We Teach Inspired!!

On this episode Kyle shares some of his thoughts on why it is important when setting expectations for students you seize the opportunity to grow the relationship. He talks about his personal experiences of having misguided expectations and how he would do it differently if given the chance. As the school year kicks off it is important to set expectations for not just your students, but for all your relationships. Just make sure that all parties involved are on the same page with what those expectations are!

On this episode we're joined by Andrew Frey (IG: @so.fresh.so.fourth) who is a first year teacher in Illinois and the create of Firsthand Museum (firsthandmuseum.com). Firsthand Museum is a collection of primary artifacts that can be rented out to teachers and put into the hands of students. We were blown away by the maturity of Andrew who just began his first year teacher and the time he has spent curating the Firsthand Museum collection.

During our conversation we talked about his advice for new teachers, his college experience in which he spent 700 hours in classrooms prior to student teaching, and how important it is for more men to become teachers. We hope you enjoy this episode of the podcast and please send us recommendations for teachers you'd like us to interview!!

Thank You:

To our families and friends

To our teachers and colleagues

To the people we've met

To the friends we've made

To all our guests

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY TO EVERY TEACHER OUT THERE WHO MAKES THIS THE MOST IMPORTANT PROFESSION ON THE PLANET!!

We look forward to what we have planned for the next 100!

We love Lindsey to death and this episode could have gone on forever!! We brought her on to talk about empowering teachers, math and STEM and didn't get past the intro questions. So we promise we'll have her on again to talk about math and STEM, but please enjoy this conversation and why the teaching profession is so important and how we can empower the teachers around us to succeed!!

What does it take to create cultural relevancy for students? If you were Naomi O'Brien growing up it was simply to have a teacher ask you about who you are and what you like.

On this episode Naomi (Instagram: @readlikearockstar) talks about how her educational experience impact how she strives to connect with her early elementary students today. When asked what the one thing every student should be taught she responded with the ability to know what they need and how to ask for it. And she strives to do that with her kids and works with them on the language needed to ask for things.

We also had the chance to chat how to put language to social justice issues for both students and teachers. Naomi says that we often don't talk about difficult issues because we don't have the language or don't know how to ask the right questions, so with her students she often focuses on what justice would 'look like' in certain fictional and literal situations.

We wrapped up the conversation with practical ways to build better relationships with parents like sending newsletters home in their native languages and better relationships with colleagues like venturing to other parts of the building to see people.

We're so grateful to Naomi for sharing her story and wisdom and we hope you enjoy this episode!

With next week marking our 100th episode with only thought it appropriate to release our very first episode as this weeks throw back Thursday! This episode was recorded in January of 2017 and in it we talk about what Lighthouse Educator Development is all about.

So much has changed for both of us since this episode was recorded. Wilkie is now back in the classroom at a brand new school and Kyle is back home in Wisconsin pursuing this venture full time! We hope in this episode you hear our hearts and we prove to you that what we're saying now is what we've said all along!

Thank you so much for supporting our podcast!

To learn more about our podcast and our teacher mentoring program called The Lighthouse Educator Academy visit our website theledproject.com!

Follow us on Instagram @valueaddsvalue and @its.wil.law.iii

On this episode of the podcast we have a conversation about what a more humanized classroom would look like with Paul France. Paul's first piece of advise, "You have to have a belief in other people's truth."

Paul is an openly gay teacher and advocate for marginalized groups whose work we came across when he wrote an article about how white male teachers can be better allies (https://paulemerich.com/2018/08/06/how-can-white-male-teachers-be-better-allies-for-people-of-color/).

This sparked a conversation about how people who have privilege can be better allies to people who do not and he started out by explaining how we must accept that other people have a different truth than our own, but we must understand that both truths are valid. To us this means we must as people refrain from trying to validate our own truths by undermining or discrediting the truths of others.

Paul gives his 5 As for being a better ally to marginalized groups:

Awareness, Acceptance, Amplification, Advocacy, Accountability

And when asked what advocacy looks like he stated the importance of advocating for people in the way they desire which requires us to ask people what they need. This is great advice no matter who you are fighting for or what cause you are championing.

We're so grateful to Paul for giving his time to our listeners and if you'd like to check out his work you can click on the links below!

https://paulemerich.com/

https://twitter.com/paul_emerich

We're so grateful for that James Lyas would come on the podcast and be so candid with us about his experiences as both a student and teacher dealing with anxiety and depression. We were honored to be able to listen to his story learn how we can better cope with our own depression and anxiety and what we can do to better serve our students who face these challenges.

To learn more about James and his experiences you can find him on Instagram @bondwithjames and you can follow his journey on his Youtube page https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClpHwmWkYdIA5wefDsaixeA

In honor of the new school year we're releasing our first #throwbackthursday episode to the one and only Joe Dombrowski!! We felt so fortunate to have Joe take time out his busy schedule to discuss what authenticity means to teachers and how we must all #embraceourweird!!!

We hope you enjoy this throwback episode of the podcast and that the start of your year is magical!!

On this episode Liz Kleinrock returns to discuss her summer adventures and talks about what she has learned about education abroad. If you want to go back and listen to our first episode with Liz it is #44!

We had a chance to catch up with Liz to hear the story of her summer trip to South Africa and what she has learned about education after the fall of Apartheid. Liz had the chance to tour several schools and listen to stories of both students and educators and how race has factored into education in South Africa.

We also want to congratulate Liz for winning an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Southern Poverty Law Center and Teaching Tolerance. We heard about her time in Alabama this summer and what experiences were like tour the new Lynching Memorial in Montgomery.

We were again blown away by the knowledge and perspective Liz shared with us and we're still wrestling with her ideas and how we can grow as educators. We hope you enjoy this episode of the podcast and to follow Liz click the links below!

Instagram.com/teachandtransform

teachandtransform.org