Teaching through the years with Carol

Ready to be inspired by Carol, an extraordinary educator whose teaching journey began later in life but is rich with insights and passion? Carol, originally from Edinburgh but calls New Zealand home, shares her captivating story of transitioning from balancing role books by hand to navigating the digital transformation of classrooms. With a keen eye on the evolution of teaching, she offers a refreshing take on how old teaching methods often resurface with new names. Her candid advice for new educators is both practical and heartwarming: genuinely understanding young people, embracing mistakes as learning moments, and maintaining kindness with clear boundaries.

Tune in to discover Carol’s creative teaching strategies that captivate students and foster a joyful learning environment. From using humour and song to engaging activities like the tennis ball game, she crafts lessons that are as effective as they are fun. Carol reflects on the past's individualised attention as a potential boon for today's educational challenges and stresses the crucial role of parental involvement and supportive relationships. As she reminisces about the shift from blackboards to digital tools, Carol provides valuable insights on balancing the embrace of technology with preserving essential skills like handwriting. Plus, her thoughts on achieving work-life balance as a teacher remind us of the importance of setting boundaries for sustainability and well-being. Don’t miss this enlightening conversation with Carol, a teacher whose wisdom spans decades and continents.

Hosted by Debbie Ross
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Transcript

Teaching Insights and Stories

Debbie 0:15

Welcome to Nuturing Educators , the podcast that shares inspiring and insightful conversations with passionate teachers dedicated to education and wellbeing . I'm your host , debbie Ross , and each episode we will explore the personal stories , challenges and successes of educators from all walks of life . You'll hear practical tips and strategies to help them thrive both in the classroom and beyond . To help you thrive both in the classroom and beyond . Hi everyone , welcome to today's episode . I've been lucky to work with Carol for about 10 years now and she is really truly one of a kind . She's got the best sense of humour , a genuine interest in how you're doing and the ability to make anyone feel valued . She's been a great colleague , mentor and friend , not to mention she was an amazing dean that you could always count on . Today , we're going to be diving into her years in teaching what's changed , what's stayed the same and , of course , her best stories from the classroom . You don't want to miss this one . Let's get started . Hi , carol , welcome . Firstly , do you mind telling us a little bit about yourself ?

Carol 1:33

Thank you for having me , Debbie . I am a baby boomer from Scotland , born in Edinburgh , came to New Zealand 47 years ago , married to the same man , and I have two girls and three grandchildren .

Debbie 1:49

How wonderful and what inspired you to become a teacher ?

Carol 1:55

I've always enjoyed working with children and one day I was actually working for the nuns at St Mary's at the time in their convent hostel and a wee girl came in and

How she became a teacher

Carol 2:08

asked me if I would write a reference for her . And I said to her yeah , what do you want it for ? And she says to me oh , I'm going to be a teacher . And I was shocked and I just thought when she left well , crikey , if she's going to be a teacher , why am I sitting here doing pastoral care when I could be a teacher ? Now , this was at the end of probably the first week in November and I rang up Teacher Training College in Auckland and found out what you needed to do to be a teacher , and by the following .

Carol 2:43

Well , when the first semester at the Auckland University started the next year , I was all registered and ready to go Amazing , and I did a four-year degree . So teaching came to me later in life . As we say , I was an old student Thoroughly enjoyed being a student . It really opened my eyes to how lazy boys were , and I mean young men that were training at the time , that kind of thing . But it was really good . That's great .

Carol 3:12

I was in the Daisy Lockwood Smith was the education officer . Ah , okay , he was just something else , then yeah .

Debbie 3:19

So what do you think has changed in the teaching profession from back then to now ?

Debbie 3:27

Probably lots , but just a few things

Carol 3:29

Yeah , lots have changed , but the biggest thing would have to be technology . I mean , we just didn't have technology . I mean we spent hours balancing our role book at the end of every term . It had to match up for the three , so many half days and I had to go through it and a lot of people didn't do it weekly , they just left it to the end and it must have been really hard for them . But , um , things like that , just the me , things like that . Technology was a great bonus for , yeah , but swings and roundabouts , isn't it the actual teaching of the , the subjects ? I think we've actually just been on a cycle . Every time a new programme comes out , you can say , when you've taught for a while , you can say , oh , we did that 10 years ago , but it was called blah blah . Now it's the same thing , just different . You know , same but different .

Debbie 4:22

What do you think has been some of the biggest challenges that teachers have faced ?

Carol 4:28

I think teachers still do face the biggest challenge of managing a class . I think that's the hardest thing to have . I think if you've got control of your class , you're 75% there . Then it's just content , isn't it ? But to get them enthusiastic and on board with you , that's quite hard .

Debbie 4:50

So what would be some tricks or tips that you would pass on to those who are starting out as teachers ?

Carol 4:59

First of all , you've got to like children or young adults . You've got to realise that they are children and a mistake is a to realize that they are children and a mistake is a lesson in life . It's not a cross to bear forever . You've got to be forgiving . Don't back them into a corner that kind of thing , I think and be kind . Be yourself , but be kind and make sure that they always know where the line is and that they've crossed it . If they've crossed the line , tell them they've crossed the line .

Effective Teaching Strategies and Student Changes

Debbie 5:27

And going back to what you said before about getting the kids on board , what kinds of strategies do you use ?

Carol 5:34

Probably humour and song . I like to sing a wee bit , so like , for example , if somebody did something silly in the class , I would go oops , you did it again and all the girls would laugh , sort of thing . You know that kind of thing , just wee quips , I mean , I don't even go about singing arias or anything like that , just wee bits of songs that just pop into my head from now on .

Debbie 5:57

I love that . Any aspects of teaching from back in the day that you think would be quite good to implement these days ?

Carol 6:08

I think back in the day there was more individual teaching . I think you were able to find out where the weak ones were and do something about it more easily , rather than this whole class thing . We're all doing the same thing and I think differentiation

Differentiation

Carol 6:26

is very important . So are you ? Because everybody has to feel that they know what's going on in the class . Maths especially Girls have got a thing about maths . They can't do it , so they're not going to try it , type of thing . Again , when I taught maths and we were trying to learn the times tables , I'd use a tennis ball and I'd use that as a starter to see what six sevens , and I'd throw it to somebody and they had to catch the ball but be able to say the answer as they caught the ball . So they were all practicing their times tables because they never knew when it was coming .

Debbie 7:02

Yeah , that's a good technique .

Carol 7:04

Fun things , yes . That's another thing . I do believe , though , that school is a safe , happy place , because I think if you don't feel safe and you don't feel happy , you're not going to be good at school . Yeah , I loved school as a teenager . As a whole , my whole life . I liked school , but I did leave school when I was 15 . How come ? Well , because in those days , back in the dark old days , I went home on my 15th birthday and my father was wallpapering and he'd written on the wall happy birthday Carol . Happy 15th birthday Carol . And I made some smart comment about I'm old enough to leave school now , and he said no , you're not . And it just grew from there , dug my toes in , and six weeks later I was out working . I could prove to him that I could find a job . I had no intentions of leaving school or anything , but it took me up until I was 42 to get back to university .

Debbie 8:02

Wow , but a great many different jobs and experience .

Carol 8:07

Yeah , great life experience , not a lot of jobs . I tend to go somewhere and stay forever .

Debbie 8:15

Well , that's not a bad thing , is it ?

Carol 8:16

I like getting on with people , you know .

Building relationships

Debbie 8:20

Yeah , building relationships is the way to go about .

Carol 8:22

Oh , I've been here for a year . I need to move on . I'm not like that . Yeah , relationships big deal .

Debbie 8:28

And it does make the working environment so much easier when you have good relationships and people that you can have for support , isn't it ?

Carol 8:36

Absolutely , and you know what's in front of you and you know , you start learning what's been behind you , and what's been behind you in a school is just as important as what's in front of you . You know the history and the why do we do this this way ? This is why , I mean , a lot of people will come in and we'll know why do we do this , and that's not right , blah , blah . But there's a reason for everything .

Debbie 9:00

So how do you think students have changed over the years in terms of behaviour , motivation , learning styles ?

Carol 9:08

I think the parents have influenced their children a lot .

Carol 9:14

If the child isn't happy about something , the teacher said to them right away . The parent's on the phone saying you said such and such to my daughter , or you've made them redo something or that kind of thing , anything at all they get their mother on board , the mother's at the door , and I think that's been a big change in things . I don't think my mother , apart from parents' nights , ever went and she definitely would never ring the dean or the teacher to say anything about . She used to say to us well , if you've done it , own up to it and get on with life . You know . Great advice for everybody . Yeah , definitely , and in my pastoral role I've often had to say to parents and I have said to parents you're not their best friend . You can be their best friend when they're 20 , 21 . Right now you're the parent and you've got a job to do and if they cross the line and you don't pull them back , you're not doing your job and you need to explain to them that it's your job that you're doing when you're being strict .

Debbie 10:18

Yeah , that's really good advice .

Maintaining Effective Teaching Strategies Today

Debbie 10:21

So what do you think would be an effective teaching strategy that you have used in the past , that you still like to use these days ?

Carol 10:32

Deliberate acts of teaching, I think are very important . Yeah , so I think if you see something happening and you need to get the point through , you've got to swing the lesson so that it deals with that for that particular child and make sure that the child understands the point . Does that make sense to you ?

Debbie 10:53

Yeah .

Carol 10:53

Yeah , that does I'm very much in favour of deliberate acts of of teaching .

Debbie 11:01

So , just going back to what you were talking about before with technology , what kinds of things did you used to use in the past compared to what there is now ?

Carol 11:15

Well , we didn't have whiteboards , we had the chalk and the board , the blackboard that rolled around . The registers were hand done , balanced by each individual teacher . We really didn't have technology . I mean , when I was at school it was still pens that you filled up with ink . You had an ink bottle and you filled it up . I wasn't quite at the ink well stage , but we had the bottle of ink and you filled your pen up like that . And handwriting was a big deal when I was at school .

Debbie 11:46

So that was the first thing you learnt to do really well ?

Carol 11:49

Absolutely , and I think that's one thing , that technology's pushed out the box the handwriting and I think it's a shame . Technology has got fabulous things going for it , but it's also got things going against it . I think we probably use devices too much in the classroom now , and children that don't like to use handwriting books often forget their books so that they can do it on the device . I mean , you're not going to say no , you can't , because that's crazy . It's like taking your pen off you because you've been naughty . How can you write ? So I think I'm trying to think of the first time I ever had a computer in class , and it must have been .

Debbie 12:37

I'm trying to think 2000s , perhaps late 90s in the 2000s .

Carol 12:43

Yeah , it must have been about the early 2000s and that was bigger than being her . I mean , I spent the first hour trying to find a switch to put it on , on and off button and you had the big server sitting at your feet . Just changed days , eh yeah . And the computers weighed a ton In my first school , like that . We weren't allowed to take them out of the building . Well , there were desktop things , eh .

Debbie 13:11

I don't know when did we start getting laptops . No idea , do you remember ? Have you always had a laptop Since I've taught ? Yeah , so when did you teach ? I've been teaching probably about 16 years .

Carol 13:25

I've been about 25 roughly . Yeah , it was a big change . Yeah , it was exciting . It was really really exciting and amazing that you can google stuff um and find information out , but then you've got the problem is this true ? Now ? That's what we're facing now , isn't it ? Is this true , or is it not true very much so . I mean , it took my teenage daughters to convince me that everything on the internet wasn't true , and I think kids are still like that .

Carol 13:55

They know , oh , I saw it on Facebook or I saw it on the so because of technology

Debbie 14:00

Do you think students today face more pressures than when we were growing up ?

Carol 14:07

I think , academically , life's a lot easier for them , but still some don't meet the deadlines , as you know . What's that all about ? So that rings bells for me If an individual's not meeting deadlines and they're doing work online , because they must be doing different stuff online , obviously distracted .

Debbie 14:28

That's what I would be thinking .

Carol 14:28

Yeah , very distracted , and you can see it here . If you creep up on a group of people that are supposed to be online doing such and such , often somebody in there is doing some online shopping , looking at a wee Disney thing . So I do believe they shouldn't have devices at lunchtime or morning interval . I think they should be packed away .

Debbie 14:56

What do think of the rule that they brought into New Zealand about no devices at school ?

Debbie 15:00

oh sorry , no cell phones at school

Debbie 15:02

Is it a good one ?

Carol 15:02

Yes , I do . I do think that . I think it's because it was a swinging pendulum . At first nobody had them , but I've noticed since that's come out this year from the government . You look around and have a look at how many kids are wearing a smart watch .

Debbie 15:18

Yeah , so they're still getting their messages . Yeah , they'll always find ways to get around things though , won't they that's human nature but that's part of growing up , isn't ? It yeah yeah being clever love it yeah what kinds of things have you done to maintain a work-life balance

Maintaining work-life balance

Debbie 15:41

through the years ?

Carol 15:43

When I first started teaching I'd spend , I'd have my dinner at night and then I'd go back to my schoolwork and I'd do at least two hours every night . Wow , just how it was back in the day . You had to get prepared and everything was like that . I think technology's helped that because you've got things that you've saved and it's there and things like that . But to have a work-life balance , I tried to keep the work at school and have the home life with the home .

Carol 16:15

I started teaching when my two girls were primary and intermediate One was intermediate , one was primary so I needed to be there for them . So when they went to bed , that was when I would start my two hours of school work . So I was up at all hours . But I realised pretty quickly my second and third year that this was couldn't keep it up , not sustainable , no , not sustainable . So I tried to stay behind . Well , I did stay behind at school and do it then , and even high school , secondary school , I would stay behind . I would rather go home at five and have the rest of the night than go home at half past three and have to pick up again after tea .

Carol 16:58

So I would suggest to young teachers stay here , stay at school , get your work done , get yourself prepared for the next day . I'd also say to them when you're starting off teaching and you deliver a lesson that's turned to custard , it's not the end of the world . Put it down to experience , and there's lots of things you can do to improve your teaching and go and have a look at somebody that you admire . When I say admire , I think that they know they're a good teacher because of the kids . Children like you know who they enjoy , what classes they enjoy . Arrange with somebody to take your class and you go and watch them teach .

Carol 17:39

I think watching other teachers is amazing . Watching bad teachers is embarrassing , but watching good teachers is amazing . How they get on board , how they know that everybody's on task , how they can pick up things that are going on in the room facing this way and you across here I think that's good Clever . There was one class I actually convinced I had eyes in the back of my head . I didn't want to have long hair just to cover my eyes .

Debbie 18:08

They would have loved that . So what qualities do you think make a good teacher , regardless of the era ?

Carol 18:16

Regardless of the era . I think of the era . I think you've got , as I said before , you've got to like working with young ones and you've got to be kind and I think you've also got to be careful that you include everybody . And I don't think people go out of their way to exclude . I don't mean it like that . But I'm quite sure there'll be kids that come to school any school in New Zealand and they'll have done their work and they'll have handed everything in on time

Checking in with the middle students

Carol 18:42

and no adult will have spoken to them that day because they're just in that middle band that just floats along and gets through . And that's what worries me about these children is that nobody's actually having a one-on-one like how's your day going or how's things at home or anything like that .

Carol 18:58

I'm very much in in the mode of make sure you contact . Make contact with everybody that week or that . Just watch who's the client and you know when you get into a class and you might get a group of four that are loud and you spend time with them because they're and you're quieting them , and then you're and you get great feedback for them , da-di-da . But there's also the group of four sitting somewhere else that you never get to . I used to watch for that .

Debbie 19:26

That's really good advice . Yeah , I think that's so important , even if you're just for seconds .

Carol 19:31

Go around , Just go around the room . Yeah , Talk to everyone . How are you today ?

Debbie 19:34

See how they're doing . Just go around the room . Yeah , talk to everyone .

Carol 19:35

How are you ?

Carol 19:36

See how they're doing , how's your mother ? I'll say to them how's your mother Tell her I was asking for her . I do think it's important as well , if you get the chance , is to build relationships with the parents . A lot of teachers want nothing to do with the parents , which I understand as well actually . But in the long run , if you were like the three-legged stool , there's the parent , the child and the teacher , and if one of the legs is broken the stool doesn't stand . So if you've got that relationship with the parent , I had no qualms about if somebody hadn't handed something in on the day just to send an email . I hope

Following up with parents

Carol 20:13

they say hi , carol , here just to heads up that Mary didn't send in her hand in her assignment and I'm just worried . Could you check in with her tonight ? Nothing negative , nothing well , negative for the kid . You didn't do it , you didn't put in your thing . Three things for that One it lets the parent know , but it covers your back as well . I hate when they come to parents night I used to some kids when they've never handed in their homework .

Carol 20:36

I mean , homework is a blight on the world , I suppose , because all the girls have got so much to do after school , but I used to get them all to fill in just a wee form . I haven't handed them and the storage you'd get all my mother took me this place or I had to feed the dog , or the dog was sick and somebody threw my homework away and I'd keep them all parent teacher interviews and I'd say , well , this is what I've got this term or this year so far , and I'd sit and look through because it was always the same kids , it was two or three really . I mean , I'd tell them off , I'd say to them come on , get your homework done . But it was the same ones and the mothers and that were like well , that's ridiculous . I'd say , yeah , it's part of life , it's not the end of the world , it's part of life .

Debbie 21:22

Yeah , all right , I think we're probably coming to an end . Is there any particular memorable or funny story that you'd like to share from your teaching years ?

Carol 21:35

My funny story would be and I still laugh when I think about her it would be she was in year seven or eight and we were doing our year lesson and it was near Easter and we were doing a crossword for Easter and the question was something like where was Jesus buried ? Something like that . And she says to me I just cannot think . I cannot think where it would be . And then I just stand and next thing I went , there is a green hill far away , without a city wall , where the dear Lord was crucified . He died to save us all . And she looked up at me and she said is that from the Hobbit ? The good thing about that was it reinforced to me that this was a clever , wee girl . She wasn't a blackbird or anything , but she was genuine when she said to me is this from the Hobbit ? So when I thought about it later and I thought , well , that just just tells me , bridget , there is a green hill far away . That's where she stopped thinking . She thought I know the answer to that that's Hobbiton . At the time the Hobbit was just fresh and everybody's , you know , it was very , very fresh . So I knew then that whatever I wanted for this girl . I'll only give her two instructions . I didn't give her three or four or five things to go , because she's blah , blah , blah .

Carol 22:55

Same thing happened to me when I was a student at university , with all these young ones and I was the first tutorial , and the guy said he asked a question and I thought , oh yeah , I know the answer to that . Then I started thinking about what I'm going to have for tea the night when I get home . What will I make ? Blah , blah , blah . And then he said , right , we'll listen to the ideas . And then he started going round the circle and all these young folk had all these ideas that I hadn't even thought of Because I'd thought of my answer and I hadn't taken it any further . I thought , oh yeah , that's what I think . That's the answer . I've got what we're going to have for tea the night , while the rest we're still thinking you know like that yeah , great learning , kirby .

Carol 23:37

I think that was the same way , there is a green hill , but I laugh all right .

Debbie 23:42

Well , I just wanted to say thank you so much , Carol , for coming in today . I think that we have heard some really valuable insights and I know that I've learned a lot , so I appreciate you making the time to share your teaching journey . You're very welcome .

Carol 24:02

Thank you for having me .

Debbie 24:03

Okay , see you later . Thank you so much for listening . If you enjoyed today's episode , don't forget to hit the subscribe button , leave a review and share it with your fellow educators . Let's keep these important conversations going . For more information , follow us at Nutrient Educators on Facebook and Instagram . Until next time , take care .