Vice Principal UnOfficed
NEW WEBSITE - Visit viceprincipalunofficed.com for episodes, show information, and more!
Join host Lisa Hill, a retired vice principal as she shares her funny, wild, and sometimes woeful public education school stories that will not only leave you feeling like you’re listening to a comedy special, but wondering how the American K12 educational system endures.
Hill is a former teacher, school counselor, college professor, and vice principal who never planned on having a career in education. But, thanks to her father, god rest his soul, she did!
So, listen in as Lisa Hill reveals the crazy and entertaining K12 school antics that she experienced during her lengthly career in public education And who knows? You might just pick up a little nugget of knowledge along the way.
Vice Principal UnOfficed
Bonus Episode: Navigating the Nest: From K-Success
This bonus episode celebrates the launch of the new educational podcast - Navigating the Nest: From K to Success. This new podcast is the collaboration between a few fellow podcasters from Ctrl+Shift+Lead and From Carpool to College, and Vice Principal UnOfficed. Together, the podcast hosts will bring perspectives from school leadership and college guidance, enriched with unforgettable real-life tales from the hallways with their first episode titled: Charting the Course: GPS Insights for K-12 to Postsecondary Success
Whether you're a parent, an educator, or a student, this new podcast is designed to provide valuable insights, hearty laughs, and the confidence you need to navigate the nest successfully.
Vice Principal UnOfficed website has moved! Boomark my new site: https://viceprincipalunofficed.com/
Email me: vpunofficed@gmail.com
Check out photos from each Vice Principal UnOfficed episode at:
Resources used for Vice Principal UnOfficed can be found here.
Thanks for listening!
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Speaker 1:This episode of Vice Principal in Office is a bonus episode to celebrate the launch of the Get started today at wheezteescom. Vice principal and office and from carpool to college Together, the podcast hosts will bring perspectives from school leadership and college guidance, enriched with unforgettable real-life tales from the hallways. Whether you're a parent, an educator or a student. This new podcast is designed to provide valuable insights, hearty laughs and the confidence you need to navigate the nest successfully. Now let's get learning with Navigating the Nest from K to Success. First episode Charting the Course GPS Insights for K-12 to Post-Secondary Success.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Navigating the Nest from K to Success, your essential guide through the exciting, challenging and sometimes comically unpredictable world of education. Each episode we bring together a unique blend of perspectives from school leadership, college guidance and the unforgettable real-life tales from the hallways. And the unforgettable real-life tales from the hallways. Whether you're a parent, an educator or a student, prepare to gain insights, share a laugh and confidently chart your course from kindergarten all the way to personal success. It's time to navigate the nest.
Speaker 3:I'm Adam Bush and I'm thrilled to be your host today, as we bring together three incredible shows to dive deep into the world of education. We've got From Carpool to College. Vice Principal on Office and Control Shift Lead. Today we're tackling the big questions how do we prepare our students for what's next, how do we build stronger connections between school and home, and what's the administrator's crucial role in all of it? Now, crew, that sounds like an awful lot. Are we really ready to tackle this challenge today?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, let's give it a shot.
Speaker 3:Well, let's start off with just giving a quick glimpse onto what everybody's show is, and if we have some listeners that are crossing over as the point of this show here today, then maybe we'll pick up something else as another show to listen to. So, tracy and Tara, do you mind giving us a little glimpse into Carpool, to College?
Speaker 4:Sure, I will start. I'm Tracy Amadeo, I am the founder of Academic Mentoring LLC and we have a small practice. Tara and I started a podcast about three months ago four months ago, tara and it was out of necessity, because we find that parents of middle school and high school students where we are in New Jersey we're both public school educators as well, it's our day job are really lost and anxious and flooded with information, yet under informed when it comes to college and career planning. We're not just college planning, but we're career planning as well. So we got, we put our talent and heads together and here we are at From Carpool to College.
Speaker 5:I can only imagine how helpful that podcast would have been if navigating this as a parent and just kind of listening to everything that's going on and having a platform to ask questions that are like to real people like yourself. So I appreciate and applaud you doing it. I wish I would have heard of this a while ago, though.
Speaker 3:I was thinking the same thing. I got one kid left before they're heading off to that decision. So yeah, getting a little bit of information from you is just amazing. That is awesome, lisa. How about you?
Speaker 1:I'm Lisa Hill and I have the podcast Vice Principal and Office. Lisa Hill and I had the podcast Vice Principal in Office. I've been in education 38 years and then I retired twice. The reason I started the podcast one it's a little therapeutic. But the second reason is I don't think the average person understands how hard education is and all the craziness that happens behind the scenes. So it is a comedy the craziness that happens behind the scenes. So it is a comedy. I do have a disclaimer because I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but life is crazy and school is tough. So I do this through humor and tell some stories, but there's also a little nugget of knowledge that I share to help people understand. Yeah, educators, it takes a lot, a lot to get through the day and educate today's child.
Speaker 3:I've heard so many educators say that you can't make this up right, and that book that every one of us could write. And yet I don't know if anybody would actually buy the books. I'm not sure they'd actually believe it. But this stuff actually happens. It does, jim. How about Control, shift, lead? What does that bring to listeners?
Speaker 5:Well, we try to keep things meaningful and manageable to professionals and the educators and principals out there where we want you to have. Walk away with every podcast with something they can control. Lisa kind of alluded to this a little bit. You can kind of lose sight of what you can control and you think that you are out of control a lot of times. So we want to help people keep things in perspective. So what can you control?
Speaker 5:And then maybe something that will shift your thinking or challenge your thinking to look through a different lens about how do we build capacity, maybe, or what are those tangible things that we can actually influence, but we have to change some of our paradigm or the way we operate in the past. And then also just something meaningful, manageable and tangible of leadership, so that the lead part of that control shift, lead is really is how do we lean into some of the things that we have to navigate as a principle but also keep it in perspective about the leadership role of that. So when you take all three of what we just talked about right there, I think this is like the ultimate come together power podcast.
Speaker 3:I love it and I'm excited about it and I'm ready to get going. What do we think? Are you ready for our first topic? Let's roll, let's roll, okay. Well, let's kick it off with this first critical topic. The world is changing rapidly, and so is the educational landscape. Our students are stepping into a future that looks vastly different from even a decade ago. So let's discuss the evolving landscape of education, preparing students for the future. Tara and Tracy, perhaps we can start with some insights from Carpool to College. I mean, how are families navigating these shifts?
Speaker 6:Well, it's interesting because our last podcast episode we just talked about it. It's not released yet, but it will be soon talked about it. It's not released yet, but it will be soon and we came across a infographic from the World Economic Forum in which they put out a plan every two years, a report of up and coming jobs, jobs that are on the way out, and what's going on with the workforce, and one of the things that we really found interesting is that no longer are we sending our students off into higher ed saying, well, what do you want to do with your life? What do you want to do? What major would you like to be a part of? Now it's more. Well, what skills do you think you'd want to show later in life and what skills do you want to work on in order to prepare for a successful career, successful college? You know four years at college and of course, we can't not say AI in there, because that's really a huge factor contributing to this major shift and so how does that trickle down with what Tracy and I are doing when we're working with families of students getting ready to prepare for college? We're no longer asking them some of the questions that would have been asked years ago.
Speaker 6:And we really have to dig deep and try to figure out their skillset and where do they feel confident in certain areas, certain skills.
Speaker 6:So it could be always. It's usually always coupled with some sort of technology, but those skills need to be applicable now to not just one major, not just going into education or going into medicine. Now they have to kind of pivot in any way and be ready for that flexibility. So I think Tracy and I were really I feel like we could have done 10 episodes on this topic about you know how do we prepare our high schoolers and even going so far back as middle school to get them ready for this changing landscape, and I feel like it's really just you have to keep your pulse on it. You have to keep your, you know, just a good focus on everything that is happening, on a much more. You know it's not something where you can just okay, this is what we want to do for the next four years. I have a feeling that students are going to be changing their ideas as they make their way through, even from year to year in the college setting. So I don't know, tracy, if you want to add on to that.
Speaker 4:Oh for sure. And we're seeing anxious parents as well because they don't know what they don't know. And the whole crux of our podcast is I think, jim, you were saying this that we don't want parents to ever have to say, oh my gosh, I wish I knew then, Love that Now, right.
Speaker 4:So when we talk about and we see that families, especially in our neck of the woods in the Northeast, are outsourcing college planning, and it's such a paradox because they have the world we all do, we have the world at our fingertips. We have too much information, yeah, too overwhelming, it's too much. And what does it all mean? So, tara and I, in our practice academic mentoring, it all mean. So, tara and I, in our practice academic mentoring, we really work through that combination of I have a clinical background, so the family first, student first, child first, paradigm versus what does Ivy want to see? We don't care.
Speaker 4:I'm not going to curse, we're going to keep this G-rated, but we don't care what is going to be the path that is going to allow a child to engage and flourish in the world? And we don't. We're not soothsayers. We don't know what the world is going to look like. We know it's going to have a heck of a lot more technology and we need to be prepared to have that technology infused in every facet that we study, whether it's through college, whether it's through vocational, wherever your next steps are, that's what we're seeing over here. Are you finding?
Speaker 1:that parents you work with. They're from a different generation, where high school's preached, everyone's going to college and that's shifted. And so are you finding that parents just don't understand that their child, they might not their final job that they're going to retire on might not even exist yet.
Speaker 3:Likely doesn't exist yet.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Look at us. We're Gen X and you know Homeland Security was not a major when we right. Well, 9-11 was that shift? Similarly, ai and big data and data analytics were not around when we were, so parents only have they don't only have that frame of reference, but we know it's a bias as parents. Tara and I both have kids and I have two boys in college, and certainly if we were not in education, if we weren't doing this, we would only have the gigantic internet and our own personal experience, and that from whatever we hear on the sidelines at baseball, which is not healthy. You want to be a counter force to that.
Speaker 3:It's interesting as you're talking there. Just it brought back a memory here. Just a few weeks ago I was talking with a friend of mine who's got a son that's heading off to play college football and has a former head football coach and many, many, many conversations with players heading off to play college football in the past and I always reminded them about the fact that this isn't playing a sport anymore. Once you get into the college level it's about. It's a lifestyle, right, you are completely adjusting to where life is for you. I mean, I used to think I was pretty knowledgeable about this, I could really talk about it. I used to work for a Division I football school. I mean yada, yada, yada, right, I could do all of those things. And then he started asking me about oh, what about NIL? I'm like, oh yeah, there's that whole new thing. And every single time you think you have it, even as quote unquote experts, it just changes.
Speaker 4:It changes and to probably partner. And my concerns are do families know what they're getting themselves into? Do these kids know? And BTW, last I checked it's still an education right. So let's make sure this kid can graduate in four years and not the academic scholarship, and not be leaving with a loss. So it's so true.
Speaker 5:What a great topic to add to your show. I mean, if I'm, I don't have anybody in that arena, but if I did that, another great reason to listen to your podcast, that's right.
Speaker 3:Well, we're talking a little bit about connections, so maybe it's a good time for us to go on to our next topic here. So our next topic is communication and collaboration, or bridging the gap between school students and parents. So, lisa, from your experience with vice principal and office, what are some of the biggest challenges and successes that you've seen in fostering these essential relationships that we're talking about?
Speaker 1:Well, often parents only remember what high school is like for them, so they can't understand how much education K-12 education has changed, and so their lens is. It's a little foggy. And one thing I did when I was doing my research for my PhD, I actually went into the prison system and interviewed former students to say what could we do differently in K-12 school? What did we miss? You're here, life happens, but what could we do differently? And the themes I found with the students would be to understand. Students ask care for them, they need nurturing, and the world moves very, very fast and not all parents can do that. They're busy, they're working, you know, whatever in life. And so to bridge that gap, I've had to spend a lot of time with parents, helping them learn how to parent or how to communicate with their child, and, on the same end, I have to help teachers understand how to communicate, because they don't take the time to say, oh, I just need to say, hey, how are you doing today? And use your name, and then that will help build that solid foundation of culture, because that's what kids need. They need to feel connected, and we could bring the parent in, but if the kid's not connected, what does it matter? So bridging that gap? It's taking care of people.
Speaker 1:Most schools are bigger than many small towns in different states and we have a very small group of people trying to run this town. So there's a lot of spinning plates and you're running back and forth. But you have to take that time and keep your thumb on your pulse on. Where are we at with the culture? How are kids connecting? Yeah, you can do potlucks or provide pizza for this or that, feed people, you know all that sort of stuff, but if the child's voice isn't at the table and they don't feel heard, I don't know how we get them connected.
Speaker 1:And we need to, because the whole idea behind K-12 school is to get them ready for that next step. Like Tara and Tracy are talking about, where am I going to go after I graduate from high school? Because I think often high school is like yep, here's your diploma, see ya, good luck. But there is a bridge over to post-secondary life and we have to continually talk about that and help kids understand, because in their world they're only thinking about the 30 minutes in the day and what's going to happen after school. They just don't see the connections. So I think helping parents and kids with what Tara and Tracy are doing is fantastic, but it comes back to that nurturing and care, because once you have that, then I think they're hooked, they feel safe and they got to feel safe in schools and schools aren't always the safest places right now.
Speaker 5:What I really like about your podcast is that you take everything what you just said about connecting with kids, connecting with parents, and you do it in a lighthearted manner as well, because while it's a very serious matter, serious job, serious approach to how we operate with students and their parents, you also bring in the humanistic approach to it. So we have the title of students, we have the title of parents, we have the title of principal, we have all these titles, but when it comes down to it, we're humans first, title second, whatever that title might be, and that's why I think that you take that approach when you're a comical way of taking real life matters and bringing it into a learning opportunity.
Speaker 1:I was just talking with a couple educators yesterday and I said it's K-12 school. They're children, we have to have fun and if you can't laugh, then why bother? I mean, you got to have fun on the job and kids for 40 hour work week is going to school and so you do have to laugh. And I think if K-12 educators didn't laugh, they'd go crazy with some of the things that we see, because some are very heartbreaking. But that's why we have to nurture kids and just establish that foundation. It's not about pound of flesh. You can change behaviors through caring for students.
Speaker 5:Not about a pound of flesh, because we have educators right now who are just struggling. Their emotions are kind of blocking them there. Then they don't know what else to do and we know that in the absence of new knowledge, we always fall back to our lowest level of training, and that is depending on what age we are. But punitive isn't really winning anymore. I mean, punitive isn't changing the behavior and so the value and the importance that we have to evolve and change into or evolve into. So how do we and what you're just describing there is really kind of what we have to do is lean in.
Speaker 1:I had one new teacher and they said if you could give me any advice, what should I do this year? I said greet every child at the door, use their name and find one, something, just one little nugget about them that you can talk with them about. So he started to do that and his attendance went up. Behaviors went down, kids were engaged, more kids were signing up, kids were voting with their feet because this teacher cared and he had fun with them and it was a tough course but it worked. And he said that was the best piece of advice I ever got, because kids were like this is amazing, this guy is fun in a very tough subject and all it took was just hey, how are you doing today, jim? Bob, here we go.
Speaker 5:I think about that at the middle school level, that the connections that you, just what Lisa shared how so important that is to those kids.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it really is. I will never forget one year we had a. It was a challenging group and there were a lot of students in there and all it took was going to a few of their games their baseball games or whatever basketball games and it changed the entire year, the entire culture of the classroom, and it just made for such a wonderful connection with those kids and I will never forget that, because it was fun for me too. It wasn't just okay for them, it was a little awkward. Oh, here's my teacher coming in. I wasn't expecting to see her, but it was fun for me to see them in a different way and it made all the difference.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that's the point. And, lisa, you started talking about this before. Yeah, we can have these big events, but it's the little stuff that we're talking about here that makes such a huge difference. And we weren't going to swear in this podcast, but I'm going to mention the word COVID. Sorry, jim, but I remember when you personally would do little tidbits of stuff for families during that time it was very simple, it wasn't anything overly efficient. You sent it out on social media or something, if I remember right, we might have to describe for our listeners of what you did there, but it's something little, something really simple, but it goes such a long ways and it probably means more than that big event does in the first place.
Speaker 5:The podcast that I did there or it wasn't a podcast, no-transcript. It's their kids. They're not going to just trust us, so we have to lean into that. And we lean into that by listening to their voices. Like how do I get my kid ready for school? Parents are trying to. They are trying to do the best, they know how they are doing the best, they know how. And if we don't lean into and listen to what they're asking for, then we all are missing out and we're causing the problem. Sending a newsletter isn't going to be that communication that they need. It's got to be the human touch, just like lisa was kind of leaning into.
Speaker 3:It's that humanistic approach with that I was thinking with my middle son. I remember talking with him constantly about the next step in college what should you do? And you know all of those conversations that every parent and I just I knew where he should go and he just didn't want to listen to dad. But you know what? That one teacher said pretty much the exact same thing that I was saying at home. And all of a sudden, now that's the right thing, that's what I'm going to do, and sure enough, that's what he's doing and fine, whatever, I don't know, I don't need to take credit for it. I was just glad it happened, but that's what it was.
Speaker 3:It was just a teacher that he had a good relationship with that took that five minutes to have a conversation about what are you going to do next year? What do you want to do next year? And all of a sudden it became his idea. And then that's the future, and it's just that's fun to see that happen, all right, well, I think that brings us to our final but equally crucial topic, and that is the administrator's role in student success beyond high school. So we're just talking about teachers, talking about all of us having that impact we can have on students. Jim, coming from Control Shift Lead, how do you see administrators best positioning students for long-term success, not just within the school that they're in, but as they move into whatever that's going to be in their post-secondary life?
Speaker 5:I would kind of summarize it into one word intentional. If we think about what we need to get accomplished, we need to be intentional. So often the biggest misstep that administrators make is they don't make the time to plan. Plan what does it look like, whatever school they're at? What does it look like for that child's experience all the way through, by looking through their lens? What does that experience look like for the parent all the way through that child's experience, wherever school they're at or wherever system they're at? And so, in the absence of that, in being intentional with the planning and structure, and what does it look like we're? We're putting out fires, we're responding to phone calls, we have emotions running high. For students, as Lisa mentioned, for parents, as Tara and Tracy mentioned. It's constant about we have to be intentional and then share that knowledge with everyone. When your child leaves, they enter here. When they leave, this is what we want them to be prepared to do and so far, everything in this podcast.
Speaker 5:We talked about our students, first of all, leaning into being human, but also that we talk about being able to handle and adjust to change, and change is scary for everybody. We talk about that. So I use our thesaurus. And what about if we focused on evolving instead of changing Because that's what we've had to do as administrators and educators is evolve. We never heard, I didn't know educators is evolve. I didn't know what COVID is. I didn't know what AI was. I didn't even know what Lisa will be with me on this, sorry. I didn't even know what the internet was when I started teaching. I didn't even know what chatting was other than talking.
Speaker 5:So we think about it. We have to evolve and then lean into the social media, because they're not going away and they will evolve. They have evolved and so we need to make sure that our students are evolving with that. So what does that actually all mean altogether?
Speaker 5:If the student walking away from the schools that I've been a part of, having the confidence to know what are those options out there, how do I navigate it? What does the paperwork look like? I mean, as a parent of a high school student that just graduated, what does concurrent enrollment mean versus AP courses, versus ACT, versus SAT? What does all that mean in the world? And knowing where to go to get that information? And so, when it comes to an administrator, and how do we prepare our students for that? It is preparing the staff to know that we all have to not only evolve, but we have to model what that looks like and then be clear with when we are making that shift, controlling what we can control, making the shift when it comes to needing to, and then leading by example all the way through that.
Speaker 3:So I never had a problem reaching out to my kids' principal Well, part of us because I was their principal for a little while. So, you know, I made it pretty easy. I just kind of just kind of do a circle. But if I am, I mean Tracy and Tara if you're coaching parents on reaching out to get additional help and sometimes, like I said before, it's just you need to hear a different voice, you know, or another voice. How do we bridge that gap? Because whether we like it or not, it's like when I bring a kid into my office to try to talk with them, it's still the principal's office. Whether I want it to be or not, it still is. And so sometimes that barrier is a little hard to get over, and it's also that way for parents. The principal's office doesn't always have a great feeling to it for a lot of people. How do they get past that? How do you? How do we bridge that gap in that communication?
Speaker 4:So we always talk about. You know, relationships are everything, right. We know this as people of a certain age and experience. It really comes down to relationships and for being able to mentor students and parents. So we encourage parents to reach out to their kid's favorite teacher, who's always you know the kid will tell when the kid comes home from school. There's always a name, there's always one teacher who's that standout right. An email reach out.
Speaker 4:I, as a school counselor, I verily believe that the central nervous system of every school is the school counseling department tied to the administration. It's like the brain and the spinal cord school counseling and administration. I mean there's sometimes even role crossover where you're playing good cop, bad cop, and it's such a strong network that the school counselor is critical. And it's tough because Tara and I, as independent counselors with our private practice school counselors are often vilified. Well, I don't know who my kid's school counselor is. It's this mystery person behind a curtain. And we never vilify our school counselors. We even have that on our website. We know school counselors are the most busy, stressed, overutilized resource at a school and they're sorry. They're not there to answer every single question about college planning because they're assessing for suicide risk, or they're working with a parole officer who just happened to not, you know, not announce their visit for the third time.
Speaker 4:So you know. So we encourage the connection through you know, any means possible. Listen to your kid. Who are they talking about? That's your mentor, that's your connection. Doesn't have to be a principal, it could just be that one of those teachers or coaches, Coaches, yeah.
Speaker 5:I like how you leaned into that and you use the word vilified, because as a principal, it'd be the same concept of you'll never see my child in your office. I've never heard that. That very next day that kid was in my office. We were taking a selfie and I was asking him which parent do you want me to send this to? Because you know, because I'm sending it out because it's like this is a safe place, just like the counseling or the office is a safe place, and we need to make sure that people are clear on what the purpose of it is. And, just like I said before, in the absence of the truth, people are going to make stuff up. So we have to be very intentional about telling our story and where it is, not just as a counselor, not just as a principal, but just in education in general.
Speaker 5:So during COVID, people want our kids back in school because they're the educators, they're the professionals, they know how to educate our kids. Now, three years later, we got because we don't say anything. We got people saying what books to read, how to read them, what to teach, what not to teach, and all that. And the part of the problem is educators are so humble that they don't celebrate. We're like, oh no, we're humble people. This is just what we do. We need to stop that and we need to start celebrating a little bit more, even the smallest things, about how we are celebrating our kids, how we are supporting the kids, how we are supporting each other. And in the absence of that, people are going to start telling the truth that we need to rise up as educators and start telling the story a little bit more. Obviously, you hit a trigger button there. I apologize with that, but I certainly knew Phil's so very important that we do that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's funny. I won a couple of awards this year and I'm not tooting my own horn, but you should, you can toot your own horn.
Speaker 5:That's right, lisa, you need to toot your own horn.
Speaker 4:I won Counselor of the Year and then, two weeks later, I won like a lifetime achievement you earned you earned yes.
Speaker 4:Do you know what? My school did? Nothing. It was a. It was a, an announcement at a poorly attended faculty meeting. And you know I wasn't expecting anything anyway. But to your point, tim, we are. So we're such servants. It's so hard for us to take a step back. And now Tara and I are entrepreneurs as well. That's a whole other ball of wax being an entrepreneur, servant as well. That's a whole other ball of wax being an entrepreneur servant, educator, counselor. So like there's a lot of role confusion within us in our positions, that I think, as you said, being intentional, we need to be intentional in all of our roles, in our multiple personality disorders, if you will, in our multiple roles, where we are, where our boots are on the ground.
Speaker 1:I'm glad to hear Tracy say how counselors are. I've always said they're the heart of the school. I wanted them at admin meetings because they do have a pulse on the school. I got pushback throughout the years but I thought it was super important. If we're going to raise test scores and improve all the student data, then we got to have the counselor at the table because they really know what's going on. And to Jim, to your point about evolving I think some of the problem is we are in a human service field so we're like, okay, we'll just we'll take care of people, but we get in silos as school leaders.
Speaker 1:Right and we think and, of course, school leaders can be competitive. But we just have to take care of our own little world instead of districts, making sure that we're not in silos so that we can take care of the child from kindergarten all the way through into post-secondary life, because one principal might have great ideas, but if they're just in that silo then we're not getting the transition to the next grade level or the next building.
Speaker 5:And that's something I think we need to work on in K-12 education. You have to be intentional with that too. Culture doesn't happen by well. It does happen by accident. You know what you get with that. But you have to be intentional so we don't get the silos and we have that systemic approach. Great, great comment there.
Speaker 3:Now this may be a topic for a new episode, but if I'm you know, brand new teacher coming in listening to this, I may see if I can get out of my contract. Just unfortunately, like wow, did I really sign up for all of the? Yeah, we do, because it's the multiple hats that we're wearing right, or the multiple personalities. I like the way you said that, tracy, that was great, but just in a quick nutshell. I like the way you said that, tracy, that was great, but just in a quick nutshell. Lisa, or Jim, if you were the administrator with your new teacher coming in and they've got that glassy-eyed look of fear listening to all of this stuff, what's a quick little win that a brand new teacher coming into this can help their students and start feeling that success and then build upon it from there.
Speaker 1:Well, like I said earlier, learning kids' names right away. Don't tell me in October you still don't know all your students. You can learn the names, greet them, know something about them, use their actual name, because that will increase engagement, decrease discipline, so you can have some control, because kids want to please teachers that they like. They're ornery when they don't like somebody and they act out with behaviors because they can't explain why they're behaving that way. So that would be my advice Take care of kids, learn their names, get those connections. It's okay. Teaching will get there, it's fine. Kids are resilient, it'll be okay. So quit focusing so much. That's an instructional strategy, actually to learn. If you do that one first, then to me everything else will fall in place.
Speaker 5:Educators want to be perfect right away. New teachers want to be even more perfect because they want to show that they earned a job, and so forth. Go back to what Lisa said Take the time. Teaching will come. It doesn't happen overnight and we have to learn with them. They also have to have that environment to to have that support and and so when you education, I'm going to tell you the truth has been, I have loved 90% of everything in education.
Speaker 5:I really I mean there's ups and downs, but I really have. Obviously, I stayed in it for so long, but it actually was what got me. It was what saved me as a, as a youth, for so long, but it actually was what got me. It was what saved me as a youth, and so it is such an awe-inspiring. I mean, this is two days ago. You know we're recording this. Two days ago, I was at the funeral of that one teacher I think Tara or Tracy were talking about that one teacher who was the difference maker for me in 1983 and has still been in my life in 2025. And he just passed away and it's like awe-inspiring. You don't have that with any other job, you know. There's just not there. And so take the time, learn the students, the education, the instruction will come as you grow.
Speaker 3:All right crew. Well, as far as I'm concerned, this has been a fantastic discussion we've had today On this episode we're calling Navigating the Educational Journey from K-12 Leadership to College-Bound Success. Before we go, I was hoping maybe we could quickly hear one key takeaway from each of you. So, tara, how about you start us off? What's something you hope listeners remember from our podcast today?
Speaker 6:I would say that it's just that key word of connection and no matter if you are in the middle school, high school level, administrative level, I think as teachers we thrive and we love connection, and when we're able to really focus on that, everything else kind of falls into place as best as it possibly can.
Speaker 3:I love it. I love it, Tracy. How about you? What's something from your perspective?
Speaker 4:I love when Jim was talking about the evolving versus changing and I think every stakeholder in this from teachers to administrators, to counselors, to children, to parents all evolving and let's give ourselves some grace.
Speaker 3:Lisa, what's your core message from today?
Speaker 1:educators, parents, administrators understand. Yes, it is all connected, like Tracy said, and it is about getting children ready for post-secondary life. So it's just not the K-12 experience and how do we make those connections for all the stakeholders to understand? The job is to get that diploma in hand but then take them across the bridge into the next stage of life and there's just so many moving parts and we talked a lot about a lot of them today and I hope people can walk away with that. Oh, it is, it's connected, it is evolving, as Jim and Tracy mentioned.
Speaker 3:That's really good, jim, kind of wrap us up a little bit. Well, I had something and then Lisa gave me a nugget. That's always how it works, right? Always get the chosen last and you got to adjust right. Evolve, I know. Right, jim, evolve.
Speaker 5:I'm going to take what Lisa just said there it's more than just the K-12, because I was going to. I mean, I think that my takeaway is we got to be intentional, but and one of the things as a coach to school district leaders it's not coming in and telling the district leaders how to do their job and then leaving. It's about walking with and when I heard Lisa give her synopsis, it's really about here's the information we're going to walk with you through this experience and then, when the student is, you know that one little further step. We're going to walk with you to that next journey beyond 12th grade. And I think it's so powerful because this group of people that I'm on this podcast with not only is we're talking about stories about your K-12 experience, but we're talking about being intentional with walking with the parents, walking with the students, walking with the administrators, so that that next journey isn't scary. And it's not a leap, it's an ebb and flow.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you everybody for sharing your valuable insight today and thanks for letting me host so I could just kind of listen to everybody talk. That was perfect. Do my little talk off to the side and not have to share too much. That's awesome. I love it.
Speaker 3:I probably should say my takeaway, my biggest takeaway from today, honestly, is the fact that even if we think we might know what it is, it's going to change and so constantly evolving and being prepared to evolve I think is huge. Just like all of us didn't have a idea of a podcast 12 months ago, and here we are together in two different time zones, throwing this thing to try to put something out there that people can use, and, again, having an open mind and having some courage to do something new. I think for our kids especially, getting that trade to be something they develop is huge. I think that's just awesome. Preach Well.
Speaker 3:Again, thanks everybody for listening today. Thanks for joining us for this special episode. If you enjoyed today's conversation, I highly encourage you to check out our individual shows we have From Carpool to College with Tara Hartz and Tracy Amadeo, vice Principal on Office with Lisa Hill, and Control Shift Lead with Jim Wichman and myself, adam Bush. You can find all of these podcasts wherever you listen to your podcasts. So until next time, keep navigating that educational journey and thank you for listening to us today. Thank you, everybody, for joining me.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having us. Thank you.
Speaker 2:And that wraps up another episode of Navigating the Nest. We hope you found valuable insights and a dose of inspiration as we explore the diverse facets of the educational journey. Remember to subscribe and leave us a review to help other navigators find their way to our nest. Join us next time as we continue to guide you on your path from K to success.
Speaker 1:Well, kids, the dismissal bell is ringing. So until next time on, vice Principal in Office, push in your chair, put your name on your paper, be kind to your classmates, put your phone away and use your indoor voice, or not. Thanks for listening and I hope you enjoyed the tales from Vice Principal in Office as much as I enjoyed sharing them, and it is also my hope that you were not only entertained by this episode, but that you walked away with a little nugget of knowledge that gave you some insight on how working in a school is. Not for the faint of heart and, as I've said before, life is short, so you got to do the best you can to leave the world in a better place than when you got here. And, of course, for the love of God, see the humor in life. It's a lot more fun and a little easier to get through the ick in life with a smile on your face. Catch you next time on. Vice Principal in Office.
Speaker 1:Next time on Vice Principal in Office, join me, your host, lisa Hill, on September 9th, as I sit down with my co-host and my mom to take a hilarious and heartfelt trip back to when she started school over eight decades ago. Hear my mom's stories of chalkboards, recess games and school days that make today's classrooms look like science fiction. This is Vice Principal on Office like you've never heard it before. So tune in September 9th, for Before she Was my Mom, she Was a Student. Nana School Days. Hey, students, I mean listeners. Thanks again for tuning in and if you've enjoyed today's show, please leave me a review. It really helps grow the show. And don't forget to hit the follow button so you don't miss an episode. Trust me, you don't want to be late for this detention. And, listeners, if you've got a school story of your own that you think would fit Vice Principal on Office, I'd love to hear it. Just head to my podcast website and send me your story, and, who knows, your story might even get a shout out in a future episode. Thanks so much for listening and for your support.
Speaker 1:Vice Principal on Office is an independent podcast with everything you hear done by me, lisa Hill, and supported through Buzzsprout. Any information from today's show, along with any links and resources, are available in the show's notes. So if you want to do a little homework and dive deeper into anything I've mentioned, head over to my podcast website and check it out. And a big thank you to Matthew Chiam with Pixabay for the show's marvelous theme music and, of course, a huge shout out to my mother. This podcast is for the purpose of entertainment only, like the recess of your day, and not a platform for debates about public education. Though you never know, you could learn something. And just a reminder that the stories shared in this podcast represent one lens, which is based on my personal experiences and interpretations, and also reflect my unique perspective through humor. Names, dates and places have been changed or omitted to protect identities and should not be considered universally applicable. Until next time, keep laughing and learning.
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