WhozYourMama

Communicating With Care: Karen Hayett's Journey of Building Bridges in Education

• Michelle Kreft

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Karen Hayett, a beloved educator with a remarkable career spanning over thirty years, joins us to share her lessons and insights that are bound to inspire any listener. Hear Karen's captivating story, beginning with her passion for teaching at the tender age of six, as she reflects on guiding students who grapple with future career choices and emphasizing the profound role of community and volunteering. Her enthusiasm for mentoring student teachers and her commitment to lifelong learning are testaments to her dedication and love for education.

As we navigate through Karen's transition from public education to homeschooling with a local church co-op in Spokane, Washington, we uncover the nuanced benefits and challenges of homeschooling. Our dialogue touches on the rising interest in homeschooling post-pandemic and the role of co-ops and school districts in providing critical support, especially for children with specific learning needs. Karen's journey underscores the pivotal importance of community and teamwork, drawing enlightening parallels with fields like medicine, and showcases the fulfilling impact she continues to have on young lives.

We also explore the art of communication between parents and teachers, where Karen shares effective strategies like the "Oreo cookie" method for constructive feedback. Her insights advocate for genuine passion in education and the importance of fostering a supportive environment where parents and teachers are allies. Concluding with a heartfelt tribute to Karen's ongoing contributions, we celebrate her relentless passion for making a difference in her community and in the lives of her students. Tune in to experience Karen's heartfelt journey and her profound impact on education.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to who's your Mama, a podcast focusing on tomorrow's future, which are our kids educators, teachers, parents, all encompassing, with the goal of understanding that our brain is a muscle that we can exercise to control the speed in the direction that we want.

Speaker 1:

Let's go, y'all. The time is now. So, karen Hayat, welcome to who's your Mama. Hello, thank you, we're so excited to have you on here. You are our first teacher educator on who's your Mama, and so, as you know, there's a lot of things that we have bonded over in terms of tomorrow's future, which are our kids, and what that means from a community standpoint parents, educators all encompassing and supporting brain health is life health, and so, on that note, please take us back in your journey as somebody who's been an educator for over three decades librarian teacher, retired not retired because then you decided to come back. Your passion for making a difference for kids and education from a homeschooling perspective, so so much to share. So let's just begin at the beginning and walk us through what motivated you to take on the passion that you have to get into education.

Speaker 2:

That's a good question, and I think the first thing that I would say is nothing really in my case, nothing really motivated me. It was intrinsic. I knew. My earliest recollection of knowing that this was the direction that I wanted my life to take was I was six years old and I remember distinctly playing, teacher, playing school, having chalk and a little chalkboard, and I would do it even by myself. I didn't have to have siblings there, I didn't have to have friends there. It was something that was innate in me from an early age an early age, and from that standpoint I know so many young people struggle with really knowing what they want to do in their life.

Speaker 2:

I know our district had something for years that when the kids were seniors and one of their graduation requirements was going through a situation in which they had to present what they saw as their future post-high school, and I did that. I helped, not as an educator from the district but as a parent from the district, and I sat in on many of those interviews with the students and it really struck me how many of them really did not know exactly what they wanted to go into, and so I feel really blessed in my life to have known at an early age. But it also what struck me with doing that with those kids is there is so much going on still with their minds that it's OK. In fact, probably one of my favorite interviews that I sat through was a young man that gave us all a dose of reality of. He came from a single family, his mom was raising him, there was very little money, there wasn't a spare car for him, even if he was wanting to go to college. It was a big reality check and so I enjoyed seeing it from that perspective and then seeing how we could as a group help him, you know, kind of figure out how to what he could do and what was feasible. So that was kind of that was a lot of fun for me to do something like that.

Speaker 2:

But I know a lot of young people really struggle. I know it's not unusual for them to go to college and think that they want to go in one direction and halfway through even get close to the end and realize, you know, they pivot in a totally different direction. And that's okay too. I don't like it when we pigeonhole people into things. We allow them to grow. We allow them to, you know, discover, maybe, hidden talents that they had no idea. And I think that's why it's really important for young people, whether it's volunteering or being a part of their community, so that they can be exposed to different things, because a lot of times I think that they don't even realize that they have a calling or a passion to something until they have an opportunity to have that, that love, that desire awakened within them that's uh.

Speaker 1:

There's so much to dive in there. Thank you for sharing all of that. It's really beautiful because, again, that is even the who's. Your mama logo is meant to look with open arms, hands from a community standpoint, that type of growth oriented mindset, as you mentioned. So, going back to what you were saying, having the opportunity and the privilege, as you described it, to sit in from a parent's perspective and witness all those things. I love what you said about how it is okay to not know. We have our whole lives to be scheduled to explore and and find what we're passionate about is really important to take that time and it's okay just because your trajectory and what you knew. It doesn't mean it has to be somebody else's. So getting back to not comparing ourselves to others, I think, is really important. So, on the note of seeing that from the perspective that you did as a parent, as an educator, how did you apply that knowledge that you learned from that in terms of teaching and speaking with your colleagues?

Speaker 2:

in terms of teaching and speaking with your colleagues. So what I did is I'm actually going to apply this more to student teachers that I had and also to the students. First of all, let's look at the students, because that's where I spent the vast majority of my time. One of the things that I made or it was my goal to make very clear to the children is that I'm learning with them. In education, there's a constant change in how we are to teach things, whether it be in reading or math, and once you graduate with that degree and you get that job in the classroom, those first few years is a huge learning curve. That's to be expected in any occupation. Then you would think, okay, now I can settle into that comfortable level. Well, you never really achieve that. Nor do you want to, because then you become stagnant and boring and you're not growing with what's going on as far as educational type of things in perhaps better ways. Sometimes, through over 30 years of teaching, I found we deviated from what was really good.

Speaker 1:

But just can you, before you continue on, when you say deviated from what was good, could you just dive in a little bit further what you mean by that?

Speaker 2:

Sometimes. I think we're always trying to improve and there's nothing wrong with that, but it's it's kind of the old you know, this is probably my age speaking the old expression of not wanting to reinvent the wheel all the time. And it was amazing how you, it was like a pendulum. We used to my peers and I used to say it's a pendulum, it goes this direction and then it goes the other direction. They just give it a different name in knowing what, after years of teaching, knowing what kids, that age level, what they need, and moving forward in that direction and not really letting other things deviate you from meeting the kids' needs, using your heart, your gut in that moment of giving the kids what they need.

Speaker 2:

Obviously you know you keep an open mind to, you know the newest ways of teaching something, but you know you also want to use common sense and go this isn't working with these kids. How can I maybe incorporate and merge those two ways in a manner that the children will benefit from? So to get back to your original question, I was always, you know, saying to the kids, because we always have new things coming down the docket I'm learning this with you. In other words, I'm going to give you grace, and I need you to give me grace, because we're both kind of learning something at the same time.

Speaker 1:

How did you feel that? How did you on that note, how did you feel kids? Because you have spent your career in elementary school Elementary and I find it, you know, being a single mom and I had this conversation with my father the other day. We were talking about over Thanksgiving, family memories and he was like, oh, you remember that you were like five or six, and so I think about that, having almost a 16 year old, and I did as she was very young, I would reflect and think kids are capable of understanding, retaining and have memories in ways and learning beyond what a lot of times, generally speaking, we give them credit for. And so that's what struck me when you were talking about having that type of conversation with them how could you describe how that impacted the kids and what did the conversation look like when you communicated that to them?

Speaker 2:

It gave them a place where they felt safe to make mistakes, and there were a lot of slogans and expressions over the years that you know weren't necessarily my favorite in education, but one of the things that I really think was they hit the nail on the head was when they started saying a growth mindset.

Speaker 2:

They hit the nail on the head was when they started saying a growth mindset and I think you know I emphasize that with the kids. In fact, when I had student teachers, I would say to them if you don't listen to anything else I say to you during this quarter hear this one thing never think you have arrived, because we need to always be growing. When you talk to your peers, talk to them, listening to what they are saying and sharing. It doesn't mean you have to parrot or mimic it because you have to. Still, you have your own unique style and personality. But I would get so many wonderful ideas from my peers and then I would just tweak it to how it felt comfortable for me. And so by being transparent with my students and again, I had second grade when I was in the classroom you know they they tend to be a little more forgiving than older kids are, so I can't speak to the foundational.

Speaker 1:

That's the time to set that foundation as well.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's actually a very good point. It is, it is foundational. And you know, and I just wanted them to know that I may be a teacher, I may be an adult, we are still going to be respectful to one another. But we're all going to make mistakes and I tried to make a point that if, if they caught me in something, I never you know, there was never any retaliation, there was never any angry response we would laugh. We would laugh at it because I wanted them to understand that mistakes are, we're going to make mistakes. It's how we learn from those mistakes. It's where we go from there. We go from there. Are those mistakes going to make us stay on the ground and are we going to refuse to move forward or take chances, or are we going to learn from them?

Speaker 1:

I couldn't agree more. So many things resonate with me from just a overall way of being in life personally, professionally and also as a mama. I go over and over certain things with my daughter now that she can recite things like what does the A in the house stand for? She's like accountability, mama, we're never too old to what Grow in life.

Speaker 1:

The who's your Mama podcast is to have a safe, safe platform for tomorrow's future, which are kids that are turning into young adults and adults, and also, from all angles, all hands on deck sort of approach educators, parents you don't have to be even be a parent. You could have an instrumental role of being a mentor or things like that in the community. But it is that mindset of that foundation to know that we're all perfectly imperfect and, like you said, you're never too old to grow in life, and I can imagine seeing your students over the years, shoulders dropping to feel, as you said, safe, to be able to make mistakes, and that is in all areas of life. We want to feel safe. So then, take us down now through all of that. You had this incredibly successful career touching so many kids that now would be adults and probably have kids of their own.

Speaker 2:

Yes, when you know you're getting older is when you remember me when you're doing your conference and they say I was at that time I was teaching in the library, I was a student here and yeah, that's when you go. Okay, I've been doing this a long time.

Speaker 1:

And then the flip of the coin is you made an impact because they took the time to get.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so that's really beautiful. So, and I know you yourself are a mother to three, two girls and a boy, and you also are a grandmama. Congratulations on that. So you finally decided to retire, until you decided, oh, what am I going to do with all this spare time of being present with my kids and my husband and my grandkids? You're like, oh, let me continue. Adding one more thing. But it's a true testament to your passion for making a different in education. So you decided to then be part of a program which involves parents that have made a conscious decision to homeschool their kids. So take us on that shift in the in your journey continuing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I, as soon as I retired. You know, of course, as an educator, most of the time when you retire it's the end of a school year. So it was June of 2023. And immediately I for multiple reasons, but the most important one is I did not want retirement to be. I was looking forward to it, trust me, um and um, but I did not want retirement to be all about me. Did I want to be able to do things? Did I want to be able to have a little more relaxed lifestyle? Absolutely, did I want to be able to have a little more relaxed lifestyle? Absolutely. But I did not want the focus to be on me, because I'm still young enough that I am able to give back, so that, actually, I began praying. You know, lord, how do you want to use me? How can I be useful in retirement? How can I be useful in retirement? Because there are things that I can do now that when I was working full time, I just wasn't able to.

Speaker 2:

And within a couple of weeks, our church had a day. For years They've had a homeschool co-op, and that's a day, one day a week, where the homeschool parents can come and all meet together and all of these homeschool kids meet and they spend the day together and learn different you know skills and things like that. And the unbeknownst to me one of the person that was in charge of that really felt led to add something to that, and that is an academic enrichment day, and her vision was for educators who could come alongside the parents, and there would be one full day from nine to three that was dedicated to having these kids come and we would then support and provide additional help with academics. And so as soon as I saw it, it was like a neon sign because, you know, when I'd had no idea how you know, be careful what you ask for, right? Well, I really initially I think that, michelle, that was my thought is be careful what you ask for, but not really because I was open.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but you were open to receiving.

Speaker 2:

I had no idea in praying that what it would look like. Would it be something I would feel comfortable or would I be stretching myself? And then, when this was announced, it was like this neon sign that said, you know, above the speaker that said this is it, and pointing down to them, and it was like, oh my goodness, I would love this. And so last year, so after three months of retirement last year, I helped with that and we piloted it for the year and I had a kindergarten and first grade and then we have probably doubled in size in one year, and this year I have second and third grade and it is absolutely the most incredible.

Speaker 2:

It was real interesting because within the very first day of being with these kids, I didn't realize how much I was going to miss teaching. I realized that, you know, this truly is my calling in life, because I this sounds so weird to say this, but when I'm done every week, when I'm done because we meet once a week and when I'm done at the end of the day, I'm exhausted but I am so energized it's almost like I've had a caffeinated high where I'm just kind of. You know, I'm all over the place and I just feel so Like you're making a difference, because you are.

Speaker 2:

And so it has been a real blessing. It has been such a blessing with these kids to be able to continue to make an impact in young people's life. And not only that, but you know these parents because they are their child's main teacher. I'm the support, whereas when I was in public education the roles were reversed I was the educator and the parents were the support. It's awesome to, you know, be able to not only educate these kids that one day a week, but also to work alongside, and because of 35 years of material and ideas and I was able, I'm able to share those things with the parents as I see needs, whether it be in reading or math or things like that, and so it's just, it's been a blessing that is indescribable.

Speaker 1:

I mean it definitely sounds like it is and clearly your work was not and is not done and, uh, it's your passion very much shines through. So for some just listening to audio or or being able to see you, but either way it's very clear that, uh, you love what you do and, um, so, on that note, if uh, remind us where, so you're in Spokane, so on that note, remind us so you're in Spokane, washington, and let everyone know if they're local, or ways to go about or children in public school, or consider going to homeschooling way of education, and not that you're trying to encourage one way or the other, but let everyone know the name of the program where you are at. Or if you would like to suggest, how would parents go about investigating and diving deeper if they were considering going to a homeschooling education for their child or children?

Speaker 2:

So I'm not. I don't think that there are co-ops throughout Spokane and the vicinity. Co-ops have been around for a long time. What is relatively new is what I'm doing and that's, and every program could be calling it something different. We just are calling it an academic enrichment day and you know ours is through Calvary Chapel and it's a Calvary homeschool program and but it it do agree with you that I think a lot of since the pandemic, I think there has been a shift toward homeschooling, but and I think it's fantastic, but I do need to let your listeners know that homeschooling is not for everyone.

Speaker 2:

It is a lot of work, it is a commitment and sometimes your child may have a learning or physical need that you may need to tap in. If you choose to homeschool, you may need to communicate with your local school district, your homeschool district, and see if you can tap into some of their services, because you know, like you said earlier about, it takes a lot of people, it really does. It takes a village and you know like we are not set up to meet some of those extra type of needs, whether you know I'm able to provide some support, but you know there are public schools have the ability to help on a different level than what we are.

Speaker 1:

I think that that's really great, sharing everything you said in terms of I know a lot of questions I've had, have been around, I don't know where to start. So you talking about co-ops and finding local areas like that, researching that, or if your child or children are in the public school system, if there is in some ways because my background obviously being in medicine for decades, I think about it you know you want physicians that ideally work well together. So in the education system, if there's already a co-op or something like that, an enriched education system where they're partnering with them, so to speak, or know of them. Then you said specifically, if there was a child that had additional needs, that would be you would want to fully have met outside of what a particular homeschooling program could do. If they had good communication with the public school, that would be ideal for parents had good communication with the public school.

Speaker 2:

That would be ideal for parents and I think it's doing what is best for the child. You know, I think that you know we just need to always realize that. You know your heart and your desire may be one thing, but because of where your child is um you, you may need to seek some outside services and support in that. And that is no criticism on the, you know, of course.

Speaker 1:

It's like and it just. Do you do as much. Educate yourself. Knowledge is power. As much as possible to have as much information as you can to make the best decision for your child and their children. And I'm going to narrow it down because there's so much. But in the spirit of time is if somebody is thinking about going into education, what would you want to leave with them in terms of knowledge? Is power gathering that of knowledge? Is power gathering that? And then what would you leave with parents, which is supporting the collaborative communication between what they do at home, and teachers, what they do in the classroom? What would be one piece of advice for them? So first, with those thinking about getting into education, because, lord knows, we knew we could use more teachers and we want to keep them.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and I agree. And, like every profession, you know there's there's a shortage there. You know everything. We're seeing a shortage in, and um, so of course you're going to want to encourage people, but with that, I think, comes a. I would want to leave a little bit of a not necessarily a warning, but a caution. Um, I have seen student teachers come through the system who were not in education for the right reason. What do you mean by that? They looked at it as I can make decent money, but I have summers off. I have, you know, two weeks at Christmas. They look at the perks, which, yes, you have summers off, but you're usually either getting, you know, some updating your certificate or you're already. I can't tell you. You might give yourself a month and then, or a few weeks and then you're already starting to think about the next year. But it's still it is. It is a nice part, especially when I was, you know, being a mother. It's a great job where you can be home with your children.

Speaker 1:

It's also losing sight of the reason why.

Speaker 2:

But it is exactly. It is losing sight and it reflected in just they lacked the passion and whether I my experience was with younger children and what I saw is younger children are very, as you pointed out earlier, they're very perceptive, they watch, they know that and if they sense that you know this is not really your passion, your calling, then you're going to have management issues You're going to have, there's going to be a lot of other concerning things, and so just if you choose education, I applaud you, but just make sure that you really feel your calling you have educated yourself yes, Honest with yourself.

Speaker 1:

Self accountability yes.

Speaker 2:

And so I just I think, and and again, that that can be applied to anything, not just education, but just make sure that this is where you understand what it entails and that you really feel led in this direction. You're not just taking it because nursing, you know, nursing school or whatever, didn't work out.

Speaker 1:

Understand and be truthful about the and embody the responsibility that comes with what you're undertaking. It sounds like you're saying so then the second part to my question was from an all hands on deck approach. From an all hands on deck approach, what advice would you give parents and teachers to keep communication open for the nucleus, which is, which is, the children, which are our future? Any quick piece of advice there?

Speaker 2:

I think the number one thing is I, I, I, I call it the Oreo cookie. I think we need to keep the line of communication open, and how I make sure my parents saw that is I would always make sure that when I was talking about their child, if there was a concern I needed to bring to them, I always started with letting them know I knew their child. I compliment something about their child and then they're more open to listening because they realize oh, you really do know my child, that little quirk or whatever of theirs, and then you sandwich it in.

Speaker 1:

If you have to have a difficult conversation, then you sandwich it in with the top layer of you know. Another positive thing about their child both very choice of words and I think what I'm hearing you say is that it shows that you're present. Like you said, you understand maybe little nuances about their child or children and then people are more open to share, seek to understand and it comes from a collaborative type of approach. I love the Oreo example. It's kind of making me crave Oreos.

Speaker 2:

No, it's true, Because I think the number one thing is teachers need to go into when they talk with parents. The parent is not the enemy and the parents in need to also realize the teacher is not the enemy, and the parents need to also realize the teacher is not the enemy, and I think that's why I always try to go out of my way to let them know that we're on a common playing field and your child is who we care about and you know one is not above the other.

Speaker 1:

They are our future. Yes, yes and so. On that thank you have shared. What a blessing it has been to have you on here again. Thank you so much, karen Hayad. Your passion for making a difference is so evident and we're so happy that you didn't retire, and I probably know more than your students and parents. But so keep up the beautiful work that you're doing and thank you again. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

It is a pleasure being on.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for tuning in to who's your Mama, and I look forward to collaborating from a community standpoint for the next episodes.

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Michelle Kreft

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