Andrea: Welcome to Those Who Can't Do, I am Andrea Forkham, and I'm so excited about my guest co host today, who is Jessica Haack, but you guys probably know her better as Dr., is it Dr. I?

Jessica: Yes.

Andrea: I've only ever seen everything you post on there. I always see my teacher face. And when people requested to have you on, which by the way, probably one of the most requested guests that I've had thus far, where people were like, well, you need to bring on my teacher face.

And at first I was like, my teacher, because I'd seen your videos and everything, but I wasn't like, I didn't place it that way. I knew your name was Jessica. And so I was like, wait, who is that? But I, you know, it's one of those where people see the name and then they, you know, make the connections, but I haven't.

So excited to have you on and you just retired. Congratulations.

Jessica: Thank you so much. Almost a full five days retired.

Andrea: I know. Are you, are you like beyond elated? Are you, or are you at like a place where it doesn't feel real yet?

Jessica: It doesn't feel real yet because this is still technically summer break and I don't think it's going to hit me until August.

When I would normally be spinning in circles about my schedule and my lunch and my class sizes. So I think at that point when that doesn't happen, I'll go, Oh, Oh, this is lovely.

Andrea: Yeah. You're like, Oh, I can actually just keep existing like summer break.

Jessica: And when I'm making long term appointments, And I keep saying, no, nothing before four.

Wait, no, I can go at 10 a. m.

Andrea: I can go whenever I want. Now, can you share a little bit about how long you taught and all of that good stuff, just so we have some context?

Jessica: Sure. I started teaching in 1992 93 in Lanna, Maryland, because I went to University of Maryland. I got a job right away. Um, I didn't realize the school was the feeder school for all the kids who got expelled from DC schools.

And I found that out pretty quickly in my first year. And, um, I stayed a year at that school and knew that I wouldn't have longevity in the career if I stayed there. So I came back to New Jersey. Um, I worked in local schools doing long term substitute and summer, um, summer school for two years. And then I got my job at the high school where I've taught since 95.

Oh,

Andrea: so you were at the same school for most of your career,

Jessica: almost 30 years. Oh

Andrea: my gosh. That had to be. Wild. And I saw on, I think it was maybe yesterday you shared a video of how your school kind of said farewell to you. They like did the sweetest thing. Do you want to tell everybody about that?

Jessica: I was floored.

So my name, my teacher face came about when I started wearing my nose on my glasses in vines and on Instagram and kind of scowling over the glasses. So, I started doing that in yearbook pictures about seven or eight years ago. And everybody knew my teacher face and they would, you know, put their glasses on their nose for me.

Well, what I didn't realize was that about three dozen of my colleagues posed for the yearbook. With their glasses on their nose. And even though they weren't allowed to use them in the yearbook, they created my own personal yearbook with pictures from my career, notes of congratulations, um, and then about 30, 35 pictures of people doing my teacher face, it was absolutely wonderful.

And they presented it to me by hiding in the corner of my room at 7am on Friday. And yelling surprise as I walked in.

Andrea: I would have heart palpitations. Do you like surprises? Were you like delighted by that or did, did you have the rage response at first? Cause I feel like that's what happens to me is my first response when someone surprises me is like instant rage.

And then I'm like, no, it was a nice thing. Don't punch anybody.

Jessica: I was so floored. All I thought was, thank goodness I went to the bathroom before I went to the bathroom. 15 people in the corner of my room as I'm walking in was quite jarring, but I was so touched and so happy that I didn't have any fight or flight, you know, type of response.

I was just like, Oh my goodness. Oh

Andrea: my gosh. That's incredible. And that amount of time at one school is definitely something I want to talk to you about because that in, in, I mean, in any career now, it feels like it is. You know, unheard of to be in the same career at the same job for 30 years, but in teaching, especially the longevity is, is simply not there.

Why do you think that you were able to be so successful for such a long time and at the same school too? Cause I mean, I, how have you, have you ever counted up how many admin you worked with over that course of time?

Jessica: I'll tell you what, in my whole career, I've only had two superintendents. I've had three We don't have a lot of turnover in our school, and that's key to consistency.

Andrea: And

Jessica: we've had a few VPs who've come and gone, but I have to say the reason I have stayed so long at this particular school is hands down administrative support.

Andrea: Yeah, that's in only two superintendents in that amount of time just blew my mind. Unbelievable. Like every district I've ever worked at it was they were either coming out of having a rough superintendent but were hopeful for the new one or they were really unhappy and that one ended up heading out like that year.

I, that's got to be pretty unheard of as well for those kind of long 10 years.

Jessica: And in my school, we've only, the whole time I've been there, we've only had one head football coach for 30 plus years. So people come to this school and they stay at this school. And there is more longevity at my school than I think a lot of the other schools, even in my area or nationwide, because the teacher turnover rate is so high.

And many times when you look at the data that comes out in the exit interviews. People will cite lack of support from administration. And I've gotten full support from administration. This administration let me start a gay straight alliance in 2005, 2004, 2005. That was unheard of. We were the first one in South Jersey.

And our superintendent and our principal both said, you know what? There is a need for this. What is, what are going to be your guidelines, your rules? We'll go with it and don't worry about public outcry. We'll deal with it. I

Andrea: mean that is pretty much never happens like Hey, I know we know this is gonna um get some backlash We'll take the backlash for you that like I feel like that is so incredibly rare and even over things that you know are are less, less of hot button issues.

I feel like over homework or over things that are just very, very basic, like classroom supplies. If a parent gets upset, a lot of times the admin's just like, I just don't have the energy to, to deal with it.

Jessica: That's exactly the case that I see from so many teachers who reach out to me on Instagram and Facebook and they'll say, how are you so happy?

How have you been in this career for 32 years? And you're still so happy. I feel supported and valued. And it's as simple as that. One time, a parrot came in angry to my superintendent, threatening to sue for everything. And my superintendent said, you know, she's wonderful. She said, Oh, all right, well, here, use my landline.

Call your lawyer. I'll call mine on my cell phone. The landline's better. Go ahead. You do that once or twice. It sends a message. And she wasn't kidding. She's like, fine, call your lawyer. I have a lawyer, too. Yeah,

Andrea: that is so unheard of because, you know, having litigious parents and stuff like that, it really makes admin nervous.

And most of the time when people are saying like, I'm going to call my lawyer, like they don't actually have a lawyer. So calling their bluff and being like, go for it. I'm right here. Go for it. And that's what she

Jessica: did. She called, she called the person out and said, fine, call them, but please use the landline better connection.

Andrea: I love that. So, you know, they supported the club that you wanted to start. What are some other things that they did? I'm just thinking about for, for admin and for leadership teams at schools, what are some things that you saw them do that are like really actionable that you think could be emulated other places?

Jessica: We have an advisory council that meets with administration once a month, and it has representatives from every subject area, every level taught, and they will get together and say, here are the issues that we are seeing in school. And the principal will say, here's what I can do about this. There's nothing I can do right now about this.

What would you like to see happen with this? It's open lines of communication, and it's supporting teachers so that they can do their job. We have a new assistant superintendent who used to work in, um, the Department of Education for New Jersey, because that's where I am. And he took some of the most tedious, worthless tasks that we teachers had to do every year and said, this does nothing to improve instruction.

I am doing everyone's. You spend your time making your lessons better and prepping for class.

Andrea: What? Oh my gosh. So what are some of the tasks that he took over? I don't remember.

Jessica: Well, one of the things we have in New Jersey is called an SGO. And with SGOs, student growth objectives, every teacher in the state of New Jersey, I forget how many that is, but it's tens of thousands, had to create student growth objectives for each different class that they taught and show where the kids were in the beginning of the year and the end of the year, using statistical data with spreadsheets, with formulas, And then make a prediction of how many of their kids would reach this tier, this tier and this tier.

Come on. And originally we had to send them all to the state as if somebody were going to look at 10, 000 teachers times how many classes they had. So we found out very quickly that it was a mess and the results were going nowhere. And teachers by their nature are self reflective. If you want to know how my kids are doing, ask me.

Don't make me fill out five pages of an Excel spreadsheet with five tiers and formulas that have to be plugged in.

Andrea: That's What? Now, was this in addition to doing standardized testing? Uh, yeah. Because I could, I could almost see somebody sitting there being like, we want to get rid of standardized tests.

So this is what we're going to do instead to provide alternate data. But that is brutal to be spending time on standardized testing. And then also that extra level of, so how did he take that over?

Jessica: Well, he came up with district student growth objectives. And so with these. We were able to say all of us are going to work on this goal.

So it wasn't Jessica in her AP language class is going to work on this. And then in her basic skills class is going to work on this. And then in her reading the movies class is going to work on this. And then in our honors class, I had four preps. So that's four different sets of data. And he said, no, the whole district is going to work on this goal and this goal, and here's how it's going to be measured.

And the form, I will submit them all for you. Done. Literally five minutes.

Andrea: That's awesome. That

Jessica: is so great. And guess what? We as teachers then have buy in to whatever he wants us to do, because we trust him and we know that he understands and remembers what it's like to be a teacher. And be overwhelmed by all the tasks of teaching.

And the fact that he values us enough to say, I'm going to take this off your plate because you can work on teaching things instead of this. We were floored.

Andrea: Right. Now, this was the superintendent, you said?

Jessica: Assistant superintendent.

Andrea: Okay. Oh my gosh. Now, so he had actually been a teacher before for, I'm guessing, at least A teacher, a

Jessica: principal, and then worked for the Department of Education.

So he knew that this data

Andrea: Right. Well, and that, that's the thing that always kills me is like that we've got all of this data collection and all of that. And I remember so many meetings at the beginning of the year, you know, they would always be talking about, here's the data we want to hit, here's all the things we want to do.

And like, you know, as, as a professor, right, like I, I know why they eventually want it and it's not really about, It's like evaluating the schools, right? It's to see, is this school effective? But standardized testing is not the best way to see that, nor is it the best predictor of student outcomes. Like I can't remember where I, I terrible not citing my sources, but I did read recently that the best predictor of student success is actually the student's grades and the teacher's feedback.

Because It's more than just, can you do well on a test, how you're going to do in college, you know, like, it's not one to one at all. I was a terrible test taker and I was also a very average, yeah, very average student across the board. A little below average, like, but like later when I got motivated and stuff like that, I was, I was far more successful.

But it's this insane obsession that like, well, if we have data to back it up, that's going to improve outcomes. And that's not true ever,

Jessica: ever, because I've always said about standardized testing. Even when my kids take the AP test, I said, if you do well, or if you do poorly, it's a three hour snapshot of one day.

And we don't know what happened to you the night before or what happened that morning. We don't know if, you know, you had a full stomach as you were going in or you didn't get sleep because you worked the night before. And also with standardized tests, students know that it doesn't affect them. In any way.

So I've monitored tests where I've watched kids click, click, click, click, click five minutes done.

Andrea: Oh yeah. And

Jessica: then we're supposed to be accountable for that data here. Can you take my, you know, qualitative analysis of the fact that five kids put their heads down after five minutes? Can I add that as an addendum?

Yeah,

Andrea: honestly, which they don't, of course, like they, they will take into account if like a phone goes off or if there's a fire alarm or there's something like that, then you have to throw out the whole test and everyone has to retest. But like the teacher being like, hey. Sally sat there and fell asleep on her keyboard halfway through.

Maybe let's not use her data? Like, right.

Jessica: Why is there not a form for that while there should be? Because we have to be present and circling the entire time. Um, or in New Jersey, if there is a breach, your license can be taken away. I'm like, what? What are you doing? What is happening? But let us say, here's what I observed as I was walking around, my mandatory walk around.

Where you're not allowed to have like,

Andrea: a phone or anything to entertain yourself. You literally just have to speak. Dare them taking standardized tests. Guys, if you've never proctored a test before, it is several levels down Dante's Inferno. It is awful. It is so boring because like you kind of hope that a kid does something because then at least you got something to do.

It's hours of staring at kids click.

Jessica: Or I know some colleagues who have messed up the parts before the test. And then that word gets out and then they're not put into the testing anymore. And I'm like, God, that's genius.

Andrea: Right? Let's screw up everything. Let me make sure I don't have pencils. I'm so sorry.

Like, I'm going to like read the thing wrong.

Jessica: Little things, little minor things, which I'm like, you're, you're pretty sly because you're on bathroom duty or relief duty or front lobby duty and they never have to test again. God, I wish I thought of that.

Andrea: So speaking of good tips for surviving education and stuff, what would you say are some of the things that you did that helped you be successful?

You know, you mentioned admin being great. What are some of the things that like we're in because you can't really control who your admin is or how they're going to interact with you. What are some things that were in your control that you think helped make you so fabulous?

Jessica: Well, one of the things that I always tell new teachers, especially when I'm mentoring them, my, my biggest rule of thumb is over plan because so many of the problems I had in my first few years, and there were problems were because I would create this wonderful lesson with all of these parts and this was going to be this, and there's going to be a discussion and it goes over horribly and it's finished in 10 minutes.

And then you have dead air. And when I taught middle school, you cannot have downtime and before cell phones, you could not have downtime. So I always tell teachers over prepare, over plan, have way more than you think you will need, because that will thwart some of the issues and behaviors. And I also tell them, remember that these kids that are coming into your rooms are human beings.

They are coming in, carrying invisible weights that you don't know about. We don't know what's going on in their home life. We don't know what's going on with their health. We don't know what's going on in so many aspects of their life. And if a kid comes in and seems to have an attitude, don't immediately think it's because of you.

You weren't that offensive in the first five seconds, I hope. If you were just stop. Sometimes kids will come in. I'll say hello to them. They don't say hello to me. They go and sit down. And I'm like, okay. I didn't do anything in those five seconds. So this is something the child is bringing in with them.

Let me be in tune with that. So treating kids like human beings, full, fully formed human beings coming in with all of their invisible weights is really, really important. As a younger teacher, I would get offended. I was insecure. I was, well, how dare they? I am the authority figure in here. And I said, hello and blah, blah, blah.

And I also went to Catholic school. So I had a lot of that hanging on me as well. Right. So, I just had to say, it's probably not me. 99 times out of a hundred, it wasn't me. There were a few kids who hated me.

Andrea: Always, right?

Jessica: Yeah. Always, always. Um, but those are the two things over plan. And remember kids are carrying invisible weight.

Andrea: Yeah, I think that's so important. I remember, um, in the past few years, I had a kid come in and I got that just vibe from him that he wanted nothing to do with me. He was annoyed by my existence and I could not figure it out because when he talked to his friends, they were vibing, right? Like, that interaction was really positive, but then I would come over and be like, hey man, how's it going?

And he would just stare at me and I'm like, cool. Cool, cool, cool. And like, I get really uncomfortable and like, try and just be like, all right, bye. Like, walk to the other side. Sorry. Right. I'm so sorry for existing in your bubble. I'm gonna go. Like, and I, I reached out to his dad and his dad was the contact information.

And usually, I don't know if you experienced the same, but most of the time I would see mom as the contact information. And so, I didn't think anything of it, though, you know, so I emailed, I tried to call, didn't answer, so I emailed, and I'm like, hey, just check it in, you know, I I'm noticing he's a little bit reserved with me.

Is there anything I need to know? You know, and stuff like guys, I'm going to grain of salt with this approach because sometimes the thing that's wrong is, is the parent or whatever else is going on. Um, and so be careful, uh, in how you're communicating. Cause you don't want to, you know, Exacerbate something that's already like tension there.

Um, but in that situation, I was just like, Hey, like, I'm, can you tell me anything about your kid? Anything you think that would be helpful for me to know in order to kind of like build a relationship and have rapport with your kid? Um, and he's like, it's, it's not you. My wife died two months ago. And so this, this Poor kid, he's coming into class and my very first day I'm like, let's talk about our summers.

Oh, yeah. Screw you, lady. Like, you can't get, like, why do I want to, no, I'm not going to talk, I don't want to be friends with you. I don't, like, I have no interest in having you here, you just made me, like, think about how horrible my summer was and I'm like, oh, yeah, that tracks, like, yeah, that makes perfect sense that he wouldn't be delighted to see me when I'm like, welcome to class, I want to know everything about.

Who you are, and he's trying everything he can to just hang out with his friends and not think about his reality, you know?

Jessica: And it comes from a good place in our part, because we do want to make connections with kids, but as we hear stories and collect stories over the years of some of the things that our kids are going through, I've changed the way that I do those get to know you things, leaving so many things optional.

Answer this if you want to answer this, if you want to, and some kids will divulge, you know, we have those who are just like my, and you're like, we'll just go stop. Yeah. Six pages. That's enough. Thank you. And then we have some kids where six sentences are all they can muster. Yeah. And so that in and of itself tells me a lot, and I'll try to make inroads with them as the year goes on, but I always find there are some kids who will just look at me like, not buying anything I'm selling.

And then at the end of the year, they'll say, Oh, your class is one of my favorites.

Andrea: I'm like, do you ever, you're like, really? I've had so many like that. Can't

Jessica: your face match your feeling?

Speaker 4: Right. You should have told your face.

Andrea: Okay,

Jessica: great. Good to know now.

Andrea: Yeah. I've had that too before where I've had kids that have come back and seen me or came back to visit the school.

I had, there was one, the first school I was at, this kid skipped my class. So often, so often, like he was constantly like, I gotta go to the bathroom. All right, great. And then he'd be gone for most of class and then come back, get his stuff and leave, right? And he came back to school that first year after he graduated.

I swear I saw him once a week. He would come in during lunch to sit down and eat lunch with me. Like, once a week, and he's like, you were my favorite teacher, you were so cool, and I'm like, you were never there! Like, how do you know? But thanks? Right, like, I guess thanks for coming back, and he'd be like, do you miss me?

And I'm like, I see you more now than I did when you were in my class, my guy. Give me a chance. I love

Speaker: it. That's so cool.

Andrea: Cracks me up. So definitely, uh, you know, having that empathy, I think empathy is like the most important thing for us as educators. Is there a way that you think people can approach it in a way that does not give them fatigue?

Because that was something I found. In, in waves, I would say, like, there were certain times where I would just feel, it would feel so heavy having the stories of the kids in my class and those invisible weights like you talked about. Is there a way that you can recommend that people kind of guard themselves from, from having that empathy fatigue?

Jessica: Yes, because As any teacher knows, if you open that door for students to be a confidant to them, um, it can be a very, very heavy burden. So whenever I, a student says, can I tell you something? And I'm like, yes, but here's a little disclaimer. If I feel, You're going to tell me it's something that will bring you physical harm, mental harm, emotional harm.

I am obligated to move to the next level. If you, if you just need to bend to me and explain a situation to me, great. But please know that I am acting. In loco parentis, and I need to make sure that you are protected. So if it gets to a certain point, I will have to kick it up to people who are better trained than I am.

And 10 times out of 10, I always expect the kids to be like, Oh, well then nevermind. 10 times out of 10, they still want to tell me, because I do believe if kids are coming to you with this information, They want help. Even if it's not you, I might be the first line of defense where they can talk to me knowing that I will refer them to someone else or they'll say, all right, but don't send me to this person.

Can you send me to that? I'm like, sure, whatever. And I always say I do the best that I can at school, but I, I can't invite them metaphorically into my home. Yeah. So once I get home as tough as it is. I tried to do things that don't involve school so I can almost like mentally scrub my brain for the night and just say, all right, that was school.

I will deal with that tomorrow. And I stopped reading emails after like seven, eight o'clock because that, it kicked me back into the school mode hours before I needed to be there. So that was just a big mistake. a self care thing that I started doing right after COVID during COVID as well.

Andrea: Yeah. COVID was so hard too because we were always at home.

So I don't know, I don't know how long you were, uh, you were remote teaching in California. We remote taught for almost the full year. Um, because we went out in March and then I think we didn't come back until the following April. So it was over a year that we were remote. Um, and so it did, it made it so hard not to, to blur those lines and be like, well, I can't really.

Like say, I'm not going to check email at home. So I did start to set times and I wasn't as nice as you. I set up like 4. 30 and I told them like 4. 30 is it. And, um, you know, my, my kids were, were little, I had a baby in April of 2020. So I think that, that to me, Yeah, that was a hellscape in and of itself.

But like, so I was at, there were definitely times during the pandemic where I would turn my camera off while I was Zoom teaching because I was breastfeeding while I was Zoom teaching. And my daughter, who was two at the time, was watching like Bluey or something on the TV at a low level and asking for like Cheez Its.

I'm like chucking Cheez Its and breastfeeding while at the same time trying to like, Okay, guys, let's talk about Shakespeare or whatever, you know, it was. What a time to be alive, honestly.

Jessica: Yeah, that was, um, it seems like a fever dream at this point. Yes, it does. Where I look back on some of the videos I took and some of the pictures I took and, and recordings and screencastifies, because I was cleaning everything out before I retired.

Wait, I really set up a microphone and a camera and a, another camera that faced my whiteboard when we can go back to school. Like I did all of that. Yeah. And taught black squares.

Andrea: Right, right. It was wild. And a lot of things I think rolled in to that unpaid duties as assigned clause, um, which is something I want to talk to you about as soon as we get back from this break.

So we will be right back.

Welcome back to Those Who Can't Do, and I am dying to talk to you about this, because you stayed at the same school for 30 years, uh, and at, I was at, I was only teaching for nine years, but during that time I was in three different schools, so I saw three different ways of that little clause that they put in so many teachers contracts that say, um, you know, here's your contract hours, But you may have to do other duties as assigned, which means unpaid labor is what that means.

If someone has not, and you know, every job to some extent has that, right? Like I, I can't imagine a job out there that doesn't have some version of unpaid labor where you're not necessarily clocked in, but you have to be ready for whatever it is. Um, What were some of the unpaid duties that you had during your teaching tenure?

Jessica: Here's the thing that gets me about unpaid duties, because so much of what we do outside of the classroom is unpaid. Beyond the duties that we have at school, I never get paid for my grading time. I never get paid for my planning time. I never get paid for communication time. I never get paid for any of that.

And then adding extra things. For us, it's bus duty at the end of the day. In the morning, I have front lobby duty, where I am the first line of defense for my school. Look out.

Andrea: Look out. Here she is. What am I going to

Jessica: do? I mean, I can ram my

Andrea: stick. You're going to stare at them aggressively over your glasses.

Jessica: Yeah, exactly. So we have that. We have, um, a chart that tells us we have four nighttime obligations. outside of school hours. So parent conference night, and then we have a choice of eight other things that we can do. So we have those four. Some of my colleagues live far away, so they just stay through because they can't drive to another state, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and come back and do that.

We also lose our prep times sometimes to cover classes. Yeah. And our last contract did get those paid, which is great, but for years it was not paid. Yeah. And it was, you know, we all need to chip in to help out with everything. It was like, well, you know, you could hire a couple of people to float throughout the day and do lab duties.

Cause we also have perimeter door duty. We have hallway duty. We have bathroom duty. It's like all of these things where. My prep period can get sucked up by so many different things where I don't actually do what I need to do as a teacher. And then we have a duty period where some teachers. Have to sit in front of the bathroom door and let kids in one at a time

Andrea: to keep them from vaping.

Jessica: Well, it doesn't work, but we used to have fights in our bathroom. So now we lock them between classes. And then five minutes into the period, there's a teacher each period who has bathroom duty, who has to sit there and let people in. Um, we're always highly, highly encouraged to go to sporting events and chaperone dances.

and, you know, be visible to the kids, which is adorable, but The new teachers coming in rarely don't have a second job. Yeah. So as wonderful as it would be to go to one soccer game, one field hockey game, do all of these things, they're hustling out to go do their second job.

Andrea: Yeah, that's so interesting you say that because I, I recently was chatting with somebody who, you know, he, he's been teaching for over 20 years and he was really frustrated because he felt like the new crop of teachers coming in.

So the Gen Z teachers that are, you know, early, early on in their careers, um, they that he felt like they were less willing to be, you know, the way that it was phrased when I first started teaching, being a, being a team player, right? Where like, once you're a senior teacher, you don't have to do homecoming because the new teachers are going to do it.

And you know, when the teachers who've been teaching for 20 years, when they were brand new teachers, they did do it. And so there's kind of like this way that it's always gone. And then now we have this new crop of teachers and the teaching salary has not kept up with inflation. in any way, shape or form.

And so we have like this huge disparity for what it was like making 40, 000, you know, 10 years ago or 20 or 30 years ago, because it's basically, you know, when I started in Virginia, that's what I was making as a, um, a high school or 39. It was somewhere around that. Um, and I was in a rural county in Virginia and I was making 40, 000.

Like, around 40. And then now I'm in I live in a rural county in Indiana. And it's it's more than that now, but only recently. Um, and it's, you know, over 10 years difference, and everything has gotten more expensive. And everyone's like, why are these young teachers not willing to come do stuff for free.

Like, Boy, they got bills. They are trying to pay their bills. They want to eat. Yes. And they have student loans. And by the way, they also did half their college through a pandemic. So maybe they just need to recover.

Jessica: Right, exactly. And so we have many people in our school who have been working for 25 plus years.

And teacher training back in the late 80s, early 90s was. If you go into a school and they say they need someone to mop the floor, you're going to mop the floor. And if they need somebody to do this, you're going to do that. And when I came into my job, they said, Oh, congratulations. You're going to have four preps, four different classes in six periods.

And you're going to be the mock trial coach. And I said, Oh, great. Thanks.

Andrea: Great.

Jessica: Yeah. Okay. I like a paycheck. And so I did all of that and that's the way that we were trained. So two things with newer teachers. Many of them have a second job, but many of them are also protecting their time, which low key, respect.

Right,

Andrea: like, was that an option? I didn't realize when I started that was an

Jessica: option. We were never taught that option because we were so afraid of not getting tenure and not keeping our job and then consequently not getting our pension. They don't care about their pension because in New Jersey, new teachers in our fifth tier, I'm tier one, new teachers in the fifth tier have to teach until they're 65 and they know they're not going to make it to 65.

So they're saying, Hey, listen, all right, it's a teaching doesn't work out for me. I'm 23. I'll go do something else for more money and probably more respect and probably more personal time. So we're like, Oh, all right, well just do your thing and stay.

Andrea: Right? Exactly. Well, and that, that's the other piece.

Like, yeah, they're working those other side hustles, but I think you're totally right where there is. a recognition of the work life balance that was not there. Even 10 years ago, when I first became a teacher, I have this vivid memory of sitting in and I did a T2T program. So I wasn't a teacher. Uh, like my very first day in charge of a classroom was my first day hired on an emergency license.

I hadn't even subbed before. Didn't do student teaching, none of that. Oh yeah. So I remember sitting in that class, um, getting ready to go and they showed that candle image that says like, you know, a good teacher is like a candle. They consume themselves to light their way for others. And like, I look at that now and I'm just like, and I've used it in my class.

So I brought it up in my class and I asked my, cause I was so curious what my, you know, little crop of Gen Z future teachers that I work with now, like, what do you guys think about this? And. it was soundly, uh, destroyed by them where they're like, this is stupid. Like who wants to just die at work? And I'm like, yeah, there is like this martyr thing, right?

That you have a point. Yeah, exactly. And I thought it was so kind of encouraging to see because maybe if that kind of mentality that, Hey, we need to make this a more sustainable career, maybe things can shift a little bit. Um, but it's. I have a feeling it's going to be a long time coming, like that it's still going to take a while before people really recognize like the, it's, and it's so hard to even describe to people who haven't been a teacher why a job that you have, you know, a two month break from could possibly wear you down to the point where a two month break isn't enough.

Jessica: It's not, it really isn't because I feel the first month That we're not working is decompression and breaking the habits because, you know, I deleted all of my alarms the last day of school, but I had alarms for when to go to the bathroom because I didn't want to miss it during my prep period. So eight 45, I had an alarm, go to the bathroom.

Um, I had an alarm at night to make sure I took my sleep meds so I could actually turn off my brain and sleep. I. Everything, everything was based on alarms. And I don't think they realize when you get out of that routine, getting up at 5 30 and trying to be asleep by 10 30 and making sure that I don't hit traffic on the way because I'm supposed to be in the front lobby.

Yeah. We live in a constant state of tension and bells. Yeah. And everything is determined by bells. When we get a few days off and we don't have bells telling us where to be, or there's a class of kids sitting in your room and you're not there yet, you're five seconds down the hall, but what if somebody gets in a fight or gets sexually harassed?

Like there's constant vigilance to everything around you. So that first month is simply decompression. And then the second month, Is planning. Yeah. Yeah. What did I, what do I want to change from last year? What am I going to teach differently? What materials do I need? What can I organize now? So the first week of school isn't a hot mess.

So it really, people think, you know, and maybe some teachers do just go to the beach every day and hang out. I was never that person because I needed to decompress and then I needed to prepare. And when people say, you know, you work nine months, I'm like, where are you? Where? Where do we only work nine months?

Because we get out mid June and we have our in services the last week in August.

Andrea: Yeah, that's the way it was for me at the school I was at in California. It was late June. And like mid August, so we would be done, I think last, not this summer, but the summer before we got out, like June 22nd was graduation and they went back by like August 14th.

So it's like just barely like two months. And, and like you said, you're just kind of like allowing the stress to leave your body because like, and people I think also don't understand like the We care so much and the stakes are so high when we're working with kids that we want to make sure we're doing a good job.

Like people came into the profession wanting to do a good job for these kids. And so you have like the stress of like, okay, I've got to be there at this time and I've got to do these things and all that. And Oh, by the way, if you show up unprepared, you've got 35 eyes, sets of eyes staring at you and like you better perform.

Cause like you said, that dead silence thing, you got that dead air. It's horrible. You learn very quickly to avoid that.

Jessica: It's horrible. And I don't, I don't think people who aren't in the profession realize that we're doing six performances a day because in this day and age, and I, I know, you know, some teachers who have retired in the past five or 10 years held the hard line.

I'm not an entertainer. They should want to learn. And I was like, well, they don't say, how do we adjust? Because you're different. And every generation complains about the generation that comes after them. And these kids today. Everybody has said that, but I said, if we're not evolving with society and the times and the way that our kids are learning and interacting with the world, then what are we doing?

We're wasting our time. So maybe you don't have to be an entertainer, but you have to be engaging and being engaging for, 41 minutes of class period. There are six class periods that we teach and being on that high of a level of engagement, making split second decisions. The entire time assessing what's happening in the room, in my head, what do I need to adjust?

It's exhausting. Yeah. And at the end of the day, I would always say, okay, well, I'm going to stay after a half an hour in grade. And I would just sit there and stare at the wall.

Andrea: I had a six period planning one year and I thought, that's going to be great. I'll just be able to prep for the next day. That meant the five periods before I was going back to back to back to back to back.

And by the time I finally got there, I would get to the break room where the copy machine is and they had a couch in there and I would like set the copies and I would just like conk out on the couch because I was so burned out because you are, you are. on like if you are not on the kids are just walking all over you and doing whatever and screwing around and that's inevitably when admin decides to do a pop and visit is the day that you can't be on because you're exhausted or whatever.

Um, now you have also shared online and also in a podcast recently that you have chosen to be child free and that you come from a line of child free women and all of that, uh, which I thought was So fascinating that you like, that like, obviously like your mom had kids, but that you've got like aunts and great aunts and all of that, that chose to be child free.

Now, one thing I've noticed in education before I had kids especially, um, was that if you don't have kids, there is an assumption that your time is therefore owed to the school. Is that something you dealt with at all? Where it was like, well, you don't have kids, so why can't you just do everything?

Exactly. Exactly.

Jessica: Exactly. So when I was younger. And in my fertile years, uh, where people were still, you know, desperately hoping that I would have children.

Andrea: Between the ages of like 18 to 40. That's what I'm going to call it now is like in the, in the fertile years, in the

Jessica: fertile years. Yeah. So people would constantly say, Oh, well, you know, what do you, you don't have anything to do when you get home.

And I'm like, first of all, no. But second of all, even if I didn't have anything to do, that's by design.

Andrea: Yeah.

Jessica: It doesn't mean I have all of this time and I should be the one to do everything because I don't have children. That's completely my choice. And I remember when I was young, especially when I started at this school at 26, 27, I had a couple of parents who came into parent conferences and said, well, you'll, you don't really know what you're talking about right now.

You'll see when you have your own children. And I was like, Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was a human being. Oh, okay. Well, you know, I thought I had thoughts, feelings, and emotions and could make connections with people because I'm a human, right? Not right. I understand there is a different level of experience when you become a parent, but to negate my ability.

Based on the fact that I hadn't had children was, you know, something that you can think, but maybe use your gatekeeper and don't let it come out of your mouth just right here. Right,

Andrea: right, exactly. That's so fascinating. Did you ever have admin or anybody along the way that kind of put more pressure on you to, to serve in committees or anything like that?

Because you don't have kids.

Jessica: No, you know what? I also worked with some of my best friends who are still my best friends now, 30 for 30 years, who did have kids and who volunteered at everything. So I was kind of thrown into that mix.

Andrea: Yeah.

Jessica: And so they saw, you know, everybody going, cause it was part of us, about five or six of us who went to everything and did everything.

And they were all moms. So I, it wasn't as obvious. Um, And I was usually holding their babies. So, you know, it could be confusing to people be like, yes. Oh, so, um, I wasn't in my school as singled out for that. Um, but they did load me up with classes and sometimes bigger classes in the earlier part of my career.

And I'm like, why do I always have 35?

Andrea: Right. Right. Per period. Yeah, that, man, that is just, that is a wild number of students. My, my biggest I ever had was at the school in California where I had like 41 or 42, um, which is, it, Insane. And especially as English teachers, like we're not grading that many. If we have that many kids in each class, like the essays are going to get real short, real quick.

We're going to start doing short responses and lots of visual checks as we walk around. Um, now is there a strategy that you used when you were invited or, or voluntold to do something that you did not want to do? Like, did you have like a specific phrase you used or would you just like say straight up?

No.

Jessica: No, that's a good question. I don't think I had any specific phrase or anything that I wanted to do, but what I have done before is say, no, I'm going to pass on that. I've gone to this, this, this, and this, and I'm kind of full. Nice. I'm good.

Andrea: Yeah.

Jessica: And that happened more in the midway point of my career.

Where, you know, I was doing so many things and I learned the power of no, um, I was tenured. I was doing my job well, getting good evaluations. And I, somebody said to me one time, well, what are they going to do? And I was like, great question.

Speaker: Nothing. Yeah. And I

Jessica: did want to be involved with the kids, but I do have, believe it or not, I don't come into my house and just sit in a corner and knit.

And be like, Hey, school tomorrow. You know, I actually do have a life and I work two extra jobs by choice. So they weren't, I don't remember feeling too, too much pressure.

Andrea: That's awesome.

Jessica: Good. Yeah. That

Andrea: was something I definitely had to learn because I, again, like you said, like there's that assumption of like, if they ask you to do it, the answer is yes and you do it.

And towards like the, the later years of being in the high school classroom and truly by working at a small private school for a while is probably the, the way I learned quickest how to say no, because at small private schools they tend to add all of these extra, uh, unpaid duties as assigned. Um, like saying like, Oh, you know, like we're part of our family here and all of that.

And it's like, okay, well you need to pay me a lot more if you, if you want me to be like trip in that one. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Right. Um, so one of the things, uh, that we do on the podcast is I get viewer submissions and they ask questions about things they're dealing with in their classrooms or at their schools.

Um, And the question that we have for us today is Tracy from Virginia, and she is asking for any creative ideas for engaging students who could care less about your class because it has nothing to do with what they want to do in their future. She said she doesn't want them to be distractions in class, but it's like pulling teeth, getting them halfway engaged during discussions, group work, or even individual assignments.

I figured this was the perfect question since you taught English, and I know I have seen this before. Exact scenario play out. So what is your take on that?

Jessica: Okay. That's, that's a really good question. Something I had to adjust about year five or six into my career. I started being very honest with kids and saying, we're going to read this poem, plus Swiffery.

by Jonathan Taylor. I had Puritan literature in sophomore year. Oh my God. Part of our curriculum, and I would say, this poem does not matter in your life. You will never see this poem again. As a matter of fact, if anybody ever says the poem Husswifery in your life at another point in time, please call me so I can fall out of my chair and die.

It will not happen. So I think that honesty and starting off the lesson that way kind of was like, Oh, wait. You know, this is BS and I'm like, well, it's not BS, but it is not a poem. It's not the poem. The poem is a vehicle for us to learn more about the Puritans and to practice our analysis skills. And so another thing that I started doing, which I shouldn't say too openly, I started photocopying everything so the kids could annotate.

Yeah, because if I'm just standing up there and a kid has a textbook in front of them, they're not paying attention to one word that I'm saying, I'm up there performing and reading everything in different voices. And the kid's eyes are going over the paper and they're thinking about who's hot here, who said this in the hall, what's going to happen, blah, blah, blah.

So once I started photocopying and having kids annotate, it really changed their engagement. So I would say, okay, I'm going to read the first stanza. I want you to look for two examples of imagery and one example of alliteration. And then while we were reading, they're like little detectives. They're finding it.

All right. Who got it? What? And then there was participation. So being honest that most of the stuff we teach them will never matter in their lives. It's the skills that we are building with them that matter. These transferable skills of inference, analysis, critical reading. Those are the things they will take with them.

Not the Puritan poetry.

Andrea: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's exactly it. I had to do American Lit. It was English 11 in California that I taught, and it was early American Lit, so I spent some time hanging out with all the early, oh, little Anne Bradstreet in our day and all of that. Yeah, it is, it is so brutal. deal with early American literature.

And I thought before doing it, I was like, I was thinking like Gatsby. And like, I was thinking about like the, the more exciting ones. And then when it actually came down to it, they're like, here's the first, like two thirds of the first semester where you're going to be talking about Puritans. And if you can, like, You know, bring in some Native American stories.

And I'm like, so I'm like scouring, trying everything I can to bring in like Native American stories and culture and like all of those pieces so that we're having different angles that we're looking at this time period from. And it was so hard because I had to teach the Scarlet Letter. They would not give me another option.

I had to teach the Scarlet Letter and I hate the Scarlet Letter so much.

Jessica: Well, you know, Hawthorne doesn't really need to take three pages to describe a nail on a door. So I would make the kids so happy because I'd say, okay, we'd get to the top of the page and I'm like, skip the next two pages because there's so many things in the scarlet letter.

They don't need the idea of chastising a person. And I said, let's create some empathy for people who may be cast off by their groups or outsiders. But to read the whole thing. Yeah, I mean I did it in my early career and then I started saying wait, why am I doing this? I can skip whole pages whole chapters.

Andrea: Uh huh.

Jessica: Yeah, and it still works So that's what

Andrea: I

Jessica: started doing.

Andrea: I did too, because guys, oof, oof, if you're having to teach scarlet letter still, blessings to you. That is, that is a brutal ride. Right. Right. So now, uh, something else that we like to do is I share some of the things that my followers students are doing.

So some of the more out of pocket things, um, and while I'm sharing these, if there's anything that you had that your students did during your last week that you want to share, please feel free. Um, this one I picked specifically because I know you taught seniors. Uh, but a senior showed up on the last day of class to ask for makeup work and they had been there twice.

Like guys, Jessica's face is like so exactly it because at the point at which it's the last day of school, they have been notified so many times by so many people. that the last day to turn in work for them was like two, three weeks beforehand. It is a process to get a, a senior to fail a class. You have to sign forms.

You have to show documentation that you did X, Y, and Z. And so for this kid to show up on the last day of school, like the audacity of that is kind of insane. Um,

Jessica: it is, it is. And they're always hoping. That some teacher will say, Oh, all right. Well here, but most of the time, when I say no, the kid will be like, all right, bet.

I was just trying to like, see it.

Andrea: Exactly. Where it's like, okay, you just wanted to raise my blood pressure a little bit.

Jessica: Perfect.

Andrea: Love that. You know, it's going

Jessica: to work, but you just were throwing it out there. Oh, you know, you got to try. You got to try miss. Got to try. I was like, all right, I guess you do.

Andrea: Yeah. I've got to try miss. All right.

I'll see you next semester. Great. Cannot wait for that. Um, and did you have anything in the last few weeks of school where your students were like crazy out of pocket or said something crazy? I saw you revealed your high five kid. Yes! Steven, right? Aww.

Jessica: Yes.

Andrea: It's so sweet. Yes, and I

Jessica: asked him, I said, listen, you do not have to do this at all, but you are now 18.

You will be graduated. He's like, no, I'm good. I said, it's the wild west out there, Steven. Don't read the comments. I will monitor the comments. And he goes, listen, it's a public forum. I have thick skin. I can take it. And that's where in the video I said, you have a baby face. So I think people are gonna have a disconnect with the voice in the baby face.

And that's 90% of my comments. Um, but I just posted a video yesterday where this sweet kid came in, opened his backpack and pulled out a block of cheese in the wrapper, but the wrapper was opened at the top and he goes, Dr. A, do you want some cheese? And I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What do you want some cheese?

And I said, pocket cheese. You're offering me and it looks like it's, it looks like it's been chewed and it goes, oh yeah, I've been eating it all day. And I said, so you do know that cheese should be refrigerated, right? I'm worried about your immunity right now. Oh my gosh.

Andrea: Did you take a bite? Did you participate in the pocket?

I

Jessica: couldn't even look at it for longer than three seconds. Plus like other kids were going, this is your holding the cheese. And I said, I, um, I'm going to pass, but really thank you so much for offering to nourish me. That's beautiful. With your pocket cheese.

Andrea: Thank you for offering to nourish me with your pocket cheese has to be the craziest statement.

Yes.

Jessica: Yes. And I did, you know, I, I got all the feels from the fact that he genuinely wanted to offer me a gift and you're not supposed to not accept gifts. Right. In this case. Yeah. My digestive system. Right. I said, thank you. Hard pass on your hard cheese.

Andrea: I love his thought though, that he's just like, look at this bounty, this cheese bounty that I have that I can share.

Jessica: Pocket cheese.

Andrea: Oh my gosh. Oh man. Okay. Well, before I let you go today, can you share with everybody where they can find you anything new that you have coming up, any projects that you're working on or anything like that?

Jessica: Sure, uh, TikTok and Instagram. I'm at my teacher face. I do have a YouTube, which I am resurrecting with the series that I started called.

I had a great teacher and I started doing that in the spring. I closed the form after I got a thousand submissions and I've done about 50 of them so far, but I plan to do this. Every few days. So I'm hoping to put that out on YouTube and then the rest of it with my content. I'm just going to make up as I go and figure it out along the way.

Andrea: What a fun adventure to kind of be at this stage though and get to kind of just like do your thing. Yes, a second life. Yes, I love that. Well, thank you, Jessica, so much for coming on. This has been so much fun hearing all of your advice and your wisdom and congratulations again on retirement. That's incredible.

so much. All right, we'll be right back.

Welcome back to Those Who Can't Do. Uh, I hope you guys enjoyed hearing about Jessica's incredible career as much as I did. I, 30 some years of teaching English and like a good chunk of it all at the same school. That just blows my mind because I feel like that is so rare today. Um, and I thought it was really special to hear that she had that kind of support.

And what that looked like for her, I think is. Again, just so rare and I don't think it's a coincidence that she was at that school for that long and she had that kind of consistency with her administration and all of that. It just is really encouraging because I've seen some data and I've seen some studies that back that up, but it's different when you actually talk to somebody who's experienced that.

Um, because I feel like for most of us, admin, it's like three, four, five years tops and then they end up going to different schools. So it's encouraging to know that those kids in New Jersey are benefiting from that. That's. Absolutely incredible. If you have thoughts about what we chatted about today, or you want to suggest somebody that you would love to have come on this podcast, please let us know.

You can email us at Andrea at human dash content. com, or you can reach out to me on Tik at educator, Andrea, or you can contact the human content podcast family at human content pods. Thank you guys so So very much for putting out reviews. We are still a new podcast. And so anytime that we get a review, I immediately hold my breath and feel a little nauseous until I'm done reading it.

Um, so those of you guys who have written those really beautiful, kind things and left those five star reviews, honestly, thank you from the bottom of my heart, it's how other people find the podcast. Um, and just know that if you leave one of those, I, we read every single one. Single one of them. So thank you.

Uh, one was left by somebody whose name I'm going to try and say this, right? No Po Rez. The N, the P, and the R are all guys. So I'm guessing that's how I'm supposed to say it on Apple. Um, said a new side of Andrea. Today was fun to see your semi serious business side. In addition to your highly addictive social media posts, I put pause on my teaching career about a year ago.

And today's first episode brought back so many memories and relatable stories. I'm excited to follow your journey. I had such a negative licensure experience and I'm so happy for your students to get you in this new path. So thank you so much. I appreciate that. Transcribed Immensely, I really am trying to do my best with helping my students in their licensure program and making sure that they don't leave the licensure program saying they didn't teach us any of this once they actually get into their real teaching job.

So thank you guys so much for leaving these kind reviews. It means the world to me and I really appreciate it. If you want to catch full video episodes, they're up every week on YouTube at Educator Andrea. And thank you so much for listening. I am your host, Andrea Forkham, and a very special thank you to our guest co host, Jessica Hawk.

Our executive producers are Andrea Forkham, Aron 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 our Those Who Can't Do's program disclaimer and ethics policies, And Submission, Verification, and Licensing Terms if you wanted some light reading.

Check those out. 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 of 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.