My Disney Class podcast

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie are discussing various lessons that Howie has created for our P.D. Magic experiential field trip. These lessons were developed to help our participants familiarize themselves with the Disney terminology and some of the systems that Disney uses. This familiarity allows them to get comfortable with the concepts and educational ties that we will be using on-site at Walt Disney World. We then take that foundation and start to develop our participants' ability to see the world of education through a different lens.

Howie and Ryan spend the majority of this show going through different lessons topics and sharing how they would approach answering and using this information in their educational lives. They also share a lot of their favorite hidden details and magic that Walt Disney Imagineers have hidden in plain sight. They really love to share the Disney secrets that they have discovered and you will definitely pick up on that in this episode as they dive deep into some of these awesome details you can find in the various parks!

We hope you enjoy today's show about some of the different lessons and details that the online classes for P.D. Magic cover. Remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already amazing community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!

Design, Disney, and Library Anthropology with Sarah Beals Sager

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Sarah Beals Sager to the show. Ryan met Sarah through a mutual Disney friend, Dr. Cody Havard, a couple of years ago. They both sat on a panel that discussed Marvel and fandom for Dr. Harvard's University of Memphis class. After hearing Sarah talk about her fandom for Marvel, her passion for Disney, and the work she does as a library anthropologist, Ryan knew he had to ask her to come on the My Disney Class Podcasts. Today she graciously made time in her busy schedule to talk with us. Speaking of her busy schedule, listen to this! Sarah recently completed two masters' degrees at the same time from the University of Denver. One in library and informational services and the other in anthropology. Sarah already has nine years of creative branding and marketing experience that she roots firmly in research. She originally was trained as a digital artist and has a passion, that she admits to having adopted from her dad, for the importance of organization. Sarah has worked for Disney, at Walt Disney World, twice. Once through the college program and then later she came back to work in custodial and in cosmetology. She currently is an entrepreneur and is currently being contracted out by Disney to work her library anthropology magic!

On today's show, Sarah will share with us her passion for Disney and wanting to work in the creative side of theme parks as well as her journey from the Disney college program to working as an independent contractor for Disney. She will also discuss the importance of choice in creating learning environments both in museums, theme parks, and classrooms. Sarah will also discuss how she does and would use her background to help make theme parks more engaging!

We believe you are going to love hearing Sarah's unique journey and perspective on learning environments, organization, engagement, and fun! Remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already amazing community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!

Play Me Some Disney Music!

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie continue where they left off spotlighting the importance of music to tell and drive a story. Remember educators are master storytellers and the great ones are able to excite and utilize all the audiences' senses. Music can be very motivating and emotional for audiences and educators can use that to their advantage just like Walt Disney and the Walt Disney company do in their movies, t.v. shows, attractions, and pretty much everything it puts out.

On today's show, Howie and Ryan will cover the music in the two other main Disney parks down in Orlando Florida, Disney's Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. They will both share what some of their favorite music tracks are from these two parks and also share some hidden Disney magic that you can find with these songs as well.

They wrap up this two-part series, sharing ways that you can utilize Disney music or any type of music in your classroom to help engage and teach your students. Remember music is a big part of driving the story for Disney and music can be a big part of driving your storyline in the classroom!

We hope you enjoy today's show about the power of music and find a few ways that you can utilize that power in your classroom. Remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already amazing community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!

Remembering a GREAT Interview with a REPEAT of Lee Cockerell Interview

Today on the show, Ryan and Howie welcome an extraordinary guest to the show, Lee Cockerell. Lee is the former Executive Vice President of Operations for the Walt Disney World Resort. As the Senior Operating Executive for then years Lee led a team of 40,000 cast members and was responsible for the operations of 20 resort hotels, 4 theme parks, 2 water parks, a shipping and entertainment village and the ESPN sports and recreation complex in addition to the ancillary operations which supported the number one vacation destination in the world.

Lee has written four books, Creating Magic, The Customer Rules, Time Management Magic, and Creating Career Magic. All of which are packed full of golden nuggets that will be sure to inspire and encourage you to develop habits that will lead to a vast growth in your teaching or educational field. They can also be great sources for your students as they grow into their roles of leadership and future paths. One of Lee's major and lasting legacies was the creation of Disney Great Leader Strategies which was used to train and develop the 7000 leaders at Walt Disney World. Many of these strategies are shared in Lee's books mentioned above but today we are lucky enough to have him on the show and sharing his wisdom with us and how these strategies can help educators and students both achieve the greatness we are all capable of.

We know you are going to love today's show as we hear stories and lessons that Lee has learned over his wonderful career in customer service and leadership roles. Lee is a marvelous storyteller, would you expect anything else from a Disney rockstar, and very passionate about making a positive impact on the world he lives in. Lee is a man that does what he says he's going to do and shows time after time again that he lives by the advice he gives.

Let's all sing like the birdies sing!

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan spotlight the importance of music to tell and drive a story. Remember educators are master storytellers and the great ones are able to excite and utilize all the audiences' senses. Music can be very motivating and emotional for audiences and educators can use that to our advantage just like Walt Disney and the Walt Disney company do in their movies, t.v. shows, attractions, and pretty much everything it puts out.

On today's show, Ryan and Howie will take you through a few innovative ways to use music in your classroom to help provoke images and feelings in your students that will hopefully help them move the concepts you are teaching from their brain to their heart, where it will stay forever. Howie and Ryan also will go through two of the four parks in this episode, discussing their favorite ways Disney has used music in their attractions. In this episode, they only get through Magic Kingdom and E.P.C.O.T. but promise to come back next month and finish the other two parks off.

We hope you enjoy today's show about the power of music and find a few ways that you can utilize that power in your classroom. Remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already amazing community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!

If you would like the PDF of "This is my story-This is my song"….email [email protected] and he will email you the PDF FILE

Happy Teacher with Erin King

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Erin King to the show. Erin is currently fulfilling the role of Program analyst for continuous improvement in the Fulton County School District. Fulton County School District is in Atlanta GA and serves approximately 94,000 students that attend classes in 58 elementary schools, 19 middle schools, 15 high schools, and seven charter schools. Erin also supports teachers with inspiration via her InspirED blog at inspirededucation.info, the podcast Teacher's Pep Rally, and a workshop series called The Happy Teacher.

On today's show, Erin shares with us how and when her passion for Disney started and how she turned that passion into an incredible teacher workshop themed after the Seven Dwarfs, hence the name Happy Teacher! Erin's workshops, which are on location down at Walt Disney World, help teachers reignite their passion for education and the profession of teaching. She explains how she capitalizes on being so close to the Most Magical Place on Earth to inspire, recharge, and encourage her participating teachers to start having fun again in their classrooms.

Erin also discusses on the show her work in the Fulton County Schools and how she brings a little bit of the Magic with her into each building she enters. She also shares with us how she has and has seen Disney being used in classrooms that will definitely make you Happy. Erin is an incredible educator and we are sure you will enjoy hearing about her passion and Disney fandom as she continues to inspire and make us all a little less Grumpy, Dopey, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and a little more Happy and a lot more like the Doc's of Education we all know we are.

We hope you enjoy today's show and find Erin as rejuvenating and uplifting as we do! Remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already amazing community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!

I'm Dreaming of a Disney Christmas

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan discuss their Disney dreams this holiday season. This includes several recent D23 Destination D announcements about upcoming attractions and events at Walt Disney World and the other Disney theme parks. Ryan and Howie really are excited for the future of the Disney Parks and both can't wait to get back and experience all the new adventures Disney is creating for all of us. They definitely can't wait to find all the connections these new attractions will create for the world of education and our students!

While Howie and Ryan, have done shows like this in the past and have echoed the following statement before, they feel that it's worth repeating today that their best holiday gift this season is the wonderful My Disney Class community that has been blessed with all the great educators, like yourself, that continue to create classroom magic every day. Ryan and Howie do share other gifts that they are looking forward to, and even some classroom tools that may be worth exploring that could make your teaching life a little easier.

We hope you enjoy this holiday-themed episode but more than that we hope you have a wonderful holiday season and enjoy some time off from school or work. Thank you again for making My Disney Class such a positive learning community and we look forward to growing even more in the new year

As always, we would love for you to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. If you have any feedback or would like to come on the show, please email us at [email protected], and don't forget to join our Facebook community at Educators Who Love Disney.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Emily Gathman. Emily is a 6th grade Science teacher at Bussey Middle School in Garland Texas. She loves to inspire her students to be creative problem-solvers as they tackle real-world Science and engineering problems in her classroom.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Emily Gathman. Emily is a 6th grade Science teacher at Bussey Middle School in Garland Texas. She loves to inspire her students to be creative problem-solvers as they tackle real-world Science and engineering problems in her classroom. Emily was recognized in 2021 as the Bussey Middle School's, Teacher of the year which as you will see in this episode is truly well deserved!

On the show, Emily will share with us how she has incorporated the lessons that she has learned from Disney as well as what brings her inspiration from Disney into her classroom for her students. This ranges from how she has designed physical things in her classroom to how she uses inspirational quotes. For example, Emily helps her students handle failures they encounter in her class by using the quote," Failure is not an endpoint but a jumping-off point." She combines this quote with stories about how Walt Disney himself overcame many failures. We think you will agree as you listen to Emily describe her classroom that she is definitely inspiring her students to be innovators, just like Uncle Walt!

We hope you enjoy today's episode and as always, we would love for you to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. If you have any feedback or would like to come on the show, please email us at [email protected], and don't forget to join our Facebook community at Educators Who Love Disney.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie pick up where they left off a month ago when they were discussing Walt's original Florida Project and plan to make E.P.C.O.T. the heart of everything that was going to go on in central Florida. In this episode, Howie and Ryan start at the solemn point of Walt's death and how the company and Roy had to decide on what to do next. Do they continue with Walt's vision for E.P.C.O.T. or do they try to do something more familiar that they already have a blueprint for?

Howie and Ryan will then look at what E.P.C.O.T. turned into and the attractions available on opening day. They will discuss what can be learned from this path the company took and how education, creativity, innovation, and discovery were and maybe will be again the heart of the park E.P.C.O.T. Furthermore, they will discuss what the future has been promised to look like by Disney for this park and what their hopes are for what this special park will become.

We hope you enjoy this exploration of why the vision and plan for E.P.C.O.T. changed and what the future of E.P.C.O.T. looks like. We hope you also gleaned some of the parallel connections between Walt's vision, what E.P.C.O.T. has become and how we can apply that to our schools and classrooms. E.P.C.O.T. has always been a very inspirational place and we know here at My Disney Class that there are tons of mini E.P.C.O.T. classrooms all over that are inspiring the next Walt Disney to grow and develop and dream! Keep up the great work and remember that even if the path has to change, keep what's important, our students, at the heart of everything we do as educators.

As always, we would love for you to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. If you have any feedback or would like to come on the show, please email us at [email protected], and don't forget to join our Facebook community at Educators Who Love Disney.

Getting Primed with Michael Crawford

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan welcome Michael Crawford to the show. Michael is currently a show writer at the Walt Disney Company and has also written for The Walt Disney Family Museum, The Disney Archives, Imagineering, and D23! In this episode, he will guide us through how his passion for Disney started for him and how that led to him creating a very popular blog called Progress City, USA. This blog is what would eventually find its way to Diane Disney Miller and help him make other contacts and connections that led to Michael writing and working for all those incredible Disney groups listed above.

Michael has also written a book called, The Progress City Primer. His book is filled with a cornucopia of Disney stories that span topics like Walt's life, the wonderfully weird stories of Disney, and the Disney that never was. On the show, Michael shares with us some of his favorite stories from his book and the details behind them and even how he did his research to gather all these great stories.

Michael also has a podcast that he does with his brother that is bi-monthly called Progress City Radio Hour and if you enjoyed hearing Michael's stories on our podcasts, and I know you did, then you should go check out his podcast as well as he shares even more stories and deeper dives into the wonderful world of Disney!

We hope you enjoy today's episode and as always, we would love for you to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. If you have any feedback or would like to come on the show, please email us at [email protected], and don't forget to join our Facebook community at Educators Who Love Disney.