May 27, 2020 • 15 mins
Teachers and school administrators have been navigating the new normal and attempting to continue doing what they've always done: enrich the knowledge and lives of students everywhere. In this episode, elementary school teacher Gail Campopiano shares the ways in which her approach to her role has changed, and the deeper connections that make teaching such a rewarding, if at times difficult, profession.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is on the Job. This season, we're speaking with
folks who are finding their professional stride in a tumultuous
job market and learning how to double down on their
skills and their experience to overcome challenges. We'll bring you
inspiring stories of people making themselves essential, an important skill
set in any economy. Within the turbulence of COVID nineteen,
(00:26):
education workers have been navigating the waters of a new
normal in order to continue doing what they've always done,
pass on knowledge, and move the world forward. While the
schools have stopped operating, teachers all across the globe have
not good morning Star students and families. Mrs camp Pol
Piano here to talk about a rainbow poem. I'm going
(00:47):
to go ahead and share my screen here. This is
from a video that Gayl Campo Piano made for her
second grade students, and we are going to write a
poem today about a garden. This is camp Pol Piano
titled her home My Garden, and we're going to use
She teaches at Northwest Elementary School in Rutland, Vermont, which,
like all schools, closed during the pandemic, and since then
(01:09):
she's been teaching classes through these videos, working with parents
and students to finish out the school year from their homes.
So I'm going to write the word red. And I'm
thinking of something in my garden that is read. So
I know I have read beats growing in my garden
and name. I guess if you had to describe your
life right now with one word, what would it be? Um?
(01:31):
One word? That might be the word yeah, that might
be the word no. I would say um jungling. The
next color I'm going to use in my rainbow is yellow,
so I'm gonna say yellow. I've taught short workshops in
elementary schools before, and it was clear pretty quickly that
(01:54):
the undertaking of teaching itself is a juggling act. First off,
as a primary teacher, you're teaching kids everything. Yep. So
I do reading, writing, math, science, social studies. And while
Gail has been teaching for thirteen years now, it is
a whole new ballgame when her eighteen students are all
in completely different places. I have to learn a new
(02:14):
tech every day. I feel like with our new world.
So I had never used video. I had done face
time with family, but that was about the extent of it.
And now I feel like we live on it. She's
been troubleshooting tech with parents, helping some families set up
email for the first time, making sure each kid has
everything they need to get their work done, and also
(02:35):
what's too much for them and what's too much for
their families, and kind of having those conversations and phone
calls and check ins with the families. Now that her
lessons kind of depend on parents, she's looking out for
each of them. How's your mental state as a parent,
Do you have food? Do you are you sick? And
do you also have a family. Yeah, so I also
have two kiddos, one who's in first grade, so you know,
(02:57):
balancing her online learning and trying to because she's being
taught by another teacher. Yep, she is. Um. She has
another teacher at another school who's doing the same exact
thing I'm doing. Not to mention her three year old
son who likes to make sure that her and her
husband's day starts at four am sharp, and who just
learned how to get out of his crib. So it's
(03:18):
it's a juggle. Some days the balls stay in the
air better than others. Gayle was actually born and raised
in my hometown, Mount Holly, Vermont. She did a very
rural upbringing. She got good grades, she left going to school.
But I didn't grow up thinking I was going to
be a teacher. I was certain my whole life that
I was going to be a marine biologist working with
(03:39):
these giant whales in the ocean. Is that what you
thought when you were a kid, that you wanted to
work with wales? Yeah, whales, or you know, something like
mine was sharks. So funny when Gayle grew up and
got to high school, she took a p bio and
it wasn't exactly what she'd fantasized as a kid, but
she was going to stick to the plant. And before
she graduated in her senior year, she had a free
(04:00):
period and decided she just try something different. So I
did a volunteer in a kindergarten classroom, and I realized,
oh my god, I really love this. So about three
quarters through the year of my senior year, when I
had already basically decided where I was going to college
and had that kind of mapped out, I did a
(04:21):
one a d and changed everything. Gail went to Rhode
Island College and got her teaching degree with the concentration
in special education. After teaching in Rhode Island for a
couple of years, she came back home to Vermont, starting
off as a special educator and then a classroom teacher.
What do you think the biggest misconceptions are that people
have about teaching? Oh, you do it for the weekends
(04:43):
off and the summer's off and the you know, the
really good pay which is um none of which are true.
So I think that people have some misconceptions about what
actually happens in a school in the eight hour that
were there and the two hours that were there before
and after, and the weekend when we're there. Although she
(05:07):
says that she's starting to see a shift now that
parents have the responsibility of doing what she is professionally
trained to do. Yeah, it's like, oh, I get what
teachers do now, Like I get that school wasn't just
reading writing Matt. She admits it's not exactly fair. She
went to school for this and every family now has
a lot on their plate. Even so, she says that
(05:29):
being dubbed essential in a time of crisis was validating. Yeah,
I think at some point it was like a little
bit validating when you think of how is the world
going to continue? This is like something that people are
saying is essential. More than just being a place where
kids can learn, schools provide so much more. They provide food.
(05:53):
They can really be a shelter in a safe place
for a lot of kids that might not have one,
and it's a place where deep connection are formed between
teacher and student as they try to find their way
in the world. That's a struggle I think that teachers
are feeling right now is how do you just you know,
how do you keep that connection going? How do you
be there when you've always been there? Ye more of
(06:17):
gael Story and the new reality of teaching after the break.
A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done,
sweats over the details. This is you. But to get
an honest day's work, you need a response, you need
a call back, You need a job. Express Employment professionals
(06:40):
can help because we understand what it takes to get
a job. It takes more than just online searches to
land a job. It takes someone who will identify your talents,
a person invested in your success. At Express, we can
even complete your application with you over the phone, will
prepare you for interviews, and will connect you to the
right company. Plus, we'll never charge a fee to find
(07:03):
you a job at Express. We could put you to
work with companies of all sizes and industries from the
production floor to the front office. Express Nose Jobs get
to no Express, find your location at Express pros dot
com or on the Express Jobs app. There are a
lot of online softwares that teachers used to connect with
(07:24):
families to make sure that these essential core classes continue. However,
Gayl Campo Piano says that for years, a huge part
of her normal school day has been social and emotional learning.
We start every day with restorative circles and community building
stuff and character traits, and we do yoga and all
(07:45):
of those things are so you do yoga with the kids.
School has changed a lot since there. Yeah, the kids
love it. Truth is, school has changed a lot in
the last couple of decades, and that's because the world
has changed a lot in the last couple of decades.
I think kids and even adults, I think our society
now has become really fast paced and there's a lot
(08:07):
of stressors in adults, but especially students. Lives in Rutland
where Gail teaches, it's a high poverty area. There's a
lot of drug and alcohol abuse, a lot of kids
have trauma, and second grade is a huge development here
for kids. They're just learning how to deal with those
emotions and those things that might trigger them, and learning
(08:30):
coping strategies. So we embed it almost all day long.
You know, if you're doing a math card game, you're
also teaching them how to lose and how to accept loss,
and how to take turns and all of those things
that maybe they haven't learned yet or just still need
to practice. People who understand teaching do understand the actual
(08:57):
workload of the job, the physical work load of doing
the job, especially if you have a family. Yeah, but
I guess like it's it's hard to imagine how much
emotional work you take on by essentially having this den
full of cubs that you yourself can't help but be
emotionally attached to as well. Yep, even just you know,
(09:19):
on a good day. Yeah, there's a large emotional attachment
that comes with teaching, for sure. For teachers, the classroom
can often be a safe place for kids who don't
have one. It's a place where teachers can offer some consistency,
let a kid know that they've got someone to turn to,
(09:39):
no matter how big or small the problem. Gail says,
that's the real challenge of distant learning, not being able
to check in on those kids that you are worried
about that. You know, really, the first time you hug
them in the morning is the only time that they've
been hugged in the morning. You know, when they hear
the principles say that they're loved on the announced it
(10:00):
in the morning, might be the first time that they
heard those words. So that's that's hard boiled down. The
role of a teacher is being there and helping a
student move forward. It's a huge responsibility one that comes
with the job. Over her career, Gayle's experienced the impact
(10:21):
that role can really have on a kid, and she's
experienced the impact that I can have on her. So
two years ago, I had a student who before the
year started, you know, we always get some information about
the children before they come into your classroom, and I
was teaching kindergarten at the time. The preschool of the
(10:42):
student went to let Gail know that he had significant
behavioral challenges and was going to need a lot of support.
This little boy came in and everything I had been
told was completely false. He was just really easy to
work with, really good friends, worked super duper hard on
everything you wanted him to do. He just really wanted
(11:03):
to please. She was relieved, couldn't have had a better
start of the year. And then in about October, he
left school, went home and no one was at his
house to pick him up off the bus, so he
was brought back to the school and some phone calls
were made, and that sometimes happens, and the day, you know,
(11:25):
time kind of passed and the story kept kind of unfolding,
and his mother had passed away. The student had seen
his mother that morning and she was fine. His big
sister and a preacher from their local church came to
the school where he was waiting, and they sat him
down and they told him it was a Friday. So
(11:47):
over the weekend he went to go live with a
police officer and his family that went to the same church.
Totally traumatic, as you can imagine. UM. So then Monday
came and it was just horrific, like you can't even
imagine he um, and I'm going to get choked up
about it. He came in early and he just like
ran into the classroom and wrapped his arms around me
(12:12):
and um just melted just sobbing, you know, and it
was just the most heartbreaking thing that I think anyone
can ever imagine. When the rest of the kindergarten came in,
Gail and a guidance counselor talked to the class about
what happened. This happened over the weekend he lost his mom, Like,
(12:33):
this is how we can support him. We just have
to give him space and understand that this is really,
really sad and scary for him. Gail says it was
one of the hardest days of her life, but some
of the best ones came from that following year as
she watched other students be there for him and got
to help him work through it all. Sometimes he lose
(12:56):
control and she would take him aside to the bean
bag corner of the room and help him talk it out.
He would just say I just miss her so much
and just like melt into you know, and you're like, yeah,
you know, this is this is why I do this job.
It's to teach the reading and the writing and the math,
but it's also to to help kind of form these
(13:20):
little lives that are just starting very and I'm going
to end my rainbow with purple in my garden. We
always loved have purple carrets cares. If you had to
say one thing to anyone who wants to become a teacher,
(13:43):
what would it be. Get into a classroom as quick
as you can in your studies, or even before your studies,
and see if it's if it really is something that
you that you love, because teaching really does have to
be a labor of love. And there's something about a
purple carret that just makes me happy. So I'll end
(14:04):
with that feeling. Purple carrets make me smile. If someone says,
you know, how would you identify yourself? I would say,
I'm a teacher, and I'm a mother, and I'm a wife.
You know, there's lots of other layers there, but that
definitely is one of the first things that I would say,
because it's not just a job. Yeah no, it's not.
It's not something that I can just leave at the door.
(14:27):
You can write a rainbow poem of your own. It's
not a nine to five can't wait to read. Stop
sharing my screen. Talk to you soon, miss you. Good
bye for on the job. I'm otus Gray. Thanks for
(14:47):
listening to on the job. Brought to you by Express
Employment Professionals. This season of On the Job is produced
by Audiation and Red Seat Ventures. The episodes are written
and produced by me Otus Gray. Our executive produce he
is Sandy Smallens. The show was mixed by Matt Noble
for Audiation Studios at The Loft in Bronxville, New York.
Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on I Heart
(15:10):
Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard,
please consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. We're
more inspiring stories about making yourself essential as you discover
your life's work. Audiation
This is on the Job. This season, we're speaking with
folks who are finding their professional stride in a tumultuous
job market and learning how to double down on their
skills and their experience to overcome challenges. We'll bring you
inspiring stories of people making themselves essential, an important skill
set in any economy. Within the turbulence of COVID nineteen,
(00:26):
education workers have been navigating the waters of a new
normal in order to continue doing what they've always done,
pass on knowledge, and move the world forward. While the
schools have stopped operating, teachers all across the globe have
not good morning Star students and families. Mrs camp Pol
Piano here to talk about a rainbow poem. I'm going
(00:47):
to go ahead and share my screen here. This is
from a video that Gayl Campo Piano made for her
second grade students, and we are going to write a
poem today about a garden. This is camp Pol Piano
titled her home My Garden, and we're going to use
She teaches at Northwest Elementary School in Rutland, Vermont, which,
like all schools, closed during the pandemic, and since then
(01:09):
she's been teaching classes through these videos, working with parents
and students to finish out the school year from their homes.
So I'm going to write the word red. And I'm
thinking of something in my garden that is read. So
I know I have read beats growing in my garden
and name. I guess if you had to describe your
life right now with one word, what would it be? Um?
(01:31):
One word? That might be the word yeah, that might
be the word no. I would say um jungling. The
next color I'm going to use in my rainbow is yellow,
so I'm gonna say yellow. I've taught short workshops in
elementary schools before, and it was clear pretty quickly that
(01:54):
the undertaking of teaching itself is a juggling act. First off,
as a primary teacher, you're teaching kids everything. Yep. So
I do reading, writing, math, science, social studies. And while
Gail has been teaching for thirteen years now, it is
a whole new ballgame when her eighteen students are all
in completely different places. I have to learn a new
(02:14):
tech every day. I feel like with our new world.
So I had never used video. I had done face
time with family, but that was about the extent of it.
And now I feel like we live on it. She's
been troubleshooting tech with parents, helping some families set up
email for the first time, making sure each kid has
everything they need to get their work done, and also
(02:35):
what's too much for them and what's too much for
their families, and kind of having those conversations and phone
calls and check ins with the families. Now that her
lessons kind of depend on parents, she's looking out for
each of them. How's your mental state as a parent,
Do you have food? Do you are you sick? And
do you also have a family. Yeah, so I also
have two kiddos, one who's in first grade, so you know,
(02:57):
balancing her online learning and trying to because she's being
taught by another teacher. Yep, she is. Um. She has
another teacher at another school who's doing the same exact
thing I'm doing. Not to mention her three year old
son who likes to make sure that her and her
husband's day starts at four am sharp, and who just
learned how to get out of his crib. So it's
(03:18):
it's a juggle. Some days the balls stay in the
air better than others. Gayle was actually born and raised
in my hometown, Mount Holly, Vermont. She did a very
rural upbringing. She got good grades, she left going to school.
But I didn't grow up thinking I was going to
be a teacher. I was certain my whole life that
I was going to be a marine biologist working with
(03:39):
these giant whales in the ocean. Is that what you
thought when you were a kid, that you wanted to
work with wales? Yeah, whales, or you know, something like
mine was sharks. So funny when Gayle grew up and
got to high school, she took a p bio and
it wasn't exactly what she'd fantasized as a kid, but
she was going to stick to the plant. And before
she graduated in her senior year, she had a free
(04:00):
period and decided she just try something different. So I
did a volunteer in a kindergarten classroom, and I realized,
oh my god, I really love this. So about three
quarters through the year of my senior year, when I
had already basically decided where I was going to college
and had that kind of mapped out, I did a
(04:21):
one a d and changed everything. Gail went to Rhode
Island College and got her teaching degree with the concentration
in special education. After teaching in Rhode Island for a
couple of years, she came back home to Vermont, starting
off as a special educator and then a classroom teacher.
What do you think the biggest misconceptions are that people
have about teaching? Oh, you do it for the weekends
(04:43):
off and the summer's off and the you know, the
really good pay which is um none of which are true.
So I think that people have some misconceptions about what
actually happens in a school in the eight hour that
were there and the two hours that were there before
and after, and the weekend when we're there. Although she
(05:07):
says that she's starting to see a shift now that
parents have the responsibility of doing what she is professionally
trained to do. Yeah, it's like, oh, I get what
teachers do now, Like I get that school wasn't just
reading writing Matt. She admits it's not exactly fair. She
went to school for this and every family now has
a lot on their plate. Even so, she says that
(05:29):
being dubbed essential in a time of crisis was validating. Yeah,
I think at some point it was like a little
bit validating when you think of how is the world
going to continue? This is like something that people are
saying is essential. More than just being a place where
kids can learn, schools provide so much more. They provide food.
(05:53):
They can really be a shelter in a safe place
for a lot of kids that might not have one,
and it's a place where deep connection are formed between
teacher and student as they try to find their way
in the world. That's a struggle I think that teachers
are feeling right now is how do you just you know,
how do you keep that connection going? How do you
be there when you've always been there? Ye more of
(06:17):
gael Story and the new reality of teaching after the break.
A strong work ethic takes pride in a job well done,
sweats over the details. This is you. But to get
an honest day's work, you need a response, you need
a call back, You need a job. Express Employment professionals
(06:40):
can help because we understand what it takes to get
a job. It takes more than just online searches to
land a job. It takes someone who will identify your talents,
a person invested in your success. At Express, we can
even complete your application with you over the phone, will
prepare you for interviews, and will connect you to the
right company. Plus, we'll never charge a fee to find
(07:03):
you a job at Express. We could put you to
work with companies of all sizes and industries from the
production floor to the front office. Express Nose Jobs get
to no Express, find your location at Express pros dot
com or on the Express Jobs app. There are a
lot of online softwares that teachers used to connect with
(07:24):
families to make sure that these essential core classes continue. However,
Gayl Campo Piano says that for years, a huge part
of her normal school day has been social and emotional learning.
We start every day with restorative circles and community building
stuff and character traits, and we do yoga and all
(07:45):
of those things are so you do yoga with the kids.
School has changed a lot since there. Yeah, the kids
love it. Truth is, school has changed a lot in
the last couple of decades, and that's because the world
has changed a lot in the last couple of decades.
I think kids and even adults, I think our society
now has become really fast paced and there's a lot
(08:07):
of stressors in adults, but especially students. Lives in Rutland
where Gail teaches, it's a high poverty area. There's a
lot of drug and alcohol abuse, a lot of kids
have trauma, and second grade is a huge development here
for kids. They're just learning how to deal with those
emotions and those things that might trigger them, and learning
(08:30):
coping strategies. So we embed it almost all day long.
You know, if you're doing a math card game, you're
also teaching them how to lose and how to accept loss,
and how to take turns and all of those things
that maybe they haven't learned yet or just still need
to practice. People who understand teaching do understand the actual
(08:57):
workload of the job, the physical work load of doing
the job, especially if you have a family. Yeah, but
I guess like it's it's hard to imagine how much
emotional work you take on by essentially having this den
full of cubs that you yourself can't help but be
emotionally attached to as well. Yep, even just you know,
(09:19):
on a good day. Yeah, there's a large emotional attachment
that comes with teaching, for sure. For teachers, the classroom
can often be a safe place for kids who don't
have one. It's a place where teachers can offer some consistency,
let a kid know that they've got someone to turn to,
(09:39):
no matter how big or small the problem. Gail says,
that's the real challenge of distant learning, not being able
to check in on those kids that you are worried
about that. You know, really, the first time you hug
them in the morning is the only time that they've
been hugged in the morning. You know, when they hear
the principles say that they're loved on the announced it
(10:00):
in the morning, might be the first time that they
heard those words. So that's that's hard boiled down. The
role of a teacher is being there and helping a
student move forward. It's a huge responsibility one that comes
with the job. Over her career, Gayle's experienced the impact
(10:21):
that role can really have on a kid, and she's
experienced the impact that I can have on her. So
two years ago, I had a student who before the
year started, you know, we always get some information about
the children before they come into your classroom, and I
was teaching kindergarten at the time. The preschool of the
(10:42):
student went to let Gail know that he had significant
behavioral challenges and was going to need a lot of support.
This little boy came in and everything I had been
told was completely false. He was just really easy to
work with, really good friends, worked super duper hard on
everything you wanted him to do. He just really wanted
(11:03):
to please. She was relieved, couldn't have had a better
start of the year. And then in about October, he
left school, went home and no one was at his
house to pick him up off the bus, so he
was brought back to the school and some phone calls
were made, and that sometimes happens, and the day, you know,
(11:25):
time kind of passed and the story kept kind of unfolding,
and his mother had passed away. The student had seen
his mother that morning and she was fine. His big
sister and a preacher from their local church came to
the school where he was waiting, and they sat him
down and they told him it was a Friday. So
(11:47):
over the weekend he went to go live with a
police officer and his family that went to the same church.
Totally traumatic, as you can imagine. UM. So then Monday
came and it was just horrific, like you can't even
imagine he um, and I'm going to get choked up
about it. He came in early and he just like
ran into the classroom and wrapped his arms around me
(12:12):
and um just melted just sobbing, you know, and it
was just the most heartbreaking thing that I think anyone
can ever imagine. When the rest of the kindergarten came in,
Gail and a guidance counselor talked to the class about
what happened. This happened over the weekend he lost his mom, Like,
(12:33):
this is how we can support him. We just have
to give him space and understand that this is really,
really sad and scary for him. Gail says it was
one of the hardest days of her life, but some
of the best ones came from that following year as
she watched other students be there for him and got
to help him work through it all. Sometimes he lose
(12:56):
control and she would take him aside to the bean
bag corner of the room and help him talk it out.
He would just say I just miss her so much
and just like melt into you know, and you're like, yeah,
you know, this is this is why I do this job.
It's to teach the reading and the writing and the math,
but it's also to to help kind of form these
(13:20):
little lives that are just starting very and I'm going
to end my rainbow with purple in my garden. We
always loved have purple carrets cares. If you had to
say one thing to anyone who wants to become a teacher,
(13:43):
what would it be. Get into a classroom as quick
as you can in your studies, or even before your studies,
and see if it's if it really is something that
you that you love, because teaching really does have to
be a labor of love. And there's something about a
purple carret that just makes me happy. So I'll end
(14:04):
with that feeling. Purple carrets make me smile. If someone says,
you know, how would you identify yourself? I would say,
I'm a teacher, and I'm a mother, and I'm a wife.
You know, there's lots of other layers there, but that
definitely is one of the first things that I would say,
because it's not just a job. Yeah no, it's not.
It's not something that I can just leave at the door.
(14:27):
You can write a rainbow poem of your own. It's
not a nine to five can't wait to read. Stop
sharing my screen. Talk to you soon, miss you. Good
bye for on the job. I'm otus Gray. Thanks for
(14:47):
listening to on the job. Brought to you by Express
Employment Professionals. This season of On the Job is produced
by Audiation and Red Seat Ventures. The episodes are written
and produced by me Otus Gray. Our executive produce he
is Sandy Smallens. The show was mixed by Matt Noble
for Audiation Studios at The Loft in Bronxville, New York.
Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on I Heart
(15:10):
Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard,
please consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts
or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. We're
more inspiring stories about making yourself essential as you discover
your life's work. Audiation
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The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.