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What's Your Educational Purpose?
42 Plays3 years ago
During this discussion, Abbie and Robert discuss what the purpose is in terms of their career. What's the point of doing all that you do for people? Is it worth the mental strife? Is your legacy permanent? Are you easily replaceable? Join administrator Robert Hinchliffe and teacher Abigail Peterson as they examine different educational topics from various points of view. Take the challenge of looking at a topic from another side and see if your opinion may change. In the end, no matter what side you are on, it’s all about perspective. What’s yours?
In this episode, the hosts discuss:
- Their current feelings about why they do what they do?
- How difficult it can be to be caught in the middle of purpose vs. reason.
- What's the point of doing all that you do?
- Is it bad to expect so much of people when others do not value all they do?
Connect with Abbie and Robert
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ItsAllAboutPerspective2021
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Its-All-About-Perspective-102961565105781
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ItsAllAboutPer2
Abbie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kindergarten_chaos/’
Robert on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pryncypalwithay/
Robert on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobertHCCSD
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Transcript
Introduction and November's Chill
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to It's All About Perspective, a brand new week, a brand new perspective. Hello, Robert. Hi, Abby. How are you?
00:00:27
Speaker
It is November.
School Schedules and Holidays in November
00:00:30
Speaker
We're enjoying cooler weather, lots of things going on in our country and in our state and in our city. What's happening with you? There is a lot going on. It's no school in November, but we're getting through that. So it's choppy, but we have a full week this week and then next week we have two days and then we come back for three before winter break or four. I don't even know anymore.
Purpose in Education: An Introduction
00:00:55
Speaker
I'm day to day, but anyway, today's topic, I was thinking about this, basically due to a person that got fired in Colorado and then kind of some stuff that I've been going through is what is, I don't know how I really say it, but what's the purpose? What's your purpose in education? Not life. Everybody's got a different purpose in life, but what's your purpose in education?
Revolutionizing Education: Robert's Reflection
00:01:21
Speaker
Mine has always been
00:01:23
Speaker
I feel to kind of revolutionize or change education in some way to move the bus forward in Clark County or the nation. Um, but I've been thinking about this, this person in Colorado, kind of in the same place, jumping all over again, trying to set this up. She, um, she was on like good morning America. She's been on Instagram. She does all kinds of things. She got fired.
00:01:52
Speaker
We don't really know why from what I know for allegedly pushing back against admin a little bit. So I guess between that and my own personal thoughts lately.
Challenges in Finding Purpose as an Educator
00:02:03
Speaker
What's the point? I can build a school or we we are building a school and I have to say Thompson's amazing. I'm a little biased, but it's just if you follow us on Instagram, you can see this stuff that we do is amazing. Most of the staff.
00:02:20
Speaker
But hypothetically, I could be like that teacher in Colorado and be assigned a home, fired, moved to a different school, and they would fly my job instantly. And then someone could come in basically and say, we're not doing any of this stuff. And then basically all that we have worked for could just evaporate. So again, I struggle lately a little bit with purpose.
00:02:47
Speaker
What's the purpose when in reality we can all be replaced tomorrow? Does that
Understanding Purpose Through Role Models
00:02:56
Speaker
make sense? I completely agree with you and I think that's why a lot of people, you know, read books and follow people, Mel Robbins and difference.
00:03:07
Speaker
Different people to kind of find their purpose, so to speak, find their identity outside of either their job or maybe they're not even sure within their career what their identity is. So I think you run the gamut.
00:03:25
Speaker
on both spectrums of people who are very sure of their purpose and to are very confident in their purpose and then you are you have people who are not sure of their purpose not sure you know a lot of uncertainties in their life so for me when I was a little girl I
Abby's Journey into Teaching
00:03:47
Speaker
played school teacher, which a lot of kids do. I played school teacher. I asked for a chalkboard. I asked for all the school things to pretend that I was the teacher and I had the little stuffed animal kids and a lot of kids play school.
00:04:07
Speaker
As I grew up, you kind of vacillate between, okay, do I want to do this? Do I want to do this? It's interesting to me that usually people that go into the medical fields or teaching profession, it's because they want to help people. That's just their personality. You want to be a vet. You want to help. That's just in your nature.
00:04:33
Speaker
When I decided to go to college, I initially started going for nursing. My sister was a nurse and in the medical field, and I thought that was something I wanted to do. I started taking all those science classes and thought, no, this is not for me. I think I'm going to switch my major to elementary education, which is where my heart was, but you're young and you're not quite sure anyways. Once I got into teaching,
00:04:57
Speaker
I knew what kind of a teacher I wanted to be, but of course your ideals and what actually happens and what actually you become are usually two different things.
Kindergarten Teaching Approach
00:05:06
Speaker
So when I did get in the classroom, my personality is all or nothing.
00:05:12
Speaker
So I don't have a slow ramp up and then coast back down. It's zero or 60. That's kind of just the way it is. So when I got in the classroom, when I first started teaching second grade, I loved it, but I was just learning the ropes. When I had the opportunity to teach kindergarten, thank you very much for giving me that, I immediately
00:05:37
Speaker
on day one knew this is where I was supposed to be. Now, not everybody has that privilege and that opportunity, but I knew I loved it from day one.
00:05:49
Speaker
When I knew that this is what I wanted to do, I became a craftsman at that craft, teaching kindergarten. And my identity became wrapped up into teaching kindergarten. It became everything. I wanted to research everything I wanted to do the utmost. That is my personality. That became my purpose.
Evolving Purpose and Identity in Education
00:06:14
Speaker
But there came a time when I decided that
00:06:19
Speaker
It's not sustainable. Like you cannot go at 60, you know, zero to 60 every day, 180 days or 184 days of the year. And you cannot, you know, there's a reason why Olympic athletes retire. You cannot do it forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Well, I'm, yeah, I mean, I see what you're saying. And so, so I had the opportunity. So my purpose,
00:06:49
Speaker
and my purpose was to provide students an education with all the knowledge and all the tools that I had in the best way that I knew. And for me, that was to be purposeful, intentional, but provided in a fun and engaging way to build relationships, to make those connections, to make, I have always said, and you know this, I have always said, if my students leave my classroom, leaving kindergarten and excited to go to first grade,
00:07:18
Speaker
I have done
The Ripple Effect of Educators
00:07:19
Speaker
my job. That was my purpose. Now, where I'm at now, my purpose has changed. My purpose has changed. But when I left our former school, nobody knows who Ms. Peterson is anymore. I've been gone since 2020. And I've run into former students before, and they're happy to see you. But I'm just a name. I'm just a name.
00:07:47
Speaker
And I get that. Like, I understand that as educators, our our ripples never end. We never know where it where our influences ended. You know, you taught a kid to read and they may now teach their children to read better and on and on and it might, you know, a Smith, they might grow up and, you know, have amazing lives based upon what you have done. Our ripples are timeless.
00:08:13
Speaker
But what's the point? What's the purpose?
Excellence in Education Without Recognition
00:08:15
Speaker
I mean, if you were teaching at Smith Still, and I basically could get rid of you tomorrow, why should you want to bend over backwards to do all the things in your classroom knowing that maybe you're not valued, or maybe your purpose is unknown to someone? Why am I
00:08:40
Speaker
doing everything that I am doing at Thompson or the teachers are doing everything they can to build this incredible place when it might or may not be valued by the district, by the state, by other schools. What's the purpose? What's the point? Again, my purpose has always been to kind of do something incredible that makes our ripples bigger in education.
Job Instability in Education
00:09:02
Speaker
But again, I am expecting teachers and staff to do these amazing things when in reality, all of us could be replaced tomorrow and no one would blink an eye. It's true. There's a comical saying, I should say, that in our district, we joke and say that
00:09:24
Speaker
Before your obituary is published, your job is already been posted. That's, quite frankly, the truth. That's what happens. Before your obituary has been published or you have signed a contract on your next job, your job has already been posted.
00:09:47
Speaker
There's two things that I wanna say. One, your question of why should we care?
Intrinsic Motivation for Educators and Students
00:09:54
Speaker
Well, let's talk about students. We could turn that and say students, why should students care? We want our students to care. We want our students, they say, well, why do I have to learn this? Why? It's not gonna matter. Well, you either have it intrinsically that you want to and you want to grow and you want to benefit from the experience of learning
00:10:14
Speaker
or the experience of teaching, or you don't. And of course, the choice is yours as a student and as an educator. So I think it's up to each individual person. Each individual person has to make the choice intrinsically if they want to put forth the effort, if they want to do the best, even though they know that they could be fired at a moment's notice. Or they can say, I don't want to put the time in. I don't want to put the effort in.
00:10:42
Speaker
But I think in any job, Robert, what if you were a passionate Twitter employee and you were so passionate and you loved it and you gave your life to Twitter and then all of a sudden you got an email that said, bye-bye.
Mid-Career Challenges for Educators
00:10:56
Speaker
Right. That's the thing. Maybe it's because I'm in my mid-40s or maybe because I'm thinking about retirement now, sadly, I become one of those people who knows how many years they have left.
00:11:12
Speaker
how many months they have left before I can get out? I think that is one of the saddest things that I have come across in the last three years is when I run into teacher friends that I've taught with in our district or even friends I know in other districts, they know exactly how many years till they have to retire. And then you have people
00:11:37
Speaker
Who have less than 15 years that say I don't think I'm gonna make it because I can't I would rather get out now and Take cut my losses and go somewhere else and that's the saddest thing as so many of us in you know in our mid 40s We're stuck in a lot in a large capacity Because
00:12:02
Speaker
We're so close to retirement in the grand scheme of things. And then having a pension the rest of our lives, however long that may be, you know, we, it's just a different profession.
Life's Unexpected Challenges and Education
00:12:12
Speaker
We can't just quit and start a new one. You know, retirement is different for us, but I guess you just, I've been thinking lately, like, yeah, I get it. We're there for the families and the kids all the time every day. And I agree with that.
00:12:28
Speaker
But what's the point? What's the end goal? The end goal is to change the future, to help the kids move along. But in elementary school too, they go on to a middle school that may not have the same purpose.
00:12:43
Speaker
So it's just a constant struggle. But that's a part of life, though. That's a part of life. Life is not all going to be, you know, perfect primrose walkway. That's life. You could you could set up the most amazing plan for your children and a million things can happen before, you know, you've had tragedies happen. Your sister. That was never in your parents plan ever. That's never in any parents plan.
00:13:12
Speaker
You know, and so you, that's just a part of life. So you have to learn how to navigate all the obstacles and all the challenges, all the negatives and all the positives. So if our, okay, let's go back.
Relevance of Educational Content
00:13:26
Speaker
Now you got me think hold everything. So when you look at purpose of educating kids, are we educating them correctly for life? I mean, do they need to know shades of meaning?
00:13:37
Speaker
Or do they need to know how to get over the hump on a certain thing or overcome adversity? I think we'll do a podcast in the future about politics, but the world has changed so much.
00:13:52
Speaker
And if you want to educate people on the ways of the world, okay, great, let's do it. But certain things don't need to be taught. I mean, how many things do we use that we were taught in high school? Very few. I guess like I keep thinking like, what is the point? Are we trying to teach these kids how to comply?
00:14:11
Speaker
and stay in line and turn your homework in or are we trying to teach them how to be successful in
Administrative Support and Educator's Efforts
00:14:18
Speaker
life and then it comes back to what's my purpose but then all of a sudden let's just say you have a boss someone out there listening has a boss that does not appreciate them and all they do well then
00:14:31
Speaker
What's your purpose? Why are you still there? Why should you still be there? Why should you have the motivation to continue on that path? I think the majority of teachers that are educators that are listening to this is because they love kids. They love teaching. They love the art of teaching. And they do feel like they are making a difference. Because I know speaking from experience as somebody who has had
00:14:58
Speaker
a five-year-old that just turned five come into their classroom and not know any letters and not know how to read and not know numbers and think that the alphabet is singing A, B, C, D, E, F, G and leave being able to do addition and being able to read a decodable book and being able to communicate and being excited about learning
00:15:24
Speaker
I'm always ... That is one of the things that is the most exciting to me and the thing that makes my heart smile the most is when I would get to February and
Intrinsic Satisfaction in Teaching
00:15:34
Speaker
March and start doing those assessments and start seeing those little light bulbs. You just think, wow, look at how far they've come. That was something that was intrinsic within me.
00:15:45
Speaker
We've talked about it before. It's your mindset. It's your mindset. You can either focus in on the negative, which there's a lot, or you can focus in on the positive. Shut your classroom door and you do what's best for kids and find your purpose. It just might be my admin framework.
00:16:10
Speaker
You know, like whenever I have a struggle with the district in some way, I always just try to come back to the school and focus on what's going on in the school and the classrooms.
00:16:19
Speaker
Because ultimately, I guess, you know, talking this out, this might be a therapist that she's playing. But yeah, it does come back to the kids somehow. And for me, the teachers, or the staff, you know, our, our ultimate purpose is to have a career make, you know, make the world better in some way.
Balancing District Demands and School Needs
00:16:41
Speaker
But it's just a struggle because when you look at administratively, I think many of us are getting to the burnout stage of why am I bending over backwards for CCSD? When I'm bending, you're like, again, why am I bending? We're caught between the district and our school, I think a lot. And that's not to say the district's bad or good. I mean, people are instantly right now probably like, no, it's bad. You just don't want to say it. But
00:17:11
Speaker
You know, I think admin, you're constantly stuck between CCSD initiatives and what you feel is right for the school. And so what's my purpose? Is it to do what CCSD wants?
00:17:24
Speaker
even though I may not agree with it because you're technically supposed to, or you're insubordinate, or is it to do what I know is right for the school? You're caught between that, that, you know, that vice, so to speak, because if you're insubordinate, well, then CCSD says, you know, here's, you know, here's your notice, knock it off, or
00:17:46
Speaker
Again, it's just a constant, like, what's my point? Why am I fighting this person to help that person? The ultimate goal, I guess the ultimate reason is it comes down to relationships. I have a better relationship with the people at the school than I might with the district. But I think a lot of us are struggling with what's the point?
Post-2020 Changes in Education
00:18:06
Speaker
What is the purpose of my job? Is the purpose of my job to help the staff and the students? Yes, but I'm not sure that we entirely feel like
00:18:16
Speaker
We can do that. I, I see the conundrum. I do. I see the conundrum and I think this has been, you know, a revolving door. And anytime the pendulum swings, and I think that we've seen a big, big pendulum swing since 2020 there, you know, the, the whole distance learning model, and then a lot of.
00:18:41
Speaker
of directives came down from that, not just in our district, but in lots of districts. And so the pendulum is swinging, you know, now we see overall,
00:18:53
Speaker
Overall, the United States, our scores went down tremendously. We talked about that in a previous podcast. So everybody's scrambling to try to fix it. And you've got opposing sides of, this side over here thinks it needs to be done this way. And this side over here needs to be this way. And so there's this battle.
Curriculum Mandates vs Teacher Autonomy
00:19:15
Speaker
And in the middle, we have kids. It's like a broken family.
00:19:18
Speaker
You've got a mom and a dad and then they split and then the mom's saying this and the dad's saying this and they want this and they want this and who's caught in the middle? The kids are caught in the middle. They don't have a say. They just are there and are we doing what's best for the kids or are we just too busy fighting each other? Are we too busy trying to win our own ego wars? Sure. Let's put kind of what I just said in the
00:19:45
Speaker
in the situation of a teacher. Let's say, Abby, that you worked for me and then all of a sudden I left and you were still at Smith and a principal came in and did not care the fact that you usually had 80 plus percent of your kids reading by then at kindergarten, you're going to do it this way.
00:20:03
Speaker
you're going to follow this, you're gonna use this resource, this program. You might be like, what's the point of me staying? Well, I'll tell you exactly what I would do is I would go and I would approach them like you and I had many conversations and I would approach the admin and I would say, hey, I would like to know, well, let's talk about
Rise of Online Education Roles
00:20:27
Speaker
this. Nobody really knows this.
00:20:29
Speaker
But at one time, there was a phonics program that our whole entire school was supposed to follow. Okay, so there was a phonics program that our whole entire school was supposed to follow. But I had an amazing, systematic, explicit phonics program that I was doing my own. And I was seeing amazing results and my dad approved it, correct? Or am I telling a lie?
00:20:59
Speaker
No. Okay. And so all of a sudden I'm handed this curriculum and said, you need to use this in your classroom. And I went to you and the assistant principal and sat down with you guys and said, why? Why should I use this curriculum when what I'm doing is working?
00:21:18
Speaker
And it's much more engaging and you are seeing the results because when we go in data meetings, you see it. And you guys were like, well, because everybody has to be on the same page. And we don't want there to be a problem. And I said, OK. I said, I understand that, but this does not work for me. And I was told, you can look at the book, see what you can use, and then do what's best for kids. OK?
00:21:47
Speaker
Had I had admin that said, no, you may not, we're gonna come in once a week and if you are not doing this phonics program to the T, we are going to write you up. That would have been my last year. But Robert, as we've talked before, I am in the position
00:22:07
Speaker
that I could leave my job. But there are lots of people who cannot because they're the main income of their family. They have debt. They have student loans. They have all these things that they don't have options. So that's what keeps people from walking out the door.
00:22:32
Speaker
But I will tell you something that's coming down the pike that we're seeing a lot of is all of these online education, um, jobs that are popping up and they're pulling people out of the classroom because people are saying I can leave and do what I, and, and, and still be in the education fields, but I'm not dealing with all of the red tape. And if you are, I mean, again, if you're that teacher and that principal, like again,
Purpose of Educational Leadership
00:23:02
Speaker
We are, we are kind of caught in the middle here, but the principle is like, no, you're going to do X, Y, and Z. Instantaneously, you're like, what's the point of staying? My insurance stinks, this stinks, that stinks, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So again, what's the purpose? What's the point? Are we, are we really trying to fix education? Like is our leaders, is there purpose trying to make this better or
00:23:33
Speaker
Are they so out of touch that they don't know? I guess like I'm just struggling. Why should a teacher or an admin put themselves in those kinds of positions to fight for what they believe is right when they know they're going to get their hands slapped or they know they're going to have this or that happen?
Compliance vs Innovation in Education
00:23:51
Speaker
Again, what's the point of fighting those battles? You can say, well, the point is you're trying to do what's right for kids. Okay.
00:24:00
Speaker
That's fine. But at some point in time, you have to look out for number one. So again, Abby, if you were put in that position, even though all of your kids are usually reading, you're going to think, what's the point of me staying?
00:24:15
Speaker
I agree. And the more that we talk about it, the more I realize that what are we trying to do with education and teachers? Are we just trying to make everybody comply and just be robots and just pull out the teacher manual and just read from it and do exactly what they want, you know, what they want you to do, what page, I mean, because where is, where
00:24:41
Speaker
That's what it sounds like to me. We just want a bunch of robots to go in there and just teach what is dictated to be taught and do it with a smile on your face and don't ask questions and work your million hours that you work. Do all the paperwork and be happy that we're providing you a job. Let's take a positive approach to this and say,
Purpose and Effectiveness of Educational Programs
00:25:09
Speaker
CCSD's purpose of giving everybody all these programs is to lay the foundation for all kids and all teachers so that everybody has a resource or a program that they can use. Our purpose is to provide you materials to teach the kids. Let's just take that for a moment. Okay, if that's true, then
00:25:37
Speaker
Why would they then not want you to use it as a resource, not a program, to do what's right for kids? Does that make sense? Why? Again, it all comes down to, I guess it all comes down to your perspective, but what's the purpose of everything? When you look at it's election season, I know we're going into politics later, but what's the purpose of electing a new governor?
00:26:03
Speaker
if they're not going to help us move this bus down the road. I guess that comes back to that for me is why are we doing this? What are we here for? I'm not here to be number one or number two, sorry. I'm not here to be the first loser. I'm here to help these people and for us to have the best school in Nevada or the country. Again, I don't understand why our purpose is not to do that.
00:26:29
Speaker
But I'm struggling because I don't see that same kind of passion or purpose from other people. Well, I think that's because there's so many constraints. And as we've been talking, I've been thinking about the podcast we did on splitting up the district. And if there were options where people, where they were doing more revolutionary things or where they gave options and
00:26:56
Speaker
I think that might change things, but we don't have that. One thing that I would like to say, I think that I would love to see.
Professional Development vs Curriculum Adherence
00:27:06
Speaker
And I think that our district is starting to do this. And that is, let's not teach to a curriculum. Let's provide professional development that is strategies. Like let's just provide strategies. I think we have letters training.
00:27:26
Speaker
in our district that was just started, it is not a program. It's just to instruct on how to provide instruction.
00:27:36
Speaker
Correct? Yes. And I think that that's what we need so that if you are teaching first grade, you can walk right in and you have your teacher tool bag full of things to be able to teach. If you go into a third grade classroom, you have the strategies to teach. But when teachers are not taught those strategies and when they're not given the opportunity, the best thing that could have ever happened to me, Robert,
00:28:01
Speaker
was that I was in a school where I could use my teacher intuition and I could see what was working and what was not working. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. Yeah, it will be fascinating next year. Allegedly, there is an ELA program that's going to be purchased by the district and the state. So we just did letters. Okay, here's some strategies, but now here's a program.
00:28:30
Speaker
Are they going to give any leeway to teachers or are they going to expect by they, I mean, Clark County, every principal is different as a principal. Let's just, let's just go with that as a principal. Should I expect you to take this program, whatever it may be, nobody knows what it's going to be and follow it with fidelity. Or do we build upon the strategy idea and say, here's a resource. What's their purpose? What's their point?
00:29:01
Speaker
I just, I keep wrestling with that. I think like everything that comes up now, I think what's the purpose? What, you know, like we talked about purposeful teaching or at Thompson. It's all about what's the purpose behind your lesson. So what's the purpose behind CCSD purchasing all these programs? What's the purpose behind strategies? What's their purpose behind panic systems?
00:29:32
Speaker
Is it moving the needle forward? Well, let me ask you a question. Who is the person to ask these questions to? Because it seems to me that when you ask
00:29:45
Speaker
The question to certain people, they say, well, I'm not the person to ask. Ask so and so. So where does the buck stop?
Cycle of Educational Policies
00:29:54
Speaker
I would like to know. I would like to know who is the person that's responsible? Where does the buck stop? Who are we supposed to ask that can explain that? I think the problem is nobody really knows.
00:30:09
Speaker
You would like to thank Superintendent Jarrah, and he would say that. He will defend his people. I will give him credit for that. I think, though, I can't tell you where the buck stops. It's going to depend on the school associate superintendent. The principal, there's too many areas that it could potentially stop.
00:30:31
Speaker
It almost seems to me like an infinity circle, like it just goes round and round and round and round and there is, you know, it just gets passed. The buck gets passed. The buck never stops. It just gets passed to the next person and then it goes back around and then it's just never ending. Yeah, but the scary part from my perspective is that
00:30:51
Speaker
If it stops in a bad spot for me, I'm going to say, what's my purpose? Why am I doing this? Because again, if I don't agree where it stops, they try to put constraints on me about this or that at Thompson. Well, then I'm going to have to instantly think, what's the point?
00:31:08
Speaker
I guess that's where we're at in life going back to originally what we talked about. We all have what we thought it was going to be and then what it actually is. You go into the career with
00:31:25
Speaker
I supervise student teachers. So they're excited. They're starting off and they're so pumped and ready to just have their own classroom. And you live in this little Pollyanna world that you're just going to be. And that's great. I'm happy for that.
Balancing Job Satisfaction and Burnout
00:31:39
Speaker
That's one of the great things about youth. We were them. Yes, at one time. And so it's exciting.
00:31:47
Speaker
You know, life doesn't always go the way that we expect it. It doesn't always have that primrose pathway, like I said. And so I think each individual person has to know when their bucket is full.
00:32:00
Speaker
And what they're going to do, is it going to be somebody who literally has a countdown clock and is just counting the days and the seconds? Is it going to be someone like that? Or is it going to be somebody who's like, nope, I'm out. My peace of mind is more
00:32:21
Speaker
I need that more than I need the extra three years or five years or whatever. I think that ultimately comes down to each person and knowing your purpose, how valuable your purpose is, because Robert, can you leave the district and can you do something else? Can your purpose and your vision be somewhere else? And here's for some people, some people can say,
00:32:47
Speaker
Well, yeah, my value, I can be valued so much more over here, but the money or my retirement plan is more important to me than my value.
Balancing Personal Well-being and Professional Purpose
00:33:01
Speaker
So you're willing to sacrifice
00:33:04
Speaker
your purpose. But then it just becomes, you're just in it for the paycheck and I don't want that. Yes. And so ultimately that's what it comes down to. Ultimately that's what it comes down to is you're giving up one or the other. I don't feel like you can have both. In the climate that we're in right now, I don't think you can have both. I think at certain times you can have both, but I don't think it's going to be like that 100% of the time.
00:33:32
Speaker
You may be right. I don't know. I'm just searching for it right now. Again, I'm not, I don't, any listeners, I'm not unhappy with Thompson in any way, shape, or form. I don't plan on reading. It's just philosophical. It's philosophical. We're just having discussions, talking perspectives on the climate and the culture that is very
Impact of Social Media on Teacher Perceptions
00:33:50
Speaker
prevalent.
00:33:50
Speaker
For anybody who was interested in learning more about this teacher from Colorado, her name is the Miss R Project 2.0. Her name is Maddie Richardson. She's from Colorado. She called herself the modern day frizz.
00:34:07
Speaker
And like Robert said, she was on Good Morning America. Basically, she appears to be, and here's why I say appears to be Robert, because social media is very deceiving. I was just going to say. It's very deceiving. And so what we see on social media is one little tiny clip. And we know that it can be made up. It could be
00:34:35
Speaker
I mean who knows and so she she appears to be an amazing teacher she appears to have connections and relationships with their kids and then something happened and she got online and she cried and she said she got fired that day and again do we really know do we really know.
00:34:55
Speaker
And and sometimes people can say well I got fired because I was doing what was best for kids and then we find out later that maybe You know who knows and so and you know from that from the admin side Technically, they shouldn't say anything if she wants to put it out there that's on her But the admin is never going to give their side on this stuff. So, you know just look at it from that point of view We probably never will you know was she?
00:35:23
Speaker
You know, was she, I don't know, making money off the school? Who knows? I don't know. That's the thing we don't know. But, you know, again, she now has to wrestle with what's my purpose. Is my purpose to educate kids or is my purpose to push back on things I don't agree with or, um, is my purpose to move on and just be like Abby and be an independent contractor and help people as I can. I don't, I don't know.
Expanding Impact Beyond the Classroom
00:35:50
Speaker
And like I said, I want to remind people that I understand the situation and people will call it privilege of my situation because I was able to do that. I was able to walk away. But what people don't know is that all the years that I was in the classroom, I was building
00:36:14
Speaker
Yeah, what I created so I was into this no, you know, I have always sought professional development opportunities. I've always Went and done about you know, I not to shoot my own horn but above and beyond I've tried to educate I'm here I am I am
00:36:31
Speaker
I'm not in the classroom, but I'm taking classes next month because I want to better myself. Even though I'm not in the classroom, I want to have a better understanding. I want to grow my educational philosophy and grow in the learning and keep up to date. Your purpose was bigger than just the classroom. That's why I got out of the classroom. I wanted to have a bigger purpose. I eventually want to have a bigger purpose. Someday I'd love to have a book published and be like Dr. Johnson and
00:36:58
Speaker
fly over and come in and high people up. And I feel like if that's what you want, you will make it happen because that's what I wanted. You wanted to step outside. I wanted to step outside and one of our colleagues that we worked with, she told me, she said, Abby, she said, you are an amazing kindergarten teacher. You know, I see it when your kids come to me. You know, they're very competent in the skills that you
00:37:22
Speaker
you know, I have taught them and we love having your students. She says, but you're only making an impact on those 25 students for that year. She said, but by you leaving, you're going to be able to impact a lot of students because you're, you're connecting with a lot of teachers in a lot of different classrooms. And so my why, as you like to call it, my purpose was bigger. And I stepped out on that.
00:37:51
Speaker
faith, if you want to say, because I didn't know how it was going to go. And when I initially left, uh, hello, it was a pandemic and there was no in-person professional development. And so, but I think if you really, if you really do want to make a difference and you really do have a passion, you will find it and you will make it happen.
00:38:13
Speaker
You will. I think, too, in reflecting the last 38 minutes, I know many of us at Thompson, our goal, our purpose, is to be the model of what a public school can and should
Staying Focused on Purpose
00:38:28
Speaker
be. That is our goal. That is our purpose. And as long as I am there or we are there, that will be the outcome that we strive for. But I just want everybody to not lose
00:38:39
Speaker
lose their North Star, so to speak, on what your purpose is, even when times are hard, because there's going to be hard times or pushback or things you don't agree with. And those are the times when you really start to question it, but try to come back to you. What's my why? What's the point? Why am I here? And just just try to recharge with that.
00:39:01
Speaker
and focus on the things that you can change. We've talked about that many times. It's a proven fact that we cannot change what we can't control. That's not in our control. And so I'm gonna focus on what I can control. And a lot of that is my attitude. A lot of that is my attitude and my perspective. But just remember, no matter what you're doing, no matter where you're at, no matter good or bad. It's all about perspective. Have a great day and see you next time.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah.