Rethinking Learning Podcast

Meredith Johnson has over 40 years as a teacher, principal, administrator, and now connector of book lovers through social media. Meredith seeks out others to work collaboratively within the integration of 21st Century Learning Skills.

         

Meredith loves working with adults, guiding them in developing their academic skills, and using technology as a tool to help them achieve their goals. Meredith is an avid user of Twitter as a tool for learning. That’s how I met Meredith and am so excited to have had a conversation with her. Enjoy Meredith’s journey!

About your family

My husband, John, and I have retired to our place in paradise on the Isles of Capri, just across from Marco Island, Florida. I have amazing adult sons; the eldest, Charles, is an attorney in Southern Illinois, the second, Matthew, works in the computer technology field and the youngest, Jonathan has less than 50 days left until he finishes law school in Colorado.

What it was like for you as a student/learner

I had an amazing education from pre-school – 7th grade in Minneapolis, MN. My family then moved to Southern Illinois where I finished high school and earned a joint, bachelor’s degree in elementary and special education. I also achieved a Master’s degree from Southern IL University in educational leadership/special education with an endorsement as a director of special education. I always adored school and especially books. As a child, I would take books from the shelves in our living room, place them on a table with “library cards,” and try to get my three brothers to check them out. My mother was always so upset with me as I would never play with dolls as I was too busy playing “school.” My eldest brother had substantial learning challenges and for most of our childhood, long before P.L. 94 – 142 he attended a private boarding school for children with learning problems.

In the late 1950s, public schools in Minneapolis were not prepared to meet the needs of children with behavior or learning challenges. We’ve come a LONG way from those days. I went into special education with the intent of making a difference for children with learning difficulties. I am also a third generation teacher. My grandmother taught in a one-room schoolhouse in southern MN, and my mother, nursing at the University of Minnesota. I still have the bell my grandmother used to call students into class.

Once, I took it with me in my purse, to a job interview with the intent of sharing with those on the interview committee my tremendous dedication toward education and the long history my family had with it.

About your journey as an educator

I started teaching as a 4th-6th-grade teacher of children with disabilities for 4 years and then another 3 years for 7th and 8th-grade children in ano...

Jon Harper is a former elementary school teacher and current assistant principal at Sandy Hill Elementary at Cambridge, Maryland on a mission to help people of all ages realize that it is okay to make mistakes; especially really big ones.

         

Jon hosts two podcasts, Teachers Aid and My Bad and I was on his show sharing my story about My Bad. Jon also has a new book out called, My Bad: 24 Educators Who Messed Up, Fessed Up and Grew”.  Enjoy!

You and your family

I lived on the eastern shore of Maryland since I was six. A few months ago, we moved about 20 minutes from where I work in a town called Easton, Maryland with my wife, who is a math coach. I have to say she is a much better coach than I ever was.

We have two amazing kids, Derek who is seven, and Bailey who is thirteen. Easton is very rural and is an hour and a half from Baltimore and in the other direction an hour and a half from DC, and an hour from the beach. Life is good for me. I’m a very lucky man.

 

What it was like when you were a student

When I was a student, I didn’t think much about schoolwork. I thought about playing soccer, tennis, and running around outside. I just had fun outside. It’s funny because I try to get my kids to read and they are great readers. But when I came home, I don’t remember reading like that. It was fun growing up in Cambridge on the eastern shore because it is a wonderful place to live, peaceful, quiet.

Image: Cambridge Maryland – A Meeting of the Past and Present

I have fond memories of my childhood. My dad coached my soccer team. I probably spent 95% of my childhood in one square mile.  I used to play tennis and soccer not that far away. Actually, I am assistant principal at Sandy Hill which is where I went as a child. In fact, that is where I got the itch to become a teacher. I never thought I was going to be a teacher. I went to school as an undergrad at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina majoring in philosophy. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with that. My dad was a doctor so I thought maybe that’s what I would do. I went back and took pre-med courses for a couple years and applied for medical school. While I was waiting, I needed to get a job so my mom suggested I substitute at the school down the street. So I did and absolutely loved it. I decided to go back to school to get my teaching credential.

Your journey as an educator to administrator

I was 26 when I started teaching which I believe was better for me than starting at 21.My first class was second grade.

Tara Martin is an inspirational speaker and author of Be REAL: Educate from the Heart. Tara firmly believes machines and artificial intelligence will never replicate an individual’s REAL identity–the unique strengths, talents and life experiences of every human. Her story will touch your heart. 

         

Tara’s ambition is to lead a culture of innovative change and to motivate others to become the best they can be, all while staying REAL and yet never reaching a plateau. Listen to the podcast and check out the resources and excerpts from the podcast below. Enjoy!

You and your family

I grew up in Southeast Texas where we didn’t have seasons only hot, humid, and rainy. I moved to Kansas eleven years ago with my husband, Darrell.  I met my husband when I was in high school and he was in college. As high school sweethearts, we have been married this past November 20 years. We have a sweet boy, Kaleb, who is 17 and a senior who got accepted into his first-choice college so we are embarking on filling out scholarship applications. We live in Kansas out on a farm with no animals and absolutely love it here. We have four seasons in Kansas and my boys love the outdoors where I’m more inside, cooking, or traveling.

What it was like when you were a student

As a student in Texas, I grew up in a home life that was less than stellar. It was an abusive home life. The school became my safe place. It was the place, like Dave Burgess says, that I wanted to get in, not out. It didn’t matter if the teachers were engaging. It was my favorite place to be, ever. I got hot meals, hugs, and more. The school was a place I loved going to. Unfortunately, as an early elementary student, I struggled in school. It wasn’t easy for me. I wasn’t reading even when I got into second grade. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. S, was fantastic. She just saw this little girl that wanted to learn more than life herself and taught me to read every day when I got off the bus. It was so cool because I got to go straight into class when all the kids were lined up outside the class. I thought I was super special and didn’t realize that was getting tutored.

I learned to read that year. I wasn’t aware of how she taught me, but that year I leveled up with my peers. From that moment forward I’ve always been a high achiever and excellent student. She saw something in me that inspired me all along to believe in kids and not to place them in a box or that their family is like this so they’ll automatically be like that. She gave every individual the chance to be the real them. That’s where BE REAL has been so embedded in my heart because every single individual has their own identity. They get to be what they want to be.

Mrs. S told me, “I believe in you, Tara.

Dr. Winston Sakurai is Principal of The Prep at St. Andrews School in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was named 2016 @NASSP National Digital Principal and 2016 HASSA Hawaii Principal of the Year, and is moderator of the Twitter chat #PrinLeaderChat  Sunday evenings at 9pm ET for all school leaders.

         

I’m so fortunate to have worked with Winston at St. Andrews School and with so many awesome educators. After learning more about all the innovation that is happening in Hawaii and at his school. I really wanted to share his story with you. Aloha!

Your background

I was born and raised in Hawaii. I grew up on the windward side of Oahu. My parents understood the value of education.  They moved from Honolulu to another part of the island where the school system was really good to put education first. They would say that they didn’t want me to have to work as hard as they did. They had to do a lot of manual labor and didn’t go to college. My dad repaired air conditioning units. My mom would get up at 4am as a cafeteria worker at the high school down the road. They put every effort into their children’s education so I could go to college and do well.

Your family

It’s a great story. My wife, Rochelle, and I have had the opportunity of working together as educators in the same schools since we began. She has been a kindergarten and 6th-grade teacher, early childhood and then with our middle school and high school and past ten years before I was here at the Prep, she was the college counselor and I was the principal for the middle and high schools in the upper school. We worked together as a team. We call it “Team Sakurai.” She’s now the college counselor at the Priory at St. Andrews Schools. Her office is right down the hall from where I am.

Rochelle makes me better. I appreciate her because she is smarter than me and she does a lot of things that point me in the right direction. We have two children. I am fortunate to be the principal for my son, Matthew, who is in fourth grade and my daughter, Madison, is in first grade. Not every educator gets the chance to develop a school that your children will go to and benefit from. Even though we are working together as a team, we also get the benefit of seeing our children having those experiences that we create for all children here. I’m very blessed to have this opportunity.

What it was like for you as a student

I did have a little bit of a struggle. I remember third grade and taking the standardized assessment tests and scoring really high. But they wouldn’t put me in the Gifted and Talented Program because my grades in school were just average. I didn’t do well on everyday work because it was kind of confusing.

Dr. Pam Moran served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools in Virginia from January 2006 through June of 2018. She now serves as the Executive Director at the Virginia School Consortium for Learning. Pam has a clear vision of what educational experiences should be for students in today’s world and embodies the paradigm shift that must be made to make schools relevant.

         

Pam Moran is a leading advocate of an educational model that prepares all students for success. She emphasizes the value of student-led research, project-based learning and contemporary flexible learning spaces that promote collaboration, creativity, analytical problem-solving, critical thinking, and communications competencies among all students.

You and your family

I grew up in a family of makers. My husband, John, is a maker and artist extraordinaire.. He went to the University of New Mexico but then started making jewelry and working with silver. Included a picture of some of his beautiful jewelry to the right.  John built our timber frame house we live in and he’s a wonderful dad. Despite the fact that he is wheelchair bound, he is still someone who is active and interested in so much. Every day, my son, Jason, who is a digital media director in New York City, calls his father and they have wonderful conversations.

Life is such a great place. If we see ourselves as open to learning, we can continue to evolve and develop who we are and what we can bring to this planet. If we define ourselves as educators, we’re constantly focused on seeing learning as a lifetime event not just something that happens when you got to school.

I have a mother who is 97 years old. She was actually a World War II Vet who worked for naval intelligence in Bainbridge, Washington which is an island outside of Seattle. She worked on breaking Japanese code during WWII. She just received a Congressional award for her work. Two pictures of my mom at 23 and 97.

One of the interesting things is that there was secrecy about her work. She was not allowed to share that she received this medal from the Secretary of the Navy at that time. In 1996, she told our family during the holidays that she had something to share. She pulled out a box with a letter that she had just gotten something that was declassified. That meant she could tell her family what she actually did in the war. She had kept that secret for a lifetime. We never had a clue what she did in the Navy. What this taught me is that my mom was always a person who lived her life by doing what she says and saying what she’s going to do.

Tisha Richmond is a passionate and innovative Tech Instructional Coach and high school Culinary Arts teacher from Southern Oregon. She is passionate about infusing joy, passion, play, and gamified strategies into classrooms to make learning MAGICAL. 

         

Tisha was awarded the 2018 Golden Pear High School Teacher of the Year award and speaks nationally on gamification and various innovative strategies. She is a connected educator that is continually collaborating, sharing, and learning with her Personal Learning Network. Her book Make Learning Magical was released by Dave Burgess Consulting in the Fall of 2018. Our conversation was so much fun. Enjoy!

 

You and your family

I have a beautiful family of four where we live in Medford, Oregon. My husband, Russell, and I have been married for 21 years. He is a ceramics teacher and teaches at the same school as me. We have two wonderful kids. My daughter, Ella, is a sophomore at Portland State University and is studying anthropology. My son, Tommy, is a junior in high school and is amazing as well. Both are brilliant and different in amazing ways.

My family: Husband Russ, HS Ceramics teacher

Daughter Ella, Sophomore at Portland State University

Son Tommy, Junior in High School

 

What it was like for you as a student/learner

I definitely had some magical moments with magical teachers, but I really struggled in school. It was not easy for me. I was a really timid learner and fairly introverted as a child. I believe I was a very distracted learner and had a hard time keeping attention.

Those experiences that were magical really stuck out to me and an important part of my educational experience. My Consumer Economics teacher in high school had us play the stock market game where we were buying and selling stocks. I also enjoyed my Culinary class which, surprisingly, I came a Culinary teacher and loved the hands on. For me, to be in project-based classes and learn with my hands as an active learner was really important to me.

 

Your journey as a teacher

Going into my junior year of college, I had a hard time knowing what I was going to major in. I started out as a business major, then maybe a dietician even though I wasn’t that good in chemistry. I remember my guidance counselor telling me that I had to decide to figure out what I was going to do with my life. She asked me if I ever thought of Family Consumer Science because that really brings what you love about food, nutrition, and being able to work with children and maybe broaden your horizon and teach things like child development, interior design, culinary, and other areas. My junior year was the first year Home Economics became Family Consumer Science major. It all kind of came together in that year.

Jon Corippo is the Executive Director of CUE, past Innovation Officer, and was the Chief Instigator of the CUE Rock Star Teacher Camps for CUE. He began his teaching career in Clovis Unified and has had multiple positions as a teacher, administrator, trainer of teachers, and ran a weekly TV show.

         

Jon has received many awards for his dedication to bringing technology and joy to teaching and learning. He co-authored EduProtocols and has a new book coming out soon. There is so much to share about Jon so I’m excited to share his story here. Enjoy!

 

What it was like for you as a student/learner

I grew up in Paso Robles, CA where they went from 3 wineries to 500 since I’ve lived there. I was in the class of 1969 in kindergarten and was a July 1st baby. I would say that some of the earliest memories of school for me were that I was the only kid that couldn’t tie his shoes. Some other memories of 1st and 2nd grade were that I never got blue stars and only got red. School kind of went like that all the way through for me. My freshman and sophomore yearbooks had no signatures. That was a school for me. Somewhere around my junior year, I started not caring what other people thought of me from what I heard through Danny Elfman’s song lyrics.” No matter what I do they won’t like me anyway”, so I can do whatever I want. That was the big paradigm shift for me. I did just enough with a 2.9 GPA to get me into football and played in college. In my junior year in college, I got into an advertising class that was hands-on where we were given a product and had to come up with a way to market it through multiple venues. That’s when my GPA shot up to a 4.0.

Jon Corippo – A New Way to Kick off PBL and 1:1 Smart Start

I love Michael Fullan’s quote “We are overly-dependent on corporately produced lesson plans.” If I went up to 100 teachers and said I was burning your teacher’s edition, what would you do?” They would be strapped. I made it a point to be able to teach K-11 Language Arts without a text. I understand Latin roots, how to teach parts of speech, how to connect those to technology and social media, and how to do things in a class that doesn’t have a bell curve. My school passion is to seek to undo what was done to me.

We need to remember that education is a People Business first.

Your journey to becoming an educator

I became a graduate assistant football coach. I learned a lot about coaching and subtleties with football along with idiosyncracies about teaching and learning.  Let’s talk about the end of year assessments. As a division 1 football coach, you cannot practice until August 5th and your first game is August 25th and it’s going to be on ESPN. You have 30 days to be ready. It is not about the first game.

Allison Zmuda is an education consultant specializing in curriculum, assessment, and instruction. She works with national and international educators to design learning experiences that are relevant, meaningful, challenging, and appropriate. Previously, she served as a high school social studies teacher for eight years. Allison has authored eleven books and co-developed a series of online courses.

         

I have read several of Allison’s books, follow her on social media, and was very excited to have a conversation with her.  I learned so much about her and am honored to share her story with you. Enjoy!

 

You and your family

My husband, Tom, and I have two children, my son, Cuda, and my daughter, Zoe. We lived in a small town in Connecticut. When my son was in second grade and my daughter was in preschool going to start Kindergarten, I was looking around to what kind of public school system for my kids could have to grow. So we settled on Virginia Beach. I was doing some consulting work there for a couple of years. The level of innovation that was happening there at the time as well as the level of diversity was what we wanted. The opportunity to see what’s possible when you have a large scale school system as opposed to a regional small town system.

I wanted my kids to experience a range of perspectives, points of views, diversity, and also wanted to make sure they received a high-quality education. We moved to Virginia Beach with 68,000 students, eleven high schools, and not sure how many middle schools. My kids worked through the system, and now Zoe is in 9th grade and Cuda is in 12th grade. So we’re starting to think about college and university. They really thrived in their experience there and my kids coach me on the idea of what personalized learning looks like to them. It’s interesting to see how they find joy, interests, and passions sometimes in school and sometimes in an area they are interested in.

[This is Barbara. Make sure you listen to how Allison and her husband came up with Cuda’s and Zoe’s names.]

What was your experience in school

I was born in 1971. Growing up in the late 1970s and 80s, magnet schools were part of my public school experience. I went to a Science and Technology Magnet School in the late 70s where there was a planetarium at my elementary school. That was the first time I was on an Apple IIe where we learned turtle logo and Olympics of the Mind. The power of these experiences enriched my learning. All of these were great roots of gifted education infused into the public schools so everybody had access to it.

Montclair, New Jersey has a significant amount of diversity and choice. In middle school, it was an open system with no walls and a level of flexibility and innovation.

Dr. Jim Rickabaugh serves as the Senior Advisor to the Institute for Personalized Learning, an education innovation lab dedicated to the transformation of public education. Jim formerly served as the Director of the Institute for six years and as a superintendent in several districts in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

         

Jim is the author of Tapping the Power of Personalized Learning: A Roadmap for School Leaders and co-author of Five Levers To Improve Learning: How To Prioritize For Powerful Results In Your School. I have been fortunate to participate in several summits with Jim, attend his sessions at conferences, and collaborate on blogs about personalized learning. I learned some new things about Jim in the podcast. Enjoy!

 

You and your family

We are a family of educators. My wife, Lynn, has been a math tutor for a long time and so supportive of the work I’m doing. Our oldest son, Jay, with a newly minted Ph.D., is a professor at Appalachian State University. Our daughter, Christine, is an early childhood educator. I have spent more than 45 years in education with more than 20 years as a superintendent. I loved that. The work I’ve done for the last ten years around personalized learning has actually become all consuming and a fun journey.

What it was like for you as a student/learner

I tend to be an achiever. For me, a school was all about if a task or challenge was set up, I would go after it. When I think back to my experiences in education, what was missing often was the connection to purpose. Rarely, do I recall a specific or compelling purpose around learning? Being an achiever, my focus typically was around doing well on the test and getting good grades. I was fortunate to do well most of the time. The downside of that was how much I forgot because I learned it for the test, not for its inherent benefit or for other value it brought to me. Not that I forgot everything, but I saw the same thing happening with my students.

Jim Rickabaugh: “Getting Learning Right the First Time, Every Time”

When we learn for the task if that’s the driver or if we say  “you need to know this will be on the test” and the test is over, too often what was learned is let go. It’s an unfortunate consequence for learning. The sad part is that even the act of learning tended to be very linear and focused what was going to be on the test. In the process, we ignored and failed to explore so much that would have been interesting, compelling, and enriching. No one ever thought to stop and talk about why we were learning that was value for us. Every once in a while, something would come along like a project or a concept that was so powerful that it transformed all of that and become a really meaningful thing. Unfortunately,

Jennifer Casa-Todd is a Teacher-Librarian in Aurora, Ontario Canada, and author of the book, Social LEADia, published by Dave Burgess Consulting. Before this, she spent six years at the District level as a Program Resource Teacher for Literacy and Literacy Consultant, respectively.

         

Jennifer guest-hosted the #rethink_learning Twitter chat that I co-host with Shelly Vohra @raspberryberet3.  I was able to learn so much about Jennifer in the chat along with reading her book and connecting to her on social media. I am so honored that we had this conversation and even learned some things about her that I didn’t know. I hope you take the time to enjoy her story!

 

You and your family

I am a mom and wife. My husband, Stewart, is a principal. We have two children, my daughter, Sydney, just started university in a marine biology program. That is what she’s always wanted to do since she was a little girl. My other daughter, Kelsey, is in grade 11.

I loved being on Parent council and was for over 10 years beginning when Sydney was in Kindergarten. I even ended up being co-chair of the council because I wanted to be involved and have never looked back since. I had nothing but positive interactions with other parents that are now lifelong friends that I developed as a result of being in the council. We definitely need to create an environment where we are not judging each other. This environment is where we can be there to support each other.

CUEByte Speaker:

 

What is what like for you as a student

Here is something a lot of people don’t know about me. When I entered school when I was four years old, I didn’t speak a word of English. I spoke Sicilian. No one could understand me so they chalked it up to a lack of mental ability. The first formative years in my learning were very tough. I was a nonreader. Learning English while learning to read and all those things that many people had already when they come to school. It’s kind of ironic that I’m a teacher/librarian because no one read books to me when I was young. When I started to learn to read, it opened a whole new world for me. In elementary school also, I was severely bullied. I was cross-eyed, had very thick glasses, and had several operations. I was called four eyes. My mom made my clothes because we didn’t have a lot of money.

Those were very, very challenging years. Books were my reprieve because I didn’t have any friends. I lacked self-esteem so I made a lot of poor choices in high school. As a student, I realized I needed to get good grades so school became important to me. In grade 11, I had a teacher, James Stewart, who absolutely enthralled me because he was so passionate about literature. At one point, I had to make a choice between becoming a teacher or expand my pa...