Speaker 1: This is on the Job. This season, we're speaking with
Speaker 1: folks who are finding their professional stride in a tumultuous
Speaker 1: job market and learning how to double down on their
Speaker 1: skills and their experience to overcome challenges. We'll bring you
Speaker 1: inspiring stories of people making themselves essential, an important skill
Speaker 1: set in any economy. Within the turbulence of COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: education workers have been navigating the waters of a new
Speaker 1: normal in order to continue doing what they've always done,
Speaker 1: pass on knowledge, and move the world forward. While the
Speaker 1: schools have stopped operating, teachers all across the globe have
Speaker 1: not good morning Star students and families. Mrs camp Pol
Speaker 1: Piano here to talk about a rainbow poem. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go ahead and share my screen here. This is
Speaker 1: from a video that Gayl Campo Piano made for her
Speaker 1: second grade students, and we are going to write a
Speaker 1: poem today about a garden. This is camp Pol Piano
Speaker 1: titled her home My Garden, and we're going to use
Speaker 1: She teaches at Northwest Elementary School in Rutland, Vermont, which,
Speaker 1: like all schools, closed during the pandemic, and since then
Speaker 1: she's been teaching classes through these videos, working with parents
Speaker 1: and students to finish out the school year from their homes.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to write the word red. And I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of something in my garden that is read. So
Speaker 1: I know I have read beats growing in my garden
Speaker 1: and name. I guess if you had to describe your
Speaker 1: life right now with one word, what would it be? Um?
Speaker 1: One word? That might be the word yeah, that might
Speaker 1: be the word no. I would say um jungling. The
Speaker 1: next color I'm going to use in my rainbow is yellow,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna say yellow. I've taught short workshops in
Speaker 1: elementary schools before, and it was clear pretty quickly that
Speaker 1: the undertaking of teaching itself is a juggling act. First off,
Speaker 1: as a primary teacher, you're teaching kids everything. Yep. So
Speaker 1: I do reading, writing, math, science, social studies. And while
Speaker 1: Gail has been teaching for thirteen years now, it is
Speaker 1: a whole new ballgame when her eighteen students are all
Speaker 1: in completely different places. I have to learn a new
Speaker 1: tech every day. I feel like with our new world.
Speaker 1: So I had never used video. I had done face
Speaker 1: time with family, but that was about the extent of it.
Speaker 1: And now I feel like we live on it. She's
Speaker 1: been troubleshooting tech with parents, helping some families set up
Speaker 1: email for the first time, making sure each kid has
Speaker 1: everything they need to get their work done, and also
Speaker 1: what's too much for them and what's too much for
Speaker 1: their families, and kind of having those conversations and phone
Speaker 1: calls and check ins with the families. Now that her
Speaker 1: lessons kind of depend on parents, she's looking out for
Speaker 1: each of them. How's your mental state as a parent,
Speaker 1: Do you have food? Do you are you sick? And
Speaker 1: do you also have a family. Yeah, so I also
Speaker 1: have two kiddos, one who's in first grade, so you know,
Speaker 1: balancing her online learning and trying to because she's being
Speaker 1: taught by another teacher. Yep, she is. Um. She has
Speaker 1: another teacher at another school who's doing the same exact
Speaker 1: thing I'm doing. Not to mention her three year old
Speaker 1: son who likes to make sure that her and her
Speaker 1: husband's day starts at four am sharp, and who just
Speaker 1: learned how to get out of his crib. So it's
Speaker 1: it's a juggle. Some days the balls stay in the
Speaker 1: air better than others. Gayle was actually born and raised
Speaker 1: in my hometown, Mount Holly, Vermont. She did a very
Speaker 1: rural upbringing. She got good grades, she left going to school.
Speaker 1: But I didn't grow up thinking I was going to
Speaker 1: be a teacher. I was certain my whole life that
Speaker 1: I was going to be a marine biologist working with
Speaker 1: these giant whales in the ocean. Is that what you
Speaker 1: thought when you were a kid, that you wanted to
Speaker 1: work with wales? Yeah, whales, or you know, something like
Speaker 1: mine was sharks. So funny when Gayle grew up and
Speaker 1: got to high school, she took a p bio and
Speaker 1: it wasn't exactly what she'd fantasized as a kid, but
Speaker 1: she was going to stick to the plant. And before
Speaker 1: she graduated in her senior year, she had a free
Speaker 1: period and decided she just try something different. So I
Speaker 1: did a volunteer in a kindergarten classroom, and I realized,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I really love this. So about three
Speaker 1: quarters through the year of my senior year, when I
Speaker 1: had already basically decided where I was going to college
Speaker 1: and had that kind of mapped out, I did a
Speaker 1: one a d and changed everything. Gail went to Rhode
Speaker 1: Island College and got her teaching degree with the concentration
Speaker 1: in special education. After teaching in Rhode Island for a
Speaker 1: couple of years, she came back home to Vermont, starting
Speaker 1: off as a special educator and then a classroom teacher.
Speaker 1: What do you think the biggest misconceptions are that people
Speaker 1: have about teaching? Oh, you do it for the weekends
Speaker 1: off and the summer's off and the you know, the
Speaker 1: really good pay which is um none of which are true.
Speaker 1: So I think that people have some misconceptions about what
Speaker 1: actually happens in a school in the eight hour that
Speaker 1: were there and the two hours that were there before
Speaker 1: and after, and the weekend when we're there. Although she
Speaker 1: says that she's starting to see a shift now that
Speaker 1: parents have the responsibility of doing what she is professionally
Speaker 1: trained to do. Yeah, it's like, oh, I get what
Speaker 1: teachers do now, Like I get that school wasn't just
Speaker 1: reading writing Matt. She admits it's not exactly fair. She
Speaker 1: went to school for this and every family now has
Speaker 1: a lot on their plate. Even so, she says that
Speaker 1: being dubbed essential in a time of crisis was validating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think at some point it was like a little
Speaker 1: bit validating when you think of how is the world
Speaker 1: going to continue? This is like something that people are
Speaker 1: saying is essential. More than just being a place where
Speaker 1: kids can learn, schools provide so much more. They provide food.
Speaker 1: They can really be a shelter in a safe place
Speaker 1: for a lot of kids that might not have one,
Speaker 1: and it's a place where deep connection are formed between
Speaker 1: teacher and student as they try to find their way
Speaker 1: in the world. That's a struggle I think that teachers
Speaker 1: are feeling right now is how do you just you know,
Speaker 1: how do you keep that connection going? How do you
Speaker 1: be there when you've always been there? Ye more of
Speaker 1: gael Story and the new reality of teaching after the break.
Speaker 1: A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done,
Speaker 1: sweats over the details. This is you. But to get
Speaker 1: an honest day's work, you need a response, you need
Speaker 1: a call back, You need a job. Express Employment professionals
Speaker 1: can help because we understand what it takes to get
Speaker 1: a job. It takes more than just online searches to
Speaker 1: land a job. It takes someone who will identify your talents,
Speaker 1: a person invested in your success. At Express, we can
Speaker 1: even complete your application with you over the phone, will
Speaker 1: prepare you for interviews, and will connect you to the
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Speaker 1: work with companies of all sizes and industries from the
Speaker 1: production floor to the front office. Express Nose Jobs get
Speaker 1: to no Express, find your location at Express pros dot
Speaker 1: com or on the Express Jobs app. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of online softwares that teachers used to connect with
Speaker 1: families to make sure that these essential core classes continue. However,
Speaker 1: Gayl Campo Piano says that for years, a huge part
Speaker 1: of her normal school day has been social and emotional learning.
Speaker 1: We start every day with restorative circles and community building
Speaker 1: stuff and character traits, and we do yoga and all
Speaker 1: of those things are so you do yoga with the kids.
Speaker 1: School has changed a lot since there. Yeah, the kids
Speaker 1: love it. Truth is, school has changed a lot in
Speaker 1: the last couple of decades, and that's because the world
Speaker 1: has changed a lot in the last couple of decades.
Speaker 1: I think kids and even adults, I think our society
Speaker 1: now has become really fast paced and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stressors in adults, but especially students. Lives in Rutland
Speaker 1: where Gail teaches, it's a high poverty area. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of drug and alcohol abuse, a lot of kids
Speaker 1: have trauma, and second grade is a huge development here
Speaker 1: for kids. They're just learning how to deal with those
Speaker 1: emotions and those things that might trigger them, and learning
Speaker 1: coping strategies. So we embed it almost all day long.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're doing a math card game, you're
Speaker 1: also teaching them how to lose and how to accept loss,
Speaker 1: and how to take turns and all of those things
Speaker 1: that maybe they haven't learned yet or just still need
Speaker 1: to practice. People who understand teaching do understand the actual
Speaker 1: workload of the job, the physical work load of doing
Speaker 1: the job, especially if you have a family. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I guess like it's it's hard to imagine how much
Speaker 1: emotional work you take on by essentially having this den
Speaker 1: full of cubs that you yourself can't help but be
Speaker 1: emotionally attached to as well. Yep, even just you know,
Speaker 1: on a good day. Yeah, there's a large emotional attachment
Speaker 1: that comes with teaching, for sure. For teachers, the classroom
Speaker 1: can often be a safe place for kids who don't
Speaker 1: have one. It's a place where teachers can offer some consistency,
Speaker 1: let a kid know that they've got someone to turn to,
Speaker 1: no matter how big or small the problem. Gail says,
Speaker 1: that's the real challenge of distant learning, not being able
Speaker 1: to check in on those kids that you are worried
Speaker 1: about that. You know, really, the first time you hug
Speaker 1: them in the morning is the only time that they've
Speaker 1: been hugged in the morning. You know, when they hear
Speaker 1: the principles say that they're loved on the announced it
Speaker 1: in the morning, might be the first time that they
Speaker 1: heard those words. So that's that's hard boiled down. The
Speaker 1: role of a teacher is being there and helping a
Speaker 1: student move forward. It's a huge responsibility one that comes
Speaker 1: with the job. Over her career, Gayle's experienced the impact
Speaker 1: that role can really have on a kid, and she's
Speaker 1: experienced the impact that I can have on her. So
Speaker 1: two years ago, I had a student who before the
Speaker 1: year started, you know, we always get some information about
Speaker 1: the children before they come into your classroom, and I
Speaker 1: was teaching kindergarten at the time. The preschool of the
Speaker 1: student went to let Gail know that he had significant
Speaker 1: behavioral challenges and was going to need a lot of support.
Speaker 1: This little boy came in and everything I had been
Speaker 1: told was completely false. He was just really easy to
Speaker 1: work with, really good friends, worked super duper hard on
Speaker 1: everything you wanted him to do. He just really wanted
Speaker 1: to please. She was relieved, couldn't have had a better
Speaker 1: start of the year. And then in about October, he
Speaker 1: left school, went home and no one was at his
Speaker 1: house to pick him up off the bus, so he
Speaker 1: was brought back to the school and some phone calls
Speaker 1: were made, and that sometimes happens, and the day, you know,
Speaker 1: time kind of passed and the story kept kind of unfolding,
Speaker 1: and his mother had passed away. The student had seen
Speaker 1: his mother that morning and she was fine. His big
Speaker 1: sister and a preacher from their local church came to
Speaker 1: the school where he was waiting, and they sat him
Speaker 1: down and they told him it was a Friday. So
Speaker 1: over the weekend he went to go live with a
Speaker 1: police officer and his family that went to the same church.
Speaker 1: Totally traumatic, as you can imagine. UM. So then Monday
Speaker 1: came and it was just horrific, like you can't even
Speaker 1: imagine he um, and I'm going to get choked up
Speaker 1: about it. He came in early and he just like
Speaker 1: ran into the classroom and wrapped his arms around me
Speaker 1: and um just melted just sobbing, you know, and it
Speaker 1: was just the most heartbreaking thing that I think anyone
Speaker 1: can ever imagine. When the rest of the kindergarten came in,
Speaker 1: Gail and a guidance counselor talked to the class about
Speaker 1: what happened. This happened over the weekend he lost his mom, Like,
Speaker 1: this is how we can support him. We just have
Speaker 1: to give him space and understand that this is really,
Speaker 1: really sad and scary for him. Gail says it was
Speaker 1: one of the hardest days of her life, but some
Speaker 1: of the best ones came from that following year as
Speaker 1: she watched other students be there for him and got
Speaker 1: to help him work through it all. Sometimes he lose
Speaker 1: control and she would take him aside to the bean
Speaker 1: bag corner of the room and help him talk it out.
Speaker 1: He would just say I just miss her so much
Speaker 1: and just like melt into you know, and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, this is this is why I do this job.
Speaker 1: It's to teach the reading and the writing and the math,
Speaker 1: but it's also to to help kind of form these
Speaker 1: little lives that are just starting very and I'm going
Speaker 1: to end my rainbow with purple in my garden. We
Speaker 1: always loved have purple carrets cares. If you had to
Speaker 1: say one thing to anyone who wants to become a teacher,
Speaker 1: what would it be. Get into a classroom as quick
Speaker 1: as you can in your studies, or even before your studies,
Speaker 1: and see if it's if it really is something that
Speaker 1: you that you love, because teaching really does have to
Speaker 1: be a labor of love. And there's something about a
Speaker 1: purple carret that just makes me happy. So I'll end
Speaker 1: with that feeling. Purple carrets make me smile. If someone says,
Speaker 1: you know, how would you identify yourself? I would say,
Speaker 1: I'm a teacher, and I'm a mother, and I'm a wife.
Speaker 1: You know, there's lots of other layers there, but that
Speaker 1: definitely is one of the first things that I would say,
Speaker 1: because it's not just a job. Yeah no, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not something that I can just leave at the door.
Speaker 1: You can write a rainbow poem of your own. It's
Speaker 1: not a nine to five can't wait to read. Stop
Speaker 1: sharing my screen. Talk to you soon, miss you. Good
Speaker 1: bye for on the job. I'm otus Gray. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to on the job. Brought to you by Express
Speaker 1: Employment Professionals. This season of On the Job is produced
Speaker 1: by Audiation and Red Seat Ventures. The episodes are written
Speaker 1: and produced by me Otus Gray. Our executive produce he
Speaker 1: is Sandy Smallens. The show was mixed by Matt Noble
Speaker 1: for Audiation Studios at The Loft in Bronxville, New York.
Speaker 1: Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard,
Speaker 1: please consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. We're
Speaker 1: more inspiring stories about making yourself essential as you discover
Speaker 1: your life's work. Audiation