Andrea: Welcome to Those Who Can't Do. I am Andrea Forkham and I am so excited about the episode we have for you today. I am talking to Gabe Danbring and Before we get into that, I have to tell you a little story about something that I heard this week and it was not my experience specifically. My husband is in PA school right now and he was talking to one of the medical students who, by the way, we got permission to share the story from the person who told it, but he's working with all of these medical students and this particular medical student shared that when she was in high school, she's like very, You know, she's a typical medical student in that she's always wanted to be a doctor.

So she told all of her teachers that they all knew she wanted to get into medicine. And she had a teacher who was expecting. And that teacher apparently went out on maternity leave during the semester and was only gone for You know, six weeks during the middle of the school year and came back still during that same school year.

When this teacher came back, apparently she brought a little like igloo cooler with her. And she went up to this student who at that point was a junior in high school and said, Hey, I know that you are really interested in getting into medicine. So I brought you something. And in the cooler, she had brought for this student, her placenta.

And apparently she was so uncomfortable. And at that point, she like, didn't know how to advocate for herself or anything. So she was just like, Oh, thank you so much. And she took the Igloo cooler with the placenta in it. And I asked, cause of course I'm like, did it stink? Because it's, it's like, fine. Fresh meat?

Like, I was like, what? But apparently she had had it in some sort of liquid to preserve it. Um, and so apparently she took it to the biology teacher and the biology teacher then put it in formaldehyde and they kept it in a jar in the bio classroom. And like for that, now in perpetuity, there is just a actual human placenta in that biology classroom because that teacher decided to share.

Her placenta with a student, which, you know, I love a giving, sacrificial teacher. We love that. Um, but you probably do not need to go that far. in your teaching practice. One of the reasons I'm telling that story is we get our own little peek into Gabe's experience with the miracle of life, we'll say. Gabe is an incredible content creator.

He has almost two million followers between his different platforms. You're going to see him on TikTok and on Instagram. He's a middle school science teacher. I am so excited for you guys to hear our conversation today. Let's get to it.

All right, welcome to those who can't do and today I have the very funny Gabe Dannenbring here with me. Gabe, thank you so much for coming.

Gabe: You know what? I'm just happy to be here. I'm so happy to be in a workspace where I'm not getting bullied by a bunch of adolescents, adolescent teens. It doesn't smell funny in here.

I'm not getting called a jerk. Well, yet. So, I'm happy to be here. I'm pumped.

Andrea: Yeah, and it's only been like an hour since you were actually with your middle schoolers, right?

Gabe: Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I, yeah, it was not, I left this school at about 420 ish and I arrived here getting tech ready at about 424. So it was a pretty quick turnover.

So I'm, I'm fresh right now, you know, I'm still hot from the day that just happened.

Andrea: That's perfect. So can you talk a little bit about why you became a teacher, how long you've been teaching, all that good stuff? Sure. Thank you.

Gabe: Well, like most people, I became a teacher for the fame and the money. Like that, just kidding.

No, I, uh, initially when I went to, when I went to college, I thought that I was going to be a doctor. I was like, let's go into a profession, make a bunch of money. Let's have status. And let's go for it. And I quickly learned I was not smart enough to be a doctor. Like it was, it wasn't for me. So then I was like, okay, what's the next highest paying career?

And it was teaching. No, uh, I was like, all right. So I made a big shift and I was like, all right, let's go into a profession that like, that has a positive impact on society and is still doing something that I care about. So I always liked science. I always liked anatomy. And then I was thinking to myself, okay, let's be a teacher.

My dad is a teacher. He's been a lifer. So I've seen kind of the behind the scenes of some of the extreme positives as well as the extreme negatives that can come from teaching. My mom has a dance studio. So she's a teacher in her own type of way. And I just saw the impact that teachers can have and thought to myself, you know what, let's do that.

Let's give that a shot because I don't want to leave this planet and think to myself, what impact did I have on people?

Andrea: Yeah. Yeah. So when did that transition happen? Were you already in college or?

Gabe: Oh, yeah. It was like early on, like my first, my first biochem course, I was like, this isn't for me. Like this.

Yeah. It was one of those early on courses. Like, yeah, it's time to make a change. And I had taken care of a lot of my like gen ed courses in, in high school. I was able to change pretty quickly and change my path and then, uh, quickly kind of become a teacher. But what about you? How did you become a teacher?

Like, I'm curious about that.

Andrea: Yeah, I actually, so, you know, I taught high school for nine years and I, I have actually a journal entry from my senior year of high school and in the journal entry I say, I really think being a teacher would be fun, but I don't want to be poor.

Gabe: That's funny. That's funny.

Andrea: I avoided it.

Like, I eventually, like, I went into a communication major and I was like, I'm going to be Where

Gabe: all the money is. Where all the money is.

Andrea: Well, I wanted to be a radio host. I was like, it would be super, so very fortuitous that I'm doing this now with the podcast. Did you have a radio

Gabe: name? DJ name?

Andrea: I did.

What was it? It's so embarrassing. I was 19. Um, and it, keep in mind, this was like 2006. So, and my name is Andrea, right? It's not Andrea. It's not like a fancier version of it, but I decided it would sound like really cool to be called like DJ Drea. And so I have like one audio clip from when I worked on a morning show.

I was an intern on unpaid intern on a morning show and I was called DJ Drea. And I would like, come on and talk about like Hollywood gossip and all of that. And I was like, this is. Now I look back and I'm like, this is very embarrassing. But, um, at the time it was really cool because it was at like Channel 9 through 3 in San Diego, which is like a really big station.

And it was with The Morning Show and all of that. Um, But I very quickly saw, like, the people who were really successful at that field, um, I saw their personal lives and I saw, like, what it was costing them to be very successful on the radio and to do all of the events that they had to do and all of that.

And so that kind of put me off from wanting to do the radio thing. Um, and then I got married super young and didn't graduate college before I got married. And so while I was going to college to get an English degree, because that was the next thing that I was like, well, I like English and maybe I'll be like a travel writer or something.

And, Uh, Travel

Gabe: writer? What is that?

Andrea: I don't know. But in the, at the moment, That I chose that. I was certain it would be well paid. That's a career of a travel writer. Yes. Well, you know, there's like travel bloggers and stuff. And I think in my mind, like that was maybe what it was going to be. Um, but I, I just ended up like, working at a grocery store while I was getting my bachelor's degree and I was in charge of the training.

So while I trained all of these 15, 16 year old cashiers, I found that I loved that process of like teaching them, even though it was just running register. Um, so then a few years out from there, I decided after failing miserably about being a technical writer that Teaching would be way more fun, even if I was in fact going to be taking a massive pay cut to do it.

So ended up kind of transitioning there. Now, did you go from straight from college into the classroom then?

Gabe: Yeah. Yeah. So I started working in schools early. Like I was, I think I was 19 when I first started being in school. So, you know, doing those early on practicums, and then I started subbing immediately and I entered college with a bunch of credits already.

So it was really quick for me to all of a sudden be eligible in the state of North Dakota to substitute teach. So I was substitute teaching pretty early on. I was doing like substitute para work. I was working as a tutor in the AVID program. I don't know if people are familiar with that program. So I've, I've been in schools for a long, I mean, it's been, yeah, I, I, I say a long time.

It's all relative. For me as a 26 year old, I've been in schools since 2017. Um, and I, I, I liked it right away. I, I, I, I really liked the community that I was in. Up in North Dakota and up in Fargo, the Fargo Moorhead area was great. Shout out, shout out Fargo Moorhead. And I just, I kind of fell in love with the profession just like a lot of people do.

And you quickly realize it truly is a calling. I know this sounds cliche, but It is a calling and you're either good at it and it's made for you or you find the door pretty quickly.

Andrea: Yeah, I agree. And so what, were you only at middle schools or did you also do high school?

Gabe: I started at, as a high school and I, I always told everybody there is a zero percent chance I will ever teach middle school.

There was not a chance in hell that I was going to do that. I remember as a middle schooler thinking, This sucks. Like, I don't, I can't imagine teaching some of these people. And then, uh, COVID hit and I needed a job and you can't be picky. And all the jobs I had lined up in Fargo fell through because the world stopped.

And then on a whim, I applied for a job back, back in South Dakota, where I'm from, got the job and then quickly kind of really felt, I would say fell in love with the job, but realized I kind of enjoy this. I kind of like I think for a lot of young teachers, teaching middle school should be one of the first steps that you do.

I think it's gotta be really challenging for young, first year high school teachers. Because I, I taught, I student taught high school, and then, like, subbed in house at a school, at a high school. And when you're 21 years old and you're teaching kids who might be 17, 18 years old, that's hard. You don't have that age gap yet.

And you also don't have the maturity gap and you don't have the classroom management best practices down yet. Like if you want to learn good classroom management, go teach middle school for a couple of years. I tell people all the time, you'll only have to be an hour smarter than the middle schoolers.

My time is not spent on curriculum. My time is all spent on management. All it is, is how do you deal with behaviors? Um, so that's, so now I've been at the middle school level for four years, five years, four years now. So what about you? I mean, where, where were you all spread out at?

Andrea: So I did all nine years in high school and you're absolutely right that like, and I started you know, I, because of, you know, getting married and transfer credits and all that, I didn't start teaching until I was 26.

So I was further removed than you were when I first started teaching. But even so, being in your 20s and teaching high schoolers is really tough for all of the reasons that you mentioned. And I was, you know, not successful initially, you know, I very enthusiastic, not, not effective, I would say.

Gabe: So what does that look like?

What does it look like to now say you are not effective? What were you doing that wasn't working?

Andrea: Man, there were a lot of times where I was like five minutes before class Googling like lesson plans on TPT or just Googling like Movies that I can show in journalism class, like, stuff like that. I was like, this is passable.

I can do this. And part of it, admittedly, was because they just plugged me in to a journalism class. I didn't have a degree in journalism or experience, but I liked doing it. Journalism and as we all know now, I was going to be a travel writer, so I had experience in my heart of hearts that

Gabe: I was going to You had a narrative in your head of how good you were at it.

Yes. I thought it was a career.

Andrea: Exactly. I thought it was something I could potentially do, so I ended up starting all of that. And so I, I mean, that was probably The worst job that I did was in the journalism class I taught because there was no existing curriculum at all. So eventually I kind of stumbled my way there, but that was the class that I left unattended while they were watching What was that?

What's that McDonald's documentary? You know, the one where the guy eats nothing? Yes.

Gabe: Yeah, fed up. Yeah.

Andrea: So, I was doing a quote unquote unit on documentary filmmaking. We were just watching documentaries. That's awesome. That's great. It's so mortifying now I think about it, you know, like, but we, that's what we were doing and I stepped out of the room to go to the copy room to go make some copies real quick.

And when I came back, the superintendent had stepped into my classroom.

Gabe: Nice. Nice.

Andrea: And this was the first year teaching, first time I'd seen her other than at the like big county wide orientation. And I was just like, I'm gonna get, this is it. Like, I'm gonna get fired. Like my, my little class, and it was like a mixed class between ninth and 12th grade.

So it was a little bit of everybody. And I left them unattended for Five minutes, but of course that's the five minutes that she popped in and yeah, always works that way. Yeah. I got a letter in my file for that one. Um, mm-Hmm, . Now what, what about you? Is there any like, insane stories of things that have happened to you, either at the high school or middle school level?

Gabe: Oh, man, I, the list goes on and on. , like, there's, there's so many things. Like I, it started early on for me of just. Crazy stuff happening in school. I remember while I was student teaching high school health and this was a wild ride. I loved it, but it was a crazy experience. I one day was walking into school and I had like, I was getting ready to go to school, got my coffee, got my, my little, my satchel.

Like I was that 20 year old. Like I got a, I got a work bag. I got a work bag.

Theme: Yeah. Not a purse.

Gabe: Not a purse. It was not a purse. Work bag. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So like Indiana Jones. 100 percent I was just missing the hat. So I walk, I'm walking into school all confident and kind of got my teacher voice on and the kids are snickering at me.

I'm like, what are you, why, why is everyone snickering? Like, Oh, funny day, I guess, whatever. And then all of a sudden a kid taps me on the back and she isn't a student of mine. And she goes, Hey, there's, uh, there's something on the back of your pants. And I was, I had my teacher voice on. I was like, Oh, that's weird.

Did I sit in something? And she's like, no, you didn't sit in anything. She goes, your pants are torn. And I turn around and I completely torn my pants. All the way up the butt crack, like right on the scene. And I was like, just stuck because I, I was standing there walking with all these kids, torn butt and all.

And the

Theme: satchel

Gabe: came in handy because I gave it a little swing and put it on the back. So then I think, okay, what do I do now? And I go walk back to my car. And somehow I had an extra pair of pants in the back of the car. So I was like, okay, this is awesome. I'm going to go to the corner spot of the parking lot and then change.

So I thought this was foolproof. Go to the corner spot, right when I take my pants off, right when I take my pants off, giant pickup truck, because we're in Fargo, North Dakota, parked right next to me. And he can lift. Like a nice lifted

Andrea: one.

Gabe: Oh yeah. Like, yeah, yeah. It was this North Dakota North Dakota Farm Boys, North Dakota Farm Boy Gets.

And he can just look directly in, like, down into my car. So I quickly cover up, because I'm not going to get indecent exposure while I'm working out of school. And I was like, all right, this kid's going to get out of his truck eventually here, then I can change. Uh, no, he waited to the last minute. So I had to call the office.

I was like, hey, I'm running late. I'm in the parking lot, but I'm running late. And they're like, oh, What? They're trying to put it together. I tore my pants. Like, oh, take all the time that you need because I couldn't go home because it was like a 25 minute commute back to where, where I lived. Um, so yeah, I quickly learned that all teachers need to have an emergency.

pair of clothes, because you're going to have a wardrobe malfunction at some point. Like, it will happen. Have you, have you had any, any tough wardrobe malfunctions?

Andrea: I have, but the worst part is, is I didn't have any students that were bold enough to tell me about it. Instead, I had a colleague who we all would like walk out at the end of the day together.

And I was wearing a dress that was like, it was like green, kind of like, like lace kind of a thing, but then. Underneath it was like a beige colored dress thing underneath and I wore a cardigan over it. Because of course I did. And English

Gabe: teacher. English teacher. Right, English teacher. Cardigans. Because you're cold all the time.

Andrea: Yeah, exactly. Like, so as we're leaving, my co worker says, Andrea, I'm so sorry to tell you this, the way that the under part of your dress is like falling on you, it looks like you are completely naked underneath because the slip underneath was beige, and I'm Beige. And so it just, and of course it like just fit in that way.

And I was like, Oh my God. Like I walked the entire day around wearing a dress that looked like it was just lace. Like just, I was so mortified. And it was so funny because the way he said it too, was like, Are you naked under your dress? And I was

Theme: like,

Andrea: what? Like, we don't have that kind of a relationship, my guy.

And he's like, no, I mean, like, there, it, it looks like there's not anything under. That's

Gabe: funny. See, and the hard part with situations like that is when you realize like something weird happened and then you start backtracking on the day and realize all the kids are making fun of you and you didn't realize these kids are making fun of you.

I had one time, classic, my zipper was down and I'd gone an entire morning with my zipper down until finally one kid is like, Dan, bring your flies down. And I, I was ready to resign. I just, I hated it. I hated how I felt. I felt so embarrassed to have a seventh grader tell me, bro, your fly is down. And like, what do you have a room full of 12 and 13 year old kids making you feel stupid?

That's a pretty low place that I don't recommend that feeling to anybody. But at another time when I was teaching high school This wasn't a, uh, this wasn't Uh, wardrobe malfunction. Uh, I passed out watching the birthing video, which was a blast. It was crazy. The Miracle of

Andrea: Life? That one?

Gabe: Yeah. Miracle of Life birthing video?

More like the horror of life. Like, it was, it was terrible. So I knew, I knew going into this, like looking back, I was a fricking idiot. I knew that I can't do what? I can't do it. I can't. I don't know. I suck at it. As

Andrea: previously cited when you decided not to become a medical professional.

Gabe: Yes. Yes. Yeah. I, uh, yeah.

Yeah. I don't know why that was my first career path, but I turned on the birthing video and I didn't watch it before because I'm thinking to myself, Oh, we're showing this to kids. It's fine. It's gonna be

Andrea: fine. Yeah. No, it shows, like, full crowning, and

Gabe: Oh, it's everything. And, of course, it was made in, like, 1993, where everything went, by then, like, nobody cared.

And I just remember watching And I started getting light headed, and then the scene that will always stick in my mind is the last, like, baby comes out, and then the last little push comes out the placenta and everything else. And I just remember the next moment is a kid that's, like, poking me, like, Dude, are you good?

Like, I full on passed out. Full on. And then later, later as the day goes on, I was like, I'm not going to watch this anymore. I'm just going to like be typing up on something. I had three boys come up to my desk and like, I don't feel good. And they had to leave. I had one kid pass out and I caught him. I caught the kid as they were dropping like flies in my room.

Andrea: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it was

Gabe: incredible. It was incredible. But that does every phlebotomist that I ever talked to. I'm a talker. I like talking to people. And I always talk to phlebotomists, like, people pass out what's going on. And they're like, the only people that pass out are young males. They're the only ones.

And I was like, that's bulk. Like, no way. Yeah, that's probably true. 'cause the only ones that passed out my class were young males, including myself, . So that, that was a fun, my gosh, student teaching experience. It was, it was a ride of a time.

Andrea: My gosh. So was your host teacher in the room when you passed out?

Gabe: Uh, she or were you by yourself? She, she was in the, she was like, kind of afar, like, she was like kind of coming in and out. 'cause at that point I was just running the show and it was just like, boom, lights off. And I was just like, oh geez. Like. Oh, there's a baby. It was crazy. It was crazy. So

Andrea: in fairness, I have vivid memories of when we watched that in in my high school bio class, and I remember somebody just yelling out like in such despair, like, Oh, dear God, there's so much hair, because the woman is is very natural.

Um, and so when the baby comes out, like every there's just a lot of fluid. And there's a lot.

Gabe: Okay, do you go, like, this has nothing to do with education. Do we

Andrea: need to have a sex ed talk, Gabe? How much, how

Gabe: much, yeah, no. Alright, picture this, Andrea, okay? You're sitting, you're sitting at this casting call.

They're saying, you're gonna be famous, be an actor. And they're like, you are going to give birth on camera. And it is going to be shown to millions of teenagers for decades. What's your, what's your number? What's your, what's your price tag? Be like, yeah, I'll do that. I'll be the person that the star of the miracle of life.

Andrea: Are we saying like, if I had my real platform? Like, at like now or previously?

Gabe: Um, like, you have no Well, people know

Andrea: it's Educator Andrea's earthing video.

Gabe: No, like, you have no social media. You are, you, you, you work your nine to five. You're just thinking, man, I could use some extra cash, kind of. Paycheck to paycheck.

Like, what's that number?

Andrea: I feel like I'd probably do it for 100k. Like, if I knew, like, it, like, as it is right now with my platform, I get so many weird DMs. Absolutely not. Like, I'm not doing that. I don't need to encourage the creepy DMs that I get, but yeah, probably somewhere. Yeah. I feel like that would be a fair amount, you know?

Yeah.

Gabe: If somebody, if somebody approached my fiance and I were like, here's the number. 50 grand.

Andrea: I'd

Gabe: say 50. You don't get to choose! Well, like, yeah, that'd be the number I'd throw out. I'd say, how can we say no to 50? But then again, I'm not the one spread eagle for teenagers all over the world to see a giveaway.

Right.

Andrea: Yeah, and so my husband is in PA school right now, so he has, like, rotations and all of that kind of stuff, and he, In one of his rotations, he had to go to a birth. And so he, he said this mom had had like four kids, right? And you lose all your dignity when you have kids because you're spread eagle in front of all of these people.

And so he was given a camcorder by this mom. And she's like, I want to see, can you just, can you get down there and film it? And my husband is like, She's like, take a picture, right? And he's like, uh, okay, all right. And so he like, leaned over and like, clicked a picture real quick and like, handed it to her.

Because he's so awkward, right? This was before he, before I had had kids. So this is the first time he's really seeing this in real life. And she's like, no, that's not close enough. Really get in there. And so he's like, oh God, all right. And so like, he like, has to take pictures because she was crowning and apparently had a Very well working epidural.

Um, and uh, took pictures for her and he said there was one point during that process that he started to get real pale and the nurse asked like, do you need to sit down for a second? Because he was about to, to pass out. And it always is. It's the, it's the dad's watching. It's usually not like the mom's giving birth that are getting ready to faint.

It's,

Gabe: it's, it's always us. Like. Wissy guys. Like we think we're so tough until something like that, like, okay, I get why women make fun of us. I get why they say, we do milk these combs. Mm-Hmm. . Because women are pretty damn tough. like, you know? Right. They're pretty damn tough .

Andrea: Exactly. All right, so that is I think, a good place for us to take a quick break and then when we get back we are gonna hear about some of the surprise visitors that Gabe has had at his school before.

Alright, welcome back. So, Gabe, I heard that there was one time that you had a special visitor in your school.

Gabe: A special visitor? I've had many special visitors in my school. Which, uh, which special visitor are you, uh, are you, are you hitting toward?

Andrea: Well, there was one in particular, apparently, that broke into your school.

Oh,

Gabe: yeah! This one! Oh, I totally forgot about this one. Okay. I was like, you're queuing me up perfect for that. I was like, oh yeah, which visitor? Cause honestly, at first, my brain went to where we had the mariachi band come to class, or come to our school. That was a great story. That also sounds awesome.

Random, it was awesome. But no, so this happened a couple years ago, so get this. Uh, We had a meth head break into, break into my school. This was nutso. Okay. So this was, uh, heart of COVID. Okay. So this was like, you remember that spring when COVID first hit? This is that fall. So in South Dakota, we were full throttle, baby.

We were like, we're getting, we're packed. You were like, COVID doesn't

Andrea: exist. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah.

Gabe: It's like mask up and let's shove them in the rooms. Let's do it. And, uh, So, all of a sudden, and my room is way in the back corner of this school. It's an old school, um, so I can't ever see outside. I didn't have a window.

Literally my room is, that room now is a storage closet. So, all of a sudden the kids start rolling in, and they're losing their minds. They're like, what is going on? Mr. Danenberg, you should have seen what happened outside. I was like, what? And they're like, yeah, the cop was tackling a guy outside. Who? And I, like, immediately started thinking of the students that, like, would, would potentially be getting tackled by the SRO.

And I was like, what? What? Like, no, it was, they're like, it's a man. A man got tackled. It's like, okay, what is going on? They're like, he had a gun. And I was like, what? And everybody was like, no, he didn't. Like, you know how this story just keeps going and going. It

Andrea: just gets bigger. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Gabe: Thanks a lot.

So, uh, so this story just keeps building and building and building and eventually we get the email like, Hey, uh, we're, we're going to have a staff meeting at the end of the day to talk about what happened. And I was like, what the heck happened? So in the staff meeting, uh, their principals are talking and rightfully so.

It was kind of emotional because we had somebody who did break into our school and that sucks. Looking back, hindsight, you can joke about it, but in the moment, it sucked. And they're like, somebody broke into our school. They walked in through the staff, staff, staff doors, and there was like a 15 minute window where those doors were unlocked.

You didn't need your badge to, to sign in. And this dude was just going room to room. And at this point we had any, any person had a pulse was going to be a substitute teacher because teachers were gone all the time. Like, so this guy

Andrea: was like, he's a sub.

Gabe: That's exactly what happens. So, so it just, yeah. So he's going room to room checking out like what's going on in these classrooms before the school day starts.

And everyone's just like, all right, he's just, this guy is a sub, strange cat, but I ain't judging. Like, all right. He looks like he hasn't showered. And

Andrea: in fairness, sometimes you see some subs and they've, they've been through it. Life has not been kind.

Gabe: Yeah. They're tough. They are. They are. They are one. Uh, yeah, they're, they're tough.

And, uh, so he, he's going room to room and eventually a teacher catches him while he's going through like these files and he's like tweaking out, going through the file cabinet and she's like, Hey, do you need something? And then he's like, No, no, I'm good. I'm good. And never in a million years is it usually acceptable for a sub to be going through some file cabinets.

So then she goes and tells the office like, Hey, that sub is kind of weird. Like, there's not a sub in there today. So so the SRO goes in and goes and checks on him. And the guy just bolts just boom, gone out the door. And of course, This happens right when all the buses are showing up, right when parent drop off is going on.

So this guy, the cop tackles the guy in the front yard because he just broke into the school, like you can't let him run away and like they're wrestling, they end up like getting him down. Turns out the dude was tweaking out on math, and then what was even worse is when the admin went back and looked at the cameras, he was in the building for like 20 minutes, just like walking around, and that means so many teachers saw this dude tweaking out on math, and they're like, Checks out,

Andrea: like, he's probably a sub,

Gabe: like, happy to have you here, thanks for helping.

Andrea: Yeah, so that was wild. We got real desperate during the pandemic for, for subs. We were not, there was not a lot of judgment. If somebody was a warm body and they were there, it was, was he masked up? Was, was everybody masked up? Yeah.

Gabe: Yeah. We had like, uh, kind of a quasi mask rule and it was, yeah, you know, you don't know how masks went.

Andrea: Yeah. Yeah. Well, so I actually, insanely enough at one of the schools, actually the very small private school I worked at, we had a break in from a meth addict as well, but apparently, apparently, but the way we discovered him, it wasn't that he was dead. like, there when we arrived or anything, he would break in and he would bring, um, pornographic DVDs with him and use the school equipment to watch his shows.

Wow. And he forgot his DVD. And so, uh, Are you serious? So one of the teachers came in and turned their TV on. And

Gabe: Kim Superstar K is on the TV.

Andrea: Yeah, yes.

Gabe: Like,

Andrea: a DVD. Like, this was not 15 years ago. Like, I was at that school seven years ago. So like, The internet existed, like, you, he could have, I guess, maybe logged on as a guest on the computers, but I, I mean, I'm sure the firewalls were pretty good, but, yeah, so he left his DVDs, so then they checked the cameras, and they realized that this guy, and apparently he'd been doing it, like, frequently, like, sneaking into different rooms and using our computers, and loading up, and just

Gabe: Yeah, check the cameras about five seconds into the film, you're like, turn it off, turn it off!

You're like, turn it off, oh dear god! We know how this ends! Circle of life, we don't need to know!

Andrea: It was so terrible, it truly was. Because then of course I'm like looking at my desk and I'm like, why, what is Why is it the way that it is? Like, trying to make sure everything's clean. Yeah, it was, it was bad.

And that, I think, yeah, that would have been pre pandemic for us. So, we didn't have the excuse of, oh, maybe it's a sub at that point. It, it was just brutal.

Gabe: Oh man, that's crazy. That's, uh, I would like to know, like, I hope it was a teacher who found a CD. And yeah, I actually, we're not even going to go there on that.

Like I. I

Andrea: don't, I don't know the specifics of like what genre or any of that. I just know that it was illicit DVDs and my colleague across the hall discovered it in her, in her DVD player. So it was, yeah, it was a trip.

Gabe: We had, we had one time where we had a surprise visitor of a mariachi band that performed at lunch and our, like, this is at the school I'm at now, and our principal, he is type a.

Yeah. If there's something that's going to happen, he's like, we know we had a meeting today about something that's going to happen in 25, 26 school year. So he is, he is on the ball. He, he, he knows what he, he, he likes to communicate. And we get this email at like 10 o'clock on a Tuesday. And he goes, Hey, uh, just letting you guys know, there's going to be a full mariachi band performing in the cafeteria today.

For like three hours. And I was like, this is, this could have to be really cool. Yeah. A South Dakota, a South Dakota mariachi band. You don't know how authentic it's going to be. So yeah. So I was like, I got to check this shit out. Like, let me go, let me go see what's going on. And it was so fun. I had a blast.

Like, this mariachi band was just shredding and all the kids loved it. And they're eating their school pizza and like all their school pigeon food and just loving it. And I was, I just stood there and watched this mariachi band for a while in disbelief of how like talented they were, how fun it was. And I was like, we need a mariachi band all the time.

Like, it just makes people feel better.

Andrea: Was it Cinco de Mayo or anything?

Gabe: No, just Tuesday. I don't know. I would love to know like the logistical side of that. Like, how did that unravel? And all of a sudden the mariachi band is there, but man, they crushed. They, they rushed.

Andrea: That's amazing. I, and like at the school I worked at in Southern California, it wouldn't be that surprising.

Like there were a couple of times that, uh, there are these boys who would always kind of hang out in my class. And one of them decided he was going to ask this girl out. He'd been super into her for a really long time. He brought her a hundred red roses. He had his friends bring Trumpets and guitars, and he went into the quad, and this school has thousands of kids, right?

This is not a small school. We were, I think, around, like, 3, 000 kids at this school. And he approached her singing with his friends, playing a musical, like, accompaniment behind him as he sang to her, and asked her out. Do you know what he's saying?

Gabe: Do you know what he's saying?

Andrea: I don't because I'm not bilingual and it was all in Spanish, but it was beautiful.

It was so good and, uh, like sang her this beautiful song and she said yes and I was just like, I like cannot even fathom, like, what is he going to do to propose one day? If he's asking a girl out like that, it, that's impressive. It was like, I very impressed.

Gabe: That's see, I've got I've got the other side of that story.

So this was when I was what was I was a sophomore in college. I was working at Horizon East Middle School in Moorhead, Minnesota. Shout out I think they're the E, no, Spuds, go Spuds. Uh, and I was working in the AVID program as a tutor and this was the day before Valentine's day. So all of a sudden these boys come in and they're just making fun of this kid.

Just, and it's their buddy. So it's all in good faith. So they're making fun of the, of the buddy. And I was like, guys, what's going on? Like, what's the deal? And they're like, Mohammed, tell him what happened. Tell him what happened. And his head's down. He goes, Fine. I was like, all right, what happened? He goes, so there's this girl that I like.

And, uh, I thought I had her locker and I was going to ask her out. So I got her a bunch of flowers and I got her some chocolate and a card and I put it in front of her locker. And, uh, I found out it was the wrong locker. And now some random girl got a note about me asking her out. And then they kept making fun of him.

And they're like, also, what is tomorrow? And he goes, Valentine's Day. What did you think today was? Valentine's Day. So he got the day wrong and he got the girl's locker wrong. And I don't know how the story ends. I don't know if he made it right. I don't know if Mystery Locker C 103 ended up asking him out, but it was, I felt for this young man.

It was a seventh grader and I felt for him. But I feel for

Andrea: that.

Gabe: You do.

Andrea: I feel for that girl though. Can you imagine being like, Oh my gosh, like this guy's super into me. And then being like, Oh no, it was the wrong locker. That

Gabe: was for your friend. Like that would be miserable. Miserable.

Andrea: So crushing. Have

Gabe: you seen any dating fails as a high school teacher?

Andrea: Oh, so many. So, so many. There was one, one kid we came, like, so one of the first days of school, I had them writing, I'm trying to remember what the prompt was specifically. Um, I think I was having them write something with descriptive language or something like this or tell me, you know, describe a moment in summer that was like really phenomenal or really impactful for you.

And this Boy stood up and read about his crazy ex girlfriend who's such a psycho, who like stalked him basically and was so obsessed with him. And the energy in the room was really weird when he was saying this. And I was like, what is happening? I'm, I'm hearing like some like snickers from the guys and some of the girls are just like staring daggers at him.

And I was like, is, Is she, is she in this room? And he's like, yep. And he sat down and I was like, the balls, right? Right. But then the worst part was they spent the entire rest of the year flirting, asking to sit next to each other, trying to like work something out. And I'm like, I am not supporting this.

You guys are so toxic with each other. Absolutely not. That's

Gabe: funny.

Andrea: See, I This is not happening.

Gabe: I miss teaching high school for that reason. I miss being in the high school building for that. I legit was on a Netflix reality show that aired in October. A multi million dollar Netflix show. And that drama on a Netflix show does not compare to the drama that goes on in schools.

Between the relationships amongst the kids, and the drama amongst staff members. Like, it doesn't even touch it. Like, it's, it's, it was incredible. And one of my favorite memories of my dad, well, I should say, it sounds like he died, he didn't die, but when he, he was my teacher, and, uh, we had, I had anatomy with him, and And my girlfriend in high school at the time was in that class and he would let us pick our seats.

So we sat next to each other. And what he does with every high school couple is he has the class discussion where he looks, looks the couple in the face and he goes, listen, I know you two are dating now and you're sitting next to each other, but if you break up, this is awkward for every single one of us in the room.

So if you, if one of you are on the rocks, Let me know and I will move your spots. And I was like, that's a great way to handle it. And yeah, I ended up breaking up with that girlfriend for a short period of time in, in that class. And it was very awkward for everybody. We got back together, which made it even more awkward, but it was, It was just like, that drama doesn't compare to what reality TV even has, it's its own reality show.

Andrea: Yeah. How did your students react to that? Oh,

Gabe: they made fun of me for

Andrea: it.

Gabe: Yeah. I bet they did. See, and, and here's, here's the thing about that, Angie, here's the thing about reality TV. So I went into this reality show and I was like, I'm gonna come in here swinging, like I'm gonna be guns a blazing, like, and I, I said from the start, here's what I'm doing if I win.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I am buying a Corvette and I'm donating to Native American kids in South Dakota. Those are my two goals. I'm not gonna, I'm not going to sugarcoat anything. I'm not going to say I want to do this and then not do it. Those are my two goals. And I was like, I'm going to try to win because I was like, I'm playing a game and I'm a psycho competitor.

Like I, like, I'm an absolute psycho competitor. And I, One of my character flaws is I think everybody thinks the way that I do, so I thought everybody else was going into this game being like, we're all, we're all psycho competitors. Let's do this. So I went in as a freaking wrecking ball on this reality show and not everybody else is a psycho competitor like me.

So my students got to see me be an absolute competitor on this and they're like, yeah, like they come to class like, yeah, I'm a satan. You're kind of, you're kind of intense on that show. I was like, I was there to win. They're like, yeah, we got that. We got that. That was very clear, very clear. Before the show came out, I was talking with one of the Netflix directors or PR people, whatever, whatever, whatever title they have.

And they, we have this conversation usually a week before the show comes out. And I was talking to the guy, I was like, all right, so how did I look? And he goes, yeah, I think you've come off looking pretty good. And I was like, all right, you think it's going to go good? He's like, yeah, you're going to come off as if you really wanted to win, but you're going to come off okay.

And yeah, so it was funny. Like the kids reacted to it pretty good. Uh, they made fun of me for everything. You know, there's no way you can't breathe right when you're, when you're a middle school teacher. So they may find me for some stuff, but that was such a fun experience. And it was, it was so fun. Just the love from other people.

And it was, it was so cool. It was so cool. Yeah.

Andrea: That's awesome. Um, okay, so one of the things we do, uh, on the podcast is we ask, or we get, um, questions from the audience and then we can kind of try and take a stab at answering their questions. So the first question that we got is, uh, what is the number one thing our country can do to recruit more teachers?

Solve, you know, solve the teaching stuff. Just go. Ready? Go.

Gabe: Let's do it. Okay. Let's do it. All right. So I spent a lot of, a lot of time into thinking about this. So I put this into two different categories. What are things that we can do that will cost districts nearly 0? And what are things that we can do that will ultimately cost money?

So let's look at the one about costing money. So obviously teacher pay is always the first thing. But believe it or not, I think a lot of teachers are leaving the profession, not only because of the money, there's other things, it's not about the money. So I think that is one thing. I think the lack of support from families is another thing.

I think if you could really, I would love to see a school try to do something like this, where they try to have as much, uh, parent involvement as possible, where they hold families accountable, hold kids accountable, hold teachers accountable, really have all that together. I also think if you have more PTO for One of the things that is one of the Biggest slaps in the face for me as a professional is getting told that I have two days of PTO to use.

Like, that sucks. Especially when you hear of other jobs that they have unlimited PTO. And it's, it's so funny, like, for me, like, I grew up with a dad who's a teacher and a mom who has her own business. They never took days off, and I always thought every profession never takes days off. I didn't realize other professions have PTO until I was like in, in like the profession, and I remember talking to somebody, it was my first year teaching, and they're like, Oh, yeah, I get my three weeks of PTO.

What? I was like, three weeks? I was like, I get two days and they're like, what? Like, are you serious? So that's one of those things. Yeah, you're just not allowed

Andrea: to be sick.

Gabe: Yeah, it's like, yeah. Having two days of PTO is crazy. Like, give, give teachers flexibility. Um, I think that would keep teachers in. in, uh, schools more.

And then I actually have a list here of things that would cost schools zero dollars. Like I, I made this list, so take me a second here to find it. I

Andrea: love this. I'm so glad that we chose this question for you. Yeah, this is really good. So prepared.

Gabe: As you can see, this is, this is my TikTok idea list. So I've got, I've got, this one runs deep.

Things that wouldn't cost the districts a lot of money. More than two days of PTO. That really wouldn't cost a ton of money. Uh, what you could do is like a lot of, a lot of districts, they say you have nine sick days in two days of you can use whatever you want. Make them all one bank. Make it a bank. Say you're a professional, you can use these 10 days, first come first serve on these days, and then you can have those conversations if you're consistently missing Fridays or Mondays or things like that.

Uh, next, teacher in service days are 90 percent to 100 percent dedicated to classroom times. And then have teachers, if they need meetings, have them set the meetings on in service days. Like, I don't, I don't know how so many six figured salaried Uh, admin keep making these decisions of like, Hey, we're going to throw in some BS training.

Like go on TikTok for five minutes, go on Facebook for five minutes and type in what do teachers complain about? And then you you'll quickly learn like, Hey, let's do away with that. And I've heard some admins say the argument to that is, well, we don't trust our staff to use the time accordingly. Okay.

Then address those five staff members who are wasting their time. Address those five. Don't make it a blanket policy for everybody. Um, and then stop making teachers do stuff on the lunch break. Give a teacher a fricking lunch break, bare minimum expectations in the workforce. Let them have a lunch break.

Come on. Um, another one. Have, have admins sub for multiple days in a row. I honestly think that would increase staff morale for a number of different ways. If you, it's not one off afternoon, have it be an admin is going to take three days in a row in a classroom. Because then admin understand what's going on within their school.

They have a refresher and it's not like principals and assistant principals. They, they see it. They get it to an extent. The good ones get it. I'm talking to high level admin, have them come in because most of them haven't taught post COVID or just haven't come in for a little bit. And then, um, Now, this might cost the district a little bit of money.

Once a month, have a Friday afternoon or a Wednesday afternoon where the kids have a half day and teachers have the afternoon to take care of the bullcrap they gotta take care of. You can make those changes to dramatically increase teacher morale and have it so teachers are quitting less. I think those things could make a huge difference.

Andrea: What do you think? I think so too.

Gabe: What do you think? That's a big list.

Andrea: I think you absolutely crushed it. Like, I think that just giving teachers the ability to take their time off and I think that it shouldn't just be like district admin, it should also be the school board members who have to sub and do all of that.

I mean, that would be, can you imagine if the decision makers were actually in the schools or anyone who's involved with like decision making in the schools? Do you

Gabe: know how many school board members have not spent a full day in a classroom? It says they were in school. Like it's, it's crazy. That would be like the board of medical professionals not ever stepping foot in a, in a hospital for an entire day.

Making all of those decisions for

Andrea: all of those practitioners and they, you know, have been patients before, but to have no actual experience practicing medicine. Yeah.

Gabe: Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy.

Andrea: Yeah. Well, we'll just let the country know that we need to do those things, and we will have fixed the American education system.

Gabe: And, and if it doesn't fix it, don't blame me. I'm just kidding. I'm just throwing things at the wall, let's see if it sticks.

Andrea: Oh my gosh. All right. Well, before I let you go, can you share kind of what you're up to, where people can find you, any new projects?

Gabe: Yeah, uh, you can find me if you look up Gabe Dannenbring on all forms of social media.

Facebook, YouTube, uh, Instagram, TikTok. It's all on there. Um, just doing my normal content, you know, doing my normal content. This spring, I have quite a few trips that are planned. Either giving keynote speeches, talking about the state of education, and Things like that. And then doing some other stuff. Um, so trying to think there as like a, as a teacher influencer creator, there's always so many things going on and you become used to it.

So, so you're like, what is actually going on? I'm just, I'm used to always running around like this, but yeah, check out my content and, uh, yeah. Yeah. Do you want to plug the show? Yeah. I was going to say, check out Surviving Paradise. I come on episode five. If you want to see me go, go full psycho wrecking ball, check it out, you guys.

It's awesome. It's entertaining. What about you, Andrea? What do you got going? What do you want to plug?

Andrea: Oh, you know, this podcast is probably the best. I know. How much do you make a year?

Gabe: After Texas.

Andrea: Let's just, let's just get it all out there. I'll also, you know, share my social security number, all of the pertinent things, all of that good stuff.

Um, uh, you know, I'm just hanging out with cool people on this podcast. That is the biggest thing I'm doing right now. So, um, I love that you're doing keynote speeches and that like, it's so clear that you are not just creating content online, but you're like, passionately advocating for education in really substantive way, like having a list on your phone like at the ready there.

I'd like, that's really cool. So thank you so much for coming today and hanging out with us and sharing all of those fun stories.

Gabe: Well, thank you for having, can I share with you one more story? This is so ironic. One more story. Nothing to do with teaching, all to do with podcast invitations. I spent, I spent four hours trying to deal with my Facebook business suite that manages my Instagram and my Facebook with, with all total about half a million followers on it.

So it got hacked. I usually make fun of like my parents and older people for like falling for these dumb schemes, but here's what they did. They disguised themselves as a, as a booking person for a podcast. Keep in mind, the podcast was real. It was a real podcast. And they were like, Hey, like, Jasmine wants you on the show.

She's super excited to have you on. And then we go through like setting up the like the onboarding for the call. So we're gonna have the we were gonna have the podcast tomorrow. And they're like, all right, we're gonna do this via Facebook Live. That's why we're paying you for it. Because we want to have your Facebook followers watch this.

And like, can you screen share with us so we can make sure that you have the events, Facebook events. access on, on your Facebook account. So I was like, yeah, this seems legit. All right. They then found a way to steal a link to then get into my business suite and logged me out and took out my ownership of my accounts for like 20 minutes.

I lost all ownership. They have the ability to delete everything. So then today, as I'm getting ready for this podcast, I was like, Am I getting scammed again? Like, am I an idiot? Am I going to do this two times in a week? Like, am I that freaking stupid? So, I'm glad that you are not That it was

Andrea: actually me.

Yeah, it makes

Gabe: me feel really good. But these people are so freaking convincing, so I will never make fun of a boomer again for getting their Facebook hacked.

Andrea: No, that, that happened to John Chris. I don't know if you know him, he's a comedian. Yeah, that happened to his Facebook, and he was locked out for a week.

And they, he lost like hundreds of thousands of followers. It's it's not just you.

Gabe: Good.

Andrea: Like it happened. It's happened to like a lot of people because it does seem like super legit, um, when it comes through.

Gabe: All these 85 year old grandmas has had it too. It makes me feel better. But they even use the right terminology.

They were like, Oh yeah. Here are the deliverables for the podcast and all that. I got hoodwinked. I got hoodwinked. Yeah.

Andrea: Well, you're welcome for not stealing your identity or your socials.

Gabe: Identity theft is not a joke, Jim. Okay.

Andrea: Oh my gosh. All right, on that note, I'm going to let you go and we will be right back.

Gabe: I'm glad you're real. Goodbye.

Andrea: Welcome back. I hope you guys enjoyed chatting with Gabe as much as I did. That was awesome. So hilarious hearing all about the chaotic things that he experienced in the classroom and how weirdly parallel some of our experiences were with meth addicts in our schools and singing and all of just the things that make a classroom a classroom, you know, like it is exactly that chaos.

Those kinds of memories that make it so freaking fun to wrap up a school year with a group of students. Um, I have not yet watched Surviving Paradise, but now I really want to see what kind of cutthroat things, because I feel like maybe He's, he's saying that he was just really competitive, but now I am, my curiosity is sparked.

So I'm for sure going to be checking out Surviving Paradise. Um, so I wanted to make sure, even though, you know, we already finished chatting with Gabe today, I wanted to make sure that we did not miss what your students are doing. So I asked this past week what your students were up to. And this one, the first one to me is just such a classic.

One, like I have had variations of this done to me where apparently in one of the classes, the students took a picture they found of their teacher's dad and made it their cell phone background, which. It's like, that is so typical. I still remember vividly when I was in high school, we knew some of our teachers had attended the school that we were at.

And so we went into the library and we found the old yearbook photos of our teachers and we printed them out and we blew them up and we would just like hide them around the school just to troll our teachers essentially. And now kids have like access to the internet. So it's so much easier for them to find content like that, um, which, you know, is a good reminder to check what happens when, you know, you Google your name because they will for sure, 100 percent Google your name.

Um, the second one was as an English teacher, I had to include this one because teaching MLA was the absolute bane of my existence, trying to get students to format. And then I Fully paid my penance getting my doctorate and having to suddenly learn APA and do all sorts of absurd formatting and citing.

But apparently a student said, um, why do we have to use MLA? And we can't just say shout out to the boys on collegeboard. org. Which is just, I can, I can so hear them saying that with my whole heart. And I do remember when I was working on my doctorate, I kept thinking like, why can't I just say, shout out to the boys at Purdue OWL?

You know, cause that is what I lived and breathed on during my entire time in college. So. I absolutely love hearing your stories every week. And if you have something chaotic that happened in your class this week, and you want me to read about it or share it on here, you can absolutely reach out to me at Andrea at human dash content.

com. Um, or at educator, Andrea. com, you know, every Friday I do the, what are those kids doing? Tag. And then I try and share some on there and then I keep a couple back so that we have something a little bit fresh to share here. You can also kick it with us on our human content podcast family page on Instagram and TikTok at human content pods.

This is a new podcast. So thank you guys so much for tuning in and leaving your reviews and comments and reaching out. I really appreciate it. It helps a lot. me and the team just make a better podcast for you. And if you would like a shout out, make sure to leave your review on your favorite podcasting app.

You can get full video episodes every week on YouTube at Educator Andrea. I'm your host, Andrea Forkham, and a very special thanks to our guest, Gabe Dannenbring. Our executive producers are Andrea Forkham, Aaron Korney, Rob Goldman, and Shahnti Brooke. Our editor is Andrew Sims, our engineer is Jason Portizzo, our music is by Omer Ben Zvi, our recording location is the Indiana State Bi College of Education.

To learn more about Those Who Can't Do's program disclosure and ethics policy and submission verification and licensing terms, you can go to PodcasterAndrea. com. Those Who Can't Do is a human content production.

Thank you so much for watching. If you're like me and you're thinking, gosh, I really need more Those Who Can't Do in my life. You can start your binging right now by clicking on that playlist button right over there. New episodes are out every Thursday, so please subscribe and join us each week on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.