From guilt at leaving teaching to designing student wellbeing at scale, with Maria Fernanda Puertas | S2E12 - Still Curious

Episode Transcript
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Maria Fernanda Puertas (00:00):
The hardest part about leaving
teaching is that emotion backlogyou have, and the feeling that
you have betrayed the community,and that imprinted in your
personality and who you are whenyou are a teacher.
The guilt is terrible.
When you make that decision, andthis is something that after
connecting with many teachersthat had also transitioned into

(00:21):
the Ed Tech industry in diverseroles, they all quote the same
thing.

Danu Poyner (00:30):
You're listening to the Still Curious Podcast with
me, Danu Poyner.
My guest today is Maria FernandaPuertas, who describes herself
as a Latina, tea lover and catlady who is passionate about the
science of learning andcommunity building.
Today's conversation is allabout what happens when a
mingling of interests meets asudden change in priorities.

(00:50):
It's about the moments where youchange from being one kind of
thing into another, how thathappens and how you update your
self understanding along theway.
It's about teaching moments andlearning moments, the beating
heart of education that enableseach of us to reflect on our
experiences and capitalize onthose reflections in ways we can
put into practice and that moveus forward.

Maria Fernanda Puerta (01:12):
Basically it was retrospective saying
maybe I have always been this,but I'm just realizing that this
is a thing to be.

Maria had been a teacher and a head teacher in
Argentina for 10 years when shesuddenly found herself in the
hot seat at the start of thepandemic.

That academic year started on March
the 11th.
On March 13, we stoppedattending schools and we never
came back.
I went home and spent, seven,eight hours, just writing an
email because in that email, wehad to communicate clearly
reassuring the entire communitythat we knew what we were doing

(01:48):
when actually we had absolutelyno idea

It was a heady time and brought into focus for
Maria, the importance of beingpart of support networks and
communities of practice, whatstudent wellbeing really means,
and discovering the challengesof dealing with parents who
ultimately needed something thatthe school was not really there
to provide.
The whole experience causedMaria to reflect on what was no

(02:12):
longer working for her about theschool system and how she could
leverage her strengths andinterests to reconnect with what
you loved about education bymaking the transition to
learning design and operations.

I just knew that I wanted to work in
tech creating, supportinglearning platforms or learning
resources online because therewas a huge lack of those.
If I can support my 200 teacherswith a training session and how
to manage a video call, imaginewhat I can do by designing a
resource that can support 1million teachers.

As usual, this is a conversation that goes on all
sorts of tangents while beingpacked full of surprising
substance throughout.
We talk about why it's fun toargue with teenagers, maria's
research in learning science andstudent wellbeing, what it's
like to carry around the missionof education on your shoulders
and the complexities oftranslating concepts from

(03:02):
Spanish into English.
Enjoy, it's Maria FernandaPuertas coming up after the
music on today's episode of theStill Curious Podcast.

(03:37):
Hi Maria, welcome to thepodcast.
How are you?

Hi fine.
It's lovely to be here.
Thank you for having me.

Oh, you're very welcome.
Lovely to have you here.
You are a self described, Latinatea lover and cat lady.
You are passionate about thescience of learning and
community building.
After being a teacher and headteacher for over a decade, you
made the decision to move intotech, to pursue the mission of
reaching a much wider audiencewith amazing learning

(04:03):
experiences and hopefully helppeople find what they're looking
for.
You're now an education lead atAtom Learning, which is an
online adaptive teaching andlearning platform for ages seven
to 13.
That's won some awards.
What's the most important thingfor someone to understand about
what you do?

What I would say is that we believe
that there's nothing behindteaching and learning.
There is just very charismaticperson sharing their knowledge,
but actually there's a lot thathappens behind the scenes.
And that's what I do to makesure that learning experiences
are great and are strong andpowerful independently of who is

(04:44):
delivering it.

Thank you.
That's very clear and sets us upnicely for a conversation about
why we think teaching andlearning is not so complicated
at its core and also what'sgoing on behind the scenes.
But I guess let's go back a bit.
You started out teaching inArgentina in 2006.
Was being a teacher, always plana for you?

Maria Fernanda Puer (05:05):
Absolutely.
And not only being a teacher,but being a head teacher when I
was four years old is I organizemy Teddy bears and I'm an only
child.
So I have many, many teddybears.
Organize them in differentclassrooms.
And they went classroom byclassroom checking that
everything was all right.
Even when I was four years old,I knew I wanted to work in

(05:26):
education and I wanted to behead teacher rather than a
teacher.
So I built my career and I builtmy personality, my definition of
myself through that.

I have a lot of, I guess, chewy questions for you
about your journey througheducation, but before we go
there, I guess I'd like to makespace for a moment to talk about
the magic of teaching and thepower of those small human
interactions, because that'swhat this is really all about
and why we care.
So would you like to share acouple of your favorite teaching

(05:58):
moments?
Ones that still stick with you?

Yeah, I have many, many of them.
I struggle to finish mysecondary education myself,
primarily mainly with numberssubjects.
I has a lovely math teacher, soI sat down with him and said,
listen, I'm about to graduate.
I'm going to be a teacher.
I'm not going to teach maths.

(06:22):
So please, grant me this so Ican move on and this will not be
an obstacle.
He was amazing.
So he agreed.
Fast forward seven years later,I had his son in my classroom.
I was teaching research methods,nothing to do with numbers, and
social sciences.

(06:43):
And I actually was the onegiving him his diploma when he
graduated.
I had this fantastic moment whenhe was on the stage, the three
of us.
And he looked at me, my teacherand said, now I can tell you
were right.
That was amazing in terms of themagic of his teaching and beyond

(07:03):
the walls of the classroom.
The second one I've chosen, Iused to work with senior year
students.
So they were about to graduateand we held a workshop on job
interviewing, building resume.
We rehearsed a mock jobinterview.
They have to dress up to kill,bring the resume, prepared
questions.

(07:23):
I had one student who was, he'sactually a rockstar.
He is really famous.
He's a musician.
He couldn't care about formaljob and formal education.
He couldn't care less, but hedressed up amazingly.
And came with a briefcase and heasked me, do you know why I have
a briefcase?

(07:45):
Because I carry a lots of money.
I'm going to be a millionaire.
So he didn't know how he wasgoing to get there, but he came
prepped.
He really didn't care about theformal part of it, but he sees
the opportunity to rehearse andto picture himself doing
whatever he wanted, being arockstar and being a

(08:05):
millionaire.
And that was his dream.
So that was teaching for him.
And it was for me as well.
The third one was a tricky one Ihad as a head teacher.
I always specialized in highschool, in secondary school
students, but for nice couple ofyears I was head teacher at
primary school, and those kidsare not my strength.

(08:27):
One day I had one first grader,six years old, is making a mess
in the playgrounds during breaktime.
I approached him and say, okay,either you bring me your
communications copy book, or yousit down for five minutes, his
response was, I won't do any ofthose.
And he continued messing around.

(08:48):
I was defeated, beaten by a sixyear old.
I didn't have further arguments.
I knew how to argue withteenagers.
The six-year-old he said No tooption A, No to option B.
And he got his way, I mustadmit, but at least it was a
teaching moment for me in termsof which are my strengths as an

(09:11):
educator as well.

What did you take away from that about your
strengths?

I'm a terrible negotiator.

Arguing with teenagers versus negotiating
with six year olds.
What is the difference there?

Maria Fernanda Puert (09:27):
Teenagers, they want to argue because they
wanted to break the limits.
They want to go even further andthey understand reason.
They just wants to challenge it.
So it's a game of who builds thebetter arguments and that is
super fun.
And it's super enriching.
And the level of theconversations get after three

(09:47):
years of having the same groupof students, is amazing debate
level.
With a six year old, it's notconscious, it's not challenging
limits.
He simply didn't want to stoprunning.
And he simply didn't want me totell his mom.
Teenagers are very well suitedto the classroom environment and
the school environment and theform of institutional

(10:08):
environment by the time theyreached 16.
But they love to challengeeverything you say to them.
And that is super fun.
In the case of kids, they justwant to do things differently
and they don't care what youwant them to do.

Do you think with the teenagers that that
challenging is always donethrough a mode of reason?
What form does that challengingtake?

Maria Fernanda Puerta (10:31):
Generally it's arguing and generally
challenging practices, thingsthat they're not supposed to do,
and they do them anyway.
And then you engage in thatconversation where you learn
something because they are muchyounger.
So they have a lot to teach andthey learn something on how to
approach social interactions indifferent environments.

(10:55):
I would be really defensive withthem.
Yes, it's always through reason.
It's always through challenge,but if you tackle the
conversation in a material wayand in an empathetic way, both
parties leave that conversationhaving learned something.

I'm struck by the way that you are defensive of
them and that you describe thosearguments as being a lot of fun,
but I guess that's not how mostpeople would describe those
interactions.
what can you tell me about that?
What makes it fun?

It's a tricky question.
I'm a communicator and I lovecommunicating.
I love the nature and theconstruction of language and how
to use it in different contexts.
I'm a researcher, so when I canget to the bottom of things, is
when things become clearer andthey can ask questions and that
skill is useful for me tocommunicate with teenagers and

(11:51):
they get something from thoseexchanges because they'd get
questions to ask, ways toapproach a problem or a
conversation and ways to useanalyze language.
That is quite tricky withyounger students, you can't do.
And in my case, my strength, Ihave to deal with complex uses

(12:12):
of the language and how we usethat to interact with each
other.
I guess that both of us getsomething from those
conversations in that aspect.

Well, thank you for going with me on that tangent.
I enjoyed that.
You mentioned you always wantedto be a head teacher.
What was it about being a headteacher that was particularly
appealing to you from theoutset?

It was an idea of what being head
teacher is, not the real thingin the end.
That is why I am not in thatfield anymore.
The learning experience ofstudents that attend a
particular school, you can makesure that the quality of their
experience is amazing, not justin the amount of knowledge, but
also the quality of experiencesthey leave, how they signify the

(12:57):
learnings, how they experienceliving with each other, what
they get from that experience.
As a teacher, I spent my daysdelivering lessons and trying to
make sure that that happens withmy 25 students in front of me.
If I could do that at a largerscale, that was going to be
amazing.
In the end, it's not exactlythat way.

I feel like teaching is one of those
professions where it's notalways easy to see what the path
to growth looks like.
If you're a teacher who lovesthe interaction with students,
then a lot of what looks likecareer advancement actually can
take you further away from thatand more into the administration
and the politics ofadministration, which seems like

(13:42):
it might give you theopportunity to own the
experience as you say.
What was that experience likeonce you got to being a head
teacher?

Exactly that way.
I imagined that I was going tospend my day talking to
students, visiting classrooms,talking to teachers, making sure
that they had everything theyneeded.
And they were challengingthemselves and challenging
students.
The end you spend your day doingadmin work.
one hand, it makes processesmore efficient but in the end,

(14:12):
you're an agent.
I now live in the UK, but inArgentina happens quite much the
same way in terms of thenational curriculum.
We do have one curriculum, oneorganization of stuff, and that
is the way it has to be done.
The room for improvement isquite narrow.
Therefore, I find myselfspending my day in between
meetings and working onspreadsheets.

(14:34):
And not at all talking tostudents.
And I found myself after acouple of years with students
not really wanting to talk tome.
And that was terrible.

Was that something that crept up on you or was
there a moment when you had akind of outbreak of clarity that
that had happened?

It wasn't from one day to the
other, but it was quite drastic.
When the last group, I had beentheir teacher, graduated the
rest of the school have neverhad the experience of sharing a
classroom with me as theirteacher.
So they didn't really know me.
There was no reason for them totrust me to come and talk to me

(15:14):
or whatsoever.
I hadn't built that bond or thatconnection as I had with the
groups that had been my studentsand when it was a teacher.
It was something that happenedgradually.
Became a lot stronger when thelast group I was graduated and I
remained being someone whohadn't taught anyone in this

(15:37):
school.

That's a nice illustration of the impact that
teachers have and what the workis because it's not just what's
happening in this space at thistime.
You really are with someone overa journey for several years of
their lives and that it is notalways built into the way that
work is designed for teachers, Iguess.

Not at all.
And that's why either it's tootiring or it's proactive and not
every teacher does do it,although they might wish to do
it.
The time they want to spend withstudents learning how they are
feeling, what they need, whatthey wish.
If they're finding theirlearning journey meaningful in

(16:21):
any way, it's not something youget to do.
On that aspect I do think thatthe pandemic in some cases gave
students and schools in general,that opportunity because formal
learning was placed in a secondplace, the main objective for

(16:42):
every school, at least the vastmajority, was to support those
students throughout lockdown.
In some cases, that wassomething that was addressed and
hopefully it continues untilnow.
In the situations that thatdidn't happen, at least is
something that now we're talkingabout.

Let's get into the pandemic then, because you found
yourself in the hot seat whenthe pandemic started, suddenly
responsible for standing up yourinstitutions online
homeschooling program and makingit work somehow against great
uncertainty.
What happened?
What did you do?
What was it like?
What can you share?

It's incredible because it's the main
reason why I'm now sitting hereand doing something completely
different.
Terrible, but for me, it wasenlightening in terms of what I
want to do and what I'm great atdoing.
In Argentina to give somecontext, we had one of the
longest lockdowns in the entireworld, and it covered the

(17:40):
entirety of an academic year.
That academic year started onMarch the 11th.
On March 13, we stoppedattending schools and we never
came back.
It was an entire academic year.
That day, you March thethirteenth, I had to say goodbye
to my students, sat in my deskand we got a call saying that
that had been the last day ofregular classes.

(18:04):
And we didn't know when thosewere going to be resumed.
So we had to come up withsomething.
I went home and spent, I wouldsay seven, eight hours, just
writing an email because in thatemail, we had to communicate
clearly reassuring the entirecommunity that we knew what we

(18:25):
were doing when actually we hadabsolutely no idea and coming up
with a plan.
So we spent long hours writingthat email for families, for
teachers, for students, for theentire community.
that was the Kickstarter.
We send that email, we set upthe virtual classrooms, we set

(18:47):
up a schedule.
We made the decision of spending50% of the time on zoom or live
lessons and 50% with asyncactivities.
We needed to support teachers onthe acquisition of those
resources, those tools and thosestructures but the most
challenging part was writingthat email.

I'd love to know what was going through your head
because it was so sudden, itsounds like you took on and
really felt that responsibilityin a farsighted way early
because there was so muchuncertainty.

There were so much uncertainty that is
true.
At least in the Southernhemisphere, we saw how Europe
was coping with this.
We knew that lockdown was apossibility.
At least I had some time sinceI've received work in February,
until students came to school inMarch thinking of best practices

(19:43):
in case that happens, even if itwas for a week.
So by the time that day came onMarch 13, at least it was really
confident about what was greatteaching and learning in on-line
environments.
Because I had done my researchjust in case.

It sounds like you had a feeling of almost relief
from the uncertainty in a waythat at least now we know what
we have to do.
Sounds like it was quite agalvanizing moment.

It was.
It's different when I talk aboutit right now that everything has
already finished At that moment,it was freakish.
It was 2, 3, 4 weeks working 13hours being available for
teachers 24 7 because theyneeded support and all of us

(20:34):
were alone at home.
There were teachers that didn'town a computer, for example.
They didn't even have theresource to upload a Google doc
or awards document to theirstudents.
I can say that I was confidenton the design of a learning
experience that then the realityhits.
It was a very big school, almost1,500 students, 200 educators

(20:59):
was a very big school.
So there are plenty of realitiesto address and that are in a
very unique moment of history.
I think that that made it a bitmore difficult, the human parts
of all of this, rather than thedesign of the structure.

That was a very confusing and difficult and
overwhelming time for everyone.
How did you experience that?
What was that like for you andhow did you get support or did
you?

I was at home with my husband, he was
amazing throughout the lockdown.
He worked in finance.
Finance was also crazy duringthat time.
So at least we supported eachother and as for my mental
health, I have to think mytherapist.
And then it was building net.
Networks with other teachers,other headteachers, parents,

(21:50):
families of the community.
Experiencing that and trying tofigure out what was going on.
What got me through that processwas actually building networks
and building really strongcommunities of practices in
different settings.
At a personal level, I wasreally, really supported, but I
professional level.
Those networks got me and amillion other teachers through a

(22:15):
lockdown.

Can you put yourself back in that time and
recall what were the main thingsthat everyone was really talking
about and puzzling out together?

I think that the main thing was what to
do.
At a general level, what to doto support students well, to
support families, what to do tosupport the economic situation
of those families.
Many families lost their jobs,lost their income during the
meltdown.
So it was what do we do withteaching?
What do we do with assessing?
What do we do with supporting.

(22:49):
And sharing ideas and sharingexperiences and testing a lot
and asking for feedback.
I didn't call it feedback when Iwas a teacher.
I called it.
Please tell me how you're doingand asking for something back so
we could evaluate what we weredoing and steering a different
direction if it was necessary.
But I think that the mainquestion was what do we do?

(23:14):
community question amongeducators among schools
globally, not just in Argentina,not just in south America.

You mentioned before there was this sort of
discovery that happened thatsupporting the students is a
huge part of it and primary tothe education part of it itself
in many ways.
And I know parents werediscovering that schools are not
just places of education, butthey're also places of care and
daycare as well.

(23:43):
And there's a sort of redefiningof what schools are actually for
and about, and the relationshipbetween teachers and students
and parents.
You were in the middle of all ofthat.
What did you experience aboutthat discovery?
What did you do?

It was really, really complex.
And from the questions youraised that was one, was it more
difficult students or parents.
And I will always say parents,but because there is no school
for parents and certainly I'mnot the teacher nor the head
teacher in that school forparents.
So, it's difficult to findalignment with families.

(24:19):
It's difficult to make jointdecisions when in most cases, in
a very conflictive scenario,they needed something that we
couldn't provide.
They needed a place for studentsto sit down so they could go to
work or find a job orwhatsoever.
We couldn't provide that.
They needed a service from theschool that we were not there to

(24:42):
do it.
Those were very difficultconversations.
And although we had beenthinking about not being super
happy about my role as a headteacher for a while, by that
time, there was one day inparticular that I read an email
from a group of families sayingthey didn't think it was
appropriate to pay the feebecause we were not teaching

(25:05):
during lockdown.
I can completely understand nowwhere that came from.
But for me personally andprofessionally, it was, we are
doing an amazing work, at leastin the amount of work we're
doing to keep this together.
And if they need somethingdifferent or this is not what

(25:26):
they want.
This is not the place for me.

It's interesting when you have those kind of
moments of deep clarity aboutwhat's not working and what you
need to change.
Did you have a clear idea of howyou would make a change or what
you were gonna do?

I had zero idea.
I knew that I wanted to work intech because I was tech savvy
and I was clearly showing, atleast myself, that I was able to
do it.
Didn't even know that there wasa field called learning design,
that people designed theselearning experiences, mediated
by technology.
Once I digged in that field, Irealized that I had been doing

(26:06):
plenty of that when it wasworking in publishing, when I
was working in human resourceswhen I was a lot younger.
I just knew that I wanted towork in tech and I wanted to
work creating, supportinglearning platforms or learning
resources online because therewas a huge lack of those.
So I wanted to be in thathotspot saying if I can support

(26:27):
my 200 teachers with a trainingsession and how to manage a
video call, imagine what I cando by designing a resource that
can support 1 million teachers.
I started Googling people whodid what I did, how were they
called?
Where did they work?
What they knew that I didn'tknow.
And I started reading a lot.

(26:49):
I started following certaincompanies, for example,
Duolingo, to see if peopleworked in education, what did
they do?
And quite quickly because theoffer was high, I hit my first
position as a freelancer andjust a couple of weeks.
And then the change was tiresomebecause I kept two positions.

(27:09):
I was a head teacher in mymorning and it was a learning
designer in my evening.
And he took me a while to makethose fit together.
the flow was smooth let's say.

There's a lot of intention behind the path that
you take, I think, right fromthe Teddy bears.
Was tech always on your radarthen?
Or was it really something thatbecame apparent when you were
thrown into this pandemicsituation?

I always use tech when teaching.
taught subjects that requiredlots of tech.
I taught foreign languages.
So I needed very diverseresources that were not just
paper-based.
I taught research methods, so weneeded to collate information,
to research, et cetera.
And I taught subject, that wasbasically cultural analysis,

(27:57):
communicative messages, it'scommunication theory.
So I needed to bring tech intomy classroom, and that was
something that I started doingas a part of my teaching
practice.
And then it became part of aside gig.
I started working in the eveningin universities, supporting
educators on their teachingpractices through a technology.

(28:21):
I did that for a while.
And then I started working as afreelance in publishing, also
designing English as a foreignlanguage resources for the Latin
American market.
Also mediated by technology, butit was something that I did as
part of my teaching, it becameapparent that it was something
to be done in itself when therewas such a high need and very

(28:45):
little available.

So it sounds like you were drawing on a whole lot
of previous experience andenthusiasm, and then there was a
moment when it became clear thatthere was a bigger opportunity
to join these Things together.
Is that a fair assessment?

Yeah.
I am not sure I gave it as muchthought.
It was quite natural.
I knew that I was good at that.
And I seen that in action duringthe pandemic.
And I say, why not?
If it's something that I enjoyand in this community in
particular, it's not what theyneed, but probably in some other

(29:22):
place, they will cherish it andI began my search.

I'm struck by the picture of you Googling and
scurrying around doing all ofthis online furious absorbing
information from all of theplaces.
And I'm really interested in thepath that people take to trigger
those moments of clarity andhuge energetic activity.
Because it's often the bringingtogether of so many different

(29:47):
interests that have beenpercolating around for a long
time.
And then there's something thatgoes, oh, I can join these
together.
And then it's really exciting.
And suddenly there's a whole lotof energy behind joining it
together.
Is that what that experience waslike?

Yeah.
And I think that in thatmingling of interest and
research and curiosity, therewas also a changing priorities
because again, my strengths inproject management and
organization, in peopleleadership, in technology, had
always been subsided to myteaching practice.

(30:24):
Up to today, I still definemyself as a teacher first and
foremost, and during a decadeand a half, I was a teacher who
also happened to be great atspreadsheets or great at project
managing or great at technology.
But I was a teacher.
When the need changed, itclicked that I was not just a

(30:47):
teacher was tech savvy.
I was, a learning designerapparently.

That transformation is incredible.
I really like those phrases youused when a mingling of
interests coincides with achange of priorities, isn't that
exciting?

Is a learning moment.
There is a whole backlog oftheory on those specific
moments, when you teachsomething and it becomes
absolutely meaningful.
They're quite a miracle when youhave those teaching moments and
you remember them throughoutyour career.
But I think that there are alsolearning moments that can take

(31:27):
place in an institution orlearning program or whatsoever,
but can also happen in verydifferent scenarios that are
beyond formal education.
For me personally, that was alearning moment.
Oh, no, I don't want to do this,what can I do?
And seeing that set of interestso clearly defined and those

(31:49):
priorities in a different order,compared to what they have been
until that moment, that was alearning moment in itself.

So how quickly after the learning moment did
you take on the identity oflearning designer and think of
yourself that way?

I had the chance to have my first
freelance role quite quickly,designing higher education
modules for universities here inthe UK.
During the period of two weeks,that amazing group of
professionals that were mentorsto me said, okay, this is
transferable.
This is also transferable.
This is also going to be veryuseful for you.

(32:29):
And at the end of that training,I defined myself as a learning
designer.
Basically it was retrospectivesaying maybe I have always been
this, but I'm just realizingthat this is a thing to be.
It always has to do with thepeople we meet and what we can
learn from them and how they canhelp us capitalize those

(32:51):
experiences or those main goals,interests or strategies.

Wow.
That's so incredible.
So the freelance role came upquite quickly and that was
great.
And it sounds like you connectedwith some good people.
How long were you in thatsituation of still being the
head teacher moving into fulltime, learning designer?

A long time, eight months.
I started working as a learningdesigner, also in a full-time
role, in may.
So from may to December, I endedthe academic year with my
students, and then I left theschool and I decided to continue
working on a freelance basis.
I continued working with thatproject until February the
following here.

(33:31):
And then I came across thecompany I'm currently working
on.
I did some smaller project,quite on demand.
And quite soon I came acrossAtom Learning where I currently
work.
I started as a freelance contentcreator and three months later,
I was offered the possibility totake a permanent position and

(33:52):
relocated to the UK.
So, it was a very long andtiring process, but actually was
quite quick.

it's funny how both of those things can be true at
once.
When you look at just theLinkedIn version of it, it seems
very natural and inevitablereally.
Steady and fast, but the livedreality of it is something
different and was frustratingand confusing.

Yeah, I think that this is something
that happens to many, manyteachers, the emotional backlog
you have when you work as ateacher is really strong and it
operates in your brain and inyour decision-making process.
Being a teacher has something ofthe mission.

(34:37):
You have a mission to be thereand your mission to educate and
empower the younger generations.
And that is embedded in yourbrain.
You become emotionally reallyclose to it, to your families in
the community, you work, orstudents, and you see them grow
and become adults and livingthat generates feelings that are

(34:58):
sometimes very confusing,sometimes quite hard to handle.
The guilt is terrible.
When you make that decision,that it took you a really long
time to make that you feelterribly guilty.
And this is something that afterconnecting with many teachers
that had also transitioned intothe Ed Tech industry in diverse

(35:18):
roles, they all quote the samething.
The hardest part about leavingteaching is that emotion backlog
you have, and the feeling thatyou have betrayed the community,
and that imprinted in yourpersonality and who you are when
you are a teacher.

Yeah, really strong language there too.

It resonates with me (35:41):
the guilt, the betrayal, the mission.
Is that something you thinkpeople bring to teaching when
they arrive or is it somethingthe Practice brings up in you as
you do it, or is it a mix ofboth?

I would say it's a dialectic process.
You bring it because when youdecide to become a teacher,
there's something about themission that is there.
You want to become a teacherbecause you want to support
students.
You don't want to become ateacher because of the pay.
You want to become a teacherbecause either, you love kids
and you want to see them growand you feel the sense of

(36:20):
responsibility and ownership ontheir learning, their progress
and their growth that getsstronger and stronger because
the environment feeds into thatand it builds the teacher
identity.
Passion, mission, empathy arefeatures that historically have
been addressed for teachers.

(36:42):
And they make these transitionsa lot more difficult at an
emotional level for teachers whodecide to leave the classroom.

How did you deal with that and recognize those
feelings as part of theemotional backlog in yourself?

For me it was simpler, because I had
already moved from teacher tohead teacher before, and
therefore my relationship withmy students was not there
anymore.
It was not the same as if I wastheir teacher and that made it
simpler because I didn't likethe role of a head teacher.
Still was really difficultbecause the school I was

(37:20):
working, I attended as a kid.
I had a lot of emotionalconnection.
It's my home, it's my community.
So that made it hard.
But I always think that if I hadbeen a teacher, when the
pandemic hits and not a headteacher, I wouldn't have left
teaching.
I wouldn't be a learningdesigner because I wouldn't have
started to break thatconnection.

It sounds like the moment of loss with the
connection with the students hadalready happened earlier.
And this recognition of thatmade it easier to move on, cuz
you didn't want to go or youcouldn't go back.
Was there a grieving process forthat loss once you'd recognized
it?

Maria Fernanda Puer (38:01):
Absolutely.
I needed to leave.
I moved here to the UK andtraveling in a month.
And one of the first things Iwant to do is to visit my
school.
And I want to see the kids and Iwant to see the teachers because
I miss them like crazy.
Every single time I see studentsin a playground or they are in a
day out.
And I see the group of studentswith their teachers, I feel this

(38:22):
sense of nostalgia.
but that sense of longing alwaysfocuses on the positive things
and not usually on the elementsthat impacted the decision
making process.
So when you run that throughreason.
It quickly becomes clear thatit's not the place for me, but I

(38:42):
still grieve for my students andmy years as a teacher, and I try
to recover those in my dailypractices, as much as I can.

Is there anything you miss about the head teacher
role itself?

Not really.
We were an amazing team.
The other head teacher wasincredible and we had teachers
in charge of the other levelswithin the same school were
incredible.
I don't miss the role, I justmiss the community, the
connection, the network, theworking together towards the
same objective, but the peopleit's not the duty.

You're now based in London, where you mentioned Atom
Learning, you're working inlearning operations, product
management, go to marketstrategy and growth for ed tech
products.
It's really interesting thatkind of transition into a whole
different language of terms andduties and processes.
You mentioned before that youdidn't know that this was a

(39:37):
thing and that even words thatare quite common, like feedback,
have this corporate context thatis not the lived experience of
people from a teachingbackground necessarily.
I'm really interested in thistransition to this modality and
this way of working and how thathappened and what you learned
about it.

Yeah, basically, I'm still the
education experts within theteam.
My main focus is still makingsure that the learning products
we create are educationallysounds.
And I trained to both my teamand other teams on sounds
educational practices.
So in the end, I do much thesame as I did as head teacher.
That was training other teamsand other professionals on

(40:18):
sounds educational practices.
And I make sure that processesrun smoothly.
That was also something I did ashead teacher.
So the language is different.
The objective is different, andthe mindsets and the strategic
thinking are different.
As a process as a team, as acompany, or a product, the
intention is quite differentthan if you are a teacher at

(40:40):
your regular school, but it's amatter of learning the lingo and
taking the time to find skillsthat are transferable.
I took most of my skillsets andmy background from my research
and my studies into these fieldsand that allows me to also
identify my areas ofimprovement.

(41:02):
That have to do with thebusiness mindsets.
I don't have it because I didn'tneed it until now.
This is something that teachersmoving into tech struggle a bit
at first on identifying what youcan bring, how you have to re
signify it, but also identifyyour areas of improvements.

(41:22):
What do you need to master to bepart of this industry?

You said something really interesting then about
how people need to re signifywhat they can bring and how they
story themselves.
You've mentioned your researchinterests a few times.
Shall we talk about how thosehave helped inform what you're
doing?
What are your research,interests and background there?

Well, I'm a learning scientist.
I am a teacher, but mybackground's in terms of studies
and research, is learningscience.
Within learning science, I'vebeen focusing in three main
areas.
One is language teaching andlearning.
Of course, that was somethingthat I'm always keen to continue
learning about us.
The second one is assessmentpractices.

(42:06):
How will you make sure thatassessments are performed in a
fair way, not in an overlypressured way and that we can
gather information that isactually useful.
The third area would be studentwellbeing and community
wellbeing within learningenvironments online and live.
The three of them have beenreally useful right now,

(42:28):
although Atom Learning does notfocus on language teaching, for
example, but it has enabled meto think about language units of
knowledge or thinking aboutassessments or content that is
suitable for students who do notspeak English as a first
language.
We assume that in the UK or inthe us people speak English as

(42:49):
the first language, and there'sa huge chunk of the population
when that's not the case and theprocess should be a bit
different.

I wanna ask you about student wellbeing because
that language is very apparentin the way that you've talked
about all of your work so far.
I have heard you say somethingreally interesting about this,
which is that the traditionalsystem has overlooked student
wellbeing for centuries.
Although I agree with thatintuitively, I'm struck by the

(43:19):
time scale of centuries.
Can you expand on that?

School has always been a privilege.
And until now, for example,higher education remains as a
privilege, and a matter ofopportunity and a matter of
backgrounds.
Given the nature of theobjective of school, that first
was a school or academia as awhole.
Then it was high school.
Then it was higher education,but in the end formal education

(43:45):
was always a matter ofprivilege.
The mechanism of the system isto throw people away.
If you do not fit into thesystem, you don't have to be
there because it's not you'reright.
It's a privilege.
The origins of school come up tothis and logics from the ancient

(44:07):
Greece persist until now in howwill we think about school.
In the last couple of years, andprobably the last decade or so,
this concept has been challengeda lot and mass education has
been talked about a lot more,even more after the pandemic and
the learning loss as it iscalled after the pandemic.

(44:30):
When I started teachingsecondary school in Argentina
was not mandatory.
It was a privilege for those whowanted to attend high school.
In Spain still, the last coupleof years formal education are
not mandatory.
They are reserved for those whoare going to continue with
higher education.
I think that it's wrong.

(44:51):
It sounds terrible, but it hasto do with logics that the
system had operating since itsconception.

It seems as a fitting process that goes on in
that formal education structure.
The system is evaluating whethersomeone is gonna fit and succeed
in that.
And if not, as you say, they canbe thrown away because there's
no right.
But what is that formaleducation structure selecting
for, do you think?

Well, it originally had to deal with
occupying political positions.
School was forming leaders forthe future.
And It's something that's partof the speech until today.
School educates or develops theleaders of the future.
This is something we keephearing in the school
environments.

(45:41):
That was the ancient Greeceobjective of the academia, not
now.
Developing a niche group ofpeople to lead uneducated mass
of people is not the currentgoal of education, but still in
formal education, primary andsecondary, developed students to
continue their studies in theformal way to become lawyers and

(46:05):
doctors and whatsoever withoutminding that they're very
diverse learning journeys, andthey're very diverse career
prospects or life prospects thatstudents may want to conceive.
If we as educators, we onlyconceive as the only possible
future for students to continuestudying and working in an

(46:26):
intellectual position until theyretire, we're leaving many, many
students out of the system thatwould like or would be suited or
whatsoever for somethingcompletely different and they
would be great.
But we're not considering that.
And that's why I got an interestwellbeing in particular.

(46:47):
To make sure that the learningjourney, at least the ones I'm
in charge of, everyone could getsomething from them and
something meaningful.

Even the more recent developments in mass
education, I'm thinking aroundwhen mass schooling came in
around industrial revolutiontimes, it expanded the access
considerably, but was still tiedto producing people who would
fit the economic system.
It was really about producingworkers, and again that was more

(47:19):
access, but still a fittingprocess and people could be
easily discarded and what theywere being fitted for wasn't
necessarily about theirwellbeing.
What's your, take on that?

I think that challenge that we as
educators have today is that wecannot, imagine something
different, we already know thatwe have no idea what those
students are going to be doingin 20 years, because we have no
idea of what the workingenvironment is going to look
like.
This is something Ken Robinsonsays really clearly and really

(47:52):
powerfully.
We are educating students forpositions or roles that will not
exist in a decade.
And we have no idea how tomanage things differently.
So that also is why wellbeing isso important because if we don't
know what we're forming studentsto perform, why should we do it

(48:14):
in a certain way, rather thanstimulating creativity,
simulating reasoning,stimulating problem solving, or
other skills.
That would allow them to behappy in whatever they decide to
do.

A lot of the way that these institutions work in
practice reminds me ofProcrustes, the Greek
mythological figure who used tokidnap travelers and lock off
bits of their anatomy or stretchthem in the right shape to fit
his bed.
We have this appalling habit offitting people to the system
instead of designing systemsthat can accommodate the people

(48:51):
for who, I assume they'redesigned and so great violence
can be done to people in thename of these systems.
I spend a lot of time speakingto the people who are
remaindered by the school systemand have not had a good time
with it.
One of the things, particularlyfrom young people that I hear a
lot is that you can't reformeducation without overthrowing

(49:13):
capitalism because it's soembedded in the economic system.
So when we talk about how wedon't know what professions and
what work people will need to doin 20 years time, they're
thinking much more deeply aboutthis than just jobs.
They're thinking about the wholefuture of the planet, and that's

(49:33):
really weighing down on them.
I don't know if it's fair to askyou for a perspective on that,
but it's been on my mind a lotlately.
Do you have any thoughts?

Of course I have, but it's not
something I've done enoughresearch to give a public
opinion.
However, the last decade,primarily the pandemic and what
came after, have bring up a lotmore questions and a lot more
needs on thinking systemsdifferently.

(50:05):
And this is something that I'mreally hopeful about.
Because what I've seen in termsof networks in terms of
questions in terms of researchduring the pandemic would lead
to systems are less of a systemand more of a variety of
experiences.
The risk we face right now afterthe pandemic, is what do we do

(50:30):
now?
As a system, as a community, dowe completely forget about what
progress, what questions or whatexperiences we had in the last
couple of years.
And try to go back to whateverwe were doing before, or we use
this to improve our students andevery single person, school-aged

(50:50):
students or grown up, learns.
I think we're in a breakingpoint in education and I
personally like to think thatI'm in a great position to see
how it evolves within theeconomic system.

I'm struck by this concept that you use in your
research, convivencia what canyou tell me about that?

The concept of convivencia in
Spanish is very rich.
It's not just living togetherand tolerating each other or
respecting each other or beingable to talk to each other.
But there's a lot more to that.
There's a process of buildingrelationships, building
communication strategies, ofbuilding values and building

(51:33):
identities in the process.
If I have to think about theconcept in English, I would
identify different areas, valueson one hand and social
interactions in the other hand.
They're different things innature, but they relate to each
other really closely.
A system in the human body, thatfunctions because the outer part

(51:55):
functions and it's holistic andit's complete.

Even a surface exploration showed me that that
term in Spanish it's much morebound up in layered meanings and
historical social context ofSpanish history.
Using these kinds of conceptsand going between languages, as
someone who is interested inlearning science and language
teaching, and student wellbeingand accessibility, there's so

(52:20):
much going on there,when Englishis the defacto global language
and the language of science, dowe miss out on something because
we assume that it's a directaccess to to how things are, but
really it's just one way ofseeing the world.

I think we could miss a lots of things,
but if we build communities andwe build research opportunities
from an inclusive perspectiveand an empathetic perspective,
there's no risk of missinganything.
As a person that does not speakEnglish their first language,
there's something of the higherlevel thinking, putting emotions

(53:02):
into words, for example, orreflections into words that when
you translate it, you formalizeit.
It's not spontaneous.
It's not natural.
It goes through a decodingprocess.
The thing is, I can do that andstill be myself, provided the
person in front of me is anactive listener and is

(53:25):
interested in what I have to sayindependently of the quality of
my English.
It's a matter of empathy.
It's a matter of activelylistening and asking questions
and being still curious over thecontext from where that speech
or that statement comes from.

(53:45):
This is something we are notreally good at as people.
We tend to be respectful in away that we don't ask questions
to the other person just becausewe don't want to be irreverent.
However, understanding the placewhere that message comes from,
being a research paper, being alesson, being an email, it's key

(54:08):
to fill those gaps incommunication that happen when
you translate.
They're always things thatcannot be translated unless you
dig a bit deeper.

I would very happily just keep talking about
highly theoretical things forhours, but I think we should
probably come back to some ofthe practical things that you're
doing in the ed tech space andlearning operations seems to be
a catch all term for what thisis.
Can you explain what learningoperations means as if to a 10

(54:40):
year old or perhaps a teenager?

Yeah, I could do the 10 year olds
because I have thought aboutthis.
When a teacher brings a boardgame into the classroom, she
needs to cut the cardboard, drawthe different parts of the board
game, color them.
Basically, I make sure that theteacher has the board game ready
when she has to go to theclassroom.
That is learning operations.

(55:02):
It's the behind the scenes ofthe board game the teacher
brought on Friday.

What a great way of explaining that.
So the teacher can turn up andteach because the operation,
everything else, is taken careof.

It is a really fair assessment.
Is making sure that you areenabling the teaching and
learning to happen as much asyou can.
That is the unpopular task oflearning processes and learning
strategies that people ingeneral, at least people in
education don't enjoy.
I love it.

(55:38):
It's what I do.

So what do you love about that?
And what does it look like inthe context that you're working
in now?

I think that, from my Argentinian
perspective, every single timeyou think about a lesson you
want to deliver, or the learningprogram or a book you want to
write, whatever learning deviceis the concept.
And from that concept up to thefinal products, there's this
pesky way that you never knowwhat happens in the middle.

(56:06):
I just love the part in betweenthe concept and the final
product.

This is what I enjoy the most: taking or outlining the learning (56:11):
undefined
experience as a concept andturning that into a deliverable,
into a product, into somethingthat people can actually enjoy.
That use idealistically.
In real life, I do spreadsheetsall day and I make sure that

(56:32):
people and professionals, mycolleagues, for example, that
have an idea of what would theywant to do, they make it happen
step by step.
They draw their steps, they knowhow they're going to do them,
how to evaluate them, how totest them and then move on to
the following step until theboard game is finished and it
can be taken to the classroom.

(56:53):
So in reality is spreadsheetsand making sure that people
populate those spreadsheets orcreate their own.

I can see how all the threads that we've been
talking about will come to bearon that.
I'm wondering if you could walkme through an example of how you
have gone through that processof taking a a really cool
concept and bringing it to thepoint where it's ready to go.

Well, when I started working at Atom
Learning my job and my teams wasto design an educational
platform, quite similar to theone that was already existing in
the UK, but for the US.
We knew what we wanted to do,but it had to be done.
And we did that in two very bigiterations.
First I was designing thecontent.
Then I took leadership of theteam and leadership of with

(57:36):
projects.
So my job was, this is what weneed.
We need a platform that highschool students in the U S can
use to prepare for entranceexaminations.
This is what I have to do.
These number of activities,these number of educational
videos, these number of otherresources.
This is the person I need tocommunicate with.

(57:59):
I outlined everything.
And with my team, we went stepby step into that process and
see how the platform was readyto be launched in March this
year.
That is actually prettygratifying, that you can see
things from start to finish.

What's the most exciting thing that you are
working on at the moment?

Well, now that I took over the
management, not only of the usbut also the UK learning
products, as an education lead Iadvise in every change that
needs to be done into thecurriculum of our subjects or
products, features of products.
I advice my internal team, Iadvise product tech, marketing,

(58:40):
customer success.
And that is what I enjoy themost.
My manager, Anna, has a phrasethat we put the education in
educational products.
I love managing projects, butI'm an educator and what I love
is advocating for greateducation.
So that is what I enjoy the mostof my work.

It sounds Maria like the substance of what
you're doing now is not sodifferent from the head teacher
work, but the context and theform is quite different.

Yes and no, there's some touching points
in between both, that's true,but there's something that
happens when you have realstudents, flesh and bone, in the
classroom, that you'reresponsible for them, you're
responsible for the integrity,their well-being or safety.
And that shapes the role of ahead teacher and the role of a

(59:37):
teacher intrinsically.
You are fully and soleresponsible for each of those
souls that you have sitting infront of you.
That is so drastically differentin both industries, in both
fields that I wouldn't saythey're comparable.

Yeah, no, that's fair.
So I'm curious then Coming backto how we started and the
connection with students, themagic of teaching and the
community of practice aroundthat, are you getting that in
the work that you're doing now?
What does that look like?

Maria Fernanda Puer (01:00:13):
Absolutely.
They inherently different butwhat happens in Ed Tech is that
you go beyond the fact that edtech is a business field.
So people want to make profitsand that's fine.
But when you move beyond that,you get the time and you get the
mental bandwidth and you get theresources and the opportunity to

(01:00:37):
think really deeply about whatgreats education is.
When you are with a group ofteachers who all have classes at
the same time, you never get tothat level of depth in those
conversations, because thepriority are those students that
you're in charge of.
So what I found working in EdTech is that I met amazing

(01:00:59):
professionals with the mostdiverse backgrounds from all
over the world, because workingin a school is something quite
local, but working in a hugeindustry such as Ed Tech is
something really global and youget the opportunity to go really
in-depth on what great educationmeans on how to make that

(01:01:19):
happen.

Danu Poyner (01:01:20):
Yeah, It sounds almost like the difference
between working in something andworking on something.

Maria Fernanda Puertas (01:01:27):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's difficult.
And It also happens when you'reworking in technology or in
every industry, when you get sointo something that you have in
front of your face, your nextlesson, the homework you have to
grade, the project you have tocomplete before the deadline,
you cannot see the higher levelpicture.

(01:01:47):
You cannot ask yourself or askyour colleagues the really
important, big questions aboutwhat you're doing.
And coming back to that questionwe asked ourselves during the
pandemic.
What do we do?
Now in this context and in thisindustry, not always, but
sometimes you get theopportunity to ask that question

(01:02:08):
and find really answers toresearch and to experiment with.

With all of your experiences and perspective and
intellectual depth, what haveyou found about what great
education looks like?

That's a big question.
I would say that great educationis people centred and not people
as a whole, but every singleperson centered.
If every single person can getfrom a learning experience of
whichever kind, somethingmeaningful, that is great to

(01:02:45):
education.
And not only getting somethingmeaningful, being able to
capitalize that experience anddiscover and put in practice
what they have found.
It has never been so clear thatwe have to be really people
centered as we're trying to beright now.

One of the things I always ask people on the
podcast.
What is a life changing,learning experience you would
gift to someone and why?

I would say, from a very personal and
current experience, I would sayliving abroad, I have been very
privileged throughout my life inArgentina of being well-educated
and having the chance to work,to meet people, to research.
But what you learn when you faceto a completely different
culture, a completely differentroutine, and in group of people

(01:03:41):
and ways of saying and doingthings, it's a metacognitive
process because you get toreflect upon your own beliefs,
your own practices.
I guess I've been living herefor over a year and I'm still
processing all of that.
I'm still processing what I usedto do and I used to think, I
used to believe.

(01:04:02):
Again, this is something thatyou're asking me today and today

I can certainly say that (01:04:05):
having the possibility to live in a
different country.

It's a strong answer.
I Thank you for that.
I wanted to ask you about thesense of mission as a teacher
and what that looks like for younow, do you still have that,
does it express itself in adifferent way?
How are you feeling about that?

I think the meaning has changed.
I'm always attracted to missiondriven projects.
It's in my nature as a teacher,and my political being, of being
drawn towards missionmission-driven projects.
There is something about themission that in teaching in
formal education, that puts alot of pressure on the teachers,

(01:04:46):
on who to be, how to behave,what to think, what not to think
and how to feel about what youdo.
That is something that I had tolet go because in the end, and
that happens to many, manyteachers, the sacrifice is your
own personal life.
Your mission becomes the numberone priority and whatever you do

(01:05:08):
with your time with yourself orwith your personal life, becomes
completely secondary.
And what I gained when I movedinto tech was having a life that
is me away from the mission.
I can be myself and findinterests outside of marking

(01:05:29):
papers, for example.
That is something that, as ateacher, you don't allow
yourself to do.

There's gonna be a lot of people listening to this
who are really pricking up theirears at that.
So what does your life looklike?
How do you fill your cup?
What are some of the intereststhat you've pursuing now you've
got a bit of space.

I been here for a year, so I'm still
settling down or living in acompletely different country.
I've always enjoyed traveling.
Something that I can now do thatI couldn't do when it was a
teacher was picking my laptopand going to a cafe on a coastal
town on a Tuesday and work fromthere because I don't have to

(01:06:09):
bring 30 students with me.
This is something that I try todo as much as I can, to work
from different settings and tryto find inspiration from
visiting different places.

Well, thank you so much for sharing that.
There's so much more I could askyou about, but we've covered a
lot and I'm really grateful forthe way that you have shared
your insights and the manydifferent mingling of interests
with such clarity.

Thank you for having me.
And yeah, it's been a pleasurefor me.
Reflecting upon the journey isalways an opportunity to
capitalize experience and whynot learn something new and I'm
always up for learning somethingnew.
So yeah.
Thank you for that.

(01:06:58):
Bye.

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From guilt at leaving teaching to designing student wellbeing at scale, with Maria Fernanda Puertas | S2E12

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From guilt at leaving teaching to designing student wellbeing at scale, with Maria Fernanda Puertas | S2E12