We Teach Inspired!!

Justin Campbell is an educator who founded The Urban Connection Project (theurbanconnectionproject.org) and is the author of the book CONFESSIONS OF AN INNER CITY TEACHER. Through his organization and book Justin and his wife strive to prepare new teachers for the challenges they will face teaching in inner city schools.

During our conversation Justin talked about the need for teachers to be a stable force in our students lives because live in the reality of inconsistency. When teacher turnover is high and we know that it is in many urban areas it adds to the already unstable world that many of our students live in.

During our time Justin describes how he strives to overcome the lack of hope that can be found in both students and teachers by striving to build cultural competency in teachers who are entering classrooms in our urban areas. Justin says the most important thing we can do as educators to build our cultural competency is to share our experiences and create shared experiences within our classrooms.

We hope you enjoy this episode of the podcast and we thank you for listening and supporting Lighthouse Educator Development!

On this episode we talk to Tori Pattison about what it means to be both engaging and educating! This was such a fun conversation about heading back to school and how Tori uses purpose driven routines in order to set her students up for success. Tori spoke at length about how all of your routines must have a greater purpose in order for your students to take hold of them. To Tori this means that routines must work towards the greater purpose of helping students learn to respect ideas and feelings. This may seem like a hard concept for 1st graders to learn, but Tori proves that with high expectations students can learn anything!

Our favorite routine that Tori has is that she calls all of her classroom jobs "the economy" and each student job is called an "internship". She gives examples of how students thrive in these "internships" as a sanitation specialist who sweeps up the room or a woodworker who sharpens pencils.

We also got a chance to talk with Tori about what types of technology she uses in the classroom and how she has students build digital portfolios. If you're looking for back to school inspiration this podcast is the one for you!

Thanks to Tori for coming on the podcast and you can connect with her on Instagram @engagingandeducating!!

It's not often that the universe comes around so amazingly as it did for this podcast. Dr. Irileria Muhammad grew up with and went to the same college and as Wilkie and it was such a joy all these later for us to be able to have her on the podcast! There were so good stories from Wil's past, but we'll save those for another time!!

Things we talked about in this podcast:

*Why teachers are the most powerful force for good in our country.

*How we can maintain high expectations of our students even as expectations for them get lower in Texas.

*How cancer and teaching abroad have changed her perspective.

*How as teachers we need to understand the sociology of our students as well as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

We're just going to put this out there... we love Tracy Costa!! We got to know her during the Teach Your Heart Out Conference in Vegas and we're so glad she could come on the podcast to talk about the growth mindset. Tracy is just as excited about education as we are and it came through during our time together.

Tracy tells the story of how she went from a bus driver to nearing the completion of her doctorate in education and how she strives to change the trajectory of her students lives. Tracy talked about the impact her fixed mindset teachers had on her and how into adulthood she felt that she just wasn't smart. But after finding Carol Dweck's book she transformed her teaching and learning by understanding the our brains can grow through our entire lives and our intelligence is not fixed.

We also had the chance to discuss with Tracy how to maintain high expectations while allowing kids the opportunity to fail at tasks. Tracy advises all teachers to above anything else always view yourself as a learner and your students will follow suit!!

Thank you to Tracy for coming on the show and thank you for tuning in!

This is part to of our conversation with Jose Cortez! In this episode Jose explains the importance for teacher to plan, prepare, and write things down. We admire Jose for what a thoughtful and quality product his planner is and how its having an impact on both teachers and students. If you'd like to learn more about Jose and his products you can find him online at www.berteauandco.com. We hope you enjoy the second half of our conversation with Jose Cortez!

This is part one of our interview with Jose Cortez of Berteau and Co!! In this part of the episode Jose opens up about the challenges he faced during his time in school moving between Mexico and Texas as well as what it was like to grow up a gay man in his schools. He also tells the story of how he went from a career in graphic design to the classroom after a medical emergency with his husband and how that propelled him into the success he has had with his planners. We're honored at the candor that Jose showed during this interview and we can't wait for you to hear it!

Here's how you can connect with Jose:

Instagram: @berteauandco and @classroomtopia

www.berteauandco.com

What exactly does it mean to teach on tables?! Lucky for you Katie (@teachingontables) joined us on the podcast to describe her unique brand of art, theater, and taking that has become her calling card!

During this conversation Katie tells the story of how a theater major at Notre Dame turned into her engaging style of teaching with help from the folks over at The Ron Clark Academy. Katie shares our belief that as teachers we are the #1 determinants of our students success and future opportunities and although her presentation may be over the top her practice is rooted in a simple principle--listen.

Katie has developed her own voice as a teacher and gives you the advice that she used to do so during this episode. Although her dancing and singing may seem like a novelty they are far from it. The central tenant of her teaching lies in the idea that students expect the unexpected in her class. Not only does this allow for her to take risks in her teaching, but it provides the space kids need to develop their own voice as well.

If you don't already follow Katie please do so because it will give you a visual of all the things she spoke of in this episode and thank you to Katie for coming on the show and providing such value to teachers!

For this episode we caught up with Yannick Florest (@soapboxvizzy)for a conversation about education and his amazing mixtape TEACHERS COLLEGE OR BUST (educatorlife.bandcamp.com). During on conversation we talked about the importance of reenforcing that every student has value and that we must provide them multiple avenues upon which to learn.

Yannick discussed his on education in Brooklyn and the impact that teachers of color, especially male teachers of color, had on his education. He explained that the cultural sensitivity of these teachers to what he was going through allow him to shine in ways that he hadn't for other teachers. This lead us to a long talk about how we can get more men and men of color into the teaching profession and this is when he emphasized the humanness of the field. The more as teachers we validate who are students are as people the more options we help them to see in their future and our hope is that more young men will see teaching as a viable option.

We're so grateful to Yannick for taking some time to be on the podcast and if you haven't connected with him please do so!

If you'd like to help us out here's what you can do. Click on the link below and check out the fundraising campaign we launched for our nonprofit. We're just asking you to check it out : )

give.classy.org/theledproject

On this episode we were joined by teacher and Chicago native Dwayne Reed! We were blown away by the fact that Dwayne just completed his first year in the classroom. We chose to call this episode 'significance of our words' because Dwayne is one of the most articulate and thoughtful people we've ever met.

Dwayne took a nontraditional path to the classroom and he continues that path as and educator. He creates and uses original songs and chants with his class to get them into routines and refuses to accept the status quo. Prior to his first year of teaching he reached out to the parents of his students and was able to meet with many of them before the year began. He says this was a foundational piece to his classroom culture as the students and parents both knew he was on their side.

Among many other pieces of advice Dwayne stressed the need for teachers to have a strong sense of purpose and use that purpose to provide validation and affirmation to their students as both learners and people. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did! You can follow Dwayne online as @teachmrreed on Instagram and Twitter.

If you're getting value from the podcast please to a minute to check out the fundraiser we've created for our nonprofit. We're asking for $1 a month for a year so that we can continue to add value to teachers at no cost to them. If you'd like to help click the link below.

give.classy.org/theledproject

On this episode we're joined by Razan Abdin Adnani for a conversation on the Montessori approach to teaching and learning, how we define discipline, and what we can do as educators to affirm the identities of all our students.

Razan is an Arab-American and she discusses how it feels to often be labeled as an 'other' in our country and what impact she feels that has on students who are also labeled as 'others'. Razan talked about the isolation and pain that students feel when they don't have teachers who look like them or understand their culture and why it's so important for teachers to their students and communities to bridge the cultural gaps.

She also describes the holistic nature of the Montessori classroom and how discipline in these classrooms represents our actions rather than punishment through authority. Montessori strives to be an environment that is more reflective of our society in its structure.

We were honored to have Razan on the podcast and here's how you can connect with her:

Instagram: @oustadarazan

Twitter: @razanabdin

www.razanabdin.com

Thank you so much for listening and supporting our podcast! We launched our first fundraiser as a non-profit to help us continue to provide our services and add value to the teaching craft at no charge. Our fundraiser is called 1:1 and we're asking for people to donate $12 a year to support education and our programs. If you'd like to help click the link below:

give.classy.org/theledproject