October 28, 2024 • 68 mins
Joe Geno has dedicated 26 years to teaching in the Bronx, a testament to his passion and resilience. In this episode, Joe shares stories from his new book, Lesson Learned, offering a wealth of insights and advice for educators and professionals in high-pressure environments.
Joe’s candid recounting of his career, enriched with humorous and impactful anecdotes, reveals a journey shaped by a determination to succeed, and an open-mindedness to learn through the process of teaching about thriving as an educator. He reflects on the highs and lows of life in the education system, imparting the profound lessons he's learned along the way.
From his early dreams of becoming a poet to navigating the daily challenges of teaching, Joe's story is both relatable and inspiring for anyone forging their own career path. His experiences promise not just valuable lessons, but also plenty of laughter and motivation. Whether you’re in education or another service-related or high-pressure field, Joe’s wisdom will leave you enlightened and uplifted.
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Episode Transcript
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Intro (00:02):
Welcome to There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere,
conversations with interestingpeople with fascinating stories
to tell and from which we candraw important lessons.
Here are your hosts, amieCerino and Peter Carucci.
Jamie Serino (00:18):
Hello and welcome to.
There's a Lesson in hereSomewhere.
I'm Jamie Serino and I'm PeterCarucci, and we're here today
with Joe Geno an old friend,peter, and I know Joe all the
way back from college, great guy, writer, music lover and now
(00:39):
author.
So Joe has recently written abook called Lesson Learned and
it's about his journey throughthe education system being a
teacher, about his adventures asa teacher, but also there's a
(01:06):
lot of advice in there forteachers and for people in
education, and as I sort of lookthrough the chapter titles, it
seems like anyone that has astressful job, anyone maybe
working with children, I think,could draw a lot out of this
book.
So, joe, welcome, thanks forjoining us, and why don't you
tell us a little bit more aboutyourself?
Joe Geno (01:25):
Sure, well, thank you for having me here.
So yeah, I'm originally fromSyracuse, new York, kind of
(01:48):
suburbs of Syracuse, I guess.
In my early 20s I kind of gotbored up there and wanted
something a little more excitingin life and I was also kind of
inspired to.
In 98, I got accepted toBrooklyn College.
I wanted to study with thefamous poet Alan Ginsberg, who
was a beat poet from the 50s.
He was a professor at BrooklynCollege and I wanted to study
with him.
Unfortunately I didn't getaccepted to the MFA program, but
a year later I did get acceptedto the MA program in English.
(02:11):
So I moved to Brooklyn butunfortunately Allen Ginsberg had
cancer at that time and he wasno longer around.
So then that started my journeyinto kind of higher education
and actually through our friendPete there he helped me get into
education because I reallywasn't thinking about becoming a
(02:34):
teacher like a high schoolteacher.
I was thinking, maybe college,but my main focus for wanting to
study was being a writer.
But I didn't know what thatmeant in terms of a paycheck.
Peter Carucci (02:50):
You were a poet back then, right, wasn't it more
?
Joe Geno (02:51):
poetry.
Yes, I was a poet.
So even worse, because ifyou're going to be a writer,
journalists, the novelists,those people get money.
Poets don't get money.
Um, but and it's strange, likeit's strange.
I went into binghamton likethat too, like this is what I
(03:12):
interest is, but I'm not reallythinking about what happens when
I get out.
You know, um, but it was a goodbase to kind of try to explore
other careers when I really hadto, like make ends meet, yeah.
Jamie Serino (03:27):
Yeah, I remember that.
Now you reminded me about AllenGinsberg and Brooklyn College
and everything and the timing.
But so you graduated and thenyou were thinking, what am I
going to do next?
And I remember you were inHoboken for a little while and
we were hanging out.
And then you were thinking,what am I going to do next?
And I remember you were inHoboken for a little while and
we were hanging out, and thenyou went to the Bronx and then
(03:51):
Pete maybe you can like fill inthe gaps here so there were
teacher openings at the school.
You were at right.
So what happened?
Peter Carucci (04:00):
Yeah, and so I also needed a roommate, and so.
I said hey Joe, do you want tobe a teacher?
And I remember your firstreaction you were no way, no way
, and I go, just come for theinterview, come on, and you go,
no way.
And then somehow I talked youinto both being my roommate and
getting this interview with ourold principal.
Is that right, both being myroommate and getting this
(04:22):
interview with our old principal?
Joe Geno (04:26):
Is that right?
Yes, you got me right in and Iwas kind of desperate because I
was working at Borders Bookstorein Midtown.
I was desperate.
I was.
I mean I really was In terms ofgetting a place, because I
didn't have a place and thengetting a wage that will
(04:46):
actually pay for it.
So I mean the idea of making$32,000 was wow, I was going to
have my first real job.
I felt like that when I startedteaching.
You know, it was funny becausethe paycheck was like $800 twice
a month and rent was $750.
(05:07):
I was like wow.
But I was happy because I couldafford a car and I just paid
the bills.
Nice.
Jamie Serino (05:16):
So now what was it when you were thinking oh, I
could be a teacher, but I couldbe a teacher in college.
I don't think I could be ateacher in high school.
What was going on in your mindthat made you think that?
Joe Geno (05:28):
Well, I was always intellectually stimulated in
college.
I loved that environment ofhaving lectures, discussion,
highbrow thinking of whatevertopic you're talking about.
I mean topic you're you'retalking about, I mean that
(05:49):
that's.
We don't get that so much inhigh school I mean high school
is is a different level.
Yeah and um, and I kind ofthought that even when I was in
high school I'm like, thank god,I don't have to come back to
high school.
Yeah, and, funny enough, you'vebeen for 25 years now.
Yeah, and actually three ofthose years was in my high
school that I went to school at.
(06:10):
I went to Ohio State for threeyears and I got to teach
alongside some high schoolteachers that taught me when I
was there Nice yeah.
Jamie Serino (06:21):
So, yeah, I guess there's the thing with high
school, like you know, the kidsthey're forced to be there,
right, and so you're teachingEnglish and I happen to be a
student that loved English,right, I didn't really like math
, you know, so I was forced tobe in math, but I loved English
and so that's part of it.
So, maybe segueing a little bitinto the book and into your
(06:44):
experiences, like, how do youwork with a class like that,
where maybe only a handful ofpeople really like that and the
rest, you know, maybe there's asubset that they're okay with it
and then there's a subset theytotally don't want to be there,
and that's like your audience.
Joe Geno (07:03):
Yeah, one thing I learned early on was I had to
develop some kind ofrelationship with these students
who are a completely differentgeneration, from a completely
different environment, adifferent experience, different
background.
And how am I going to develop arelationship?
Because you know, yeah, not alot of them are going to be
(07:27):
English majors.
So I think one of my tacticswas humor, you know.
And I also had to appropriatemyself into the culture, because
they talk different, they havedifferent interests myself into
the culture because they talkdifferent, they have different
(07:48):
interests.
Peter Carucci (07:52):
And, without naming the school per se
specifically, it is important tonote that you went straight
into the largest school in thestate of New York one or two in
the nation in the inner city inthe Bronx, where 91% out of 100
kids was free or reduced lunchpoverty.
Number one in gangrepresentation crime, violent
major crime.
That's what I'm still surprisedabout, like it's amazing you
(08:15):
just chose to go into thatenvironment.
Yeah, you know.
How did you bridge those gaps?
Joe Geno (08:20):
Well, I didn't really know exactly what I was getting
into oh my fault, oops but myattitude was I need to make this
work because, well, career-wiseI didn't know like I wanted to
make it work.
And then eventually I sawquickly the nobility of the job.
(08:43):
Eventually I saw quickly thenobility of the of the job.
I saw the people who reallycared about this teaching high
school or administering in highschool and how it is important
to the stage of those kids lives, and so I latched on to that.
(09:05):
Even though that wasn'tsomething that I thought about
or was inspired Like, I gotinspired when I saw it and I was
in it and then I was like allright, I can work with like this
, this is a good job.
I mean, obviously peopleteachers like to talk about
wanting to get higher pay and soforth and maybe higher status
(09:28):
among society.
But you know, the general pushto like help kids, to help
others, to be of service toothers, is really important.
And it was important for mebecause up until that time I was
completely self-involved, likeself-centered, I mean I wasn't
(09:54):
mean to other people but Iwasn't really thinking about
other people either.
I was kind of thinking about myown interests, my own desires,
and this was the first timewhere I had to think of others
for myself, and anytime somebodywho's self-involved like feels
like, uh, they're on the ledgeof something that you always
(10:16):
have to go back to servicingothers.
And I realized that.
And then becoming a family manreally made me realize that.
Peter Carucci (10:25):
I remember when, out of the blue, we started
playing a lot of chess, me andyou.
This is the late 90s, the nextthing I know you were the
advisor of the chess club and westarted a chess club out of the
blue, basically in thiscavernous old like closet that
(10:51):
they emptied out for us to havethe chess club after school, and
I'll never forget the principalgoing.
You want to do what you stillplay chess with these kids.
It goes good luck.
And then we had about eight,ten kids.
Then it exploded.
We had to go to the library andyou basically had these
tournaments and I mean early on,I mean in your career, you
(11:11):
started a chess club in thebronx yeah, chess was um.
Joe Geno (11:15):
When I was in my 20s, chess was uh, I really got into
it.
Go to the village.
I would play at the shops overthere.
Um, and I think it started withJamie back in Binghamton, if
you remember.
Jamie Serino (11:28):
And Airem.
You know, you may have seen theepisode with Airem and I told
the story.
I think Joe and I were playingchess and we were getting into
it and we felt like we werepretty good and then Item comes
in, this guy from Brazil, andwe're like hey, item, you play
next.
And he played next and I don'tremember which one he beat.
He beat us in like three movesand we're like what?
(11:50):
And then no one wanted to playhim.
He was a chess genius, right,but he ended up like teaching us
a lot.
uh as we were playing, so andyeah, joe, you really like ran
with it.
Joe Geno (12:03):
My competitive juices got going because I hated to
lose and I really wanted tolearn.
So I got books and I startedplaying and I went to
tournaments.
Aren't you an actual rankedmaster?
Is that?
Peter Carucci (12:16):
correct Well.
Joe Geno (12:17):
I'm not a ranked master.
Are you a master?
Peter Carucci (12:25):
No I haven't.
Joe Geno (12:26):
No, I haven't.
But my greatest achievement isI beat a guy who was 1900, which
I think master level is like2000.
Wow, but that's kind of a maybe.
You know, especially when I getinto retirement I might get
back to like a habit of chessand maybe that's on my bucket
(12:48):
list to really maybe become amaster.
It depends on how.
It really depends, on how muchtime I want to spend on it.
Jamie Serino (12:55):
I think I can do it, but there's something you
said earlier about like being onthe ledge and then going back
to service, and I think we'veheard like some quotes like that
before and I appreciate thatyou said that and I wonder if
you could talk a little bitabout that feeling.
And it seemed like you realizedthis.
(13:17):
You realized that maybe youwere too self-centered, you
needed to be a little moreselfless.
And then I think it could be agood segue into what you talk
about in the book, because whenwe were reconnecting you were
saying that you're not burnt out.
You're teaching in this verydifficult environment for as
long as you've been teaching andyou're not burnt out.
(13:38):
And that's part of what thebook is about is how to keep
doing this without getting burntout.
So you got being selfless,being on the ledge, remembering
service.
Don't be, you know, don't letyourself get burnt out.
How could you sort of talkabout all that?
Joe Geno (13:54):
Yeah, there was a chapter in my book.
I said something like are yousurviving, Are you thriving?
Peter Carucci (14:01):
Striving or thriving, and there's really a
difference Survive, strive,thrive.
Joe Geno (14:07):
And so my early years was survival, because I didn't
really know the mechanics ofteaching and I had to learn all
that because I had no previousexperience.
Like any teacher today they'lldo student teaching, go to
school of education.
I literally did nothing.
I was in a classroom and so Ihad to learn from the leadership
(14:30):
.
We had good leadership and theyhad a very structural way to go
about your lessons.
So that helped me and I endedup getting a very good mentor
and so that at least got my feetunder me.
And but then I had to.
After that I had to deal withthe system and getting a little
(14:56):
jaded, feeling like a cog in thewheel.
And I talk about that in thebook too, because you know
you're part of a system of100,000 teachers was over a
million students, now they'redown to about 700,000.
And how do you, how do you moveforward without feeling like
(15:18):
you're just a peon?
You know, and what you're doingdoesn't really move the ball
anywhere.
You know, and what you're doingdoesn't really move the ball
anywhere.
And for me, you know, I justkind of learn my limits about
what I can do and what I can'tdo.
(15:39):
I don't worry about what'soutside my classroom.
Necessarily I worry about whatstudents are in my roster and
what I can do to help themdevelop their skills.
That's one of the mainmotivations.
When I'm talking to students islike, look, you guys just got to
work on your skills of literacy, reading and writing, and, and
(16:01):
in many cases they're behind,because reading is not a medium
that people will go to.
They're too distracted by thescreens and the computers, and
so for them to put that asideand actually open a book and
read it takes focus, it's a lotslower, it's not necessarily
(16:25):
visual visual, it's moreimaginative um, and so we got to
develop those muscles andskills to to be able to do that,
um.
So I understand that what I'mselling is, um, not the most
palatable of mediums, yeah, butit's still important.
(16:46):
And a lot of my students arecollege bound yeah, so you need
it for college.
Unfortunately, and what wedon't hear a lot about is we
hear a higher graduation rate,but we don't hear about how
they're doing in college rate,but we don't hear about how
(17:08):
they're doing in college andunfortunately, from different
publications, I've seen a lot ofthem.
More than half of them drop outby their second year and more
than that don't get a four-yeardegree.
Peter Carucci (17:19):
If I'm not mistaken, you did an actual
action research study ontrailing them right 20 years ago
or 15 years ago, or something.
I mean you know what you'retalking about here.
This isn't like conjecture.
Joe Geno (17:33):
I mean I've looked up different statistics on that.
I know that I don't know if itwas the New York Times, but you
know it has been somethingpeople have explored.
But you know it has beensomething people have explored.
We just I just also know itkind of intuitively because
we'll hear about students likewhat's happening with that kid?
You know he's working at CVSnow.
(17:56):
You know it's like.
I mean they're obviously thereare success stories, but you
know we want to try to get moreof the college graduates.
And what I do like about what'shappening in the DOE now is
that they are kind of pushing.
It's not all college talk now.
(18:17):
They're at least kind oftalking about a little bit more
vocational, different avenues ofcareers.
Peter Carucci (18:23):
And there's a need there vocational different
avenues of careers and there's aneed there.
So yeah, by DOE you mean theNew York City Department of
Education right, yes, yeah,sorry that was it?
Yeah, that's okay.
Joe Geno (18:31):
Yeah, that's New York City teacher talk.
Peter Carucci (18:36):
And do you think that I know there's a chapter in
your book on discipline.
Do you feel that maybe, likeyou, have the strength of that
kind of discipline to bring thatkind of daily dedication in
this environment to be able tosee it through?
Or is it more, you had to learnthe hard way and now, after
that survival mode and thenstriving, do you feel like
(18:59):
you've been striving or you'vebeen thriving for that
discipline?
Joe Geno (19:03):
I've been thriving because I realize that I'm
working on a.
I feel like I'm working on adifferent level now, especially
in the last four years, and thisbook really kind of represents
that rebirth in me, because thisbook was really written during
COVID and COVID you know youhear how COVID made some people
(19:25):
worse, but it really made mebetter in terms of I totally
kind of turned around mypriorities.
You know, I was like 235 poundsand I dropped 35 pounds and I
really dedicated myself towriting this and I still do that
(19:49):
.
You know I am have a prettygood physical exercise regimen
and I'm very uh, um, I have alot like a routine I follow and
so I bring that into theclassroom.
Like they see it, like they talkabout like, um, hey, how's your
sleeping habits?
My coaches just like to talkabout that.
(20:10):
How do you guys sleep?
And like well, I got up at 430,like I do every day Like 430,
what are you talking about?
So, like what I've learned as aparent as well, it's not just
what you tell them, it's theexample that you show in how you
go about your daily uh,activities, you know, and habits
(20:33):
.
So I think they see that in me.
Um.
So I don't get a lot of umstudents who say, like you know,
let's just chill today becauseI got the energy and I, you know
, they just they.
I said I set a certain regimenthat they're used to.
So I think one good indicationif you're, if you're doing
(20:56):
things right as a teacher, if astudent walks in and they say
what are we doing today?
Because then their assumptionis, as you know, you've set that
precedent, like when you walkin here you're going to do
something from the time you getin here to the time you leave.
Jamie Serino (21:10):
We're not chilling in here or you're going to do
something.
From the time you get in hereto the time you leave, we're not
chilling.
That's great.
So can you talk a little bitabout like what you've seen over
26 years, especially with likescreens and attention span, and
like that I mean just 26 years.
You know like so and you'vebeen dealing with kids around
(21:31):
the same age, so you've beenseeing this sort of like yeah.
So can you talk a little bitabout that, because obviously we
know there's an issue here andso what have you seen and what
are your thoughts on that?
Joe Geno (21:58):
always an issue um, but in the early days they had
less distractions um.
Peter Carucci (22:02):
So when I started in 1999, I'm not a lot of kids
had cell phones.
No, yeah, dangers back then.
Joe Geno (22:07):
Yeah, dangers beeping in the middle of the class maybe
pcs or something, but so I Inoticed, like a literature study
, we did a lot of classics.
It was virtually all classics.
And, um, there are books that Iwouldn't think to teach today.
(22:28):
Uh is, and maybe some of it istheme-based, but maybe some of
it is complexity of readingbased or like, uh, they're, so
maybe today they're so kind ofdeparted from uh, for instance,
shakespeare.
Shakespeare used to be astandard Every year.
We taught Shakespeare.
(22:49):
Now don't teach Shakespeare.
I have taught it in the recentpast but I had some kids say who
is Shakespeare?
So that would be blasphemy.
If that was 1999, that wouldhave been blasphemy for a kid to
say who is.
(23:10):
Shakespeare.
That would have been blasphemyfor a kid to say who's
Shakespeare, but it'sinteresting because of the
backgrounds of the teachers andthe students.
So what was funny is that whenI started there was a lot of
Jewish teachers and so everybodyhad a unit on the Holocaust
teaching to, you know, Latinoand Black students in the Bronx.
(23:38):
Like the importance of theHolocaust, teaching to Latino
and Black students in the Bronx,the importance of the Holocaust
.
I did that.
We taught night.
People don't do that anymore.
I don't think anybody reallyteaches that.
But as far as how?
(24:04):
the screens have changed things.
I think it's harder and hardernow for them to even open a book
.
Honestly, I see them try.
They'll open a book and they'llread a page and they can't.
Peter Carucci (24:14):
It's not everybody Is it like the
attention span or just the lackof the skill.
Joe Geno (24:20):
I think a little of both.
They don't process the words.
They'll read the words, andthen they don't understand what
they read.
Peter Carucci (24:30):
It's a problem?
Do you think this is just mewith my educator hat?
Do you think that a lot of thatstarts much earlier, before
they get to you in high school?
Joe Geno (24:41):
Absolutely.
Peter Carucci (24:42):
You can say the truth here, it's okay.
Joe Geno (24:45):
Yeah, I mean you know, and this is something I
struggle with my kids becausethey're on the screens a lot and
we have to try to putparameters on it and encourage
reading.
I'm still working on that athome, but they're doing pretty
(25:06):
good in school.
But so, yeah, I mean this.
I mean how young are kids today?
They have, they have the screen, so it's it's it's difficult
with attention span and just theability to Focus and
concentrate.
(25:26):
There is a discipline there andwhat I've been trying to do
with my classes is like sell theidea that you need this.
Yeah, you need this kind ofdiscipline and you need this
skill.
Um, and your screens aren'tgoing to help you with this, and
(25:47):
I'll tell you what.
It's even getting crazier now.
I've've just learned recentlyhow to check for that, because
(26:14):
you can tell Right.
And I have to do that now, sothat's a new thing, well yeah,
it's interesting because youknow I was talking about this
recently.
Jamie Serino (26:28):
So you know, back in the day people would be like,
oh, why are you making me addand subtract?
There's a calculator, I don'tneed to learn that, you know.
And it's less about thelearning of that and more about,
like, the thought and theprocess of getting your brain to
think like that and to solvethese problems.
And now people are saying that,even with the writing, like,
(26:48):
why do I need to learn that?
I'll just use AI, you know.
And it's like well, you needthat process, you need to learn
that process for your brain.
So that's yeah.
So you're bringing up a wholeother thing there.
And the other thing that comesto mind is to hear you talking.
There was this book, I thinkit's called Deep Work and it
might be like 10 years old now,sort of like you know, kind of
(27:10):
right in the middle of all thisstuff happening and maybe seeing
into the future a little bit,that the book is saying that
your brain needs a certainamount of time to do what the
author was calling deep work.
And you, if you just spend yourtime doing the quick things,
then you're going to lose theability to have that focus, that
(27:30):
ability to do that deep workthat maybe might take tens of
minutes or hours, and that couldbe like reading a book or it
could be like doing research ordoing any kind of deep thought,
strategic thought.
And the author was saying, youknow you run the risk of sort of
abusing your working memory bynot using that enough, your
attention span and these partsof your brain, that kind of dive
(27:53):
in.
And you know so he was gettingvery biological about it, but
it's since that book's beenwritten, 10 years later, the
problem, you know, is probablygetting worse.
It's like related more to yourbook.
You know, do you have advice forteachers?
You know teachers are dealingwith for for teachers.
You know teachers are dealingwith enough stress and now
(28:14):
they're dealing with thisattention span issue.
And you know, do you talk aboutthat in in in the book and have
any advice there?
Joe Geno (28:23):
Let's see.
Do I address that directly?
Um, can't remember exactly, butI well, I, I know just how to
you have to adjust to the time.
So, um, one of the things I'mdoing this year is all my
lessons are on Google slides, sothey have a audio visual aspect
(28:44):
to the lesson.
And I'm getting away from lastyear I posted everything on
Google Classroom.
They're working on computersand that it was too much because
they could just tab, go intoanother tab, exactly.
Yeah, it's a mess.
So now, once in a while, I dohave computer days where they'll
(29:08):
look up something or whateverand I'll do Google Classroom.
But now I do the slides whereI'm giving them a visual and
we're going through it andthey're working on book and
paper.
Yeah, the computers have been,but also trying to encourage,
(29:32):
like class discussion, justreading centered and writing
centered.
Peter Carucci (29:41):
Can I ask a really deep pedagogical question
in terms of formativeassessment?
Do you find it's much moredifficult now to gauge and
assess comprehension, even inthat setting, today, in the
classroom setting, than it hasbeen in years past, simply
because of the lack of attentionspan, and that you have to do
(30:03):
much more now in order to keepthem on point so you can
actually gauge their assessmentduring a lesson?
Comprehension, I mean during alesson.
Joe Geno (30:14):
Well, I'm thinking back to this particular school
I'm at like when I started in2016 and today, and honestly,
actually they might be a littlebetter with being able to write
during a period.
They've had a lot of practiceof you know writing, so I think
(30:39):
no, I think they can do likefull writing pieces and, you
know, what they might strugglein is development,
sophistication of language, useof vocabulary.
They're pretty good withtextual evidence, so overall
(31:03):
they seem pretty decent.
I mean, there's a variation.
I have students who are stilllearning the language you know,
um, but I also have co-teachersthat help me to um, you know,
provide them with differentresources so that they can uh,
now you know, navigate throughthe, the lesson I wonder what
(31:24):
that's like.
Peter Carucci (31:27):
You have a chapter in your book the line
between tolerance andintolerance.
Joe Geno (31:34):
Having not read your book.
Peter Carucci (31:38):
it excites me to figure out what is Mr Joseph
Gino's.
What is that, without ruiningthe surprise?
Joe Geno (31:57):
Actually funny enough.
That caught my eye too and Iwas looking through it and I
didn't really I didn't, I didn'teven look at it.
Good, but I think, oh, I thinkI think what it was about was I
struggled early on withclassroom management.
Administrators would criticizeme as being what's the one guy,
oh, he said.
I said I had a relaxed approach, so I was kind of the cool
(32:19):
teacher.
Peter Carucci (32:19):
But in reality, if I'm reflecting back on it, I
was too tolerant of nonsense andin certain classes it didn't
work out well.
Jamie Serino (32:40):
So that chapter's about classroom management like
intolerance versus tolerance andthat kind of thing Right.
Joe Geno (32:47):
I've never been one a rigid teacher, but I think I've
learned to where I want to holdthe line with that so that I can
still perhaps not hurt myrelationship with students but
also be able to get what I needto get done.
And so and I think that lack ofrigidity has actually helped me
(33:14):
with my longevity, because Idon't take it home with me, I
don't there's been times wheremaybe I haven't been as rigid as
I need to be, or I'm nothandling this particular student
or class the way I need to inthe past, and I've gotten the
criticism as rigid as I need tobe, or I'm not handling this
particular student or class theway I need to in the past, uh,
and I've gotten the criticismfor that, but, um, I uh, I'm, uh
(33:42):
, I was able to kind oftransform myself and try to
learn from it and, um, you know,I think I'm in a good, a good
place now, but it took a whilefor me.
Jamie Serino (33:55):
Yeah, how does a beginner teacher overcome that?
Because I feel like I'm notsurprised to hear that you
struggle with that.
I think, both just being, Ithink, any beginner teacher, and
also you are like a calm, kindof mellow person and you know
more, intellectually driven bythe material right.
Peter Carucci (34:14):
So what is?
Joe Geno (34:15):
your advice for that beginner.
Well, it kind of depends on theperson.
Well, some teach, some teachersdon't struggle with that, like
they have a personality as suchthat they just walk in and
command a room.
Um, and actually my co-teachers, my co-teachers are in their
late 20s, early 30s and I don'tthink they they they don't have
(34:37):
a problem with that becausethey're they got strong voices,
they're very forceful, um, butalso they're they're they got
strong voices, they're veryforceful, but also they're there
, they have really they can getrelationships with students as
well.
So it was, it was a particularissue for me Because and that's
maybe one of my instinctualreasons why I didn't want to
teach high school because I kindof knew, I kind of knew that
(35:00):
that was going to be an issuefor me.
I kind of knew that that wasgoing to be an issue for me.
What helped me early on wasjust learning the structure of a
lesson and keeping them busy.
That helped maybe curtail a lotof the problems of students
(35:20):
acting out or whatever.
Yeah problems of of studentsacting out or whatever, yeah,
but even even with that, youknow, then they would, and then
I, you still, you still have toaddress it as a, as a teacher,
yep, and so, uh, that was just aexperience for me, like a long
experience, to try to see how amI going to deal with different
(35:42):
students.
And and when you become anexperienced enough teacher, you
can fit students within aprofile, like, oh, I had this
student, this kid, right here,this is just like this kid I had
five years ago and this is whatI did for that kid, you know.
So it's interesting to kind ofhow students fit within a
(36:03):
profile.
Peter Carucci (36:04):
And then you can like, kind of almost
scientifically, when you talkabout their learning profile,
like whatever modalities seem towork with Johnny five years ago
, you can bring out and it mightwork with another student.
That's very useful stuff, youknow.
You know we were talkingearlier, before this recording,
(36:30):
about a certain large number ofyoung teachers leaving within
like five years and I think thestrength of a book like yours
kind of empowers and sets outlike if you had that book or if
I had that book 25, 30 years agowe would be like all right, you
(36:50):
know, because you're evengetting into retirement and when
to retire.
And like you know myths aboutteaching that look, if that's
what you really think happens,it's not going to happen.
Like my mother was a Catholicschool principal and she needed
a substitute teacher and so Iwent in to substitute teach her
(37:12):
seventh grade class for like aweek something I will never do
again.
And it taught me so much inthose like five school days that
I never wanted to, you know,ever encounter seventh grade
class again.
You know, because back then,you know, we didn't know what we
were going to.
You know we didn't know whatwe're going to do with our lives
.
You know Now, if I had yourbook as a young teacher, are
(37:34):
there things in there that I canfind value in that would help
me?
Joe Geno (37:49):
would help me.
That's uh, you're asking that,yeah, yes, um, yeah, absolutely.
Um.
I think I start off withtalking about success and how a
teacher is a successful position, um, just to begin with, but
then there is a process in whichyou have to acquire, like, a
greater success.
So the job itself is noble, butthen you have to learn how to
(38:11):
be effective in it, and then, Ithink part of that, if you want
to last as a teacher, it's allabout your attitude and your how
you approach, because how youapproach different situations.
So there are, you know, manychallenges, like I was saying,
(38:35):
like things that make you feelsmall or ineffective are
ineffective, um, but you canovercome that, um, and then I'll
try to.
Peter Carucci (38:51):
Uh, you know, experience makes you better
basically, you know, I was withyou, for I mean, I spent
basically a quarter of my lifeprobably with you in that
environment and, to your point,everything would be going great
and things are okay.
And then all of a sudden NewYork State says we're going to
bring in this new evaluationsystem, and then New York State
(39:13):
embraces the Common Corecurriculum, so all these things
that have been going well.
Now you have to redo all of thecurriculum and spend all these
hours regenerating this, andthen new teachers have to get a
new sort of you know, newclasses every year and update
their certification requirementsand then all of a sudden, this
(39:35):
rubric will change and thiscan't happen.
Top-down structure.
I know on a teacher who'sliterally with the salt of the
earth in the classroom trying toelevate, in your case, some of
the poorest kids in the unitedstates and the world and trying
to help them out, and all of asudden you have this thing come
(39:56):
down on you and you have to youknow respond immediately.
Joe Geno (40:01):
How do you get into that?
I get into that especially, andthis really came with like the
Bloomberg era of kind of teacheraccountability and this new
word that we kept hearing calledthe four letter word in
education.
It's called data data.
We never heard data before, butnow all of a sudden we were
(40:22):
hearing data and they were usingit as in a kind of business
model to hold teachersaccountable.
And the assumption was, if youwere in a school with, say, 50%
graduation rate, there's no waythat you have a school full of
good teachers, because if youhad a school full of good
teachers then you wouldn't havea 50% graduation rate.
(40:45):
So they tried to put it all onthe teachers.
They did different things tokind of attack us.
There was a bunch of closuresand kind of shrinking schools
down.
I re-interviewed for my jobtwice, which was funny because
(41:06):
you know you'd meet theprincipal, and then they
introduced themselves to you andI was like I already know who
you are, you know.
But so it was kind of it was astrange era in education because
before that we were told wewere given a lot of positive
feedback by administration.
(41:27):
We were encouraged, we feltgood about going to school and
then, when this new era ofteacher accountability came in,
we were made to feel bad aboutour jobs.
We were feeling attacked and um, and you could tell the the
fakery of it all.
(41:48):
Because how you use data, Imean, what's the?
What's the mark twain quote?
There's lies, damn lies, andstatistics, uh, and that's what
they were using it.
They're using the data againstus.
So you know they would patthemselves on the back if they
(42:09):
had an increased graduation rate.
But nobody ever looked into,nobody on the outside ever
looked into.
How did you get those numbers?
How did you get those studentsto pass the test or get those
credits?
You know, as far as the mayorand upper administration was
(42:30):
concerned, it was all about wegot better numbers, we're doing
better, the system's better, butus those of us in the system
understood that it wasmanipulated, it wasn't real.
And having gone through allthat, I really appreciate now
(42:53):
being in the system becausewe're not really being attacked
like that.
My school is in pretty goodstanding.
It's in good standing, uh, sothere's no threat of closure.
We're not getting.
We don't have quality review.
Like do we have quality reviews?
I remember like we used to havequality reviews where an
outside administrator werecoming to school and it was,
(43:15):
like you know, the janitors werecleaning the lockers.
That they didn't do all year,you know, like it was just a so
like a fake, like show that wasto be put on Right and and we
had to get a unit plan orsomething that we never did.
(43:35):
But they want to see it andblah, blah, blah, and so we
don't get a lot of that anymorewhich feels good, and so we
don't get a lot of that anymorewhich feels good.
It's just kind of.
Peter Carucci (43:54):
I guess there's less of a top-down push, even
though this currentadministration does have some
Bloomberg people, but they'renot pushing like they used to.
That gives you a little moreautonomy in the classroom, a
little more control over yourown environment.
Do you feel more capable ofsuccess that way?
Joe Geno (44:04):
I do, yes, but there is some push for um, like they
are introducing new curriculum,like I guess the one this year
is the math curriculum, wherethey're kind of giving like a
universal curriculum which goesagainst their old message of
differentiating lessons todifferent students.
Now apparently they wanteverybody teaching the same
(44:27):
curriculum.
And that was one of mycomplaints with gathering data
for teachers, because there's avariability in the students you
have.
Like you're going to compare ateacher of um, like an ap class,
to a self-contained special edclass or you're gonna compare a
(44:50):
college level um, you knowhonors class, to someone who's
teaching an esl class, likethere's those, those students
have completely different skillsand needs.
Yeah, and see what they do,jamie is they have what they
(45:10):
call a Mosul, which is they theyrate teachers based on the
state standardized tests.
And the original idea was to uselike, say, my students take an
English regents, say stateregents, see what they do on the
test and then that's part of myscore In addition to the
(45:36):
observations I get from theprincipal.
But now they've kind of generalthere's.
There's different ways to do it, but now our school, we
generalize it it.
So basically, all tests are theteachers are scored by all
tests, by all students, becauseyou can't really go by.
Uh, just like a particular test, like what do you do for an art
teacher?
There's no state art test.
There's no, you know, gym art,gym state test.
(45:59):
So right, it's all very it'sdifficult to measure.
Like I compare to say you couldgo into a car dealership and
you can find out who the bestsalesman is Easy.
Who sold the most cars or realestate, right, who sold the most
houses, you can tell who thebest is.
But in education it's not soeasy because you're dealing with
(46:23):
different populations and themeasurements are like how they
do on the test is not alwayslike a decent marker.
Jamie Serino (46:34):
Yeah, and I think you know testing becomes a huge
topic because you brought updifferentiation and we have
talked a little bit aboutculture and you know the makeup
of the students in the Bronx andso could you talk a little bit
about that.
That, how, how you, how yourschool, you know, needs to sort
of focus on that population andyou know it does sound like it's
(46:58):
it's difficult putting it onthis sort of national average
and there's a lot of literatureout there about how the testing
ends up being.
You know it skews towards thepredominant culture in the
country, right, the testingitself, and I don't know if the
curriculum does so.
If you could talk a little bitabout that because it's so
(47:19):
pronounced.
I think you know what theculture is there at your school.
Joe Geno (47:24):
Yeah, I mean the demographic makeup of my school.
I'm in the South Bronx it'sabout maybe 60% to 70% Latino,
20% plus percentAfrican-American or Caribbean.
We have a good amount ofstudents from Africa, like first
(47:44):
generation African immigrantsand then a few Asians, but
really you have no Caucasianpopulation and you know this is
something that we've alwaysstruggled with in the education
field the achievement gapbetween the different
demographic groups.
Well, I mean, I just focus onwhat my students need.
(48:12):
It's interesting when I taughtupstate I had a virtually 100%
Regents passing score, but Idon't give myself a lot of
credit for that because it feltlike they had the skills when
they walked in.
So I mean, as a city teacher,you have to because the students
(48:40):
are maybe behind.
You have to work a littleharder to try to get them up to
where they need to be.
Jamie Serino (48:49):
Yeah.
Joe Geno (48:56):
It's not easy.
But you realize they're totallycapable, they can achieve.
But you understand also, whenthey walk into my room they're
18 years old, so they've lived awhole childhood.
So I understand.
As a 12th grade teacher I got10 months to get them to get
(49:22):
better.
But I'm not a miracle workereither and there's things that
happen in their life whereyou're not going to get a lot
out of them.
I've had students whose parentsdied or they're going through a
lot of stuff or they're livingin a shelter.
My motto has always been you dothe best with what you have in
(49:49):
terms of resources, in terms ofwhat you're able to do in that
timeframe.
But I work off the assumptionthat they're fully capable, can
get them to where they, for themost part where they want to.
For me it's for graduation andvirtually all of them get
(50:13):
accepted to some college.
So I want to make sure they'renot taking 12th grade off and
they're really kind of working,because some of them like.
One of the issues in my schoolis that we're a trimester school
and that means that studentscan get three credits a year and
they only need eight credits tograduate.
(50:36):
So if they've passed all theirclasses, they walk into my
classroom with nine englishcredits like they don't need my
class, and so again I gotta makethis argument to them look, I
know you don't necessarily needthe credit, but you can use it
for an elective.
Maybe you need an elective andyou can't take a year off and
(50:59):
expect to go on a college campusand like do well, you know,
yeah, so that's my kind of pitch.
Jamie Serino (51:08):
Yeah Well, you said earlier that you were
selling something and it isfunny, and so I do see how
initially, you would haveresisted that, because it's not
in your nature to go and sellsomething.
If you want it, you want it.
But then you became a littlebit of a salesperson for.
Joe Geno (51:27):
English that was another part of my problem and
maybe with the management pieceand even helping students,
progress is like.
I do believe I still kind ofhold on to this idea that, um,
you can't give somebody aneducation.
You all you can do is offer itto them, and so it's a two way
(51:49):
street.
They have to accept it and theyhave to move forward with it.
They have to have their ownmotivation.
Now I've seen the extreme withthis, like old school teachers
who I've walked by theirclassroom and they're just like
especially upstate.
These are like conservativeguys and they be like yo, this
(52:09):
kid gets a 64 and I'm givingthem a 64 on the report card,
that's it.
And I've walked by some oftheir classrooms and they'll be
teaching like and the kids arelike laid out on the desk and
these guys don't care becausetheir whole attitude is right.
I'm giving you an education,right, take it.
Take it.
(52:30):
If not, you know right well,you know it's.
Jamie Serino (52:35):
You know, as you're talking about that, you
know, part of me wants to sayall right, yeah, like lead a
horse to water, kind of thing.
But then I also think aboutadults at.
You know, certain adults wouldbe so thankful of a teacher that
drew them in.
They weren't interested, andthat teacher got them interested
(52:55):
.
Because you're so young, youknow, and even at like 17, 18,
you think you know everythingright, and maybe you think you
don't need it and this and thatright.
And so, yeah, you could takethat attitude like all right,
that person's making thatdecision, but they're so young
to make that decision, you know.
And so I think it is nice yourattitude of like you know you're
(53:17):
offering it but you're doing alittle bit of selling, you know,
and you're trying to draw themin.
And maybe you'd have studentswho are like I'm so glad Mr Gino
did that because I becameinterested.
That's when I became interested, you know.
So I think that's really nice.
Joe Geno (53:32):
I think I raised a philosophical question with
teachers and it was centeredaround do I give them a pencil
or not when they come in?
That's great.
This gets to a deepphilosophical question, because
if you give them the pencil,then they become conditioned to
ask for the pencil, and thenthey come and they don't have a
(53:53):
pencil.
Or I just not give them apencil, but then what happens?
They don't do any work, yeah,and so that's like so I think
I'm somewhere in between Like Igive them the pencil but I let
them know with a kind ofprovision like this is not
(54:14):
happening tomorrow, yeah, yeah,that's really funny.
Jamie Serino (54:18):
You are reminding me specifically of a teacher who
would not give the pencil, butwhat he would do is he would say
listen, so the corridors.
This was junior high and therewas A wing, b wing, c wing and
some of the other corridors hadnames, and he was like I'm not
giving you a pencil, but if yougo to B wing, people always drop
their pencils in B wing, justwalk and get a pencil from the
(54:40):
floor.
They'd run out and they'd comeback with the pencil.
Peter Carucci (54:45):
It's really funny .
Jamie Serino (54:47):
It's really funny.
Peter Carucci (54:48):
I had the privilege of working with Joe as
a colleague and also in anadministrative capacity and
having been probably in hisclassroom 1999, all the way
through like 2012 or 15,whatever, 2014 or 15, whatever-
12, 14 or 15.
(55:10):
And seeing Joe as a teacher,both in these stages of like
what do I do now?
I was in Borders Bookstoreyesterday and now I'm in a
classroom and what the heck isgoing on and kids are like
punching each other and his mindbeing blown.
And then also seeing him teachlike uh the suny, all the
(55:35):
university of albany collegecourses and like draft curricula
and like take on thisleadership role and it's, it's
interesting, as I got to see itbefore he was a teacher, his
early, early stage, and in everystage, except for the last,
maybe eight to ten years, youknow, or seven years, whatever
(55:56):
it's been.
And it's amazing because Ican't wait to read this book,
joe, because it's like thisculmination of like what you've
learned and, honestly, howyou've become successful.
You know it's not an easyjourney, but I'm fascinated
because you have a chapter inthis book about when to know to
(56:18):
retire and you seem like you'reat a point right now where
you've had to learn the hard waysink or swim and now you were
striving and now you're thrivingand why not keep it going?
Is there a point when you knowyou're done?
(56:40):
Well, I'm kind of excited.
Joe Geno (56:44):
I'm excited about that potential new chapter.
I don't chapter 30 years willbe enough, I think, even though
I maybe I will be at my best atthat time.
But I can.
And what I learned from covidwhen I had a lot of time to
(57:07):
myself, like wow, wow, I coulddo.
I was getting into woodworking,I was exercising writing books
Like I think it's important thatwhen you do retire like you're
not sitting on a couch, you are.
Even though you're out anddon't have a job, you still have
to work at something.
You still have to be involvedin community, at something you
(57:29):
still have to be involved incommunity.
So I think I see myself doingmaybe a few different part-time
type things and I feel like I'llbe more motivated than ever.
I'm definitely not going to belazy, um, it's just that I'll
(57:51):
take a new direction because, um, you know, 30 years long enough
and man no, how do you knowwhen to retire is my question,
because you haven't been there30 years or or in your case
right yeahI mean too, no, when I, in 55,
(58:12):
I'll have 30 years and I'll beable to retire with a full
pension, um, so like,financially, I'm gonna be great,
um, my, but the thing is mywife will still be working for
like another five years, um, andmy kids will just be starting
high school.
So there'll be a like a stay athome dad aspect to this.
(58:34):
But I just see a lot ofbenefits to retiring in terms of
deepening my relationships withothers, friends that I.
You know school takes up somuch of my time.
Like, my commute is crazy I.
I leave the house at 6 30 and Iget home at 5 36.
(58:55):
So I'm basically going about 12hours a day with the, with the
commute and everything, and, um,I just think about all the
things I can do with that time,um, and like I want to do out of
state hunts and stuff like that.
I can't do that with myschedule now.
(59:17):
I actually have they actuallygave us seven vacation days, so
I actually can do that for oneweek, but um, uh, I'm looking
forward to doing differentthings, recreating myself.
Peter Carucci (59:37):
You have a chapter in your book called the
Myth of Retirement.
Why is it a myth?
Is it because, like you'resaying, you can't just shut off?
You've got to continually keeplearning?
Is that what you mean by that?
Joe Geno (59:48):
Yeah, shut off.
You got to continually keeplearning.
Is that what you mean by that?
Yeah, I mean I think peoplebuild it up in their minds as
retirement is something whereyou can just sit around, you
don't have to do anything,you're free from responsibility,
but you have to be.
There's a danger there, becauseyou can uh, I don't get lazy,
(01:00:11):
but you can get complacent, youcan lose purpose.
That, I mean, that's the bigpart is like you still have to
find purpose.
And I think I've seen, I'vetalked to some people that have
retired recently and theystruggle with with that.
Like all right, you're out ofthe building, but what group are
you a part of now?
And, okay, you're not doing alot, but what are you doing?
(01:00:33):
You've got to do something.
You can't just sit around andyou have to.
You know you held a certainposition, a certain degree of
respect, but now you're retiredyou don't hold a position.
So I mean, I think maybe peoplestruggle with their identity,
you know, like in the retirement.
Peter Carucci (01:00:54):
You know, out of 227 teachers, 18 guidance
counselors.
I think when a lot of themwould retire, I'd say a good one
out of every four of them wouldcome back to teach what we call
the F status in New York Cityone class, two classes, wow.
That same thing.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Jamie Serino (01:01:14):
Yeah, well, you know one of the unique things, I
think, with teachers and youget this with police officers,
firefighters you're retiring butyou're still pretty young.
You know and I think that's akey thing, joe, that you're
going through and you brought upidentity and and that's really
important too A lot of adultsdon't realize that you still go
through shifts in identity as anadult.
(01:01:34):
Everyone always thinks, oh, thewhole identity thing happens as
a kid and then you have youridentity and you're off, but you
keep going through shifts as anadult.
They just, you know, may not beas quick as a kid, and so one
of those is, you know, this sortof retirement and finding
purpose later in life as youmove, you know, from a career
(01:01:55):
into something else, and you areyoung enough to actually have a
second career if you want orjust do a few little things, and
you're someone who right, soyou're working on a craft and if
you're doing woodwork, that's acraft.
You know that's something youcan continually get better at.
And so this is all great advice, a great, I think, conversation
(01:02:16):
, and maybe to sort of start totransition to, to ending, to
ending the episode.
You know when, when you look at, like police officers,
firefighters, like some of themare retiring in their forties,
you know, and that's then youhave all this time, right?
So?
So what do you do?
So I think the I think you'rebringing up a great topic there.
(01:02:37):
So, as we, as we move towardconcluding, you know, is there
anything else that you would?
You would add, you know, causeI think, just your nature, you,
you, you talked about rigidityand you don't have rigidity.
You know, I've never known youto have that you go with the
flow kind of person.
But you talked a little bitalso that you have a competitive
(01:02:58):
nature.
So you did want to succeed.
So you went in there.
You got dropped in there likepizza, your borders, books one
day there and you're in theclassroom another day and you're
struggling, but you're going towin, you're going to figure
that out right, and you did.
But it wasn't through rigidity,it was through, I think, your
flexible mindset.
And 26 years later you're notburnt out.
(01:03:19):
So any sort of last-minuteadvice, anything else from the
book, anything else that youwould say to teachers?
Joe Geno (01:03:32):
Yeah else about you know from the book anything else
that you would say to teachers?
Yeah, um, well, I think onething is I'm gonna end up doing
30 years in a profession I neverintended to be a part of.
Yeah, it speaks against thiswhole idea of like doing what
you love, because, well, maybewhat you love you're not really.
(01:04:00):
Maybe it's not what you think itis in the first place and you
know I'm happy to have, you know, got into this profession.
It wasn't my, the classroom wasmy natural environment, but
maybe not this level, but it wasfine, like I worked with a lot
of good people, including thestudents.
I got a lot of great studentsand teachers and over the years,
(01:04:24):
you know, so the relationshipswere good.
I thought my work was noble.
I need this idea of giving.
So I just read a book by thisguy, scott Galloway, who was an
NYU professor of finance, and hehad a message of like maybe
(01:04:47):
people are too focused onfollowing their passion, doing
what they love, and and maybethey should really work on what
they're good at, you know, andthat a love will come later.
Right, if you're likeespecially good at something, um
and uh, so um, that's one thingin terms of like, choosing a
career.
But I'd like to finish, uh,just with a poem.
(01:05:09):
I wrote a poem in this book, ifI might, and the poem not
ironically is called LessonLearned.
The book, the podcast, we'rebringing it up, there's so much
synergy.
Jamie Serino (01:05:31):
All right, let's see.
Joe Geno (01:05:33):
Here's a poem called Lesson Learned.
In all the lessons I taught, alesson was learned.
It is a lesson that can't begiven, only offered and received
.
The list of tasks endlessly goon.
We are all awaiting that finalbell to be rung and much must be
done.
We are born with an assignmentto maximize human potential, to
(01:05:57):
build relationships, to preparefor the future, and in that
preparation a lot can bepracticed, but little can be
predicted.
The lesson taught me how to be abetter parent, made me
understand child psychology,where to place my expectations,
when to scold, when to encourage, when to show pride, how to
(01:06:18):
build somebody up, how to leavethem to their devices.
See the application, if thelesson was learned.
The lesson taught me themeaning of wealth and something
greater than wealth.
Time, life being a series ofcontinual moments, never to
return, you savor them the mostwhen you feel their absence.
When you close that classroomdoor for the final time, like
(01:06:43):
you're closing the door on 30years of your life, the lesson
continues, not knowing what waslearned.
Until some test came, with nopaper or pen to contend with,
only concepts and ideas that youhad to think on your feet.
You learn.
The lesson wasn't about how tothink to answer a question.
(01:07:05):
It was about how to thinkanswer a question.
It was about how to think.
It's the only place.
Jamie Serino (01:07:14):
It's only from that place that you may take
your seat and begin.
That's it.
That's fantastic, thank you forhaving me.
Yeah, thanks, joe, this wasgreat.
So the book lesson learn, joegino, it's coming out soon and
you can like get it on amazon,you can like, where else can you
(01:07:35):
?
Like, yeah, I'm sure it's goingto be on there, uh, by
thanksgiving, okay, yeah, yeah,all right excellent 24, nice all
right congratulations onwriting it and I look forward to
reading it, and I appreciateyou joining us and teaching us
all those lessons.
Peter Carucci (01:07:56):
All right, thank you.
The lessons are somewhere.
Jamie Serino (01:08:00):
Joey, Thanks for being here, guys, Thanks, All
right, Until next time.
Thank you everybody for joiningus.
(01:08:25):
We'll see you next time.
Welcome to There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere,
conversations with interestingpeople with fascinating stories
to tell and from which we candraw important lessons.
Here are your hosts, amieCerino and Peter Carucci.
Jamie Serino (00:18):
Hello and welcome to.
There's a Lesson in hereSomewhere.
I'm Jamie Serino and I'm PeterCarucci, and we're here today
with Joe Geno an old friend,peter, and I know Joe all the
way back from college, great guy, writer, music lover and now
(00:39):
author.
So Joe has recently written abook called Lesson Learned and
it's about his journey throughthe education system being a
teacher, about his adventures asa teacher, but also there's a
(01:06):
lot of advice in there forteachers and for people in
education, and as I sort of lookthrough the chapter titles, it
seems like anyone that has astressful job, anyone maybe
working with children, I think,could draw a lot out of this
book.
So, joe, welcome, thanks forjoining us, and why don't you
tell us a little bit more aboutyourself?
Joe Geno (01:25):
Sure, well, thank you for having me here.
So yeah, I'm originally fromSyracuse, new York, kind of
(01:48):
suburbs of Syracuse, I guess.
In my early 20s I kind of gotbored up there and wanted
something a little more excitingin life and I was also kind of
inspired to.
In 98, I got accepted toBrooklyn College.
I wanted to study with thefamous poet Alan Ginsberg, who
was a beat poet from the 50s.
He was a professor at BrooklynCollege and I wanted to study
with him.
Unfortunately I didn't getaccepted to the MFA program, but
a year later I did get acceptedto the MA program in English.
(02:11):
So I moved to Brooklyn butunfortunately Allen Ginsberg had
cancer at that time and he wasno longer around.
So then that started my journeyinto kind of higher education
and actually through our friendPete there he helped me get into
education because I reallywasn't thinking about becoming a
(02:34):
teacher like a high schoolteacher.
I was thinking, maybe college,but my main focus for wanting to
study was being a writer.
But I didn't know what thatmeant in terms of a paycheck.
Peter Carucci (02:50):
You were a poet back then, right, wasn't it more
?
Joe Geno (02:51):
poetry.
Yes, I was a poet.
So even worse, because ifyou're going to be a writer,
journalists, the novelists,those people get money.
Poets don't get money.
Um, but and it's strange, likeit's strange.
I went into binghamton likethat too, like this is what I
(03:12):
interest is, but I'm not reallythinking about what happens when
I get out.
You know, um, but it was a goodbase to kind of try to explore
other careers when I really hadto, like make ends meet, yeah.
Jamie Serino (03:27):
Yeah, I remember that.
Now you reminded me about AllenGinsberg and Brooklyn College
and everything and the timing.
But so you graduated and thenyou were thinking, what am I
going to do next?
And I remember you were inHoboken for a little while and
we were hanging out.
And then you were thinking,what am I going to do next?
And I remember you were inHoboken for a little while and
we were hanging out, and thenyou went to the Bronx and then
(03:51):
Pete maybe you can like fill inthe gaps here so there were
teacher openings at the school.
You were at right.
So what happened?
Peter Carucci (04:00):
Yeah, and so I also needed a roommate, and so.
I said hey Joe, do you want tobe a teacher?
And I remember your firstreaction you were no way, no way
, and I go, just come for theinterview, come on, and you go,
no way.
And then somehow I talked youinto both being my roommate and
getting this interview with ourold principal.
Is that right, both being myroommate and getting this
(04:22):
interview with our old principal?
Joe Geno (04:26):
Is that right?
Yes, you got me right in and Iwas kind of desperate because I
was working at Borders Bookstorein Midtown.
I was desperate.
I was.
I mean I really was In terms ofgetting a place, because I
didn't have a place and thengetting a wage that will
(04:46):
actually pay for it.
So I mean the idea of making$32,000 was wow, I was going to
have my first real job.
I felt like that when I startedteaching.
You know, it was funny becausethe paycheck was like $800 twice
a month and rent was $750.
(05:07):
I was like wow.
But I was happy because I couldafford a car and I just paid
the bills.
Nice.
Jamie Serino (05:16):
So now what was it when you were thinking oh, I
could be a teacher, but I couldbe a teacher in college.
I don't think I could be ateacher in high school.
What was going on in your mindthat made you think that?
Joe Geno (05:28):
Well, I was always intellectually stimulated in
college.
I loved that environment ofhaving lectures, discussion,
highbrow thinking of whatevertopic you're talking about.
I mean topic you're you'retalking about, I mean that
(05:49):
that's.
We don't get that so much inhigh school I mean high school
is is a different level.
Yeah and um, and I kind ofthought that even when I was in
high school I'm like, thank god,I don't have to come back to
high school.
Yeah, and, funny enough, you'vebeen for 25 years now.
Yeah, and actually three ofthose years was in my high
school that I went to school at.
(06:10):
I went to Ohio State for threeyears and I got to teach
alongside some high schoolteachers that taught me when I
was there Nice yeah.
Jamie Serino (06:21):
So, yeah, I guess there's the thing with high
school, like you know, the kidsthey're forced to be there,
right, and so you're teachingEnglish and I happen to be a
student that loved English,right, I didn't really like math
, you know, so I was forced tobe in math, but I loved English
and so that's part of it.
So, maybe segueing a little bitinto the book and into your
(06:44):
experiences, like, how do youwork with a class like that,
where maybe only a handful ofpeople really like that and the
rest, you know, maybe there's asubset that they're okay with it
and then there's a subset theytotally don't want to be there,
and that's like your audience.
Joe Geno (07:03):
Yeah, one thing I learned early on was I had to
develop some kind ofrelationship with these students
who are a completely differentgeneration, from a completely
different environment, adifferent experience, different
background.
And how am I going to develop arelationship?
Because you know, yeah, not alot of them are going to be
(07:27):
English majors.
So I think one of my tacticswas humor, you know.
And I also had to appropriatemyself into the culture, because
they talk different, they havedifferent interests myself into
the culture because they talkdifferent, they have different
(07:48):
interests.
Peter Carucci (07:52):
And, without naming the school per se
specifically, it is important tonote that you went straight
into the largest school in thestate of New York one or two in
the nation in the inner city inthe Bronx, where 91% out of 100
kids was free or reduced lunchpoverty.
Number one in gangrepresentation crime, violent
major crime.
That's what I'm still surprisedabout, like it's amazing you
(08:15):
just chose to go into thatenvironment.
Yeah, you know.
How did you bridge those gaps?
Joe Geno (08:20):
Well, I didn't really know exactly what I was getting
into oh my fault, oops but myattitude was I need to make this
work because, well, career-wiseI didn't know like I wanted to
make it work.
And then eventually I sawquickly the nobility of the job.
(08:43):
Eventually I saw quickly thenobility of the of the job.
I saw the people who reallycared about this teaching high
school or administering in highschool and how it is important
to the stage of those kids lives, and so I latched on to that.
(09:05):
Even though that wasn'tsomething that I thought about
or was inspired Like, I gotinspired when I saw it and I was
in it and then I was like allright, I can work with like this
, this is a good job.
I mean, obviously peopleteachers like to talk about
wanting to get higher pay and soforth and maybe higher status
(09:28):
among society.
But you know, the general pushto like help kids, to help
others, to be of service toothers, is really important.
And it was important for mebecause up until that time I was
completely self-involved, likeself-centered, I mean I wasn't
(09:54):
mean to other people but Iwasn't really thinking about
other people either.
I was kind of thinking about myown interests, my own desires,
and this was the first timewhere I had to think of others
for myself, and anytime somebodywho's self-involved like feels
like, uh, they're on the ledgeof something that you always
(10:16):
have to go back to servicingothers.
And I realized that.
And then becoming a family manreally made me realize that.
Peter Carucci (10:25):
I remember when, out of the blue, we started
playing a lot of chess, me andyou.
This is the late 90s, the nextthing I know you were the
advisor of the chess club and westarted a chess club out of the
blue, basically in thiscavernous old like closet that
(10:51):
they emptied out for us to havethe chess club after school, and
I'll never forget the principalgoing.
You want to do what you stillplay chess with these kids.
It goes good luck.
And then we had about eight,ten kids.
Then it exploded.
We had to go to the library andyou basically had these
tournaments and I mean early on,I mean in your career, you
(11:11):
started a chess club in thebronx yeah, chess was um.
Joe Geno (11:15):
When I was in my 20s, chess was uh, I really got into
it.
Go to the village.
I would play at the shops overthere.
Um, and I think it started withJamie back in Binghamton, if
you remember.
Jamie Serino (11:28):
And Airem.
You know, you may have seen theepisode with Airem and I told
the story.
I think Joe and I were playingchess and we were getting into
it and we felt like we werepretty good and then Item comes
in, this guy from Brazil, andwe're like hey, item, you play
next.
And he played next and I don'tremember which one he beat.
He beat us in like three movesand we're like what?
(11:50):
And then no one wanted to playhim.
He was a chess genius, right,but he ended up like teaching us
a lot.
uh as we were playing, so andyeah, joe, you really like ran
with it.
Joe Geno (12:03):
My competitive juices got going because I hated to
lose and I really wanted tolearn.
So I got books and I startedplaying and I went to
tournaments.
Aren't you an actual rankedmaster?
Is that?
Peter Carucci (12:16):
correct Well.
Joe Geno (12:17):
I'm not a ranked master.
Are you a master?
Peter Carucci (12:25):
No I haven't.
Joe Geno (12:26):
No, I haven't.
But my greatest achievement isI beat a guy who was 1900, which
I think master level is like2000.
Wow, but that's kind of a maybe.
You know, especially when I getinto retirement I might get
back to like a habit of chessand maybe that's on my bucket
(12:48):
list to really maybe become amaster.
It depends on how.
It really depends, on how muchtime I want to spend on it.
Jamie Serino (12:55):
I think I can do it, but there's something you
said earlier about like being onthe ledge and then going back
to service, and I think we'veheard like some quotes like that
before and I appreciate thatyou said that and I wonder if
you could talk a little bitabout that feeling.
And it seemed like you realizedthis.
(13:17):
You realized that maybe youwere too self-centered, you
needed to be a little moreselfless.
And then I think it could be agood segue into what you talk
about in the book, because whenwe were reconnecting you were
saying that you're not burnt out.
You're teaching in this verydifficult environment for as
long as you've been teaching andyou're not burnt out.
(13:38):
And that's part of what thebook is about is how to keep
doing this without getting burntout.
So you got being selfless,being on the ledge, remembering
service.
Don't be, you know, don't letyourself get burnt out.
How could you sort of talkabout all that?
Joe Geno (13:54):
Yeah, there was a chapter in my book.
I said something like are yousurviving, Are you thriving?
Peter Carucci (14:01):
Striving or thriving, and there's really a
difference Survive, strive,thrive.
Joe Geno (14:07):
And so my early years was survival, because I didn't
really know the mechanics ofteaching and I had to learn all
that because I had no previousexperience.
Like any teacher today they'lldo student teaching, go to
school of education.
I literally did nothing.
I was in a classroom and so Ihad to learn from the leadership
(14:30):
.
We had good leadership and theyhad a very structural way to go
about your lessons.
So that helped me and I endedup getting a very good mentor
and so that at least got my feetunder me.
And but then I had to.
After that I had to deal withthe system and getting a little
(14:56):
jaded, feeling like a cog in thewheel.
And I talk about that in thebook too, because you know
you're part of a system of100,000 teachers was over a
million students, now they'redown to about 700,000.
And how do you, how do you moveforward without feeling like
(15:18):
you're just a peon?
You know, and what you're doingdoesn't really move the ball
anywhere.
You know, and what you're doingdoesn't really move the ball
anywhere.
And for me, you know, I justkind of learn my limits about
what I can do and what I can'tdo.
(15:39):
I don't worry about what'soutside my classroom.
Necessarily I worry about whatstudents are in my roster and
what I can do to help themdevelop their skills.
That's one of the mainmotivations.
When I'm talking to students islike, look, you guys just got to
work on your skills of literacy, reading and writing, and, and
(16:01):
in many cases they're behind,because reading is not a medium
that people will go to.
They're too distracted by thescreens and the computers, and
so for them to put that asideand actually open a book and
read it takes focus, it's a lotslower, it's not necessarily
(16:25):
visual visual, it's moreimaginative um, and so we got to
develop those muscles andskills to to be able to do that,
um.
So I understand that what I'mselling is, um, not the most
palatable of mediums, yeah, butit's still important.
(16:46):
And a lot of my students arecollege bound yeah, so you need
it for college.
Unfortunately, and what wedon't hear a lot about is we
hear a higher graduation rate,but we don't hear about how
they're doing in college rate,but we don't hear about how
(17:08):
they're doing in college andunfortunately, from different
publications, I've seen a lot ofthem.
More than half of them drop outby their second year and more
than that don't get a four-yeardegree.
Peter Carucci (17:19):
If I'm not mistaken, you did an actual
action research study ontrailing them right 20 years ago
or 15 years ago, or something.
I mean you know what you'retalking about here.
This isn't like conjecture.
Joe Geno (17:33):
I mean I've looked up different statistics on that.
I know that I don't know if itwas the New York Times, but you
know it has been somethingpeople have explored.
But you know it has beensomething people have explored.
We just I just also know itkind of intuitively because
we'll hear about students likewhat's happening with that kid?
You know he's working at CVSnow.
(17:56):
You know it's like.
I mean they're obviously thereare success stories, but you
know we want to try to get moreof the college graduates.
And what I do like about what'shappening in the DOE now is
that they are kind of pushing.
It's not all college talk now.
(18:17):
They're at least kind oftalking about a little bit more
vocational, different avenues ofcareers.
Peter Carucci (18:23):
And there's a need there vocational different
avenues of careers and there's aneed there.
So yeah, by DOE you mean theNew York City Department of
Education right, yes, yeah,sorry that was it?
Yeah, that's okay.
Joe Geno (18:31):
Yeah, that's New York City teacher talk.
Peter Carucci (18:36):
And do you think that I know there's a chapter in
your book on discipline.
Do you feel that maybe, likeyou, have the strength of that
kind of discipline to bring thatkind of daily dedication in
this environment to be able tosee it through?
Or is it more, you had to learnthe hard way and now, after
that survival mode and thenstriving, do you feel like
(18:59):
you've been striving or you'vebeen thriving for that
discipline?
Joe Geno (19:03):
I've been thriving because I realize that I'm
working on a.
I feel like I'm working on adifferent level now, especially
in the last four years, and thisbook really kind of represents
that rebirth in me, because thisbook was really written during
COVID and COVID you know youhear how COVID made some people
(19:25):
worse, but it really made mebetter in terms of I totally
kind of turned around mypriorities.
You know, I was like 235 poundsand I dropped 35 pounds and I
really dedicated myself towriting this and I still do that
(19:49):
.
You know I am have a prettygood physical exercise regimen
and I'm very uh, um, I have alot like a routine I follow and
so I bring that into theclassroom.
Like they see it, like they talkabout like, um, hey, how's your
sleeping habits?
My coaches just like to talkabout that.
(20:10):
How do you guys sleep?
And like well, I got up at 430,like I do every day Like 430,
what are you talking about?
So, like what I've learned as aparent as well, it's not just
what you tell them, it's theexample that you show in how you
go about your daily uh,activities, you know, and habits
(20:33):
.
So I think they see that in me.
Um.
So I don't get a lot of umstudents who say, like you know,
let's just chill today becauseI got the energy and I, you know
, they just they.
I said I set a certain regimenthat they're used to.
So I think one good indicationif you're, if you're doing
(20:56):
things right as a teacher, if astudent walks in and they say
what are we doing today?
Because then their assumptionis, as you know, you've set that
precedent, like when you walkin here you're going to do
something from the time you getin here to the time you leave.
Jamie Serino (21:10):
We're not chilling in here or you're going to do
something.
From the time you get in hereto the time you leave, we're not
chilling.
That's great.
So can you talk a little bitabout like what you've seen over
26 years, especially with likescreens and attention span, and
like that I mean just 26 years.
You know like so and you'vebeen dealing with kids around
(21:31):
the same age, so you've beenseeing this sort of like yeah.
So can you talk a little bitabout that, because obviously we
know there's an issue here andso what have you seen and what
are your thoughts on that?
Joe Geno (21:58):
always an issue um, but in the early days they had
less distractions um.
Peter Carucci (22:02):
So when I started in 1999, I'm not a lot of kids
had cell phones.
No, yeah, dangers back then.
Joe Geno (22:07):
Yeah, dangers beeping in the middle of the class maybe
pcs or something, but so I Inoticed, like a literature study
, we did a lot of classics.
It was virtually all classics.
And, um, there are books that Iwouldn't think to teach today.
(22:28):
Uh is, and maybe some of it istheme-based, but maybe some of
it is complexity of readingbased or like, uh, they're, so
maybe today they're so kind ofdeparted from uh, for instance,
shakespeare.
Shakespeare used to be astandard Every year.
We taught Shakespeare.
(22:49):
Now don't teach Shakespeare.
I have taught it in the recentpast but I had some kids say who
is Shakespeare?
So that would be blasphemy.
If that was 1999, that wouldhave been blasphemy for a kid to
say who is.
(23:10):
Shakespeare.
That would have been blasphemyfor a kid to say who's
Shakespeare, but it'sinteresting because of the
backgrounds of the teachers andthe students.
So what was funny is that whenI started there was a lot of
Jewish teachers and so everybodyhad a unit on the Holocaust
teaching to, you know, Latinoand Black students in the Bronx.
(23:38):
Like the importance of theHolocaust, teaching to Latino
and Black students in the Bronx,the importance of the Holocaust
.
I did that.
We taught night.
People don't do that anymore.
I don't think anybody reallyteaches that.
But as far as how?
(24:04):
the screens have changed things.
I think it's harder and hardernow for them to even open a book
.
Honestly, I see them try.
They'll open a book and they'llread a page and they can't.
Peter Carucci (24:14):
It's not everybody Is it like the
attention span or just the lackof the skill.
Joe Geno (24:20):
I think a little of both.
They don't process the words.
They'll read the words, andthen they don't understand what
they read.
Peter Carucci (24:30):
It's a problem?
Do you think this is just mewith my educator hat?
Do you think that a lot of thatstarts much earlier, before
they get to you in high school?
Joe Geno (24:41):
Absolutely.
Peter Carucci (24:42):
You can say the truth here, it's okay.
Joe Geno (24:45):
Yeah, I mean you know, and this is something I
struggle with my kids becausethey're on the screens a lot and
we have to try to putparameters on it and encourage
reading.
I'm still working on that athome, but they're doing pretty
(25:06):
good in school.
But so, yeah, I mean this.
I mean how young are kids today?
They have, they have the screen, so it's it's it's difficult
with attention span and just theability to Focus and
concentrate.
(25:26):
There is a discipline there andwhat I've been trying to do
with my classes is like sell theidea that you need this.
Yeah, you need this kind ofdiscipline and you need this
skill.
Um, and your screens aren'tgoing to help you with this, and
(25:47):
I'll tell you what.
It's even getting crazier now.
I've've just learned recentlyhow to check for that, because
(26:14):
you can tell Right.
And I have to do that now, sothat's a new thing, well yeah,
it's interesting because youknow I was talking about this
recently.
Jamie Serino (26:28):
So you know, back in the day people would be like,
oh, why are you making me addand subtract?
There's a calculator, I don'tneed to learn that, you know.
And it's less about thelearning of that and more about,
like, the thought and theprocess of getting your brain to
think like that and to solvethese problems.
And now people are saying that,even with the writing, like,
(26:48):
why do I need to learn that?
I'll just use AI, you know.
And it's like well, you needthat process, you need to learn
that process for your brain.
So that's yeah.
So you're bringing up a wholeother thing there.
And the other thing that comesto mind is to hear you talking.
There was this book, I thinkit's called Deep Work and it
might be like 10 years old now,sort of like you know, kind of
(27:10):
right in the middle of all thisstuff happening and maybe seeing
into the future a little bit,that the book is saying that
your brain needs a certainamount of time to do what the
author was calling deep work.
And you, if you just spend yourtime doing the quick things,
then you're going to lose theability to have that focus, that
(27:30):
ability to do that deep workthat maybe might take tens of
minutes or hours, and that couldbe like reading a book or it
could be like doing research ordoing any kind of deep thought,
strategic thought.
And the author was saying, youknow you run the risk of sort of
abusing your working memory bynot using that enough, your
attention span and these partsof your brain, that kind of dive
(27:53):
in.
And you know so he was gettingvery biological about it, but
it's since that book's beenwritten, 10 years later, the
problem, you know, is probablygetting worse.
It's like related more to yourbook.
You know, do you have advice forteachers?
You know teachers are dealingwith for for teachers.
You know teachers are dealingwith enough stress and now
(28:14):
they're dealing with thisattention span issue.
And you know, do you talk aboutthat in in in the book and have
any advice there?
Joe Geno (28:23):
Let's see.
Do I address that directly?
Um, can't remember exactly, butI well, I, I know just how to
you have to adjust to the time.
So, um, one of the things I'mdoing this year is all my
lessons are on Google slides, sothey have a audio visual aspect
(28:44):
to the lesson.
And I'm getting away from lastyear I posted everything on
Google Classroom.
They're working on computersand that it was too much because
they could just tab, go intoanother tab, exactly.
Yeah, it's a mess.
So now, once in a while, I dohave computer days where they'll
(29:08):
look up something or whateverand I'll do Google Classroom.
But now I do the slides whereI'm giving them a visual and
we're going through it andthey're working on book and
paper.
Yeah, the computers have been,but also trying to encourage,
(29:32):
like class discussion, justreading centered and writing
centered.
Peter Carucci (29:41):
Can I ask a really deep pedagogical question
in terms of formativeassessment?
Do you find it's much moredifficult now to gauge and
assess comprehension, even inthat setting, today, in the
classroom setting, than it hasbeen in years past, simply
because of the lack of attentionspan, and that you have to do
(30:03):
much more now in order to keepthem on point so you can
actually gauge their assessmentduring a lesson?
Comprehension, I mean during alesson.
Joe Geno (30:14):
Well, I'm thinking back to this particular school
I'm at like when I started in2016 and today, and honestly,
actually they might be a littlebetter with being able to write
during a period.
They've had a lot of practiceof you know writing, so I think
(30:39):
no, I think they can do likefull writing pieces and, you
know, what they might strugglein is development,
sophistication of language, useof vocabulary.
They're pretty good withtextual evidence, so overall
(31:03):
they seem pretty decent.
I mean, there's a variation.
I have students who are stilllearning the language you know,
um, but I also have co-teachersthat help me to um, you know,
provide them with differentresources so that they can uh,
now you know, navigate throughthe, the lesson I wonder what
(31:24):
that's like.
Peter Carucci (31:27):
You have a chapter in your book the line
between tolerance andintolerance.
Joe Geno (31:34):
Having not read your book.
Peter Carucci (31:38):
it excites me to figure out what is Mr Joseph
Gino's.
What is that, without ruiningthe surprise?
Joe Geno (31:57):
Actually funny enough.
That caught my eye too and Iwas looking through it and I
didn't really I didn't, I didn'teven look at it.
Good, but I think, oh, I thinkI think what it was about was I
struggled early on withclassroom management.
Administrators would criticizeme as being what's the one guy,
oh, he said.
I said I had a relaxed approach, so I was kind of the cool
(32:19):
teacher.
Peter Carucci (32:19):
But in reality, if I'm reflecting back on it, I
was too tolerant of nonsense andin certain classes it didn't
work out well.
Jamie Serino (32:40):
So that chapter's about classroom management like
intolerance versus tolerance andthat kind of thing Right.
Joe Geno (32:47):
I've never been one a rigid teacher, but I think I've
learned to where I want to holdthe line with that so that I can
still perhaps not hurt myrelationship with students but
also be able to get what I needto get done.
And so and I think that lack ofrigidity has actually helped me
(33:14):
with my longevity, because Idon't take it home with me, I
don't there's been times wheremaybe I haven't been as rigid as
I need to be, or I'm nothandling this particular student
or class the way I need to inthe past, and I've gotten the
criticism as rigid as I need tobe, or I'm not handling this
particular student or class theway I need to in the past, uh,
and I've gotten the criticismfor that, but, um, I uh, I'm, uh
(33:42):
, I was able to kind oftransform myself and try to
learn from it and, um, you know,I think I'm in a good, a good
place now, but it took a whilefor me.
Jamie Serino (33:55):
Yeah, how does a beginner teacher overcome that?
Because I feel like I'm notsurprised to hear that you
struggle with that.
I think, both just being, Ithink, any beginner teacher, and
also you are like a calm, kindof mellow person and you know
more, intellectually driven bythe material right.
Peter Carucci (34:14):
So what is?
Joe Geno (34:15):
your advice for that beginner.
Well, it kind of depends on theperson.
Well, some teach, some teachersdon't struggle with that, like
they have a personality as suchthat they just walk in and
command a room.
Um, and actually my co-teachers, my co-teachers are in their
late 20s, early 30s and I don'tthink they they they don't have
(34:37):
a problem with that becausethey're they got strong voices,
they're very forceful, um, butalso they're they're they got
strong voices, they're veryforceful, but also they're there
, they have really they can getrelationships with students as
well.
So it was, it was a particularissue for me Because and that's
maybe one of my instinctualreasons why I didn't want to
teach high school because I kindof knew, I kind of knew that
(35:00):
that was going to be an issuefor me.
I kind of knew that that wasgoing to be an issue for me.
What helped me early on wasjust learning the structure of a
lesson and keeping them busy.
That helped maybe curtail a lotof the problems of students
(35:20):
acting out or whatever.
Yeah problems of of studentsacting out or whatever, yeah,
but even even with that, youknow, then they would, and then
I, you still, you still have toaddress it as a, as a teacher,
yep, and so, uh, that was just aexperience for me, like a long
experience, to try to see how amI going to deal with different
(35:42):
students.
And and when you become anexperienced enough teacher, you
can fit students within aprofile, like, oh, I had this
student, this kid, right here,this is just like this kid I had
five years ago and this is whatI did for that kid, you know.
So it's interesting to kind ofhow students fit within a
(36:03):
profile.
Peter Carucci (36:04):
And then you can like, kind of almost
scientifically, when you talkabout their learning profile,
like whatever modalities seem towork with Johnny five years ago
, you can bring out and it mightwork with another student.
That's very useful stuff, youknow.
You know we were talkingearlier, before this recording,
(36:30):
about a certain large number ofyoung teachers leaving within
like five years and I think thestrength of a book like yours
kind of empowers and sets outlike if you had that book or if
I had that book 25, 30 years agowe would be like all right, you
(36:50):
know, because you're evengetting into retirement and when
to retire.
And like you know myths aboutteaching that look, if that's
what you really think happens,it's not going to happen.
Like my mother was a Catholicschool principal and she needed
a substitute teacher and so Iwent in to substitute teach her
(37:12):
seventh grade class for like aweek something I will never do
again.
And it taught me so much inthose like five school days that
I never wanted to, you know,ever encounter seventh grade
class again.
You know, because back then,you know, we didn't know what we
were going to.
You know we didn't know whatwe're going to do with our lives
.
You know Now, if I had yourbook as a young teacher, are
(37:34):
there things in there that I canfind value in that would help
me?
Joe Geno (37:49):
would help me.
That's uh, you're asking that,yeah, yes, um, yeah, absolutely.
Um.
I think I start off withtalking about success and how a
teacher is a successful position, um, just to begin with, but
then there is a process in whichyou have to acquire, like, a
greater success.
So the job itself is noble, butthen you have to learn how to
(38:11):
be effective in it, and then, Ithink part of that, if you want
to last as a teacher, it's allabout your attitude and your how
you approach, because how youapproach different situations.
So there are, you know, manychallenges, like I was saying,
(38:35):
like things that make you feelsmall or ineffective are
ineffective, um, but you canovercome that, um, and then I'll
try to.
Peter Carucci (38:51):
Uh, you know, experience makes you better
basically, you know, I was withyou, for I mean, I spent
basically a quarter of my lifeprobably with you in that
environment and, to your point,everything would be going great
and things are okay.
And then all of a sudden NewYork State says we're going to
bring in this new evaluationsystem, and then New York State
(39:13):
embraces the Common Corecurriculum, so all these things
that have been going well.
Now you have to redo all of thecurriculum and spend all these
hours regenerating this, andthen new teachers have to get a
new sort of you know, newclasses every year and update
their certification requirementsand then all of a sudden, this
(39:35):
rubric will change and thiscan't happen.
Top-down structure.
I know on a teacher who'sliterally with the salt of the
earth in the classroom trying toelevate, in your case, some of
the poorest kids in the unitedstates and the world and trying
to help them out, and all of asudden you have this thing come
(39:56):
down on you and you have to youknow respond immediately.
Joe Geno (40:01):
How do you get into that?
I get into that especially, andthis really came with like the
Bloomberg era of kind of teacheraccountability and this new
word that we kept hearing calledthe four letter word in
education.
It's called data data.
We never heard data before, butnow all of a sudden we were
(40:22):
hearing data and they were usingit as in a kind of business
model to hold teachersaccountable.
And the assumption was, if youwere in a school with, say, 50%
graduation rate, there's no waythat you have a school full of
good teachers, because if youhad a school full of good
teachers then you wouldn't havea 50% graduation rate.
(40:45):
So they tried to put it all onthe teachers.
They did different things tokind of attack us.
There was a bunch of closuresand kind of shrinking schools
down.
I re-interviewed for my jobtwice, which was funny because
(41:06):
you know you'd meet theprincipal, and then they
introduced themselves to you andI was like I already know who
you are, you know.
But so it was kind of it was astrange era in education because
before that we were told wewere given a lot of positive
feedback by administration.
(41:27):
We were encouraged, we feltgood about going to school and
then, when this new era ofteacher accountability came in,
we were made to feel bad aboutour jobs.
We were feeling attacked and um, and you could tell the the
fakery of it all.
(41:48):
Because how you use data, Imean, what's the?
What's the mark twain quote?
There's lies, damn lies, andstatistics, uh, and that's what
they were using it.
They're using the data againstus.
So you know they would patthemselves on the back if they
(42:09):
had an increased graduation rate.
But nobody ever looked into,nobody on the outside ever
looked into.
How did you get those numbers?
How did you get those studentsto pass the test or get those
credits?
You know, as far as the mayorand upper administration was
(42:30):
concerned, it was all about wegot better numbers, we're doing
better, the system's better, butus those of us in the system
understood that it wasmanipulated, it wasn't real.
And having gone through allthat, I really appreciate now
(42:53):
being in the system becausewe're not really being attacked
like that.
My school is in pretty goodstanding.
It's in good standing, uh, sothere's no threat of closure.
We're not getting.
We don't have quality review.
Like do we have quality reviews?
I remember like we used to havequality reviews where an
outside administrator werecoming to school and it was,
(43:15):
like you know, the janitors werecleaning the lockers.
That they didn't do all year,you know, like it was just a so
like a fake, like show that wasto be put on Right and and we
had to get a unit plan orsomething that we never did.
(43:35):
But they want to see it andblah, blah, blah, and so we
don't get a lot of that anymorewhich feels good, and so we
don't get a lot of that anymorewhich feels good.
It's just kind of.
Peter Carucci (43:54):
I guess there's less of a top-down push, even
though this currentadministration does have some
Bloomberg people, but they'renot pushing like they used to.
That gives you a little moreautonomy in the classroom, a
little more control over yourown environment.
Do you feel more capable ofsuccess that way?
Joe Geno (44:04):
I do, yes, but there is some push for um, like they
are introducing new curriculum,like I guess the one this year
is the math curriculum, wherethey're kind of giving like a
universal curriculum which goesagainst their old message of
differentiating lessons todifferent students.
Now apparently they wanteverybody teaching the same
(44:27):
curriculum.
And that was one of mycomplaints with gathering data
for teachers, because there's avariability in the students you
have.
Like you're going to compare ateacher of um, like an ap class,
to a self-contained special edclass or you're gonna compare a
(44:50):
college level um, you knowhonors class, to someone who's
teaching an esl class, likethere's those, those students
have completely different skillsand needs.
Yeah, and see what they do,jamie is they have what they
(45:10):
call a Mosul, which is they theyrate teachers based on the
state standardized tests.
And the original idea was to uselike, say, my students take an
English regents, say stateregents, see what they do on the
test and then that's part of myscore In addition to the
(45:36):
observations I get from theprincipal.
But now they've kind of generalthere's.
There's different ways to do it, but now our school, we
generalize it it.
So basically, all tests are theteachers are scored by all
tests, by all students, becauseyou can't really go by.
Uh, just like a particular test, like what do you do for an art
teacher?
There's no state art test.
There's no, you know, gym art,gym state test.
(45:59):
So right, it's all very it'sdifficult to measure.
Like I compare to say you couldgo into a car dealership and
you can find out who the bestsalesman is Easy.
Who sold the most cars or realestate, right, who sold the most
houses, you can tell who thebest is.
But in education it's not soeasy because you're dealing with
(46:23):
different populations and themeasurements are like how they
do on the test is not alwayslike a decent marker.
Jamie Serino (46:34):
Yeah, and I think you know testing becomes a huge
topic because you brought updifferentiation and we have
talked a little bit aboutculture and you know the makeup
of the students in the Bronx andso could you talk a little bit
about that.
That, how, how you, how yourschool, you know, needs to sort
of focus on that population andyou know it does sound like it's
(46:58):
it's difficult putting it onthis sort of national average
and there's a lot of literatureout there about how the testing
ends up being.
You know it skews towards thepredominant culture in the
country, right, the testingitself, and I don't know if the
curriculum does so.
If you could talk a little bitabout that because it's so
(47:19):
pronounced.
I think you know what theculture is there at your school.
Joe Geno (47:24):
Yeah, I mean the demographic makeup of my school.
I'm in the South Bronx it'sabout maybe 60% to 70% Latino,
20% plus percentAfrican-American or Caribbean.
We have a good amount ofstudents from Africa, like first
(47:44):
generation African immigrantsand then a few Asians, but
really you have no Caucasianpopulation and you know this is
something that we've alwaysstruggled with in the education
field the achievement gapbetween the different
demographic groups.
Well, I mean, I just focus onwhat my students need.
(48:12):
It's interesting when I taughtupstate I had a virtually 100%
Regents passing score, but Idon't give myself a lot of
credit for that because it feltlike they had the skills when
they walked in.
So I mean, as a city teacher,you have to because the students
(48:40):
are maybe behind.
You have to work a littleharder to try to get them up to
where they need to be.
Jamie Serino (48:49):
Yeah.
Joe Geno (48:56):
It's not easy.
But you realize they're totallycapable, they can achieve.
But you understand also, whenthey walk into my room they're
18 years old, so they've lived awhole childhood.
So I understand.
As a 12th grade teacher I got10 months to get them to get
(49:22):
better.
But I'm not a miracle workereither and there's things that
happen in their life whereyou're not going to get a lot
out of them.
I've had students whose parentsdied or they're going through a
lot of stuff or they're livingin a shelter.
My motto has always been you dothe best with what you have in
(49:49):
terms of resources, in terms ofwhat you're able to do in that
timeframe.
But I work off the assumptionthat they're fully capable, can
get them to where they, for themost part where they want to.
For me it's for graduation andvirtually all of them get
(50:13):
accepted to some college.
So I want to make sure they'renot taking 12th grade off and
they're really kind of working,because some of them like.
One of the issues in my schoolis that we're a trimester school
and that means that studentscan get three credits a year and
they only need eight credits tograduate.
(50:36):
So if they've passed all theirclasses, they walk into my
classroom with nine englishcredits like they don't need my
class, and so again I gotta makethis argument to them look, I
know you don't necessarily needthe credit, but you can use it
for an elective.
Maybe you need an elective andyou can't take a year off and
(50:59):
expect to go on a college campusand like do well, you know,
yeah, so that's my kind of pitch.
Jamie Serino (51:08):
Yeah Well, you said earlier that you were
selling something and it isfunny, and so I do see how
initially, you would haveresisted that, because it's not
in your nature to go and sellsomething.
If you want it, you want it.
But then you became a littlebit of a salesperson for.
Joe Geno (51:27):
English that was another part of my problem and
maybe with the management pieceand even helping students,
progress is like.
I do believe I still kind ofhold on to this idea that, um,
you can't give somebody aneducation.
You all you can do is offer itto them, and so it's a two way
(51:49):
street.
They have to accept it and theyhave to move forward with it.
They have to have their ownmotivation.
Now I've seen the extreme withthis, like old school teachers
who I've walked by theirclassroom and they're just like
especially upstate.
These are like conservativeguys and they be like yo, this
(52:09):
kid gets a 64 and I'm givingthem a 64 on the report card,
that's it.
And I've walked by some oftheir classrooms and they'll be
teaching like and the kids arelike laid out on the desk and
these guys don't care becausetheir whole attitude is right.
I'm giving you an education,right, take it.
Take it.
(52:30):
If not, you know right well,you know it's.
Jamie Serino (52:35):
You know, as you're talking about that, you
know, part of me wants to sayall right, yeah, like lead a
horse to water, kind of thing.
But then I also think aboutadults at.
You know, certain adults wouldbe so thankful of a teacher that
drew them in.
They weren't interested, andthat teacher got them interested
(52:55):
.
Because you're so young, youknow, and even at like 17, 18,
you think you know everythingright, and maybe you think you
don't need it and this and thatright.
And so, yeah, you could takethat attitude like all right,
that person's making thatdecision, but they're so young
to make that decision, you know.
And so I think it is nice yourattitude of like you know you're
(53:17):
offering it but you're doing alittle bit of selling, you know,
and you're trying to draw themin.
And maybe you'd have studentswho are like I'm so glad Mr Gino
did that because I becameinterested.
That's when I became interested, you know.
So I think that's really nice.
Joe Geno (53:32):
I think I raised a philosophical question with
teachers and it was centeredaround do I give them a pencil
or not when they come in?
That's great.
This gets to a deepphilosophical question, because
if you give them the pencil,then they become conditioned to
ask for the pencil, and thenthey come and they don't have a
(53:53):
pencil.
Or I just not give them apencil, but then what happens?
They don't do any work, yeah,and so that's like so I think
I'm somewhere in between Like Igive them the pencil but I let
them know with a kind ofprovision like this is not
(54:14):
happening tomorrow, yeah, yeah,that's really funny.
Jamie Serino (54:18):
You are reminding me specifically of a teacher who
would not give the pencil, butwhat he would do is he would say
listen, so the corridors.
This was junior high and therewas A wing, b wing, c wing and
some of the other corridors hadnames, and he was like I'm not
giving you a pencil, but if yougo to B wing, people always drop
their pencils in B wing, justwalk and get a pencil from the
(54:40):
floor.
They'd run out and they'd comeback with the pencil.
Peter Carucci (54:45):
It's really funny .
Jamie Serino (54:47):
It's really funny.
Peter Carucci (54:48):
I had the privilege of working with Joe as
a colleague and also in anadministrative capacity and
having been probably in hisclassroom 1999, all the way
through like 2012 or 15,whatever, 2014 or 15, whatever-
12, 14 or 15.
(55:10):
And seeing Joe as a teacher,both in these stages of like
what do I do now?
I was in Borders Bookstoreyesterday and now I'm in a
classroom and what the heck isgoing on and kids are like
punching each other and his mindbeing blown.
And then also seeing him teachlike uh the suny, all the
(55:35):
university of albany collegecourses and like draft curricula
and like take on thisleadership role and it's, it's
interesting, as I got to see itbefore he was a teacher, his
early, early stage, and in everystage, except for the last,
maybe eight to ten years, youknow, or seven years, whatever
(55:56):
it's been.
And it's amazing because Ican't wait to read this book,
joe, because it's like thisculmination of like what you've
learned and, honestly, howyou've become successful.
You know it's not an easyjourney, but I'm fascinated
because you have a chapter inthis book about when to know to
(56:18):
retire and you seem like you'reat a point right now where
you've had to learn the hard waysink or swim and now you were
striving and now you're thrivingand why not keep it going?
Is there a point when you knowyou're done?
(56:40):
Well, I'm kind of excited.
Joe Geno (56:44):
I'm excited about that potential new chapter.
I don't chapter 30 years willbe enough, I think, even though
I maybe I will be at my best atthat time.
But I can.
And what I learned from covidwhen I had a lot of time to
(57:07):
myself, like wow, wow, I coulddo.
I was getting into woodworking,I was exercising writing books
Like I think it's important thatwhen you do retire like you're
not sitting on a couch, you are.
Even though you're out anddon't have a job, you still have
to work at something.
You still have to be involvedin community, at something you
(57:29):
still have to be involved incommunity.
So I think I see myself doingmaybe a few different part-time
type things and I feel like I'llbe more motivated than ever.
I'm definitely not going to belazy, um, it's just that I'll
(57:51):
take a new direction because, um, you know, 30 years long enough
and man no, how do you knowwhen to retire is my question,
because you haven't been there30 years or or in your case
right yeahI mean too, no, when I, in 55,
(58:12):
I'll have 30 years and I'll beable to retire with a full
pension, um, so like,financially, I'm gonna be great,
um, my, but the thing is mywife will still be working for
like another five years, um, andmy kids will just be starting
high school.
So there'll be a like a stay athome dad aspect to this.
(58:34):
But I just see a lot ofbenefits to retiring in terms of
deepening my relationships withothers, friends that I.
You know school takes up somuch of my time.
Like, my commute is crazy I.
I leave the house at 6 30 and Iget home at 5 36.
(58:55):
So I'm basically going about 12hours a day with the, with the
commute and everything, and, um,I just think about all the
things I can do with that time,um, and like I want to do out of
state hunts and stuff like that.
I can't do that with myschedule now.
(59:17):
I actually have they actuallygave us seven vacation days, so
I actually can do that for oneweek, but um, uh, I'm looking
forward to doing differentthings, recreating myself.
Peter Carucci (59:37):
You have a chapter in your book called the
Myth of Retirement.
Why is it a myth?
Is it because, like you'resaying, you can't just shut off?
You've got to continually keeplearning?
Is that what you mean by that?
Joe Geno (59:48):
Yeah, shut off.
You got to continually keeplearning.
Is that what you mean by that?
Yeah, I mean I think peoplebuild it up in their minds as
retirement is something whereyou can just sit around, you
don't have to do anything,you're free from responsibility,
but you have to be.
There's a danger there, becauseyou can uh, I don't get lazy,
(01:00:11):
but you can get complacent, youcan lose purpose.
That, I mean, that's the bigpart is like you still have to
find purpose.
And I think I've seen, I'vetalked to some people that have
retired recently and theystruggle with with that.
Like all right, you're out ofthe building, but what group are
you a part of now?
And, okay, you're not doing alot, but what are you doing?
(01:00:33):
You've got to do something.
You can't just sit around andyou have to.
You know you held a certainposition, a certain degree of
respect, but now you're retiredyou don't hold a position.
So I mean, I think maybe peoplestruggle with their identity,
you know, like in the retirement.
Peter Carucci (01:00:54):
You know, out of 227 teachers, 18 guidance
counselors.
I think when a lot of themwould retire, I'd say a good one
out of every four of them wouldcome back to teach what we call
the F status in New York Cityone class, two classes, wow.
That same thing.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
Jamie Serino (01:01:14):
Yeah, well, you know one of the unique things, I
think, with teachers and youget this with police officers,
firefighters you're retiring butyou're still pretty young.
You know and I think that's akey thing, joe, that you're
going through and you brought upidentity and and that's really
important too A lot of adultsdon't realize that you still go
through shifts in identity as anadult.
(01:01:34):
Everyone always thinks, oh, thewhole identity thing happens as
a kid and then you have youridentity and you're off, but you
keep going through shifts as anadult.
They just, you know, may not beas quick as a kid, and so one
of those is, you know, this sortof retirement and finding
purpose later in life as youmove, you know, from a career
(01:01:55):
into something else, and you areyoung enough to actually have a
second career if you want orjust do a few little things, and
you're someone who right, soyou're working on a craft and if
you're doing woodwork, that's acraft.
You know that's something youcan continually get better at.
And so this is all great advice, a great, I think, conversation
(01:02:16):
, and maybe to sort of start totransition to, to ending, to
ending the episode.
You know when, when you look at, like police officers,
firefighters, like some of themare retiring in their forties,
you know, and that's then youhave all this time, right?
So?
So what do you do?
So I think the I think you'rebringing up a great topic there.
(01:02:37):
So, as we, as we move towardconcluding, you know, is there
anything else that you would?
You would add, you know, causeI think, just your nature, you,
you, you talked about rigidityand you don't have rigidity.
You know, I've never known youto have that you go with the
flow kind of person.
But you talked a little bitalso that you have a competitive
(01:02:58):
nature.
So you did want to succeed.
So you went in there.
You got dropped in there likepizza, your borders, books one
day there and you're in theclassroom another day and you're
struggling, but you're going towin, you're going to figure
that out right, and you did.
But it wasn't through rigidity,it was through, I think, your
flexible mindset.
And 26 years later you're notburnt out.
(01:03:19):
So any sort of last-minuteadvice, anything else from the
book, anything else that youwould say to teachers?
Joe Geno (01:03:32):
Yeah else about you know from the book anything else
that you would say to teachers?
Yeah, um, well, I think onething is I'm gonna end up doing
30 years in a profession I neverintended to be a part of.
Yeah, it speaks against thiswhole idea of like doing what
you love, because, well, maybewhat you love you're not really.
(01:04:00):
Maybe it's not what you think itis in the first place and you
know I'm happy to have, you know, got into this profession.
It wasn't my, the classroom wasmy natural environment, but
maybe not this level, but it wasfine, like I worked with a lot
of good people, including thestudents.
I got a lot of great studentsand teachers and over the years,
(01:04:24):
you know, so the relationshipswere good.
I thought my work was noble.
I need this idea of giving.
So I just read a book by thisguy, scott Galloway, who was an
NYU professor of finance, and hehad a message of like maybe
(01:04:47):
people are too focused onfollowing their passion, doing
what they love, and and maybethey should really work on what
they're good at, you know, andthat a love will come later.
Right, if you're likeespecially good at something, um
and uh, so um, that's one thingin terms of like, choosing a
career.
But I'd like to finish, uh,just with a poem.
(01:05:09):
I wrote a poem in this book, ifI might, and the poem not
ironically is called LessonLearned.
The book, the podcast, we'rebringing it up, there's so much
synergy.
Jamie Serino (01:05:31):
All right, let's see.
Joe Geno (01:05:33):
Here's a poem called Lesson Learned.
In all the lessons I taught, alesson was learned.
It is a lesson that can't begiven, only offered and received
.
The list of tasks endlessly goon.
We are all awaiting that finalbell to be rung and much must be
done.
We are born with an assignmentto maximize human potential, to
(01:05:57):
build relationships, to preparefor the future, and in that
preparation a lot can bepracticed, but little can be
predicted.
The lesson taught me how to be abetter parent, made me
understand child psychology,where to place my expectations,
when to scold, when to encourage, when to show pride, how to
(01:06:18):
build somebody up, how to leavethem to their devices.
See the application, if thelesson was learned.
The lesson taught me themeaning of wealth and something
greater than wealth.
Time, life being a series ofcontinual moments, never to
return, you savor them the mostwhen you feel their absence.
When you close that classroomdoor for the final time, like
(01:06:43):
you're closing the door on 30years of your life, the lesson
continues, not knowing what waslearned.
Until some test came, with nopaper or pen to contend with,
only concepts and ideas that youhad to think on your feet.
You learn.
The lesson wasn't about how tothink to answer a question.
(01:07:05):
It was about how to thinkanswer a question.
It was about how to think.
It's the only place.
Jamie Serino (01:07:14):
It's only from that place that you may take
your seat and begin.
That's it.
That's fantastic, thank you forhaving me.
Yeah, thanks, joe, this wasgreat.
So the book lesson learn, joegino, it's coming out soon and
you can like get it on amazon,you can like, where else can you
(01:07:35):
?
Like, yeah, I'm sure it's goingto be on there, uh, by
thanksgiving, okay, yeah, yeah,all right excellent 24, nice all
right congratulations onwriting it and I look forward to
reading it, and I appreciateyou joining us and teaching us
all those lessons.
Peter Carucci (01:07:56):
All right, thank you.
The lessons are somewhere.
Jamie Serino (01:08:00):
Joey, Thanks for being here, guys, Thanks, All
right, Until next time.
Thank you everybody for joiningus.
(01:08:25):
We'll see you next time.
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