Transcripts For CSPAN2 After 20240703

Alexandra, im so excited to be here with you today. I could not put down the teachers. It was like reading a novel, even though its its very deeply reported. So just to give some background before your past books have really dived into the lives of high school students, fraternities, sororities and nurses. What made you write about teachers . Ive always been drawn to education. I think i keep coming back to the education beat. Its just its really where my heart is for teachers. It just seemed like the teaching profession was getting more and more difficult. Things were changing. I didnt know why. In 2019, that was the first time that demand outstripped supply for u. S. Teachers by more than 100,000 people. So i was wondering, where are they going and why is this happening . So i ended up wanting to write a book that amplifies teachers voices in sort of, you know, as you say, a readable novel like way. So its not, you know, so its not dry and its something that people can get engaged with because its so important that we listen to teachers. Its so important that we hear what theyre saying, because i think that the key to fixing our Education System and youre also a substitute teacher yourself, which is clear in the book, its very personally and professionally meaningful to you. Can you tell us about why you started doing that, how you got into it . Yes, subbing was completely separate from the book. I was surprised to see an article in a local paper and this was prepandemic. I was surprised to see an article saying that there was a substitute Teacher Shortage and that districts were hurting. And so i went to a nearby district and i said, is this really true . And i talked to administrators and teacher friends and assignment secretaries, and theyre all like, yes. So i said, okay, well, i could sign up. I could do it. You know, once every couple of weeks. So i thought i would just do it once every couple of weeks. But i found it so rewarding to work with the students and to be around the staff. Just teachers are just theres just the best people that i ended up solving a lot more frequently than i expected to last year. I ended up subbing more than 150 days out of 180. So its kind of where my heart is right now. Wow. And how did that inform your experience reporting the book . Yeah, thats a good question. It was great. I do want to make clear that the schools where i subbed and the people, the students and the teachers who were with me are not in the in the narratives or the essays in the book. Thats not i was not under covering the school, but it really gave me a great sense of what teachers were telling me. Teachers were talking about, this is what happens at Parent Teacher conferences. This is what a lockdown drill is like. This is back to school night. And then i found myself last year. I ended up long term subbing and i didnt even i never expected to do that, but a couple of days before august open house in a school where i had short subbed short term many times a school was a lot of the new third grade class and there was no teacher. And so they asked if id cover the class until they could find a teacher, and i ended up subbing from august all the way to winter break. So thats when i got to experience. Okay, now im on the teacher end of the Parent Teacher conferences. I had to do a an active shooter lockdown drill i was doing back to school. Might presentations and it really gave me a better sense of what teachers were going through. At the same time, i was trying to write a book while also subbing, which was very difficult and very time consuming and did not have a lot of sleep. But im glad i went through that because 70 of teachers have had to work a second or more jobs just to be able to continue to afford to be a teacher. And so for me to go through that and to see how difficult that was and how there just were not enough hours in the day i felt was a really good experience for me to understand. As i wrote the book. And im sure talking to teachers, too, while youre substituting, probably informed your teaching practices as well. Yeah. So i followed three teachers for a year for the book. I followed miguel a special ed teacher out west, rebecca and east Coast Elementary School teacher and penny, a middle school math teacher. So i was talking to them every day, involved with them at all times. And so yeah, i would ask them advice if there was a student i wanted to do better at connecting with or if there was a lesson. I wasnt sure about. I had these experts right there who i was talking to anyway, so with miguel, for example, techniques he used with his special ed student, i started using with special ed students who were in my classes when i short term subbed, for example, or rebecca has this thing where she sings in class all the time. Thats how she keeps kids entertained and engaged. And so i started teaching kids. I started making up silly raps just to get them to remember a math strategy or a reading comprehension strategy. And it worked. They really they would beg for the raps because we would do little dance offs and stuff and when i also when i subbed, it also gave me a better sense of what to ask the teachers i was following whether it was miguel pena and rebecca or whether it was hundreds of other teachers. I interviewed for the essays in the book. It just gave me a Great Foundation to to understand where they were coming from and to know what it was to ask them about which which i hadnt. I mean, its great that these two things in my life dovetail at the same time, because that wasnt something that was planned. So you follow these three teachers. Can you tell us a little bit about your reporting process where you sitting in their classroom . Because i felt like you were in the book. Oh, thank you. No, i wasnt. For several reasons. One, with the pandemic, it was harder to get into School Buildings. Schools were you know, you have to show id, you have to be approved to get in. And so thats not something that i wanted their administrators. Or parents or community or students to know about, because these teachers, they really bared all in their personal lives and their professional lives, and they wanted to be completely, 100 candid. And for them to do that, they couldnt be outed. So their schools couldnt know they were participating in this book. In many cases, their families didnt know the parents of their students didnt know their names are changed in the book, certain identifying details are changed. I dont specify exactly where they live and things like that. So it was really more of being in touch with them every day, right . When i mean, you must have known you needed to through your substitute teaching experience some of the daily challenges of teaching. But what surprised you about some of the workplace issues . Teachers are dealing with . Yeah, theres so much more than than i had expected. Theres so much more going on than the public really knows about. I think one of the things that surprised me was the the outrageous things that parents think they can say to educators that they wouldnt say to anybody else, just the just the blunt rage that they direct toward teachers. Its it was mind boggling to me. That was surprising to me. I think some of the things that schools tend to cover up was surprising to me. Like a brief example, penny had her school, had mold in the classroom, and teachers were getting sick because of it, including penny. And she went to the principal role and the principal who in that particular school was not supportive. I will say that miguel and rebecca did have supportive administrators. The principals reaction was to paint over the mold, which didnt solve anything. People were still getting sick. The school still wasnt a safe environment. And that just seems to be something that some School Districts think is okay just to, you know, cover up bandaid approach and then proceed as as they were going. Yeah, the mold example was really striking. And i know we we hear other teachers talk about not having air conditioning when its hot or or heat when its winter. I mean, that the School Buildings themselves didnt seem like comfortable workplaces to say of nothing else. Yeah, there was in september rebeccas classroom. I think the heat index was over 100 degrees. And she was describing students like draped over their desks with heat fatigue and they couldnt get anything done, you know . Right. This week, as as were as were talking, its going to be 90, 90 degrees this week. And School Systems, hvac systems, havent turned over to air conditioning. This is also a testing season. So students are going to be taking these supposedly important high stakes, standardized tests at a time when they cannot possibly be comfortable in their classroom. You write, the public stigmatizes the teaching profession, yet also expects teachers to solve all problems and blames them when they cant. Can you talk a little bit about that cycle and how that plays out . Yeah, well, i think we learned during the pandemic and i want to say that i dont focus on the pandemic because the pandemic didnt cause the problems we see in education. It just sort of laid them bare for everyone to see. I think people realized then, okay, so where depending on schools and therefore teachers for child care, for food, for food insecure communities where depending on them for a whole lot of things that go way beyond academics, were depending on them for things youd normally depend on a social worker for for a mental health. Theres so many things that are now placed on schools which makes teachers the safety net for society. And thats a problem for so many reasons, not the least because teachers arent paid to handle that and theyre not trained to handle many of these things. And ill give a quick this is a bit of a downer example, but its an example of how teachers are sort of bearing the responsibility of societys failures between the 2012 sandy hook massacre and the 2022 rob school massacre. The only substantive change in society was that districts trained teachers to hide their students and barricade the doors. Thats it. Thats all thats changed. And so again, we see, okay, so societies fail or failure is are placed on teachers shoulders and at the same time were getting this as you mentioned, this rage from parents. And i think you refer to the book as a student, as consumer attitude, where teachers were telling you things. And this is a real quote from the book, like, i pay your salary and i can get you fired. Why do you think our society has this attitude towards teachers . Because other societies dont know. And i think our society didnt used to when i was in school, it wasnt that way. I think there have been a lot of changes in education that have led to this sort of blaming teacher narrative in education. And i think it probably started in earnest with no child left behind and high stakes testing. And that led to an atmosphere in which teachers were judged by how their students did on a particular test on a particular day, which is so wrong. A kid can come to school with a stomach ache and have a bad test score. A kid can not be well fed at home or not have involved parents or be homeless or experienced some sort of trauma and for all these reasons, having nothing to do with the teacher, they could not have a great test score and then in the early 2000s, teachers were then blamed for students poor test scores and sometimes their jobs or their salary or bonuses could depend on these factors that were out of control. They could be the greatest teacher in the world. But if you have a student who just experienced a trauma at home and, you know, tanked the test, theres theres nothing you could do about that. It sort of created a climate of fear and competition in schools. And i think parents got hyped up because the government was also focusing on tests as a measure of school success. So that started it. I think social media is also another part of it because it increases the polarization of people and people feed onto each others negativity and you know, as, as, you know, with like yelp reviews, people are more likely to get on social media to rage against something than they are to to praise something. So that was another problem then during the pandemic that created a whole new issue where parents wanted their kids in the physical buildings at school and they blamed the teachers for that not being able to happen, which is also misplaced, also wrong. And then you have certain politicians sort of pouncing on that and using this whole idea of parents rights as a way to galvanize parents in order to achieve their political goals. And that created this us versus them, parents versus teacher attitude. So all of these things kind of were building and now i think were at this Tipping Point where its its i mean, its been too much all along. But i think in my opinion, thats the trajectory thats led to today. Right. So now were seeing this is parent right movement where these like this legislation is being introduced across the country that would restrict classroom discussions on topics like race, racism, lgbtq issues. From your reporting, what kind of toll is that taking on teachers or how are they experienced in this . Oh, its so hard because teachers are the only professionals who are trained and certified to deliver and develop child appropriate, age appropriate content to our nations children in schools. Nobody else, just teachers. And now theyre being told that they cant teach certain things or mention certain things because of an individuals political views, that is hard. Its also hard because teachers just want to do right by kids. Teachers are these compassion knit, selfless, nurturing people who just want to do right by the kids. And if there is a child who belongs to the Lgbtq Community and teachers arent allowed to talk about it and lets include Guidance Counselors too, because Guidance Counselors are included under this umbrella to if youre seeing a child suffering because there are lgbt. Q and theyre being discriminated against, maybe there are problems at home because of it. And youre a trusted adult whom the student comes to and then your School District is saying you cant do anything about it. I mean, thats heartbreaking. Yeah, its when you think about how parents portray teachers or how society portrays teachers, there was a moment in time where teachers were called heroes, especially at the start of the pandemic. But you write in your book that thats kind of a problematic label. Why is that . Well, it goes back to what we were talking about before in terms of teachers being societys safety net. Teachers will do anything for kids teachers. They will donate kidneys. They will adopt students who are in the foster system. They will and they they do all of these things, but they shouldnt have to. And also, i mean, society should be taking care of people like that. Teachers are the ones you should be focusing on teaching. However, theres also this idea now that if a teacher doesnt martyr herself and shes not a good teacher, and thats why its not right to call them heroes, because, one, they shouldnt have to be. And two, lets just talk about teachers being good teachers because of their teaching, not because they have to slip food into kids backpacks when the kids are out at recess, just to make sure that the kids wont go home hungry, which is something that a lot of teachers do. Yeah. I mean, time and again, your book is capturing teachers doing more with less like fewer resources, fewer support. Can you share some examples of what that look like in the classroom . Oh, gosh, you mean you mean like the the food in the backpack . Yeah, well, miguel went out of his way for a homeless student in many ways. He felt that because the student didnt have a male role model and the childs mother was pretty apathetic and not involved with education and pretty hard on the child. You know, miguel, would. Would step in and sort of secretly buy the child something at the book fair. So he would have something to and just try and be a constant presence in his life to make sure that the kid felt like he had some sort of anchor. And, you know, i dont want to do any plot spoilers, but he turned this kids life around completely. This is a child who the year before would bolt from the classroom every few days because he was angry about something. And by the end of his year with miguel, he was like a model student. I talked to teachers who would give their students their personal cell phones even after the student graduated, just so they could be there for the student and teachers. Are 94 of teachers by their own classroom supplies and thats an average of about 500. A teacher, many spend more. Penny, who i followed, spent 2,000 one year. Thats just for classroom supplies. Beyond that, sometimes theyre paying for a kids glasses or furniture or field trips or things like that. Theyre just they will do anything to to help their students. They call them my kids. That struck me, too. They always say theyre my kids, like ill do anything for my kids. Their job does not stop when the School Bell Rings at the end of the day, not just because they have more grading and prepping and lesson planning to do, but because theyre always thinking about their students. Theyre always thinking, how can i reach this student better . This student seemed like he was struggling today. What can i do . What . Maybe i should reach out. What can i do to make him emotionally better . Because teachers, its like they adopt all their students and they they they just want to do right by them and make their lives better, even broader than just at school and even in terms of that prepping and planning, you you mentioned the teachers in your book are working such long hours to get it all done. And i think that kind of goes into the what i think you call a myth is teachers get summer off year jump. Yeah. I mean, thats a teachers i yeah. Why is that not not the case necessarily. Well well so teachers arent paid for their work during the summer, theyre only paid for the school year. But then when they are supposedly off during the summer, they have professional development. They have to take continuing education classes to keep up their certifications so they can keep being teachers. School districts change the curricula all the time, which means that teachers have to spend the summer redoing their lesson plans and learning the new curricula. And theres just so much that theyre doing over the summer. They come back to school earlier than than everybody else. They stay later in the school year than students do. Its just they they dont have summers off. Thats thats not true. So you started this by talking about how demand for teachers is outpacing supply and Teacher Shortages have been in the news recently. Districts are saying theyre having a hard time finding enough teachers to staff their vacancies, especially for subjects like special education. And but in your book, you call a Teacher Shortage a misleading term. Why is that . Yeah, theres not a Teacher Shortage. There are plenty of people out there who would be amazing, who are qualified guide, who are willing educators, who either have been are or who are willing to be in the classroom and would do a terrific job of educating our children. There are plenty of people out there. However, theres a shortage of jobs that adequately treat, compensate and respect people such that they would want to be teachers in the first place. So thats not a Teacher Shortage. Thats a job shortage. If you want to improve the job, the teachers will come back and along those lines, you know, we know that thats that from studies that teachers are more stressed than many other professionals. And maybe no surprise after this conversation, but you also pose the question, what if the premise of teacher burnout is a myth . What do you mean by that . So that goes back to what we were talking before about the blame the teacher educational narrative, teacher burnout, experts say, is because of unmanageable workloads. Its caused by high stakes testing or time pressure or having not enough resources to do your job. These are the things that studies show cause teacher burnout. But instead of specifically fixing those issues, schools dont do that. They just say, oh, okay, so youre burnt out. So you need to learn how to relax. You need to do a better job of selfcare. And im quoting that because its such a popular phrase and teachers are so sick of hearing it because School Systems instead of trying to fix the problem, are just, again, putting everything on teachers shoulders and saying, well, you need to cope with this or else youre burned out. You know, youre youre not doing a good job of preventing yourself from being burnt out. So i say that instead of saying teachers have the highest levels of burnout, which is something that studies say, we should instead be saying no School Systems are the employers worst at providing employees with the resources they need to do their jobs. And what would help . What would some of those resources look like . Well, lets start with more support staff. We need more para educators. We need more counselors. We need more school psychologists, social workers and a full time nurse in every single school. If you look at special ed, thats where were seeing a lot of vacancies. Its because they dont have enough supports. And when certain, certain severely to moderate early disabled students may have impulse control issues or they may have communication challenges, and sometimes they lash out physically. Its not something that they need to do. Its not out of malice. Its just its just what happens and if you have one teacher, this happened with miguel in a class with many students who have those challenges, as if youre turning to talk to one and the other one body slams you from behind. Its not that the student is a bad person. Its that the district didnt provide enough aides in the classroom to be able to monitor all of these students. And that gets into, you know, special ed. Teachers are often told that the violence is just part of the job and that teachers are just supposed to accept it. And thats wrong. Work. Work should not hurt. Districts need to stop putting the onus on teachers to handle these completely impossible situations and instead provide what teachers need so the first thing i would say is support staff, okay. And more time, i would imagine to just to get everything that needs to be done. Done. Yeah, were talking about teachers have maybe 50 minutes of planning time a day and if youre an Elementary School teacher and your class does not have art library p. E or music that day, then you may get no planning time that day. So teachers are expected to do all the grading and prepping and planning when not during their paid work day. They end up doing it after work at home unpaid. And thats happening to pretty much everyone. You know, high school and middle school teachers, they may have 180 students easily. I spoke to a teacher in utah who had 263 students. Thats an ap english teacher. So can you imagine in 150 minute period being expected to grade, correct it and refine the writing of to 163 essays . And then to have to do that every time you give them a new assignment, its impossible. It is an impossible job. But in School Librarians and theres an essay in your book that talks about librarians and their importance, and there maybe their role. That is not what you might expect when you think about the words school librarian. Can you talk a little bit about that important educator there are all these stereotype about librarians that, well, im not going to go into them because i dont want to i dont want to perpetuate them. Libraries are actually some of the most cutting edge teachers in the school. First of all, librarians are teachers. They teach students and they teach teachers. They are technology experts. They know all the resources and literature for every grade in their school. They are a collaborative profession online. They are the ones who teach the staff. Whenever theres a new Online Platform that the school has to learn, they really do a lot more than people think. They also are the ones who often create this sort of safe, accepting environment because every child should be able to see themselves in a book and many School Librarians understand that and want to connect the child with the book that will inspire them or spark their love of learning or validate them or make them feel seen. But theyre not. Every school has a librarian in that position. You talk a little bit about as just its not as wellfunded as it could be. Is that right . Yeah. And so so heres the thing. So library ends. Its been proven if a school a full time librarian, then the students master academic standards better they have higher test scores and theyre more likely to graduate. Librarians have been shown to affect the achievement gap. They help close the achievement gap. Just having a full time librarian in school. But Something Like because Something Like a third of districts in our country dont have librarians, i think for a 40 , dont have full time librarians. More than half of Charter Schools dont even have libraries. So heres this this amazing resource that every school should have because it can help fix all of these things that we hear in the media all time about the problems with the Education System. But people dont realize that its because of the librarians and that we need to get that position back into schools. You know, we have districts in michigan, i think i think they got rid of 92 of their full time librarians. Spokane, washington, eliminated the position entirely at people, i guess didnt really understand what it is librarians do and how important they are. Theyre seen as extras instead of necessity. They are complete necessities. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of what youre talking about, i mean, its teacher working conditions, but its also Student Learning conditions. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, how can how can students thrive in in these kind of environments . Yeah, exactly. Im glad you said that, because everything we talk about, everything in teachers unions are asking for everything teachers are asking for. Its not just to better the environment for the teachers, teachers working conditions, as you say, are childrens learning conditions. If teachers are asking for, you know, a better age system that is as important for the kids to be able to sit comfortably and learn as it is for the teachers to have what should be the proper working environment. If were talking about salary, for example, its been shown studies show that students have significantly higher math and english standardized test scores in districts that pay teachers a higher base salary. And it just it just makes total sense if teacher doesnt have to work a second job after school, shes going to have more time to devote to thinking about, okay, how do i differentiate this lesson so that my gifted students and my struggling students and my students in the middle all get the most they can of it . Everything we talk about in terms of teachers, working conditions, everything we improve their will, improve schools for students to you mentioned and i think theres one example of a teacher selling their blood plasma and in your book were seeing this conversation now about teacher salaries and and theres legislation across the country and federally trying to raise teacher salaries is that enough to fix the challenges of the profession . Its not enough, but its a good start. Its its something its a good beginning to the conversation. I mean, after that, we have to talk about, okay, well, how do we keep those salaries up there . And also, you know, the legislation right now is saying base salary of 60,000. Thats great. But 60,000 means Different Things in different places in the country. There is a School District in oregon that Just Announced that theyre raising their base salary for all teachers from 38000 to 60000. And this was said in a zoom call. Theres the superintendents idea and teachers were crying because in that small rural district that meant everything. There was a story about there was a pair of teachers in the district who were married and the difference in both of their salaries suddenly meant they could afford child care. And if you have that situation, then the teacher doesnt have to quit her job because child care costs outweigh what shes earning as a teacher. I mean, thats a big deal. So, yes, its a good first step, but there are so many other things that that we need to do. I was one of the teachers that you shadowed penny, was dealing with Workplace Bullying. And i was really surprised to read some of the statistics you shared about how prevalent this is among educators is talk a little bit about that. Why is that . Yeah, according to the the expert in this country on on Workplace Bullying in school. 70 to 80 of educators have witnessed a principal bullying teachers. Theres this sort of power dynamic where a principal has so much control over teachers. You know what grade the teacher teaches, what duties he or she might have the size of their class. Theres theres so much that a principal can do to make or break a teacher. And the teachers feel like they cant speak. Theyre worried about retaliation. In some cases, districts cover for principals. Im talking to a group of teachers who are dealing with that right now. The district is covering for the principal and not removing him from the school while they investigate him, even though he is creating a toxic working environment for the teachers. So it can be really hard. Theres also the idea that theres something called oppressive group theory, which says that if a group is made to feel inferior and they cant, they cant climb out of it and they cant do anything to to talk to or to against the theyre supervisors. We saw this in in nursing as well. Then they may turn on each other because of the stress and the frustration and because they have no other outlet. And so sometimes we see that with teachers as well. What can be done to help out . Well, it comes down to the administrators. Can it can foster a collaborative, warm, accepting environment. So, you know, its its hard that it can all come down to the principal of a school, but School Systems really need to do a better job of making sure that principals are held accountable and that there is a system in place for teachers to get help for. Workplace bullying without fear of breach of confidentiality, without worrying about losing their jobs or being retaliated against by administrators for speaking out. Because right now, theres theres nothing really in place for teachers. With all of these challenges that were talking about. So many of the teachers in your book say theyre staying and teaching. Why . Why are they staying . Whats keeping them there . Because what it comes down to is the kids. You know, i heard over and over again, like i stay for the kids. If i leave, its because of the adults. I mean, i saw this in subbing to the act of teaching. It is so joyous and so rewarding and making these connections with with students and with staff, its just, its like the best job in the world. So teachers are stuck right now because they love teaching. They just dont love being a teacher. Right. Its the role thats the problem, not the work. So they stay because the joy because they see the aha moments where a student suddenly grasps a math concept or makes a connection between something in social studies and something in reading or a science experiment works. They see, they stay. Students come back to them after theyve graduated and tell them how much they mean to them, or they get notes from students from a couple of years ago, i remember you and i remember this and hows, you know, such and such that was in the classroom. It really means something to teachers. They stay because they remember that time when the bell rang and the kids were like, oh, because they didnt want the lesson to end. Its like these little momo ants can keep you going for weeks and even though there are more tough moments than joyous moments, sometimes those joyous moments can be so powerful that they motivate you to keep going because its really teaching can just be a big, warm, fuzzy. Yeah. You know, we we look at im thinking of some recent research that looked at how undergraduate college students, where they ask them if theyre interested in teaching. They were talking about all the negative messages. Theyre getting from the media, from their friends and family, like, why would you go into teaching . Its so hard, youre not going to get paid enough. Oh, yeah. I mean, what do you think that how can society turn that around . How can we make this an attractive career again . We need to flip the messaging. I mean, that was one of the reasons i wrote the book. We need to realize, oh, teachers are floundering here and now we need to step up, step up and speak for them. There are so many more people who support educators than dont who support teachers who support public education. I think that the negativity is coming from like a small friends that are just very loud and very coordinated and very aggressive. So it is time for the rest of us to speak out and be educator allies and spread the positivity and talk about how meaningful teachers are, not just to the teachers themselves, but also op eds testimony to school boards, petitions to get teachers what they need. Its time or were going to lose them and one of the teaching profession is overwhelmingly white and female, and districts are trying to attract more diverse candidates into the profession. How how do you think that . Can you talk a little bit about that, what you learned about, teacher diversity in your reporting . Its so important. Its so important. If a black student has just one black teacher, by the time they hit third grade, theyre more likely to do better and stay in school if they have to. Black teachers by the time they go to college, theyre more likely to go to college. Its its so important for students to see themselves in the classroom and right now, fewer than 10 of teachers are black. Fewer than 10 of teachers are. And we we have to get we have to get more people of color into the classrooms. Its so important. I like the idea that some School Districts are having where theres like a pipeline and they focus the community and lets get members of the community to go from students to graduate, get to training as teachers, and then come on back to the community. I think thats a great idea. Yeah, i was talking to one researcher who said Something Like teaching is the only job where students are seeing it every day in front of them. So i would imagine that would be a good, good pool of potential terrorist attacks from. Yeah. And teaching is also predominantly female profession to how did how does this gender play into any of any of this these workplace challenges. Sure. So approximately three quarters of teachers are women and approximately three quarters of superintendents are men. Its always been the case that its been female dominated to the work force in a male dominated id supervisory system. It started back in the 1800s that teachers were blamed by the. Men who ran the Education System for the failures of the system. They would just say, oh, well, theyre women. So and you know, all the stereotypes of women that were prevalent back then, it was easy for them to just punt the blame for everything onto the teachers and that kind of hasnt yet gone away. Hm yeah. Its i mean, so now its may and thats or its about to be may and then its Teacher Appreciation month. What is true Teacher Appreciation look like year round. First of all, not just the second week of may. I think people dont realize that even the littlest gestures to teachers throughout the year make a difference if you dont have to, you know, get your teacher some sort of lavish gift, although if you can manage it, like give them everything they deserve it really what teachers keep from year to year to year to year are the detailed, heartfelt notes that say specifically what that teacher meant to you, what that teacher meant to your child. You know, if youre a graduate, you know, i remember you because and you made a difference in my life because teachers actually keep those notes in their work bag. So when theyre having a bad day, they pull them out of their work bags and they read them to feel better. Thats how important these notes are. They dont throw them out. So if theres nothing else that you can possibly think of to do for Teacher Appreciation week, just tell the teachers how meaningful theyve been to your family. Its a nice, nice way, a form of communication where in a lot of your book its the parent. Communication can be very terse and constant, and thats another stressor teachers are dealing with. I know it was just noticeable how many texts teachers were receiving day in and day out. I mean, what kind of relationship does that create between the parents and teachers . Theres theres sort of this sense of instant gratification where parents shoot off an email and then and then they wait for the response ends. And teachers, you have to understand, they either maybe dont have time to check their email at 11 p. M. At night. When you sent that angry missive or they know better than to do that because then theyll think about it all night and they wont get any sleep. But that wont help them in the classroom again, if they have 50 minutes of planning time and 263 students, they may not have time to even get to your email or find your email in the next few days. And but parents some seem to forget that and seem to not be aware that, no, your teacher might not be able to respond right away, too, to whatever it is. And you should really think of reaching out to someone else if its urgent or if your students in middle school or high school have your students speak to the teacher themselves they could advocate for themselves. Thats a lot easier. Or teachers would prefer that i also like to tell parents to schedule send their emails so that you are thinking of something at 10 p. M. At night. Dont send it then schedule it to arrive during the school day. Thats just common courtesy and also by the time you wake up the next morning, maybe youll want to take back something that you said in there. So that thats thats just to start with. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, i think you had a lot of list of tips for parents, but in general, what do you hope non educators are going to to take away from this . I think they should better understand what teachers are going through, have some empathy, understand that if you support teachers, its not enough. Just say you like teachers. Now is the time when you need to stand up and lobby for what teachers need. Its not just to be like, youre great here is heres a bag of cookies, which is which is nice, but that doesnt do anything for the teachers. Working conditions. I think also we all need to trust teachers more and make an example of trusting teachers say in front of your your students. You know i say in front of your kids who are students i trust your teacher. And if you model that kind of appreciation and respect, thats going to improve the Students Experience to. And i think we just we really need to have teachers backs right now and i hope that people understand that from the book. Yeah its a its a tough Political Climate right now. And i think teachers are are it just my teachers ive talked to are just kind of taken aback to be in the center of these political political fights. What are your what are your thoughts on just how that profession, where is the profession headed right now . If we dont change the way our society is is treating teachers . Oh, thats a scary question. Yeah, we were were there. We were going to lose teachers. Were going to lose even more teachers if we dont fix the problems. Now, if this political war keeps going on in the classroom, more and more teachers are going to leave. I think, and i hope people are starting to see that. Oh, my kids fourth period class never has a full time teacher. There is a substitute or its combined with another class or i think a lot more parents are starting to see the empty classrooms and realizing that its time and that all these things that may seem like abstract Educational Concepts in, the media are actually going to affect them personally with more and more frequency. So im actually that people are understanding now how dire the situation is and how we need to support teachers immediately. And do you plan to continue substitute teaching . Is that right . Yeah. Ill be back in the classroom next week, actually. Yeah. I cant stay away and, you know, writing this book for the first time in my career, i am going to stop writing books because this this is this is the most important issue i can think of. And im not turning away from it. I want to continue to help by advocating for teachers on a broad level and help them in the classroom by stepping in as a sub so they can they can have the time they need to to get their doctors appointments or take care of their sick kids or whatever they need to do so that they can be at their best in the classroom. You know, its something small that i can do help, but it helps them. Yeah. I mean, what have teachers told you after after reading this book or even that you interviewed and theyre grateful that they feel validated that, you know, a teacher came up to me after a speech that i gave a few weeks ago to say that she always thought that she left the profession because she felt that something was wrong with her because she wasnt handling things right in the classroom. And reading this, she realize, oh, no, it wasnt it wasnt her fault. It was the working conditions, it was the administer raters. And the job was just impossible. So theres validation. Its its nice to hear from ive heard from a former teacher that they actually want to go back into the classroom after reading the book because reading the vivid classroom scenes made her realize that she she wanted to be back in it. But i think i think its a lot of its a lot of gratitude, but its also and i saw this in the reviews online. Yes. Authors read their reviews. Theyll be nasty. Teachers want non educators to read it. They want people in Decision Making positions to understand what their lives are like. They want people who are so quick to rage at teachers to read the book, which they probably wont because theyre not supportive of teachers to begin with. But. But teachers hope they do. And the three teachers you shadowed in the book, they are just theyre i want to know, like where they are now, what happened to them. Dont want to give a spoiler in any spoilers away. But i mean, just what do you hope people learn from from their they learn from those teachers and just their unique personalities and wait, theyre handling their own classrooms. Yeah. Penny, miguel and rebecca really gave people a gift. You cant understand what its like to be a teacher or whats really going on in schools. Unless you are a teacher. And so what penny, miguel and rebecca did is they let us be a fly on the wall in their classrooms, in their day to day. We can see what they go through with staff, with students, with administrators, with school boards. And we can see what their daily lives are like, what the joys are, what the challenges are. You can understand why its so to be a teacher, but you can also understand why they want to stay in the profession. Because there are so many good things that are that are part of the profession. And so, you know, i hope that people fall in love with and root for penny, miguel and rebecca as much as i did. And their students who were were were great characters as well. Yeah. I mean, you you talked a lot about your third grade students that you read a lot. I mean, what what did they taught you . Oh, my students. So my third graders. Well, nobodys ever asked me that before. I think if i were to encapsulate in a nutshell what my third graders taught me is that the most important thing in life, the relationships you have and the connections you make, and what you teach each other in mutual mutual learning environments. Which is another reason im going back to the classroom of writing another book. It is so fulfilling to work with students. It is so there was a teacher, texas, who i interviewed, who he made maybe 30,000 a year. He you know, sometimes his water was cut off his Cell Phone Service was cut off. He couldnt support his family. He worked two other jobs, just to be able to afford being a teacher. And i said, why, why . Why . You know, you could make more money in another job. And he said, because teaching makes my soul happy. And i feel that to the to the core teaching makes my soul happy to. Well, thank you so much for your being here. It was really fascinating to hear inside the the lives. Of teachers. Thank you and thank you for the work you do. Thank you