Living It: Stories from the Teaching Life) with our release of “Leading with Love,” featuring Anita DeRouen, Ph.D., an English teacher at Murrah High School in Jackson, MS. A former professor at Millsaps College, DeRouen has published on race and media representation, digital literacy, and most recently Richard Wright and modernism (with Anne MacMaster). DeRouen also serves as Community Liaison for the Millsaps College Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Center and is an independent racial dialogue consultant. I’ve been lucky enough to count Anita a colleague and a friend, and her ability to crystallize truth into words has shifted my own thinking in powerful ways.
During this conversation, we discussed:
- (5:45-6:35) - Poetry as a vehicle transporting youth to literary love.
- (9:45-13:17)- How Anita “winnowed her way” into teaching (and why every single person should work in retail or food service at some point for at least a year).
- (13:35-18:00 )- The role of empathy, bounded choice, and addressing perfectionism for teachers working with “high achieving kids not living up to their potential.”
- (18:28-19:37 )How particular school contexts produce particular expectations around “what learning looks like” which then trickle down to assessments.
- (20:19 -23:55 ) Why the next time a student misbehaves in your classroom, you need to internalize the phrase “it’s not you; it’s the chair.”
- (24:23-25:50) What a gift it is to see the humans in our classrooms, not as a homogenous group, but as a collective of unique individuals, including our own “geeky . . . nerdy sel[ves].”
- (31:29-33:30 ) Keys to growing and working with colleagues: brought to you by a compliment from her grandmother and “listening with a healthy, not a sick, ear.”
- (33:31- 35:10 ) What it requires to work as a Black academic in predominantly white institutions.
- (35:27-39:37) Pitfalls of white institutions seeking to become “more diverse”: on labor and the importance of discomfort in the process.
- (40:28-44:21 ) How “leading with love” could open up an entirely different set of questions, positively transforming our education system (and our world).
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Centering Agency (Ft Tim Fish)
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Last but certainly not least in Season 1 of Inspire & Innovate: A Podcast for Educators, we feature NAIS Chief Innovation Officer: Tim Fish. He started his career as a 4th-grade teacher and has served as a founder, board member, and consultant for a variety of education and technology-related schools, organizations, and companies. His Magnetic Mountain metaphor has been formative for school leaders across the country, and we found that speaking with Tim about it really brought it home for classroom teachers as well. We found Tim warm, honest, and thought-provoking, and we hope you do too.
During our conversation, we explore:
- How fourth graders gave Tim his first orientation to the world of teaching and why playing football with the kids at recess can have unintended consequences (4:02-7:15)
- How Tim conceptualizes innovation. Spoiler alert- it has nothing to do with chasing the shiny and new! (11:07- 12:39)
- Why it’s important to differentiate between the what and the how of innovation . . . and why doing “retrospectives” can reframe failure as learning (16:10-18:04)
- Why deep empathy and vision-led innovation are a powerful combination in this particular historical moment (18:05-19:25)
- How Tim’s interest in “nose down to nose up” NAIS schools led him to first conceptualize the Magnetic Mountain (20:05-25:27)
- What this journey metaphor has to do with the micro everyday choices that classroom teachers make (26:45-32:28)
- What Tim doesn’t mean by “not returning to now-town” (teachers- you are going to applaud!) . . . and a reminder that innovation is a disposition. (33:30-35:55)
- What now-town has to do with bias, privilege, and inequity (37:57-38:59)
- The difference between reactive and proactive innovation . . . and why the reactive innovation we’ve all been doing in response to the pandemic is much more draining (39:13-40:25)
- Why agency is a big deal for both faculty and students now more than ever and one trend Tim’s noticed among teachers that have maintained energy during this difficult season (41:25-42:38)
- How one high school faculty member managed to maintain high academic standards in this difficult past year while recentering the student experience (43:45-48:19)
- How Tim’s favorite teacher when he was a young reaffirms the importance of “really climbing into kids’ lives, being present with them, and helping them take the next step, whatever that might be” (53:26-55:15)
- Must-reads from Tim! (57:44-58:50)
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Monday May 17, 2021
“Centering Teaching by Design” (Ft Michael Nachbar)
Monday May 17, 2021
Monday May 17, 2021
This week’s Inspire & Innovate Podcast features guest, Michael Nachbar, the Executive Director of Global Online Academy, a pioneering network of schools and educators reimagining learning to empower students and educators to thrive in a globally networked society. If you’ve ever wanted to get inside the brain of a teacher planning learning experiences, you are going to seriously enjoy this episode.
During our conversation, we discussed:
- How Michael’s background and experiences in curriculum led him to the work he does now…and how incredible teachers re-thinking their craft helped GOA get its start ( 2:30-12:04)
- GOA’s “northstar” mission and approach to coaching educators, helping leaders in the Design Lab, and providing deep learning of the skills students need to be successful in college, career, and life ( 14:00-18:51)
- The mindshift of being deliberate in the outcomes you want to see and designing intentional learning experiences for students (18:52-22:00)
- Teacher wellness and how it applies to having a varied approach to providing student feedback (22:10-25:10)
- Keeping relationships and communication at the center of student experiences during asynchronous learning (25:12-29:49)
- Challenges teachers faced this last school year due to constraints they had to navigate and how “necessity can drive innovation in a big way” (29:50-33:25)
- Articulating your northstar and designing learning experiences to match that (33:26-35:00)
- Focusing on equity and justice, and as teachers, being aware of students’ unique experiences with empathy and compassion...and rethinking what we teach and how we assess to be more culturally relevant (36:15-39:18)
- Helping parents and guardians understand the how and the why behind what we do (39:20-40:30)
- Michael’s predictions he made a year and a half ago about educator competencies and the need to continue “upscaling”...and a focus on supporting teachers’ health and wellbeing (40:30-45:30)
- Aspects of teachers’ work that are rejuvenating and reenergizing and lowering the cognitive load (45:30-49:50)
- What “getting back to normal” looks like and how we will navigate the return to “normal” with virtual components moving forward (50:25-55:08)
- Michael discusses his favorite teacher (55:18-57:20)
- The book that Michael Nachbar thinks all educators should read (57:25-58:35)
Don’t forget to also tune in to our Teacher Talks companion podcast...this week, Julie Rust interviews three amazing upper school educators….Wesley Saylor, Nancy Rivas, Gracie Bellnap
Monday May 17, 2021
Teacher Talks: Michael Nachbar
Monday May 17, 2021
Monday May 17, 2021
OurTeacher Talks companion podcast...this week, Julie Rust interviews three amazing upper school educators….Wesley Saylor, Nancy Rivas, Gracie Bellnap.
Monday May 10, 2021
Centering Relevance (ft Charlie Jenkinson)
Monday May 10, 2021
Monday May 10, 2021
This week’s Inspire & Innovate Podcast features guest, Charlie Jenkinson, serves as the Chief Strategy Officer for the World Leading Schools Association (WLSA). He believes that “schools have responsibility to act as powerhouses of social and global mobility” and he leads with a vision of ever-broadening access to and transformation of our educational spheres. During our conversation, we discussed
- How Charlie’s experience as a student led to his drive to transform the system of education . . . and why extrinsic motivation never worked for him (4:10-7:28)
- Why this transformative work cannot be the sole responsibility of individual teachers or even individual schools . . . a network is required (7:29-8:00; 18:10-18:53; 25:35-26:54)
- A powerful example of why simply developing individual, measurable skills and performance is not enough for transformative teaching/learning (8:02-9:02)
- How WLSA is fighting for equity and access for all youth to learn, travel, and develop as global citizens through the acquisition of intercultural lenses and working toward change (13:58-16:30; 53:56-55:50)
- Why the pandemic makes all of these commitments more important and more timely than ever (16:30-17:55)
- The kinds of experiences youth need to thrive: featuring (in part) the double helix of “a deep understanding of what they offer the world and what does the world need from [them]” (22:08-25:35)
- The influence individual teachers and schools can have (26:54-28:58)
- Charlie’s philosophy about the utilization of literature in schools in relation to student interest and faculty expertise (28:58-31:58)
- A new phrase (and literacy practice) to incorporate into your vernacular, thanks to Charlie’s dad: “reading ‘round your subjects” (32:40-36:12)
- How an individual school can best contribute to a network of schools, and why those of us in the Jackson, MS area are uniquely positioned to provide youth opportunities to study and make sense of civil rights in the US (38:30-41:25)
- The definition of intercultural intelligence and why it has more to do with math class than you might think (41:31-48:25)
- Why a combination of a proactive and responsive curricula is key for older youth (48:26-51:33)
- Why your ability to connect personally/relationally with your students is the part that really sticks with them (56:35-58:36)
- The book that Charlie Jenkinson thinks all educators should read (1:00:18-1:00:01:46)
Don’t forget to also tune in to our Teacher Talks companion podcast . . . this week I interview two St. Andrew’s superstars that both teach and fill a variety of other central roles at our school: Kate Dutro (our lower school librarian) and Rev. Annie Elliott (chaplain, upper school teacher). They help us unpack Charlie’s interview in some profound ways, so don’t miss it!
Monday May 10, 2021