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Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers podcast, the podcast for teachers who don't want

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teachers survive teaching but actually thrive.
So it's been a while since my last

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episode, and I actually have a
really good reason why I've been gone so

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long, And in this episode,
I definitely am going to dive into all

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of that and update you and what's
going on and what I have planned for

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a future episode. And for those
of you that are new, I'm Kim.

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Welcome. I've been teaching for twenty
two years and I still love it.

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That's right. I'm one of those
rare specimens who still loves teaching and

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actually looks forward to seeing their students. Now, one of many teachers' nightmares

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is to be sick and not have
anything planned for a substitute. You probably

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left your classroom in complete disarrayed the
previous day, and I bet you even

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have to make some copies for the
current day, and maybe you're even behind

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on your pacing and you need to
catch up. So missing a day would

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really throw everything off. But what
if you never had to worry about that?

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What if you had everything planned out
and prepared ahead of time for one

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to even three weeks in advance.
What if you could be sick or just

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out for an extended period of time
with minimal loss of instruction. Well,

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my friends, this happened to me. In two of my previous episodes,

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I interviewed Kareem Farah, one of
the co founders of the Modern Classroom Project.

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The Modern Classroom Project model is basically
a way of personalizing instruction using digital

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tools such as videos. It allows
students to move at whatever spee that they

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need to go, while also letting
me meet with them one on one and

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give them individualized instruction. So this
is sort of like flipping learning if you've

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ever heard of that, where students
watch videos on their own time and then

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they do the practice in front of
you so that you can help them.

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Very similar to that, you then
either create or curate instructional video is to

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replace the lecture that you normally would
have in front of the class. That's

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kind of it in like a really
short and truncated nutshell. And I'll be

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sure to link those episodes so that
you can catch up on those if you

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haven't heard them yet. I think
it's really important that in order for you

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to understand what it is that I'm
doing and why that you watch those episodes

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and I really believe that it's going
to change a lot of things for you.

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And in my next episode, I'm
definitely going to dive into how I

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am implementing the modern classroom project model, so be sure to subscribe to that

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you don't miss out on that.
Now, I know that the payoff will

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come next year, when all I
have to do is just reuse these units

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with the already pre made videos and
I can just focus on getting to know

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my students and spending time with them
one on one and trying to figure out

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what it is that they each need. However, I actually had an immediate

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payoff when I got sick recently.
You see, right after Thanksgiving, I

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ended up in the emergency room for
what I thought was appendicitis. I mean,

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based on my symptoms, that's what
it sounded like according to doctor Google.

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When I went to the emergency room, the er doctors initially thought that

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I had these gallbladderstones that were pretty
bad and that I had to have my

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gallbladder removed. But after a series
of tests, they determined that I actually

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had some major kidney stones. We're
talking two giant marble sized fifteen millimeter kidney

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stones and if you know, you
know, as you can imagine, it

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took multiple procedures and the subsequent recovery
time to get rid of these, and

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so I had to miss quite a
bit of work right before finals, which

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obviously isn't ideal and really is there
an ideal time to miss school. So

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in this model, you do plant
an entire unit of study at one time,

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and maybe you already have a curriculum
that has entire units already planted out,

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which is beautiful, or maybe you're
like me where you have a lot

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of autonomy and leeway in terms of
what and when you teach certain subjects.

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I have to say, had I
not had my units of study planned already

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sent out to the students ahead of
time in the learning management system, this

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could have been a nightmare situation,
not just for myself but also my students,

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because a lot of them they may
not necessarily say that they want to

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learn, but at the same time
they want to do well, and they

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definitely wanted to do well on the
finals, and you know the drill.

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They could have had a substitute for
two or three weeks and be given grammar

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packets or just other busy work that
would have just made them really hate coming

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to class and basically they would have
learned nothing during that time if I hadn't

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followed this model. And you know, I didn't want any of that.

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I mean, none of us want
that for our students. In fact,

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so many teachers will come to school
sick or just won't ever take a mental

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health day because it just takes so
much work just to plan a lesson for

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one day. And just imagine if
you have to miss multiple weeks. But

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when you literally have the week planned
in advance and already disseminated to the students,

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you can kind of just have about
anything thrown at you and your classroom

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will still function fairly normally. That
and you'll also increase the chance of your

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students actually accomplishing something and dare I
say, learn something in your absence.

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And I know for a lot of
teachers, your students' test scores are heavily

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monitored. It doesn't matter if you're
literally on your deathbed, had a baby,

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or or in mourning. There's seemingly
no excuse that will save you if

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your test scores are low. It
sucks and it's a horrible reality. That

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so many of us have to face. Luckily, my students did just as

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well on the finals as they did
in previous years, even though I missed

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school right before finals. I mean, I'm sure that some of it can

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be attributed to the instruction that I
had given throughout the entire semester, but

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I definitely think that some of it
is due to the fact that they didn't

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miss out on instruction in my absence
leading up to the final. So after

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learning about this model over the summer, I decided to go all in.

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I decided that I was just going
to see how it goes. I've been

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teaching this long and what do I
have to lose by trying it out?

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And if it doesn't work after a
semester, then I can just go back

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to what I was doing before.
I don't know how I can go back

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to just doing normal lecture style.
So basically the takeaway from this is that

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by adopting this model, I was
able to future prove my teaching and I'm

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going to go more into that in
my next episode, where I do talk

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about how my classroom runs. And
just like the pros and cons of this

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model and actually the results of teaching
this way. On a side note,

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this is why I haven't posted since
November, just their recovery time and just

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having the energy to come up with
material. And then over the break,

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I was just tired and I really
had to save my energy to recovering because

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those stones they just would not go
away, and so I had to have

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three different procedures. And apparently I'm
still not done just taking a lot out

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of me, and what energy that
I do have, I am putting it

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into still creating more units of study
and spending time with my family. So

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that's why I'm gone, and I'm
going to try to get back on track

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with these episodes. For those of
you that are listening to this episode after

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all of that, I really appreciate
you if you're not following me on YouTube

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and you want that format of this
podcast, and go ahead and find me

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at Teachers Need Teachers on YouTube,
and I'm also going to link that in

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the show notes. I'd love to
see you over there as well. I'm

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actually entertaining the idea of going live
occasionally doing something like a Plan with Me

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format, So let me know if
you're interested in something like that, because

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that way, if you want to
know how I plan an entire unit for

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this modern classroom project model. Then
we could plan together. Thanks for hanging

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out with me today, you guys, and I will see you same