The People Who Make Virginia

Why Teaching Still Matters | Katie Allen

• Gray Broughton Injury Law • Episode 3

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 41:10

Katie Allen was born to teach.

Don't just take it from us, these are her exact words! Katie has known for as long as she can remember that teaching is what she wanted to do. 

And now that her dream has become a reality, as a 5th grade teacher in Chesterfield, VA, she can truly reflect on and recognize the joy and fulfilment that brings her into work every day. Sometimes at 6:30 in the morning (the school day starts at 9:10 am).

But as she shares with us today, and would be the first to admit, contemporary teaching is not all roses and satisfaction. Teaching is one of the most challenging professions there is, from the simple volume of kids, to getting enough support for neurodivergent students, the bureaucratic maze and, of course, salaries that don't always recognize the value nor the commitment involved.

Katie herself has ADHD, but turns that to her advantage in the classroom, whether through creative projects, the ambience of the classroom, building relationships or or in simply empathizing with neurodivergent students and their reality. 

We learn today how teaching is a blend of hard work and rewarding moments, and why community support can significantly impact teachers' effectiveness. Listen to the teachers in your life, lend them your ear, show them patience: they've earned it!

"You have to trust yourself, because most of teaching is thinking on the fly, reacting to things as they come up. Kids will say stuff to you that you never expected to hear in your whole life. So I trust myself and I listen to my intuition." - Katie Allen

Chapters

00:00 The Joy of Teaching and Personal Identity
03:14 Becoming a Teacher During COVID-19
07:01 A Day in the Life of a Fifth Grade Teacher
12:11 Creating an Engaging Classroom Environment
18:17 The Fulfilment of a Teacher and Student Connection
28:00 Creating a Safe Learning Environment
31:43 The Challenges of Teaching in 2026
36:28 How Teachers Can Be Supported

If we can ever be of help to you, give us a call at 1-877-VETS WIN, or visit https://www.graybroughton.com.

SPEAKER_00

It's so fulfilling. And a lot of people say don't tie your identity into your career. And sure, for some people that might work for them. For me, a big part of my identity is being a teacher. I love it. I'm good at it. It's fun. And so when I have those successful moments, oh my gosh, all of me is just like whole in that moment. Those are the moments that you have to hold on to, and that's what you have to do it for. It just makes everything worth it.

SPEAKER_01

This is the people who make Virginia. Real stories from the people making a difference in our communities. Brought to you by Gray Broughton Injury Law, a veteran-led trial-ready law firm.

SPEAKER_03

All right, we're back. The people who make Virginia by Gray Broughton Injury Law. And today we've got a special guest. We have a fifth grade teacher joining us.

SPEAKER_00

True.

SPEAKER_03

From Chesterfield County.

SPEAKER_00

True.

SPEAKER_03

And let me tell you guys a story about how Katie Allen and our firm met. It was probably a month or two ago at this point. I get an email, and it's, hey, my name is Katie, and I'm a fifth-grade teacher in Chesterfield. And I've got a bunch of students who would love to have pens or branded pens by your law firm. And we get a lot of emails, probably too many emails. And a lot of times some of them are spam and they're just, or they're who knows? They're asking for all types of stuff. And so for it took me a few minutes, and I was like, I don't know if I if this is legit. But I'm like, but she's asking for pens. And then I Googled her name and I was like, oh my gosh, she actually is a real teacher. She exists. She's at least listed on the school's website. And then our team managed to find some pens, put in the mail, and my hope is that your kids are in love with our gray broad injury law pens.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, they loved it. They would walk around with them like clipped to their shirt or in their pencil bag. But yeah, they loved them. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Little car salesmen's everywhere. That's right.

SPEAKER_03

That's right. We've got fifth graders running around making sure our brand is known, right? That's what we do here. So uh well, Katie, thank you for joining us. Before we get into it, why don't you uh take a minute or so and introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. So thank you for having me. I'm Katie, and I'm a teacher, and I'm 27.95 years old. I love being a teacher, and that's what brought me here.

SPEAKER_03

Teaching. So my wife was a kindergarten teacher, which is why our relationship tends to work. Um she was a thank you for allowing me. There you go. Um, my gosh, this is a hard job. I actually still remember the days when she was doing kindergarten and I mean weekends, doing all these craft type stuff. And like police officers, firefighters, other public servants, I think as a society we tend not to give them the credit that they deserve. And so it's not easy work, and I am confident that a room full of fifth graders would drive me out of a window.

SPEAKER_00

Sometimes it does, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

What I'd like to do to get this started is to take you back to 2020. You are finishing school, becoming a teacher, you get your first job, teaching in elementary school, and there's this thing called COVID.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Can I slow you down a little bit? You can. Okay, I'm gonna take you back a a little bit farther back to 1998. Just kidding, but a little bit, not really. Is that when you were born?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. All right. Based when I graduated college.

SPEAKER_00

That's when Bray was overseas fighting the fighting.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

When I was growing up, I was sort of lucky in the sense that I never had the the internal struggle of what am I gonna be when I grow up? Because I always knew I was gonna be a teacher. It was never, there was never like anything that spontaneously inspired me or something that I had thought about like literally ever since I can remember, it was always just, oh yeah, I'm gonna be a teacher when I grow up. Like, sure, I'll be a teacher. Okay, cool. And I've always loved little kids. Like when I was growing up, I was always going to the neighbors and asking to babysit, whatever. Knew I'm gonna be a teacher, which is nice because as I'm going through high school, I am presented opportunities like teacher cadet and tutoring and different clubs for educators and stuff like that. And then I get to college and I go to a really small school called McDaniel College, which we love McDaniel, go green terror. And then during my senior year of college, I start student teaching in January and January of 2020, and I love it. I'm having a great time. Then COVID happens. Everyone's like, what the heck is going on here? Obviously, we all were just praying that like it wasn't going to come to fruition the way that it did, but it did. March rolls around and we get the email that we're being sent home. And in our program at McDaniel, my graduating class was actually the very first class to have the elementary education major. Before that, it was only a minor, you had to major in something else. And so my graduating class was like the guinea pig class of the elementary ed majors. And so we were all like, how is this going to affect graduation and all of that? Well, for the rest of student teaching, we had to teach on Google Classroom, which was not really teaching. Like we were all just doing the best that we could. My mentor teacher put me in charge of science plans. So I just had to make a virtual science lesson and post it to the Google Classroom once a week.

SPEAKER_03

And what were the ages of the kids you're teaching then?

SPEAKER_00

This was second grade. So this was eight, seven, eight, nine-ish. That was hard in and of itself and also really scary for us as students because student teaching is like your time to be boots to the ground, really experiencing it day in, day out, like in the schedule of a real teacher would. And we didn't get that experience. So we already were going into the career. I mean, I can't speak for anyone else, but I was going into the career feeling like I was a step behind a little bit because I didn't have this experience that every other teacher got to have. And it made me nervous. But that was just sort of like the top of the water of what was going on underneath. Internally, I was really struggling with a lot of grief that was going on because, you know, literally my entire life, I'm like, I'm gonna be a teacher. This is my path. I know exactly what's happening. For me, it's gonna look like this and then this and then this and then this. But hey, just kidding. No, it's not. So there was a lot of grief involved in the sense that this very scary transition is not gonna look like what I thought it was gonna look like. And I'm scared, and I'm 21 and I'm scared. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You're still here though.

SPEAKER_00

True.

SPEAKER_03

You're still here, and you've got your own classroom now.

SPEAKER_00

I love my classroom. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03

Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so I graduate, I get a job teaching first grade. We start teaching virtually, and teaching first graders virtually, I can't even explain what that was like because they can't read yet. And a lot of my students had varying levels of English abilities, and so that added another layer of complicated. And so trying to teach them how to read and write on a computer that they don't know how to use. I actually I have a picture of me. This was me on like the first day of school. The the principal or the dean came and took this picture of me just trying to teach uh uh over the computer. I'm holding up a show that camera. I'm holding up a whiteboard to the to the laptop.

SPEAKER_03

And so we're uh uh presumably you were in the school. Yeah. Right? Yeah, and the students were at home, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

Got it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I was in the school and the students were at home, and and it was tricky because a lot of that at that school that it was a really working class school, and it was a Title I school, and so a lot of parents were working three, four jobs just to make ends meet, and so a lot of them couldn't be home to help support the kids and they're first graders and they need that support. And it was tricky. I was really burnt out. It was so hard. Like that was probably the hardest year of my whole life. And every day I went home and I was like, what was that?

SPEAKER_02

Were there a lot of absences if when you're talking about like parents being busy and having to or did they have somebody like a babysitter or there were certainly a lot of absences, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

There were. We just showed up and hoped that as many kids as could could show up, and halfway through kids would get disconnected and not know how to log back on. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_03

That's wild. Well, let's try and give our listeners an understanding of like what your day-to-day life looks like.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

And I recognize it's probably mayhem, but as a fifth grade teacher, what is it like?

SPEAKER_00

Well, so I am a little bit unique in my position. I feel like there are certain aspects of my personality that make my day-to-day life a little bit different than other students. And one of them is the fact that I have ADHD pretty severely. And part of that is like I can really hyper-focus on projects and stuff like that, and and also probably on the spectrum a little bit. And so I have a lot of different like sensory needs than other teachers. And so my classroom looks different than other classrooms. And I also don't have any kids. I have a significant other and I have a cat and a dog, but other than that, I don't have any kids. And so I have a lot more time in my schedule to devote to my career. And I love my career and I love what I do, and I want to be good at what I do. And so I do spend a lot of time outside of school doing school. So, for example, my school day starts at 9.10. I get there at 6:30 when the building opens because I love it. I love my classroom. I've worked very hard to make my classroom a comfortable, serene, calm space. There's comfy seating everywhere. We don't turn on the big light. We only use lamps. I have, oh my gosh, so many lamps, maybe 10 around my classroom.

SPEAKER_02

You sound like half of our office. Yeah. Yeah. No big lights. We have a big light team and we have the lamp team.

SPEAKER_00

Look, I'm not going to share the camera because there's student faces, but I can show you this. There that's like sort of the vibe of my classroom. Like there's LED lights everywhere.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Um, this was actually during college and career readiness month this year. Some VCU engineers came and did a presentation for my kids. And uh that was the picture from that. But I made my classroom a place where I want to spend my time and I'm comfortable, and I don't want it to feel like I'm just coming to work and then going home. And I want it to feel like a home away from home. So I get to work at 6:30 so I can have a nice, calm, slow morning, take my time, be prepared. Because if I start getting stressed or rushing in the morning, then it's really hard for me to calm my nervous system down from that. And I feel the most comfortable in my job and I do the best teaching when I'm calm and regulated and just going slow. And so that's why I get there super early. So I get there super early and I clean up anything that needs to get cleaned up. There's a lot of cleaning in a fifth grade classroom.

SPEAKER_03

I bet.

SPEAKER_00

Mm-hmm. There's a lot of cleaning in any grade classroom, but there's a lot of cleaning. I just pick up odds and ends and organize things and get my copies ready, and then I try and get that done uh in the morning, and then whatever extra time I have, that's my may do time. I have my must-dos, which is getting ready for the day, and then I have my may do's, which is my fun stuff, which is making bulletin boards and making posters and decorating the door and making cute coloring pages for them and making projects for them. And when I have time to do that in the morning, that's a good day. I love doing that. Then the kids come in and it's go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And go see.

SPEAKER_03

You can say chaos. You can say chaos. Yeah. How many kids do you have in your class?

SPEAKER_00

It's different every year. So my school is uh we started doing departmentalization. So I only teach language arts and social studies, which I love doing, and it made me fall in love with my career so much more that I was able to focus on that. And let me tell you, fifth grade social studies is really fun and interesting. But I have my homeroom class and then we switch with another teacher. So in my homeroom class, I usually have well, my administration likes to pair me up with some of the specialized programs in my school. We have IDP intensive day program, which is a program for kids with emotional, very high like emotional needs. Like they were taken out of their regular setting because they just need more support in that. And and then also like there's a a special needs classroom. And so the administration, I pair up with their teachers in their separated classroom. So they come into my room. So I had about 28 on my homeroom roster.

SPEAKER_03

Oh wow. And are you by yourself?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, most of the time. The kids from the other classrooms, they're not always with me. And sometimes when they're with me, they have a teacher, sometimes not. It just depends. But yeah, I I usually have between 24 and 28. And then in my switch class, I when we switch classes and I get someone else's homeroom kids to come in to learn language arts and social studies with me. Then it's usually about 21 to 24 kids.

SPEAKER_03

And when does your day end? So you're there, it's my understanding is you're there at 6:30 a.m. when the building opens. Your kids start coming in, what, around 9 or so?

SPEAKER_00

9-10.

SPEAKER_03

9-10 on the dot. Not 9-11, 9-10.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, no. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

If it was me, it'd probably be 9 15, but I'm pretty good at being late. It's a skill. Um and then when's your day over?

SPEAKER_00

Our contract hours end at 4 15.

SPEAKER_03

When is Katie Allen's day over?

SPEAKER_00

Depends on the day. If I had a really good day of teaching and I have a lot of energy left at the end of the day, then I'll usually stay after school and do some of those like morning tasks for the next morning the day before. Like, or I'll just do a project, or I'll work on like just something special because those like something specials are my favorite part of teaching. I love them. But some days, if I had a really rough day, like if it was hard and I just have no energy left whatsoever, then it's 415. I'm in my car. Peace out.

SPEAKER_05

What are the uh what are some of like special projects that you that you do?

SPEAKER_00

Thank you for asking.

SPEAKER_05

Please.

SPEAKER_00

Well, a lot of them have to do with like the decor in my classroom. Like I'm really big into decorating, and and I think that's one of the things about my personality that also sort of makes me unique in the sense that I'm very creative. I've always loved art and making projects. Are you familiar with Canva?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Me, me and Canva. We're like this. She's my girl.

SPEAKER_03

I didn't realize she had a gender.

SPEAKER_00

She does when I'm using her.

SPEAKER_03

Understood. All right. All right.

SPEAKER_00

So, anyways.

SPEAKER_03

Canva is an amazing tool.

SPEAKER_00

Heck yeah, and teachers get Canva Pro for free.

SPEAKER_03

That's awesome. There you go.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, it is. Oh, I take full advantage of Canva Pro for free. I like to I'll show you some of the stuff. So you know how I told you social studies is really fun to teach.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_00

So fifth grade social studies is all about the geography of continents. So the basic like types of land that make up each continent or like interesting facts about the continent. The mountain ranges, the oceans, the rivers, which might not sound super interesting, but the earth is so beautiful. So it is interesting. And I've learned so much sort of taking over the curriculum. Chesterfield gives us curriculum and they say, here's what you can teach. And then I look at it and I'm like, thank you. But you know, they're 10, right? And with 10-year-olds, especially in this day and age, they check out, they check out before you even hand them the assignment or the paper or the lesson. And so I have found that the best way to get students engagement and to get them into it with you is to make it colorful, to bring it to their level. And so one of the things I love doing is I love taking the curriculum that we're given and I like turning it into my own slides. It's still the same exact information, the same exact bullet points, but I add my own colorful flair and I love to include pictures of them in the slides and pictures of their pets and my pets. And so this right here is actually I have a picture of it's a screenshot from my computer. I was making slides on Canva Pro about North America. And not a sponsor. True. True. But Canva.

SPEAKER_03

I might give them a sponsorship if they give us a free uh Canva thing. Yeah, it's it can get a little pricey. Potential sponsor. Yeah. We all know Canva's listening, right?

SPEAKER_00

For sure, for sure. So I used my dog, Bug, and my cat, Cookie, because my students love Bug and Cookie. I put pictures of them in every single slide and I made task cards, and it's Bug and Cookie asking them every single question.

SPEAKER_02

That's cool.

SPEAKER_00

And this was one of my favorite lessons ever to teach. The kid, one of the kids came up to me and they were like, When we learn about South America, is it gonna look the same way? Are we gonna do this again sometime? And another kid had said, you know, I came to school today thinking it was just gonna be another boring day of school, but this was actually really fun. And I, you know, as a teacher, you can't get too excited. But so on the outside, I was just like, true. But on the inside, I was like, okay, I did it. Heck yeah. That's the best feeling ever.

SPEAKER_03

So let me dig into that.

SPEAKER_00

Sure.

SPEAKER_03

So what I'm hearing from you, at least what I think I'm hearing, is that you love your job.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Like without question.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_03

And what is it about it? Like, what is that feeling that you get when you see the work that you put into, let's say, the Canva project and you get that affirmation from your fifth grader who says, Man, I had a great day.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh. It's so, it's so fulfilling. And and for me, a lot of people say, you know, don't tie your identity into your career. And sure, for some people that might work for them. For me, a big part of my identity is being a teacher. Like I told you, I've literally been a teacher since I was born. Like that is what I knew I was going to do. It's what I did, it's what I'm doing, and I love it, and I'm good at it, and it's fun. And so when I have those successful moments, like, oh my gosh, it's just like all of me is just like whole in that moment. And it just makes all the hard moments, because like you said, teaching is very hard. And there are more harder moments than there are easier moments. And so those are the moments that you have to hold on to, and that's what you have to do it for. It just makes everything worth it, and it makes you forget about all of the struggles of the day that you've had or anything, but it's like a little moment of bliss.

SPEAKER_02

How often, just piggybacking off Sherry's question, how often do you put in all that work and then the kids kind of like don't even notice it or they just the nice thing about elementary school aged kids is there's always gonna be a handful that worship the ground that you walk on, which is fun.

SPEAKER_00

They're my little fan club. And so there's always kids coming in and they're like, Miss Katie, the bulletin board. Oh my gosh, it's different. I love it. And so most of the time there's always gonna be some consistent recognition, and and so that that is very nice. And and kids, while they can be very hard, they're also so sweet. They're kids, they're innocent. And so, yeah, there's always gonna be kids that do notice it, and there's definitely always gonna be kids that are just getting there to get back home.

SPEAKER_03

So, why do you do this? Said you're a born teacher, right? You love it. That's obvious, right? For sure. You're a workaholic, welcome to the club. So you're in great company. Uh what is it? Like why?

SPEAKER_00

I'm just good at it. No, but it's more than that.

SPEAKER_03

It's you're not just good at it.

SPEAKER_00

I like to do things I'm good at. I mean I'm successful and I get and I get, you know.

SPEAKER_03

Get the validation. Yeah. But why teaching?

SPEAKER_00

Because I really wouldn't know, I would be miserable doing anything else, literally anything else. I I've always thought about can I do something else? Because as you know, teachers' paychecks are not big. And I am struggling financially. I've always been struggling financially. I make ends meet, I pay my bills, I can, I do what I need to do, but I want more memory. But and so because of that, I've looked at other careers. And every time I think about it, I'm just like, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that either, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that either. Like teaching is really the only thing. It when you're a teacher, clearly you obviously don't do it for the paycheck. That's a given. But there's literally nothing else that I could or would do because there's nothing else that would fulfill me like teaching does. Like I genuinely am, I'm a very happy, I'm a very confident human being, and I'm very fulfilled. And I think any other career that I have, it I would be like, you know, not feeling that way.

SPEAKER_02

What differentiates you from the other teachers? Not to put your coworkers on the spot, but like if you when you say you're a good teacher, I'm good at it.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so what's every every teacher has moments of being a good teacher, every teacher has aspects of being a good teacher, and I certainly have my weaknesses as well. I'm I'm not gonna say that I'm perfect. However, I definitely have my faults and I make mistakes just like anybody else, but I wouldn't necessarily compare myself to other teachers because I cannot say what other teachers are doing right and wrong. That's their classroom, they're doing what what works for them, and I'm just doing what works for me. And I think that what works for me is over the past six years, I'm about to enter my seventh year of teaching. When I started teaching, and as I've gone through my career, I've built a A very strong foundation of trust. You have to trust yourself. Because most of teaching is thinking on the fly, reacting to things as they come up. Because kids will say stuff to you that you never expected to hear in your whole life. So you have to sit there and you have to react and you have to be the adult in the room in a situation that no one has trained you for. You would never expect to hear those words in your life. And so you have to trust yourself that you know how to handle it, even when you don't. And so I really do. I trust myself and I listen to my intuition. And like I said, I make mistakes. But that is a big part of what makes me a good teacher. And then also I'm I'm very confident in what I do. That goes with trusting myself. I'm confident in the classroom and I project that into my students and I give them the foundation for them to start being confident. I would try and act as a model for them to look up to and I try and speak in a way that I would want their inner voice to sound in their head. So that mixed with the creative aspects really works for me. And also being neurodivergent, like I talked about, I have really severe ADHD, which gives me a very unique lens, yeah, perspective or lens to look through as I'm teaching, because many students are neurodivergent themselves. And those students tend to be the ones that struggle the most in school because school's hard and it's hard to sit still. It's hard to be, it's hard to be a kid. We all know this. We've all been kids at some point in our lives. But being a neurodivergent teacher, I can empathize at a different level and understand what they're feeling and what's going on in their head a little bit more so than a neurotypical teacher. And it really has helped me. I think building relationships is one of the things that also is one of my strengths as a teacher is just getting to know, know the kids, know what they like, know what they're into. And that's one of the benefits of being 27.95 is that um I'm still pretty young for my career. And I am aware of all the trends. I'm on TikTok, I'm on Instagram, I'm like, I'm in the trenches. And so, you know, I know 6'7 before 6'7 even happens. So they hit me with it and I'm rolling with them, and they love that, and it's relatable for them. And so, you know, I will take advantage of that for as long as I can, and who knows how long that will be. I'm sure it will be a slow process, but for as long as I can keep relating to them, then that's what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_05

How does it make you feel when you connect with a child, especially one who for whom learning is difficult and and maybe they're neurodivergent, and you know, school is not easy for them. And you have one of those moments that you talked about earlier where things click and they're happy, and they're learning this material that's mandated by the county, and you're you're putting your own spin on it, you're doing creative things like having you know, Canva PowerPoint slides with you know cats and dogs and all sorts of different things. How does how does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_00

Well, a lot of the times that's just what I'm doing every day as I'm teaching. Like a lot of like how I react to someone, like I I try and teach through like a trauma-informed lens. Like a lot of, I mean, that's a very loaded question. Obviously, it feels very good, but every single student is so different. Every single child, every single human being is so different. And but every single time, you know, when you make that connection, like that really is what it's for. And I always try and be very reflective about my days. I'm always thinking about the school day and what went right and what went wrong. And sometimes I'll even like set my phone up and like record myself as I'm teaching so that way I can go home and I can listen to myself and hear how I sound. And sometimes when I do that, I'm like, oh, I could have been a little bit more patient or I could have been a little bit more calm, or that was hilarious. I need to use that one again.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And sometimes I'll pick up, I'll hear things that kids called out that I didn't hear in the moment. And I'm like, oh, that was so sweet, or oh, yikes. But you know, I am always just trying to think about what went right, what went wrong, what felt good, what didn't feel good, and then bring those aspects of myself into the next day. And so that way, hopefully, every day has a little bit more good than the day before. And sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it's the hardest day of my career. But even on those days, there's still at least one thing that went right, or you know, it doesn't erase all of the success that I've had up until that point. Every time, you know, I make that connection, I try and I pocket it. I take a snapshot and I try and pocket it for when I need it because you need it a lot.

SPEAKER_05

Are those instances what brings you back to being a teacher every year?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, what brings me back is just I just am a teacher just at my core. But those certainly help. And those are what I think about every year as I'm setting up my classroom for, you know, the seventh time, sixth time, fifth time. Like, and those are always I mean, every student, I'll remember every student forever. But when I get letters from students, I actually brought some printed out letters of that students have written me. But like when a student writes me a letter that says, You're why I love school, or I feel happy when I come to your classroom, or I had one kid write to me, said, I feel happy when I see you, and I and like that's just I'll remember that forever and ever and ever for my whole life. And I feel happy to see you too.

SPEAKER_03

If your students were to remember one thing about spending the year in your classroom, what do you hope that would be?

SPEAKER_00

I just hope that they remember that they were comfortable. I just want them to be comfortable.

SPEAKER_03

And why is that?

SPEAKER_00

Because it's it's hard to be a kid. School is hard, and for a lot of them, life is really hard. And you know, being a kid is so confusing. And yeah, it's joyous and it's fun, and and there's moments of bliss, but there's a lot of moments of struggle, and school inherently is tied to struggle because you have to struggle to grow. You have to fail to learn, right? And of course there's gonna be one or two kids that just get it, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it, grow, grow, grow. But that's not how it goes. And there's always gonna be struggle at school, as there should be. There needs to be productive struggle. And also, like I said, you know, you can't learn without making mistakes first. And so I just want them to uh feel like they were okay and they were comfortable and like they were safe, they had a safe space to uh land.

SPEAKER_03

I'll share a story I heard a number of years ago, and it's something that stuck with me, clearly because I remember it, but it's hypothetical, it's fictional, right? And uh, but I'm sure we've all seen this play out in some parts of our life. But that's a student teacher, he's teaching inner city uh school that's got children who they're going through a lot, right? They're in the classroom, and there's this one student who's clearly struggling. There's stuff going on at home, and there's just only so much this young teacher can do. Young teacher, student teacher goes to a mentor and says, Hey, like, what more can I do? Like, I don't know. Like, there's there's only so so much. And the mentor goes, Well, just buy him a coke. And the student teacher is like, Well, what do you mean, just buy him a coke? Like, what's that gonna do? Buy him a soft drink? Like, a soft drink's not gonna actually like make a difference, right? And then the mentor goes, you know what, like one day years from now, that child is gonna look back and they're gonna remember that you, for no reason other than just to be kind, went out of their way and bought them a coke and sat down and talked with them. And they will never forget that. And so what I'm hearing from you today is you have the secret ingredient that makes what you do work. It's that you, no, no, no, you do. Is that you care, right? And it's the same thing with what we do in our practice. At the end of the day, there's a and you you Katie Allen, no relation to Alan, Allen, Alan, Alan, Alan, right? But your father actually was a personal injury lawyer.

SPEAKER_04

True.

SPEAKER_03

And at least what we think, at least at our firm, is that if we as a team can show that the people that we have the privilege to representing that we genuinely care, not only does that hopefully give our clients a better experience, but when it's time for us to walk into that courtroom and to talk about our clients' story and to ask for for a result that recognizes what was taken from them at no fault of their own. If we truly care, that's contagious.

SPEAKER_00

To make others feel seen as the highest of rewards.

SPEAKER_03

Without question. Yeah. Without question. Now, on that note, many people have no idea what it's like to stand in a classroom with fifth graders. Most people have no idea what it's like to be a teacher at a school. What's the thing that you want our listeners who don't have that experience, who don't know much about the school system, especially here in Chesterfield County, right? Or in the Richmond metropolitan area. What would you want them to know or to take away from this?

SPEAKER_00

Teaching is hard. And I know I've talked a lot about the sparkly moments of it, but teaching is so hard day in and day out. And and your teachers are struggling, even the best ones, even the most successful ones, like give teachers some patience, please. You know, teachers, they go home and they have to deal with, you know, everything at home, and we don't make enough money. And we come to work every day and we teach and we forget about it, we try our best to forget about it, but you know, we are trying to make this huge difference, and we're still only people, we have our own struggles, and we're just trying the best that I'm just trying the best that I can. And and sometimes I win and sometimes I make mistakes, but trust your teachers and listen to them and cut them some slack because I'm doing the best I can with the resources that I'm given. You uh you have to be very creative as a teacher to make it work because we're like I said, not given the resources that we need. So help your teachers out.

SPEAKER_03

My wife, when she was a teacher, and I mean to this day, she is very supportive of teachers. She helps out at our kids' school and when she can. And the saying that she would say all the time was like, well, teachers who make every other profession possible, right? And so the importance of teaching uh certainly can't be understated. One thing we like to do when we close these things up is we like to ask our guests, you being one of them, like, how can we assist with your mission, with your school? How can we as a firm, how can we as a community, what are things that we can do? Okay, before besides just sending pens.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Before I answer that question, can I actually share a very, very quick anecdote that is a personal story that I have that your Coke story made me think of that?

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. And when I say Coke, I mean Coca-Cola.

SPEAKER_00

I figured.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

I had hoped.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. All right. You never know what's reason.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. So this actually happened during my fifth year of teaching. And I don't know why I had this, but I had an extra, I had gone to Chick-fil-A breakfast that morning, and for some reason I had an extra cup of ice. Like, I just had this cup of ice, and I'm pretty sure I just had gotten it to like pour into my water bottle at school. I can't even remember. But I remember it just sitting there and I was about to throw it away. And and one of my students goes, What are you gonna do with that? And I said, I don't know, just throw it away. And he said, Can I have it? And I said, You want this cup of ice? And he said, Yeah, can I have it, please? I looked at it and I was like, sure, knock yourself out. So he took it and he just started eating the ice, and I was like, Do you have a water bottle today? And he said, No. And I said, How about you go and you fill that up with water and you can use it as your water bottle today? And he literally was like, Oh my gosh, that's such a good idea. And and I really didn't think anything of it for the rest of the day. But that night I got an email from his mom, and she emailed me and she was like, student, I'm not gonna say his name, but I'll say Justin, because that's my brother's name. She was like, Justin came running in today with the biggest smile on his face. And he said that you're the coolest teacher in the whole wide world because you gave him your Chick-fil-A cup. And he said that he felt like so cool in that moment. And and I guess it just made his whole thing, he carried it around with him for the rest of the day. And I recently had reconnected with that mom a couple weeks ago during like the last week of school because she was substitute teaching for a teacher on my team. And she said that Justin still talks about the Chick-fil-a cup of ice that I just let him have. And and it's just those, like really just those small moments of connection that like you literally never know what is gonna click or work for a student, but it's just one of those sort of one of those trust your instincts kind of things like well, they have the fancy ice. They do it is delicious. I can't blame him. But now, whenever I, you know, think of a Chick-fil-a cup of ice, like it's just those little things that like, you know, I was just gonna throw it away.

SPEAKER_03

Think about the ripple effect. We actually talked about this in our very first episode, right? The the person who's serving ice cream, who does a good job, right? They're not selling ice cream or selling happiness or selling comfort. That Chick-fil-A cup wasn't just a new thing for that kid. It meant so much more. And what does it also mean for his mom? Right? And how does that change things? And yeah, maybe that made her day a little bit better, and maybe then she paid it for it in ways that you'll never know.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, she emailed me about it, which made my day better too. Like here was feedback from that, and then, you know, just keep it.

SPEAKER_03

So, how can this community help support your mission?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, here's what I would say, you know, in the tangible, right off the top of my head, is please don't ever throw pens or pencils away or any sort of office supply away. Call your local school or just bring it to the main office and be like, hey, I have a donation of office supplies. Whenever I see people like throwing away office supplies, it hurts my heart a little bit. But literally, like you might not think, you know, that a small little, you know, supply of office supplies would make a big difference. But sometimes there's a teacher that they're having the worst day, and all they need to do is see it like a little free notebook or a pencil or a pen in the teacher's lounge and and then it adds a little sparkle to their day, like the ripple. But the bigger answer to your question is I don't know, because I don't know how really, you know, people like working in a firm can help support, you know, schools and classrooms, other than that. But I really appreciate you, you know, giving me this platform to share my story. But listen to the teachers in your life. Let them let them rant to you about their day, let them tell you every single detail because they've been talking to children all day and they need to tell another adult all about it.

SPEAKER_02

Any events or volunteer opportunities that companies can get involved with?

SPEAKER_00

Well, you know what's fun and how I, you know, how I got connected with you is I I was emailing you about how I had was doing a bunch of stuff for college and career readiness month with my kids, and and I was asking for pens and pencils from colleges and businesses in the area so that way students can see these paths in their own hands because, you know, my students are gonna be the ones who are either uh your clients or your colleagues or your bosses one day. And, you know, for them to have the empowerment of seeing a pen or a pencil with a college logo or or a business logo in their hands in fifth grade. Like I just want them to see that this is a real path for them. And so I would love to invite you guys to my classroom next year during college and career readiness month to to talk to them. Just you could either just do a free solo like question and answers. Kids always will come up with a million questions if you give them the opportunity to, but talk to them about what it's like to be a lawyer, what was law school like, what was college like, just anything like that. They will eat it up and and it will make a difference. Like for this year, I had engineers from VCU come and do a presentation and and they had the kids do a little coding project, and then they just talked to them about what engineering school was like at VCU and what their life was like in college, and and they ate it up. Like I showed you that picture was from that day. Like that's like a hopefully a core memory that they'll take with them. But I would love for anybody from your firm to come and talk to them about law. Would you guys want to do that?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, absolutely. Cool. I I've got your contact. Well, before we end here, I mean, our hope is that we'll you'll this will have a real platform, right? Like that this episode will be listened to and watched by many. For those who, again, who aren't in your world, what do you want them to know about how they can help?

SPEAKER_00

Just patience in listening to them and advocate for teachers to get better salaries. Please help advocate for teachers to get better salaries. If there's ever something that comes up where your voice can be heard, just tell it. Keep spreading the word. Teachers need to get paid more money.

SPEAKER_03

Well, Katie Allen, it's been a pleasure having you. Thank you for joining us and look forward to staying in touch with you and hope your uh fifth graders love the pens.

SPEAKER_00

They do. And let me clarify: I'm not in it for the money. I don't need the money. I can pay my bills, but it wouldn't hurt to get a little bit more. Well, and they did love the pens.

SPEAKER_03

Money is symbolic for importance, right? Or recognizing priorities, and that's what we do in our job, right? We can't give people their health back, but we can say what was taken was important, and that means we're talking about a significant dollar value.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_03

And I do think there needs to be a come and time in in our country where we start putting some serious resources behind the things that matter most. Firefighters, police officers, military, teachers. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00

Especially with the teacher shortage. And there needs to be more teachers and there needs to be more support, and we can't do that without better resources. But thank you for having me. It was very nice talking to you. Thank you for listening to me tell my stories.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. Well, we'll stay in touch. Thank you, Katie.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks for listening to this episode of The People Who Make Virginia by Gray Broughton Injury Law. If we can ever be of help to you, give us a call at 877 VetsWin. That's 877 V E T S W I N.