What the Family Studies?
What the Family Studies?
Embracing Change: One Teacher's Journey to Transformative Family Studies Education
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Discover how Tessa Casella's journey from aspiring English teacher to amazing family studies educator can inspire you to embrace change and find your true calling. With her diverse background, Tessa enriches her teaching with real-life applications while championing the integration of Indigenous perspectives in education. We also dive into the practical side of family studies education, where Tessa shares her engaging classroom activities, from matching monthly payments to lifestyle choices to organizing a grade 10 food class bake-off with local ingredients. Learn how these activities impart crucial life skills, like financial literacy, to students.
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Welcome back to Season 3, episode 3 of what the Family Studies podcast. Today we will be interviewing Tessa Casella. Tessa grew up in Dryden, Ontario. The youngest of four, she spent much of her youth camping and fishing and enjoying the great outdoors In the land. Before the internet, books, poetry, writing and music were frequent pastimes for her. She is a fan of physical fitness and enjoys cooking and spending time with her family. Her philosophy is to do what makes you happy as long as you aren't hurting anyone else.
Speaker 1Education is where she ended up, but many jobs were had along the way to finally securing a full-time teaching position. The transferable skills and experience she gained from her collection of professions have broadened her perspective in many ways. She has a say yes to anything mentality and enjoys a challenge. Want to do a podcast? Yes, want to sing in a band? Yes, want to teach your first foods class? Unqualified due to family studies teacher shortages why not Today? Our learning goals are going to be to understand the influence of personal and professional experiences. We're going to explore how a teacher's background and journey, such as relocating to Thunder Bay, shapes their teaching philosophy and practices. In family studies education. We're also going to look at strategies to incorporate Indigenous practices and perspectives into the school and classroom culture, fostering respect and inclusivity. Last week, we're going to promote positive relationships and cultural appreciation by examining ways to establish caring, respectful relationships in the classroom and engage with diverse cultural practices, such as through the grade 12, personal life management and foods courses.
Speaker 2So welcome, tessa Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate being here.
Speaker 1Could you start by sharing with us the pathway that brought you to live and work in Thunder Bay and how these experiences have influenced you as a family studies educator?
Speaker 2So my journey sort of started when I was in my grade nine, english class, and I thought to myself you know what I love? Books. I think I'll become an English teacher Everyone loves books right.
Speaker 2So it was at that moment that I made up my mind I would go to school for teaching. My plan was always to come back to Dryden, but by the time I graduated from Lakehead, the entire family had actually already moved to Thunder Bay. Teaching jobs were scarce at the time, so I actually sold cars for a few months until I made my way back into the service industry. I considered moving to obtain a job in education, but I met my husband, also a teacher, and it was meant to be so. I decided to stay in Thunder Bay, regardless of the lack of education opportunities, so I waited it out. I kept a serving job alongside briefly having my own business. I taught fitness classes. I also worked for a not-for-profit organization, which actually prompted me to go back to Lakehead in 2019 for a certificate in Indigenous Learning, where I was able to fill some gaps in my own education. I paid my OCT fees diligently and finally, I was able to get on the supply list. So I worked for about five days and then I secured LTOs and was basically full-time, which was awesome.
Speaker 2My first teaching gigs were in civics and careers, which I actually do still teach. I taught some literacy. I taught English, including USLT. Oddly enough, it turns out that all humans on the planet may not necessarily love books as much as I do, and teaching English is a different ballgame for everyone, much like any subject. So it was one semester when my principal at the time asked if I would be willing to teach a grade 10 food course, unqualified for an LTO, and that is when I found out that's where I belonged in education.
Speaker 2I remember being so terrified. I had my first students in the lab for you know, to cook, and everything just clicked into place. I was worried for no reason, like it just made perfect sense to me having them in the kitchen and watching things just fall into place and execute a lab and read a recipe and see things happen. I mean, I'd been in the service industry for 20 years anyway. I do all the cooking in my own house. I have a child, I have a family, I have many lived experiences. So I actually can't believe it didn't take me like less time to get into the family studies section of teaching a lot sooner.
Speaker 1Wow, that's awesome. I love that you've done all these different jobs to contribute, to like your knowledge that you can share with your students, and I'm so glad that you dipped your toes into the foods, because it's such a great course and it's such a fun one that I just don't think a lot of people fully understand, or some people don't even really consider it, so it's really great that that opportunity came up for you. We would love to hear about the school you're working at and the ways in which Indigenous practices have become a part of the culture of the school.
Speaker 2Awesome. So I'm pretty fortunate to be teaching at a high school right now that has integrated Indigenous practices into many aspects of our school culture. We have Indigenous grad coaches. We have a KZ Lodge, which is a school-based program that focuses on integrating Indigenous land-based learning and building life skills. We have leaders in our program department that will connect you with community members to come in for specific teachings, whether it be beading in a fashion class, a lesson on moon teachings or even how to cook and prepare a traditional dish.
Speaker 2Every Thursday in my hallway, across from my classroom, we hear drumming across my room. We have a very large demographic of First Nation students at our school and many of them that come from remote communities, and I was actually talking to a colleague today about this podcast and some of the things we were probably going to chat about, and they reminded me about our market day. So we have business classes at the school that I'm at and part of the culminating activity is a market where students will make and sell like various products whether it be food, whether it be crafts, painting and some of the most successful sales actually come from Indigenous students that make and sell cultural crafts necklaces, earrings One group actually made, I think it was around $600, selling handmade Bannock dogs and I think this is just yeah, really, really awesome.
Speaker 2So just one of the many outlets that Indigenous students are able to celebrate and share their culture within the school, and I think that we've created a space for them to feel welcomed by students and educators in our building, and I only see that these opportunities will grow as the years progress.
Speaker 1Wow, I really like the idea of that market.
Speaker 2So they do it over the course of three days, but they have to donate a portion of what they make at the market to whatever not-for-profit organization they've designated at the beginning. But they actually do get to keep the profit of their sales, which is another incentive, which I think is awesome and maybe, you know, instigate some small business owners or people going into operating their own businesses down the road, which is really cool.
Speaker 1Yeah, for sure. That's super cool. I feel like I should implement that at my school. Okay, if a new teacher were to ask you for advice on respectfully bringing Indigenous perspectives into their family studies classroom specifically, what kind of advice would you give them?
Speaker 2Okay. So I think my first piece of advice would be like don't be a one-offer. And what I mean by that is don't just, you know, maybe color an orange shirt on September 30th and think that's enough. I think it's really important to try to incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing into everyday tasks. So if your students are frequently asking to fill up their water bottle which they do in my class make mention of how fortunate we are to have the luxury of fresh drinking water. There's still 30 some communities in Canada that are under long-term water advisories and I think that information can accompany any class when discussing, like, the cost of groceries, whether it be in a foods class or personal life management or even HIF.
Speaker 2Do a lesson to compare the cost of something as simple as a bag of flour at a local grocery store where we are, to that in some First Nation communities it's staggering how expensive it is.
Speaker 2So discuss the impacts that it would have on being able to incorporate, you know, adequate nutrition into your diet if the cost of groceries is so high.
Speaker 2And actually I've had students who go home frequently on weekends to visit their home communities and they don't have access to a lot of the things that we do here at a lower cost. And they ask you know, they're like Miss Casella, do you want to see how much $60 will get you in groceries back home? And they'll show me and there's like a handful of items. It's just, it's really. It's kind of heartbreaking and it's a reality check for a lot of students, I think, that aren't familiar with how expensive groceries can be outside of the city. And, most importantly, to new teachers, I think I would tell them to ask questions, you know, ask permission, don't be afraid to make mistakes, because we all do also learn and ask the people right in front of you again, sometimes your students themselves can be the best resource when it comes to Indigenous perspectives and they can fill you in all kinds of things that you don't know about that's awesome.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think asking questions and having that vulnerability as a teacher is so important in many ways not not just with indigenous perspectives, but like constantly, I'm always asking my students for advice and they they really do teach you so much. So I think that's super important and that's such a good thing that you're willing to do and just having that growth mindset as a teacher too. I also just really liked that you pointed out that you shouldn't just try to like do something to check off a box or, you know, just like a one-off thing. I think it's really important that you are continually learning and growing and showing your students that you're willing to do that. So that's awesome advice, thank you. You have often taught foods courses. How do you approach foods courses in a way that is respectful and helps students learn and appreciate indigenous cultures beyond what you just talked?
Speaker 2about. So I love teaching foods and really there is so much opportunity to celebrate Indigenous culture in these courses. We do talk about water and class and high grocery costs, of course, in remote communities, but we also teach a little history here as well. It can start with a discussion about flour, and what does that mean to Indigenous people? What impact did this one staple ingredient have once it was introduced into their diets? Teach about the past and the colonial impact of something like bannock what did that look like prior to the introduction of something like flour? But then focus on the future. So don't linger too much on those things. Teach about them, but then move forward.
Speaker 2So bannock is now something that is served at celebrations in many First Nation communities. It's become part of reclaiming tradition. So I think it's really important to highlight how that's something that is now. It's considered special and celebratory and something that's really important. In addition, so many of the schools in Thunder Bay have a Three Sisters Garden and if they don't, we can easily access many of those ingredients at seasonal times of the year. So I say, make the soup and even if you can't make it, maybe teach about the ingredients, how the soup is made and why the garden is planted and the way that it is.
Speaker 2I'll use short videos to help, highlighting a certain indigenous group's teaching of the soup or any traditional dish. Really. I most recently used an episode of chuck in the first people's kitchen and I like that series, as the host travels to different parts of the country to learn to make traditional meals from Indigenous people of various nations. My students will also tell me how their family makes the soup differently, which is awesome. I love it when students feel comfortable sharing their culture in class and I try to find ways to highlight the positives. So I would really like to bring in. Something that I'd like to do, hopefully by the end of the semester, is to bring in an elder or an indigenous leader from the community to come in and take us through a lab using some traditional ingredients. We'll see what the future holds. Sometimes they get excited and I just want to do everything, so I know that I can't, but it is something that I aim to do, hopefully by the end of the semester.
Speaker 1So that's awesome. I love that you use videos and that you're trying to get guest speakers to come in, because obviously you can only do so much speaking from your own experience. So it's nice to have those people coming in and really sharing from their own experience so that you're getting firsthand experience and stories, and I just think that's really important and I think that using those resources is something worth doing because we have access to them. So why not? You're also teaching grade 12 personal life management this semester. I'm curious what your experience has been teaching that course.
Speaker 2Okay, this is a fun one. This is such a fun class. I probably say that about every class I teach, but so necessary so far. I really enjoy learning with my students Day one. I ask them what they want to focus on and try to work that in as much as possible. We bring in guest speakers to talk about healthy relationships, stress management, as well as substance use and addiction. If an opportunity comes up in this class to teach something that is not on the day's lesson, I use it.
Speaker 2So I'm going to reference something that just happened recently in the class. We started our budgeting and finance unit and our lesson was on the extras in life, so some of the things that we have but maybe we don't need, but we enjoy and perhaps as teens that are coming out into, you know, going in the world on our own, we're not really aware of the costs. So what I did was I looked at the monthly fees for streaming services, for the newest cell phones, for cell phone plans, and we played a game where the students had to try and match the monthly payment to the item, and one of the things is a membership to a local gym. The cost that I'd researched seemed like it wasn't high enough and I was like all right, well, I got it off their website, but like, let's call them and ask. So one of my other students was like, well, can I put it on speakerphone and call them in front of the whole class? And I was like, absolutely.
Speaker 2And so this became like a really excellent teaching moment about communication, phone etiquette, accuracy of information. It was a five minute call with some big results and it was really awesome to see. The student was very polite on the phone everybody could hear, and one of my other students was like putting up notes saying ask about the signup fee, and so we knew I mean the end result was that, yes, you know the monthly payment was actually more than they had advertised on the website. But what a great, what a great opportunity to teach something the use of like small talk and having a conversation, respectfully for many of us who aren't really comfortable with that, maybe because we're always texting or emailing. So I think this course and it's like curriculum provides so much for students who are about to experience the world beyond high school. It is so important to go off script in HIP because life throws you unexpected curveballs all the time so you just have to roll with it.
Speaker 1I love that and I love that you clearly trust your students enough to be able to do something like that and that that student that was willing to do that in front of the whole class that's that shows some really great leadership skills and like courage. I feel like even now I get nervous to call, like to book appointments or whatever, like I'm still like hesitant. So that's so good for your students to be doing that and asking those questions and getting those answers and and and that they're aware that you know just because something's advertised as one price doesn't mean it's going to actually be exactly that. So that's really great that they had that you know the critical thinking skills to like think about that.
Speaker 1It's also interesting, I find, when I even taught housing for the first time that was actually my first class I ever taught was housing, and I don't know why, but I had this assumption that family studies kids were going to be more interested in the home design stuff and floor planning and it shocked me how much more interested they were in the finance stuff. They were so much more interested in learning about mortgages and renting versus owning a house and I ended up spending way more time on that unit than I did with the interior design stuff. But I had this predetermined assumption about the students that they would want to do the artsy stuff and the fun, whatever designing stuff. But no, they wanted that practical finance stuff and so it was really interesting.
Speaker 1It's interesting I guess it depends on what group you get, but yeah, the finance stuff is so important and I think in family studies we often overlook how important that stuff is and how much students want to learn that stuff and that's why they're taking these courses is because we're learning real life skills that they can really take with them. So that's awesome. That's such a good course. I have a friend who teaches that every year and it's every time I see her lessons and stuff I'm like this is so important, so that's awesome. Okay, we were also interested to hear a little bit more about your future plans. What are you hoping to work on in your family studies classroom?
Speaker 2What are your goals Okay. So I'm kind of excited because we have some cool things coming up in the next month or so. My grade 10 food class had a little bake-off and a sample activity where they made a variety of different muffin top flavors, all incorporating local flour into their recipes. The class and the chefs from our CAF actually came down and sampled the creations and voted on the best one. So now my grade 10 students get to prep all of the pumpkin for the pumpkin muffin tops that actually won the best vote and they're going to sell them in the CAF, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 2So all of this was organized by an outside organization that comes into our school, Roots Community Food Center, which is a really great local organization that actually provides opportunities for students in employment, volunteer opportunities, learning experience, how to keep things local and sustainable. So, and they run the CAF. So it was kind of a nice like little interconnected, you know, cross-curricular activity that my students get to be a part of, which is really neat, and my HIP class has a financial advisor coming in to discuss how to read and understand a pay stub. The guest is also going to highlight why it's important to do your taxes and when you know that time of year comes around, what you have to do going to talk about money management and just elaborate a little bit further on some of the things we've already discussed.
Speaker 2But coming from an expert who's been in the industry for 20 years, I think this is going to be a really awesome opportunity for my students. She also works for the federal government now, so she's going to talk about tax exemptions for individuals of status and what that might mean when they're working on or off the reserve. I was also gifted a little extra money for one of my foods classes, so I'm really excited to do something fun with them before the holidays maybe some seasonal baking that they can take home. So the sky is the limit. I've got lots of exciting things coming up for December.
Speaker 1So that sounds so exciting. It makes me want to be back in school again. To be honest, I love the muffin baking challenge. It reminds me this past weekend, my boyfriend's family and my family we did a chili cook-off and so, like we had to make a different recipe of chili and we had these chili names that my boyfriend's mom had. If your last name started with whatever letters, she had the first part of your chili name or whatever your birthday was. So anyway, we all got these weird chili names and then we to like wear a name tag and then we did like a pepper hot spicy pepper challenge quiz thing, like trivia and all this stuff. She had this whole like day of activities and it's just like those are the things that are so fun and that's why foods is so fun and they love competition. So that's really fun. I love that. That is all the questions I have for you tonight other than our rapid fire questions. Is there anything else you wanted to share before we start the rapid fire questions?
Speaker 2Your chili cook off thing just reminded me of something that we're going to do tomorrow in my food and culture class. Oh yeah, yeah, we talked about different flavors around the world and so like to hook them in before we like start diving into spices really deeply and like where certain spices might show up in, you know, cultural dishes. I went and bought a bunch of obscure flavors of like chips and they're going to have to blind taste the chips to try and figure out if they can taste herbs and spices in the chip. What is it Sweet, is it sour, is it savory? And they have like a little chart they have to fill out and then at the end they're going to try and guess which each of the chips are sort of their hook to segue into like the next day's activity. So I think that's going to be a really fun one for tomorrow, period five.
Speaker 1So oh yeah that'll, that'll be so fun. Anything that involves taste testing I feel like students love. I did like a I'm getting off track here, but I did a cooking camp with young kids. It was young kids and often kids can be picky and I wanted to show them that, like you need to try new things because you don't know if you're going to like something or not, and also you shouldn't just say something's disgusting if you've never tried it, because then you know other people might not want to try it because you've said it's disgusting, but really they haven't tried it. You haven't tried it, you know.
Speaker 1So I made a tic-tac-toe and I put foods that most commonly are like called disgusting before they've even tried them for like for kids. So like olives was one of them, or feta cheese, things that kids often don't want to try and I said that you have to get a tic-tac-toe by trying the foods that are on that spot. Anyway, it was this whole thing, but it was fun and then they had to try different foods to try to win the tic-tac-toe, but anyways, those kinds of activities I feel like are so fun and so memorable. Okay, thank you so much. I'm going to start the rapid fire questions, so they're just random questions. You can answer them as quickly as you want and you don't really have to give an explanation if you don't want to. But what was your first job?
Speaker 2First job. Does babysitting count or a dish pit?
Speaker 1Where did you do dish pit? That's interesting.
Speaker 2At a golf and curling club, and that was when I was 14. And I never left the service industry after that. I went from the dish pit to serving and never looked back.
Speaker 1Wow, I love that. Okay, what is your favorite food?
Speaker 2Favorite food. Oh man, that's so tough. I love food.
Speaker 1I don't know, Pizza or pasta or soup. Okay, awesome Okay.
Speaker 2Nicknames that you used to be or are called. So my grandfather called me Kiki until the day that he died, and that was because he was born in Germany. My father was born in Germany, and so I think when I was very young, like two, I would get my German and English mixed up, and so I would always say Kiki Vs, which meant cookie please in my language, and so then I was Kiki until the day that he passed. And what else have I been called? I think just Tess Kiki, that's it.
Speaker 1I love that. I love the Kiki one. Okay, what's your favorite time of day?
Speaker 2I'm a morning person. I get up at, you know, every morning so that I can run eight kilometers before I go to work. So I'm up at like 10 to six.
Speaker 1So I think I'm a morning person. Yeah, Good for you. I get up early too. I do like the peaceful, like vibe before everyone else is up, but I definitely don't go on a run. So I'm I got to get to that point. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
Speaker 2I think it's a combination of things that sort of makes up that whole motto of mine, which is, you know, do what makes you happy, as long as you're not hurting anybody else. So, and if you're not happy doing what you're doing, then do something else.
Speaker 1I love that, all right. Well, thank you so much for spending time with us tonight and sharing all your insights and your positive attitude. I love that you show that you know you're willing to try new things and willing to mess up, and you know that's how we learn and that's how we grow and that's how we come up with these cool ideas by taking chances. So thank you so much. We look forward to speaking with our next guest. We're going to talk to a guest from Rick Hansen Foundation next month and we're going to discuss the topic of inclusive language. So stay tuned for that and have a good night.
Speaker 3Thank you so much for joining us today on this episode of what the Family Studies. All links, resources and social media platforms mentioned can be found in the show notes. Remember to subscribe to be notified when we release new episodes. Thanks for listening. What the Family Studies is brought to you by the Ontario Family Studies Home Economics Educators Association. Special thanks to our producer, micheline Gallant, tech support and podcast editor, cassandra McEachern, and our co-hosts Catherine Murphy and Laura Hattier.
