Andrea: Welcome to Those Who Can't Do. I'm Andrea Forkham, and I am so excited about today because I have two of my best teacher friends with me, Lauren Antonio and Melissa Rabaia, who I worked with for three beautiful years in California. And they have been teaching almost exactly the same amount of time as me, but you guys actually started together, right?

Like same year?

Lauren: At the site, yeah.

Andrea: But I only had the joy of joining you guys, uh, like mid pandemic. It was fall of 2020 that I started working with you guys. And I didn't get invited to hang out for like half a year, which I'm still a little salty about.

Melissa: No one was invited. Don't lie. Yeah, we, we hung

Lauren: out on our own.

Andrea: Okay. You guys definitely did hang out and had zoom game nights because there was one time recently you guys were like, yeah, remember on zoom during the pandemic when we played board game, that one game we played. What are you guys talking about? Yeah, she's not lying. But

Melissa: that was before, no, that was before you were hired.

It was like, that was like a March 2020 time. Because I remember holding Lucy in a carrier, like, I'm playing games, this is so fun. The baby helps. Lucy helps. Okay. Yeah. All right.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah.

Andrea: I still don't, I think you might be lying to me to make me feel better, Melissa.

Lauren: And in my defense, I don't think, We only taught 10 together.

What did you teach your first year on Zoom?

Andrea: I always taught 9 Okay. See, I

Lauren: was AP. So whenever we got together on Zoom for 10, I don't think our thread was very active. Yeah. On text or anything.

Andrea: It wasn't. And I think one of the things that has been so fun with our group is that, um, a majority of us are moms and you two and I have kids very similar ages.

Um, Yes. And I wanted, because Lauren, you had your second, like, that year, 2021? Yeah. So, you, I, like, I met, that was the other thing, is like, I met you right before you went out on maternity leave, um, and then, Melissa, your kids and my kids are almost the same ages, right? Because mine are four and six now, and yours are slightly younger.

Four and seven. Okay. Yeah.

Melissa: I think our youngest. Yeah,

Andrea: which is, is so cool. And I think that's one of the benefits of our little group is that we all shared that kind of pressure of trying to balance these things of being a mom and being a teacher. And I never really recognized before I had kids cause I taught most of the time, like I taught like six years before I had my first.

And So I hadn't really considered how it was going to impact my teaching. So do you guys feel like something has changed for you as a teacher since becoming a mom?

Melissa: Yes, definitely. I think what we prioritize. You know, like before I was completely okay with, if I'm going to have to spend a day grading, I'll do it.

If I have to spend Sunday lesson planning or grading those assignments that I need to grade, I'll do it. But now it's like, that cuts away from the time that I can spend with my family, which is already, you know, shortened because, you know, you're at work and then you come home and you're already so tired.

Like the weekends are the times where you're actually somewhat rested.

Andrea: Yeah.

Melissa: You know, um, you want to give your family that whole attention. Um, and so, you know, if I'm not going to get to those essays, if I'm not going to get to that lesson plan, it is what it is. I'll figure it out. I'll do it, but it just won't happen just then.

Lauren: I'm the same way. I feel like I was so much more willing to sacrifice myself, my time, my money, um, everything when I was a lot younger and I didn't have kids because, I mean, my whole life was basically the job. Yeah. I'm like, it's these students, it's the job, it's the way I'm going to change the world, and it's not like I don't feel that way anymore.

I just am now focused on, when I'm at home, I'm going to focus on my home and my family and my direct. legacy, um, as opposed to what I hope will happen with my students. So definitely the sacrifice has changed and I'm gonna be honest, my patience level has changed, which sucks because I feel like you guys can probably attest to this, but you use all your patience with your students.

We have, like, almost 200 students, like, daily, and you're, like, letting so many things go and kind of like, I'm not gonna fight that battle, I'm not gonna fight that battle. Yeah. And especially during our stressful times of the year, I'm coming home and I'm like, I feel so bad because I have nothing left sometimes for my own children, which

Melissa: I hate it.

It's the worst. I think there've been a few times where I've told my kids and they're four and seven, so not like they're going to understand it. But you know, I've even said like, Oh, you know, I, I have to lecture sometimes 140 students, 160 students correct their behaviors all day. And the last thing that I want to do is be like mean mommy.

And they're looking at me like, what, what do you mean? And I'm just like, Can we just get along or can, do I not have to repeat myself like six times for you to eat your dinner so that, you know, I don't end up giving you that voice that you don't like and I'm not, yeah. I,

Andrea: I feel like the patience piece, I have that sometimes, usually in my like most stressful times, like you said, Lauren, like when I'm already like out of 10 and I come home, like I can't, I cannot.

Do any more like emotional, like it's, it's too much for me. But what I noticed, I think the most is my decision fatigue is crazy during the school year where I like, am making so many decisions throughout the day that when I come home and they're like, what can we have for a snack? What's for dinner? If I don't do like actual meal prep and meal planning, it shuts me down completely.

I'm like, I can't, I, I. We're going to have ramen, probably. I don't like the garbage food that we end up eating just because I'm, I'm too tired to make a decision. Like, it's not even that like, cause I enjoy cooking. So it's not that I'm like, Oh, I'm too tired to cook. It's more, I'm too tired to make the decision of what I need to cook.

Therefore I'm going to make something that does not require any decisions like chicken nuggets. It is tonight, my guy, like

Lauren: so real. So, so real. Are your, are your kids good eaters?

Melissa: Oh my gosh, so Because that's on, that's like another layer on top of it because you just want to make dinner and you just want everyone to be satisfied.

But then like the other layer is like, I mean, my youngest will just eat pasta and cheese or just rice. And I'm like That's Avery, just carve Avery. Like what am I supposed to do with it? I know that that is not nutritionally, like that is not sound. You need a vegetable, you need a protein. But it's just like, I'm too tired to consider more.

I'm not going to

Lauren: fight you on it. And I'm not going to fight. Yeah. We're not going to. Yeah.

Andrea: I think that's the other piece of it is the decision fatigue matched with knowing if you make a certain meal that has all of the things they should have, it will be a fight with one of the kids, if not both. And so my, my daughter is like a garbage disposal.

She eats everything that I give her, bless her for it. Um, like she will eat whatever. My son, however, is such a picky eater and I've tried so many ways, but we, and he's the kind of picky eater that he likes chicken nuggets. today, but tomorrow he might not like chicken nuggets anymore. And he may just literally sit there and be like, no, I don't, I don't like, like, I'm not eating this.

And he'll do full hunger strike. Like he will. And then I'll try and put him to bed and he'll be like, I'm so hungry. Can I just have a cracker? And I'm like, no. And I feel something like you're going to just sit here. And then I'm like, I'm a terrible mom. I can, but I'll be like, you can have the dinner that I made for you that you said you wanted at the beginning of dinner when I said, do you want chicken nuggets?

And you said, yes. And so I made it, and now you're laying here and telling me you're hungry, and he's like, now they're yucky. And I'm like, well, I guess you're gonna starve, my guy. Life is full of choices, and you've made some choices this evening.

Melissa: But good for you for, like, holding on. Like, you know, you made that decision.

I'm gonna stick to that, because that's what I'm gonna go and honor, because I'm gonna cake. I'm gonna be like, okay, you want milk. No, no,

Lauren: no.

Melissa: Yeah. I will give milk.

Lauren: They need to make better choices. I say that all the time. Sounds like you made a choice and you regret that choice. I,

Andrea: like, it depends on the day, Melissa.

I should be better, but there are days, like, last night I was really good because he didn't eat much of his dinner and he was hungry and I'm like, he's still there, my guy, but he found like a little box of nerds in his, in his room and he's like, can I just have this candy? And I'm like, you cannot. And I was very surprised.

Strong. I was like, you can't. And it was already in his hand. Like it would take zero work for me to be like, sure, have the candy. But I'm like, no, like you didn't eat your dinner. Like we're not just going to sit in here and rot your teeth. Like we already brushed our teeth. Like that's it. And it's just, oh, and, and this is summer.

And it's probably why I was able to stay strong is like, this is during summertime where the decisions I'm making only have to do with like taking care of the family and keeping the household running and all of that. Um, Which, I don't know, when you guys became teachers, did you, was one of the motivating factors for you because you felt that you would be able to balance home life better as a teacher than other professions?

Because for me, that was like one of the huge reasons I became a teacher. Absolutely

Lauren: for me. I, Very naively thought I wanted like four or five kids. I wanted to be home when they're home because I don't know how your experience was, um, growing up, but my parents, immigrant, immigrant parents, so they were working almost all the time.

So I, I wish I was with them more. It was mainly the weekends that we were like really able to have like that family time. So I wish I was with them more. So I was very intentional about, okay, I like, well are we going to talk about why we decided to become a teacher? Yeah, let's jump into it. Yeah. Let's, let's go into it.

So family wise, I knew I wanted to be there for my kids. I wanted to make it to as many things. I wanted my schedule to be their schedule because if they're off, I want to be off. I want to be with them. So that was a huge factor for me. Um, we can address that part. Melissa, what about you?

Melissa: I don't know, like, why I kind of fell into teaching, but it definitely was, I wasn't thinking about the time that I would be home, because I kind of like, even in my first year's teaching, I was one of those teachers that would stay till like five o'clock.

Ask me why I don't know because I was still doing stuff at home, too. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, I remember like during student teaching I had my best friend come over on the weekends to help me grade papers because everything needed to be graded Yeah, you know I was afraid I was like there was like this fear that my cooperating teacher would be like Everything needs to be graded and checked, you know, so I think, you know, student teaching kind of was like, Oh, you're not going to have a life for a while.

And then I was like, Oh, why did I decide to become a teacher? No idea. Because I, that was so painful.

Lauren: I cried a lot my first year, a lot. I also drank a lot. I think, um, Andrew, my husband, just for everybody else, um, at the time was like, you're drinking, like, every day. You have a drink every day. You're like, that's a problem.

At least one or two. I'm like, um, because I have to grade everything, and this is the only thing that makes me happy.

Melissa: So I lived at home when I was student teaching and, you know, my parents would be like, Is it sound how you're grading? Because you need to have a glass of wine every time you do it. And I was just kind of like, It is very sound.

It's the most sound. Yeah. My needs need to be met.

Andrea: You know what? It's so funny. I was just talking to somebody, uh, yesterday and he was like, man, I, when I was in school, there were never any hot teachers. And now I go on social media and there's all these like young hot teachers and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, here's what you're seeing.

You are seeing young, hot teachers from years zero through five who are right now making the lifestyle choices that in 15 years they will look like the teachers you remember because we pickle ourselves. Teachers drink very heavily. Most teachers I know drink. Um, and I think it's a lot of like what you guys said where it's like the stress element and Just the fatigue and all that.

And it's like not the healthiest coping at all, like we're not promoting that . But yeah, it is very like, it is just like when you have such a high stress job and you get home and you're trying then also to do more work. And I remember the same thing when I first started teaching. I remember I was so hilarious now to think about.

I was so excited because I had my students write like hand. Write this, this prompt and I brought it back and I went to a friend's house who was having a movie night and I brought my grading with me because I was excited to grade. Like I was delighted to read what their little young minds came up with.

And now I'm like, ew, like, why did I do that? Like, I have

Melissa: a picture of me at Disneyland grading. No. No. What? You know what I mean? I don't know why, like, oh, because in my mind I thought, hey, while you're in line for your, you know, 45 minutes, you might as well grade.

Andrea: Oh my gosh.

Lauren: Were you ever tight with your, like, I guess classmates, colleagues when you're student teaching?

Because I remember getting help from Andrew grading and like, you know, drinking with him and like him going through it, but I didn't have any. like teacher friends that I would meet up with and commiserate with?

Melissa: Not really. Well, my boyfriend at the time was also going through student teaching. Um, so we kind of were doing it together.

Um, and he was also an English, he was, you know, trying to do English as well. Um, so we had that aspect in common, but I never helped him grade. He never helped me grade. We had like the same, you know, same feelings. We would talk about that, but we didn't help each other. Um, probably why we're broken up, but, um, you know.

Lauren: But can we talk about how, like, you don't get paid for all that time? Yeah. So, like, I was working, like, legitimately. I was private tutoring. I was working at Kumon. Um, and I think I had another, I can't remember my, my other side hustle, but I was like, there's just no way, so no wonder I was drinking. Yeah.

Wait, what's Kumon? What is that? It's like a tutoring center.

Andrea: Oh, yeah. Okay. So there's like

Lauren: a specific program. It's math and reading at your level. Okay. So you like test in and then you just have work. Is it twice a week, Melissa?

Melissa: Uh, the kids come in twice a week and I know this because both my kids are in Kumar.

Andrea: Okay. Um,

Melissa: and it's supplemental to math and reading.

Andrea: Okay.

Melissa: But it's, yeah, it's expensive. And the,

Andrea: the fact that we, as, as teachers are expected to work for free. For six months is absolutely insane. That is one of the things that like, I would like when I think about my goals of like what I want to do during my career, one of the things is to somehow create like an endowment or a grant that pays student teachers for their student teaching time.

Like, If nothing else, just enough to pay rent because it's insane that we're asking teachers to go into massive amounts of debt because a lot of programs, and I think, um, the one that feeds into the school we worked at together requires them or tells them you're not to be working during this time. Like there are programs that tell you that.

And I think that's so insane that we're having these expectations to force people to work for free for six months. Like that's just. Absolutely insane, which is also the reason why I didn't do student teaching and I just jumped right in. I

Melissa: was going to say you bypassed, yeah.

Andrea: I did. Um, and suffered for it.

Like it was miserable and I didn't, you know, my first year was a struggle and I also didn't have the kind of like collaboration peer support that you're talking about because I worked with um, a couple of people in my department who had been teaching for maybe like four 40 ish years, and so they had a very traditional way of teaching, so it didn't feel as helpful when I would sit and talk with them because their styles were so different from mine.

Um, Yeah. Whereas, like, when I joined our team and I got to, like, really see what it was like Working with people who are passionate about, like, growing their teaching practice and making it sustainable, um, it just blew my mind. Even though I'd already been teaching for six years, it still blew my mind. And I just think about how lucky Denver was to have us.

Like, Denver's so lucky. She knows. She knows. She's aware. Yeah. So our, our good friend, Denver, who's the youngest of our group, and, um, Also was at the school as a long term sub, and if you guys have been following me on social media, there was like a string on my last year at the school that I just had this whole string of like, damn it, Denver videos, because she was her first year officially at the school teaching and stuff, and I just thought it was so cool, both in my research that I did when I was doing my dissertation, but also just kind of working with each other, seeing how helpful it was for all of us that like Denver would literally text us, text our group chat in the middle of class being like, I can't like, or something like that.

And like, whoever could go would go and watch her class. So she could like cry in the hallway for a few minutes and go back. And that probably like, I feel like that might sound crazy for people who have never taught, but I don't know a single teacher who did not cry in the hallway at some point their first year teaching.

Like, you, you just hit a wall and you get so overwhelmed and it's like, I can't, I can't, I cannot, like, I can't, I can't face these kids anymore. They're so mean to me. It's so terrifying. Um, so if you guys could go back and give yourself advice in that first year, what would you, what would you tell yourself to change?

Lauren: This sounds so terrible, but just a simple phrase like, it's not that serious. Um, which can be negative and positive. I think more so for me was I took everything to heart. Yeah. My first couple of years. Anything a student said, if I didn't reach a student, I, like, I felt like I failed them. I just, I, I blame all these movies about teachers that make you feel like you're going to change, like, every single student.

And if you don't, like, you're the problem. Yeah. Um, but I was just so hopeful and not like I am, I'm not now, but I was just very, like, delusionally hopeful my first couple of years. Um, and back to the whole grading thing, I would take. All five of my classes, each of them had a notebook in crates. I would take them home.

Like, why, why didn't I do that? And I was just like, they're going to read it. They need my feedback. They need all the, they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't read it. Yeah. So I just, it's not that serious and realizing like, For a lot of these things, you care a lot more than they do, and it's okay.

It's okay.

Andrea: I think, I feel like that almost is like it was an ego thing for me, is like I was giving them the gift of my knowledge. Like my truth nuggets were going to be in my feedback. Yes. And like, how, of course they're, why, why wouldn't they read what I have to say? Like it actually has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the fact that I was just like, I am just.

They're just giving so much to these kids. They're obviously going to appreciate it. And they don't because they're kids and they're in their little, like, egocentric world, like most of us are at that age. Like, no, they're not. They're not going to read that. They don't care. Like there might be one kid in class, like the super type A perfectionist kid who wants to hear that they did a good job and get the verbal good cookie.

But most of the kids, and that kid doesn't actually need any feedback because they're just going to, it's just a good job. The kids who actually need the feedback are not reading it because it makes them feel like crap when they hear that they need to change something. So like, and feedback is important.

I don't want to say we should never provide feedback, but like take a chill pill I think is great advice.

Melissa: Yeah, I think like, you know, every time you go ahead and have students like, Oh, you can get more points if you rewrite this essay or if you redo this assignment and you listen to my feedback. It's always the kid that got like the 90 or the 92 that they're like, can I, I really want to redo this to get the hundred.

And you're like, Yeah. Okay. Why, what feedback am I going to give you? , you're at this point where you got like a 92, 94. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And what you're really hoping is the kids that got the seventies or the sixties or you know, like the D's and the C's. Yes. They're the ones that you're like, come talk to me.

Hey, so and so. They're the ones that you're like, that nugget of truth, that knowledge that I put on that paper. Take the feedback. Yeah. That's the kids that you want to reach, but no, it's never those kids. Those are

Andrea: the kids that leave it on the floor when you, when the class leaves and you're just like, Oh, there, there it is.

Just tumbleweeding through my classroom after all of my hard work. Yeah. So what about you, Melissa? What, what truth would you give your, your younger self?

Melissa: Oh, you only need to be one week ahead of them. Ooh, that's a good one. When they gave you the material during summer, you were like, I'm going to read every single book right now.

Yeah. I'm going to start lesson planning right now. I'm going to have some type of unit already ready for them. And Like, that need to go ahead and try to do that, like, why, why do that to yourself? Yeah. Uh, because, I mean, I think to be an effective teacher, one of the things that you need to be is flexible, and you're going to have to realize that that beautiful plan that you created is going to have to be modified, cut up, revised, edited, because it's not going to necessarily work exactly how you want.

But I remember as the first year teacher, I was kind of like, no, I need to read all the texts right now. I need to start lesson planning. I need to know what I'm doing in like a month.

Andrea: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah.

Melissa: Day one

Lauren: to day 30.

Andrea: Exactly. It's insane. Well, you know, it's so funny too. I think that's the thing that there's a couple of States that have pushed out laws about making the, the like lesson plans available for the parents for the entire year ahead of time.

And I laughed so hard when I read that. Because there's just such a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to be a teacher, because if you've never been a teacher, you don't understand that like you, you simply couldn't, that would be a lie. You might successfully communicate what you're doing for the first week or two.

But after that, you will, it will not be the same. And people, but if you've never taught before, you're like, well, why, what are you hiding? Like, why don't you want your parents to know? And it's like, no, it has nothing to do with that. It's that it's, it's going to change. Like there's no possible way and no possible effective teacher that could do that because your kids are going to come in and you will have the greatest plans.

And it's not going to be the same. And by the way, even if it was the same for one of the class. As secondary teachers, we're teaching five classes. Like, it might, you might be right on for this class, but the other class is going to be on something completely different. I mean, I've completely changed class.

Like, I might be teaching English nine in first period and sixth period, and sixth period almost always needs things to go slower. We need to, like, have some extra razzle dazzle and movement in class. Like, we're not gonna, we'll have the same assessment at the end, but how we get there is going to be drastically different.

Um, so I I think a very helpful thing to learn and one that I definitely did not learn for a long time because I remember stressing out my first year because I sat with those old guard teachers who were like, they, we would sit down and we'd have the paper, um, calendars and we would kind of like what we did where we would map everything out and have like the big rocks of like, okay, here's where we're going to have all of these assessments.

And I'd be like, okay, what are we doing in between? And they're like, well, we'll get there. And I'm like, what do you mean, like, what do you mean we'll get there? Like we need, we need everything. And there's gotta be a better balance of like what I did that first year of going on TPT and like searching up like activities to introduce Beowulf three minutes before class starts.

You know, you should be more prepared than that, but you don't need, yeah. To, you know, have all of the translations of Beowulf memorized before the start of the school year, either. I

Lauren: mean, you build up to that skill, too. Like, plans are great when you don't know what the hell you're doing. Yeah, exactly. But, once you get to the veteran status, you're like, okay, cool.

I pretty much know. I can even anticipate what the kids are going to say, what the questions are going to be.

Melissa: Yeah. So that's

Lauren: helpful. But yeah, that's good advice. And do you

Melissa: guys And I think that's the experience, right? Because I remember my first year teacher having kind of like a checklist to make sure that all the things that I had planned out, did I actually do that?

Yeah. Like as I went through the period, I'd be like, okay, yes, I did that. All right. All right. Move on to this. And I, maybe that was just my brain needing to have Don't it feels good to check off things off the checklist. It does. And I remember just like, okay, this is what I need to make sure I need to do at the end, by the end of this period.

Cause pacing, like you can't, you know, it varies from period to period, but the pacing of how a period should go, like I couldn't get that down the first year, first few years.

Andrea: Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah, there was always something that was left on the table.

Lauren: Yeah. Which leads into back to the teacher team thing and why Denver is so lucky.

Like we were able to tell each other, Hey. This took a lot longer than expected, or, hey, that was trash, scrap it, like, let's not do that, um, or be mindful of this word that's gonna appear, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, there's so many things you learn over the past, like, over the years.

Andrea: And I think, just for people who are less familiar with the way that our group kind of worked is we would meet every other week for our professional learning community, our PLC group, and we had grade level teams of like, what, eight, eight or nine people?

I think. Yeah. I think so.

Melissa: Our, our team was huge.

Andrea: Yeah, it was huge. So we had like eight or nine. And I would say out of each of those, probably five of us were like truly like dialed in on wanting to collaborate and work with each other. And there were a few that would do their own thing, which was never a problem.

Like if you wanted to do your own thing, it was like, cool, go for it. Um, but we would then, we would come up like before the school year started, we came up with like, okay, here's How our units are going to go. And then every week we would meet with either our ninth grade team or a 10th grade team or whatever other team we have.

And we would, um, take a look at what we wanted to get the kids to learn that week. And then we would break it up so that we Like, like one person would take one activity on Monday or they would choose to take that activity that we do on Mondays and they would make it for the whole unit for us. And then they would share it in this shared folder.

And that was so revolutionary to me because I had come from teaching at a private school where I had five separate preps that were all mine and I had no team whatsoever. So I was creating all activities. I had like 25 class periods a week that I was creating everything myself to going to two preps with.

Like, five people in each, and there was some overlap with our teams, but, like, it just, it was. Incredible. It was the best possible thing, I think, for my teaching practice, my understanding of how to make teaching really, really sustainable.

Melissa: And I think that really helped with, like, the work home life balance.

Yes. Yes. Having that team. Totally. You know what I mean? Agreed. Because we weren't spending all this time at home or after school frantically trying to create tomorrow's lesson. Yeah. We knew that one of our team members had Got it. We did it. Yeah. It's done.

Andrea: I think one of the things that I remember most is there were seasons for each of us where we were like, I, I can't contribute right now.

I don't have it in me. I cannot contribute. And the rest of the team kind of like came in and filled out everything. And no one was like, how dare you not contribute to the team? It was like, yeah, we got it. Like your kids are sick or, you know, You know, you've got this going on, like, all of the stuff is in here.

Here's my slides. And we, there were times where I remember we would be just be using each other's slides. We'd go in and change the bitmoji so it wasn't a Filipino bitmoji and it was a blonde bitmoji at the beginning of class because that, I mean, that's, that's what we had to do. Um, all right, so we are going to take a quick break, but when we come back, I want to talk about how we as secondary teachers view.

Elementary Classrooms. So we will take a quick break and we will be right back.

Welcome back to Those Who Can't Do, and I am sitting here with my two good friends, Melissa and Lauren, and all three of us, us three Filipino women, um, that we are. So I read, I, I, they are really Filipino. If you're just listening to audio, they are actually Filipino. Um, I am obviously not, but I did read a book called Arsenic in Adobo, and it's so good.

I don't even know what genre to put it in. It's like a, Like a mystery, thriller, thriller,

Lauren: fiction, yeah. Is it young adult? Was it meant to be young adult?

Andrea: It had that vibe, didn't it? It was giving, it was giving young adult, it was giving that, and the protagonist is Filipino and so it kind of gives a bit of a peek into like Filipino culture and expectations and all of that kind of stuff, and I was texting them afterwards and I was just like, I feel like maybe.

I'm a little Filipino now, like, and they're like, that's not, that's not how that works. We accept. We accept. I still cooked my rice with measuring cups and stuff, so that's not acceptable behavior at all. Oh man.

Lauren: Andrea, you don't want to start that

Andrea: rice conversation. It's

Lauren: going to change everything. Don't even have

Andrea: a rice cooker.

I think we'll just turn into a rice episode. Oh my gosh, we, I was cracking up because I think I sent it to you guys. I saw a video. That was this one, this girl watching her white friends make rice and how painful it was for her. And I was so confused by it because she made rice the same way as me. Like she, she like, okay.

And if, if you're listening to this and you're like, well, how is she making rice? So number one, she took out a pot. And she put it on the stove and then she took out a measuring cup and she measured the rice and put it in a colander and rinsed the rice and then put the rice in the pot and then measured the water and put the water in the pot and then she simmered it and cooked her rice.

And to me, that is how my mother made rice. Like, that is how I grew up making rice. And apparently, I did not know this, but this is the way, the way the white people make rice. The way that the white people in, in our team. I, is, am I the only one who's like a hundred percent white? Yes. So I, I texted our group chat.

Wait. Is Denver? Forkis? Forkis is, yeah. She didn't participate much in the, in the rice cooking discussion. No, no, no, no. Um, yeah. So we, so I, I texted the group chat and I was like, guys, let's, I'm going to be so for real right now. I don't know what's wrong. What is she doing? That is so terrible. And Lauren was just immediately like, everything.

She's doing everything a different way. Because now, and the fascinating thing to me is that I think everyone in the chat, you know, had a different way of cooking rice. Yes. Which was also interesting. But the main thing I think that that made it like the white people way is using a pot, like a rice cooker.

Lauren: And butter, right? There was like butter. I think she added butter after.

Andrea: Have

Lauren: you had butter? That's a hard pass for me. That's so good. It's so good. Melissa looks so horrified

Andrea: right now. Yeah.

Lauren: My, I think when I watched the video, I was like, And I

Andrea: was like, yeah, put that right here, put that butter in there.

Melissa looks concerned. She's going to like, yeah, remove me from the group chat. Yeah. That was the main thing. Right. It was just like that. And then also like there's measuring with your finger, which is apparently how a lot of people do it. Um,

Lauren: yeah. Yeah. But I'm like still Filipino American, I'm still treading that line because I don't use the finger.

Yeah. I look at the rice pot.

Andrea: Right. So. But Melissa, you use the finger to tell the depth, right? Okay.

Melissa: I actually, like, I can do both. Um, I grew up using like a measure, I used a measuring cup, but then when I started dating my husband, he was like, what kind of Asian are you? That's not, like, you use your finger and you go up to here.

And I looked at him and I was like, what do you mean you use your finger? Like, how is that measuring? He's like, you do this. And I was like, all right, and then he taught me and then that's how I do it now.

Andrea: Yeah. And I made, I made them send me videos too of like walking through how to do it. And it's so funny because obviously we spent a lot of time together and then some of the students that I connected with so closely were also Filipino.

So I spent a lot of, I got a lot of lumpia back in Southern California. I'm very much missing my, my lumpia plugs, but I. When there was a conversation we had where I was like, well, there's tons of Filipinos at our school and you guys were like, no, there's not. And I was like, yeah, there are. And then I looked up the statistic and it's like, what, 6 percent or something.

It's a tiny percentage, but like 80 percent of my time is spent with Filipinos. So I was like, Oh, I guess it's not, like, 30 percent of our school population, but you guys are actually, like, representing kind of one of the minorities at the school as, as Filipino teachers. And how has that, like, impacted your teaching practice being, like, Filipino and in an area that is not overwhelmingly also Asian American either?

Lauren: They get so amped, right, Melissa? They're like, yes, they're always like the one of the first, especially just if they're Asian in general, one of the first few questions are, are you Filipino? Like they want to confirm that you are theirs. I love that. And I'm like, well, what do you think? And I like to mess with them and stuff, but yeah, they get so amped because I don't know how your experience growing up was, but for me, I could probably, I had three total Asian teachers, period.

My entire like K through 12.

Melissa: Three. I think I had like two. And I think all of them were math teachers.

Lauren: Yeah. No,

Melissa: actually.

Lauren: Yeah. One of them was like chem, but the other two were math. So I'm just like, that's insane to me. The tie in with like the whole Asian thing was like, we're so heavy on education being important, yet there's so few of us working in that career field.

Melissa: But I think it's kind of like the stigma that exists. Yeah with teaching, you know, I mean like cuz even and I think my parents now at this point understand what I'm doing as a teacher But when I told them like yeah, I want to get an English education degree They were so like They were especially my mom.

She was not happy at all. She thought nursing was going to be my profession.

Andrea: That is like a hardcore Filipino thing. Yes. Yes. Like, you both have a lot of women in your family that went into nursing, right? My

Lauren: mom is a nurse. Yeah. She got to, she came here because she, you know. got her nursing degree. Okay.

Yes. That's essentially part of that flux. Yeah. The influx. Yeah. So

Andrea: do you guys think that part of the reason that there's not a lot of Filipinos that want to become teachers has to do with the pay and they know that like, Oh, absolutely. Especially if you're like, absolutely. If you're, you know, a first generation immigrant to the U S and you're like, I came here for a better life.

Let's not take a job that pays so little. They work so hard to get here. Yeah.

Lauren: And then my mom like she sponsored her siblings to come over here. So she like not only worked for her immediate family She worked for her family back home. Um, so she she's a little bit more understanding I would say like she is a nurse or she was a nurse there.

My parents are both retired now Um, but her mom was actually in education and she was like a superintendent and whatever in her province So she Got it a little bit more. Um, but my dad, the provider, he was like, this is what you want to do. Like, are you sure? Are you sure? So it's interesting.

Melissa: I think I remember having one of those.

conversations with my parents about, you know, becoming a teacher. And it was during student teaching and I, I needed to grade. Like always, I needed to grade. And I knew that it was going to take me a few hours to grade. And we had just had dinner together because I moved back home because, you know, we don't get paid and we're sitting there and it's the four of us.

And my sister's a nurse and she's on night shift. My mom can understand. Her, her plight, because my mom was a nurse who worked night shift. But mind you, my sister had already slept the entire day. Um, and it's like six o'clock, we had dinner and my mom goes, all right, well, Melissa needs to do the dishes.

And I look at her and I go, I have something I need to do. I need to grade. I need to lesson plan. I'm probably going to be up all night. And then I was like, can Gabby, my sister do it? And my mom goes, no, she worked last night. She needs her rest. And in my mind, I'm like, she slept all day right now. Like she slept all day.

She, she's had enough rest, but it was the not understanding. And then I think my mom said, well, you picked your profession. So now you have to live with it. And I remember like thinking in my mind, um, like, why do you look like so negatively at what I decided to do with my life? Um, and that was like my first year, second, like first year teaching, right?

Now my mom gets it. Cause she's seen me throughout the years and what I've struggled with. But back then it was still like, kind of like a resentment that I didn't pick the chosen profession.

Lauren: And they just don't get the load, the load. They just don't like, cause so many people, they go to work. They clock in, they clock out, and then they're done.

They could do whatever. Like, no, our minds and our brains are just always going. Like, always. Like, we're, yeah, we're off work, but our brains aren't.

Andrea: Right. A lot of the time.

Lauren: Like, there's so many things to do.

Andrea: Right.

Lauren: Well, I'm glad to get it.

Andrea: Yeah. Now, Melissa, you said chosen profession. What was the like chosen profession that they wanted you to go in?

Was that also nursing? Okay.

Melissa: Nursing. Um, I actually ended up going to, I went to like Cal State Long Beach for their nursing program because I wanted to get into that, but it was so impacted. Um, and then I think after my first year, I was kind of like, well, I'm going to have to be at the school for X amount of years

Andrea: to do

Melissa: interesting when it's not even what I want to do.

Um, and then I ended up choosing, like, I was really good with English. So I ended up switching majors. Um, but yeah, that's how I ended up kind of in the education realm. And I liked kids. I liked older kids. I did not want to deal with elementary.

Andrea: So that is the perfect transition since I did tease before we went to break that and then we got, we, we got into rice again.

We just can't help ourselves. Um, I did tease that we were going to talk a little bit about like elementary classrooms. How did you guys decide? secondary was going to be where you wanted to go as teachers and not elementary? Because like, for me, it was like never an option to do elementary.

Lauren: I did a little bit of Sunday school.

Andrea: Okay.

Lauren: Um, for church. So I would teach a little bit of the little kids and I love them, but once a week is like great. Yeah. That's perfect. The everyday, I don't know, I don't even think I ever considered, like, I'm gonna do elementary. Um, so what did it for me was, um, because my parents worked a lot, because they are like an immigrant couple that blah blah blah, Um, the adult child relationship was a little different than what you would normally assume, um, here in America.

Um, so it was very, like, strict, very Like, you do this, I do this, this is your role, this is my role. So when I got to high school and I was actually able to speak to adults, my teachers, about my actual personal thoughts, um, and how I was feeling and things like that, and actually show who I really was, like, as a person, as a human being, I was like, this is really cool.

Like, I would love to be this person for you. I mean, especially since coming from the Asian community, most of us have the same experience with our parents.

Andrea: Yeah.

Lauren: So, if I could be that for those kids, for whoever is willing to have me fulfill that role, I would love to do it, because it was so meaningful for me.

Andrea: Yeah.

Lauren: Like, I remember crying to certain teachers, I'm, like, they knew, they knew some stuff. .

Andrea: Yeah. Mm-Hmm.

Lauren: And I would, things I would never, ever tell my parents,

Andrea: right? Like

Lauren: to this day, I'm like, listen to this podcast because now you're gonna ask me all these questions. .

Andrea: Yeah. So I mean, so you, that was a big part of why you became a teacher was just because you had that person that you felt like, okay, cool.

There's at least one place I can talk about what I actually wanna do. Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah, and those teachers that I relied on, or like, leaned on, I'm still friends with on Facebook. I can't call them by their first names.

Andrea: Never. Literally never. It's freaking weird.

Lauren: It's so, so weird. I'm like, you're a teacher now. Can you please call me?

Andrea: Yeah, no. Like,

Lauren: X, Y, Z. I'm like, no thanks.

Andrea: So I ended up working with that, that person who was that person for me in high school. I worked with her at the school before I came and worked with you guys at the small private school. She was my department head for a while. And so I did get to the place where I could call her by her first name, but it took two years of working with her every single day before I could use her actual real first name.

And even now I'm still like, Uh, makes me a little awkward. Still weird. Yes. Denver

Lauren: can't call Jen, Jen. She has to call

Andrea: her

Lauren: Serda.

Andrea: Which is hilarious. That's our department head who taught Denver and there I'm actually going to have them on in a couple of weeks together, which I'm very much looking forward to as well.

Um, it's just to have them talk about what it's like to kind of make that transition. It's weird when you go from like student teacher to like peers. So we have a video that we are going to watch. It's from schoolgirlstyle, which I have come across her stuff before on Instagram. Um, and it's always so lovely and aesthetic.

So let's just take a, take a peek here. So

if you're not watching the YouTube version and witness what we just, it was the most beige. It was the most, it, I, my students would, even if. I had the money. The way my students would destroy me. I had like one corner with an aesthetic similar to that and I never heard the end of it. They roasted me relentlessly about it.

Melissa: Wasn't it one of the students said, you look like, like off of like the first impressions, the first day, you know? So, you know, after having our day together, didn't one of your students say something along the lines of like, you look like you go to HomeGoods and you buy a bunch of Live, Laugh, Love. Posters.

Andrea: Yeah. One other kid said that they thought I probably have a white and gray kitchen at home. And then I, I did. I do still currently.

Melissa: Isn't it that there's a new term for it? Like gray millennial? Yeah.

Andrea: It's millennial gray. And that is, it is accurate in every way, shape and form. No, but like that. So a school girl style, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that she sells kits that you can use to like create a very specific aesthetic in your classroom.

Um, And so you can buy like a, like a, like a corkboard kit to make your corkboards look like adhere to that aesthetic. But if you were like, that classroom was so stunning, like so, so beautiful. It didn't

Melissa: feel like a classroom.

Andrea: No, it

Melissa: felt, it's so beautiful.

Andrea: Yeah. It was so lovely. And this is zero hate whatsoever, um, to the, the creator there, anything like that.

I just, it could, it couldn't be me because if I had a classroom like that, number one, the money. The money for something like that. Yes. Was there a, was there like a paper chandelier in the middle of that classroom?

Lauren: It looked like it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. A bunch of like, there's a little lantern thing. Well, there was a lantern,

Andrea: but then there was another one that looked like an origami chandelier or something like they, that they had like put together in the midst of the paper lanterns that were all various colors of beige everywhere.

Like,

Lauren: I, it's just, and it's. No. Yeah. And kids are so disgusting. Like, I buy things off of Timu and it's like broken like two days, not because it's Timu, I mean it's Timu quality, but I mean it could have lasted a lot longer, but suddenly like it's missing something, it's missing, it's

Andrea: Or falling off my wall because they've decided to try and like shove Taheen packets behind it and hide Taheen packets or draw Among Us characters on it because all of that stuff is like Paper material pretty much.

Yes. Kids would destroy it. I'm sure that there's, I guarantee you, there are teachers who are like, well, I don't run my class in a way where I allow that kind of behavior.

Lauren: But I am very type B too. So I'm just going to, I wouldn't, I could start off maybe the first couple of weeks with it looking low way it did in that video, but it would, it would even on my doing it would fall apart.

But I

Melissa: think like just the amount of time that I spend making my classroom look. Nice like I don't I don't I don't know like I don't care enough to do that. Like I want it to look decent I want you to feel comfortable. I want you to know that it's clean and sanitary and all that But like just the like I don't have the money or the funds or I'm not yet The energy like the hours to make my classroom look like that.

Yeah But I think that's like the diff like maybe that's like a slight difference, but I know that there are like a elementary teachers and more power to you that can really make a beautiful bulletin board.

Andrea: Yeah.

Melissa: I don't think my kid, you know what, maybe it is also my kids wouldn't appreciate a beautiful bulletin board.

Yeah. They would do what you would say. They would go ahead and put like the tah packets or a draw on it or you know what, lean their heads on it and put like, you know, like it would just wouldn't last. And the appreciation for it. is not there. Like my little library nook area, like how much trash I would find underneath the rugs.

Oh my god.

Andrea: Yeah. Or

Melissa: like, you know, like I spent time to make this cute little library nook. Here's where you're going to feel like you can read your book comfortably. And then I find. Trash. Just trash. Literal trash everywhere. Yeah. Gum sticking out of places. Yeah. All my books are a mess. Yeah. It's just not the time.

Yeah.

Andrea: And I, I know elementary teachers that also do like full classroom transformations for different, but I, I kind of get it cause I think about the way my kids react to some things and seeing the wonder in their eyes and all of that. Like my, my, my biological children, not my student children, um, and like how excited they get and all of that.

And that is so rewarding. So I, I do kind of get why they do that. Um. Whereas if I, like I did my, I do, or I used to do my super great Lord of the Flies interactivity with the streamers and all of that. And kids. would act suspicious. Like, there wasn't the wonder in their eyes. There was, what, why are you doing this to us?

What's happening to us? Yes. Why are you doing this? Like, I didn't get roasted for that ever because they actually really liked the activity, but there was like just a general suspicion of like, is this a trap? Are you trapping me into learning right now? Like, yes, yes, we are. Um, but yeah, But I think that is probably a big part of it is like the, the way they process and the way they react to that kind of a thing is so different that it's not the same kind of like, like, I don't know, endorphin serotonin thing that you get as an elementary teacher when kids come in are like, now I want to learn about the sky and the stars.

Cause like, if I were to put up like little stars on the ceiling, they'd be like, lame. Like they just roast us.

Melissa: I think like Denver like brought it up at one time. She was just like, do you ever kind of wonder where like you as a student, when it was like, it stopped being fun to learn, you know? And like, as an elementary kid, like I loved coming in and learning all these new things, you know?

And the teachers did such a great job and you're right, probably with creating that aesthetic that made me really, really want to learn. But like our high school kids are kind of like, uh,

Andrea: Yeah. What are you going to

Melissa: do to us today? Like, what are we doing today? Yeah. You know, that like fun aspect or like, Ooh, I really want to dive in to this text.

Andrea: Right. I feel like puberty is, and I don't, like, because I don't want to blame middle school teachers because God bless them, I could never, um, I don't think it's them because I think that they try and keep the magic alive, um, as much as possible and let kids be kids as much as possible. Uh, but I, I do, I think it's just puberty and around that age, the kid's focus starts to get turned to each other.

and just the hormones and all of that. And so their main focus, like, I think, I think back to when school stopped being fun. And it's when I was like, that boy smells so nice. He smells like Axe body spray, you know, like, it was like right then that I was just like, I don't want to learn about frogs anymore.

Like, I want to learn about him. Like that was, I feel like the big shift. And I don't know that there's much that we could do to fix that. I mean, I think that the approach to learning when you get to secondary is just such a big shift because then we have to try and convince them that this is going to help them in some way instead of like,

Lauren: yeah,

Andrea: this is learning for the sake of learning.

And then of course, as adults, we listen to podcasts that are like deep dives on, I don't know, the Arctic Circle or something. And we're like, yes, I'm gonna spend my Saturday listening to this. Like we do get that back feel like. Um, but it is, it is tough as high school teachers to try and create that razzle dazzle for them?

Lauren: Well, we focus more on content and connecting to them at our level, as opposed to like, let me make my classroom look pleasing.

Andrea: Yeah.

Lauren: Especially since they have so many different interests. I feel like elementary kids, like Isaiah, my son, he's about to be six next month. He is about dinosaurs. He's about animals.

Like, there's so many things Every five or six year old can pretty much, like, they have more common interests at an elementary level, so what looks exciting to one kid is probably going to look exciting to almost all the kids, as opposed to us. Like, we're not gonna please them all, and the teenagers are coming in, and they're like, Ew, what is that?

Exactly. So we can't really play into that, because that's not a thing anymore, in that age.

Andrea: Because you could do a manga classroom, but, like, that's 20 percent of your kids, maybe. Yes. That would be exciting. Everyone else would be like, this is lame.

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, too, like, even if it was cool to them, they wouldn't show us.

Yeah, that it was cool to them, . They would keep that inside and then maybe at the end of the

Andrea: year they would tell us. Or the after

Melissa: class, yes,

Andrea: they'd be like, this was kind of cool, I guess. Like it was less lame than what we normally do. So I guess it was alright

Melissa: because the amount of roasting that we get from our high school students.

Yeah. Relentless. Yeah,

Andrea: yeah's relentless. And the worst part is, is like it's, it's so cutting. Kindly accurate. Sometimes where they're just like, you know, like the, like the white kitchen, the white and gray kitchen thing, where it's like, it just seems like you spend a lot of time at Hobby Lobby. And I'm like.

Okay, like some of this. First of all, it's too expensive. Yeah, first of all, I got it on Amazon. Thank you. And they're like, you just seem like you have like a lot of succulent decor. And I was like, it's cactus. And they're like, it's, that's the same thing.

Lauren: But you know what I love about them being able to roast us?

We can roast them right back. Exactly. Like, they're waifs. Yes, we wouldn't be, like, going back to the elementary thing, like, we wouldn't be able to do that. Like, I don't want to make a five year old cry. I know.

Andrea: I do that at home. Exactly. That's our home lives. We've got to keep things separate. Um, okay. So, um, Um, one of the things we do is I try and get some advice for our listeners.

Somebody submitted a question, so I want you guys to kind of take a stab at it. So, um, how do you handle discipline issues when your administration puts students, um, that have problems with each other, in the classroom? In the same classroom. I had a situation, um, at our school where I did not realize that these two kids had problems with each other and found out only after they got into a pretty serious fist fight because one kid I had sat next to the door and the other kid would go to the bathroom and we always kept our doors locked so he would have to open the door for the other guy and they literally did one of those like head check, like, what's up?

What's up? And then they just start punching each other.

Lauren: And I'm like, that's crazy. And

Andrea: admin, like, had never told me, like, I had no idea because of like student privacy stuff. They don't want to be like, Hey, these kids hate each other just for like the hot gossip. Like, so they didn't tell me and I didn't know.

And so I unintentionally contributed to like, I could have just moved him. He could have not been the guy by the door. Um, and so I, tended to try and have them like opposite sides of the classroom. And eventually one of the kids got moved to a different class because it became such a, a big issue. But I don't know if you guys have had that where you've got some kind of drama like that in your classes.

Melissa: Other than moving them far away from each other in the classroom. I mean, kind of making sure obviously when they're working in groups. to make sure that they're not close to each other or in the same group. I mean, that's helpful, but I don't call, I mean, maybe communication to home, making the parents aware that this is an issue.

And if you could just make sure that when they're at home, you can remind your kids that they're when they're in the classroom, how to, but I mean, also having that discussion with the students first before reaching out to home, because it could be like, Hey, they really don't like each other, but because they respect you.

Um, we won't start anything in class because I think all three of us have been really good with building relationships with our students. And that aspect in itself plays a big part in how they're going to act in our classrooms. Even if they don't, even if they have like beef with someone else. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think that helps.

Lauren: I haven't had anything major like that. It's usually like, oh, this girl who's dating my current ex, like my ex boyfriend is in this class. So can we just, and like Melissa said, it's just a seat arrangement thing that like usually nips it in the bud.

Andrea: Um,

Lauren: some of them like know that they're like a little bit more boisterous.

So let me comment and they'll just ask me, can I not sit near them? And it's kind of like, it's just like that. And that's usually fine. I will say I was out one of the days and I had a sub. Is my first year teaching and a female student had punched a male student in the face. Oh

Andrea: my god

Lauren: I mean nothing came of it.

Like they were still in my class when I returned like nothing happened I think he was just so embarrassed that a girl had punched him in the face. They were freshmen And if I'm being honest, like, he said some out of pocket things that probably deserved to be corrected. Yeah.

Andrea: You also pointed out, yeah.

Lauren: Yes, but that's pretty much it. Like, I don't know. Just cheating has pretty much nipped it in the bud. I don't know if that's helpful, but

Melissa: Well, and I feel like You also pointed out, though, that it was when a sub was there. It was when a sub was there. Exactly. Again, they were, like, if you were there, probably wouldn't have happened because they know you.

No, no, no, no. They know how you run your classroom.

Andrea: Well, and I think it's also important to point out that the classroom sizes at the school that we were at are huge. Um, I mean, you, like this next year, you guys are gonna be doing a lot of, uh, very large classes. Um, and I mean, when I was there, my freshman class had 43 kids in it.

My sixth period, freshman class, 43 kids on the roster. Now, of course, we didn't always, we never had all of them there all at the same time. But when you do, one of the very, very, very few benefits of having class size that big is you can put a lot of people between two kids that hate each other. So they're just unlikely to like catch eyes and like have those kinds of issues.

Um, I do think, however, it was a little petty that you guys are like, Oh, we don't have those problems because our students like us. And I just told a story of, um, It's two students that fought in my class, so thanks for that. I think that was a little rude. No,

Lauren: they liked you. They just hated each other more.

Exactly. They hated each other more than they liked you.

Andrea: Well, and I did, I did have a conversation with him because one of them got suspended. Um, actually I think both did. And I talked to them both individually and I was like, that is so disrespectful to me. And they were like, you're right, miss. I'm so sorry.

Like, won't happen again. I'm like, you don't have to like him, but you don't do that nonsense in my class. Like that's. So disrespectful. And they're like, you're right. You're right. So like, I, I do think you're right that that's a big part of it. And sometimes we would find out that two kids hate each other and got like, and jumped each other outside of, and when I, to clarify for non teachers, when we say jump, it literally just like their friends fought the other friends, like not like a, like a prison shivving or anything crazy.

Like a kid would come in with a black eye usually. And you'd be like, what happened? Like I got jumped. Like, Oh, well. Poor choices, I guess. All right. So before, uh, I let you guys go, I did ask, and I am putting them on the spot a little bit because I texted them like two minutes before they logged in. Um, asking if you, instead of getting answers from my Instagram, which is where I usually get my, what are those kids doing?

Um, answers. It's the, it's summer right now as we record this. So I wanted to see if each of you guys had a story of a time where a student did something or said something that was just. What stands out in your mind as particularly out of pocket, crazy nonsense that you experienced?

Melissa: I think, you know, one of the times I don't know what happened, but one of the times I was after lunch, it has to be after lunch, because fifth and sixth period, you know, they are, I think you're the most comfortable with those classes because it's kind of like the end of the day, and they kind of know you a little bit better in the morning, and they're, they're more talkative after lunch.

Yeah. But like, I had maybe a stain on my shirt, and one of the kids commented like, is that, is that like a mom thing? Like, does that happen to moms a lot? And I looked and I was like, what are you talking about? Like, the stain on your shirt. Like I noticed like a, a lot of moms have stains on their clothes and I couldn't, and I was like, I couldn't even answer the kid cause I just started laughing.

And I was actually like, it is a mom thing. You're like, yeah, actually at home. Yeah. I'm not home with my kids. I'm with you. This is just me frantically trying to eat in like the five minutes that have been allotted at lunch.

Andrea: It's a teacher thing, you know,

Melissa: like, yeah, it's a teacher thing. Right. And I just started laughing because I was just like, Whoa.

It caught me so off guard that all of a sudden they were asking me about that and that they're watching. But it's just like one like that, that they're they're always watching you. Yeah. Like they notice, you know, they're very deep. Like they the things that you want them to notice.

Andrea: Mm-Hmm.

Melissa: they don't notice.

Right. But the things that, you know, like they're funny.

Andrea: Yeah, for sure. What about you, Lauren?

Melissa: Um,

Lauren: other than the

Andrea: punching thing. . Yeah. Do you have something? Uh, did I, did I get your story too quickly? ,

Lauren: um, trying to think. It's crazy how muddled your brain gets, like, when you're in the summer, and this is, this upcoming school year will be my 11th school year, um, teaching, so it kind of meshes.

Um, not really like an incident, but, uh, kind of something surprising for me is just how often these boys are still being very physically affectionate with each other. I'm just like always so thrown, like Why are you holding hands? Like these guys? Right now. These, these Yeah, these, like, sophomores. These, these sophomores.

Specifically sophomores. They like to, you know, just I just love them so much, Ms. Antonia, that I always, like, rubbing each other's back. And to clarify, like, these are,

Andrea: these are, these are heterosexual young men that are just, that are just there for snuggles.

Lauren: Yeah, and I'm like, okay, you know what? I support it.

And they're always so surprised when I'm like, I support you. They're like, what? They're like, don't support us.

Melissa: Yeah, I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is with sophomore boys. I think I actually even had that where one student, I think one student took a peak, like it was lunch, lunch just ended, right?

Fifth period's coming in. One person had like, Calbee beef and rice for their lunch, and they were taking turns biting each other's piece of meat. What? And I was just kind of looking at them. I'm so sorry. But I was staring at them and I was like, are you feeding each other? And they're like, yeah, we're hungry.

And everyone else was kind of looking at them like, A little strange. All right. Yeah. But like, but they were like, that's my bro. I love him. He can eat. Yeah. He can eat my food, Miss Rabiah. He can eat my food. I love that. I was like, you know what? Hey, that's your bro. You want to

Lauren: feed him? Go ahead. But. We love to see it.

I'll be like teaching and their hands are like across their desks going like in the air. Like they're just like sitting there going, you know what? I'm just gonna, I'm like. So sweet. For what? You're like what? I'd rather them like loving on each other than fighting. I love it. That's fine.

Andrea: Oh my gosh. All right.

So before I let you guys go, um, is there anything that the peoples need to know that you're up to? Any, you know, podcasts or public appearances or? touring or nothing like that

Lauren: at all. Yeah. I will be at your local play place with my five year old and my three year old. Appearing live. Probably sometime this afternoon.

Right. Appearing daily. I'm gonna be at Taekwondo.

Andrea: Right. You know, every week.

Lauren: Yeah.

Andrea: Um, and did you guys want to share your social media tags or?

Lauren: So I have a teacher account, um, Ms. Antonio E. C. that literally basically only my students follow, but it's open. Um, I am there occasionally. So there's that.

Andrea: Perfect.

And then Melissa, do you have a public account you want to share with the world or you're just going to stay a super secret person?

Melissa: Yep, I am super secret.

Andrea: I have none. All right. Perfect. All right. Um, uh, well that guys, we did it. This is that we're coming. Thank you guys so much for coming on. This was super fun.

I hope that all of you listening enjoyed me just hang out with two of my best friends today. That's all it is. That's all it was. This is how we do it. Exactly. So that's it for today. Thank you guys so much. And we'll be right back.

Welcome back to Those Who Can't Do. I am just like, in in a whole moment right now. Because you know when you hang out with just like really good friends that are just so good for your soul. I feel that way every single time I hang out with Lauren and Melissa, they are just like the sweetest, best humans.

And I talked a lot, I think, on the podcast about how important it is to have people who you can collaborate with and work with. And you guys hanging out with me over the past hour was very, very similar to what it was like every single time we got together. for a PLC and did our planning and our prep, um, with the addition of like a few other people who are like the exact same vibe where it's like, we're all together.

We all have this just shared love of teaching and of our students and just so authentic and real. So I hope you guys enjoyed sitting around chatting with us and learning so much about rice. I would love to hear if somebody is out there. That's like, that's not how we make rice at home at all. Or if somebody else also was like, When I explained what the video was of someone making rice, if that's also how you make rice, because clearly it's not just me, because there was the video of it, but it was just so funny to me when, um, I sent that video to them and I was like, guys, I don't know what is wrong with how she made rice just now.

Cause that's how I do it. So yeah, if you have thoughts about what we talked about today, including, uh, how you guys make rice, please share, uh, or suggestions on who you would like to have on. or somebody who'd like to have come on again, then you can contact us, um, at Andrea at human dash content. com. Or you can contact me on Instagram or Tik TOK at educator, Andrea, or you can contact our hue, our whole human content podcast team.

Family on TOK at human content pots. And thank you so much to those of you guys who have left reviews. It makes my day when I see the little like number go up from how many reviews I had from day to day. And I have one lovely review from Rprits2 on Apple said, I love this podcast. I'm a secondary teacher and can relate.

The mix of comedy and educational discussion is perfect. Thank you so much. That's exactly the vibe I'm going for is that hopefully I'm encouraging you and making you laugh, but also, um, helping when there are moments of frustration in your classroom. Hopefully we're also providing you resources and all of that good stuff.

So I'm so happy that you found the podcast, Rprits2. Alright, so if you want to catch full video episodes every week, you can get them on YouTube so that way when you're listening to the pod and we are watching a video, which we occasionally do like today, you can actually see what we're talking about instead of just listening to the music, which I mean is fine too, you can also do that, but it's nice when you're looking at a classroom full of beige and seeing the way that we are reacting to said classroom.

Thank you guys so much for listening. I am your host, Andrea Forkham, and a very special thank you to our beautiful humans who came on today as co hosts, Melissa Rabaia and Lauren Antonio. 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 our Those Who Can't Do's program disclaimer 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.