00:15:06.600Do I want them to learn from some unknown source or do I want them to learn from an adult that
00:15:13.200they trust? That, at least where I sit, like, I'm like, go ask an adult that you trust, right? Like
00:15:20.960put advice down and ask somebody that cares and loves about you. And I think that's a hats off
00:15:29.500to you for building that environment where students feel safe enough to ask you questions that
00:15:36.600i don't think every kid can ask every teacher no yeah well they started making a game out of it
00:15:42.760it was highly enjoyable for them um but i'm assuming grade five is similar because what i
00:15:48.600find unfortunately listen have you ever taught grade seven and eight no the fifth is the highest
00:15:54.760i've been i've only been lower than fifth well good for you because you've never encountered
00:15:59.240puberty and it really is the great equalizer grade seven and eight gets messy it just get on
00:16:04.360on many levels, right? And I'll joke with my grade eights. I'm like, listen, guys,
00:16:08.980you're going through some stuff right now, right? And by the end of grade eight, I'm like,
00:16:13.780you're not my most favorite group of kids right now because you need to figure it all out. Can
00:16:17.980you go away for grade nine? Because I don't teach any grade nine courses. Can you go away for grade
00:16:22.060nine and come back in grade 10 all sorted? That would be lovely for me. And we joke about puberty
00:16:28.240all the time and having to go through that. But the thing about grade six, and I wonder if it's
00:16:35.640the same for you, is because puberty isn't a thing yet, they're not impressing kids the same
00:16:42.440way. They're not thinking about adulthood in the same way. So there's something so authentic and
00:16:49.060pure about them just wanting to know stuff. And I feel like your grade, all grades, but your grade
00:16:57.740particularly I mean that's a make-or-break era for a kid am I gonna like
00:17:03.440school am I gonna trust teachers am I going to feel empowered here am I gonna
00:17:09.800feel heard do you do you feel like that in grade five yeah I what you're what
00:17:15.560you're talking about with were you saying eighth grade like just take a
00:17:20.980break or was that seventh well it depends because now kids hit it at
00:17:25.820different times right but usually it usually is eighth grade that you start
00:17:30.080they kind of start like this and then we have to talk about showers and we have
00:17:33.860to talk about deodorant and then and then they get to a point where they've
00:17:37.760stopped caring about the teacher really like they really don't care if you like
00:17:42.340them much they just really want their friends to like them so you hit a
00:17:45.200different road there right so that's that's like the end that's like fourth
00:17:50.600quarter for fifth grade where i'm at because oh really after fifth grade they go to different
00:17:56.520schools is that's where middle school oh okay and so some friends go here and some friends go there
00:18:03.080and they start building different relationships and start caring about how's this girl or this
00:18:08.360boy look at me and they start to get they start to get stinky you touched on that so we gotta we
00:18:14.760we got to have some of those talks, but yeah, for sure. But you're right. Like it, where they're
00:18:21.000at, they, they love learning and it's, it's really important. I think, um, I have a, I have a
00:18:29.620kindergarten son and, and for me, I think it's even important for him, even in kindergarten.
00:18:36.320Like I need his teacher to empower him in his education. And she does an amazing job with that
00:18:42.420of teaching him the importance of fixing his mistakes. And mistakes aren't wrong. That's how
00:18:48.120we learn. But I think that that builds up into when they get into fifth grade or to you, right?
00:18:54.200Like that they've learned just because I've made a mistake doesn't mean that I failed. It's an
00:18:59.460opportunity for me to learn from that and then grow even more. And I feel like that's what we
00:19:05.080need more of an education is those opportunities to grow. Do you feel like, I mean, and I understand
00:19:14.380in elementary, it's a little bit different, but do you, I know that by the time they get to high
00:19:20.860school, it's like we push these kids to a pick a career, which is hysterical. What in 10th grade,
00:19:26.480that's when they're supposed to have life figured out. Go talk to my 40 year old friends. I don't
00:19:30.040think people understand trajectories, but never one figure it out, but also like decide what
00:19:36.420you're good at and what you're not good at. Stop taking it. Right. Like in that logic or that
00:19:44.360mentality, I think just bleeds into everything else. Oh, you're really good at math and physics.
00:19:49.740That's all you're going to take. Right. Forget music, forget art, forget drama. Cause this is
00:19:54.940you're good at so do what you're good at and all of a sudden we've decided a you're not going to
00:20:00.460be a well-rounded individual and b we are only judging value based on the marks you get not the
00:20:09.260learning you do okay so that's what i was going to say i don't know how canada is like if you do
00:20:14.380um they're called provinces up there right yes provinces i love side note wait i love how
00:20:22.940tentatively tentatively an american said they're called provinces right that's it i'm sending down
00:20:30.540a canadian history course for you all you're gonna teach at grade five you're gonna talk about canadian
00:20:35.500government we would need to because we don't have it um right do you guys have like tests then for
00:20:42.860your for your province because we don't so we don't we don't do standard okay so here's how
00:20:49.180it works right now we don't do any end of the grade 12 sort of an sat kind of thing we don't
00:20:54.140do that um if we're going to school in the states the kids write your sat we we don't do standardized
00:21:01.180tests unless it is we do some eqao tests early on in math to see if they're living up to the
00:21:07.980like to assert to a basic standard um and we also do a literacy test in grade 10.
00:21:14.380okay yeah so i don't buy much into standardized testing but yeah i don't either because so so our
00:21:22.700our standardized tests start at grade three and really they're starting to start at kindergarten
00:21:28.060because they take something called a map test which which um looks at their growth through
00:21:33.740the year so it's a little different than a standardized test but grade three they take
00:21:37.340a standardized test and from that moment on you're pretty much a number right and like i remember
00:21:43.420where i was in grade four i was in the low reading group in the low math group and i remember that
00:21:49.980like how how do we look at that not think kids with the ability group and we're like okay you're
00:21:55.740gonna go to this teacher and you're you come back together as a whole group and they're like yeah we
00:22:00.620were learning about exponents and i sit here and i'm like i was learning how to do subtraction or
00:22:05.340or whatever. Kids make those connections, right? I feel like we put too much of an emphasis on
00:22:11.820here's your weakness, instead of here's your strength.
00:22:19.220And I think those types of things need to start changing. There's a cool,
00:22:25.740I don't want to call it an activity, because that's not the right word, but it's called 20%
00:22:31.100time or passion projects or genius hour uh that it's trickled down from google and it's where
00:22:37.520kids get time to learn about what they're passionate about so we've had kids in our class
00:22:43.960um learn how to change tires learn how to knit blankets amazing right right it's so it's so cool
00:22:50.140i could talk about this forever because that's amazing the things that they do are unbelievable
00:22:55.580it's unreal i had a kid um he's in eighth grade now so it was four years ago his huge passion was
00:23:03.440basketball and as i was saying earlier we live in a low poverty so at night there's nowhere for them
00:23:10.460to play but he has a park across the street so he did this research about basketball but then i was
00:23:15.640like hey what what would be really cool is if you were able to play basketball at night right he's
00:23:22.480like, well, I can't do that. There's no lights on the court. I was like, well, what if we make it
00:23:26.080possible? And so he did this research and it went down a different route than basketball, but then
00:23:31.880he's getting those standards with like math and, and different, different subject areas.
00:23:37.260He wrote to the mayor, he wrote to, it was an election year for our city. So he wrote to a
00:23:42.840mayor that was running for election that the mayor that, um, was running for election ended
00:23:49.900up coming and talking to them and talking about like how the power public district works and it
00:23:56.540was it was just unbelievable that this one that's amazing i want to play basketball i was like well
00:24:01.740what if you play at night i can't do it let's change it right like you give give students the
00:24:06.700opportunity to focus in on what they care about what they're passionate about what their strengths
00:24:11.500are and then we can really really change education yeah absolutely i a thousand and you know canada
00:24:19.260i mean so the way it works in canada and it's a little bit obviously different in the states is
00:24:24.620each provincial government sets educational guidelines for the province so i know it's
00:24:30.380different for you guys so i have a curriculum that i follow that the ontario government or
00:24:35.180the ontario ministry of education has set and that would be different depending on what province you
00:24:39.900go and that curriculum there's there's a lot of hoops and whatever to change it or to to moderate
00:24:46.620it or whatever, but that applies to every school across the board. Whereas in the States, from what
00:24:51.620I understand, it's not so common. I know you guys have common core, but really individual schools,
00:24:58.840sometimes boards, sometimes districts get to decide what the curriculum is going to be.
00:25:03.780And what I've seen over the years is we've really made a move away from, especially at the high
00:25:09.680school, obviously the high school, we moved away from anything vocational. So there used to be this
00:25:15.140amazing school close to where I teach and it was a vocational school so it was like a tech school
00:25:21.720and they had a car wing they had um esthetician and hair wing they had a cooking and I you go
00:25:31.580there and it was these kids did everything I'm like they also did obviously the curriculum that
00:25:38.700they had to pass but then there's these amazing you know woodworking and and that kind of thing
00:25:45.020And I'm just like, this is, this is amazing. But of course, of course, it was in a low income area. Of course, it was geared towards kids that they've just decided aren't smart enough. And I use that, I don't like air quotes. For those who are listening, I used air quotes, scratch that. They've decided these are the kids that are low income. There was some gang issues within the area. They're not going to go to university anyway. So this is what we're going to give them.
00:26:13.020what I have a big problem with is number one, they got rid of the school. It's done. It doesn't
00:26:19.280exist anymore. But number two, why on earth are we prioritizing one form of education and passion
00:26:26.700over another? Why on earth are we deciding which kids should be going where? And I'll tell you,
00:26:33.760it takes one hell of a lot of intelligence to be an amazing mechanic or an electrician,
00:26:38.400or it takes a creative genius to be a chef why are we undervaluing it and and now we're getting
00:26:47.000rid of it all together right just like oh out it goes I wish I wish I had an answer for you because
00:26:53.860it would be awesome to see it circle back the other way um I remember when I was in high school
00:27:01.180I took a woodworking class I haven't I haven't gone back to my high school since but I hope it's
00:27:07.760still there because that was valuable to me and i i do nothing with woodwork but there are kids
00:27:14.580that need need those outlets right like i think i think as as teachers it's important to to stress
00:27:23.120to kids college isn't for everybody there's amazing things that you can do without going to
00:27:28.440college you know yeah well absolutely but also like i have kids that will be like listen you
00:27:36.620know, electrician or plumber or whatever. And you're like, well, my mom wants me to go to
00:27:40.120university. I'm like, heck yeah. Do it all. Do it all. If you're not hung up by economic boundaries,
00:27:48.060then you know what? Go to university or go to college, get a business degree, learn how to run
00:27:53.040your own business so that when you get to do what you love, you get to be, you're going to be a
00:27:58.340mechanic. You can own your own shop. You're going to own your own plumbing company, your own
00:28:01.920electrical company. You're going to create your own line of furniture and sell it to all the
00:28:06.780yuppies downtown Toronto. Do it all. Do it all. Don't restrict yourself. And I'm so exhausted
00:28:15.960in our education system of watching us restrict kids. You're good at this. This is what you're
00:28:25.360going to do. This is all you're going to do. I think we should be sort of forcing us, and I say
00:28:30.680this all the time i like to try to do what i suck at for a while let's see if i can get better well
00:28:39.500i think that's how you become a better person right like you take you take weaknesses that
00:28:44.560you have and you try to grow them into strengths absolutely that's that's a value a skill that
00:28:51.900society our world even needs more of is saying hey i'm i'm not very good at this i'm gonna work
00:29:00.160to build it up absolutely i think we just need to have more space for that but i guess i guess
00:29:06.480the bottom line of that space is like for anything else how much money are we willing to invest
00:29:14.720right i think that's the bottom line i think that's fair yeah right it'd be nice too if
00:29:23.360so i'm going to go a different route then and i'm going to say it'd be nice it'd be nice too because
00:29:27.520i feel like society lacks in in things that don't even cost money like empathy and and kindness
00:29:35.420right like if we if we could take some time to focus in on those areas and how how can i be a
00:29:43.560better person it's not going to cost you any money like let's just learn how to be kinder or for for
00:29:50.280you and i like i know i've read i've read comments that you get on videos you post you've got trolls
00:29:56.460in there like I do. What if we could teach those people like, hey, do you understand the person
00:30:02.940behind the video you're watching is a real person? Yeah, exactly. Pump the brakes for a second and
00:30:09.160ask yourself, are you helping to make the world a better place? Or are you diminishing what you
00:30:16.280probably believe if the keyboard's gone? Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And I think this goes into
00:30:24.540something that i was really excited to talk to you about which is sort of we have a huge push
00:30:29.500up here i don't know what it looks like down there of of mental health and mental health
00:30:34.700access and especially mental health of our kids going through all of the covet and the lockdowns
00:30:39.420and the masks and all of that and everybody's saying well kids have to be in school because
00:30:44.220that's where they're they're mentally healthy and and i start looking at all of this stuff
00:30:50.300um and start thinking a few things a uh i'm not trained in men i don't know about you
00:30:57.180i haven't been trained in mental health so how if we're serious about it and i'm serious about it
00:31:02.780why not have somebody at the school who's a child psychologist and their sole job isn't to come
00:31:08.460there on a tuesday of every second month is to exist there and be there for the kids why not
00:31:14.620that why not if we're gonna if mental health is so incredibly important why not big bring back
00:31:21.740physical fitness on a significant level or or nutritional health on a significant level
00:31:29.500and we don't do any of these things yet we say well when kids aren't at school they're not healthy
00:31:34.300well i also worry what's going on at home right are you just trying to get them out of your house
00:31:40.060is the home the problem because if the home is the source of the unhealthy kid mentally speaking
00:31:48.380we're not solving that problem by sending them off to school during a pandemic
00:31:53.580right right because they still have to go now they can spend less time there
00:31:57.980but we're still not dealing with that problem so now i know in the states you guys don't have full
00:32:03.820medical coverage i mean up here there's been a huge push to include mental health in physical
00:32:11.820health right so you want you need to see a psychologist you go for free we don't have
00:32:16.780that here by the way lots of people would like to see that here but i think for kids
00:32:22.460do you not feel like that is you're just talking about empathy you're talking about all of these
00:32:28.300really big things when in actuality these kids grade five grade whatever are going through
00:32:35.020heaven only knows what do we not think that that is a vital investment to be made yeah it a hundred
00:32:44.700percent is i so so my my school is different that we uh we went remote from march till the end of
00:32:56.540of the year in 2020 and we've been in person since then oh wow so so i sit at a very different place
00:33:04.240than than a lot of other people that i talk to but but what you're saying is still true like
00:33:10.880kids still need that opportunity to talk to professionals right like i i love talking about
00:33:20.640social emotional health and learning right i'm not a psychologist like i i do things like read
00:33:27.680books about how to help kids and how to talk to kids and all of this i'm not trained i don't have
00:33:34.080a college degree in psychology we we need kids to have those opportunities to just sit down and have
00:33:42.080some some true conversations that they don't have with me because i'm not trained to do that right
00:33:48.960and you talked about yeah at home there's things that go on at home
00:33:56.240i don't know how else to reiterate what you said because you nailed it on the head like we
00:34:01.920we need more for our school districts to help kids with areas that are not academically related
00:34:11.440and i think i think two school districts need to kind of pump the brakes on
00:34:15.680reading writing and arithmetic and we need to we need to say these are important
00:34:23.120but so is mental health and so we're going to knock out some time blocks and make time for that
00:34:29.200because i i went i went to a school district the other week and and talked to them about the
00:34:35.920importance of social emotional learning and embedding it in everything you do and one
00:34:40.720teacher looked at me and said well i don't have time to do that and i was just taken back because
00:34:46.160i sit i sit at the point where i'm like standards are secondary to me they're very important but
00:34:52.320they are secondary to loving kids and being there for them so i build time right and i i feel like
00:34:58.560other teachers feel the stress that governments put on them and the hats they have to wear and
00:35:04.400it becomes a it becomes a very thin line of what you're talking about we're not trained to do all
00:35:09.040of this very little of it yes you know in that in that capacity for sure yeah and we we keep getting
00:35:19.040hats thrown on our heads like okay well you're the teacher and sorry we don't have enough money so
00:35:26.080now you're the art teacher too sorry we don't have enough money so gym class that's on you
00:35:32.700like there's there's just a lot of there's a lot of stuff that I think needs to be needs to be
00:35:39.860worked out the importance of the world needs to be worked out and I I hope that I hope that COVID
00:35:47.080has helped us to take a step back and realize that right like I talk about with with my kids
00:35:54.780if math isn't your favorite thing in life that doesn't hurt my feelings I don't care
00:35:59.540let's figure out what it is it goes back to what we were saying let's figure out what's most
00:36:03.480important to you and let's grow on those strengths and figure out how to be the best person that you
00:36:08.200can be I don't know I probably went off on a tangent there no not at all no I think that's
00:36:17.360all incredibly important and I think that it's interesting because if anybody would ever listen
00:36:22.900to a psych call if we're so see mental health gets thrown around here like a political you know
00:36:29.060it's totally political hot potato that they just say it like they're supposed to say it but nobody
00:36:34.780actually is doing anything about it but if somebody could show there there would be such
00:36:39.620causal links between mental health child protection child empowerment at a young age
00:36:47.320and their physical health their future physical health their future um health surrounding drugs
00:36:55.260and alcohol their future health surrounding um obviously mental health their future surrounding
00:37:01.740are they going to become embedded in some kind of criminal activity all of these things cost us a
00:37:07.500boatload of money boatload of money all of this offset for not taking care of mental health here
00:37:15.980all of this costs a hundred times more than this ever would but nobody's willing to
00:37:22.140pay for them at the same time because we're going to have to to transition right we're still going
00:37:27.900to have the crappy outcomes from not taking care of this generation's mental health but if we flood
00:37:34.620flood and i do mean flood the educational system with a mental health overview for the next
00:37:41.420generation we're going to be paying we're going to be paying twice as much for a while but then
00:37:47.420watch how it cleans up, right? Watch how, you know, I don't, my kid has horrible mental health0.78
00:37:53.820at home. He has to be back at school. I don't know how I'm supposed to do this. And I want to
00:37:57.960take a step back and tell that parent, listen to how you're speaking. How about, and I know it's
00:38:05.020not easy and I know it's not, you know, there's no clear answers, but people need to start taking
00:38:11.680accountability of the role they play. Everybody's like, my kid gets no socialization because they're
00:38:17.860under lockdown. My answer to them is always, we can go outside. We said no sitting in a classroom
00:38:27.500with your face covered and sitting six feet away from somebody and no sports, by the way,
00:38:33.000or anything like that up here. We never said don't go outside. We never said don't get physical
00:38:38.560activity nobody's ever said that what what people have done in this mess of a pandemic
00:38:46.640is they've decided if i can't do that everything else is off the table and i'm not changing anything
00:38:53.680right that was that was something part of me part of me is happy my kids were the age that they
00:38:59.280were when covet happened because their life in school wasn't affected right he wishes that they
00:39:06.080they were a little bit older because when it did start happening we went on more walks right like
00:39:11.500family we became closer we talked yeah we we played more we my son what was it he was he was
00:39:20.780three my daughter was two like we played on the ground with him more like it brought us together
00:39:28.140more and the fact my kid can't socialize I know that socializing face to face is way different
00:39:35.020than a computer but how many of those people that say that also then let their kid go play on like
00:39:41.900ps5 or xbox and that's what their kid does for socialization at school you're like well yes
00:39:49.020you kid can do what they were still doing trust me they're at school like this anyways
00:39:57.020it it looks the same oh it looks the same because we're not socializing well at this point
00:40:04.860We need a complete overhaul of the way we do school and it has nothing to, COVID should
00:40:10.480have highlighted, rather than saying, go back to school so you can socialize, COVID should
00:40:15.260have highlighted, wow, we're doing school wrong anyways before.
00:40:27.180No, we have been lulled into a methodology of sit down, be quiet, take your, it's all, it's all bad. It's all bad. And the more kids you have in your class, by the way, the less socializing that happens. I tell you a lot of, a lot of bullying happens. A lot of like texting.
00:40:48.480a lot of really not a lot of cliques happen yeah and and but we're not necessarily socializing um
00:40:58.000that word has been thrown around more times especially in this province and i don't think
00:41:04.000people know what it means anymore i think they keep using it i'm like i don't think you understand
00:41:08.400the word because that's not what's happening and it never was happening in high school um
00:41:14.720Um, you know, I don't know if it's true, same as down there.
00:41:18.240Well, it's probably, it's probably close to socialization and social media are, are like
00:41:42.740Whereas, and that's the, you know, for me, a lot of people are like, oh, well, when they come into school, you have to put your phones away, you have to put them in your locker, you're not going to have them like, I don't know about that. Because part of me, as a teacher, I think it's my job to teach them how to have that device, and still be a part of the world. Because guess what, this device isn't going away.
00:42:07.160So I can lock them up at the beginning of class, but then I'm not doing what I need to be doing,
00:42:12.620which is teaching them how to balance that, teach them how to be present, and then still respond to
00:42:18.340their mom about a text message, because it's usually their mom texting them in the middle
00:42:21.300class anyway. Like, all of these things, we need, they're all in a very fine balance. And we've done
00:42:28.540a really, really bad job at enforcing the balance. I have lots of parents who are like,
00:42:34.980Joanna I can't get my son off the PlayStation and my and I get called I don't know if you get I get
00:42:41.460calls to parent people's kids a lot and my response would be take it yes what do you mean you can't get
00:42:49.400him off it I had a student he's probably he's probably in 10th or 11th grade now but when he
00:42:59.840was in he was in my class in fourth grade his his dad came to me he's like I just have a real
00:43:05.700problem with him falling asleep and I was like well what's what's going on like what's happening
00:43:10.540he's like he won't shut the tv off and I said well did you ask him to go to his room yeah he's
00:43:17.580in his room the tv's in his room I was like then take the tv away like like it's not rocket science
00:43:25.280look, like I'll have parents and it'll be like, I can't get my kid off the phone. I said, and I
00:43:30.680joke with my kids all the time. I've never actually done it, but I swear to God, one, one time I'm
00:43:34.360going to film a TikTok. I'm going to get a fake phone and I'm going to plan it with a kid. And
00:43:38.380I'm going to say, listen, I'm going to take this from you in class. Cause you haven't listened to
00:43:42.520me when I asked you to put it away and you're playing a game. We're going to have a little bit
00:43:45.400of a theatrical presentation. I'm going to take it. And the whole class can go out to my car
00:43:50.860and I'm going to tuck it behind my tire and I'm going to back up.
00:43:55.080And we're going to watch the response of everybody.
00:43:58.180I said, parents are afraid of having, like, if I take the PlayStation away,
00:44:05.840Joanne, or if I take the phone away, then I have to deal with my kids.