Locals
Where we talk to people who are... well... local.
Locals
Michelle Hintz, teaching in today's classroom
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Michele Hintz, a teacher at Bloomsburg High shares her classroom with digital technology, changing goals and AI. It's an interesting time to be a teacher. She'll tell us about it in this week's episode. Enjoy.
Welcome to Locals, the podcast where we talk to people who are, well, local. You may have noticed that education is changing. Well, it is rapidly. And that change is driven by technology, devices like cell phones, and by the possible helpful, definitely frightening AI tools slash overlords. And yet, the beating heart of education remains the same. The connection of a teacher to a student. Michelle Hinz, a teacher at Bloomsburg High School, navigates that shifting and oh so important world and is going to teach us what that is like. But first, we're going to learn a little about Michelle herself. Here she is. All right, welcome, Michelle. It's nice to talk to you.
SPEAKER_00Great. It's great to be here.
SPEAKER_02Well, I wanted to talk to you today because education is of interest to me and it's a pretty fascinating field right now in terms of all the things that are going on. So I'd like to talk to you as an educator about what the world of a teacher is now in a secondary school. But first, let's start back with how you got to be a teacher.
SPEAKER_00I was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, so I'm not from Bloomsburg. And my parents were very young. In fact, my mother had me when she was 16. She had to drop out of high school, so did my father. And they decided they were going to have this baby. Um, and they were counseled maybe adoption because my mother was Catholic and they thought this would be the best place. But my mother decided she wanted to keep this baby. She married my dad, much to the horror of her own family. And my childhood was fun, but my father was a very serious alcoholic as he, you know, lived through this life of having young kids, because then they had two kids right after me. And so they had three. And they divorced, you know, he spent time in jail. There it was a very, very poor working class kind of childhood with two parents without uh high school diplomas back in those days. But my mother got her, she ended up getting her LPN, and I was kind of always in charge of my brothers. And I was left alone a lot, and I babysat a lot, did a lot of you know caretaking. But I remember from a very young age, school was my escape out of the house or out of that scene. And I don't mean escape like from very negative circumstances, but I think it was a place of wonder and wow, I can be myself and not, you know, be myself outside of my family. And for instance, my my nickname with my family is Shelly. And when I went to kindergarten, the first thing I said is, I am not Shelly, I am Michelle, because that's my favorite name. So, but anyway, I just remember from a very young age playing school with my brothers, forcing them to play school. And I always wanted to be a teacher, always. And I was probably you know very bossy with my brothers. I would force them to do assignments and write things, and I remember a chalkboard, and I would, you know, put lessons on the chalkboard and make them sit there and play school. Now, what was the age difference between you and we have about a five-year difference between the three of us? So my middle brother, middle sibling, is three years younger than me, and then my next one is down to five years, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, that's about how our family should tell the kids too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But my family, you know, wasn't education wasn't really the push in my family. They didn't really see why one would want to go to college. But I was always somebody who got really decent grades, really good grades. And I remember in high school, I was taking honors English courses. And I I was I loved to read. In fact, you know, I always would get dropped off at a library, and the library was also another sanctuary where I would go, and I would get dropped off, and I would just find books, bring books home, read books. Um, but I think I wanted to be out of my situation there, and I saw college as a way, but I didn't really understand what college was until maybe in high school, and really late, like sophomore, junior year. Yeah, I didn't have that example.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00I remember guidance counselors and English teachers. Oh, you should go to college. You should go to college. And then I was like, I'm gonna go to college, and I signed up for the SAT, you know, took all the tests, and I got into Florida State, and I was so thrilled, and I decided I was gonna go, and I worked as a waitress, paid my whole way. I didn't have any financial help from family. I got some grants and scholarships and loans, but back then it wasn't as expensive as now. But I worked as a waitress the whole time and a bartender and paid my way through school.
SPEAKER_01That's great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my my dad was a brick mason, and my brothers became brick masons. Okay. And they did not go on in their education. In fact, they both ended up dropping out of high school as well. So it's an interesting family dynamic to be from. But um, not that they're not amazing, wonderful, intelligent people that have worked hard their whole lives, but their situation required stepping out of high school. I just felt like I wasn't gonna be that, I was gonna do something else. And I did. And that's where I met my husband John, was when I was in Florida. Oh, Florida. Yeah, at Florida State. He had already graduated and I was still in school. He was in a band. But we worked at Ruby Tuesday together and met, and I was like, okay.
SPEAKER_02Did you get a teaching certificate at that point?
SPEAKER_00I was an English major and education minor. Okay. And I knew I wanted to be an English teacher. And at that time, I did my student teaching in Florida and I graduated, but then John and I decided, well, what if we go to Yosemite National Park and work at seasonally before we get a real job? So we went out to Yosemite and we worked in Yosemite for like a six-month season and fell in love with it. And then we decided to go to Montana and do a winter season at a ski hill. So I I still hadn't gotten the job.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00Right. We did this for a little while, and then John decided he wanted to go back to school, and that's when we started getting more serious about oh, he's gonna go back to school, get another degree, maybe we'll get married. But we ended up in Idaho for his master's degree, and that's where I got my first job was in Moscow, Idaho.
SPEAKER_02Teaching.
SPEAKER_00Teaching English to 10th graders, which is what I'm doing now. A lot of the same curriculum, even. So I worked five years in Idaho, and then babies come and son needs another degree, and then we went to Kentucky and he got his PhD, and then he got the job here at BU.
SPEAKER_02So were you teaching when Lyle was born? I was.
SPEAKER_00You were obviously teaching when Lyle and Claire were both born. I, you know, had baby showers at school. In fact, I went into labor while I was teaching Romeo and Juliet. Oh my oh no kidding. Claire. Then I went out. And at that point, John was deciding to get his PhD. He wanted University of Kentucky, so we were gonna make a big move. And things were tighter, so I decided, you know, we were I stayed home and I subbed a little in Kentucky, and then I promptly had Theo as well. Yeah, yeah. Theo came along, and then John did his PhD and then got the job at BU.
SPEAKER_02And how long have you been here?
SPEAKER_00We have been here since 2005.
SPEAKER_022005, okay. So 21 years.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I subbed at Bloomsburg while while I was looking for a job, and you know, there weren't jobs, weren't really opening. It was harder to get in. Now I think it's more of a shortage. Okay. Teachers have left the profession. But but then at that point it was a waiting game for someone to retire. I did some correspondence teaching with Keystone National High School where I was grading essays and mailing them back to students before the online. Oh, yeah. We were mailing them, and then I got an interview at Bloomsburg Middle School in it must have been 2010, 2011. Well loop back for just one second. Sure.
SPEAKER_02Back to the Applebee's.
SPEAKER_00Ruby Tuesday. Ruby Tuesday. Sorry, sorry.
SPEAKER_02That's okay. You were a waitress.
SPEAKER_00I was a waitress and he was a cook.
SPEAKER_02He was a cook. Yes.
SPEAKER_00So you met over the there was a ticket, a ticket. Yes. And over that, yeah. And I heard he was in a band, and that sparked my interest. And he actually told me his name was Ralph. I thought his name was Ralph for a while. And I thought, well, that's a you know. And he told me he played oldies, but he did not. He played a lot of grunge, you know, kind of punk grunge in the early 90s. I was surprised when I went to see the band. Yeah. Oh, that's great. It's very fun.
SPEAKER_02And so once you started teaching the middle school, you were teaching English. English.
SPEAKER_00I started at sixth grade and then had several offers to move to the high school. I sort of liked the enthusiasm of the middle school. There came a point when I was like, okay, I think I've done my rounds here in the middle school, and I was really ready to go back to the high school. And that was about the COVID year. Yeah. So that's that's tough. And that was tough, yeah. Yeah. But I do love being at the high school.
SPEAKER_02What is the curriculum you're teaching? You said you started back in Moscow. You were teaching and now you're teaching the same curriculum. What is the curriculum?
SPEAKER_00A lot of it is very similar to Kill a Mockingbird. We're still teaching to Kill a Mockingbird. Um, of mice and men, lots of similar short stories. Okay. Julius Caesar. I haven't done Caesar in a couple years, but that's a 10th grade play that I did in Idaho. I'm teaching the Crucible currently as a break from Julius Caesar. Okay, okay. But basically, it's kind of some classics. I bring in a lot of more modern short stories as I can.
SPEAKER_02Mice and men's a tough one these days with crooks, the character crooks. I mean, how do you I know?
SPEAKER_00It's interesting to handle crooks, but what I do is we get into historical background, Jim Crow, the heavy segregation. You know, crooks is not with the other men. He's supremely lonely. Yeah. And he's resentful of that. And he sees a spot where he can get in on the dream for a minute. I find that the students love this book. And we they love discussing Crooks and the loneliness and isolation. We talk about loneliness and isolation quite a bit, but also Curly's wife is lonely and isolated. Everybody in that place is a very good idea. Everybody is, except really George and Lenny, right? They have each other. So we go deep on that and they really relate. I have them do big body bios of the characters where they think about the character's dream, what the character hears, what the character says, where the character's from, and and these are all symbolically represented on their body bio, their big like a big poster. Okay. And that's pretty meaningful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's interesting with with books these days, years ago, you would have said, read these chapters at home and come in and we discuss, right? The kids don't really do that anymore. So we have to we have to read in class and and maybe even do an audio for general ed students. And that is how I make sure they read it. Because otherwise, they might read a summary.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And an online AI pane, you know, get all the spoilers and and feel like they know the book. But as I take them through the journey of listening to it while also looking at the text, you know, discussing in class, then the empathy and the lessons are really there, and they're blown away by this book. But if I didn't do that, I'm finding there's no reading. All of a sudden they're there. I still have students who come back. Oh, I love Julius Caesar. Wow. And that's always, you know, boys' students really love Julius Caesar, just the war, yeah, and the the fighting, and I always make them act it out, and we stab each other with the fake knives that I got from BT, you know, the retractable. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's great.
SPEAKER_00So I really do think a play, like we're we're acting out the crucible. Sometimes they don't want to do it though anymore. I don't want to force students to play along, but I have a particular class right now that does not want to act it out. And therefore, I'm like, well, we need to move to an audio now and and some play snippets, you know, to show. But they're hesitant to be put in front of people and to make a mistake, and also to maybe read aloud. They might not feel confident in their own reading aloud abilities. Yes, a general answer. Yes, and and I do find that they are not as quick to just, we're gonna do this, it's gonna be fun, you know. Just go for it, make mistakes, get messy. They don't want to make mistakes, they want to be right, and and that comes into play too, even with asking questions of the class. Maybe nobody will answer, and you're gone. Somebody needs to answer, but they're they're very afraid to be wrong in front of their peers.
SPEAKER_02Now that's interesting because I'm trying to remember back to when I was like, and for the performance, I always love that, so I would have jumped right up on the others. I don't know. I don't remember. Is that something you're seeing more often?
SPEAKER_00I I I feel like I am. I feel like I am, and I feel like more, you know, not wanting to say an answer out loud that could be wrong. And and you know, and really education, right? We need to be wrong. That's how we that's how we learn. We need to to maybe make a mistake and go, oh, I get it now. And they're also maybe less confident in even writing an answer, like say say I'm having them write some answers. They want to know, is this right? Yeah. Like each one. Well, what about is this okay? Yes. You know, one, two, three, like they want to know each if each one's right. And then sometimes I'm going, well, I want you to take some risks here and and do it, and then I'll look. But they want to know if they're right. Tenth grade, very tough. You know, most of them are they're getting their driver's license, it's very social. School is not the cool thing to be doing. Yeah. And you know, we have the phone, phone distraction. I hate that.
SPEAKER_02I see it so clearly how detrimental that is in a classroom and what happens between classes and when they have two minutes to either talk or disappear.
SPEAKER_00They're right on it. Policing that is not what I want to do. I don't like that part of the job.
SPEAKER_02Is your school starting to just not allow them to have phones in class?
SPEAKER_00We uh we have a policy, and and each year it feels like that policy starts strong. Like, oh, okay, we're gonna not have phones. And this year it was, you know, we're not even gonna have kids take their phones to the bathroom, you know, they'll have to place it for all sorts of reasons, right? But as the year goes, each year it always just loosens. Uh it always just loosens, and we have kids with earbuds, we have the phones, and we're constantly going, put your phone away, or I need to take your phone. And most kids are are respectful of it. They know, but as the year loosens up in this point in the year, it gets, you know, more and more pushing that boundary, I think, happens. But they really are, I mean, they want their phones and they want to be able to look up things on their phones quickly, be it answers. And sometimes our tech at school isn't working or something's out a little. Well, can I do it on my phone? And then you're like, Oh, well. So you're sort of stuck in that tech game of how do I get this assignment to work? You know, the state, we have the cell phone ban coming, right? Where they don't want any phones in school for the full day. Yeah. But we have students saying, Well, I'll go online then. I'm not gonna not have my phone. And that's not good, right? It's sort of depressing.
SPEAKER_02Well, that brings us to questions about education and what it is now and has this changed. So you've been teaching over a few decades now. What are the changes you see? Not just in there's more technology and computers coming in, but what is the dynamic change you see in education now? What happens in the classroom, the culture?
SPEAKER_00I think there is a big emphasis on collaborative learning and and the process, especially with AI coming in more and more. We're looking at how do we maybe grade the process of the assignment rather than the outcome. So that has been a shift, you know. So any given assignment, I might create groups or have the students group up and they can work together and talk, talk it out and work on something together. Or I'm grading pieces of their process along the way until we get to maybe that final paper. And maybe that final paper is not the most points, those pieces are all points. That's changed that way. Uh like I said, the reading. No readings happening outside the classroom, very little. That has to happen in, and so I'm getting through uh fewer units than I have ever done. And each year I feel like it's fewer and fewer.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's interesting because as you were saying that, I was thinking, yes, I have terrible graphomotor skills, so my writing is is excruciating for me to do, but I can express quickly and well on a computer. Okay, so that you remove that obstacle. And so if you have AI or something that can do a task, maybe it does change what you need to educate. You're saying you're teaching the process now, or maybe there's another thought of how to be creative, how to think rather than do something that can be done by a set of algorithms.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02I mean, is that happening?
SPEAKER_00That is happening, and and more and more we're being trained or encouraged to do that. To maybe have the Bloomsburg Area School District and and many school districts in the CSIU are are working on kind of AI guidelines because their thought is, well, AI is here, it's not gonna go away. And everybody has their differences of agreement with that strategy. Yeah, sure. You letting kids use AI in school. But they have a hierarchy of numbers that teachers will be permitted to place on assignments. So, like, say it's a level one, and that's no AI at all. And you might build on those, use it as a tool, you know, use it to create, etc. So we have that in the works to roll out. There are teachers we're we're using different tools here and there, showing kids different things, but of course the the fear is always they just use it to cheat. They just use it to do the work, and we're seeing that so much. So much AI is coming into the writing, um, into math, science, every every assignment they can get an answer very fast on AI.
SPEAKER_02It's so interesting, and maybe I don't know if it's ironic or not, but your brick-laying brothers are the ones who have a secure job now. They will be employed and well paid in the next decade.
SPEAKER_00That's that and and fewer kids are s are thinking college is the way. They're going, well, what is college gonna get me a job that's secure?
SPEAKER_02It's an unknown land, yeah. But at the heart of it, classroom is still you with your kids. Right. And I when I think back, I mean I think some teachers spend more time with children, especially when the when they have them all day than some parents do. And the teachers you have shape your lifestyles. I think of my life and the people who have shaped me, outside of my family and friends are just I have such dense teachers. Teachers. Yes. You mentioned the guidance counselor. You need to go to the house.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So now you'll never forget them.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. And that's where I feel like I'm at in philosophies or just in my day-to-day, is I want to connect with the kid in the room and be loose and joke around and have fun. I want to make them feel comfortable and trying to encourage whatever it is that they can do. We're trying to keep encouraging whatever it is. That relationship bit, that you know, here we are in this class and we do these fun things or these routines, and that's all. That's all there is really.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and in a way that answers or is a way to look at what I was wondering about earlier is okay, if the process can be replicated by algorithms and mechanics, then the role of the teacher maybe is that. Right. Is to model this is a life that is imbued with education.
SPEAKER_00And of course, I do a lot of writing, a lot of creative writing, so I'm bringing in their feelings, and that we just did a poem about guilt. And these students wrote amazing poems about an incident where they felt guilty. Oh and they share, you know, when they really start to share something, I feel like that connects them to language. I'm trying to make them read and write, and this is how we communicate. And this is really what life is. Every relationship you need to communicate for it to be beautiful and prosperous, right? So I try to go in on that pretty hard. You know, we do a lot of journaling, handwriting. It's something from them, right, to connect on the page and to think about. I think there's always the personality, the interpersonal relationship. Like we're all in this school thing right now together. Do this, it's our community. And I don't know how that would go if you didn't have a person. Two questions.
SPEAKER_02One, just quick update on your kids, because I know a lot of people who will listen will know your children. What's up?
SPEAKER_00Well, my my son Lyle lives in Brooklyn and he works for himself. He's a a creator of digital tools for creative people, and he uses a lot of AI to make his tools. He goes under the name of dot simulate on Instagram in his space. But he he holds meetups and he gets a lot of creatives in and they show off what they're doing. Hopefully, I'm saying all this right because it's very technical. But he uses touch designer and he creates tools that interact with touch designer so that people that use touch designer, create with touch designer, can do more.
SPEAKER_02Does he still do theater work? Projections and media for theater?
SPEAKER_00Has done different installations with people. Like he went to the Basil, Miami. He's gone to places all over the world and he sets up projections and different things, but not like theater theater, per se. Yeah. He was a theater major at Temple University, but he says he uses those skills at the end of the day. Yeah, for Elizabeth, and that was a wonderful, wonderful design. That was very cool.
SPEAKER_02And I know what Claire's doing because I was on her rafting trip last summer.
SPEAKER_00Yes, she is teaching a rowing school right now. And this is where people who have experience kayaking or boating, but they want to learn how to row on their own to take bigger rafts down the river. Okay. Like with supplies and do a longer trip and whatnot, like you did. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Well, we sat and we did.
SPEAKER_00We were told what to do. She knew what to tell us. But she's doing that, and then she'll start her guest trips when the season starts, which is I think maybe in May. Uh-huh. Late May.
SPEAKER_02And she went to Bhutan, didn't she?
SPEAKER_00She did. She went to Bhutan in the winter and had a fabulous time and did river trips in Bhutan with cultural guides and Bhutanese river guides. Uh-huh. And loved it, loved it. Was very sad to leave Bhutan. And Theo. And Theo all winter. He he worked as a door dasher, so he did a lot of Door Dash. And he is working at the Lynx golf course where he plays many holes of golf every day. So he's very excited about an opening season for golf.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, great. Well, uh I would do want to ask one question. So so much about education is about how much is changing, how hard it is. What is the beating heart of education for you that keeps you in it and going?
SPEAKER_00I think for me, I really enjoy teaching writing and creative writing. And for me, it's about finding that spot when a kid shows their empathy for someone else or for another, you know, person in the class or just even a book or anything. And that really for me that empathy piece. And sometimes it's just for the other writer with them when we're doing a peer review. And it gets very intense. And I think it's very, very meaningful for them to have those moments. And for me, that's everything. So I'm always looking for those assignments that bring the empathy and the compassion. And I try to build it into everything. Everything I do. So every piece of literature, every writing assignment, you know, and sometimes I have to do the standards and the state testing. Yeah. And there's not a lot of empathy built into that. But that's just a chunk of the job. But everything else, it's empathy driven for me.
SPEAKER_02And the power of being seen by an adult who's not your parents.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Is really profound, I think. Well, thank you so much. This was great. Say hello to Ralph.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and say hello to Elizabeth. I will. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's it for this week's locals, where we talk to people who are well local. Just want you to know there will be no locals episode next week. We haven't run out of locals in our town. It's just that yours truly will be away. That means we'll be back on the 29th of April. And if you know somebody who would make a good interviewee for locals, contact us. You can do that at boxoflightstudio at gmail.com. Alright, the voice you hear is Rand Whipple. The editor you do not is Elliot Dorschler. Have a good week.