We Start With An Idea

In this episode of Rooted & Rising, Andrew McDonald sits down with Shane Fairbanks to explore how history comes alive when students are invited to experience it, not just read about it.

Through hands‑on projects, immersive lessons, and creative approaches, Shane shares how experiential learning helps students build curiosity, deepen understanding, and make meaningful connections to the past. The conversation highlights how engaging instruction fosters critical thinking, collaboration, and a genuine love of learning.

Together, they reflect on why hands‑on learning matters in a Catholic school setting where students are encouraged to see themselves as part of a larger story shaped by faith, culture, and human experience.

It’s a joyful reminder that when learning is interactive and purposeful, it becomes more than content, it becomes formation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Rooted in Rising, a short podcast where we highlight the people, programs, and moments that make Billings Catholic Schools special. Each episode, we'll spend just a few minutes sharing one story from across our system, something worth noticing, worth celebrating, and worth building on. I'm Andrew McDonald, and I'm glad you're here. Today I'm joined by uh a very special guest. I think, in a lot of ways, kind of the one that for me sets the bar when it comes to doing new things and trying new things. So I would like to thank him for giving me the courage to start a podcast and mess around with it. Um but I'm gonna let him introduce himself to the audience today.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Hi, I'm Shane Fairbanks. I teach dual credit U.S. history, hands-on history, film editing and design, and dual credit government and comparative government at Billing Central. And I've been here for almost 20 years now. I think it's 18 or 19 right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Yeah, it's been a pretty incredible run, and like obviously a man of of many talents. With all those classes, what what do you really lean into? I mean, obviously history, film, but like why why those subjects?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yeah. I've always loved teaching history just because it is so fun and I'm a glorified storyteller that way. Uh and and it it's something that has challenged me to learn how to appeal to my audience because history is often not a very fun subject that kids love to learn about unless they have a really great teacher. So I think it it gives me a chance, it has given me a chance over the years to figure out how to cater to my audience and keep them interested, which funnels into everything that I teach now. Because I mean, today I gave a really boring lesson on the Russian Revolution. I thought it was great. The kids, at least in one class, didn't seem very engaged. It was an epic failure. And so now I I get to go back to the drawing board and try to make it better before next year. Yeah. And and just try to always be improving.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, I mean, that's one of the beauties of teaching too, right? Like you can get up there and it's kind of like I've always thought of it kind of like a science class, right? Like I'm gonna do this experiment. Like I have a hop hypothesis, it's gonna go well, and then things go sideways pretty quickly. And you know that, but like you're halfway through it. So now it's back to the drawing board. We get to try something something a little bit different next time.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah. And we're actually doing that with film right now, too, because it there's always we start at the beginning of the year with an idea. We try to come up with an idea. Sometimes it takes us until November or December, even to craft an idea, depending on the group. This year we had a really good one going into it, but midway through it I found it the story was too depressing. It was kind of bringing me down, honestly. And I was having a hard time wanting to finish. And my wife suggested to me that that we we find another way to finish the story in a way that's it has a happier ending and leaves the audience feeling more satisfied. Yeah. But still gets the point across that we're that the kids originally envisioned. So I was I found myself being the one fighting the kids to say, let's do something that's not as like this as you want it, but still tells a story. And finally I came around to figure out how to do that. And it was that whole going back to the drawing board repeatedly every day, trying to figure out how do we change things and make it better. And I think now we have it. Now I feel much better about the film. It's going to be a winner this time.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah, I it's similar to the conversation that I had with with Mr. Martinez as well, right? Talking about how he gives a lot of control to the students when it comes to the drama performances, right? And the and the fiddler on the roof that that they just did. I mean, I know that you you do a lot of those same things with the film class, really kind of turning it over to the students, but it is interesting when when it takes that turn and you have to kind of bring them back. I think it's just it's a testament to really talented teachers that uh that can really give uh the content over to their students and say, where do you want to take this? Where where do you see this going? But then redirect when it when they need to. Absolutely. So what does teaching look like in your classroom?

SPEAKER_01 4:13

It's eccentric. If you've ever been in my room, you know that it is definitely kind of a weird environment. It's full of a lot of different things, everything from Star Wars banners and flags to historical artifacts and bobbleheads, movie references everywhere. It's it's definitely outlandish with how many things I try to incorporate into any given class period. And it's rare if you ever see students with downtime in my room, rare even for them to have work time because I feel like the work that's happening in class needs to be the discussion and engagement and lecture sometimes. And as I've seen with teaching my hands-on history class, I can do almost no lecture because they go in expecting we're gonna play a a game that I've invented and we have to try and make it riveting.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

And when you say a game that you've invented, like this this isn't just like like we're gonna do some flashcard games. I mean, this is like authentic role-playing, RPG, full setup, dice rolling, introduce the element of chance.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And and what really changed it for me was learning how to play Dungeons and Dragons a couple of years ago, because I've always wanted to have kind of that hands-on approach to history where kids get more involved through an activity, but it was learning how to become a character, both through doing film and also through learning Dungeons and Dragons to get them to become those those people. And today was a perfect example. I just had them do an answer, what would you do, but not as a as a character. And they were so not into it. They want to play a character historically and then see what what happens as a result of their decisions. And they get way more into it if that's the case. So my my outlook for the future is to do more of that as often as possible, just to integrate how do we think like a historical character, what are the choices we make and what are the consequences.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah. I mean, it goes back to your your initial answer, right? Like of a history teacher is really a storyteller. So doing that as like a dungeon master almost with a history class, it's just an incredible thing to see. Why why does that approach matter for student understanding?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Aaron Powell I think it gives kids a chance to see that in the real world with our our the way that our job market is today, they have to be innovators, they have to be creators. They can't, I mean, unless they want to, you know, be like the movie office space, where they're just sitting in a cubicle and that kind of thing and fighting over staplers, the swing line, by the way, a red swing line. Unless they want that kind of outlook, they need to learn how to be thinkers and creators and innovators. And I think that even with history, it gives them a chance to do that because we always bring in modern applications as well. And I've told my government class repeatedly that it's arguably one of the most important classes they'll take in high school, not because they're going to become politicians, but because every day we're going to discuss things that are relevant to their their paycheck, their pocketbook, their who they vote for. They ultimately always have the decision on that, but we're engaging in discussion about all these issues in ways that are relevant to their life experience.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Well, in a in a time like this, too, right? Like the the world is is pretty divided. So there's a risk in bringing that to students. How do you how do you bring some of these these issues that grown-ups can't even talk about to to some of the teens that are in your class, right? Like what do you experience when you do that?

SPEAKER_01 7:35

I think a perfect example came from two things. One, our presidential simulation that we did back in December and January.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Absolutely fantastic, by the way. Thank you. So much fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

It was a lot of fun to do. And I didn't think the whole school would be interested and involved in it, but it turned out to be that. And it really just took the kids being willing to experiment with me. I didn't know what we were going to do with it exactly. I just kind of invented a baseline for it and then went with it. And they created their own political parties and did debates, modern issues, hung posters all over the posters, had social media campaigns, tried to recruit endorsements. Yeah, yeah. And then I would I would every night consult with what I call the Oracle AI to help run statistic, like statistical analysis on everything they were creating, and then give me feedback on what would the American populace think if they saw this. So I'm trying to integrate technology so that they can see there are ways to do that authentically. And then by the end, we had an electoral college simulation as well. And ultimately, like they they were very divided at times. And there were a couple of times where I had to give them the what I like to call a come to Jesus talk, where we talk about, you know, it's important that we not be like the rest of society right now, and we find ways to compromise and be kind to one another, to be respectful of one another, and and to be different from what our modern politicians are like. Yeah. And I saw the fruits of that the other day when we were debating the longest shutdown in American history, which is currently the DHS lack of funding there, and how Congress just can't seem to pull anything together and no one's compromising. And I was playing devil's advocate and said, Well, there's no way we can compromise. Who's going to compromise? And all the kids were like, Well, maybe we need to. Maybe it's time everybody sacrificed something. And that's coming from kids who didn't agree on the issues before, but they can all have that common out common belief of the ultimate goal needs to be to just improve our country by finding commonality.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah, it's such a beautiful thing that you kind of see come to fruition in that class, especially with some of those debates that you were having earlier this year, right? Like the room is very divided, but they have to stand for a point, argue it. And part of the way that they scored points was if they changed people's minds, which I think is such an awesome thing to teach kids. It's okay to change your mind. It's okay to be convinced by a good argument when it's well delivered. So I think you're structuring class in such a way that that kids are learning all these valuable skills that they can take beyond your classroom walls, right? In into the real world. Absolutely. That's the goal. So what can you share a moment where where a student may have really like gotten it, right? Like we those highlight moments, like light bulb moment.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah, I I mean, I think one of those moments, just going back to film for a moment, because like I said, that's that was a bit of a struggle this year trying to bring it all together. I mean, it's a stressful month and a half after spending over a month writing a screenplay and then trying to get the kids to kind of get on board with it, like, yeah, we like this idea. That took a lot of convincing and selling. And then we had to go through rewrites to make it better because there were things they didn't like. And some of that was done with a specific group of writers, and then others just proposed to the class. But once we were all on board, there was that month and a half of trying to schedule everything, and we filmed over the course of 16 days, and we still have a couple more to go, at 19 different locations around Billings.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

That is incredible.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

And this this production is actually smaller than some of our other ones. We've had some that have gone 18 days before, and and these are all outside of school hours, so it's it becomes very difficult and stressful to keep everybody going. And you could tell they were feeling the strain at one point. But we had a little team meeting when I knew I wanted to change something about the film, a very big part of the film. I don't want to give away anything because I want you to come and see it. Yeah, no spoilers. But yeah, no spoilers. But we had to change something about the film. And I had a meeting with a select group of probably eight, uh, five students who were kind of the the brains behind the creation of the film overall. And and I I gave them my sales pitch of why I think we need to put in a few extra days, keep it all a secret from the rest of the cast and crew, and change the ending without telling anyone. And you're in the middle of that right now, and we're in the middle of that right now, and they were they were all for it, and they've kept the secret. We've already filmed some of the new scenes to change the ending without, again, giving anything away. But that was one of those light bulb moments for me just to see that they trusted me with the leadership, trusted me with knowing what the outcome could be. And I kept telling them like we have to appeal to our audience. And I didn't like the ending that they wrote. It didn't appeal to the audience.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

So do you think is is the is the cast going to know the ending prior to seeing it? That's the fun. So that's the reveal is at the premiere. That's fantastic. I can't wait. What would you say to a teacher that's nervous about trying something like this? I'm sure you didn't always run your classes this way.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

No, I mean I've always been eccentric and weird with things, but I think just willingness to experiment. I know a lot of people are really hesitant to try new things like AI, for instance, but I I dove in all, I mean, headfirst into getting involved with it. And today I was having one of those moments where I ask some students, like, hey, that Russian Revolution thing, not my best. I agree. What would you do differently as we go into our next stuff? Because I haven't written I haven't created those lessons yet. And I want to know what do they want? And they want to, they said, we want to play games and everything. And I'm like, well, we're covering the Nazis. That's not much of a game. I don't feel good about making you role play the Nazis ever. Yeah, that's a tough one. So that's a tough one. So they were like, well, we gotta have a strategy somehow. I'm like, okay. So I had no idea what to do. So I consulted with the Oracle, and then it gave me great ideas. And now over the weekend, I'll I'll write what I hope is a winner. And then, you know, just that willingness to go all in, try and experiment, know that it's going to fail at times. Even after doing it for 18 years, I know that there's a lot of failures that I have, but I learn more from failure than I do from success.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Well, I think that's a beautiful lesson to show to the students, too, right? Like we're gonna try, and it's not always gonna work. And sometimes I do fail. And when I do, here's what we do next. I just want to say thank you so much for being here today, for talking with me, for taking those risks, for inspiring other people around you to take them. The the countless hours and the coordination, which I've witnessed firsthand this year with film, is unbelievable. No way that I can thank you enough, but you do an incredible job, Shane. Thank you. Thanks for being here.