Those Who Can't Teach Anymore

Those Who Can't Teach Anymore is a Finalist in this year's Signal Awards. Vote for us in the Education Category: VOTE HERE. Voting closes October 9. Thank you all for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For today's bonus episode, enjoy Betsy Burris' podcast Teaching Through Emotions. In this episode, two teachers make sense of their feelings of overwhelmedness and confusion. They talk about * imagination in teaching and learning * the importance of emotional and relational data * creative solutions to overwhelming and confusing problems * the importance — and ways — of digging up assumptions * how to turn from worrying to working with your emotions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If teachers decide to leave teaching by summer break, they have to start the job hunt early. Sofi Velazquez learns new skills, rewrites her resume, and starts applying for jobs. In this episode, hear how the steps to leave the classroom take time and are not always full of rainbows and butterflies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Velma Rose reflects on the impact of secondary trauma on teachers, and something happens that makes her feel unsafe at school. In this episode, hear about the culture of violence is seeping into schools and how this is contributing to teachers leaving the classroom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 6: January featured excerpts from Meredith Paul's award-winning original oratory. In this bonus episode, hear the speech in it's entirety. Stick around at the end of this episode to hear a brand new song made for this season by our very own Julian Saporiti. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We might need to rethink education as a whole if we want to keep teachers from leaving the profession. This episode, hear a high school student's take on what education should look like, and hear about an example of what education could look like from middle school teacher Iva Moss Redman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leadership matters. Velma Rose, who has been a long-time fan of attending school board meetings, can't sleep after the most recent meeting she attended. Velma's 5am journal entry gives us insight into the meeting where she was accosted and a student was booed for speaking. In this episode, hear about the increasing disconnect between district level leadership and teachers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When negotiations don't result in a contract, Portland School District goes on strike. Charlie Blackwood has never taken part in a strike, but they record their experience as the strike progresses through November. In this episode, hear about the impact of Teacher Unions on teacher well-being. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The students are changing. Dan Morris, who is retiring at the end of this school year, never thought the kids were changing, but things have changed. In this episode, hear how student behavior is impacting the classroom and teachers' decisions to stay or leave. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As routines fall into place, teachers show why they are experts in their field. In this episode, teachers talk about best practices, and we hear some of the ways that teacher expertise is devalued. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s hard to describe how it feels to be pulled into the momentum of a new school year. In this episode, hear how teachers from across the country navigate the excitement and anxiety of starting a new year, and meet Amber, a brand new teacher who doesn't quite know what to expect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teachers are still leaving education at an alarming rate. In the new season of Those Who Can't Teach Anymore, we will get a look at a year in the life of a teacher. We will meet 15 teachers from across the country who volunteered to keep weekly personal audio journals of their 2023-2024 school year. These teachers recorded on their own at home on their couches, in their kitchens, in their classrooms, or on their drives to work. Teachers everywhere are all going through similar things. If we have a better understanding of what teachers experience, we might be able to take the steps needed to help keep brilliant teachers in education. Look for Episode 1 on May 6, National Teacher Appreciation Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Those Who Can't Teach Anymore presents a segment that Charles Fournier produced for the podcast The Modern West. In this segment, "One Size Does Not Fit All," you will meet Iva, an innovative teacher conducting scientific research with her middle schoolers on the Wind River Reservation. They even set up trail cameras! You can find other episodes from The Modern West wherever you find podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Those Who Can't Teach Anymore presents a segment from the podcast Those Who Can't Do, hosted by Andrea Forcum. In this segment, Charles Fournier talks with Andrea about teacher attrition, absurd dress codes, and what not to do in your classroom. To hear the whole episode and more episodes from Andrea's podcast, check out Those Who Can't Do wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Those Who Can't Teach Anymore presents the award-winning episode, "The Kids Are Not All Right," from This Changes Everything, a Cascade Public Media/Crosscut podcast. In this episode, producer and host Sara Bernard explores how the pandemic has exacerbated the mental health of students and teachers. In a moment when students and teachers are in need of support, the questions remain: What is being done and is it enough? To hear more about how the pandemic has impacted schools, check out the rest of This Changes Everything, Season 3. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Think about your favorite teacher. What were they like? What made them your favorite? Now, imagine if your favorite teacher quit their job before you had them in your life. What would you have lost? Think about what future generations of students will lose if more teachers leave because teachers don’t feel valued or trusted or fairly compensated. If things don’t change, more teachers will leave because they are realizing that they can. In this episode, we hear from former teachers who left education and are happier for it. Music: Theme Song By Julian Saporiti “Don’t You Leave” by Crowander is licensed under a CC BY-NC license. “Happening for Lulu” by Kraus is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license. “Soldier’s Story” by Blanket Music is licensed under a CC BY-NC license. “Be Nice” by Jahzzar is licensed under a CC BY-SA license. “Fireworks” by Jahzzar is licensed under a CC BY-SA license. “Faster, Sons of Vengeance, Faster!” by Doctor Turtle is licensed under a CC BY-NC license. “Changing Moment (ID 1651)” by Lobo Loco is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license. Transcript: A quick warning, this episode discusses sexual abuse. During the quarantine, I received an anonymous letter from a former student that had since graduated. After pleasantries, the note says “I’m writing you now to thank you for things that you never knew you did when I was your student.” And then they go on to explain that though I would not have known this, they had been sexually abused by their father, and they had just found the strength to tell someone, cut ties, and start the healing process. They said that my class was a space that made them feel safe, heard, and respected. They wrote that I helped them quote “understand that there are good men, ones that deserve to be fathers.” end quote They were intentional in saying that they didn’t know if I would figure out who they were, but regardless, they wanted to thank me and let me know that I played a part in helping them get through the abuse. Every time I read this letter, it breaks me. I hate that this student had to go through this. I hate their father. I am humbled by the fact that I could be a source of support for this student, and I hope so badly that they can heal. No kid should ever have to experience this, but they do, and because they do, they need adults, teachers, in their lives that can support them, even if those adults are unaware of that support. We need teachers who are themselves supported and happy and in a space that values them, so that they can be as wholly present as possible for students. But at this moment in time, many teachers, so of the people that students need most, don’t want to teach anymore. And that fact is devastating. We’re at the end of this series. We’ve explored a variety of things contributing to teachers leaving the profession - feelings of being devalued, a lack of autonomy, struggles with mental health. We’ve looked at why teachers might be treated the way they have been, from pop-cultural stereotypes to an odd historical inheritance …to having unclear expectations of what education is for. And we’ve even looked at some solutions and where they come from. All of this to make sense of why teachers might be leaving, and to draw attention to the fact that without authentic and relevant change that is not the burden of teachers, teachers will keep leaving. Today, we will hear teachers who left education explain how their lives are now, and we will explore some resources available to teachers who are looking to leave education. And from what I’ve heard through interviews and people reaching out to me because of this podcast, a vast majority of teachers that have left the classroom are much happier. So, if nothing from this season has convinced you that we need to do something to keep teachers in education and something real, maybe this episode will. I am not saying this as a threat, but from the perspective of a realist. Think of it as a natural consequence. Refuse to...

The first step to solving the problem of teacher attrition is to admit that there is a problem. Some groups have already taken this step, and they are listening to teachers in order to create solutions that will retain teachers. These programs make a big difference, but their approach isn’t the norm. In this episode, we hear about successful efforts to keep teachers in education, and we’ll ask the question: Who should have the responsibility of keeping teachers in education? Music: Theme Song By Julian Saporiti “Sunlight” by Nul Tiel Records is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license. “I’m Fat” by Blanket Music is licensed under a CC BY-NC license. “Keep The Prices Down” by Blanket Music is licensed under a CC BY-NC license. “Kaptan Hayvanlar Alemi” by Hayvanlar Alemi is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license. “Grab a Bargain” by Scott Holmes Music is licensed under a CC BY license. “Place on my Bonfire” by Lobo Loco is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license. “Your Paradigm Dial” by Origami Repetika is licensed under a CC BY license. Transcipt My third grade teacher had a phone booth in his classroom. It was a full size, glass booth that was mostly sound-proof. The phone booth was the choice place to spend any indoor recess, but during class, it was used as the equivalent of a time-out. Our teacher was a mustachioed man who called his facial hair his “cookie duster” and wore tinted-glasses and thick collared polyester shirts, If a student was misbehaving, he would point that student to the phone booth, and that’s where the student would remain for the rest of the lesson. Discipline reigned in his class. I’m not sure if this is a quality of 3rd grade teachers in general, but both of the 3rd grade teachers at my school at the time were strict, and my parents loved it. I appreciate some of it now, but at the time I thought it was downright oppressive - especially disciplining groups of kids together, which I’m still not a fan of. There was a week-stretch in particular where our class lost out on several recesses because a core group of kids were acting out. I don’t remember what they were doing, but I remember the sinking feeling of losing out on the chance to play tetherball or football or to climb on those tractor tires that were half buried in the ground and always had a faint smell of urine. We were stuck indoors. I complained to my dad about the injustice when he picked me up from school. I ranted about inequity and being punished for something I didn’t do. And I remember his response clearly. He asked me if I was part of the problem or part of the solution. He had to explain what “solution”meant, and then he told me that I needed to think about whether I was helping or hurting the situation. I realized that even if I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I still might not be part of the solution. Like a whole gaggle of my parents’ other truisms that I didn’t want to hear at the time, this has stuck with me. We’ve spent the last 5 episodes looking at what factors, what problems, might be contributing to teachers leaving education. Over half of all teachers are considering leaving the profession, but there are teachers who are staying, some of them stay thanks to efforts made by organizations to convince teachers to remain in education. So, today, we’re going to think about solutions that keep brilliant teachers in education, but we’ll also ask the question, whose responsibility is it to keep teachers in education? This is Those Who Can’t Teach Anymore, a 7-part podcast series exploring why teachers are leaving education and what can be done to stop the exodus. I’m Charles Fournier. Here is part 6: “Those Who Stay” Elizabeth Smith: I brought mimosas. I hope you don't mind. I met Elizabeth on the back patio of the Middle Fork restaurant in Lander, Wyoming. If her voice sounds familiar, it’s because we heard from her earlier in the series. She wore a blue dress with flower print and she carried a binder and a tote bag. The binder had a copy...

Imagine that you are hiring a new English teacher. None of the people who apply have any of the qualifications to teach English. No teaching degree. No English degree. No experience in the classroom. Would you hire any of them? Probably not. Now here is the irony. Many of the people making curricular and legislative decisions about education don’t have the qualifications to be hired within education. This is a problem. In this episode, we hear how standardization, high-stakes testing, and policy decisions made by non-educators may be contributing to teachers’ decisions to leave education. Music: Theme Song By Julian Saporiti “So Stark (You’re a Skyscraper” by Matt LeGroulx is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license. “Cat and Mouse” by Scott Holmes Music is licensed under a CC BY license. “Space (Outro)” by Andy Cohen is licensed under a CC BY license. “Home Fire” by Nul Tiel Records is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license. “Press Conference” by Blanket Music is licensed under a CC BY-NC license. “Things Change” by HoliznaCC0 is in the Public Domain. “Living Life” by Scott Holmes Music is licensed under a CC BY-NC license. “Boulevard St Germain” by Jahzzar is licensed under a CC BY-SA license. “Hungaria” by Latche Swing is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA license. “Business Getaway ” by Scott Holmes Music is licensed under a CC BY license. Transcript: I used to listen to the Dixie Chicks’s song “Wide Open Spaces” before wrestling matches because I would get too wound up. It helped me slow down my breathing and relax. In junior high and high school, I was fixated on winning and losing. I’d get a pit in my stomach, psyche myself up and out, all to my detriment. I was terrified of failing, of being a disappointment or an embarrassment. Then I went to college. I walked-on to the University of Wyoming’s wrestling team. During my meeting with Steve Suder, the head coach, he told me, “You know, you’ll be walking into a room with a bunch of state champs. Are you worried about that?” I told him, “No, I’m not” because those were the guys that I wanted to be wrestling against. I was a two-time state placer and I had nothing to lose. Suder said, “Good,” and then told me that he never won state either, but he ended up being an All-American for the University of Wyoming, so there was hope for me. During our conversation, in between adjusting this chewed up yellow cushion he used as a back support, he told me that I was like the pretty girl’s funny friend at a party. I’m not someone he noticed right off the bat, but once he got to know me, he was happy to have me around. He meant this in the best way possible, and I didn’t mind. I made the team, worked my butt off, won some matches, and lost more than I won. And I hate losing, but it felt different. I was excited to be wrestling, not nervous. Suder made it clear that his expectations were low, but he was happy to have me. I focused on gaining experience and the process and growing as a wrestler and a person. And I got to wrestle a guy named Brent Metcalf, who is the only person I wrestled that had a documentary made about him. When someone asked Metcalf why he didn’t celebrate wins, he said, “I don't want to give my opponent the satisfaction of watching me celebrate, which would make it look like a big deal that I beat him.” This dude is a monster. It was an extraordinarily humbling match. I had no control of my own body - his fingers were in my mouth at one point, but I learned what it was like to wrestle the best. It was eye-opening. My tenure as a collegiate wrestler only lasted that year,but I remained in contact with Coach Suder off and on until his passing in 2019. And I had changed. My priorities shifted from valuing product to process. When I became an assistant high school wrestling coach, the head coach had also wrestled for Coach Suder, and so we continued his tradition of emphasizing process. And what I noticed is that the wrestlers felt less pressure. They only tried being better today...

What’s the purpose of education? If you were to ask 10 different people this question, you may get 10 different answers. Education shouldn’t be this complex, but getting people to come to a consensus on anything right now is a challenge. This can be a problem. If teachers are expected to meet ambiguous goals, it can lead to burnout and frustration. In this episode, we hear how conflicting values in education may be contributing to teachers’ decisions to leave. Music: Theme Song By Julian Saporiti “Your Paradigm Dial” by Origami Repetika is licensed under a CC BY license. “Room With a View” by Jahzzar is licensed under a CC BY-SA license. “Business Getaway ” by Scott Holmes Music is licensed under a CC BY-NC license. “I Was Different” by Ov Moi Omm is licensed under a CC BY license. “Sunny Afternoon” by HoliznaCC0 is in the Public Domain. Transcript: In the spring of 2016, Julian Saporiti, the guy that made the theme song for this podcast, asked me if I wanted to help him teach a summer road trip class for the University of Wyoming. It was easy to say yes, and this class ended up being one of the most influential educational experiences that I’ve ever had. Many of our students felt the same way. One of them, Sam Mallory, even talked about it in his graduation speech. Sam Mallory: Two years ago about this time of year, I was officially enrolled in the most influential course in my college experience And what made this class so significant likely had to do with the fact that we valued experience over product, which is a pretty non-traditional approach to a college course.. Our Syllabus included the following: Introductions: Julian Saporiti - Instructor /Guitarist. Charles Fournier Advisor/ Contemplation Mentor Books: Jack Kerouak’s On The Road and John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie Music: Songs and lyrics for sing-alongs Assignments: This list included items like helping a stranger, keeping a journal, and dancing in the moonlight Safety Measures: Information about bear country, how to react if lost, and how to create a cross-draft in your vehicle to fart rather than holding it in and risking feeling sick Traveling Recommendations for Women: A list focused on hygiene and affirmations created by wife, Jennie, who is a brilliant traveler but opted to stay home to plan for classes and manage our new ornery dog Lastly: “Be Amazed. Be Present.” We set out for two weeks across Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. We danced to music by firelight in the Tetons under the Milky Way. I taught a pair of girls how to build a fire and when they asked what I thought about feminism, we read parts of The Vagina Monologues while lighting things on fire- one of those girls just wrote an award-winning screenplay. We observed the wildlife of national parks and saw some animals as well. I love this model for education. A kind of structure of non-structure that gives students a chance to grow autonomy and learn on the go. It was an experience, and the students were, if not changed, greatly impacted by that course. Julian and I were too. I tried to apply some of the elements of this course to my high school classes the next school year. I wanted kids to sit around a fire and have conversations, to worry less about grades or tests, and to focus on collaborative experiences that result in knowledge acquisition. Then the school year started. My fire pit idea was struck down, and the weight of standardized assessments, and everything else settled into place. My idealism was smothered by bureaucratic reality. There’s nothing quite like having your grand plan for the new school year get deflated by October. And this brings me to a question that I have continuously returned to as a teacher when this happens - What’s the point of education? Why are we here? The answer is ambiguous, and that uncertainty has led to conflict and confusion in education. So on the show today, we will ask “What’s the purpose of education?” Because if we can’t come to a consensus, teachers...

The most easily recognized teachers in our culture are on the big screen. So when we think about good teaching, it’s almost impossible not to think of Robin William’s character in Dead Poets Society standing on a desk and inspiring his students. This might be part of the problem. When teaching is associated with unrealistic Hollywood characters, it can create impractical or ridiculous assumptions about what teachers do. In this episode, we hear how the stereotypes of teachers may be contributing to teachers’ decisions to leave education. Music: Theme Song By Julian Saporiti “NPC Theme” by HoliznaCC0 is in the Public Domain. “Sunny Afternoon” by HoliznaCC0 is in the Public Domain. “Infrastructure” by Scott Holmes Music is licensed under a CC BY-NC license. “Just a Blip” by Andy G. Cohen is licensed under a CC BY license. “Room With a View” by Jahzzar is licensed under a CC BY-SA license. Movie Clips: Freedom Writers (Paramount Pictures) Dead Poets Society (Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures) School of Rock (Paramount Pictures) Ferris Bueller (Paramount Pictures, United International Pictures) Transcript: Episode 3: “What Would Robin Williams Do?” There is a picture-day-esqu photo on my parents’ fridge of me sitting on my dad’s lap. I am wearing a tie-dye shirt and my orange hair is in its natural state of an Eddie Munster widows peak. My dad is in a blue button down and has on a tie. My cheeks crowd my eyes, my smile is so big. My dad, who doesn’t always smile for pictures, has a cheeky grin. This picture was taken around the same time that my dad squatted down to eye-level with me and said: “When people ask you where you got your red hair, you tell them the milkman. Okay?” He didn’t make a big deal about telling me this. It was just a directive, and I said okay. I figured, yeah, that makes sense. So as adults would come by, ruffle my hair and say things like, “Oh my, what pretty red hair. Where did you get hair like that?” I’d look up at them, smile, and tell them, “The Milkman.” They would guffaw, cough down a drink, blush, and I’d try to explain, “You know, because he delivers things.” And they’d laugh out an “I’m sure he does!” and find my dad who would have a grin settled between his bouncing shoulders as he muffled a laugh, and my mom would say something like “G-uh, Darcy Joe” Not to be heavy handed, but the stereotypes of what a milkman may or may not do when visiting people’s homes is what makes the joke land. This joke was lost on me until high school. I didn’t understand the baggage associated with being a milkman. Language matters. Words like milkman have connotations - they carry weight or have stereotypes attached to them. That’s why I can’t flip someone off and say, “Why are you upset,this means joy to me.” There are too many representations of middle-fingers that situate the digit as a symbol of the obscene. Repetition and representation give meaning. The middle finger or terms like milkman or teacher, carry a history of expectations and stereotypes. Last episode we heard about the historical inheritance of teachers, which is significant in how we view modern teachers. But history isn’t the only thing that impacts how we view teachers. Today, we’re going to look at the teacher stereotypes in pop-culture and how these stereotypes can be contributing to teacher attrition. This is Those Who Can’t Teach Anymore, a 7-part podcast series exploring why teachers are leaving education and what can be done to stop the exodus. I’m Charles Fournier. Here is part 3: “What Would Robin Williams Do?” Molly Waterworth: I've gotten to the point where I see any TV show or movie where some sort of plot device hinges on the inspirational teacher. And I just roll my eyes. This is Molly Waterworth. We heard from her last episode, and she just left education after teaching English for 8 years. She points out a stereotype of inspiring teachers in media: Molly Waterworth:I just can't. I can't stomach it because it's...