Episode 49: How Can Building Relationships Improve School Culture? (with Lucas Clarke)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
teachers are very independent people.

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We obviously love to collaborate, but we also love doing our own thing.
We have our own systems, we have our own routines that we develop over the years, and itcan be daunting for someone like myself, who is just, I guess, vaguely academic support.

(00:35):
Alchemists welcome to the elemental educator podcast I'm your host Tyler and thank you somuch for joining our community for another incredible connection If you're listening for
the first time welcome to a place where we redefine leadership and challenge the statusquo Take a minute before continuing the episode to subscribe to our YouTube channel and
for those returning alchemists take some time to expand our community and share thisplatform with one other person today I'm so thankful for your passion and dedication to

(01:01):
being better together now get ready to let the alchemy of education
Ignite your passion for learning.
Today, I'm thrilled to connect with Lucas Clark, an academic support teacher with a uniqueblend of expertise in social studies, writing, and now literacy and numeracy.
Lucas is in his fifth year of teaching and has already made an incredible mark bysupporting educators and navigating the challenges of teaching and bringing out the human

(01:27):
side of the profession.
His knack for sharing relatable stories and insightful takes makes him a voice thatresonates with teachers at all levels.
From helping teachers master the art or maybe just survive to digging into what keeps themgoing, Lucas brings an authentic perspective to the field.
Lucas, it's great to have you here.
Welcome to the Elemental Educator podcast.

(01:49):
Great to be here, man.
Thanks for having me on.
You betcha.
And I mean, we'll unpack this a little bit, but it's your impact in education across theentire nation of Canada.
So so we'll get to we'll get to that here.
There we go.
I do.
I do say so.
And it'll come out right here because I want to know, how did you get to where you areright now?

(02:09):
So I guess long story short, five different universities over six years and then taught inFort McMurray for about, so it's kind of weird, like I did University of Calgary history
polysci, like the classic kind of undergrad.
Did the secondary education and social studies minor in English at U of A and then duringthose two years of my Ed degree, so this is kind of actually like my third full year

(02:32):
teaching, but I say my fifth year because.
My two years in my Ed degree, I subbed over 110 days each year plus practicums because itwas during COVID.
So everything was online.
I was still in a school basically every day.
So I don't think that's lost time.
I mean, just because it doesn't count toward my years of service doesn't mean I don'tthink I'm in my fifth year of teaching.

(02:53):
That's kind of what I think.
yeah, so honestly, wanted to get into teaching.
Had some teachers that helped me along the way in high school.
My dad had cancer when I was in high school.
So I kind of fell off the grid a little bit.
had a few that kind of encouraged me.
So chose the education path, kind of took that weird university path, I guess, after andhere I am teaching in New Brunswick.

(03:14):
Now, you just kind of skimmed it a bit.
Alberta to New Brunswick.
It's a big shift and it was pretty recent.
Yeah, I taught in Alberta for two years in Fort McMurray, grew up in Fort McMurray, met mydear wife teaching at a summer camp.
She was obviously another leader at the camp.

(03:36):
And her family is from St.
John, New Brunswick.
So she's from Nackwick originally, kind of near the Fredericton area.
So.
Really, when you live in Fort McMurray, if anyone doesn't know, that's very up north inAlberta.
Not a lot of people go there unless they're kind of looking for their first teaching gigor they're kind of working in the oil sands, kind of getting a gig up there in that field.

(03:56):
We kind of just sat and had the conversation.
Like her dad's a power engineer.
Eventually he's going to retire and go back.
Her only other sibling is in New Brunswick, so in St.
John.
I said, you know what?
You and I are both teachers.
We're not connected to the oil sands.
like, I love Fort McMurray.
I grew up there.
Still have a lot of friends there.
Still have family there.

(04:16):
But I just said, why not?
Let's give it a shot.
I'm originally from Newfoundland, so it's not that far for me to actually be from homenow.
So we kind of made the decision that like, OK.
And I remember it was I finished my practicum.
We got married in the summer of 2022.
And I was like, OK, we're going to move in two years.

(04:38):
That was our plan.
It's kind of like a weird long-term thing to just like, okay, like the next 24 months ofour lives are kind of dedicated to, like, obviously we'll go out to eat and we'll like,
we'll do what we can, like still have fun, but our lives are pretty much dedicated tosaving as much money as we possibly can to kind of make this move a reality.
It was, in January of this year, we actually, so we didn't buy a house in Fort McMurray.

(05:03):
So we're like, okay, let's try to.
We actually bought a home in New Brunswick before even being interviewed for a positionback here, which was a noble move, but maybe a risky, maybe even stupid move.
Yeah, luckily it's worked out well.
like, you know what?
mean, the market's kind of dipping up out here a bit.
So was like, okay, if we buy a house now, we likely won't lose on it.

(05:26):
But I mean, I'm going through all this mental, like.
home buying and all this weird moving stuff while also going through the grind of teachingevery day.
So it's it was very interesting to kind of go through that.
But I would say fundamentally, obviously love the East Coast.
Like, I mean, I'm a two minute drive from a river.
My school now, if anyone follows me on Instagram, it's it's on like the west side of St.

(05:49):
John and literally like a six minute walk and you're on the Bay of Fundy.
And it's like
a beautiful place to kind of go eat lunch.
That's a pretty sweet perk of the job, I would say, being near the ocean again.
But it was actually my friend and I, shout out Hillary Morgan.
Her and I, and Formick Murray actually shared like a classroom wall, kind of.
So I taught social studies and she taught English.

(06:09):
And we shared, I think we shared a wall for only like half a year.
But for the two years we were teaching together, we were like, we're both going to move tothe East Coast.
Like we're going to make it happen in some way, somehow.
She's from Cape Breton and she actually made the first move, move in the middle of theyear because her husband got a job in Cape Breton.
Then I was like, almost kind of made it seem real that it's like, it's actually possible.

(06:35):
People can actually move and uproot their lives and change things and be successful andlive a great life.
that kind of made it feel real.
And then obviously moving toward the end of this year, very sad for myself even.
Shout out to Cole McTavish here with my athletics gear on.
Absolutely loved my old school.
It was a big, chaotic, awesome, loving high school.

(06:57):
It was really hard to say goodbye to, but you know what?
Change is always good, I think.
Trying to change it up a little bit.
I went from a high school to a middle school now, but long-winded answer of saying wife'sfamily's in St.
John.
My mom is actually in Newfoundland now, so that was kind of...
Like there was no professional reasons to leave.
It was more so just family and she lived in Alberta with me near my brothers for I guessthe first eight years of our relationships and now kind of giving her a turn, being closer

(07:25):
to her family while hopefully we start our own family soon.
love that.
And the decision, you know, it's not all that weird, even though you say this 24 monthplan might be a little odd.
It's not weird to make a 24 month plan.
It's not weird to make a five year plan or a 10 year plan.
And we'll unpack this a bit, but this decision is so rooted in an extreme value thatthat's powerful.

(07:46):
And actually, you know, it shares commonality with the majority of Canadians in family andrelationships.
You know, I've never, I've never made it out to New Brunswick, but I visited Nova Scotiaand Prince Edward Island and the East coast is a beautiful place to be.
I, I can't imagine getting to wake up every day and just get to be around the scenery oraround, where I'm at in Alberta.

(08:09):
I miss, I miss being closer to the mountains and getting to see them every day and on mydrive and they're right there, but I'm not in an area close to them.
So I can, I can totally understand the, the appreciation for the environment that you'rearound.
Now Lucas, you're also a host of Mr.
Clark After Dark and before we get into what the elements are, we reference a lot aboutjoining the dark side in Mr.

(08:33):
Clark After Dark.
So if you, I just have to ask, this is giving me super villain vibes, so if you were asuper villain for a day, what would your one ridiculous demand to the world be?
Honestly, I have no idea.
I was trying to think about this question.
Like this was probably the one that stumped me the most.
I had a with my wife this morning.

(08:53):
I would say, we're not allowed to put Smarties in boxes of Halloween candy anymore.
They always get left behind.
They're the last ones.
I think that's a ridiculous demand.
Give me more of those arrow bars, those Kit Kats.
I don't want any of those Smarties in my Halloween box.
So all right, fair enough.
Out of all of the demands you could make as a supervillain, we're gonna pick on Smarties.

(09:16):
So right on.
Well.
I don't know.
It's not not the there's probably other things I could do, but you know what?
Not really that much bothers me in life.
So get those smarties out of here.
That's fair.
That's fair.
I kept thinking about what I would demand if I was a supervillain and I'm just, so tiredof wearing narrow toed shoes that I'd want everything to be a bit more open toed.

(09:38):
So I think my demand would be is that the world stops making close ended shoes and thingsthat just aren't comfortable.
All right.
Well, there you go.
But so before we unpack the element side of everything, why don't you take a minute andjust share your, platform of Mr.
Clark after dark.
Sure, so yeah, we got about 73 episodes kind of posted today.

(10:02):
I was kind of looking over and I'll be honest, when it comes to the direction of the show,I think I've updated my podcast info page probably 50 times.
And it's not because I want to completely change the direction or not make it educational.
I start to kind of see where I guess my flavor of intellectual interest starts to kind ofmove as I go.

(10:25):
I'll be completely honest, I found coming into teaching just like fascinating only to seelike the teachers that you think are just like sleeping at the school when you go home
when you're a kid and then you actually start working with them.
You're like, you're just real people with real problems and you're dealing with all thesereal problems while battling through the performance of teaching every single day.

(10:47):
So that to me was particularly interesting of I want to kind of hear the stories behindthe people.
while also still hearing like, how do we improve as educators?
And I feel like so much of improvement as educators, yes, comes with your, like you go toyour social studies PD, you kind of hear this new theory, but how to like redirect this

(11:09):
content and how to convey it to students.
But it's also like the way that you change your approach to life and kind of adapt the waythat you present yourself to students, I think is so, I guess, underrated.
in terms of how you see yourself as like someone with efficacy, actually being in theclassroom, making something happen and not just establishing a relationship with students,

(11:34):
but actually being able to like engage with all of them genuinely because you've kind ofdone that self perspective searching kind of throughout your initial education
development.
Thank you so much for sharing and you
changing frequently just means you're refining.
That's what we would say.
were refining our tool to get out there and congratulations on over 70 episodes.

(11:56):
Alchemist.
This is our milestone episode for us.
are episode 50 live here as you listen to this.
So hopefully we get to continue that and maybe we'll catch Mr.
Clark after dark one day and and find a spot on his show at some point to unpack some someof these things as well.
Love it.
Love it.
So let's dive in and talk about the earth element, which to me is

(12:18):
core values, it's the root of everything we do, it guides us and you've touched on it abit from your rationale behind your move, but as someone who supports both students and
teachers, what values have guided you in this new role that you're in?
I would say there's two kind of main things I guess I try to I guess distill with peopleand instill.

(12:42):
So I try to bring people together to not be hunched over, not be uncomfortable.
Really at the end of the day, we're all educators, we're teachers, we have these weirdkind of status positions, but we're all just people going through the motions of the day.
let's not make it more serious than it needs to be.

(13:03):
I would say, for example, like at McTavish, our running joke was that our slogan wasfamily, but I genuinely felt so at home in that school where every day I showed up and I
was never awkward.
I always wanted to say hi to people and whenever someone was new, it was always weird tome.

(13:25):
We had almost like 90 teaching staff at our school.
It was always weird to me when I would talk to teachers and they'd be like, I've actuallynever spoken to that teacher before.
I'm like, what?
What do you mean?
Like, that's all I'm doing all the time.
And so I guess to me, it's it's kind of like crafting belonging without actually like,hey, I'm here to help you belong.
Like, you don't want to be like weird and kind of in their face about it.

(13:46):
But you want to be like, hey, like, how's it going?
How's your move been?
Kind of getting them comfortable in their own skin in the building.
And I would say
I think with the belonging comes confidence.
Because like, once you feel like you've kind of broken down that barrier, even as a newteacher or a student in the school where you're actually comfortable asking questions
about things you don't know, you're going to start building the confidence of actuallybecoming better.

(14:11):
And I would say it's my main thing is that there, to me, it's there's no such thing as astupid question.
But there's also
Everyone needs to actually embody that meaning even if I come to you with a question thatI should probably know the answer to whether that's me to an admin or me to a fellow

(14:33):
teacher Don't make people feel stupid for asking the questions and you can do that withoutsaying things like you can kind of give looks and I think like that to me is so poisonous
for Any sort of future collaboration because that's always kind of in your head.
So you're always gonna be hesitant
So I guess I'm always trying to think about belonging with teachers and like, I guess evennew administrators coming into a building, that's always gonna be a weird thing where

(14:59):
you're kind of coming into this kind of existing ecosystem and you're trying to establishyourself as a leader, just say hello.
It's not that serious.
And then also when I'm kind of doing my like literacy circles, which is kind of mostlywhat I've been doing now in my new role, you have students who are struggling to read.
That's probably like the most anxiety inducing thing that you can possibly go through as astudent.

(15:23):
Like, okay, if I don't know the inner workings of a volcano, okay, that's fine.
A lot of people don't.
I ask a question in science, I'm intrigued.
But the idea of like reading out loud when you don't really, when you're not really thatgood at reading yet, that can be so stressful.
So I always just try to say, I do not care.

(15:44):
if you read this in five minutes, if you read it in 10 seconds, if we're doing like aspeed read activity, for example, for fluency.
And I say like, if another student like laughs at you in here, it's different when they'reall like friends and we've kind of established that rapport and we're kind of joking with
each other while we're doing it, that's very different.
But the laughing at versus with, I always try to make sure we establish the conditions tobe able to laugh with each other while we're doing that work, because it just makes it not

(16:07):
feel like work.
that and it's value rooted in relationships and you you talked about building confidence Iwould say I would say building comfort as well right it's it's building a space where
people feel safe enough to make a mistake I will challenge that stupid question commentthough I think that if I've been asked for the eighth time in the same

(16:29):
10 minutes span, what are we doing on?
What are we working on?
Where are we going?
I think some questions can become, can navigate down that road.
Now, now I'm not going to admit that in person to saying that there's stupid questions.
but I do think that there's times where questions don't need to be asked.
Not the topic we wanted to get to though on there.
very powerful story that you're, you're telling though, in creating behind that value and,the idea of collective efficacy.

(16:55):
And what you're doing is you're setting high expectations.
And one of my favorite
quotes as high expectations is an act of love while low expectations is an act of apathy.
And so you're setting these strong demands for not just yourself, but the people aroundyou.
And in doing that, you're actually lifting everybody up around you as well.
So quite a powerful thing going on in Mr.

(17:16):
Clark's classroom.
Yeah.
Yeah.
down or kind of just intuitive, that's always what I'm trying to do.
I think that's the point of why we're doing this.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And I think back to the school you were in in Alberta and you know...
We might laugh at that word being family.
Mine is working together for success and we actively make a point of actioning thosethings.

(17:41):
And so for you, family really stood out and, and maybe felt like it for you because it wassomething that your team around you was also mindful of as well and tried to prioritize
and emphasize.
And even though it might've become a bit of a joke within, within the community, wassomething being actively talked about and the consistency behind the prompt makes a huge
difference.

(18:03):
Wait, I think, sorry, go ahead.
No, I just gonna say, I think when you start joking about the family motto, it's like theact of joking about it is actually kind of creating that invisible family connection.
If that kind of makes sense.
It's almost like having that as a conversation, it's like, we're family, but it's likeyou're already in that motion of joking and kind of shooting the poop a little bit about

(18:25):
it.
So I think that's kind of the underrated part of where those slogans and kind of communityideas and ideals come from.
Yeah, absolutely.
It gives common ground.
So you've talked about helping teachers bring out this human side of profession.
What's a story or moment that reinforced why that's such an important value for you?

(18:50):
Well, I would say that teachers are, we're always putting a lot of pressure on ourselvesto be very professional, which is obviously a necessity.
I would say for me, when it comes to the human side is that sometimes, maybe you noticethat like a teacher's starting to slip a little bit.
Maybe you notice like, okay, like it's nothing serious, but okay, but they used to come inat eight, at 7.45, but now like they're starting to come in around 8.20.

(19:18):
Like they're starting to, like it's getting colder outside.
Like I'm seeing that grin there too.
I'm starting, like it's getting colder.
People are eating more sugar.
They're getting those Starbucks drinks.
They're kind of starting to wane a little bit in the year.
But I guess for me, the most, like you don't realize how much can happen in someone's lifewhile they're still going through the kind of daily activity where they're.

(19:44):
maybe distracting themselves from it, but I guess my story would be, when I was still inuniversity, it was very weird that in 2019, I wrote my final exam for a semester in my
arts degree.
was a city politics exam, and it was December 19th, it was our last exam of the semester,December 20th, 2019, my dad passes away at 12.42 p.m.

(20:12):
So it's like,
I'm going through, I'm in there writing an exam the day before, got an A minus by the way.
I'm there writing an exam, kind of going through my day, I'm shaking my professor's handknowing that my dad's like in the hospital like on his last leg of radiation trying to get
something.
And he actually was like rushed to the hospital at like 3 a.m.

(20:33):
the next morning.
I remember actually finishing the exam and being like, like finally I can.
like spend some time with my family over Christmas, like I've been working so hard tryingto get this done.
I actually remember studying, he got rushed to the hospital in like a South Calgaryhospital, because I was like the only one that could take him.
We lived in Airdrie at the time, so not far.
And I remember there weren't enough rooms ready for him to actually be given one, so hewas on a stretcher in the hallway, and I was sitting in a chair next to him with my mom.

(21:05):
and I'm going through my medieval history notes trying to study for my final exam.
it's like, and again, maybe that's even a coping mechanism on my part.
Like, okay, I'm gonna just focus on what I can control here and try to like do this whilehe's going through that.
But the only reason I even like bring up that story, yes, we all have like parents andgrandparents and aunts and uncles and siblings that kind of go through, I guess like

(21:27):
traumatic deaths like that.
But the weirdest part to me,
So guess I'll share kind of like two moments of that was I remember, so he passes away at12 42 PM on December 20th, 2019.
And I remember it was like a very weird moment when I watched him kind of take his lastbreath.

(21:49):
I stand up, I go out to find the nurse, I'm like, I think he's gone.
And then, but the only reason I even bring that story up is that she comes in.
And like, we're all going through this moment and like, you look outside and the nursesare talking about like the donuts and coffee that were brought in and like everyone's just
going about their lives as usual.
And you're like, my gosh, like everything kind of changes for you in that moment.

(22:15):
And everything else is still going on for everyone outside.
And I guess like the part that was surreal to me was.
going back to school on January 13th.
So obviously you would have had Christmas break for university there.
We'd go over to Newfoundland, the funeral, do everything like that.
But I remember sitting down in class and I'm like, this is weird.
Like this is very weird that I'm just back in school.

(22:37):
Everyone's like, I had a great Christmas, like we ate turkey.
I'm like, this is wild to me.
And I guess all that comes to say is that.
we're still so focused on trying to like improve and be there for our professional selvesand be there for our students while like everything is kind of going on in the background
that we don't really take into account when we're maybe placing judgment on other teachersor even students for that.

(22:58):
Like we always say about students, they have X and Y and Z going on.
That's likely why they're behaving this way, this way and this way.
We don't give the same grace to teachers at all.
Now I'm not saying all teachers are going through that, but
Yeah, then the following six months I went into, like my mom moved to Newfoundland,started seeing someone else and then COVID hit.

(23:23):
And then it was just like so much happening in a six month span that I started teachingthat following September.
I'm like, this is so wild that I'm like the person at the front of the room now.
And I've had all this going on and no one knows any of it.
But like that to me is what I find kind of.
interesting and part of my podcast is like diving into those types of stories like youlike you meet a teacher and you're like hey they're like hey how's it going nice to meet

(23:44):
you lucas like glad to have you here you talked to another teacher they're like yeah theywent through like a crazy divorce this summer i'm like what like that's so crazy to me to
like hear those stories but yeah that's a long-winded answer to kind of like that questionhopefully but
No, it's great.
And it's, it's the front people put on and it's the, it's the things that we do with themindset of, know, we have to show up and put kids first.

(24:08):
almost every, everybody in the education world has been told, the moment you walk in thatdoor, whatever you're bringing from outside, you have to leave.
and I think that's a problem to be honest.
I think it's a problem to, mask and to hide it.
Now you're not going to go in absolutely devastated and spend your next period.
eight periods getting counseled for whatever you may be going through.

(24:32):
But it's a testament that we're human and if we expect to do what's best for kids, we alsohave to do what's best for teachers, which is to give teachers comfortable spaces to talk
about things they're going through as well.
Something important about that as well is that can translate outside of education inwhatever workplace you might be in, right?

(24:52):
We're often told don't bring whatever you're going through to your workplace.
And that's what causes such a divide between your personal and your professional life.
And that's where most of those roadblocks flare up and stem from is we're hiding who weare at our work and we're not, we're not actioning our, our personal values in our
workplace.
But when you value something like relationships and you bring it from personal life toprofessional life, you start to bridge that gap and your job starts to become fun and you

(25:19):
start to get invested in it a lot more.
And that's the power we see coming out of your story.
And it's a powerful story and it's a good reminder that we don't know what people aregoing through, but we know how to connect with people on a genuine human level.
And when you can do that, you can start to work towards common goals a little bit betterand the day is a little bit better and the years are a little bit better.

(25:44):
So thank you so much for sharing the story, Lucas.
It's a powerful story.
It's a heavy story.
But it's a great story because it talks about the foundation of that value and where thatvalue really comes from and the support behind those relationships.
Now with that, your story had a lot of adversity.
So with that adversity, how has even stepping into where you are now been a bit easierbecause of this value of relationships?

(26:14):
I would say, would honestly live with my new position.
Like you're going from a staff of 80 teachers now to one of like 15 or 16 that I'm at now.
I would say it's really made myself just like not take myself that seriously.
Meaning like if I'm going to give others the grace of like not putting them or not takingthem seriously in the sense of not taking them seriously, I mean that's the wrong phrasing

(26:42):
but.
not looking at anyone with a judgmental eye.
Just knowing that, maybe you walk in and like maybe I'm helping support a teacher and thelesson plan's not the best from my perspective.
But it's like, okay, I don't know what happened yesterday, I don't know what happened thismorning, I don't know what happened last period, that maybe they're frazzled for a

(27:03):
different reason.
Like, it's always kind of looking beyond kind of like your initial perception ofeverything I think is the most important part.
And I think even for myself, I'm like, I came into literacy and numeracy.
I like, I have no idea what I'm doing.
And I think the more people are okay with accepting that they're kind of in a brand newrole and needing to come in at admitting what they don't know and knowing that they can

(27:29):
grow, I think is the most important thing.
But I would say giving myself the grace to be like, okay, I'm in a new position.
I'm not gonna learn everything overnight.
I'm gonna make mistakes.
There's gonna be days where I'm like, I taught like absolute crap today.
And there's gonna be days where I'm like, this was one of the best days of teaching I'veever had in my life.
I know that's gonna happen.
I know that kind of exchange is going to happen.

(27:49):
But I would say that would be the consequence of my adversity is kind of just beingcomfortable with myself, knowing that others are probably maybe even going through worse
things than that and still kind of going through the motions every day.
So it's like you're kind of giving people grace and giving yourself some grace as well.
that and
When you're new at something, you are going to learn more than probably the people aroundyou are going to learn.

(28:10):
My first year in leadership, I learned so much more probably than what I was able to offeras a leader.
And what that does is it makes it so that the following year, maybe I can offer a littlebit more, but I'm still learning significantly more than probably what I'm offering out.
But I'm in that learning process and learning process and the best leaders are alwaysstill learning how to lead.

(28:31):
And the best teachers are always still learning how to teach and the best people.
are always still learning how to be better people.
Right?
So it's a personal growth journey that we're all on.
And it's that continuous, right?
It gets laughed about sometimes, but that idea of being a lifelong learner and, and, andwhat it means to the world and what it means to people and what it means to our growth.

(28:54):
so you're, you're summing it up beautifully.
And so I love the conversation there.
And with that, we talk about not always seeing what's behind the scenes or not seeing thelesson before the minute before, or that thought.
And there's so many things that are impacting self doubt and burnout within not justteachers, but anybody really.

(29:15):
in a workforce or a public service workforce as well.
So with navigating even your new challenge, what strategies are helping you push throughthose moments and stay so motivated to do what you're doing?
I would say the motivation definitely comes from, like even this past week, I had studentsthat were completely shut down 30 weeks ago, and I'm like trying to encourage them, and

(29:37):
they're like, no, like I don't wanna do this too.
Even this week, like I can think of two students in my head right now this week, obviouslyI won't say their names, but full on speaking out loud, speaking with authority, giving
attempts, failing on purpose, and trying to improve.
I would say that's definitely what
motivated me?
guess first, like what do mean by strategies, for example, in in regard to that question?

(30:01):
So our our air element is all about how we handle difficult moments and just adversity and
you have faced a lot and you you talked about maybe one of your strategies being when youwere in the hospital, you deflected and went right to working on history notes.
Now that you've moved locations, there's a lot of stress and even just to move itself.

(30:24):
Equally, there's a lot of excitement in a move itself.
Taking on a new role, there's a lot of stress.
There's a lot of excitement, not having a contract.
There's a lot of stress.
There's a lot of excitement on maybe I'm going to get it, right?
Just settling into a new community.
What are you doing and are you being mindful in terms of recognizing that this isadversity you're facing and how are you overcoming it when it gets scary?

(30:48):
I would say I definitely lean on both my admin team and I would say my wife especially.
I know that's a cliche thing to say, but my wife's also a teacher.
And I would say we've kind of developed this like like relationship communication thingwhere it's not that we like I know sometimes I've heard a lot of like.

(31:08):
things on relationships where you actually make time to sit down to discuss.
Maybe once a week you discuss how are things going in the household, for example, thatwould be something.
But it's just kind of organically started where we both get up kind of earlier.
And then we both leave the house around like 7.20, 7.25.
But from like 6 to 6.30 every day, we just sit and have coffee together.

(31:32):
So it's always been like a daily thing.
And it's not like, okay, at six, we're gonna have our coffee time and have this chat.
But it's like,
every day, we're kind of balancing each other out if that kind of makes sense.
So it kind of helps me approach the day the same way.
Also, it's kind of nice that at my new district, and I'm not sure if they have this inother districts in Alberta, but I don't think they had it in Fort Murray anyway, but we

(31:57):
actually have learning coaches in our district.
So for example, they have like a literacy and a numeracy coach.
who it's their full-time job to pretty much be available to the new teachers in thesesubject domains.
So it's actually the people in these roles, especially as an AST, like academic supportwith this new, it's like a new position and I'm new to the district kind of thing.

(32:19):
So.
created just for you.
Yes, I guess so.
But yes, they got one at every single school that's like K to eight now and they haveactually two at elementary schools kind of meant to make up those numeracy and literacy
gaps.
But I don't shy away from asking for help.
I think it's naive to think that you can figure something entirely out on your own,especially if it's not your main background.

(32:42):
Like I want to do X and Y.
I want to reach this goal with a student.
Like I want to get them from a grade four reading level to a grade six reading level bythe end of this year.
How do I make that happen?
Like you kinda gotta go in with those specific questions.
Like don't go in and say, I don't know what to do.
Because then you're both going to be like, okay, we're not coming at this with like acritical lens.

(33:02):
We're not actually looking at this of, you haven't identified your weakness yet.
I guess is what I'm trying to say.
You gotta go in and be like, I think I know how to teach writing and I'm like, teachingwriting is one thing, but teaching reading is a whole other thing.
Like words, I'm like, word study and vocabulary?
vocabulary, what is the difference of those?
I have no idea.
But then you do some lessons, you figure it out, you ask some questions.

(33:25):
But like, if I ask you, Tyler, I have no idea what to do versus I see word study and I seevocabulary, how can I teach them differently?
And how are they related?
That's a way better question to go to your admin team or resource team.
Okay, I had actually, these games you can play, these are things I've done.
And usually, if you go in with vague questions, you're going to get vague answers.

(33:46):
Like they'll be like, I used to do this.
You're like, okay, well, that doesn't really help me.
But you didn't really actually also ask the question.
So I think maybe even podcasting helps too, because you're always trying to make newquestions and think of like new ideas to kind of go down.
So that has probably helped me actually ask more specific questions.
I would say I'm learning where your role can be used best, for example.

(34:09):
So I don't like to just go into a classroom and just coast around.
That's not me.
That's not what I want to do.
And I noticed like in the first part of my like support role, they're like, so you haveyour the kind of split.
I don't know if I'm going on too into a tangent here, but you kind of have your yourresource team.
There's three of us and I'm kind of like a bubble kid interventionist.

(34:32):
That makes sense.
Like they're not necessarily like there's no learning disabilities.
I guess like necessarily assigned or what's the word looking for?
Diagnosed.
with these kids, but it's like, they're kinda slipping through the cracks, they're kind ofin grade seven or eight, they're reading at a grade three and four level, they've kind of,
they've had COVID, they've had other things that have kind of hindered them along the way,let's see what we can do to help them improve.

(34:56):
So at the beginning, it was kind of like me being in the classroom and helping out, butyou also don't wanna give like the other teacher too much work to like plan for how to use
you as well.
So that's kind of where this literacy group kind of came in.
So I guess my strategy is always finding ways that I can help the students and don't worryso much about what the other adults are thinking of you.

(35:17):
Focus on how you can help the students in front of you.
I think once you kind of make that, because obviously we're human, we want to belong to acommunity, we want to build good connections with our colleagues, but at the end of the
day, if that's your main concern, fundamentally you should be working.
focusing on how you can actually help the students improve their learning.
That's the main thing.

(35:38):
think that's what's kind of helped me, I guess, narrow my focus and asked betterquestions.
And Lucas, you...
You said something just as important as that point as well.
And it's asking specific questions.
You know, from my perspective as a school leader, when I get asked vague questions, theyget vague responses.

(35:58):
It's a very true statement.
But when I get asked specific questions, it usually steers me down one of two paths.
I either say, whoa, that's so specific.
I don't know, but I'm going to find you the answer or connect you with somebody that cangive you the answer.
Or I'm able to give the specific answer that they're hopefully looking for.
You know, to touch on another point as well, in Alberta, it's different for each division.

(36:21):
So we have, they're called innovation coaches in our buildings.
They're not actually connected to an individual building.
They're actually connected right to the division.
We have two of them.
They float around to the schools within the division.
You can book them in.
They come in, they can take over your classes and teach.
Yep, they can plan for you.
So same, but different a little bit because you're in one building, I believe as wellthough, right?

(36:44):
They're based with a division as well.
And they've got like about two, there's like two literacy coaches.
Like there's one for K to six and one, two for K to 12 or something like that.
And they've, they're always going around to different schools all the time.
So yeah.
.
There you go.
And for anybody that is in a literacy world, I would say start establishing yournon-negotiables in literacy, right?
So non-negotiables that we have is you have to have daily conversation, you have to havedaily writing, and you have to have daily reading.

(37:08):
And it doesn't matter what capacity you do that to, you need to make sure that you'redoing that to some extent.
And if you're hitting all three of those, you're hitting developing the English language,which is the most important thing of English language arts anyway.
So we've talked about the earth element,
which is our values and we've really established this value of relationships.
And we've talked about the air element, which is the adversity, which we've leaned back onthe relationships to help get us through the adversity.

(37:35):
We get to transition to the water element, which talks about changes that we'reimplementing or changes that we're choosing to take on.
we alluded to it, but change is the only constant.
It's always going to happen.
So in your new role,
Is there something that you're still excited to implement or make a change with?
I would say it's being more involved in the classroom again for math.

(37:57):
I think that's pretty much where I'm like literacy and numeracy.
I guess the way that my first three months have kind of gone, I've definitely leaned intothe literacy part because it's more familiar to me.
I mean, I was great at math like until high school, which is kind of the classic if youteach humanities, it's like, okay, once those letters came in, I was gone.
But I would say,
finding ways to be creative as a co-teacher.

(38:19):
I think to me that's what still excites me as like, how do you, like not just having theteacher and like kind of EA dynamic in a class, but how do you actually have two teachers
that are kind of both like, I guess, is it certificated is the word?
I've heard a bunch of different words.
Certificate is, well honestly, certificated is what like a very high level person said tome once and I was like, I don't think that's a word, but I'm gonna roll with it.

(38:44):
Certified sounds much better.
learning how to improve the co-teaching dynamic, because again, teachers are veryindependent people.
We obviously love to collaborate, but we also love doing our own thing.
We have our own systems, we have our own routines that we develop over the years, and itcan be daunting for someone like myself, who is just, I guess, vaguely academic support.

(39:08):
You're like, okay, I've got these three math teachers who have completely differentroutines.
How do I work with their students to help them learn?
Do I go in and I teach the lesson myself?
Do I go in, but then they're just kind of watching me teach their class.
Do I go in for only 20 minute segments while they're actively working so I can kind ofsplit the class into groups of 12 rather than having one on 24?

(39:33):
That kind of, I guess,
I guess ideal of trying to make the co-teaching in the classroom the best possible way itcan be definitely still excites me.
I feel like I'm really seeing the value of still finding a reason to pull students out ofclass occasionally, not all the time, to do like that one-on-one work and do like the

(39:55):
concentrated like, no, these are affixes, these are prefixes and suffixes, this is whatthey mean, this is how they change the meaning of words.
We do sentence writing, we do our fluency activities.
I see the value in that, but trying to especially, especially in ELA to be thatco-teacher, because that can almost be like a little bit different as well, but I would
say learning how to be a very good co-teacher and even like come with new ideas all thetime is probably what excites me the most still in this role.

(40:24):
And
You're not a team and you're not a co-teacher unless you have time to also collaborate andplan and unpack and reflect and review with each other.
You'll find that that's, that's quite a powerful tool.
just, it's actually the time that you're not in front of the kids.
That's going to be the most effective and powerful to feel like a co-teacher becauseyou're not going in alone for that.
And that translates outside of the education world.

(40:46):
When you're calling your workplace, a team, well, a team works together.
And if you're not giving the time to work together, then you're not really a team.
You're just a group of people that you're a bunch of individuals, right?
Within your population or community trying to work towards something common that youhaven't had a chance to talk about and align yourselves to.

(41:09):
it can, right.
Something undefined.
You know, I'm sitting here thinking to you, the biggest thing I'm stuck on is what theheck are we going to call these people?
Maybe accredited or certified, certificated.
Well.
was, I remember it was in my, I still doing my degree and I remember like, he's a veryhigh position now, he's a university professor and he used the word certificate and I was

(41:31):
like, I don't want to correct him.
don't know, is that a real word?
But yeah.
in those roles have a lot of experience.
In my doctorate right now, the number one thing I'm learning is the doctorate just showsyou a perseverance.
It shows that you can tough it out and get through it and have it done.
It does not mean you're smarter.
so use me for experience on that one.

(41:52):
Now, I want to jump quickly from.
the water element that talked about change to the fire element, which starts to talk aboutour risk taking and our decision making.
And I'm going to jump forward a little bit here by as someone who explores the human sideof teaching, Lucas, how do you decide when to push these boundaries in your new role to

(42:13):
advocate for your teachers or your students?
I would say, this is a question that I was a little bit stuck on because I would sayboundaries for me in a professional sense have never really been a huge issue when it
comes to advocating for others.
Because I feel like I've typically always attempted to establish those positiverelationships with my admin team.

(42:40):
So I would say maybe even.
in a lot of ways I started to become like an intermediary.
Like the things that maybe the admin didn't want to say to that teacher directly, theywould kind of talk to me about and then I would try to like work on those skills and not
like X is a bad, X or Y is a bad teacher.
It's like I think this teacher is struggling with X, Y, and Z.

(43:04):
And they would be like in my, maybe potentially in my domain.
And so then I would.
Be like, okay, how can I kind of bring that up and how can we work on that together?
So it's almost like trying to ask where I could potentially be of assistance.
And because I think I can come at it from the sense of like, I'm not going to make youfeel degraded if there's something that we feel you can improve on, if that makes sense.

(43:27):
Does that kind of answer the question?
That's like kind of what I've thought.
role in a school at one point here Lucas I hope they gave you a portion of their adminallowance for the month that you took on some of the admin duties and having those
difficult conversations You know what?
It actually doesn't surprise me that that's the course of action We've we've talked aboutunpacking your earth element and your value of relationships We've talked about how when

(43:50):
the air element brings that adversity you're leaning on those relationships to get youthrough the adversity we talked about even even just briefly though when you're
you're implementing a change, you went right to the collaborative mindset andcollaboration teaching.
Well, that's also another definition of relationships that need to be built.
And then we talk about how do you handle risks?
And you talked about an example where your admin team leaned on a relationship they had tobring you to handle it with the relationship you have.

(44:17):
So all of the things that we've talked about, you know, center back to that one big themeon you are so rooted in relationships, Lucas, that it's apparent in driving.
everything that you do and interact with in terms of elements of our earth, air, water,and fire.
So it was really cool, really cool to hear that story unpack.
You hit it spot on with what I was hoping we would get to.

(44:39):
I have to ask, you know, it might be a bit of just a settling in process still, but whatdoes your future look like?
That's a great question.
I've gone back and forth a lot of, again, thinking of like, okay, now that I've moved,what's my next 24 month plan?
Like honestly, there's been a bit of like a post plan success shock, if I'm being honest,like everything was kind of geared toward this and I didn't think much about it.

(45:02):
I guess, professionally, I would say, I think I'm going to hopefully start my masters nextyear.
I've gone back and forth, like do I wanna do leadership, do I want to do counseling, forexample, that's always been something that's intrigued me.
I do think in the short term though, cause I'll be completely honest with you, a part ofme does really kind of miss that social studies classroom environment.

(45:25):
I love teaching grade 11 and 12.
Like for example, I was in a social class yesterday, cause I'm like covering a prep once aweek for a teacher, cause the way the scheduling kind of worked out.
And...
we actually ended up like co-teaching that block with a good discussion.
I was just, felt like all my social studies gears kind of rolling again.
And I was like, this is so fun.
I've never felt like the actual act of teaching social studies, like being in theclassroom part has never felt like work to me.

(45:50):
That has always been like, it's just, I look at the clock, I'm like, okay, 65 minutes justwent by.
I don't know where that time went, but here we are.
Once I like actually get in the groove of things,
So I would say my, I'm hoping to potentially start a masters of curriculum and instructionwith a social studies concentration.
I know literacy and numeracy kind of get like the classic like emphasis for things, butwhere that was like my previous specialization, I think for me, it's just further

(46:17):
developing my specialty.
I think it's something I would like to continue doing.
Obviously the podcast for whatever this becomes, I know that eventually when this comesout,
We will have our Maple Mines discussions as well.
I'm super excited about that.
yeah, honestly, keep the podcast going.
Try and start a master's.
Keep going down like my intellectual rabbit hole of social studies education.

(46:38):
Keep that going and hopefully grow as a person that I think like the literacy and thestrategies strategies that I'll eventually learn from co-teaching math will help me add so
much variety to a social studies class or maybe down the road.
And maybe if honest, I'll be completely honest.
Like VP in principle seems like so daunting to me that I don't know if it.

(47:00):
teach if you have a teaching load.
Just so you know, you could give yourself social.
And honestly, maybe eventually down the road, maybe like a half VP half social like thatwould be something I'd be really interested in.
But I don't know, I see a lot of the well, a conversation I had with one teacher thatsaid, they went from teaching students that like, you see the best of them to seeing like,

(47:24):
the most like devastating side of them all the time.
And like that can that can wear on you as I'm sure you know, as like a VP and a principaland
Even teachers, for example, you always kind of see that like struggling side of them allthe time, which can be a lot on yourself.
But I would say for me right now, kind of growing into this role, getting, I guess, once Ifeel comfortable with it, which then I'll know it's time for something new, hopefully

(47:47):
starting that masters of curriculum and instruction in social studies and maybe seeingwherever this podcast goes.
I love that.
And even in just that response, I can tell there's so many other tendons we can unpack andtalk about that we'll have to have another episode down the road where we sit, connect, we
see where it's going.
Maybe you're going to the West coast or something later on.
I'm not sure.

(48:09):
get some travel routes.
There we go.
Well, what advice, if you could give one piece of advice to anybody that's listening tothis episode, Lucas, what advice would you be giving them?
Take the pressure off yourself.
I think to me, going from my first to second year, obviously you go from, like I taughtall social studies all year my first year and then all year my second year.

(48:32):
And obviously I had a lot more comfort with the curriculum.
I had a lot more comfort with myself.
But I think like we almost always kind of put this, and maybe it's just me with like my,I've gone through my trial and error of imposter syndrome many times on my podcast, but.
once you learn to realize, okay, no one is actively thinking about you all the time.

(48:54):
No one's thinking, okay, what is Mr.
Clark not doing in this class today?
No one's thinking that.
You admit, you're busy, you got other things to do, you're going through your own thing,you're trying to do the best at your job.
And I would say once you learn to just be like, you know what, take a deep breath.
If I can at least, if I teach my students nothing,

(49:16):
this block, but I at least maybe enhance our connection, that's still not nothing.
I think obviously curriculum, I'm not gonna say curriculum's not important, that's notwhat I'm saying, as I wanna do a curriculum and instruction degree, but yeah.
Don't teach curriculum.
But I think if you can at least still, you're surviving the day, you're connecting withthe students, they're seeing you as someone they can potentially see as a role model.

(49:44):
I think that is fundamentally the most, one of the most important things.
And again, the curriculum will follow if you establish that.
Absolutely.
You have to build relationships.
There's a reason in Alberta, the teacher quality standards and leadership qualitystandards and superintendent leadership quality standards.
The first one is establishing effective relationships because you can't do anything elseif you don't have a relationship with who you're working with.

(50:08):
Now, Lucas, how can our listeners get in touch with you if they want to check out yourshow or connect?
Sure, so I'm on YouTube for all the video ones.
I have LinkedIn and Instagram are probably my main social medias that I use, but I'm on Xat MrClark.AfterDark on pretty much everything.
Yeah, shoot me a message.
Maybe send me a story, send some questions to the show.

(50:29):
Would love to hear more questions, ideas, and insights from anyone.
Love it.
And alchemists, as we wrap up our episode, I want to take a moment and just share myappreciation for your listenership.
You're the reason we're here.
You're the inspiration for the show.
And I hope our journey today sparked some points of interest for you.
To dive deeper, make sure you're subscribing to our monthly newsletter for scholarlyinsights, actionable strategies, and an in-depth analysis of each episode.

(50:54):
Reach out in our Instagram DMs for the link, or if you just want to connect.
And Lucas, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to connect, collaborate,and empower us with your lived experiences.
No worries at all.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate all you do,

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Episode 49: How Can Building Relationships Improve School Culture? (with Lucas Clarke)

Are You A Charlotte?