Teacher Stories

Dino Luna was about to become a pilot but switched careers after accidentally falling in love with teaching. Now a veteran educator, Luna reflects on what it takes to be of service to his colleagues as an instructional coach. He also shares a touching story about a former 5th grade student who took time, years later, to tell him about the profound effect he had on her life. Turns out it was just a few kind words of encouragement. "You never know what simple thing you will do that will have a profound impact," Luna says.

Malik Boykin (aka Malik Starx) is an accomplished musician and a professor of psychology at Brown University where he teaches a course on stigma and prejudice. Boykin shares two transformational teacher stories--the first from second grade when he was sent to the principal's office for raising questions about Christopher Columbus. His second story is about Dr. Jaia John, his social psychology professor at Howard University who carved out time at the start each class for students to share a poem, a personal story, or even a musical performance that had some relation to the course content. 

Inspired by Dr. John, Boykin became a social psychologist and, like John, encourages his students to share something personal at the start of his classes.

One of his students, Gabrielle Tanksley, describes what it's like to be one of Boykin's students, and she reads an extraordinary poem she shared recently in class. 

Starx wrote and performed "Dancing for Freedom," the soundtrack played in this Teacher Story episode. At the end, he describes the inspiration for the song.

When 4th grade teacher Miriam Marecek turned down the lights and lit the reading candle, magic happened. Pediatrician and journalist Perri Klass describes what it was like being one of Ms. Marecek's students and the impact it's had on her life and professional career. Now, as national medical director for Reach Out and Read, Dr. Klass, promotes reading aloud, together, starting at birth.

In this episode she says, "If children grow up in literacy, rich environments, if there's a lot of back and forth...they will, by the time they come to school, understand how books work. They will understand how print works. They will understand all kinds of things about stories and sequence that will help tremendously with learning to read. This is about growing up, enjoying the back and forth around early literacy in books with the other people in your family." 

Learn more about Dr. Klass and her book, A Good Time to Be Born, at www.perriklass.com.

Like most Americans, these three veteran teachers were horrified as they learned about the insurrection at the nation's Capitol on January 6th, 2021. But each of them had to decide how to address this highly controversial topic with their students. What's the proper role for a teacher with an event like this? What if some students' parents or the students themselves supported the insurrection? Is there any way to talk about this and other controversial topics with very young students? Listen in as each teacher reflects on these and several other challenging questions.

Until one of his former students, Daniel Osorio, nominated him as Teacher of the Year, Marty Brandt considered himself "just another guy" -- a high school English teacher who would never become the educator he hoped he would become when he entered the profession.

Daniel recounts the time when Mr. Brandt had asked his students to write their own ending -- any ending they wanted -- to The Great Gatsby.  "I had never been engaged like that before," Daniel says. "It was really the catalyst to feeling like...man...I could really do this if I wanted to."

Daniel says he uses much of what he learned from Mr. Brandt in his own work now as a professional filmmaker and even as a mentor to a group of East San Jose rap artists. "I have become their Marty Brand," helping them to grow as artists and as people. 

After Daniels's nomination and the subsequent award Mr. Brandt received as one of California's best teachers, he realized that he was more than "just a guy." That realization gave him the freedom to become intensely curious about what it means to be a successful English teacher how he could learn to become an even better one himself. 

Mr. Brandt reflects on how he teaches students to write now and how his approach has evolved over nearly three decades as an English teacher. "My approach to writing instruction has become one of encouraging development as opposed to what I used to do which as noting errors," Brandt says.

After practicing law for several years, Sean Bui, the son of Vietnamese and Filipino immigrants, suddenly realized that he didn't love his job. What he really wanted to be was a teacher and to make a difference in young people's lives. But this career shift presented a daunting challenge. Growing up, Mr. Bui's parents and grandparents had only endorsed three career paths -- medicine, engineering, and law.  And now, after successfully following one of them, he wanted to quit to become a teacher. Telling them about his decision was "one of the scariest conversations I've had in my life," Mr. Bui said. But to his surprise, they and his wife (also a teacher) wholeheartedly supported his decision. 

Several years later, as a teacher of business law and English Language Development (ELD) in a Bay Area high school, Mr. Bui is recognized as one of California's teachers of the year. Three of Mr. Bui's students share appreciations in this episode, making it clear why he deserved this award.

As a high school student, Don Dumas didn't feel he mattered because the curriculum was disconnected from his experience. "I was kicking and screaming on my way toward graduation," he said. But Joyce Suber, a Black high school English teacher, took notice, introduced him to books like The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Manchild in the Promised Land, and urged him, Dumas says, to use his experience "for your own elevation and your own self-realization for who you are and who you want to be."

Now, as I high school teacher himself, he was recently recognized as one of five teachers of the year among 40,000 educators in San Diego County. Dumas says he tries to emulate what he learned from Ms. Suber--most importantly her belief in all of her students. "She never gave up on us," Dumas, said, despite frequent suspensions, expulsions, and run-ins with the law. "She never let us believe we couldn't achieve more than what our circumstances dictated."

Eleven year-old Kaia Bali recently launched her own podcast called, "Through a Gen-Z's Eyes," because she is worried the current state of politics and our country's future. In this episode of Teacher Stories, Kaia talks about being a podcast host, her favorite episodes, and the one (surprising!) person she'd most like to interview.

Also joining us is Sam Mahr, Kaia's sixth grade teacher who's supported her podcasting efforts and was Kaia's first podcast guest. "You won't meet too many students like Kaia," Mr. Mahr says. "She's an amazing young kid, extremely smart, extremely hard-working, and very mature for her age...It's not often you see someone as young as Kaia curious about politics and social justice."

Kaia and Mr. Mahr share their views on how politics and other controversial topics should be treated in the classroom.

After 22 years as a public school teacher, Tom Courtney finally hits his stride after discovering the virtues of the authentic connections he has created with his 5th grade students' families. Mr. Courtney, also known as "The Minister of Fun," conducts home visits and and holds monthly student and family get-togethers like star night, ice-skating night, opera night, and library night. Mr. Courtney, joined by his student teacher, Rachel Petrivelli, say the benefits of family connections are invaluable. One of the them is that "we don't have classroom management issues," Courtney says. They get strong support from parents because they, like their students, implicitly know that their teachers care about them.  

Sadly, the 2020 pandemic forced Mr. Courtney's district to conduct all classes remotely via Zoom. It has also temporarily eliminated home visits and all of the after-school events Mr. Courtney would have had with his students and their families. But Mr. Courtney and Ms. Petrivelli came up with an creative solution to the problem -- at least for one special night. Tune in to hear their amazing story.

Chris Hasegawa, a highly accomplished teacher educator, describes what great science teachers do to help students understand and love this subject. "You have to make yourself a little bit vulnerable," he says, and to elicit joy in what you're doing. The art of teaching is being able to teach people that don't learn the way that you learn and who may not enjoy school the way you did. 

Chris also shares stories about three teachers who made a difference in his life. One of his best teachers was a former student who had been addicted to drugs and later thanked Chris for not giving up on him. "When you work with teachers Mr. Has, can you tell them to continue to be flipped off," which is what this student had wanted to do when Chris pestered him about his drug problem. "Continue to express to those kids that they really are worth your trouble and convince them that they really do have a problem and they need to get help," the student said.