Get out of Teaching

Season 2 Episode 2 Elizabeth interviews Andrea Logan (School Leadership Coach)

July 22, 2020 Elizabeth Diacos Season 2 Episode 2
Get out of Teaching
Season 2 Episode 2 Elizabeth interviews Andrea Logan (School Leadership Coach)
Show Notes Transcript

From Andrea herself:

While I always knew I wouldn’t be in the classroom forever, I didn’t know it would only take 17 short years to come to the conclusion that I needed to get out of teaching.  I thought maybe 20 years and then transition to an administrative role- it was a solid plan until the stress of the classroom started to cash in on my health and personal life.  

The journey out of teaching took much longer than I thought.  How would I make enough money to support my family? How would I honor all the time and resources I had put in to mastering my craft?  How would I do not being with the middle school aged kids I had grown to love?  I was lost and frustrated.  That was when I found the Get out of Teaching Facebook group.  It didn’t take me long to sign up for a clarity call with Elizabeth.  During the call, she helped me to see that there were ways that I could stretch my wings while still teaching - exactly what I needed to make all my ends meet.  After some time, and some trial and error, I landed my non-teaching role.  

Currently I am working on education, though not in the classroom.  Instead I provide consultation to schools in the State of Maine on how to maximize their resources for student supports.  This new role is my “day job” and now at night I have time to work on my side gig, Learn Lead Exceed - helping school leaders thrive in the waters of school administration.  I am so thankful that I found Get out of Teaching group, and for Elizabeth’s coaching and insight.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Welcome to season two of the Get Out of Teaching podcast presented by Larksong Enterprises. I'm your host, Elizabeth Diacos. In this season, we'll meet ex-teachers who have taken their hobbies and passions from outside of Education and created a new career for themselves. We'll talk to people who can support and inspire us as we make the transition and work on identifying the legacy we want to leave in the world. So come along for the ride as we Get Out of Teaching. Episode 2. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the show. On today's show, I'm very pleased to be speaking with Andrea Logan. Welcome, Andrea.

Andrea Logan :

Hi, thanks for having me.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Okay, Andrea, so I'm excited to hear your story. What got you into teaching in the first place?

Andrea Logan :

So I didn't actually start out in the field of Education. When I graduated with my Bachelor's degree back in 2002. It was actually in the field of Linguistics. And I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do with that. But while I was kind of exploring, I picked up a job at a special purpose private school here in Maine, in the United States. That was a language-based school for kids that were non-verbal. They live with autism. And so they needed people to come in and help work with these kids. And as I was doing the language recovery with these kids, I realized that it was really the teaching part that I really liked. And so eventually, within a couple of years, I found myself back at school, getting a master's degree in Education, because you need a Master's around here to to go anywhere, do anything with it. And I've been teaching ever since. So about, I'll total about 17 years.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Oh, wow. That's a good, good lengthy career, then...in Education that's pretty long.

Andrea Logan :

Yeah. And I started out with preschoolers and eventually I wound up doing a majority of my career in middle school with teaching, reading and writing. Language Arts in middle school.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Okay, so for 17 years, you basically taught the whole gamut, the whole, all year levels, or just the little kids and then the older kids?

Andrea Logan :

Just the little kids in the special purpose private school. And then when I left with my master's degree, I went right into middle school and stayed in middle school the rest of the time.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Okay.

Andrea Logan :

And my role changed a little bit as the 17 years went on. So, I found myself a Special Education Teacher for a couple of years, an Instructional Strategist for a couple of years, but primarily, I was a sixth and seventh grade Writing Teacher.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Okay. So what was your tipping point then that made you decide to leave Education?

Andrea Logan :

So, you know, I and I'll say that it wasn't the kids. You know, it really wasn't the kids. I really enjoyed being in the classroom and being with the kids. What it really came down to was the, really the momentum of the pendulum, like just the pendulum and Education that swings all the time. And you just never really know if you're coming or going. And you would, I would, we would spend, you know, all these years, in some cases, working on initiatives, and then nothing would ever come of them. And we were always being told that we weren't doing enough and we needed to change what we were doing. But we would have just started, you know, what we were doing. And I really found, unfortunately, that the administration was one of the biggest stressors and primarily the inability of the administrators that I worked with to really be able to lead with any kind of empathy, or compassion, their communication skills, like the soft skills. It honestly came down to the soft skills of the principles and just really eventually being tired of feeling like a battering ram in these schools. And so that was ultimately what got me to look elsewhere.

Elizabeth Diacos :

It's interesting that you talk about that pendulum swinging and all the initiatives that you have to learn about or you know, learn new language around or whatever. And then literally, nothing happens. I saw that happen. I was only teaching really for about eight years. And I saw I think I had three curriculum changes. And by the time they implemented the new one, in the arts, they'd already started the next one for English and Math. And by the time we caught up so we will always three years behind because they implemented in the core subjects first, it was so frustrating, and we never really got the benefit of any of those, those systems that they kept putting in place. So I totally understand and it's clearly an international issue.

Andrea Logan :

Yeah, I think it really is. You know, I've had an opportunity to be exposed to one school in San Francisco, California. That is they're actually a Charter School, they're a K-12 charter. school that stem. And so it stem-based, it's engineering-based, it's hands on project-based. And because of their status, they create their own plan their own curriculum, their own everything. And that's probably the only school I've ever been in that made me go, "Wow, this there is another way like there is another way to do this, there is a way to have a whole philosophy that everybody can buy into. And it doesn't change every time the wind blows, and, but it's just not the norm."

Elizabeth Diacos :

And so what made you leave that context?

Andrea Logan :

Well, that was actually, I came across that particular school through my graduate program. So in one of my doctoral classes, I had to identify a nonprofit that matched both my values as an educator, and where I saw myself going in the future, right. So I had to sort of like look and pick and choose different nonprofits and I came across Gever Tulley, who is the founder of Tinkering School, and Tinkering School is a, it's now a summer camp program. But it's what he created in his backyard, him and his wife. And the question was, you know, what would happen if we gave a bunch of eight year olds, real tools and real lumber and ask them to build stuff. And so it started off one summer in the backyard, and then just grew and grew and grew. And so during this program, I reached out and said, "Hey, you know, I've got to do this project, I have to interview someone that has started a nonprofit that matches my values. Would you do an interview with me?" And he was like, "yeah, I'll be glad to interview you. But I really think that you should just come to California and see what we do." And I said, "Well, I, I really can't do that. I'm a single mom, two kids. Like, I can't afford to come to California for a week." And he was like, "you figure out how to get here and I'll board you, room and board everything and you'll have a whole week with me and you'll get to see what we do and do what we do." And I was like "okay," so that was how I landed. In that context, it was really only meant to be temporary anyway, just to kind of see like what they do. And now I follow them on Instagram and I follow. I made friends and I follow all of them. And, you know, so I keep track of what's going on up there, but it's pretty remarkable what they're doing.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Sounds amazing. I feel like I've heard this story before. I don't think... but I don't think it wasn't when I interviewed you. I think I've I've spoken to someone else who's had a similar experience. Another teacher or? I have to...

Andrea Logan :

I wouldn't be surprised, Gever has done three TED Talks, and two of them were internationally so it's, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if there are others that were like, "Hey, I met this person. This is this is what I wound up doing."

Elizabeth Diacos :

Yeah. Wow. Sounds an amazing opportunity.

Andrea Logan :

It was.

Elizabeth Diacos :

But you did eventually decide to leave because of the pendulum thing. As you were leaving, what was your biggest fear around that? Like, what were you experiencing in that, at that time? So fairly recent for you.

Andrea Logan :

It is very recent. Yeah. So we're what we're at the end of June in 2020. And I left the classroom in, my last day was November 21st 2019. So it's only been about six months since I've been out of the classroom. And for me, what it really came down to was, was I going to be able to support myself? You know, I think I mentioned a few moments ago that, you know, I'm a single mom, I have two kids with me full time, I have no child support, anything like that. And so, and I happen so geographically speaking, Maine is a larger state, but we have one of the smallest populations in the country. So if you think of the number of people that are in Charlotte, North Carolina, we have as many people in Charlotte spread across our entire state. And so, but I happen to be fortunate enough to live in the southern part of the state where there is more population, there's more opportunity. And so I worked at one of the highest paying districts in the entire state, and I made just enough money to make my ends meet and be able to provide for my kids and keep a roof over my head and all those things. And so the thing that held me back the longest was, as I would look for other opportunities outside of teaching, I really found that there weren't many where I lived, that would meet all of the financial criteria. And so it took a little while to kind of figure out how I was going to meet the financial needs, but also meet the real need that I had to get out of my situation and into something that was going to be more more sustainable, you know, long term.

Elizabeth Diacos :

So, what was it? How did you actually overcome the fear that given that that was a major concern? And actually, I speak to a lot of female teachers who are in very similar circumstances. So this is not an uncommon situation. And then that's a valid concern. You have to be able to put a roof over your head, you have to be able to provide for your family. So what was it then? How did you get over that?

Andrea Logan :

So I'm going to say that I lived with it for a really long time. If I really look back, I knew that I wanted to get out of the classroom, probably a good - I want to say, two or three years, at least before like the urge really started to take over. And in that time, I looked around places like Facebook and Instagram for groups of people that had similar, you know, similar desires. One of the, one of the groups I came across was the Get Out of Teaching group and I spent a lot of time just like listening to other people's stories and figuring out like, and I really sort of built a camaraderie around myself and that helped me to get through and while I was looking, and I had an opportunity fall across my desk around this time last year, I was invited by the Maine Department of Education, their English Department to participate in a - it was a task force where there were about 25 of us. And the goal was we were going to revise and rewrite all of the reading and writing standards for the state of Maine. And so I was invited to join them as part of like a cohort of 20 people. And at the end of that, so we gave, gosh, I want to say about 35 or 40 hours of our summer to this project. And at the end of that, this job that I have now happened to fall into my lap, and when I looked at it, it had it had everything that I wanted, and I thought, you know, this might be the bridge that I've been looking for, because it offers the amount of money that I need. The schedule is considerably different from teaching, which was something that my kids and I had to get used to, but it was it was the right amount of money. And I thought the skills that I'm going to learn it's still Education based, but I'm not in the classroom anymore. So when I'm using my Education skills, but I'm also learning a whole bunch of new skills that I that I've never had before that I've had to learn. So really, it was just a matter of kind of gridding in for a while finding people that were like me so that I could help to get through and just keeping feelers out, and just really waiting for that one thing to come.

Elizabeth Diacos :

So what are you actually doing now? So what what does the day look like for you?

Andrea Logan :

So my official title here is, I am the Multi-tiered Systems of Support Specialist for the State of Maine. And what that means is if you've ever heard of RTI, like Response To Intervention or Positive Behavior Supports, I'm not sure what they would be called in the you know, in the UK or in Australia, but if you think of those, those systems that schools will often use to tier their interventions for kids, like that middle part between Special Education or Regular Education and Special Education. So my job is to is now to provide coaching and consulting to schools that are looking to improve on their integration of their systems of support to provide supports for kids. And so I'm actually, instead of being in the classroom and teaching, you know, 85 kids at a time, I'm providing support to over 250 districts across the state for schools that are looking to improve their practices. And it really is a good way to use some of the stuff that I learned in my master's degree program that I never actually got to use in the classroom, and also learn other skills as well.

Elizabeth Diacos :

So, so you're saying that's a lot of people then that you now are dealing with - what does that look like? Do you run seminars? Or do you go out?

Andrea Logan :

Oh, sure! Yep. I'm sorry, I didn't answer that part. Um, so a typical day for me, I want to say, is a lot of meetings. So I meet with a lot of people now and now I'm working pretty much exclusively with adults. So I have an office and in my office I have a I have a group of people around me. And we work as like a project team where we try to, you know, provide support for schools. And so I take meetings and I do coaching calls and things like that to those around the state that need it. But I also offer Online Professional Development and Online Training in schools, of course, COVID-19 changed the whole outlook, I should be doing these trainings in person in, you know, in like regional areas of the state where schools would come and gather in a region and they would get MTSS training. Or they could request me to come and do a half day training or a whole day training in their building. But that's not happening right now. So right now, it's happening all from my office space here in my house, where I'm providing zoom calls to schools. What's interesting the silver lining is that I'm actually reaching I think, more people from my living room through zoom than I would be if I were working in my office, at the Department of Ed, and only being able to go to one region per week, you know, around the state. So, you know, there is a little bit of a silver lining and the amount of people that I'm able to reach, but the rest of my time, when I'm not delivering trainings, or I'm not working on projects at the department, I'm just learning and reading and growing and providing, trying to answer questions and anticipate what kind of questions people are going to have, so that I have a, I have a solution for them, or something to consider. Like when they come to me with a certain problem, I can say, Oh, I have this that might help you or something like that. So I'm kind of more working as a problem solver now than I was, you know, when I was in the classroom,

Elizabeth Diacos :

So with that Covid situation where they're also not in the classroom, has that impacted much on your role?

Andrea Logan :

It really hasn't. We, um, other than not being able to work in the office and not being able to meet with people face to face. The Maine Department of Ed has been incredibly flexible with folks working from home and giving them the tools and supplies that they need to be able to still do their job with fidelity at home. So really, the only difference is that instead of meeting face to face, we're meeting through, you know, through technology instead.

Elizabeth Diacos :

So, with the teachers who were now teaching online, are they asking you for other support? That is different because they're in that online space? There must be, they can just mute a kid if they're screaming like, how is it different for them and how do you support that?

Andrea Logan :

So that's a very good question. I don't think anybody was prepared for RTI and PBIS through remote learning when when all of this started, and certainly there's very little training in that. The first thing I wound up doing is setting up a meeting with what a couple of the virtual academies that exist around the country to see, you know, how are you doing it? When you've got a student that struggles with meeting expectations or doing those things? How do you handle it? And kind of getting an idea of what was happening with folks that have already been doing it? My role is primarily to work at the - it's almost like a mezzo level, if you think of it, like the teachers are in the classroom, but then you have your, they have their student support team, which might be comprised of a few teachers and their administration and their school psychology and things like that. And so that's the group that I tend to be working with the most instead of directly with teachers. When we shut down my inbox filled up with how do we do RTI, you know, through the computer, how do we do PBIS through the computer and so, I provided some supports to teachers so that they could provide supports directly to families about how like specifically with the behavior stuff, like how they could set up a workspace for their student, you know, helping them do things like sticker charts and earning rewards and behavior contracts and things like that. So we were able to provide some behavioral support in that way. But like you're saying, you know, most teachers, if a student was acting out on the zoom, you know, they could be sent away from the zoom, you can't really get that. It's not you can't do that synchronous intervention the way you can, you know, in a classroom, but with the RTI stuff, because it is so data driven and mandated, it was much, much more difficult. So many, many schools had to do the best they could to find online programs and apps that would help a student that was struggling and, you know, in that kind of way, so I tried to provide as much support as I could, but again, I don't think anybody was truly prepared for what was asked of them at that time.

Elizabeth Diacos :

No way. Yeah. I think that's fair to say.

Andrea Logan :

Yeah.

Elizabeth Diacos :

So what what would you say? You said that you use some of the skills from your Masters, or some of the learning from your Masters? Can you tell us a bit more about that, that you brought into this new role?

Andrea Logan :

Sure. So a couple of the courses that I had to take in my Master's degree were like Pedagogical Courses, and how to put lessons together in units together and things like that. And those were all things that I used in the classroom as well. But I found that those were still skills that I could use to put together a course or a training for adults as well, too. So you know, that whole backward design, universal design, all of those sorts of skills I was able to bring with me to this new role because instead of teaching, you know, 12 year olds how to write essays I was teaching, you know, 40 year olds how to implement systems, but the backbone of the lesson design was the same. Also, I really felt like some of the skills that I got in like school law, and like special education law, and really how like federal programming works, like when you're in the classroom, you know that these things exist, but you're not really responsible for monitoring them, like, you know what's right and wrong. And there's a contract and, and you know, and you have to take data and collect data and things like that, but really knowing like the ins-and-outs of what a school is allowed to do versus what they don't have to do, which is versus what they have to. And so I had to kind of brush up a little bit on School Law and Special Education Law, but it was all in there. It just needed to, I just didn't use it in the same way. It's like Algebra, right? Like you had to have it. You know, who I got through another day without using Algebra? Well, that's kind of true except, you know, Algebra taught you how to problem solve, and that's, that's kind of where you're at where I'm at with that piece.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Okay, so I love that analogy. So what advice would you give to someone who's feeling stuck in their situation? They're worried about finances maybe or they're worried that they don't have the skills that they need to go into another role, what would you say to that?

Andrea Logan :

So I would say, utilize MOOCs, if you if you have access to the internet, then you have access to to those massive online free learning sorts of things. So like Coursera, edX, those are two that I can think of off the top of my head. And when I was not sure where I wanted to go, or what I wanted to do, or where I was going to land, I knew that I was going to need some skills. And so I would go on to like coursera.com and peruse some of the free courses that were available to me and I actually took it upon myself to take a few of these courses. So I was gaining some skills in some computer science and I was gaining a few skills in communication and speech writing and like things like that. And I did it all for free. And so I really tried to access whatever I could to gain something that I could bring to an interview. You know, I could say, well, I don't have experience in this, but I do have, I did complete this course in, you know, fill in the blank, to try to make my resume look a little bit more varied and robust. The other thing that I would say is just really just keep your feelers out. Don't let a week go by looking you know, don't let, don't let too much time go by because things will pop up and take opportunities that you don't think are going to lead to anything because you don't know when they're going to actually open a door... that I never would have seen this door ever. I would not have seen it if I hadn't been invited to participate in that task force because I wasn't checking the Department of Educations website. And then there I was. So I was really glad that I had taken the time out of my summer to do this. And then I wound up having the skills that I that I needed and getting the job.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Amazing. So just you were in the right place at the right time, but you were also - you created a situation for yourself that enabled you to be ready for those opportunities.

Andrea Logan :

Yeah, that's exactly what it was. I really had to figure out a way to balance, I was very methodical in terms of, I kept a journal. So whenever I would do a job search or like a, you know, like, let's see what's out there. I would take my journal and I would write down what I saw, I would write down, I would read the qualifications, you know, what qualifications does this job have? And then instead of looking at them and saying, Well, I don't have any of that. That was when I started to look for groups on Facebook or started looking for those free online classes that I could take and, you know, you can pay to get a completion certificate at edX or at, you know, at, you know, through Coursera. But you don't have to, you can audit the courses for free no matter what. And so what I would often do is if I found a job, that was not in Education that I thought, well, this might be cool, but I don't have X. If I was still interested in it, I would go and find something that would help give me at least some background knowledge and what it was that they were looking for. And eventually, something came along that worked out.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Fantastic. So if someone wanted to do what you're doing, where would they go to find that kind of job, do you think?

Andrea Logan :

So I would like, it, I would recommend looking at your, so I'm in the US. So if you're in the US, and I would start looking at your Department of Education. And so what I found was because the Department of Education is still in Education, so you have a lot of the skills and the background knowledge that you need. But it's office based, it's meetings, projects. Yeah, there's some state government that comes and goes and things like that you kind of have to be willing to navigate through. But if you're looking to make for a bridge of some kind, I wouldn't overlook state level, your state level Education Office, many of them have for instance, you know, many states are different sizes. So many of them will have offices in... that are at the county level or regional level, there might be an office that's in your city, and you don't even know that it's there. And so I would start there, and just start looking at all of the listings, anything that you think that you might be able to do even for a short amount of time, because I will say that there's a lot of, there's a lot of turnover where I work, but nobody leaves, they're always just going is a new position is created and so somebody will move into that position and then a new one opens up. And so if you get your foot in the door, it's a lot easier to move within the system. But I would I would recommend looking at your state level the Department's of Education, because many of them just require the same level of skills that a regular, like see, even like a health insurance office would want, but they want it through the Education lens, which you would already have, if you've been teaching.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Yeah, Okay. All right. So that sounds like some really helpful advice. I just want to hark back to something we talked about before we got on this, before we started having this conversation about the clarity call that you and I had, which was almost exactly one year ago. I know that was a while back, but can you just explain maybe to our listeners what that was about? Because sometimes people ask me what it is and I think it's always better someone who's experienced that can explain.

Andrea Logan :

Sure. So I don't remember how long I had been in the Get Out of Teaching group on Facebook, but you you often would post, you know, offers for 90 minute clarity calls. And I didn't jump on it at first because I was I was it was more of a "Oh, how much is that? Like, how much is that" and I was missing that it was a complimentary, right. And so then I thought when I finally figured out that these were complimentary calls, then I still didn't jump on because I didn't want to actually didn't want to waste your time because honestly, in a way, I was at a point where I wanted the coaching session, but I didn't actually think that I was in a position to actually do anything with it, you know, like I felt "Well, no matter what she says, I'm not going to be able to do this anyway because I am not going to be able to find anything that's going to meet my needs." But something in me just said, you know, it's coaching. Like let's just see what it is. And so, we scheduled the call and I don't, I don't know but the way that, what I experienced in that call was, you asked a lot of questions that got me really thinking about what the real root was of some of the things that I was saying, and you kind of didn't ever like, I don't want to say that what it was almost like it wasn't going to take no for an answer in a way. So like, I would say, "Well, I can't do that, because" and instead of you just being like, "Well, yeah, that makes sense. Let's move on to another topic," you would gently kind of ask questions that would dig down. And the next thing I know, I'd thought, "Well, you know, I didn't see it that way, or I didn't think about it that way." And so it truly did provide a clarity for me to kind of really look at what was causing me to say and believe the things that I was. And there was one thing that you said about, you know, what would it take if you knew you could bring your kids to Disney, you know, next year, you could I remember this conversation because I was saying that You know- What's driving me is the fact that I want to provide for my kids and I want to be able to take them on vacation. And in my current situation at the time, I was never going to be able to do that. Because, you know, school vacations, they jack the prices up, and that's when I'm available to go. And on my teacher salary, there was no way for me to be able to do that. And so you have some questions about well, what would it take to get you to look at you know, what, what would it take for you to do this? Or what would it take for you to do that? And I just got thinking, like, you know, there's really only about $10,000 a year, standing between, even just a little bit better of a quality of life that I wanted to be able to provide for my kids. And I just had to keep looking like I just couldn't take that no for an answer. And so you know, we're only six months in but already you know, we're thinking about you know, going to Disney, we were going to try to go this fall but it's not going to happen because too much going on but maybe next year. These are going to start to become realities. And my situation really didn't change all that much. I just changed my seat in the room. So instead of sitting in the teacher seat, I'm still in Education. I'm just sitting on the couch now and not in the recliner. And I'm seeing Education from a whole new angle.

Elizabeth Diacos :

I love that analogy. That's a wonderful analogy. Thank you for that. I'm really so very glad that that clarity call was helpful to you. Because, you know, it is it's 90 minutes, it's a long time. But on the other hand, I feel like it takes that long to really dig in and find out where the issues are, and what's the underlying issue that's really driving you or what's the underlying thinking that's driving your decisions.

Andrea Logan :

Right. And then there's always that worry, I think that it's going to be a sales call, it's going to be a sales pitch. And you were very clear that it's not I just want you to I just want to help you, you know, and then if that turns into a client then great and if it doesn't, that's okay, too. I you know, you were very clear about, um, about what your goals were, you know, through the clarity call. And so it was very, it was a very relaxed situation. I mean, it was way more conversational than, you know, it wasn't pushy or anything like that. And I just I really did find a lot of motivation and a lot of 'a-ha' moments that I thought about for many days after. And, and I just, I just decided that, you know, it wasn't a bad idea to just always ask, like, when I got that feeling of I can't well step back and ask myself, Well, why can't I? Or what would it look like if I could? And just try to try to paint new pictures around what things that I thought were barriers and figuring out if there was a different path around them. So the clarity call really did help me reframe, how to tackle perceived barriers and understand that many times they are perceived barriers that you can find a path around.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Love it. I love it. That's so articulate. I think I'm gonna have to get you on my sales team.

Andrea Logan :

(Laughs) I'll do that.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Okay, So I'm going to wrap this - Oh, actually two questions. Firstly, any regrets... you're out of the classroom now, any regrets about that?

Andrea Logan :

So I'm going to be 100% honest, I left in the middle of a school year and the, the tears that came out of those students were just gut-wrenching and there were moments where I did... within the first month I regretted it because I missed those kids. I missed them SO much. And I was dealing with a new longer commute, my children were adjusting to mom being gone longer hours, I was adjusting to living in a cubicle farm and missing my kids and I thought, Oh my gosh, I made the wrong choice. I made the wrong choice. And I did it for just a few more dollars, you know, in my paycheck, But once the initial shock wore off, and we found the new routines and we found the new things. And I found new ways to connect with my old students and through either their parents or I even did a guest story hour, you know, I made arrangements the principal. So I could go in and do some read aloud with my kids through the spring early went like late winter before things really shut down. And so again, I found another bridge like another pathway to kind of ease that transition. And now six months out, I have no regrets whatsoever, because I'm looking at making connections all around the United States, I'm looking at there are going to be so many more doors that are going to open so that when my youngest graduates high school, I really feel like I'm setting myself up at this point to to be able to take this wherever I want it to go if I want it to go somewhere else in the future. So I no longer feel pigeon holed, I do feel more free to see what else is going to be able to present itself. So no regrets.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Fantastic, and it sounds like maybe you should be going to Disney in Paris rather than in the States.

Andrea Logan :

I didn't even know there was a Disney in Paris.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. There's a Disney in Paris.

Andrea Logan :

Ohoh yeah, no. I will say though, that my, my elderly parents have always wanted to go to Ireland and I would love to be able to take them to Ireland and show them Ireland, they've always wanted to go. So maybe within maybe within two years, I can, I can do that for them.

Elizabeth Diacos :

What's your first step? What do you need to do first, in order to make that happen?

Andrea Logan :

I need to get a passport and I would need to get passports for them. Because I've never been out of the country. I could never... I never had the freedom to be able to make those choices for myself, so.

Elizabeth Diacos :

So, when will you do that?

Andrea Logan :

Um, I want to say that I'd like to present them with passports but, but I want to do it right when we're going to go, you know, or like just before so if my goal is to take them to Ireland, I want to be able to do it out of my own pocket. I don't want them to have to contribute. I want to say that realistically, that's 18 to 24 months from now. So by Christmas of 2021, I would like to start the process of getting passports and then by June, or May, I think October is what they said was the best time to go. So sometime between June and October of 2022. I want to take my parents to Ireland.

Elizabeth Diacos :

That's amazing. You better write that down somewhere.

Andrea Logan :

I already did.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Brilliant. All right.

Andrea Logan :

It's on my vision board!

Elizabeth Diacos :

Oh, excellent. So Andrea, just as we wrap this up today, what's the legacy that you want to leave in the world?

Andrea Logan :

Oh, gosh, um, you know, my doctoral work is in Leadership Communication. And I think that a lot can be said for how you talk to somebody and how you approach them through your language. And one of the things that, and this connects back to that clarity call too, is under you know, Listening, you know, asking questions to be curious, listening and responding. I think that there's a lack of that in our school principals, assistant principals. And so for me, I want to take the skills that I'm learning in my new job and my doctoral work that I'm doing for myself. And I want I want to help change the face of education by being a support system, and an opportunity for school leaders to realize that there are ways to make an impact in your work that don't require extra meetings and more emails and all these other kinds of things. You can do it through communication and relationships. And if I can help change a school or two, or even just a mind or two, in terms of being a better communicator, then that's where I want to go.

Elizabeth Diacos :

Andrea Logan, thank you so much for coming on the Get Out of Teaching podcast today and thank you for sharing your legacy story with us too.

Andrea Logan :

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. It was a, it was a pleasure.

Elizabeth Diacos :

You've been listening to the Get Out of Teaching podcast presented by Larksong Enterprises with your host Elizabeth Diacos. Do you know someone else who could benefit from hearing more stories of hope and transition from teachers all around the world? Please take a moment to share this and other episodes via your podcast app. Each share helps me reach listeners just like you who can benefit from this content. The Get Out of Teaching podcast is proud to be part of the Experts on Air Podcast Network. For show notes and other resources, please visit larksong.com.au/podcast.