Speaker 1: Made a decision a face sunny Sun on Ihad Vision.
Speaker 2: What's nice to me?
Speaker 3: Hey, everybody, welcome to for crying out loud, guess what what.
Speaker 2: That voice is not Lynette? Lynette is God.
Speaker 3: This bitch went to Florida to like, I don't know,
celebrate our birthday or something, have some me time.
Speaker 2: Which that's so not what moms should be doing.
Speaker 1: And it's so seventies.
Speaker 2: Really, she's on strike. She's on mom strike.
Speaker 3: She's walking around picking herself. Yeah, yeah, having some meat. Anyway,
we have Robin Wazinski.
Speaker 1: Robin, Hi, everybody here, I am.
Speaker 2: And we're still gonna make this a great show.
Speaker 3: I mean, Robin's gonna try her best to bring bring
the the Lynette sparkle to the show.
Speaker 1: No pressure at all, thank you.
Speaker 2: You know what, Robin, you have your own sparkle. Thank you,
you have your own like.
Speaker 1: Hi Kailin, Hi Kitlin, how are you doing good? A
little sweaty but very hot in here.
Speaker 3: See I'm starting to get the blow of it. It's like,
you know, when you first get in your car in
California and it's one hundred and fifteen degrees in the car, Yeah,
and you don't feel the ac at all for a
little while, but then suddenly you're like, oh, I'm starting
to feel human again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm waiting for that.
Speaker 2: Swap places now.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just complaining. It's what I do these days.
Speaker 3: Listen, we're in Patrick's garage. Basically, it's nice.
Speaker 1: Although it's really nice.
Speaker 2: It's really nice.
Speaker 1: Well, there's video, right, so people have seen his croag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's not like we're like panic around.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 3: You know what we should do, Kaitlin for our video.
We should put our forur crying out loud logo behind us.
Speaker 2: When we ReCore. Yeah, that would seem so profreshed.
Speaker 1: It would that would be that'd be sweet.
Speaker 2: You don't have to do it right the second too,
Let's go.
Speaker 1: You know what.
Speaker 2: While you do that, I'm gonna say hi to our people.
Speaker 1: Oh and chime in if I remember. I will chime in.
Speaker 2: Because you probably sometimes skip this part.
Speaker 1: Not usually, but we'll see.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: How about Elizabeth Williamson know anything about her? Nope, She's
got a lot of kids.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: And what does reed to do with Elizabeth Williamson's kids?
Speaker 1: Does she accost them? No? Start it?
Speaker 2: How about hero Yamashta.
Speaker 1: Yep, his kids love him.
Speaker 2: They sure do. And what about Jacob Crowley.
Speaker 1: Well he's growley.
Speaker 2: He is growley, but like the sweetest, sweetest it's like
a little her and Leslie Acosta.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's at Ikia right now. I started waiting by
the elevator, trying to traffic.
Speaker 2: Not kids, though she doesn't she tries to. She's trying
to traffic grandparents.
Speaker 1: People's elderly parents who.
Speaker 3: Were Yeah, you know she does is she kidnaps them
and then she gives them to other families who don't
have like a working grandparent.
Speaker 1: Well that I mean that seems charitable. That's almost a
rap unhut kind.
Speaker 2: By working, I don't mean having a job. I mean like, no,
actively helping their child with their kids, loving them, buying
them stuff to animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, buying them things like parents would never buy them.
Speaker 3: No, you know what that reminds me. And I'm going
to tell you this little story a little bit later
about going shopping with Xander. But there was a woman
in line who was clearly talking to her mom, and
she was like, mom, well obviously that's how she was
talking her mom. But she was like, weren't you saying
you wanted to buy nice things for like whatever her
kids is, Amelia, because I'm in line right now with
like a whole we have a haul, and I was thinking, God,
that must be so nice. What must that be like
to be able to like, I see if she feels.
Speaker 1: Like paying logistically, how does that work? Then it's a
mom just gonna venmo her whatever the total is.
Speaker 3: Probably she's going to be like, oh my gosh, I
can't wait to spoil my Amelia.
Speaker 2: Huh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the longest shout out ever.
Speaker 3: Right, Uh, it's long because you know why, we have
fans that love us and.
Speaker 1: Support us, and they deserve it.
Speaker 3: They do deserve it. They deserve us to take our time. Yeah,
what is happening with you? School has started. For those
of you who don't know, Robin is a teacher. She
teaches first grade. She's spent many, many years teaching kindergarten yep.
Speaker 1: And when my when I had that full year on
zoom with kindergarteners, yeah, I chose to move to first
grade the following year and loop that whole class with
me so I could have them in person. And that
was really amazing and I totally special bond with those
kids because it was such a weird couple of years.
But I'm really glad I did that, and I'm actually
really enjoying first grade. Believe it or not, that one
year makes such a difference in just independence, Like there's
I mean, in kindergarten. I know it's such a silly
cliche to say it's like hurting cats, but it really is.
It's like you tell one person to do something and
you're only talking to that one person. The other twenty
five are still wandering around. It's even with an announcement.
They have to learn watch what other people are doing.
When I'm talking to the class, I'm talking to all
of you, and it's very very hard.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you this. I've always kind of wondered this.
I'm sure we've talked about it at some point. But okay,
so you start, Let's say you start kindergarten. You've got
a brand new class, and you know you're only the
first parent teacher conference is usually fairly early in the year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what the hell do.
Speaker 3: You have to say about all those kids to their
parents so that you sound like you really are getting
to know little Joey.
Speaker 1: Well By that time? Because we have our conferences the
end of the first trimester. We have three grading periods. Okay,
so in kindergarten, we don't give a report card the
first trimester. We actually just sit down with every parent
and talk to them about how they're writing.
Speaker 2: But it's only you're only like a couple months into school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you get to know a kid pretty quickly,
and by then I've also done formal assessments, so I know,
like where they are academically with number sense and letter
recognition and blending, and some kids are reading. And by
then also you kind of just get to know, like
what their preferences are and what they like, and what
their behaviors are like and if you need to talk
to a parent about it. But if a kid is
having behavior issues, the conference would not be the first
time a parent was hearing about it.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my gosh. No, Like I just head back
to school night and I said, you will never be
surprised on a report card. You will have heard from
me if I have concerns, either academically or behaviorally.
Speaker 2: So that's that call you really don't want to get.
M Hi, this is missus Wazinski. Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to chat with you, if we could
just have a few minutes to chat about Jeremiah.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I'll say, have you been waiting for me
to call you? Because so often you just know they're
seeing the same behaviors at home and.
Speaker 2: They're just waiting for somebody to confirm.
Speaker 1: It, well confirm it or just pray, just wing in
a prayer that things are different at school, you know,
But a lot of times they're not. I've actually had
an experience where I had a little boy who I
knew one hundred percent was on the spectrum, but he
was undiagnosed, and so I called her. And you can't
ever give a label or die to a parent. You
can only tell what you're observing. So when I called her,
I said, I just wanted to talk to you about
some behaviors I've been seeing at school, and I wanted
to see if you're seeing the same things at home.
You know, he's really having a hard time transitioning from
one activity to another. He's crying when he gets frustrated,
he takes his shoes off, and he climbs under the table.
I mean, he was having huge behaviors. And I was
probably two sentences in and she broke into tears and
she said, missus Wizinski, do you think he has autism?
And I said, well, I can't diagnose him, but if
you have concerns, we can certainly help you find out.
And it all sort of came out that she had
had concerns for years and the family was like, you
worry too much. She's fine, It's just he's just young.
And so I think she was so relieved that finally
another person was like, yeah, there's something going on, so
let's figure it out. So within a couple months he
had a one on one aid and oh.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, And was she like grateful?
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's was just a lovely such a neat mom.
I still see her, and I still see him. He's
in sixth grade now and taller than me.
Speaker 2: And how's he doing.
Speaker 1: He's sweet, you know, he's still you can tell he's
on the spectrum, but obviously not tantruming anymore and really
just sweet and quiet. But he talks, and so yeah,
he's a really neat kid.
Speaker 3: Have you had that happen a lot? I feel like
a lot of kids are on the spectrum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of them come into kindergarten undiagnosed,
because again, I think there's just so much denial that
can happen around it that it's like, okay, well, let's
just I think you probably keep giving yourself like benchmarks,
like okay, well we'll talk to the pediatrician at three.
Well now let's just do preschool. Okay, Well let's wait
till interparted. And if preschool didn't talk to them about it,
they've convinced themselves that there's not an issue. But I'm
always the one to bring it up. So, yeah, it's
happened a lot.
Speaker 3: Do you think that there's I mean, I know a
person who had a kid who was kicked out of
several preschools for behaviors that seemed to indicate some sort
of issue, but she just wouldn't hear it. She was
just like, Nope, my kid is just very bright, and
it's just that she doesn't like to be told what
to do. And she was reading really really young, like
very very young, taught.
Speaker 1: Herself to read, which can be a red flag.
Speaker 3: Right right, But I mean she just would not hear
it kind of still won't even though her kid ended
up in like a special school and there were like only,
I mean, she got kicked out of a lot of schools,
but she just wouldn't.
Speaker 1: And it's just so interesting to me because I feel it,
and I know I'm sure I've said this on the
podcast before, but everyone is so worried about their kid
having a label. But people are going to label your
kid for their behaviors and either they're going to be
calling them a jerk or rude, or they don't want
their kid near them, or they have a label of autism.
So people can start being educated and understanding, you know,
how can we be more flexible with this kid? How
can we help them transition and engage with other kids
instead of just having being sort of hostile toward them.
Labels are going to happen, so let's make it the
actual label that can get them some help.
Speaker 3: Have you personally experienced where you've called and been like, Okay,
this parent is going to be relieved and you're like,
are you seeing these behaviors and the mom goes, nope.
Speaker 1: It's only happened once, and it was a I didn't
think it was autism. I thought there was a language
development issue and they were just like, no, he's fine
at home, you know, I offered to have the speech
therapist just come in and listen to him and see
what she thought, and they just refused, so I had
to document it. Super bright kid, but that expressive language,
there was something going on with it.
Speaker 3: So every other time in your many years of teaching,
the parents have been open to like, oh, thank you
for telling me.
Speaker 1: Well, they couldn't not because the behaviors were so outrageous.
Something had to give, you know, right, I mean, when
you're having extreme behaviors, then the parent's willing to listen,
especially because the parent is having issues at home too,
so they yeah, or kids have come in diagnosed, but yeah, right,
every other time that I've had concerns, we've followed through
to getting a diagnosis.
Speaker 2: But sometimes is the behavior not egregious, but you're just
seeing some stuff that maybe you think the parent isn't seeing,
and you feel like you want to give them a
heads up because it would be good for them to
look into some kind of intervention.
Speaker 1: I usually don't if a kid is performing academically on
grade level, if they're kind of going with the flow socially,
even if I know that there's probably something going on, no,
I do not bring it to their attention, because because
it's so subtle, it's that would be a really awkward conversation,
especially if it's not impacting their performance in the classroom
or in the playground. You know, that's it would have.
That would be a conversation I could only have, like
with a friend, and even then I probably wouldn't.
Speaker 3: I remember, you know what, Let's take a quick break
and then I'm going to tell you something I remember.
Speaker 2: I just remember. I know I've I've told you this story.
Speaker 3: I have told this story on the podcast, but it
just stands out to me as I want you to
tell me whether you think this teacher was being inappropriate
or no. Okay, okay, this was second grade Xander, No,
first grade, first grade Xander. Okay, so you can relate
first grade teacher Xander I was told was being fidgety.
Do you remember this story?
Speaker 1: No, But I'm thinking of my kids. It's like I'd
be talking to a lot of parents if that was
my that's.
Speaker 2: The thing, Xander was being fidgety, and he was. And
this is one.
Speaker 3: Of those things where I know you probably think that
a lot of parents are like, oh, my kid's just bored.
Speaker 2: That's why they're but.
Speaker 3: But her complaint to me wasn't that Xander was trying
to like engage his classmates. He was being chatty, which, Hi,
he's my son, so like he and he was laying
down sometimes when they're supposed to be like sitting up
or he would put his legs out.
Speaker 2: He wasn't sitting. They were all supposed to.
Speaker 3: Be sitting like Chris Chris Apple Sauce, staring at the teacher,
and Xander would like like put his legs out and
he'd have to be reminded a lot of times by
the teacher. And uh, she said he was being he
was getting very distracted. So I said, do you think
he could be bored? Now, I know that that's kind
of a thing that parents.
Speaker 1: Probably say, trigger warning teachers.
Speaker 3: Right right, exactly right, Yeah, but what happened? So but
in the in the conversation, I was like, well, what
exactly are you saying, like because it seemed to be
a big enough issue for her to take me aside
to tell me that Xander's fidgety and just easily distracted.
So I was like, well, what are you Is this
like code for? She said, what you kind of said?
She was like, I can't I can't diagnose, but you know,
if you wanted to ask your pediatrician about that, I
think that would be like a good idea. Huh, Xander
does not have ADHD okay at all. So but hey,
I was like I got upset, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 3: Like if this is obviously a big enough problem, I
really thought that Xander was bored.
Speaker 2: He's very bright. He's he's I'm not trying to be
one of those parents. He's probably he just has like
a different kind of brightness that he thinks deeper.
Speaker 3: He likes to think about things. He's super curious. He
has like oftentimes a lot of questions. When he's interested,
he gets everything without He says stuff to me that's
like way funnier than stuff I could think of to say.
I'm always like, okay, this kid's ahead of me. So
I was genuinely like, well, maybe because they were a
lot of the kids were behind, and they were making
all the kids read at the same level during this time.
Well then cut to like, I don't know, a week
or two weeks later, she's like, oh, by the way, Xander,
I decided to take my advanced readers and put them
in a little book club and give them a harder
book to read and discuss. And she's like, and yeah,
it's totally fine. Now he's doing great. Yeah, And I
was like, because because he was bored, right, I didn't
say that to her, But do you think that was
well and weird.
Speaker 2: That she's made it? Tried to make it seem like
my kid at.
Speaker 1: Eighty Yeah, I mean, especially the whole fidgety thing, because
it is really hard to sit on the rug crisscross
apple sauce, and it's hard to do it for an
extended period of time, right, And even if you're totally
fascinated by the curriculum, you know, and a lot of
it's not that fascinating, right, So I actually this year
I've started, so there are some kids who just need
more space, So I give them like a square on
the edge. And kids have a choice of how they sit,
so crisscross is one of the choices. Sticks is another
choice for then you're.
Speaker 2: You know what, you can see me right now doing sticks?
Speaker 1: Huh? Sticks? Good sticks. You're being very cooperative, Stephanie, and
stick and mountain mountain? Is this like on your knees
but low on your knees? I mean I can't like
with your feet under you.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, okay, yeah, so those are sitting on your shins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like your tushes on your feet.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I just don't like a double because that's actually really
bad for your hips and your knees.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what about what about this kind of mountain? I
call this double hills?
Speaker 1: Oh maybe I'll introduce double hills.
Speaker 3: Double hills is good because you can kind of like
hold your legs.
Speaker 1: And it's yeah, it is. That's a good one.
Speaker 2: Okay, Oh my gosh, more choices. I know.
Speaker 1: How fun do you do?
Speaker 3: Do you employ the thing with the kids where they
can choose how they greet you, like handshake, high five,
or hug.
Speaker 1: We do that on when we go home at the
end of the day, so they can choose a handshake,
a high five, or a hug. And then but somebody
implemented the fist bump today too. Oh no, it doesn't
start with an ah. Sorry, sorry, Charlie. No, not my idea.
I won't do a fist bump.
Speaker 2: You sound like a really good teacher. You have really
strong boundaries.
Speaker 1: I like that. I didn't actually do that. You know
what I did. I gave her a fist pump.
Speaker 3: How Like, I want to know how different is it
teaching now than it was like when early teaching, because
I have seen a lot of like burned out teachers.
Speaker 2: How do you keep the fire burning?
Speaker 1: You have a retirement date? Sorry I'm being facetious. I'm
I don't you just have to kind of do new
stuff all the time. I don't like completely turn over
my curriculum every year, but I'm always doing something new
or creating something new, because I mean, if I'm bored,
imagine how bored they would be. So I actually did
a lot of reading this summer. Well, I shouldn't say
a lot the first two weeks of summer. I like
took a deep dive into content and science of reading
and just some stuff that's really building now that a
lot of districts aren't even talking about. So really changing
a lot of the way I'm teaching reading. Like high
frequency words are supposed to be memorized, but actually if
the kids know the phonics rules, they're all decodable. Oh really, Yeah,
Like the word the is a thch, it's a digraph
and a schwa thch is actually decotable. So there are
just some kids who can't memorize stuff, but they can
decode things.
Speaker 3: But then don't you feel like they would be constantly
sounding out words that you just see all the time.
Isn't it kind of better to be like, oh, you
just see the word and you say and eventually.
Speaker 1: They will, you know, after enough repetition, they won't have
to sound it out. It's more for those times when
they come to an unknown word and it's a high
frequency word. It doesn't do one bit of good if
they haven't memorized it, But if they have the skills
to decode it, then they can read anything, right, So
just more of a focus on that and actually just
different spelling rules and sound rules.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about my favorite topic. Okay, bad parents and
bad other teachers. You know, I like to keep things
negative word.
Speaker 1: That's how fun in the negative bandwid Yeah?
Speaker 2: Now, well, here's the thing.
Speaker 3: You're You are a teacher, and as long as I've
known you, I've been impressed by the fact that you
go above and beyond. Sometimes you'll hear Lynette and I
complain about a certain teacher. We also, contrary to popular belief,
brag on teachers that.
Speaker 2: We have that we love.
Speaker 3: Right now, I'm just going to preface this convo with
saying that Sadie and Xander both love every single one
of their teachers.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, every single one.
Speaker 1: And that's incredible.
Speaker 2: Did I tell you that.
Speaker 3: Sadie was telling me mom for the first time, Like,
she said, I really like my English teacher. They're in
honors English at their school, which Sadie was not able
to do honors classes at that one traumatizing year of
middle school. Uh, but she's been doing. We have such
good teachers and such interesting curriculum. Anyway, she told me
they're reading Frankenstein.
Speaker 1: Oh, but she said it's the old.
Speaker 3: Right, she said, it's the Mary Shelley version, right, And
she said it's like she was like, it's really really hard.
It's kind of like, you know, like Shakespeare.
Speaker 1: No, that's not what you thought it was.
Speaker 3: No, Yeah, but she said that the teacher is making
it really interesting and like translating it, like taking it
bit by bit and telling them, you know, helping them
understand the story. And she's like, it's really interesting. I'm
actually really enjoying it. I've heard no complaints.
Speaker 2: Xander told me he likes every single one of his
teachers a lot.
Speaker 1: Wow, And that's that's a first, right.
Speaker 3: That's huge, That is huge. Last year was pretty good. Yeah,
last year was pretty good too. But you know, coming
from that middle school year where every teacher sounded like
a nightmare, mister Zippity dudeah a math teacher. That was
Like I've always wondered why are some teachers so so
bad and like seem like they just don't like kids
and want to humiliate them, and some teachers are so
so good and go out.
Speaker 1: Of their way. I feel like a lot of it
is like a different era, you know, how things have changed,
I mean from even twenty years ago. And I'm going
to make a weird comparison, but like thinking about the
Me Too movement, Okay, there are just certain things that
twenty years ago were totally normal. Getting groped, you know.
And I'm not kidding, like, okay, I know, it's just
I'm going to totally take a detour right now.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So had my fortieth class reunion on Saturday night, and beforehand,
a couple of friends and I went to a bar
just because we didn't want to get dropped in early
to the reunion. We just want to catch up with
each other. So we walk into this bar, super crowded
sports bar, and this dude at the bar's probably seventy
like lock's eyes with me. When I walk in, I'm
just wandering around looking for a table. He grabs me
and like puts his arm around my waist, and the
whole time he's talking to me, he's like, keep squeezing
my arm, and are you like my arm is like
that is not where you want to cap it feel
actually anywhere in my body.
Speaker 2: It's like, it's just so weird about your arms.
Speaker 1: I don't like my arms.
Speaker 3: Just let your arms now I have to hide them,
relax and let your arms get groped. Yeah, except the
arm groping, but it was.
Speaker 1: That was from a different time, right, Like anyone our
age or younger would never do that to a women, right.
So I think back to my high school experience or
middle school experience, that part of the job, especially in
male teachers, was like to insult kids and tease them
and put them on the spot. And that used to
be like acceptable and funny, and it's like grow a pair,
So it's going to toughen you up. And I feel
like the teachers who are still doing that just haven't evolved,
and they don't think about like what it does to
kids and their feelings and their self esteem because and
some kids can take it, some kids don't care. And
if a teacher had done that to me, I wouldn't
have cared. It would have rolled off my back. If
a teacher had done that to my sister, she would
have been in a heap, you know. So I kind
of think it's almost generational with teachers. I remember when
I started teaching and being the teacher's lounge, and the
talk was always negative. People would always and we are
talking thirty five years ago, you know, kind of talking
trash about kids and about their parents. And at the
time this was and we were a low income school,
lots of immigrant families, like, obviously they're having a hard time,
and now we're piling on by talking about them and
having this attitude toward them. And I remember just making
this decision that I think it was a couple of
years in when I became a mentor teacher, and they
talked about that you don't talk about other teachers, because
I would go and observe teachers. They would say, you
don't talk about anything you're doing with your mentees publicly,
because then people are going to question, well, you're saying
something positive in public, but what else do you say
about me in public? So you just don't talk about
other teachers interest in the lounge. But I sort of
took that nugget and I'm like, I'm never going to
talk negatively about a kid in the lounge again. And
if I need to get advice about a kid, and
if I'm having challenges with a kid, there's a way
to talk about it that doesn't insult the kid, right,
because I feel like there's just there's a vibe that
you're giving off to kids. If that's how you're talking
about them, then that's how you're feeling about them, and
it's not fair. So that was just a hif.
Speaker 2: What if you have a kid?
Speaker 3: I mean, and you do have younger kids, so it's
a little it's a little hard to say, but maybe
some of your coworkers have had kids that are just disasters,
like kids that are maybe a bad seed, kids that have,
you know, antisocial behaviors.
Speaker 2: What do you do?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's when we get our school psychologist involved
and we ask the family if they're open to counseling.
I mean, because it's there's always something else going on.
You know, it's never just the kid, right, you know,
if it were, then punishment would work and taking away
recess would work. But it's there's more to it. So
there's probably something going on at home. There may be
something there may be mental health issues with the kid.
But even then it's not their fault. They need help, right, So,
I mean, I'm not trying to paint myself a hero.
I still get frustrated with kids, but my goal is
for them to come to school happy and to leave happy,
regardless of what behavioral challenges or other challenges they might have.
There's always something good about a kid. There's always a strength,
there's always I mean, the most valuable thing I do
is I have a list, and during the week I
make sure that I talk privately with every kid for
at least three minutes, not about school, just about how's
it going, would you do this weekend? How's your mom?
You know, because that's there's no pressure with that, and
it really it That kind of engagement with kids just
changes your connection with your whole class.
Speaker 3: Do they ever tell you anything like really disturbing in
that three minutes?
Speaker 1: They haven't I mean sometimes yeah, yeah, they call me Robin.
That kid especially, we were really mature. They have said
things that make me think, huh. I one of my
kids last year, I asked if his dad was going
to come to open house, and he's like, my dad
never comes to school. My dad would never be at school.
And I thought, well, that's so interesting. And I knew
this situation with the family and that you know, gainfully employed,
but apparently those lines were very delineated in that marriage
and in parenting that that was not the dad's job. Okay, okay,
kind of seemed to accept it, but he was one
that had anger issues hinge well, and that mom was
open to counseling, but dad was not for the kid.
So yeah, you find out stuff interesting. Yeah, yeah, what about.
Speaker 3: Like dud other teachers? Have you ever dealt with like
and you could think of somebody who's no longer in
the profession, have you ever just felt bad for other
kids because and not even like your child having a
bad teacher, but have you ever worked around other teachers
that you were like, oh.
Speaker 1: My own son's first grade teacher was that teacher just
really total horder. First of all, so the classroom was
always just a disaster. And obviously Jack had autism, but
she wanted him not to.
Speaker 2: And you're like, yeah, me too, bitch.
Speaker 1: Me about bitch, But I remember and I can't remember. Okay,
so you only net always say this. Okay, I've told
the story before, but I'm gonna told you. I don't
know if I've told this story before on the podcast
I've been in a long time. I'm telling it again.
I came to school a day I remember it was
the day before Halloween. And Jack was not an easy kid.
He was I think probably mostly just unfocused, not necessarily disruptive,
but he probably would get mad and yell out at times.
And so again, he was an autortunities. Yeah right, he
would call it right, bitch, bitch, cocksucker, you sut cocks
in hell, but he has autism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, excuse me, make some room for my child.
Speaker 2: He's bored and you like to people that suck coxswit intelligent.
Should we take a quick break before we fit this story? Okay,
quick break on that note. Oh okay, we're back.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he had a few Okay, they were I
mean infractions, let's say. Yeah, and the big threat now
was you know Jack Wazinski, You're going back to kindergarten,
all right, whatever. I loved his kindergarten teacher and I
was going to be like for a day or whatever.
So I don't know what.
Speaker 2: You're serious though. Yeah, I was going to send him back.
Speaker 1: That was her only like, that was her tool was.
I can't deal with this behavior, so I'm sending you away.
It's like, Wow, your toolbox is empty. So I come
in after school.
Speaker 2: Wait, how did you find this out? Did Jack come
home and tell you?
Speaker 1: No, they must have called me. I think he got
sent to the office. Okay, So I can't and actually
maybe not because that was during the grade where you
had to go pick them up from the classroom. In
first grade, you actually want to pick them up from
the clas Okay. So I'm getting an earload about this.
Oh uh huh. And I'm standing there and this is
in the presence of the teacher of me. The teacher
gets down in Jack's face, and this is the day
before the Halloween carnival. She said, Jack Wazinski, if I
had my way, you wouldn't be able to come to
school tomorrow. And this is how she's talking to him
in front of me. And I'm standing there and everyone's like,
oh my god, what'd you do to her? And I'm
like nothing. I was completely frozen, Like it seems like,
you know, I'm an advocate, I'm a badass. I know
how to teach. And all I did was tried not
to cry. And I stood there and I said, are
you suspending him? No, but he's been a real handful
or whatever. I said, Okay, well he'll be at school tomorrow.
And we left and he said, so, can I not
go to the carnival? I said, no, you can go
to the carnival. Fucking bitch. I didn't say that to him.
I stayed neutral. I never said a negative word about her.
He actually loved her. But you know, he was the
kind of kid where we would spend two hours on
homework and he wouldn't turn it in because like he's
an executive functioning disaster, right, and so how hard would
it be for you to ask Jack for his homework?
And then I would go into volunteer and I'm like, Okay,
here's the problem, because what I think about a lot
in my classroom is flow and pathways, and if they're
going to be turning in something, how do you get it,
So it's not a bottleneck. Right. So they turned in
their homework first thing in the morning, and the tray
was at the door. So there's this big crowd. It's
like a hoo concert, you know, pushing in on each other, right,
and kids dig in through their backpacks, and of course
what does Jack do. He shuts down. He's like, this
is chaotic. I don't know how to navigate this. I'm
going to turn my brain off and go to my seat.
But it's like, why not then just go get his
homework out of his backpack at recess? You know he
did it. It was just it was a ridiculous year.
Speaker 2: Did you complain to the principle?
Speaker 1: Oh? Well, the principle is another story, same principle. One
day I was on campus volunteering and she finds me
and says, you know, Jack is have I was in
the classroom today and Jack's having really hard time focusing.
I said, shit, I said, you know he has autism, right,
She said yeah, but he's really not, folks. I said,
it's in his iep like focus is one of his
biggest issues, and he's bored.
Speaker 2: Now I did say that he shouldn't. He probably was
he's very friggin smart.
Speaker 1: He wasn't bored, he was just tuned out. Yeah, I
think it was a chaotic classroom. He couldn't navigate that
just from a sensory perspective, and I think he's shut down.
And so there were times so she I would go
in twice a week to volunteer because I was still working.
I was working. I was only working halftime, and so
I would just like do all her clerical stuff. And
then one day she said, ah, we have to learn
borrowing tomorrow in math. I hate teaching math. And I said, oh,
I love teaching math. I said, do you want me
to come in and do the lesson? Would you? I'm
like sure. Now, all she could talk about how was
how rowdy this classroom was, and they couldn't They wouldn't
focus on any lesson. I swear to God, Stephanie, you
could have heard a pin drop during my lesson because
I was putting numbers on kids to represent the digits
and what happens when it and they got to use
manipulatives and they were up and talking and it's a
lady can teach borrowing on the chalkboard. It doesn't work.
So that was a disaster of a year.
Speaker 3: Sadly, hearing these stories just makes me kind of sad
because it takes special teachers to think how do I
engage kids? And I feel very lucky that we found
this school, even though it's very, very small, and I
wish my kids were at a big slightly bigger school.
But when I went on the tour of the school,
I mean, that's what they're doing in high school. Like
they were teaching economics, senior year economics. And I told you,
when I toured the school, these kids' faces were lit
up and they're like, quit, do you want us to
tell you what we're working on.
Speaker 2: We're doing this economics thing.
Speaker 3: And this person owns a store and this person is
a distributor and this person.
Speaker 2: Makes the product.
Speaker 3: And they had these bags of candy and they were like,
and we're figuring out how many and these people are consumers.
They're there to buy it and this is the money.
And it was like a whole lesson on like a
real life less on economics. And these kids looked so happy.
Speaker 1: Right where they got to actually do something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, as opposed to I've I've as you know,
my kids have school hopped a little bit, so I
have been to and before Elbe started high school, I
toured a bunch of different high schools and you know,
I watched I went into classrooms where kids just looked
so like, so bored. They look like they were about
to fall into a coma, you know, just staring at
the teacher just droning and like textbook in front of them.
And I was like, I just it's triggering to me
from my high school because I could not focus. Yes,
I'm sure I had undiagnosed ADHD. I don't know if
med's would have helped me. I just think I was
just bored.
Speaker 1: I didn't care.
Speaker 3: I didn't care, and no teachers really made me care,
except for my one teacher who taught teenagers in the
law and it made everything really fun. And he was
had a sparkly personality. All the kids hated him. They
all hated him, mister Finkelstein. It was quirky and he
wore like a polyester colorful polyester suits, and he was
weird and the drumstick and would hit the drum on
people's desks if they were looking like they're sleepy. And
I was interested in the law. I like true crime
like way before it was hipped like tu crime. I
was like I loved hearing about like how what traffic
tickets and like how to avoid and shoplifting and what
are the charges.
Speaker 2: It was to teachers, interesting stuff, fascinating to be Also,
I think also teachers have to tell kids that they're
glad they're there, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's if you just need to be happy to
see kids, and if you're not, you shouldn't be teaching anymore.
So I do think. I think about my school and
there's not one teacher that I would label as a
bad apple. Honestly, they're all so into it and if
something's going awry, they try to get help and we
meet together and we mentor each other. I mean, it
really is a dynamic school.
Speaker 2: But are you just saying that because you think they're
all going to listen to the show.
Speaker 1: No, no one, I did not tell anyone I'm on
this show. No, I'm actually saying that I love them all.
Speaker 3: I feel that good teachers can make such a huge impact.
I'm so proud to be your friend and like for
what you do. And I know we told this story
before too, but like your students and their parents, remember
you years later, like when you're an impactful teacher. You know,
we told this story before, but we were at this
fundraiser years a few years ago, many years ago.
Speaker 2: M hmmm, because pre twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Right to sixteen, probably eighteen because it was.
Speaker 3: Midterms, midterms. Anyway, we were at this Democratic fundraiser and
the woman came over to you starts crying, are you
missus w zin Ski?
Speaker 2: No, she didn't say was in Ski?
Speaker 1: Yes? Sor yeah? Was that long ago? Yeah?
Speaker 3: And I was like, what is happening here? What's this
lady all emotional.
Speaker 1: About Angel's mom? His name was Angel? I mean, how
perfect is that? That kid was so sweet? Yeah, that
was fun. And this year I have another kid whose
mom was my student. Oh my gosh in ninety one.
Speaker 2: Does she remember you?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah? And I totally remembered her. I remember that
class like the back of my hand. Really, yeah, because
that was and eighty nine was when we got the
big influx of the Armenian immigrants because of the earthquake.
Oh so all those kids are just you know, they
were my first kids, and they were all learning English
and figuring out how to find friends and just the
sweetest little girl and she still looks exactly the same, really,
and her little boy is so cute, Oh my gosh,
but he like he's all boy. He fidgets, he has
a hard time, but he's funny and he likes learning.
And so fidgeting is not an indicator of a learning disability.
It's an indicator of needing to move your body.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just you know, I wish that more teachers
that I knew of. I mean, because like I said,
the good ones are so good. The bad ones have
been so bad. They just seem to dislike kids and
not see kids as anything but something that gets in
the way of teaching if they at all have any
individuality or if you know, to me, I feel like
a lot of kids want to socialize.
Speaker 2: They're at school. A big part of being at school, right,
kids talk about it.
Speaker 3: The most important thing to kids at school is not
like learning math, it's making friends, your friends, being with
other kids. And then you get these teachers that like,
you're not allowed to say one word to your neighbor.
Speaker 2: First of all, it's not really your neighbor. I wish
we need to stop saying neighbor, what do.
Speaker 1: You want to there next door?
Speaker 2: Your seat mate, your friend, your classmate, whatever.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I'm just saying, it's like, it's not it's not
so abnormal if they're not doing something against you, Like
I understand that it gets disrespectful if they keep chatting
and chatting and chatting and you're trying to teach.
Speaker 1: I say, like during direct instruction, it would be tough.
Speaker 3: But well, then they should allow some time for kids
to work with a partner or chit chat a little
bit or you know, I've just or something. I've known
of teachers Albie had this where if they were done.
A lot of teachers nowadays let kids go on their
phones when they're not doing anything else.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are certain teachers that do not and and
collect phones at the beginning of class. But a lot
of teachers have kind of adjusted to.
Speaker 2: Like, listen, if this is our world, rather than pull
out a book because they're not going to do that,
go ahead and pull out your phone on have earbuds
if you want to watch tiktoks or whatever. But there
are certain teachers.
Speaker 3: LB has told me that, like, let's say you're doing
a test, this happened, I don't know, and you're all done.
You cannot chat with a friend. You cannot look at
your phone, you cannot do anything. You have to sit
and stare into space.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you can do more in prison.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: That's why. I don't why that's punishment, that's an actual punishment.
That's so weird. Yeah yeah, I mean I hopefully they're
close to retirement. You know, I don't know why.
Speaker 3: All I want to talk to you about is teacher teaching. Right,
there's more to us and our friendship. I just went
to see Queen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was so fun. I had such a sore
throat the next day because I was screaming and singing
every song, especially k Tell.
Speaker 2: K Tell was amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we made friends with that lady who never
contacted either of us. That's all about getting us a
T shirt. She was friends with the.
Speaker 1: Band, yeah supposedly, yeah, like.
Speaker 3: Good friends with him. And she was like, listen, I'm
gonna hook you up. They have they didn't have their
own merch table, but she was gonna hook us up
with a Raglan shirt. And we were so excited. And
she took our email addresses and no liar blew us off.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: See, if we ever go see your friends again, we
will so we will and we.
Speaker 2: Will, and we went with Lyle yle Krack.
Speaker 1: Oh, they had so much fun. He's the sweetest, Yeah
he is. And he totally talked more at this time,
did he. Yeah? Remember in the drive home he was
actually chiming in and kind of having fun, like, yeah,
he seems like he's coming out of his shove a
little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 3: I had to ask Xander a couple of times. I
was like, is Lyle having fun? And Xander's like, yes,
I promise, Like, well, he needs to tell his face.
Speaker 1: Well, his face missed the memo.
Speaker 3: He just always looks very intense, like he's really like
but apparently he was. He went home and told his
mom like how much fun he had and he'd never
been to a real concert.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, because it was the first time Xander had
been to like an actual venue, outdoor venue, real venue. Yeah,
that was fun.
Speaker 2: And you took we took them to their first music show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember we ran in. We ran into one
of my students at Queen.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 1: It was so funny.
Speaker 2: It was excited to see you.
Speaker 1: It's my student kid. Yeah yeah, yeah, and I have
his little brother this year, so we got some generations going.
Speaker 2: That's so cute. That was cute, Caylin. Do you feel
like you get stuff out of hearing teacher talk now
that you have kids?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think they need to be a
little bit older still. I think they're just still a
little too young for you to care about teacher chat,
for you to give a ship.
Speaker 3: I just think it's wow the fact that you had
that terrible teacher but didn't complain to anybody, because you
know me.
Speaker 1: What can I do?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: There were of one and my kid moved out of
a classroom with somebody who's being mean.
Speaker 1: Well, here's here's the other side of the story. Jack
loved her, right, he thought she was great.
Speaker 3: But I can think of another person from Jack's life
that he loved.
Speaker 2: It was pretty mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: Me.
Speaker 2: You know who I'm talking about, do I? Yeah?
Speaker 3: It was another big, big interest of Jack's, something he
loves to do.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, thank god. Howm I'm not remembering this.
Speaker 2: Be in shows?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, and.
Speaker 3: Was very tolerant of somebody who could be pretty mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was different though, I and I think people
who have kids in theater would vouch for me that
those directors are as hard on them as they are
loving on them. I think it's a delicate balance. And
uh so I cut some slack there, especially because it's
a relationship that he really needed, you know, there was
he needed that, So I cut slack.
Speaker 3: I'm sensitive to like people don't need to be mean
to kids. On the other hand, let's talk about asshole parents. Okay,
I'm sure I have been one obviously, Yeah, But I
mean I really try, and I've been doing better. I
really do try to like check my entitlement, you know. Huh, I.
Speaker 2: Can tend to.
Speaker 3: I think this has to do with my upbringing. Get
very defensive of my kids, of myself.
Speaker 2: They need to be nicer, you know.
Speaker 3: It's hard for me to see, like, oh, maybe my
kid was doing something wrong. But I really do try
to take a beat and understand from the teacher's perspective,
Like I can't expect every freaking teacher to be Mary
Poppins and like loving on my kids and making everything better.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating. I get that.
Speaker 3: So I do have to take a step back sometimes,
I know I do. With orthodonics offices and blah blah, blah,
I am learning, I'm trying. Some of it is exaggerated
for for humor, But some parents, I do think. I
think I at least have the ability to look back
on when I've been a little too hasty or impulsive
or gotten upset and check myself.
Speaker 1: M hm.
Speaker 2: But are their parents? You know? What do you do
about the really entitled parent like me? Times?
Speaker 1: Ten? I think ten, I have a really strong personality
and a big voice, so parents rarely mistreat me. And
if they are upset about something, I do the same
thing you do. I take a beat and try to
figure out where they're coming from, because it's their kid,
so clearly they think something's going on or they have
an issue that needs to be resolved. So there have
only been I mean, I can only think of two
offhand that were really inappropriate. And it wasn't even to me.
It was with other parents and the parent was approaching
other parents about their kids behavior. Oh yeah, and so
that's when I stepped in and they didn't they apologize.
They it was a fother Was.
Speaker 2: The other kid's behavior pretty bad?
Speaker 1: No, it was typical and his kid was participating in
it too.
Speaker 2: Like bullying.
Speaker 1: It wasn't bullying, it was.
Speaker 2: Are we too quick to say the word?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? I am so tired of saying the word bullying
because and bullying is targeted repetitive towards someone who's at
a lower step than you, for lack of a better word, So,
someone pushing a kid once on the playground isn't bullying.
It's being physical and probably needing a time out. If
that keeps happening over and over again, if they keep
finding that same kid to do it, then it's bullying.
But it has to be targeted and repetitive. So yeah,
a lot of kind of typical behavior is labeled bullying.
So when a parent emails me about a bullying situation,
I'll generally ignore the word bullying and just address the behavior.
So it's because I'm not going to be able to
educate them on what the word actually means or they
use it for any kind of aggression toward their kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you get some Karens right, for lack of
a better Okay, so the word.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had a total Karen mom. It's probably ten
years go when I was still partner teaching, and so
this mom had daughters who were driving and a little
girl in my class, and she was always on time
to pick her up. And one day she was in
the office waiting and waiting, and I was getting worried
because this was really unusual. So I tried calling the
mom's phone and the dad's phone. I didn't know that
the sister was the one who would be coming and
picking her up. And when she finally got there, I said, oh,
I was really getting worried because your mom's on time.
Usually on time. She said, oh, there was traffic on
Gleneille Boulevard. I said, Okay, in the future, if you
have a way to call me safely, please call the
school and let them know. Okay. The next day I
got a two page letter tearing me a new one
for attacking her daughter in the office talking to her
like a kindergartener. And I was there must have been
ten witnesses to that conversation where I talked to her
exactly like I just talked to you. And I almost
had to laugh at it, because it's like, I don't
talk to kindergarteners like kindergarteners, So why would I. Sweetie,
you should have called if you're gonna be me, you know.
It was the weirdest sort of strikeout against me, and
I just looked at my partner and teacher and I said,
I'm never dealing with that mom again. She's yours. You're
going to do the conferences, You're gonna sort of like
I got it. And that was the same year that
the dad was confronting other parents and she's like and
he's yours. It's like, okay, fair enough.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's hilarious.
Speaker 1: So I can't pass people off now, so I have
to be really diplomatic.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, this reminds me. Will you remind me for
Friday show?
Speaker 3: I have a something that I've been really interested in
that I've been watching. Just say it's something you've been watching. Okay, Caylin,
are you sick.
Speaker 1: A little bit? Oh no, you have COVID. No, I
don't know what it is.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, all right, listen, this has been so fun.
I have you for Friday because Lynette is out for
the week, so we have we have more time to
tell more stories. But before we go, let's do a
shout out for Kelly from Wilma and Frida.
Speaker 1: You've been Oh it was so good.
Speaker 2: You had the salmon too, I did. It was amazing, right,
with that this sauce and over the common oh so
so good.
Speaker 3: So they make the best brunch. But obviously they also
have like dinner food when they do little shows, and
they have cilantro julapena wings and yes the seven spiced
sugar and crusted salmon.
Speaker 2: Anyway, go there.
Speaker 3: Palm springs were palm desert Willman Frida also basic. Becky
can hook you up with a T shirt or a
mug or a mouse pad. I have to get another
Scott BeO mousepad because mine is wearing his worn out
Scott BeO blocked me so lucky.
Speaker 2: Or I need to stop using mouse pads.
Speaker 1: I wonder the other like my brain is trying to
process how you use a mass mouse?
Speaker 2: You still use a mouse? Yeah? Do you use a mouse? Kaylan?
Speaker 1: My desktop?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well Wade use as a mouse, but it's a
stationary kind Have you seen this and it doesn't hurt
your wrist?
Speaker 2: Oh? I don't know. I don't care about that.
Speaker 1: It's so good.
Speaker 2: Anyway, thank you, Kaylean.
Speaker 1: You're a pair. Now, don't I put
Speaker 2: Up that angle