In this podcast episode, Trina and Amanda discuss major challenges in the American public education system, including the teacher shortage crisis, the state of reading instruction, and the impact of curriculum mandates on teacher autonomy. They reflect on previous episodes, including an interview with Amanda’s sister, and express frustration with the lack of teacher agency and the systemic issues stemming from structural sexism in the profession. They criticize the dominance of certain reading programs and the pushback against the science of reading. The episode also touches on the need for teacher-led curriculum development, the problems of climate and culture in schools, and the severe impact of the pandemic on teaching conditions. They call for respect, proper compensation for teachers, and a shift in focus from strictly academics to trauma-informed practices to address the burnout and behavioral issues they’re observing in students. The episode is a candid discussion about the current state of education and the urgent need for change.
Resources Mentioned
Teachers are NOT the Problem, They are Part of the Solution
We are losing qualified teachers at a staggering rate. But, to be clear, teachers should never be blamed for the teacher turnover problems our country is facing. The shortage of teachers in America and the decrease in college students seeking a teaching career is a multifaceted and complex problem.
The Teacher Shortage Crisis Series
In this limited podcast series, we discuss exactly what got us to this crisis point in the U.S. education system. Click the links below to be directed to that part of the series. We recommend listening in order.
1. Pay Scales for Teachers are Oppressive and Outdated
2. A Discussion with a New Teacher Who Chose to Leave the Profession
3. The High Cost of Becoming a Teacher
4. How Red Tape is Exacerbating the Problems
5. Outsourcing Teacher Expertise to Canned Curriculum
6. An ESL Teacher’s Stand Against Canned Curriculum and the Shocking Consequences
7. True Educational Equity Reforms Aren’t Happening and the Repercussions are Severe
8. Gender Equity Issues in K-12 are Undervalued and Neglected
9. Courageous Teachers Speak Out Against a Serious Problem Being Overlooked in K-12 Schools
10. Forgotten Narratives from the Frontlines of the Reading Wars
11. The Revealing Reality Struggling Readers Face in the U.S. Public Education System
12. Our Public Education System is in Crisis and the Solutions are Obvious
Stay tuned for the last few episodes wrapping up this limited podcast series!
In this series, Trina, along with myself, and many other educators from diverse backgrounds will explain the many layers of what is really going on. The shortage of special education teachers and math teachers is impacting schools (especially in low-income urban areas) tremendously. But, it’s important for teachers to understand the extent of this crisis. We are losing teachers in all subject areas.
We want to give teachers an extensive look at this problem from teachers’ perspectives. This is so teachers listening can share this series with other teachers, school leadership, the media, and even the governor of their state. The need to examine the causes of the national teacher shortage has never been more important.
Transcript
Trina (00:00:00) – Let’s go.
Amanda (00:00:01) – Okay. Let me just give you some context. So Trina and I just got on. It’s spring break. We’re enjoying our free time. We just got on a zoom call to free time, my ass.
Trina (00:00:11) – We’ve been working the whole break.
Amanda (00:00:13) – So I have been doing yoga. I’ve been breathing a lot, but let me. And I’ve been gardening too.
Trina (00:00:19) – But we’ve also we can’t stop working, so. No, no. Okay. We’re good.
Amanda (00:00:23) – People. But, so we just got on a call to talk about our next episode. Around the teacher shortage crisis. And right now we’re talking about reading instruction and all the the mess of that. And Trina was reviewing our last episode about our narratives when it came to, teaching, reading and just our stories because she wanted to refresh your memory about what we’d already covered. And I was, listening while she was reading, I was listening to a podcast, Cult of Pedagogy podcast, one of my favorite podcasts, and I was about to go and listen to the rest of it because it’s about the teacher shortage crisis.
Amanda (00:01:09) – And, that one of her latest episodes is about that two and two programs that are helping. I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet. I’m excited, but I noticed that, you know, it’s April, fourth. And I noticed on my latest episodes that sold a story just came out with an episode within the last, a new episode within the last hour. And so this is like breaking news. So we had to hit record because we wanted to record an episode about sort of story and our take on it, and, and also many other episodes, like a reflection about my sister’s, story and which.
Trina (00:01:55) – Was so good. The two of you are freaking amazing in that episode. I love your sister to.
Amanda (00:02:01) – Learn from that. Like that whole experience that she went through and I know. But anyway, so we’re trying to figure out how to do all of this and communicate all of this. But then I started listening to the latest episode of Sold a Story, and it’s about, Lucy Caulkins and O.
Amanda (00:02:22) – Thornton, bu she used to be my hero, which is so crazy now that I. I can’t even believe that, Lucy Caulkins and fondness and Pinnell and.
Trina (00:02:36) – No, no no no no. Sorry. Font f and P bigger bu bigger FNP bigger. Bu. Yes. Because there’s stuff. And look, there’s stuff that’s good in both of these. But the fact that they got to be the end all, be all of anybody’s litmus about what is. Oh okay. Sorry. Go ahead. Yeah.
Amanda (00:02:54) – Well, and at least Lucy Calkins is somewhat, you know, like. Validating that the science of reading is important and trying to revise their curriculum or whatever.
Trina (00:03:05) – But also damage is done.
Amanda (00:03:07) – But I also think that she doesn’t get it either. You know, she doesn’t get what’s happening on the, you know, in the trenches. I hate saying that. But like or on the ground, like like the foot soldiers of the teachers and what their experience is and students, you know, my sister like what their experiences are within this system.
Amanda (00:03:30) – None of these people have. They have. No. It infuriates me to hear them talking. with with no clue about what what our experiences are, but this. But so yeah, this episode is about kind of like, and it’s there’s recordings of their webinars like Lucy Calkins held a webinar and she’s speaking out a lot about all of all of the all all of that’s happened. And and then I guess, gay panel, I think is her name. she also did a webinar. And so they have clips from that, and just what they’re doing now and how they’re responding and the way that they’re especially gay, is, criticizing the science of reading and like, and there also there’s a part about the fact that teachers, you know, they do make the point. Or maybe it’s Lucy Calkins that we adapt to our students or that we have to make it our own, and we don’t follow it like, you know, word by word or line by line. And that that’s what the science of reading people are getting wrong.
Trina (00:04:50) – No, no no no no. Somebody needs to tell our administrators that because we’re being told to follow the Can curriculum. Sorry, my dog is whining. follow the Can curriculum with fidelity. Right. With fidelity, we’re never told. And I’m sorry, but this is the this is the problem here. All of this is is springing out of the structural sexism in our profession is that teachers are not trusted to build their own curriculums. And you know what I we said in the canned curriculum episode is you may not be a person who feels particularly self-possessed to make a canned curriculum. So maybe, like we would we set off camera and you’re like, we need to hit record. If you want to know how to teach third graders in Indiana how to read, you should ask teachers who teach third grade in Indiana. And that is it. Those are the only people that should be building this curriculum, and you find the people who want to get that extra training, who want to sit down and do that extra work and be paid for it.
Trina (00:05:55) – Right. And then you give them something that each teacher can personalize and make their own and stop paying. People who are no longer teaching or in some cases, never taught to make these curriculums. And once we get the neoliberalism out of our K-12 complex, we say we’re going to stop paying private industries to make these curriculums. Then we will have something that is true and good, and we’ll have teachers who have the knowledge and self-possession to make it work best for the kids. That is the only solution here. I’m so mad to.
Amanda (00:06:34) – Well. And I’ve been, you know, because it’s spring break, I’ve definitely been doing some catch up on just, this topic and listening to episodes like other podcasts and, reading articles like, we could talk about the article you sent to me about a teacher who’s leaving after 20 years because his autonomy has been stolen. Right? That’s right. And I was just listening to episode 190 of the Call to Pedagogy podcast. It was a podcast. It was jaw dropping, eye opening.
Amanda (00:07:07) – I can’t believe I haven’t heard that episode until today. Actually, I was listening to it earlier today, but it’s for teachers in 2022. May 2022 is when the episode came out, describing their experiences throughout the pandemic and why they left some of them even in the middle of the year. Good teachers who who care and like, worked their butts off. Yeah, to, you know, provide for their students a quality education, you know, like really, really quality teachers. And they left in the middle of the year that that was how bad the situation got for them. And that’s what this episode is about. But like the the whole the overarching theme of why they left is because no one was listening to them. That’s right. No one was considering their, experience. Everyone, and I think some of them were from like more southern states where they’re they’re being, you know, they’re getting in trouble for doing their job. You know, they’re like, and they’re being well.
Trina (00:08:25) – Yeah, they have even less autonomy than we do in those red states, in the red counties.
Trina (00:08:29) – And we don’t have very much here either. Like we’re in the Bay area where things are probably the best and it’s still sucks here. So I can’t even imagine what it’s like for these other teachers. And you’re talking about more broadly the issues of climate and culture. And I think. What the when we say climate and culture, that’s the future episode. It’s like, how does the actual campuses day to day, year to year? culture affect teachers leaving the profession? And there’s school safety issues, right? and you may say, why are you talking about reading instruction and the lack of an effective reading instruction program as a cause of the teacher shortage crisis, right? Well, it’s because when kids can’t read, schools feel miserable, and that is it. Like so many of the behavior problems I had when I was in the specifically low income neighborhoods, in teaching in different district than the one I’m currently in now, because we’re not naming our districts by name. was they were all students who could not read and we don’t have we dress that up.
Trina (00:09:41) – We call it all kinds of other things struggling readers, reluctant readers. No, no, no, these are just kids who cannot read. but I also want to say like. I want to honor, because you were talking about Cult of Pedagogy, and you were talking about Soldier Story. Those are two powerful, extremely powerful, sources of information that are essential for people to understand how we got where we are. Right. But I also want to honor some of the gurus that I don’t think we talked about in our first episode of the Reading Instruction, which are did I talk about Dirk Tillotson and Kareem Weaver?
Amanda (00:10:22) – No, you did not. Okay. Want to. And they deserve like a whole episode of their own. And this is kind of an episode to get us back into this and we’ll see if we publish it or not. But. Yeah. Tell us about, About them.
Trina (00:10:39) – Well, I mean, this is why we’ve taken part of the reason why it’s taken so long for us to get these these episodes done is because.
Trina (00:10:46) – I just wanted to make sure I. Was respectful, right. And, reverent and, talking about these individuals. so for me, when my story of when I started noticing the incredible problems with reading instruction in this in this country and the the really the way in which. The racial justice nightmare, which is the current reading instruction problem, was manifesting in my in my district. My problem was I couldn’t get anybody to even acknowledge the problem existed. Nobody knew what the historical trends were. Nobody was willing to say that kids couldn’t read, and everybody was working under the presumption that, talking about it at all was somehow unfair to children. And then one day I was in the car driving to work, and I heard a beautiful interview by a brave, courageous, intelligent soul by the name of Dirk Tillotson. He was talking about how the children in schools were,
Amanda (00:12:03) – So Oakland Unified.
Trina (00:12:04) – Yeah, Oakland Unified School District were so profoundly. Hold on just a second. I gotta say, I’ve been trying to do this with people coming home.
Trina (00:12:13) – I gotta, I got. Derek Tillotson was connected to the NAACP Reading Project, which was a fantastic, program that I learned about back then that was really digging into the racial justice nightmare, which is, the reading and the poor reading instruction and the lack of courageous and truthful investigation of the problem. When I was listening to him being interviewed and it was like a KQED, our local public, radio station, I was screaming, yes, yes, yes, someone was finally talking about it. He was working, in Oakland on this NAACP reading project. I got home, I called, I spoke to him, he put me in touch with another amazing, wise, courageous, tenacious leader, Kareem Weaver, who’s now connected with the Fulcrum. And I talked with him, and I explained to him the plan of how to mitigate the teacher shortage crisis with reading instruction, because in Oakland, like I said before, students who have a parade of subs cannot be taught to read. These. All of the plans always minimize how essential and important it is that you have a veteran teacher in these spaces.
Trina (00:13:39) – since this. The conversation took place. Dirk Tillotson was very tragically shot and killed. and Kareem continues on. And anyone who wants to know more about the truth of the reading instruction crisis in America and how it impacts learning in the classrooms, and how it really what it feels to be like in a classroom at the secondary level, with a bunch of kids that can’t read you, all you need to do is go visit the Fulcrum website and listen to the pulpit of Kareem Weaver. I his he’s amazing. So there are people out there doing this work who know what’s right. but it is going to involve completely dismantling the textbook company for profit model. It is how we got here. It is. And the idea that teachers should not be controlling and leading the own curriculum that they use is, is part of it, too. And if we continue to make it a money grab for these textbook companies and other corporations to make money off of taxpayers to sell a shit that doesn’t work, it’s never going to stop.
Trina (00:14:58) – And when we talk about how poor, the instruction is and not the instruction, how low the literacy is in this nation, we’re in the bottom quartile of the world, and we’re the nations. We’re the world’s, wealthiest nation. It makes no sense. It makes no sense.
Amanda (00:15:16) – So we will put a link to, to Kareem’s website. It’s fulcrum-oakland org because when I looked up Fulcrum, it like I just googled it. It took me to some mediation website.
Trina (00:15:31) – Oh, really? Shoot. Yeah.
Amanda (00:15:32) – No, but I will definitely put that link in because you’re right. And also, Kareem Weaver has a new, documentary out that I was able to see. You can only see it, through, like, special screenings, that they do. And I think eventually, you know, it’s going to be available to the public, but right now it’s, I think it’s really grassroots, a grassroots kind of, documentary, that he’s created and it’s really, really good and shocking, like the statistics that are shared in it about like, the literacy rates, in different states, and, and.
Trina (00:16:17) – So tell your listeners the name of the documentary.
Amanda (00:16:20) – It’s called Right to Read. Rigt to read. yeah. And I think it has its own website too.
Trina (00:16:29) – But it has the data that I was always trying to find. Yeah. I was asking everyone in my district, what are the historical trends with our literacy success? Are we getting better or is it getting worse as it’s staying the same? No one knew. Or no one. No one I knew could tell me. There was no. No discussion of whether or not anything we were doing was even really working. And teachers are never given that data. It was just a total void of information. Total void. He got it. They got it together and it’s abysmal. It’s disgraceful. It’s completely disgraceful.
Amanda (00:17:12) – Well, am I allowed to read some of it because I wrote it down?
Trina (00:17:16) – I mean, let’s give them credit. And then? And then. Yes. Go forth with it.
Amanda (00:17:21) – It’s it’s so shocking. Yeah.
Trina (00:17:23) – Read it, read it.
Amanda (00:17:25) – so in California. Oakland’s literacy rate. It’s far below, just like the state average. so. Only 35% of third graders. In Oakland Unified are reading proficiently, only 35% are reading proficiently. Isn’t that shocking?
Trina (00:17:53) – I mean, it’s and.
Amanda (00:17:55) – And.
Trina (00:17:55) – So the oh I need, I need. Hold on. I need a minute. Where is everybody’s outrage? Where is everybody’s outrage? Okay. I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Amanda (00:18:20) – Did. I’m sorry.
Trina (00:18:21) – No, I already knew this number. But, like.
Amanda (00:18:24) – There’s more. And it’s so disturbing. Please keep.
Trina (00:18:28) – Going. Please keep going.
Amanda (00:18:30) – Okay, so again, this is in this documentary that’s like very, like, exclusively shown for now, right. but Will and yeah, you can go visit the website. You can actually request a screening. So like if there’s like a group of teachers that want to see it, we should why don’t we request a screening? We should. We should. but of the 35% who can read, 75% of them are white, 44% are Asian, 24% are Hispanic, and 18% are black.
Amanda (00:19:11) – and then also they mentioned this test called the NAACP. I’ve never even heard of this test before. Have you.
Trina (00:19:19) – Know what.
Amanda (00:19:21) – It’s in? it’s called Naep. It’s the nation’s report card test. So it’s from the National Center for Education Statistics. and it gives you a report card. but this is the only assessment that’s given to, according to the documentary is given to, the entire nation. So, you know, I.
Trina (00:19:53) – Don’t teach third grade. Is this a test that third graders get?
Amanda (00:19:56) – Yeah. Or something, I guess.
Trina (00:19:58) – Haven’t you taught third grade?
Amanda (00:20:00) – I don’t remember giving this test.
Trina (00:20:02) – It might be.
Amanda (00:20:03) – New.
Trina (00:20:04) – you haven’t taught third grade in a long time. It might be. It has.
Amanda (00:20:07) – Been a long time, but I’m going to.
Trina (00:20:08) – Look it up right.
Amanda (00:20:09) – Now. Yeah. So, anyways, that test, showed, I don’t know what year it was that 66%. Of the kids who took it, and I’m guessing it’s third graders, but I’m not positive.
Amanda (00:20:25) – I just. I took notes while I was watching the documentary because it was I was just so shocked, you know, like, I wanted to keep this information because I wanted to share it with you, you know, like I shared these, but yeah, 66% were below professional proficiency in reading.
Trina (00:20:43) – What grade?
Amanda (00:20:45) – I don’t know, like all I wrote was, in AP test only test given across nation, 66% were below proficiency. Yeah, yeah. And then, I don’t know, I have some other things, but I don’t want to say what’s in documentary because I do feel like it might be, you know, it’s a. Copyrighted. You know I don’t.
Trina (00:21:14) – Well, what all this is to say is that, like. When I was asking what these numbers were, there were no one even believed the questions were worth even asking, and that the questions I were, I was asking was resting upon ideas that they didn’t even agree with. How do we get to a place where we don’t know that kids aren’t reading? What we do is we systemically oppress teacher, self-possession teacher leadership to a point where they are simply implementing someone else’s, curriculum and have no self, no have no agency over it.
Trina (00:21:58) – This is how we got here. This is this is exactly how we got here. And until we trust leaders to not only have a voice in this process but co-lead it, if not solely lead it, this is going to continue to happen. How did we get here? It started all the way back at the beginning. Episode one of our, you know, limited series of horsemen devising a system for K-12 education that required women fill positions so that they only get a third of the pay if you start from that idea. All of the problems we have in education flow from this broken beginning, and we have to be extremely brave when we face up to how many. How much course correction it’s going to require for us to get on track.
Amanda (00:22:51) – Well. And I just want to insert. That. Having curriculum available to teachers is great. You know, like. Thank you, sir, but please don’t tell us to teach it to fidelity. Please tell us that. Hey teachers, we know you’ve got this big, huge bag of.
Amanda (00:23:13) – It’s kind of a ridiculous analogy of of tricks, of strategies who have acquired over your long, you know, education and, and, and years of experience being a teacher. And we trust you, you know, to like, pull from that. Those resources based on what you are observing, hearing, what assessments are saying about your students? You know what I mean? Like, that’s what teaching is. And I feel like people don’t really. So anyone who’s not a teacher or has been out of the classroom since before the pandemic, I just don’t think that they fully grasp the number of like, decisions that we have to make, like in a moment because of student behavior or, you know.
Trina (00:24:13) – The behaviors have gotten so, crazy. The the behaviors in our classrooms are, I’ve never seen things like this coming back from the pandemic. I when we get into climate and culture, it’s shocking the things that we’re having to endure these the conditions, the lack of safety, the trauma that the kids are playing out in the classrooms.
Trina (00:24:37) – It’s it’s, unreal. It truly is.
Amanda (00:24:42) – Yeah, yeah. So we, we we pressed record on this because of the breaking news of a new episode on Soldier Story. And we’ve kind of, covered a lot of things that we wanted to be in this, this follow up episode to the the last, I mean, the last reading episode was an interview with my sister, and I, I don’t know if you want to do a whole other episode about that, or maybe you want to, like, talk about that next. I don’t I don’t know, because we’re kind of this is a mash of things that we’re putting them all in here. Why not?
Trina (00:25:19) – I feel like this this recording right here is a reaction because we didn’t script this right. I feel like it’s a reaction to the first two episodes in a way. And you know that I want to like, take some of the response or all of the responsibility for the the delay in this episode, because what I’ve been doing. Is, I have been getting back to work on the problems of sexual violence on our campuses.
Trina (00:25:46) – Right. I’ve been working with a bunch of teachers throughout. The K12 world, who are shocked and appalled and are trying to make some kind of traction towards implementing title nine because the sexual violence problem on our campus, just like all of the other climate and culture problems, has escalated so severely. So I’ve been distracted. And I haven’t been available to do this with you. I’m sorry.
Amanda (00:26:16) – Well, I’ve been distracted, too. So it’s not just you. You know, like, I, this is my first year teaching high school, and it’s been. A very, very steep learning curve. Even just saying that, I feel I feel like. It’s weird sometimes. Like, like we talked about this in a prior episode, how, like, you don’t really know how you feel until you start, kind of because you’re so used to like putting on a happy face and like, pretending and and help and just trying to help. but yeah, I do. I am very disturbed by the state of, like, adolescence, you know, like.
Amanda (00:27:04) – at the high school level. And I think that a lot of high school teachers are, but they’re just, like, carrying on, you know, and I just. And I’m going to carry on too. But, like, I’m so lucky and and privileged that I can work part time, you know? So, like, I don’t burn out because I don’t think that I could do this full time. And I’m not sure how teachers are doing it full time. Yeah, because just the burnout, the sleeping, the the the behaviors that I’m noticing the I mean, it’s it’s really disturbing, you know, the, the cell phone usage to escape, you know, like, why do they want to escape so bad? I mean, I know that phones are very, very, you know. and technology is just all, like, pulling us, you know, away. And it’s easy to just get sucked into that. But I really do think that kids are, like, trying to escape our schools.
Trina (00:28:08) – I think. I think that you and I are in our reaction recording here to the first two episodes and like, just. Really reacting to this. This has been the hardest school year of my life. I’ve told you. I’ve told you that it’s been the hardest school year of my life, but I think that we are setting up the climate and culture episodes right now. Because I think if you’re a teacher, you know how bad it is. It’s gotten so much worse. And it was not great before the pandemic. But the tech addiction is insane. The kids in the screen, I have no words to describe it. the trauma the kids are playing out in the classroom, the lack of attention. in the class. Like, I’m very I we have no idea what we are doing. And if we don’t start listening to teachers. Because no one in administration right now has taught during the pandemic, right? They they have been administrators. Right. The only thing that is going to save us and save the future of our nation is if we empower teachers to lead the way.
Trina (00:29:19) – Yeah, we are cutting corners and we’re just all sort of dragging our corpses across the finish line of the school year, and we’re going to show up and be back in the fall and do exactly the same fucking thing, which didn’t work this year. And it’s going to work even less next year. So we yeah.
Amanda (00:29:37) – Maybe to wrap this up, I don’t know if you want to wrap it up or you want to do I’m thinking like. It was if. If there were like three things, you know, that like a magic wand, you know, like suddenly everyone started listening to Trina English and Amanda Warner, you know, like, what would we, you know, yours. Two teachers just. Yeah. Like this. This stuff this year will definitely go down in in my teaching 15 years. This is my 15th year as yes, one of the worst years. I can’t say it’s the worst. I don’t know, it might be tied with my worst. Yeah, it’s.
Trina (00:30:18) – Tied with my worst.
Trina (00:30:20) – This is tied with my worst.
Amanda (00:30:21) – Yeah. and you’ve been a teacher for a very long time, too. but, like, I feel. Like I know exactly what I would say. But we teach in a district that’s different than teachers that, you know, like in other states, you know, they they might have. And I do feel like what? That we are missing some voices in this conversation. We are, we are. And so every time we do these episodes, we say contact. My contact form is working now. It wasn’t working for a while. Trina I’m sorry. My website right now. Com contact me. I want to know how your this year has been for you. Like, we would love to be able to talk to teachers and maybe we should kind of figure some.
Trina (00:31:08) – But that’s what I feel like that that’s what I feel like the last Solar Story episode. Or was it the call to pedagogy episode with the four teachers?
Amanda (00:31:17) – Yeah. Episode 190 that has four teachers who left and it describes very.
Trina (00:31:24) – Cold the pedagogy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what what I’m hearing is in places that are not us, right? Red states, red counties, that teacher autonomy piece is much worse. and it’s leading to great job dissatisfaction because when we say, oh, I don’t get to make my own decisions and do the right thing by the kids. That’s not all of it. It means every single thing you do is up for debate and scrutinized by people who don’t have your education. They don’t have your knowledge or experience. Why did where do we ever get into this position? Because teachers are not seen as experts, because we’re a female dominated profession. Like we have got to face this. We have this is the only way we’re going to fix this problem. So we need to be respected. We need to be paid. And by the way, I’ve been I spent all morning on the phone with federal student financial aid, people on student aid, dot gov trying to figure out my student loans.
Trina (00:32:23) – because I have $57,000 in debt for my teaching credentials. So I’ve paid $20,000 and there’s it hasn’t been applied to the principal. Like the amount of money I owe has not changed. Why is the federal government and these loan servicers making money off of teachers, loans? Right? I mean.
Amanda (00:32:45) – It’s backwards. They show backwards. Giving you that money as a bonus for all the things that you take on to help our school and our entire district. Trina, you are a hero. and more and more people are starting to realize that in our district, which is so amazing. but, yeah, it’s that’s just awful, but that I would definitely recommend going and listening to episode 190. And I told you you should. You’re the one that told me about it.
Trina (00:33:20) – Yeah, I know, because I was reading, I was I was trying to figure out, Because you told me the most recent episode. I thought, oh, wait a minute, did she do an episode on the teacher shortage? Because if she had, I wanted to hear it.
Trina (00:33:33) – Right. And so. But I haven’t had a chance to hear it, and I do want to hear it.
Amanda (00:33:36) – Yeah, she seems to. Maybe more, but the most recent one that she just published today or not today, maybe yesterday, April, the first week of April, Is and we’ll put links to all of this like in the show notes and on the website and everything, including that article of the 20 year old teacher that left and Fulcrum and all of that. But, what I would say for our district is, you know, like trauma informed practices, like, please lay off the academics. Can we just.
Trina (00:34:10) – Please.
Amanda (00:34:11) – Just stop with the academics? Please? Meetings are about it all. Our focus is on it. I just these kids are so burned out.
Trina (00:34:22) – We’re not allowed to sit down and talk about, oh, can I have a five minutes with another teacher that has this kid that I have so I can hear about it from another? No, no, no, no, that’s not part of PLCs.
Trina (00:34:33) – No no no no no no. PLCs are only answering the four questions. are you can you give me a big fucking break right now? Because this I’m not dealing with the four questions with this kid. This kid can’t sit still in a seat and is falling asleep and getting in fights in my classroom. Like what? What? How can you say you care about kids when you don’t give us any time to talk about the behaviors that we’re seeing with other teachers that also have.
Amanda (00:35:01) – These kids leaving, like constantly leaving, just leaving the truancy. It’s it’s it’s bad. It’s bad nationwide, like kids and their truancy. I know, I mean, not this is all.
Trina (00:35:18) – Coming to a head. This is coming to a head, people. It’s serious. The problems we are having in our schools and we’re nowhere near nowhere near, of course, correction yet. I please. If you have billions of dollars and you want to try to, find a good thing to do with it, give us the money to start a school, because I know exactly what to do to avoid all these problems.
Trina (00:35:46) – Please, bill gates.
Amanda (00:35:47) – Are you listening? Bill gates.
Trina (00:35:49) – Are you listening?
Amanda (00:35:51) – Okay, but that’s that that because I said three things, like three things you would tell people, like if they really listened to you, I said, please quit.
Trina (00:36:00) – Number one, cancel. Can’t cancel teachers loans.
Amanda (00:36:04) – Cancel teachers loans to.
Trina (00:36:07) – Come up with a system by which teachers, design and implement their own curriculums. And three. Something about Sal. Something about trauma.
Amanda (00:36:21) – Informed like.
Trina (00:36:23) – Trauma. Trauma informed practices. Yeah. That’s it.
Amanda (00:36:25) – Those are the three academics. Second, yes, they’re important, but kids can’t learn. It’s it’s it’s like what we learned in the first year of teaching school. Like Maslow’s hierarchy of need. You know, like, you know, these kids. They’re not a lot of them learning.
Trina (00:36:45) – So, Amanda, you and I are sidestepping specific information because this is a podcast episode. We don’t want to, speak specific to our school sites or our district. We don’t. That’s not what we’re doing here.
Trina (00:36:58) – But. But there is extremely jaw dropping crap happening. You guys jaw dropping crap. And we talk to teachers all over the nation. And it is shocking the things that are happening in our schools.
Amanda (00:37:12) – Well, and we don’t just talk to them. We’re like, we’re reading articles, we’re listening to other podcasts where, you know, researching or reading books where we’re trying to, you know, keep abreast of all of this because, you know, we’re hoping we’re not just hoping we are activists and taking action to be heard. You know, like, I feel like that is what we are doing. We are we are working really hard to have our voices heard in multiple ways. And one of those is through this podcast. and so if you want to hear have your voice heard, contact me, go to Amanda right now. And there’s a contact little button at the top of my website.
Trina (00:37:52) – I think especially to when we do climate and culture, because you and I are identities are revealed. What we need are teachers who are willing to be on our podcast and conceal their identities and talk about specific things that are happening without revealing any names, because people need to hear your voice.
Trina (00:38:13) – And we can change your voice because we can’t do it because we are hosting. We need you to tell people how bad it is. We all need to be working together because they are siloing us and they are trying to cut us off from each other. We need each other right now. Fellow teachers, we need you. I think that’s it for now,
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