Mentoring Moments with Dr. Teresa Grossane

What does it take to lead math education across multiple districts? Dr. Teresa Grossane, Director of Mathematics and Computer Science for Huntington Schools, shares her journey from classroom teacher to district leader. She reveals how to build academic courage in students, support teachers through curriculum change, and keep equity at the center of math instruction. A must-listen for anyone leading academic innovation.

If this conversation meant something to you, hit follow on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, or Spotify. It takes five seconds, but it’s how other educators find conversations like this one—and it tells the algorithm that mentorship matters.

Also, visit my website so I can feature your questions!

https://robwottawa.com/podcast

Listen & Subscribe:
🎧 Buzzsprout   |   🍎 Apple Podcasts    |   🎵 Spotify   |   📦 Amazon Music

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to the Mentoring Moments, Empowering Leaders to Mentor Our Future podcast. I am Dr. Rob Wadawa and believe that through teacher and leader mentorship we can impact our future through our influences on students. As much as we believe in the power and impact of mentorship, many shy away from this rewarding work. The goal of these episodes is to lean into the work with teachers and leaders, hear their stories, and have fun with the mentoring process. Alright, everyone, welcome to mentoring moments. I'm super excited here to be with a really great friend that I've met recently, and we've done we've seen each other in conferences. You know, and one of the things that we're going to talk about is what does it take to lead not just a school, but an entire academic discipline across multiple districts. Meet Dr. Teresa Grassane, a true architect of modern math education on Long Island. From her time as a math supervisor in Wontaw and Deer Park to her principal leadership in West Hempstead. Teresa hasn't just taught math, she's redefined how it's led. Now, as a director of math and computer science in Huntington, she prepares students for a world run on code and algorithms. With a doctorate for St. John's and a resume that reads like a map of Long Island education. She's the secret weapon behind countless confident math teachers and students. Today we're talking about leading change in tradition-rich subjects, building academic courage, and of course, whether she'd rather mentor a principal who's afraid of data or a teacher who's afraid of calculus. Teresa, welcome to mentoring moments. How's it going?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Hey Rob, thank you so much. That's some introduction. I feel really important. A weapon. I like that word, weapon that you use.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Yes, yes. It's always uh great when you can use our wonderful world of technology to enhance uh people's resumes and and you know use AI to you know draft out some cool things. So, you know, thanks so much for being here. Is there is there any f uh introduction thoughts that you're thinking about uh as you as we dive into this work?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Well, I want to thank you for having me, Rob. Um I know we we've kind of crossed paths the last few years, um, and it's been a pleasure to start working with you at our place of employment. Um, it's been so much fun, and um, I love just you know picking your brain about just strategies and education in general and where it's going. So I'm super happy to be here um and I'm ready to get started.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Awesome. Yeah, I know it's uh it is always great to have a thought, a thought thinker that's just like yourself, you know, and and you know, be able to say, ah, I found my people.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

So it's it's always great to find those lifelong learners. So let's kind of dive into that leading academic change, right? So you've been a math leader in many districts. Um, you know, so what do you think might be your first steps or what have been your first steps when you enter a new district and you know that there needs to be a shift in the math culture without really causing major resistance in the student, in the teacher's uh staff?

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Well, you know, I've been a math leader, but just an educational leader in general, that's that's a challenge when you start a new place of employment. Every district has its own culture. Um, and I was just listening, I don't remember who I was listening to, some podcast where you really should do your homework um before you start a new position in a new place, a new district. So I was that that way, maybe that your ideas in education will align, um, will fit the district that you would like to work in. So um it's really important to learn the culture. Um, I can tell you firsthand that uh as a new administrator years ago, I made a lot of mistakes. Um, and one of which was I moved too fast. Um, you know, I'm very passionate as well as you, Rob, and I just want to do what's best for kids. But unfortunately, when you're starting out, um, I didn't have a mentor, and we'll talk about mentoring a little later on, but you need to um someone needs to guide you a little bit. Um, and when you go too fast, you you're not taking in the breadth of the district, meaning you have to learn about all the different stakeholders. So my first um what I do now, after I learn that lesson, um, is to just get to know people, listen more than you speak. Um, get to know the culture of the district, get to know what's important. Um, learn the the the acad the academia of that school district. And that doesn't necessarily have to be math. Um I like to learn about other disciplines within where I work now um because it's nice to align, if you can, to other disciplines. So the first and foremost foremost, I would say, is to spend a good amount of time, most people say a year, to just sit back and build those relationships. You gotta have trust if you're going to move forward. That's you must. Otherwise, um people are gonna make change just for the sake of change and not buy into it. And it needs and the change needs to be collaborative. So it can't be about what you want, even though you may you may have this great vision, you have to sell it. You know, you have to you have to get stakeholders to buy into it, and that takes time. Um, so it's a process. It's definitely a process.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Yeah, 100%. You know, and and I can empathize with that because I'm in the first year where we are, and you know, it's really hard to kind of take that step back and and just move slowly through the crowd and listen to all the things that are going on, learn the culture and understand all the dynamics of not only the the teachers, but the dynamics of the leadership within our own realm and then the leadership of you know in in district office. Um, you know, and and leading through change is always challenging, you know, and our technologies are always changing. And I know that, you know, one of the things that you you kind of, you know, you love to work with is technology. So when you're mentoring kind of a veteran teacher, and and I've worked through this too, when you're working through a veteran teacher that's great at the content, you know, in your math area, right? But they're terrified or scared of this new technology, right? How do you kind of work them through or mentor them through that that that challenge?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

That's a great question, and I'm in the middle of that right now. I can give you, I mean, I've been through it before, but right now we're we're thinking about moving to using Desmos as opposed to the handheld graphic calculator. Um, and I have a department of, I don't know, 20 plus math teachers in the middle school and the high school. And as you said, there are some teachers that just like are ready to jump on board and like be all in with the technology, and other teachers that are like, wait a minute, like I um I I don't, I don't, they they need they're not comfortable and they need um, you know, they need to know it all before they use it. Um, you know, I'm a risk taker and some people aren't like that, you know. Some people need to know everything before they implement it. So what you have to do, and what I've done in the past and what seems to be working now is I build capacity. So I I kind of like select teachers that I know are going to like be very interested in in in learning more about Desmos. And then I use them as my key people in my department to now turnkey some of the others that may be resistant or know nothing. You know, I could have brand new teachers, you know, young teachers that we just hire, they could be overwhelmed and and and not also um have that background of using Desmos. So what's happening now in my department is that I have several teachers that are comfortable with it and they're now turnkeying it to other teachers in the department, as opposed to, and I've done this and it doesn't work all that well, I should say, just selecting one teacher and then having that teacher turnkey. It's much better to build capacity in a department because you never know what's gonna happen, who's gonna leave, who, you know, and it it you get more buy-in and sustain buy-in when you kind of build capacity within a department.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, it's funny, you just said the word buy-in, and I took on my notes, I was looking at saying this is a strategy of buy-in, you know. Um, it's the opposite of top-down leadership. You know, you you find your your key people that you know, two or three people that are that are interested in learning. You know, one of the things that I was talking with Lauren Kaufman about is how, you know, even veteran teachers are still new teachers because we're always throwing new things at them, right? But but they're not always open to that new that newness. So to build capacity, find the people that are truly open to that. And like you said, you know, having those those key people, turnkey, because you know, most people are more susceptible to to saying, like, okay, here's a here's a person that's gonna talk to me during my my my prep period or my lunch period, and like, oh, did you try that new technology that and how it's going? You know, those small conversations, you know, go a long way, and it doesn't feel top-down, you know, and and it's organic, and then you're building that that that buy-in through the people in which you're leading, um, it's almost like you you're creating um teacher leaders within your your own department, which is tremendous. Um, so that's fantastic, you know, when you're doing that work. So you know, you as a leader have transitioned between building principal to district leader, and there's definitely you know a different way of thinking there. So having been both in those roles of principal and director, what do you think is the most common uh I'll say leadership kind of blind spot that you may have seen uh principals try to do when they're looking at academic programming? You know, so now you've worn both hats, right? So as a you know, so you a director comes in and says blah, and then you're as a building principal, you know, what what might be some of the blind spots that a principal might see?

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah, that's a great question. Um I mean, I loved being a building principal, but um the job is so different from being a curriculum leader, whether at the building level or at the district level. Um being a principal, you're really the curriculum is at the bottom of the totem pole, so to speak, um, because your day is so unpredictable. Um with curriculum at the district level, your day is pretty much um it's it's very thought thought out and it's predictable. Um the difference is, and I'll get to the principalship and and the curriculum, which you're getting to that question, but the biggest change for me going from the building to a district level position was really having to involve a lot of stakeholders in my decision making at the district level. When I was a building principal, and I know many building principals, they basically just deal with the superintendent for discipline issues, for parent issues, um, because you know, security issues. You're always, when I was a building principal, I was always on the phone with my superintendent or emailing my superintendent. Curriculum, I I had to trust the people that were doing the curriculum jobs within my um my um building or at the district level. The one thing I've learned is you can't do everything. Like you have to trust the people around you. And I knew what my role was as a principal, and that was I was the person for that building. Like I had to know all the workings of that building. And in order to do that, you can't be on top of curriculum and instruction. You have to turn to your your leaders in those departments and rely on them and get input from them. Sure, you want to follow up with them and find out what's going on and what can they do to what I can do to support them in their curriculum vision. But as a principal, you are wearing many hats and the curriculum hat is not one of the ones that are on the not a priority.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah, no, so I mean, it's a challenge, I think, is that you know, when you go to admin 101, right? We're supposed to be instructional leaders, right? And a lot of people think that we're supposed to know all the answers for everything. So I think the advice that you're saying would be, you know, as a building principle, you know, you got a day-to-day things to work through, you know, maybe listen to the curricular people as best as you can and support them where you can. Here's the challenge though. So, like if you're in a faculty meeting, right? And you have a teacher that's coming to you, you know, I'm sure you can share a story of this that that, you know, maybe there's a director or or a chairperson that's trying to sell, if you will, a kind of a controversial, you know, curriculum change, like something like, I don't know, new computer science standards or something like that, right? So how would you kind of sell that, you know, to now your faculty is in a space or the parents are coming to you or a board member, you know, that that that you're in a building, they're pushing this controversial thing, you know, if you will, and you know, and and you know it's gotta go. What worked, you know, for you if you ever had a walk through something like that?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

So let me explain to you. When I was a building principal, my building um meetings were in were um instructional, or I didn't I didn't stand there and have a list of things and just say this is what we're doing. I always implemented a strategy, me and my assistant principal. And we like I would do a four corners, or we would do um a stations activity. Like I would I would do instructional strategies, new instructional charities strategies to share with my in my entire entire building. So I was doing curriculum like a little bit, but that's how I got my curriculum fits in, so to speak, because I am I love curriculum and instruction, um, but I also love being a principal. So I kind of tried to tie it into when I would have a department meeting. So for example, if we have a new initiative in a math or social studies or science, whatever, and I'm working with that curriculum leader in that department. Now I'm going to work with them at the faculty meeting, and we're going to share what the steps were to adopt that program or to think about adopting that program. Um, but again, in order to move forward, you have to have a committee of teachers and you have to, you know, get them to also kind of sell it to the rest of the staff. I'm gonna work hand in hand with the instruction instructional leader as the building principal. So we're a team of people. It's not one person, it's not two people. It's it's an entire um team of people that have spent the time to research and have decided to move forward with that with that program.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

I think it ties back into the the strategy of buy-in, right? You know, that you know, it's a it's there's no I in team. You know, we are all working together. And if you can kind of get your, you know, your buy-in, your your key people to to kind of move things forward, that that's exactly right. But let's let's take it down to like, you know, so this would be like your tactical advice of academic teachers, you know, or leaders. You know, you so we talk about I'm gonna talk about our customers, and our customers are our students, right? And we work with them all the time. And let's say, for instance, the you're you're either pushing a new initiative or whatever it might be, or you're you're working with a veteran teacher um that's been doing things for many, many years, and they're receiving really bad or poor feedback from students. What might you what what what approach might you have, or a five-minute strategy that you would have with that teacher that's coming to you like, oh my goodness, my students aren't getting this, they're not liking this, they're they're not nice to me, or you know, whatever it might be. So, what would your your strategy be for the customers?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

The the thing with that is is that I'm not I don't want teachers like usually when a teacher meets with administrator, I'm not say usually, but a lot of the time they feel threatened, right? Because it's the administrator and the teacher. I don't present myself that way, and Rob, you know that. I I present myself as a mentor. So that's why the building relationships is so important. So you build the trust. So when a teacher is having struggling, that they come to you and they share this with you, and yet you don't find it out by parents or other teachers, etc. So to sit down with a teacher that's struggling, to me, I not that I welcome it, but I'm I feel like I'm I I can share my expertise and my years of experience and try to support this teacher. The one thing, and and I and the one thing I do want to mention before I answer, continue to answer that question is I when I go and do observations, I want teachers to take risks. I don't want to see the same old, same old, same old. I want them, and that's why the pre-ob is so important. I want them to try something new. And I'm not going to um, if it doesn't work out, that's okay. It's not going to be represented in in the written observation. So I'm about taking risks. Um, and if a teacher's struggling, maybe they're struggling because they are taking risks, or maybe it's usually, usually I start with classroom management. That's where I start. So if what and it could be a seasoned teacher, you know, it could be a new course that the teacher's teaching and and and can't, you know, engage the kids. So it's usually classroom management and engagement. Because if you have good classroom management, you'll and this you'll have good classroom management if the students are engaged. That's what I was trying to say. So I would sit the teacher down and and really talk. I don't even want to look at a written lesson plan because to me that doesn't tell me really what's going on in the classroom. I want to talk to the teacher and and I want the teacher to tell me what's going on, and then we'd sit and we'd strategize and I would give recommendations. For example, I would say, okay, um, are you greeting the kids when they come in the room? When they come in the room and the other is the do now or the warm-up, whatever you want to call it, is it is it present? Can they get started? Are you praising students as they come in and start before the bell rings? Like these are little, little things that really do mean a lot and that really build um trust in a classroom. Because you're praising, you're getting kids started. Um, and then also like once you know, so that's like classroom management. Then are kids calling out. How is and then there's the whole questioning thing. Um you know, are you allowing wait time um before or the kids just calling out? Are you pr because if you praise kids, then they're gonna continue to do that behavior, right? So um a lot of things fall into it. And then obviously at the uh at the end of the lesson, are you ending the lesson before the battle? A lot of teachers do that, especially new teachers. Um, and so that's gotta, you know, that's gotta stop. So, what can we do if you didn't plan anything? That's another strategy. If you didn't plan anything in that lesson and all of a sudden you're done with the lesson and you're like, oh no, now what do I do? So we talk about, okay, let's go back to the warm-up. Let's have them write questions about what they learned today in the lesson. There's always something, there's always an extension that you can do. There should never, there should, to me, there's never enough minutes in a lesson or in a period.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Yeah, it's funny. Just just before you said it, I wrote down extension activities, you know, like making sure that the students have that opportunity to dive in into uh the deep realm of of the work, you know, and and I call those anchor activities. And you dig you're diving deeper into the work. You know, one of the things that you had said, or just in general, resonated with me is, you know, I the quote that I say is teachers are leaders and leaders are teachers. And we talk about, I like to talk about the similarities, you know, between what it is to be a teacher and what it is to be a leader. And you talked about building relationships, you know, a teacher standing outside of the door connecting with kids. Uh that goes so far, you know, and you know, and I say to say to teachers in a in a funny, cute, quirky way, like, you know, as as you know, especially in the realm of going to specials, you know, in an elementary school, the students come down in two lines, you know, and I say, Okay, okay, boys and girls, let's get into one line together. And as you come into the classroom, I want you to tell me your favorite pizza topping, right? And then they they they talk about those things. And it's just like that's a billion relationships. But as a leader, you need to do the same thing with your teachers, you know. So this year, brand new leader coming into a district, what did I do? I stood outside the room, I greeted each teach each teacher as they came in, said hello, how was your summer? You know, and and you know, that's a very parallel, you know, as as you know, so my our advice, your advice, our advice to new teachers and to new leaders would be get out there, get to know your people, build those relationships. It's so tremendous, you know, in in in the work that you do, um, and and such, you know, so when you're talking about this, like, you know, we're talking about maybe I would say non-negotiable, right? Is there another in your mind, is there another non-negotiable practice that you might think about as a district leader where you might want to ensure equity amongst students or a practice uh so where they might be able to access, you know, advanced math or computer science courses or something new. So what might you you kind of talk about with your your teachers to kind of build non negotiable practices for students?

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Um I think this is a great question, and it's kind of like a loaded question for me. Um because uh, you know, there is always diversity in your schools, and there's always gonna be a voice that's gonna be louder than another voice, right? So Um the one thing I've learned that even though they certain subgroups may not have a voice, it it doesn't mean that you can't do all you can to support them. Um so what I'm trying to say is our teachers need to understand that um anybody can do anything. Any student and with with any background, um with any cultural upbringing, they they can do anything. And we have to we may to need to put the supports in place because we need to do well, then I'm gonna get to the word differentiate. Here we go. Um we need to put the supports in place by differentiating our instruction. Um and I can, you know, I can give you an example. Um we just uh where I work presently, we just started a computer science pathway. And um we are uh all of our high school students are taking an entry-level computer science class, um, which is great because it opens the door for all students. Some students in the past probably wouldn't even gone into computer science because you know, computer science has this uh this thing, well, oh, it's just coding. I don't want to code. It's like math, like I don't like math, you know, same thing. So what we did was we opened the door for all students, I'm proud to say, where I presently work, to be exposed to computer science. And and uh and coding is only a very small part of the computer science standard. So by doing that, opens doors for kids. There's an AP uh class, AP Computer Science Principles, that a lot of kids we we just started offering like two years ago. Um, but because now we open the door, um, it's it's probably the they according to the college board, it's the probably the easiest AP course you could take. It's an entry-level AP course. So now anybody can take that course that took the entry-level course. So it's all about providing as many pathways as you can. And in order to do that, kids come from different, like I said before, they come from different backgrounds, different instructional backgrounds, and that's why it's so important to differentiate. And that's my new, my new vision, my new passion right now is to really, really start to move towards really thinking about differentiation in our classrooms so we can support all our students. So they're eight, so they can take and they can go on any pathway that they choose to. I mean, now with the new graduation requirements coming out, there are going to be multiple pathways. So it's not just one or two pathways anymore. Um, and I'm really trying to prepare not only the students but the teachers as well to be able to understand and keep all the doors open for our kids.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Yeah, no, I I think that's fantastic. You know, I was in your office uh yesterday or the other day, and you were sharing me the packets for the differentiation, you know, and what resonated me with when you said you said anyone can do anything. And, you know, to make a parallel with with teachers and leaders, you know, as teachers, if we truly believe kids can do anything, we open doors for them, you know, and and it's really a powerful thing to do. And I was just talking to my friend Dan Brazil, and who's an art teacher for many years, you know, if we we we focus on that that kids can do anything, chances are in 20 years, 10 years, five years, you get that email, you get a phone call, you get a message from a kid saying, You imp you you changed my life, right? And when you encourage them, you you you you will change their lives for forever. You know, making a parallel, if you have you're a new leader, you know, and you have somebody above you saying, You can do anything, you can lead anything, having that that power, uh, that that that level of comfort, that support, if you will, the differentiation. You know, like you know, if you were an assistant superintendent, you know, you're gonna have a lot of different directors that you're working with, you know, and they're all doing different things, but they all need different support. So you differentiate your leadership to them. But at the end of the day, you say to them, you could do anything if you put your mind to it. It just empowers the district to move forward. So thank you so much for that. So we're moving close to our, I would say I think a 25-30 minute mark. So we're gonna move to our RW rapid fire questions, which you had gotten ahead of time. So I'm super excited for these. So uh Teresa, who would you rather mentor? A principal who's afraid of data or a teacher who's afraid of calculus?

SPEAKER_00 26:28

That's an easy one for me. A principal who's afraid of data. Um, and I'll tell you why. Because um I mean, as a math person, I'll be honest, like I'm so into relationships that I think, you know, as I said uh over and over, it's all about building relationships. But data does have its place because you can track it and follow it, but I'm all about multiple data points. So I don't just use one data or two data points, I use a a whole slew of data points because I get a better picture of what's going on if I have a bunch of data points. So if I'm want to mentor a principal and he's a or he or she or whatever is afraid of data, I would say, okay, so as a building principal, you now have to have a common theme. How what is the build, what is the building working towards? What are we doing together? And by looking at data, you can see where our strengths are as a building, as opposed to just a department, and and where we need where we need to maybe put more energy in. And so that is powerful because then you can create a plan. You can create a three-year plan, a five-year plan. And you may not be able to do everything in one or two years. We all we spoke before that it change takes time and you need buy-in. But if you look at the data and you now you've implemented something, you could track whether that is being is is successful or it's not working, and then you can pivot. Because in education, that's one thing I've learned. We've got to be able to pivot. You know, you can't stay on the same path, and what's the definition that I always say, Rob? Um, you can't uh do the same thing and expect a different result, right? So uh, and I I know we've we've spoken about that, but so looking at data as a principle can really define what you're as a leader, what you're going to do in that building.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Yeah, 100%. You I mean, you and I as of yesterday were looking through the data that was presented to us and trying to decide what themes we might be looking at, you know, because there's always common ground, you know, whenever you're working through data points, you know, and then and then getting to the story with kids, you know, like where what is the story behind the data? Um, but yeah, it'd be interesting to I didn't think you'd be a great person to to to mentor a principal who's afraid of data because you live it all the time. So that's awesome. So so number two, what is your most your most well-intentioned but damaging math education myth you're tired of fighting? Like somebody's like, I'm not a math person, you know. So what what what is what is your most damaging uh myth here?

SPEAKER_00 29:10

So uh believe it or not, when I started teaching, um I it was the it was the calculator. It was back then it was the TI 83, now we use the TI 84 C E. Um, that probably is the myth. Like people say, oh, well, if you give the kids a calculator, not learning math, you know, and I and I'm really getting tired of hearing that. Um, but you know, that's within you know, they don't know their multiple, you know, their multiplication tables, or they don't know fractions or whatnot. But, you know, and so I've been listening to that for the past 20 years about the calculator. Um they if if you use the calculator as an instructional tool, it will extend their thinking. It takes them to a higher level that they couldn't go before using the graphic calculator. But people, you know, math non-math people don't really understand that. Um and it really does pay off when you get to the upper level math courses because meek math gets so um complicated and it becomes very discreet, and you need the tool to take to take it to take that level of mathematics to a higher, I should say, a higher level of mathematics. Um you know, there's a there's always a um argument on the in the in the earlier grades and the elementary grades about the calculator because they need to know their times tables and they need to know their fractions. And so, you know, we found, I think, a good balance. Um, it comes a point where, okay, it's time to now give them a calculator and let's move on. So if they don't know five times three, but they need to be able to add two fractions, they can do five times three on the calculator and that'll help them add the two fractions, so to speak. So um we've, I think through the years we've become to a good balance of when it's time to say, okay, this kid, you know, and and we all another thing is we all have different learning styles, right? So some kids are never gonna, we're not good at memorizing, right? It's just a a learning style. So we're gonna penalize them because they can't, they can't recall certain things, um, but they have the ability to learn the mathematics to another level.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

Yeah, I think it it takes us to kind of that age-old question of, you know, like technology versus non-technology. You know, in in the world of AI, we have at our fingertips, we have the answers to those, like what's five times three? You know, and and do we need to teach that basic skills to kids when we have they have access to the answers so quickly at their fingertips? I mean, it's an age-old question where you and I will never answer that question, right? But people can can um talk about it for hours upon hours upon weeks upon months because it is truly a difficult question. But um, no, I appreciate the the idea, you know, and and yeah, the the calculator is a is a starting point, you know. Um, you know, it's uh it's crazy. And and I think that you could tie it parallel to the AI world that we're living in now.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Um, so so so our final question of rapid fire is here is would you prefer a whiteboard marker or a stylus?

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Oh, absolutely a whiteboard marker, and I'll tell you why. Yeah, um, first of all, I love color. So I love to use different colors because I'm all about visual learning and a whiteboard mark. I want kids to move in a classroom. Yes. Okay. So when you have a stylus, you really you the kids aren't moving. And going back to my differentiation, we you know, we're coming out of COVID and you know, technology, and we were all we all get excited, including myself, about technology. I I'll be the first one to try something new. But we need balance, which is what I told my teachers last week. It's all life is about balance, right? So it can't just be using the stylus and the Chromebook. So I'm I love when kids walk around in pairs, they do a carousel, they do a gallery walk, and that's using colors and and they're talking and they're thinking together. So that's why I'm all about the white whiteboard marker.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Awesome. That's great. So let's see here is our mic drop closer, fill in the blank. So here we go. So um, and I think this ties in really nicely to to what we're just talking about. So a truly effective academic leader doesn't just improve test scores, they dot dot dot build lifelong learners. Oh, yes, I love it. Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Yeah, that um and I I'll share one more story with you. Um, what may drew what drew me to that response was when I was a principal, um, there was a few uh girls that I supported, I guess, academically and social emotionally as well back then. I actually had an advisory in my middle school back then, so it was kind of cool. Anyway, I ran into her uh not long ago, maybe a year ago, and she said to me, if it wasn't for me, she wouldn't be a nurse. And here I am, I didn't teach her math. I didn't, she wasn't sitting in my classroom, but I listened and I supported her and I believed in her. And that's what I mean. Like we we you don't know who you're gonna move as teachers and as administrators. So my role now is I'm a mentorer, you know. I want to take my knowledge and share it with teachers and other administrators because I didn't have those supports when I started out. I didn't have a mentor. Um, and I kind of had to make my way. Um later on, I did, you know, had one or two people that did support me, but for the most part I didn't. So that's why I'm so passionate now about being here today with you. Um, and and really that's I find that's my role right now in education.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Which ties perfectly into, you know, I did a lot of work and it was, you know, nearly 10 years ago. My my my academic work was what is the number one piece of advice that you'd give to a first-year teacher? And the number one piece of advice was never forget the impact you have on a student's life, right? And you know, so that old quote, and I'll elaborate a little bit, you know, people will forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, and I'll say they even forget what you teach them, right? So extending it there, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

And you know, and you know, so our our advice, you know, you would be to a first year teacher was don't worry about all the stuff, worry about the relationship. Right. So we're we're just about at our end here, Teresa. So is there anything that you'd like to share with our audience for final thoughts on our mentoring moments?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Um, you know, like I said to you before, uh, you know, my role right now is is is all about mentoring, um, teachers, students as well. Like I think one thing I want to do share with you is that um just because you become a district administrator or building administrator, um, and you can still make a mark on students, and and that's by being visible and getting out and just having conversations in the hallway. Um talking to guidance counselors when guidance counselors meet with teach with students, be be part of those conversations um because you can make a difference. Um and you really don't know the power of that. Um I've seen it, just like I said to you before, I've seen the power in those just those small conversations. So you make the time. And I know as administrators, we're always running around, especially district level, we're going to building, to building, running, running, running, but just stop, breathe, and listen. And you know, this is uh theory, it's called the theory you. It's all about listening. Don't listen at the top of the you. Try to really go down and listen to the bottom of the you. And really that way you're taking in what that person's saying, and then you may come out with a new result, but don't go in with a predetermined answer when you're listening to someone. That's like huge that I learned in my doctoral program. And I take it with me wherever I go and whoever and whatever conversations I'm having.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Right, like listen to respond, listen to understand rather than to respond. And you know, what I took down here is, you know, as a leader, never forget the ripple of impact that you have. You know, every s every little thing that you do matters, everything that you say matters, whether that's to a teacher, to a student, to a guidance counselor. Um, you know, one of the things there's a video that I watched a couple months ago, um, you know, it talks about how we as leaders oftentimes are looked upon as giants, right? And, you know, when we walk in and we say something, our words truly matter. You know, so we have to understand the magnitude of our, I hate the word, but power, you know, that we have and you know, level of influence with people. So it's super empowering. So I want to thank you so much, Teresa, for being here on mentoring moments. Um, I I really enjoyed and appreciate all the conversations we've had, and I'm super excited to be working with you. And I know that you'll be presenting soon at um our lead li conference, which is super exciting. Um, so I want to thank our audience and um see you soon on our next episode. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Thanks, Rob. I loved being here.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Thank you.