Episode 79: Kristina Dumbeck

Episode 79 brings Kristina Dumbeck back to the Mic is Ahn Podcast to talk all things education.  Because we both teach high school students, we wanted to tackle all kinds of educational topics in a thorough manner.  Kristina and I talked a lot about the impact of technology in education, and how that affects relationship building, particularly in high school.  We also talk about teaching philosophy and parenting approaches, and how they intertwine with both of our lives.  We talk about building trusting relationships in the classroom, the greatness of cultural diversity, and things high schools focus too much and not enough on.  Kristina asks me a question about administration near the end, which results in hot opinions on that and how I compare each school year to a pregnancy.  Good times for sure.  Even if you don't teach I assure you Kristina is a wealth of knowledge and care.  Teachers like her deserve to be heard, and she is not to be missed.  Enjoy the summer by listening to Kristina and I together on The Mic is Ahn Podcast!

Kristina Dumbeck 

Instagram: kdumbeck

Podcast 

Email: themicisahn@gmail.com

Instagram: ahniebpe

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to The Mike Is On, episode number 79 with Christina Dumbeck. Welcome back, everybody. It is summertime here in 2026, and one guest that I definitely wanted to bring back to the podcast is Christina. We are here today to talk all about the state of education in high schools. Both of us being high school educators in the state of California, different subjects, you will hear us literally today in this interview go through everything. Now, you might be wondering, if I'm not an educator, would it be interesting? I am saying yes because we're gonna talk about what's actually going on right now. And this is education heavy because Christina was on the podcast once before in episode 59, actually, and she returns in episode 79 to talk fully about different issues that are happening today in education, both within the schools that we teach in and overall. So a large part is talking about technology and the impact on education and how actually there's a big movement to take tech away that's already started happening in other places. We talk about it a lot, and we go over, of course, AI a bit, teaching philosophies, parent approaches, building student relationships, which we both believe is pretty much the most important thing in education and in life. Talk about cultural diversity, our high school uh memories, a couple of questions about that, and then she asks me a question at the end about administration. I welcome you back to the podcast. Please enjoy this interview with Christina Dumbeck, English teacher, extraordinaire, down in the San Diego area. You'll hear all about everything with education and with her. And remember, you can always go back and listen to her first episode as well. Here we go. It's episode 79 of The Mic is On with Christina Dumbeck. All right, we are back. It is summertime of 2026, and I am here with somebody who was on the podcast, and I looked this morning before we uh started recording. Basically, it was three years ago, the summer of 2023, and this is Christina Dumbeck, and she and I, I will tell you, have known each other for 40 plus years. Uh so it's been a long time. But I wanted to have her back because I wanted to talk education but in depth, and she has been gracious and willing enough to come on. So, Christina, first of all, how are you doing? And did you think it had been three years since we had actually spoken?

SPEAKER_01 3:13

No, that's so crazy. I a total time warp. I had I actually kind of thought about it and I I really I was I wasn't able to even pinpoint when. I was like, what happened? Because I think that was like, so you say two 2023?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Summer of 2023.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

It's been three years. Okay. Um, you know, COVID just really messed up like the timeline for me totally. I I feel like I only know things like it's pre or post-COVID.

unknown 3:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

So I remember I was just I was just trying to puzzle that out. Like, wait, was that like during COVID? Was that after COVID?

unknown 3:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

I couldn't figure it out. And after COVID, and that's the thing is this morning when I looked, I was like, oh, it was three years ago. I thought maybe two years ago. I couldn't remember for sure, because time does fly, especially in the education profession. So in the earlier episode that Christina and I did, we talked about literally how she became a teacher. Let me just give you a uh quick synopsis and then she's gonna tell you where she is at and has been. So we both came to teaching, not initially right out of college. For me, I was 28 when I first started teaching. I'll let her tell you if she wants to tell you the age that she was or she is. And in the previous episode, we talked all about the path that she took and how I mentioned that I knew she'd be a great teacher. She remarked that I was maybe calling her bossy because of when we used to play teacher in school growing up. Because Christina lived across the street from me for or we lived across the street from each other for uh three to five years. I don't know exactly how long it was, but something like that. Okay, so tell us where you are teaching, how long you have been there, and then what uh subject matters you have best m been most recently teaching.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Okay. So I'm I teach uh Mission Vista High School, which is in the Vista School District, but interestingly enough, it's in Oceanside uh City, physically located there, but it's it's so I live in Oceanside, which is in the very north part of like San Diego County. Um, kind of kind of on the more on the coast side. And so, you know, I'm fortunate that I live, you know, really kind of near. I have like a 15-minute commute in the morning. I'm pretty close. And I teach English. I've been okay, I've been there for 13 years, finished my 13th year at Mission Vista and I teach English mostly seniors right now. So I this past year and going into the next year, I teach English 12 and AP Lit, which is also offered to seniors at our school. So two senior English level classes. I teach yearbook and we're on a four by four, so that's kind of tricky because I get two sets of students, right? We have like one term and then we start a new term in the, you know, in the spring. So I've got yearbook year round, and then I teach a class called um senior capstone, which is offered only to seniors, and it is sort of an independent study. Students have a project and they work on that for like one semester in the spring, and then they showcase it. And what else do I teach now? Last year I taught a class called um College Apps, which is just a class devoted to like applying for college and getting all your college app stuff done. But I didn't do, I didn't, I'm not doing that next year. Yeah. It's changed a lot from year to year.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Okay, you said some things that are really interesting because I'm gonna give my background too. So, Mission Vista, how many students at your school?

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Ooh, how many students do we have? 1700?

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Okay, so this is perfect. So I teach at Northgate High School. I've talked about this many times. Our school is between 15 and 1600, so almost the same size. Our school, now Christina mentioned four by four. Now it's not in and out, and you're not gonna understand what that even means. If you are in a normal situation at school, I live I teach in a normal school where we do just six straight periods for the whole year. When she says four by four, that means they kind of switch classes like you would in college. Every school district does a little bit different things. Right. We have a senior project in our senior English classes, which they do during the second semester, which is it's our capstone for seniors for English. So our schools are pretty similar in what we're doing for English. We, of course, have AP LIT as well. We don't have the college apps class, but I wanted everyone to get the background to understand that Christina's used to dealing with the older set of high school students. Now we we love all high school students, we're gonna talk about that in depth a little bit today. But we've both been teaching at our schools for quite a while. She's been 13 years now teaching uh in high school. I just finished 23, so I guess I was 10 ahead of her from we began. We began. All that being said, now we're here in summer, so it's gonna be your 14th year, but I want to delve into your personal mindset of how you do things because I'm interested in knowing this. So when you get ready to start a new year, what are what are things that you do consistently to prepare yourself mentally for each class that you're going to see? And does it change by the subject you are teaching? Now, yes, your book's different, but overall mentally, so when we get close to school, I think you guys begin in August as well. Mentally, what do you do to prepare yourself?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Well, I'm gonna be honest, I'm not proud of this, but I do a lot of work in the summer. I do a lot of work in the summer. I am not one of those I don't know if it's because I I mean I've I analyze this a lot. I'm like, is it because I'm Gen X? I'm a different generation. You know, I work with a lot of younger teachers. They seem like they're so smart about like keeping work at work and having their life at home. I am not that teacher. I do a lot of work in the summer. I am reading anything new that I'm gonna teach, I have to, you know, I have to read it, I have to be familiar with it. Because I teach English. So for anything literature, you know, even if I've read it before and I know it, I have to do a reread, I have to, I have to unpack it, I have to, you know, and we freshen up our curriculum a lot. I have always changed it up quite a bit from year to year, even sometimes from term to term, just because you know, world the world changes, kids change, my interests change. I'm learning all the time, so I'm like, oh, I think this would be better, this would be more relevant. So I I do a lot of work. I've I spent almost all of June, um, I would say every day, doing some work on curriculum. I mean, now sometimes that's really just reading. Okay, it's just doing a close reading and I'm kind of studying because I've been I'm getting ready to teach Frankenstein. So I've been reading Frankenstein, and we can talk about that more later because I invited my boomer parents into a little book club with me. That's been fun. It's been really fun. So, you know, I'm every day kind of like basically doing a little bit of work. That's like work work though. That's like curriculum development and actually like putting stuff together. Mentally, how do I prepare myself? That is something I really struggle with because I really think mentally what will make me better prepared to be a good teacher and to like take on the year is to rest, you know, is to like chill out and just like be outside and just relax and like forget about things. And I'm not very good at that. So I am trying deliberately to just like really give myself time to just like read something for pleasure, sit outside in the backyard, you know, be at the beach, go on some hikes with my daughter, you know, just just unplug because it's sometimes in that space that I really find I have like these like revelatory moments where I'm like, boom, oh, I just had this insight. This is totally what I want to share with my kids, or this is how I want to, you know, set up my classroom next year. This is the kind of thing I want the focus to be. You know, those like really big, kind of profound insights, they happen when I'm more chilled out, you know. So I'm really trying to like balance things out and just be more chilled out because it's that's as much as that's as important to the work as doing the work. Um it's just that I'm just I'm not really wired that way, you know. I'm just never like, oh my God, I have to get ready, I have to get ready, I have to keep doing this stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Right. Well, and and there's a couple things that come from your answer. Number one, people think that are outside education, right? So we're not talking to educators that are in the public system or even the private system. Outside, people think, oh man, you get the summer, you get all this time, and whatever. And then when you explain to people, so our district is three days that you have before the school year begins that you are are essentially on the clock for, right? There's a day of meetings with the district, there's a day of meetings with your school, and one day, one paid day. And so when you try to explain this, right. So when you try to explain this to people, you're like, look, there's no teachers, essentially, that just come in one day before school and go, okay, let's get it all ready. There might be somewhere, obviously, they're not great, that's not great.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Yeah, there are teachers that do that, but they're not the ones you want.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

But the concept is do whatever you need to do in the summer. We'll see you back here in August, but you really only have one day that you're given.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

It's impossible. Right. It's impossible. There's no way. I mean, even in the school year, you have one prep period, right? Some people don't even have that, you know. I mean, I've been in that position before, too. I mean, you get one prep period, which is depending on your school schedule, right? Your Bell schedule. For me, that's like 90 minutes. Um, so better than 45 minutes, right? Which is what it is at some schools.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah. It's impossible. It is impossible to get your feedback, to get your scoring, to get your grading, to get your notes, to get your head around what's coming up next. You're doing the next period. And to plan the week, the day, the lesson, the unit, the year. You know, it's impossible. It's to answer the phone calls, to respond to the emails, to, you know, the parents, to do those check-ins with the other teachers, the librarian, the office staff, the whatever all those things are you have to do, it's impossible to do that in that 45 to 90 minutes in a day. There's no way.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

And every subject is different. Like I say, people look at us for PE and I'll say, like, look, the things that we deal with are different than you're probably dealing with in any other area. If you say, okay, I have this time to do this or to try to do something, there's going to be somebody who doesn't know their locker combination. There's going to be some issue always, like literally every day. And so the whole concept is we're not trying to tell you how hard this is. I just want to make sure people understand going in, like, it's really hard, as Christina was saying, to unplug completely. And I look at it like it's a season. It's easier for me to think of things as a season, like if it was a baseball season or a football or basketball season. We have our off season, which is now, but you're still doing some things to mentally prepare yourself. I know there's certain things I have to do in the summer. You're saying the same thing as far as preparation, so you don't feel like you're out of sorts when the year begins. But now I want to go, okay. So because you are a mostly senior teacher, most of the students, when you have them, will have either heard of you or have siblings that had you or have seen you around. And yearbook, like I say, yearbook separate. But when they first come into your classroom on that first day, how do you structure yourself? Do you just say, I'm just gonna be myself always? They will hear my personality and see it come in. Do you try to come in stronger at all at the beginning of the year, or is it just straight, this is me, and you you're gonna see your personal self come out from day one?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You mean like how some teachers kind of come in with the like, I'm gonna lay it law and order, get it, get it all ship shape, yeah, and then you'll see the nice me later. Yeah, no, I don't do that. I don't do that. My teachers or my students do come in a lot of them knowing me from around campus, knowing me from yearbook, or knowing me from a sibling. They know me kind of. They know who I am, they know my reputation and stuff. So I don't try to do anything different than really just be consistently who I am. I run a lot of clubs. I have like six clubs. I know a lot of kids just that aren't even in my class. So I just am who I am and and I am known for being kind of like a chill teacher. I'm pretty easygoing, I'm pretty flexible, you know, which you know isn't always great because they do sometimes try to like, oh, I had to do all my work for my other teacher because they're really hardcore. But like, I sorry, I slacked off on your class. So I do get some of that, but also kind of connecting to the my experiences coming into teaching as a mom of teenagers. I really have a different perspective than some teachers who don't have children or who have younger kids and don't haven't had that experience. I have a different, I think, just like attitude about what the students should be doing with their life and what they're, you know, house. I am pretty real with them. I am pretty real with them. But at the same time, I find that it doesn't, it doesn't hurt anything because there's a lot of mutual respect. And I feel like when they know that like I'm pretty real, I'm pretty reasonable, I really do care about you and want you to be successful, you know, don't screw me over, don't take advantage of that, don't be a jerk, right? And most of the time they aren't. They really aren't. I mean, they make mistakes and whatever, and they can be sloppy, but for the most part, like they do kind of like mutually like rise to the occasion. It's like, okay, you're pretty cool and you're gonna work with me. So I'm gonna really try to do my best to like comply with what makes this work. So I have just found that works for me. And so that's what I do. Yeah. I don't try to be like, I will say though, that on certain things, like every year at the start of the year, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be way stricter about phones. Okay, or I'm gonna be, I'm gonna lock it down on the phone. There's certain like I'll have these little things that have bugged me from the year before. And I'm like, okay, no nonsense on this one, no food, right? Like, I'm sick of your trash in here, and I'll get all strict for like, you know, a couple of weeks, and then I'm like, whatever. I just I guess that one, it's more of a mom thing. I feel like that's more of a mom thing that happens to me, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

See, our our phone situation, we had yonder pouches this year. In fact, our whole district.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Did you like that? Because I kind of wish we had that.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

It was fine. Now, in PE, I I will say this in PE, it's not ever been as big of an issue, anyways, because kids aren't gonna really bring their phones to class because if you're dressed out, or you know, you're doing a fall out, anyways. But as a school, there's gonna be complaints always. Some people are gonna complain just to complain, as we know, students, teachers, and families, parents, yeah. But much more of uh conversation, right? Now that leads you into you get a little bit more um of face-to-face uh situations that happen, which is to me still better than typing, I'm gonna do this to you, and or saying bad things about the people. So, you know, the state, I don't know what they're gonna do at your school, but now the big thing is the state, everyone has to have a plan. It doesn't have to include yonder pouches. But I think it's a positive just because of things it takes away from in the other classes. Like I said, PE doesn't take you can't cheat in PE because you looked at your phone. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, in other classes, it is a much bigger issue or or subjects, I should say.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Um yeah, I mean, well, we have a plan at our school. There's no phones out in the classroom, we have the pouches, we have the, you know, and different teachers have different kind of ways of handling that, blah, blah, blah. It's still something that I feel like in the classroom, the teacher is having to police it, the teacher is having to manage it. That I resent. I do, I do say I have a problem with that because I I teach English. It is a beast, okay? It's a beast. I mean, I'm making kids do things every day that they don't want to do, you know, and that they, even though they might be interested in it, there's other things that are more interesting. You know, it's just, it's a struggle. The engagement thing is like I'm I'm working my butt off every day to be interesting and engaging and keep us busy and put things in chunks and bite sizes so it's manageable and give you the buy-in, like, why this matter? You know, I'm just putting so much energy into that. And kids are so drawn to that just scrolly thing or or or the cheating thing or whatever it is. So it's essential. I think we know now, like, okay, this is really a distraction and really detrimental to learning. And so, you know, for two years now, we've really had the pouch thing going and the phones, no phones in the classroom. But I still have to manage it. I still have to manage that. And that is something that I don't have time for. You know, so we I we could talk for hours about sort of the things I've done, the things I would do different, blah, blah, blah. But even without the phones, I will say, because the kids, our our our kids have gotten better at like the culture now is okay, the phones aren't out and it's gonna get taken to the office, and then you're gonna be with, you know, they they've kind of gotten a lot better, but the computers are still a problem. The computers are still a massive problem. So we can talk about technology. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

So this was gonna think this is one of the hot topics I wanted to hit because this is something that is happening right now, not just in California, but around the nation. So we went through a time frame where everybody was concerned, and this is we can say pre-COVID, post-come, pre-COVID. Let's say it was in the 2010s, and everyone said, You have to be up to date on technology, you gotta get screens in front of these kids. They need iPads, they need what whatever it may be, at whatever level, whatever state, whatever school you're in, private or public or charter. You gotta have the best technology.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

And then 21st century skills, like you gotta get them prepared. Prepare for the future.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

And during COVID, of course, that was helpful because we had Zoom and and it did allow good things. However, now the deal that is happening all over the place, and some states have already dealt with it, is oh wait, we need pencil and paper back because kids are not learning how to write. They are not fully reading because when you read a screen, it's different. Once again, this is not a strictly, well, it's really not a PE thing at all, and it's not just an English thing, but this is overall, and this is not just at high school level. You mentioned it. You said it. Computers are a problem.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Give me the breakdown of your feeling on that, and then we can kind of talk about how important this is really, probably for the next five years.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I came into teaching, okay, so I came in a little after you. I was, I am 53 now. I had to think about it because I'm like, uh, what how old am I? You know, the numbers blur together.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

We're both in our 50s, just in case more.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Okay. So 53 now, I got my credential when I was 40. Okay. So, and I was doing, you know, some substitute teaching and I was doing some part-time teaching, and then, you know, and then I worked at a different high school before this one. So that's kind of my route. But when I came into teaching, it was right at that sort of like just that push, right? Like technology, technology, technology. You know, and I'm a Gen Z. So technology was, you know, happening kind of to me. I'm an adult and like there's all of a sudden there's an internet. Okay, okay, what? And oh, now we have computer, right? So catching up to all of this, you know, which is interesting because I just recently read something about how people kind of like have these different perceived attitudes about the pros and cons of technology based on what age they are when the technology enters their life, right? And so for the most part, if it enters your life before you're 35, you're like, okay, you know, I can maybe I can get a job in this kind of this kind of like I can deal with this. And after 35, it's like, um, this is unnatural. This is foreign. This is this shouldn't be this way. What's going on? Right? The world's going. So I'm kind of right there, right? But I'm a teacher and I've just got my credential and I'm like ready to learn and I'm excited and also intimidated. So I'm just, I dive in, right? I'm like, oh my God, I have to gobble this stuff up. I have to learn all this technology. And, you know, this is when you take your students to the computer lab for the day, and it's like, woohoo, we're doing a tech day, guys. We're in the computer lab. We're gonna like do our stuff on the computer. What? You know, so I try I embraced it. I was like, okay, this is the this is the deal. I'm gonna go for it. So I tried to like learn all the apps and do all the things and really become like, you know, a sponge about it. And I'm not honestly a technologically like savvy person. I don't really enjoy technology. I've never, I surprising because you know my dad, and he like missed a computer came out and he was gonna get the first computer there is and figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Our fathers were very similar in that. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

And even my sister was kind of an early gamer and kind of got into that. I never really did, I was not interested in technology, it never really was my thing. So that was kind of foreign to me. I I pushed myself in that direction. So I I struggle with it because it's not natural, it's not native to me, and it's not my interest, but I I got on board. But I always kind of felt this little nigga niggling thing in the back of my mind like, is it better? Is it making it better? Like it seems cool or whatever, or it's interesting, or you know, I got the concept of like for engagement purposes. Okay, let's let's get the kids interested. They're interested in technology, let's let's lure them in with this. But then after a while, it's like, but but then what, right? Like, I'm I still have to teach them to read. I still have to teach them to write. Like that stuff still happens the same way it always did.

unknown 25:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

And your subject writing, thinking in my subject is the most affected, I would say, by the use of technology.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

It's been tremendously impacted, right? And there was a time where I was like, okay, cool, publishing, right? Let's get into web publishing, let's get into web pages, let's do blogging. Yes, let's, because that is part of the world, right? Journalism, it's like everything's digital now. So yes, let's learn how to use these tools, let's publish. But you know what? The storytelling, the writing, the tropes, the movements, the plots, the symbols, the all the themes, all that stuff hasn't changed. It's just life, it's stories, it's thinking, it's language. So, in a way, you I could feel this happening as we were going with this technology. That's like some of the stuff is just bells and whistles, some of it is just gamification of everything. And I could see that it's like it's not great because it's almost like the kids aren't gonna do anything unless it has some kind of like point thing with it or some flashy, you know, visual thing with it. It's pretty soon, it just becomes about the technology and not about the stuff I'm really teaching, you know. So I I have had a beef with technology. Like I tried to really embrace it and get into it. And of course I've been using it. After COVID, everybody's one-to-one device. We've, you know, they've they've got to have their computers now, right? Before that, it was kind of creeping in. It was like, let's get as close as we can get to having the kids on the computers all day. But even around then, even before COVID, I was really starting to get like bothered by it. I was like, we don't need them all the time. You know, sometimes we're gonna be on the computer, sometimes we're gonna use it. It's useful for sure. I'm not like a Luddite, but I'm it's you can open you can crack a book, people. Like there's a thing that's called a book. It has pages. You turn the pages, you put your eyeballs on the words. That's how it works.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

And the funny thing, the funny thing is, I think that the the beginning of this movement now to pencil and paper is back in the elementary level. Because those were the parents that were the most concerned. Like, oh, we need to be up to technology. I want my son or daughter learning if they're in third grade or fourth grade. They need to be doing everything tech. Okay, great. And now there's people realizing the kids can't write. They might be able to type, they might be able to type, they literally can't write.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Well, they can't type either, they have a tech.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

I I or they can't read right because the reading of a book where you have to turn a page is so different than reading of an article, and it's shocking how many people, and adults included here, and I'm talking about people our age and younger and even older. They won't read long articles online. I I do because I'm weird, and I just do that, right? Like, but it's not the same as reading a book or or doing that work. And so for you, are there changes you've made or are making to involve more of actual reading and writing, or is it depends on the year in the class?

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Um, totally. Yes, I'm making changes, but I would say that a lot of the changes I am making, I started making quite a quite a while ago. Because, like I'm saying, I like just intuitively was just feeling like, you know, some of this technology is just distracting. When they're on a computer, they're not listening to me, they're not listening to each other, and they're not engaged with what we're doing. They're on the computer, right? And kids think they can multitask, but they really can't, you know, it's task switching, right? They're just going back and forth. So they're distracted already. So I just started kind of like really asking myself a while ago. I would say COVID forced us on the computers, and that was where it really like started to like feel super wrong to me. When we started to come back, I was like, I'm only putting us on the computers when we have to be on the computers. Like when we need to be, we'll be on it. And so my students come in the classroom, boom, pop open their computers instantly. You know, especially because when the phones got taken away, boom, out comes my computer, right? And I'm like, nope, put it away. You we don't need them today. Guess what? We don't need them today. Guess what? Next day, we still don't need them. Guess what? We're still not using the computers, like we don't need them that much. So I just really started having this kind of guiding principle of like, let's use it when it's actually helpful to something that we're doing, not just for the sake of convenience, because it's easier for me to like load it up here or, you know, because it is easier in a lot of ways sometimes to just make assignments on Canvas and and move on with, you know, it's like it's there, do your thing. I just feel like it's a barrier. I feel like it's a barrier between me and my students, and it's a barrier between them and each other. So sometimes there are technologies that can bring people together and you're collabbing and working on the same document. You know, there's there's so much stuff out there that can be great. And I want to use that stuff when it's useful to what we're doing. But, you know, there's also just a just a piece of paper writing stuff on paper, talking to each other, and me being able to circulate around and poke in and go, Oh, yeah, yeah, I see what you guys are doing here. Oh, isn't that interesting? Or, you know, just relating to each other. You know, a huge, massive, massive part of my teaching strength, I think, is just and most teachers, you know, honestly, is relationship. I mean, it's relationship, it's just me relating to my students. I'm so excited about literature, I'm so excited about writing and and reading. I am such a nerd about it. I love it. I can't get enough of it. I'm doing a book group with my parents, like, because I have fun with it. And that's my winning formula with my students is like, it's legit. I really, really love this stuff. And I feel like it's giving me a better life. So I'm trying to offer that to them. The computer doesn't help me with that very much, right? It it mostly interferes with that. So so let you know, so yeah, what I'm doing is way more stuff on paper, right? Way more stuff, and I mean they'll complain. They're like, Oh, my hand is so handwriting something, a senior trying to handwrite an essay. Oh my God, the whining, right? Like, oh, my hand is tired. Um, I'm like, Yeah, you got no muscles in that. Back in the day, I had calluses on my fingers, okay? I mean, I had a good old muscle for handwriting essays. Um, and I'm not suggesting everything has to be handwritten, but I have been doing to sort of validate myself to justify my own impulse to do this more on paper, more handwriting, slowing things down. I've started doing more research because I was like, am I just like, is this just a gut feeling I have? And I'm just being like a semi-boomer about it and you know, getting all old fashioned. So I started doing research last summer about like reading in the brain. What's the difference between reading on paper and reading online or listening to something auditory, you know, audiobooks? There's a big difference. There's a big difference in what's happening in our brain. And the research is coming out that shows a big difference in the way we even write on paper and write online. And then not to mention AI coming into it and and coaching us on how to write. So now that I really started to like get an education about it, right? Not just my own gut instincts, I'm almost like preaching it now. It's almost like my religion. It's like if you care about reversing the brain rot that we all have now, right? It's just comes with the phones. If you care about your brain, if you care about your mind, if you care about imagination, if you care about like, what am I capable of? What who am I inside? You know, what what is this experience? I want to, if you care about that, then reading and writing and slowing things down is one massive thing you can do, right? To preserve that, to protect your just your mind. Um, I'm gonna have my students do a lot more stuff on paper. And not everything. I mean, we're gonna type stuff, yeah. We're gonna publish stuff. I teach yearbook. It's all that's all on digital, right? We're gonna do a lot of that stuff, but we're gonna use it as a tool when we need the tool, and we're gonna put human stuff first. Yes, because that's what matters.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Well, and and let me take this outside, like to regular everyday life. So anybody who would say, Well, no, no, you should do still all the stuff on screens. I'd be like, All right, here's the deal. How many jobs that you come in contact with don't need conversation, right? So, yes, there are some jobs where you could be at a computer all day. Those aren't initially considered the higher jobs that people would really strive to get. Most of the jobs people are striving for, when you hear them say doctor or lawyer, well, that's not going to be behind a computer all day long, right? You have to have the art of conversation. Even if you're doing beginning level jobs, if you're a server at a restaurant, if you're working at a convenience store, if you're at a library, wherever, all of those things are you have to be able to conversate back and forth with people, not necessarily writing pen on paper, but it's not just screen. So I think that there became like you mentioned, there became there came a time where people, it's like we need this, we need this, we need this, we need this. But actually, how much do we really need it?

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Do we really need it? I mean, and honestly, if you look at like, you know, now with AI being just integrated into everything, it's it's it's behind, it's it's in everything, it's in more things than we are even aware of, right? It's just sort of running things in the background. What is it that humans have and can do that those algorithms can't quite do, or maybe hopefully can never really do, right? So what is it that the human being kind of offers? And I think that's really the new territory that needs to be explored. I think that's where the jobs are that maybe we don't even know about yet. I think that's where that's where our future really is because I we can't un we can't put the genie back in the bottle now with AI. I mean, it it's it is what it is, it's gonna do what it's gonna do, and I'm sure it's gonna change and grow. But you know, I just keep telling my students, it's like maybe these human things, maybe some of these things that are kind of messy, that are kind of the messy human things, maybe those are the things that like are gonna become even more important and maybe more in the front. Maybe those are the things we need more. I mean, look at the wellness industry, look at mental health, right? Everybody wants a therapist now. Everybody. It's so normalized, right? And we know so much more about you know, mental wellness and you know, it's it's not what it used to be when we were growing up, right? Um, that is something that is to me feels very human, right? Humans are struggling with human problems, emotions, feelings, you know, traumas, problems. What do we do? We're so messy, right? It seems like to me it's better handled by another human who can feel and relate with this kind of humanness to deal with that and to kind of support that. I mean, not to say the technology is not gonna try, right? Or that isn't already trying. I know there's like robot therapists and stuff like that out there, whatever. I just think that there are things that we're gonna find that that we need and want in the world that really are better managed, better served by actual humans doing them. And I think maybe if there is any upside to the AI thing, maybe it does push that to the top, push that out a little bit so that maybe we we know what that looks like and we know what that is, and we see that more. I mean, just communication, right? Just empathy. I mean, being able to like, yeah, I don't know. I just I just don't see that an algorithm can do that. I know they can look like they're doing that, right? They can fake like they're doing that, but I mean, yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

This could get into a whole other side conversation because You you brought up human humanness and you mentioned this earlier when we talked about what your most important thing you're trying to convey to students. And I think the reason I like to talk to you about this is because I know how you are. I wish I could be on the same campus as you. I wish we could share some of share some of the same students and things like that, because I feel like they would be like, wow, these guys actually are caring and have a fun. Yeah. Uh because I can't hide how I am or who I am. And humanity comes into everything. And really, in the high school age, this is why I love high school, is because we we are getting kids between 13 and 18, generally, somewhere in that range. 13 on the young end, 19, I guess, on the on the older end if they started late or skipped something, whatever. So we aren't seeing them until that age. By that age, they have been brought up by somebody or s or multiple people, hopefully. But when we see them, uh, we can actually make a difference in that they will remember. You remember your high school years almost more than you remember any other years in your life. And I'll do a quick test in a second. But the reason I wanted to ask you, you brought it up already, humanity uh being real, is as a parent, right? Your daughters are out of home now, or you know, out of school, I should say. What is that like your care level when you see students, when you have your students for that part of the year that you have them, do you say, I'm going to use a parenting style, or is that naturally, is that something that happens naturally with you? If you're in my class, it's like you're my responsibility for the time I have you, right? So I don't care what you do the other five periods, you're my responsibility now, but I still care what happens to you in the other part.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Where does that play for you? How do you envision that or go through that when you are this is my first period class for this part of the year? Boom. Now I think what?

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Okay, super good question because this is like a guiding, another like guiding principle for me. Because I started teaching when um my girls were Charlotte was in the like the seventh, eighth grade when I got my first teaching job, and Sadie, my oldest, was in high school, so she was a sophomore. I came to teaching without being able to separate the fact that I'm a mother of a teenage of teenagers, right? And I was already super involved with like their school stuff, like so, you know, clubs and activities that were going on with them in their lives, I was involved with that. So I was already a little bit kind of taking on that like persona of like, sort of like, I'm not your mom, but I'm something like a mom, I'm like a teacher mom, right? So for me, that is automatic and natural. So when I'm talking to my students in my class, and I've I've told a lot of people this, and I had a conversation with my principal not that long ago about this. There's so many decisions we have to make during the day about kids' well-being and safety, and are they working hard? Did they turn that in? What do I, how do I hold them accountable? But all these myriad decisions that we're making for each student who's each very different than the other, right? And it's so hard to keep track of all of that and to feel like you're doing it right. But for me, what I'm always falling back on is if this was my kid, right? If this was my kid, I can so easily picture it. It's like my kids were in a somebody's classroom when I was doing this with other people's kids. And I'm like, how do I want the teacher to react and respond to my kid? My kid's special, my kid's smart, my kid, but you don't understand my kid. My kid. And that can get out of control. And parents of different generations have definitely like had their struggles with like letting kids have their own autonomy and whatnot, right? That's a whole that's another conversation. But for me, that's always like just in the forefront of everything. This is somebody's kid. I don't know everything about them, I don't know their whole story. I try to, I try to know as much as I can, but you know, I can't really ever know their whole experience. So how do I want someone to care about my kids? That's how I want to care about their these kids. And also, like you said, it's really, really special to be working with young adults because they're also pulling away from their parents, right? They're about to, they're about to get out there. And some of them are really struggling with that, you know, that whole awkward position of being like wanting to be a kid and needing to be a kid, but also wanting to be an adult and being ready to be an adult and like the pressures that they get from their family. Some of it's good support, some of it's not good support. I'm not in charge of all of that, but I I want to help each student be able to manage that the very best way they can, right? And I want them to feel like you can do it. You, you are gonna be able to do this, right? You can do it. So I I guess it's like I feel like a parent to them in a way, but like not a parent, because obviously I'm I'm not and I'm not responsible for their whole life, but I'm like a super cheerleader for them. Like I want to just cheer them on and I wanna like give them a little bit more than just a cheerleader, like a rah, rah, rah, you can do it, but with a little added like. Because I see you, because I know you, and I know you can do this. And because the stuff we're doing together in this class is going to help you do that. Because I believe that. I believe like the stuff that I teach you isn't just let's do an English class and get you graduated. It's like this is the human story, and this will help you understand the world. You're going to go out of this school, off this campus, armed with material, with understanding, with knowledge about yourself and the world. And so you can handle it, even though it's going to kind of kick you in the gut and it's going to hurt you and it's going to mess you up. You're going to be able to do it. You can do it. So I I guess it's like it's almost like I see myself as a mashup between like my mom and my dad. My dad is like playful, fun, and you know.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Your mom's gonna love this, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

My well, my dad's that playful and fun stuff because I'm very much like that too. I'm like, it's fun, literature's fun, guys. Yes, let's read this Shakespeare. It's gonna be fun. Like, um, I try to do that, and I do naturally kind of have that in me. And I think that's my dad. And I think my mom has that. She's she's a caretaker, you know, she she's uh a healer, she's a nurse, she's she's nurturing and and caring. And there's something that that you gives you about that that gives you a lot of confidence, right? It's like I can take care of you a little bit while you're here, but guess what? You can take care of yourself. You you're gonna be able to do this on your own. I feel like my mom kind of I I kind of channel that part of her. And I think that is a good like recipe, a good combination for like what high school students in particular need, especially seniors, because they're just like, we're ready to get out of here. Yay, let's get out of here. We hate this place. And then they're like, Oh no, we're leaving. Oh yeah, all my safety net, my people, my you know.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

And I I think that's one thing that always comes, you know, uh how you what you explained is very similar. You know, I know we're similar people as far as personality goes. You gotta really believe what you're in, right? And I'll have kids ask me, I'm like, Mr. Um, what's your favorite PE sport? And I go, I'm glad you can't tell, because the point is you shouldn't be able to tell, right? Just like for you, they shouldn't be able to tell if you like this literature more than the other one, because you can't say, well, this is way better than the other one, because then they think, well, why'd we do the other one then? But in the personality perspective part of it, I wish all teachers just came from that perspective. Because when I hear kids frustrated, they'll say, Well, this teacher doesn't teach. And I'll go, Okay, what do you mean? And we kind of touched upon earlier with technology and things like that. And yes, every subject is different because you're gonna be different in math than you are in English, than you are in history, than you are in PE or music or art or whatever. But I feel that, yes, there's that mix of parenting and that I always think, what are this kids his upbringing like, right? And I'm seeing mostly sophomores through seniors, mostly sophomores, juniors and seniors mixed in, sometimes freshmen. I always try to, I literally, it's like doing a psychology class every year. I see the kids in front of me on day one and I think, how many know these kids? There's 45 kids in this class, or 44, whatever it is. And yet every year, by the end of the year, I feel like I have a pretty good, if you ask me to give you a breakdown on every student personality and physicality, I could tell you, here's how they act, here's how I see them, have seen them personally with other people. And most people would probably be like, How in the world do you see that? And for me, I can't not see it. This is literally what my job is, right? So I help trying to get them to learn something, you English, me, different sports, or whatever, but it's all about trying to get to know like what's really in their head. Uh, in some cases, their parents are a negative, so I'm trying to be a positive. In some cases, their parents are a positive, which I'm trying to be another added positive to it. So taking that one step farther with you personally, by the end of the school year, or when there are the kids, guys or girls, that you're like, man, I still feel like I don't totally know them. Is that frustrating to you? Or do you try to like, are there any techniques you have to like, I really don't feel like this person's still being truly themselves? How can I get that out?

SPEAKER_01 48:26

Yeah, that's a super good question. I will say, because I agree with everything you said, like usually by the end of my I I only have my students for a semester now. Some of them I do get for different classes. So, you know, and I love that. I eat that up. If I get you like multiple years or multiple classes in a row, that I love. It takes a while to get to know people. You know what I mean? It does take a while, and some people longer than others, because you know, a lot of kids are guarded and they're, you know, they feel judged by teachers. So there's this very like reluctant. I mean, some kids are like way out there and they're like, hey, I want to know everything about me and I want to tell you everything I know, you know, and those are fun too sometimes, but some kids are very guarded and very protective, and they've had different experiences with teachers and they're not like really open. It takes a while. And because I only see them for one semester, you know, so some some kids I only have for like uh, you know, half a year. And I will sometimes feel like I didn't really get to crack that nut until pretty close to the end, you know, and I was like, I'm starting now, I'm getting it, right? And that sometimes does like kind of I I always take it on as like my personal flaw, like, oh, I didn't do enough, I didn't try enough, I didn't, you know, listen enough or whatever. But usually I would say by the end of a course, any course that students have taken with me, I do feel like we have a relationship, like we have a genuine relationship. I mean, most of the time my students, if I see them out and about, they're glad to see me. I'm glad to see them. We're like, oh yay, how have you been? What are you doing? You know, like I've missed you, you know. Like I really do feel like attached. I do feel like um English is is really conducive to, I mean, it's it's stories, you know. So we're mostly the most important thing. I mean, there's all the grammary things, there's the literary things, there's all that stuff that kind of like makes people sometimes think they don't like it. Those are just the tools to help us access the real important part is the story and the experience. So it's really all about just like what makes us human, why are we here? What are we doing? Those kind of conversations are so fun to have with young adults, and they're they're so fun to explore, and they really do help you get to know each other, right? So I feel fortunate that I'm like always in those kind of conversations because we're always just like spilling tea, right? Like, ooh, why this? Why that? What's going on? You know, that really helps you bond, it helps you get to know each other. But yeah, sometimes I do feel a little bit like, oh, did I know you enough? Right. Did I really get to understand you? Did I see everything about you? Because they surprise me. Like, I'll think a kid is one way, and then I'll find out something about them, like from another teacher, or I'll see them on campus doing something, or they'll write something and I'm like, what? Oh my goodness, there's so much more to you. And so I have learned now that I've had a few years under my belt, I have learned how dangerous it is to make assumptions, you know, because I'm wrong so much of the time. Like the people truly are, you know, Walt Whitman said, you know, we have multitudes in us. The people are really are very complicated. Students, I mean, I look back at myself and I'm like, what kind of student was I? How did I, you know, how what did I reveal to my teachers about me? What was I showing them or not showing them? And it's like a very surface of really what I think I really am. I think that's maybe more of just like a human thing of like how I relate to people in general. I'm very curious about people. I'm I'm really curious. I'm interested, like you are. I mean, you you have to be interested in people to do a podcast with them. But the thing is at the same time, as a teacher, I do sometimes feel like I will sometimes rein myself in um just in the interest of like not overstepping, not being nosy, not trying to cause them pain by being like too much, like I don't know. I I find that like sometimes that's a hard, tricky balance. And I struggle with it a little bit of like I want you to know like I care about you and I see you, but I also don't want to invade and push too much because you know, people just are coming into our classrooms with so much, so much.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Well, and in the beginning of the year, you know, we we mentioned the beginning or being ourselves from the from from the get. And I tried, like I said, I'm not gonna pry or I don't really ask a lot of questions about kids unless they're new to our school from like another state, like they're not from the area. Those are the kids I really try to help at the beginning of the year to get comfortable with Northgate or this, you know, if a kid moved from Texas or from Florida or something where I know they're really out of you know their comfort zone. But otherwise, I just want to see them act, right? And the funny thing is there's some of the quiet kids that might be really attached to you, you would never even know it, right? Like I don't know they feel like they're attached to me or that they feel like, oh man, this person understands me, because they're not gonna ever say that, right? Um, they might write that because I asked them questions, and then there's some that, like you said, are out there a hundred percent of the time, and that's the beauty of teaching, right? Every single class is different. Another thing I think plays, and I've I've looked at your Instagram, your Instagram is great. A lot of yearbook stuff that you show during the year or the end of the year about graduation. One of the things that I think plays into, and this is the great thing about culture, when you have students from totally different backgrounds, you get to learn so many more interesting things, and it helps other kids also know. I feel like kids today, and at least in the last 10 years, are much more aware of cultural differences and they celebrate them more than they like look at they're weird, because it's just like, oh, it's it's different. So, yeah, quickly on culture before we get to our final uh lightning round. How have you seen that with the cultural breakdown? Because you have a multicultural school, as far as the the kids feeling comfortable or respecting one another's culture, or just helping that to guide everything that happens in your classroom?

SPEAKER_02 54:41

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

I mean, that is one of the things I love, love, love, love about teaching public school, because you know, I went to private school mostly, and I had a great experience, mostly good experience. I mean, I don't know if I learned that much, but you know, uh the I had good social experiences. Um, but it was very, you know, homogenous. It really wasn't very diverse. I love that about first of all, I guess back to teaching English. I mean, that's very, very beneficial to the kind of conversations you have in an English class. In a in a class that's about stories, about what are these like universal truths about being human, right? Let's get to the heart of it. The diversity is so rich, right? That when you have all these different perspectives and all these people coming from different points of view, the hard part in a high school classroom is coaxing that out now, because yes, I agree with what you're saying that it's it's a lot more normalized to sort of celebrate our differences rather than just kind of like be freaked out about them or be skeptical or kind of like more how we were raised. You know, there was a lot more just the other and the insider, the outsider. It's not as overt now, but I will say that I think there is still um some fear about exposing, you know, your whole truth and kind of like putting it all out there. There's just, I think that what I'm learning, which that's something I should like really emphasize, is that for as much as I teach, I know that I am learning way more from my students and from this whole experience than they're actually probably gonna learn and get from me. Um, I almost feel like guilty about it because I'm just like, I feel like I'm getting educated, like I'm getting an education from this process. But um, what I'm learning from them is that there is a big distinction between the quote real world and the online world, you know, and our students, many of them are very online. And online has different rules and norms. And I'll have students in my class, like I've had some of my students that I get really close to some of them, like my yearbook kids that I'm with year after year after year. They're like my crew, right? And they'll tell me everything. They'll tell me the truth about everything, right? And I will, I can ask them questions, like, you know, how does this work? What does this mean? You guys help me, you know? And they have kind of helped me understand something that I do think is is I don't know what to do about it, but I think it's good to be aware of it that they're growing up in a world that is like so different than ours because it's a world that is two worlds, right? I'll have students that I think are just like, oh, so great, so much participation. Wow, I love how they're so like they're so helpful to their classmates, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'll have one of these trusted students of mine kind of say, like, eh, you don't really see the whole picture of that person. And I'm like, oh, I don't know what you know. And then I'll kind of coax it out of them. And it's like online, they're way different, right? And I I do, I worry about that. I worry about that. I don't think it's the norm, I don't think it's all the kids, I don't think it's all the time, but I do feel like they are really impacted in a way with like some weird dualities of like this real world situation with pairing that with the online stuff, you know? And like I said, I'm I'm not native to that. So it's foreign to me. I don't know how to help them with it. I don't know how to, I don't even want to enter it. I don't even know really what it is, but I see it. And I my my approach to it is always just literature. Let's turn to the literature, right? Let's see what what's the human experience? What are the stories? What's the universality? What's real? Like what can we learn about this big world and this big conversation that can help us make sense of it? Because whatever's happening in these parallel universes, which I consider the internet to be like kind of this parallel universe with with many parallels within it, you know, how does maybe some of the stuff that I do in my class like help them with that without me fully understanding it? But I don't know. The diversity I think is inevitable. It's our world, it's changing all the time. It's it's what the world really looks like. And I think a high school campus, especially in California, beautiful, right? Perfect. That's that's what you should have. You should have to navigate a diverse landscape so that you can live in a diverse world. I mean, and not silo yourself off too much into bubbles, because we do that already. So I love, I love that about teaching in a public school. Um, and I think like as teachers, the more that we foster that, the more we encourage it, the more we normalize it, the better. But I do think like we're also, like I said, we're kind of competing with this other strange online universe that is mysterious and scary to me.

SPEAKER_00 59:38

I want to hit on a couple of things you said. We talk so in in the cultural diversity, in the us as teachers being semi-parenting a whole bunch of students every single year, in addition to our own families. The other thing that I think, and I I can tell you strive for that, is just I want the students to feel comfortable knowing this is who I am. All this talk we're doing about like educational like mindset and all these different things, we forget these are still kids who are literally going through the most potentially tumultuous times of their lives, outside of school, even you know, not just school, right? Uh, relationships, um, jobs, parents, puberty, everything, everything all at one time. And so what I try to be, and I know you were saying the same, is it it's not a rock, it's just like I'm consistency. Yeah. So you might not have consistency when you are at home, but you can expect when you see me, I'm gonna be consistent with you, and maybe you like that I don't talk to you, or maybe you need me to talk to you. But either way, I'm gonna be like understanding that they have so many other things happening, whether it's online, like you just mentioned, or family situations, life situations. For us to be able to be that when you come to me for this amount of time, you know what you're gonna get as far as the person. So you don't have to worry about how I should act or how should I be, because you know what you're getting from me or from you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:13

Absolutely. Yeah, 100% agree with that. I do sometimes even struggle with that. Like I will take that on. I I think that's why maybe I'm not like as good at boundaries and things as some teachers. I mean, I I I know teachers that have, you know, very strict rules about, you know, when their classroom is open at lunch and things like that. As they should, right? You need a break. Sometimes you just need to eat your lunch or whatever. But I I'm not as good about that. I have very open door. I have mobs of kids in my room and stuff like that. And, you know, sometimes people are like, well, shut your door, do your blah, blah, blah. But it it goes back to what you're saying. It is like for that kid, for that day, for their routine, for what they're they're relying sometimes on these just these safe spaces and this like this consistency with something in their day, right? And I take that on a lot. Like, well, that might be me, right? I might be that thing for them that's like, okay, I have had a lot of students tell me, like, oh, this is the classroom where I feel good. Like, oh, I feel like I can relax in here, or this is my safe space, or whatever. And I know what they're talking about. It's not that like anything's super wrong in any other classroom. It's just that like it's tense or it's different or it's harder for them, or whatever it is. I I want them to have a place like that, you know. I mean, I don't want it always to be me in my classroom all the time. But I take it on because, you know, you feel that. Because again, I feel like, well, what if this is my kid, right? If it's my kid and this is their safe place, this is their consistent place, their place they feel good. I don't want to take that away. I don't want to shut the door, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

So it's kind of it's a tricky balance, but it is, I think that is one of those responsibilities of teachers is to know that, like, yeah, we have our bad moods and stuff, but like it's kind of our job to just sort of suck it up and and be that calm and cool for the kids. It's a part of your job. Like, you can't always perfectly be like calm, but I tend to not be a freak out teacher, right? Because you know, every year there's a teacher that like legit crashes out, like fully crashes out like every year. And I mean, I'm always like a dang. I feel it, I feel it, because I have felt all the feelings that led that teacher up to that crash out. I have felt it, but like we can't let ourselves go there. No, we cannot do that, you know. They need us to be to be stable.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:48

I would say my crash out or or most frustrating moments, the times you will see me the most feisty or angry at someone, is always when they have done something to somebody else. So it's not a it's not a dealing with me. Like, I don't you could say whatever. Like, I might be mad, but I'm not, it's that's life, right? But that's the part that's the only time that I have to like mentally like, okay, rain yourself in a little bit. I know that like if it's the parents up there, they're gonna be like, oh, this guy was really upset because our daughter or our son got treated poorly and was not having it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:21

I know, and I I know that in PE, you tend to probably see that more because I've heard that from our PE teachers too. There'd be in like an incident, somebody, you know, gets a basketball thrown at their head, some girl or whatever, you know, and it's just like the the PE teachers are like, Yeah, you know. But yeah, I mean, that's safety. I mean, that's the other thing is we're responsible for their safety, and it's the safety in different ways, their physical safety, their, you know, their poor little fragile self, you know, self-esteem safety and and all those things. And it's like if you see somebody else, I mean, that's the same with your own kids, though, right? Like, if if your kids start to fight, I mean, that was the hardest thing for me as a parent, is when my own girls would fight with each other. I mean, like, what do you do? You know, so it's it's hard. Teaching is is hard, but it's the greatest.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:07

It's it truly is the greatest. Okay, we're gonna try this to end off okay 10 minutes or less. Now, I this is tough for us because we both talk a lot and go in very in-depth about answers. So it's it's a lightning-ish round. I have like four or five questions, and so you're gonna give me your first responses that you come up with. And and they're all dealing with education. So the first thing is when you think back to your high school, because this is this is the beauty, we're both in the same decade. You were, I think, three years. I was 93. Were you 90?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:38

Yeah, 90.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:39

Okay, so three years ahead of me, high school graduation. When you think back to high school, and I know where you went to high school, the teachers that you remember the most, what were their personalities like?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

Okay, the teachers that really oh, dang, because some of them stood out for like not good reasons.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

Um I just said I didn't say good or do you remember the most? What were their personalities?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

What were their personalities? The ones that stood out the most, okay? The ones that stood out the most were cared about their subject. Like really passionate. By the way, a subject I did not care about.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:13

I'm with you on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:14

Okay. So one of my teachers that stood out the most was like just passionate. Passionate cared about it. I didn't care about any of them, but like wanted to for him. Um, and then another teacher that stood out for a not so good reason was just seemed very like out of touch with um high school students, was just like basically treating us like elementary, you know, storytime, very silly, and I felt babied. So that's that's how they, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:46

No, I'm with you. And here's why I asked that question because I I don't know your answers coming in, but I kind of know, like, I'm I'm aware of what I think they might be like. Here's why I say that. We talk about it's like students in the classroom. We remember the kids who you deal with the most, and PE and others, are the ones who talk the most, who are showing their personality, or the ones who need the most guidance who are getting in trouble. The middle ground are the ones that are the hardest to get to know. Same concept on teachers. The teachers that I remember the most, personality-wise, are the ones that you know, like you said, are fully into what they're doing, whether you like the subject or not. Or then people who were horrible. But the middle ground, if you don't have a unique personality, you're not gonna get remembered either way. Not in a good way, not in a bad way, but pretty much I don't really remember that person or remember moments. So that was why I asked that question because I think it lie it it is very similar to what we see in our students in classrooms.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

Yeah, true. Good point.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:44

The students we remember the most are the ones who made the biggest difference to us, or the ones we like, oh man, I had to get on that guy every single day. Right, right. The students we don't remember the most are the ones that are right in the middle that you didn't have to get angry at them, but you also didn't get their personalities coming out. So that was one. Question number two is what is something that you feel like schools uh emphasize that is very overrated?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:12

Like a subject, do you think, or more like just anything?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:15

Um think less of less of think less subject, think less subject.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:21

Um well, I don't know. I think I have kind of like two answers. I'm gonna try to keep it short. Um, one, I think just because AI is, I mean, I hate to make everything always about AI, but I just think like ever since, you know, what three years ago or so when it sort of like showed up, it's just kind of constant. I I know my district has been spending a lot of time on like we gotta prepare these kids for AI. If we're not doing AI, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just been so much that I'm just like, again, kind of back to some of my earlier points. I just think really, I think it's thinking, I think it's language, I think it's it's them as humans that matters more as the for their education and the tools. I trust them to know how to use them for the most part. I mean, I don't know that so I think I think maybe we're overdoing it with the whole AI is the future thing. And then the other thing, um, I think sometimes we put a lot of pressure on kids to have to know what they're supposed to do. Like, hey, you you gotta have a plan. We're really big on pathways at our school. Pathway, pathway, pathway, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I'm not saying that's a bad idea, but I don't think it's for everyone. And I think sometimes we're really, we're really making kids more anxious with that. And they're already so so hyper anxious that I'm just like, figure it out. You'll figure it out, guys. I think it's gonna work out. So that's I guess that's my answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:43

Totally. I could, I could, we could do an episode literally on just that about the expectations put upon students. Okay, one of the things that makes me crazy uh is the CASP testing, in that, and we we this is a California thing, but I mean every state has their own standardized test. Okay, here's why. Because each year they'll go, oh, the students had bad scores in this and this and this. Well, in California, it's their junior year, they take these tests. Okay. So they'll go, oh, the class of 2022 had horrible scores. You guys need to do better. Well, guess what? The next class isn't the same class. So to say a school's doing awesome or not awesome, they're only seeing those kids taking the test one time. So it doesn't correlate to, oh, now, if every year at your school it's bad, okay. But to go year by year and go, guys, you gotta bring this up, it's like, well, yeah, that class wasn't as smart as the other classes ahead of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

So many factors.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

And then like, okay, that yo, so that makes me crazy. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:44

Now, what is something you feel like schools, this is not subject-wise, don't emphasize, or it could be, don't emphasize enough high schools. What is something you think should be more emphasized in high school?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:57

Yeah, I feel like that kind of goes a little bit with what I said before. I mean, you know, I have really felt, especially, you know, we talked a lot about technology and all this stuff. Not to, again, I see I hear myself and I think, man, maybe I'm sounding like a like a hater on technology. Maybe low-key I am. I don't know. Um well, okay, maybe this kind of like goes in a slightly different direction. College is kind of a question mark right now, I think. At our school, we're really big on getting everybody to college, college, college, right? I mean, that's a big part of the culture. And I I'm not against it. I totally support it. I value college. I had a great college experience, but I think that we are putting a lot of emphasis on college as a pathway to career. Not that it shouldn't be, right? You gotta have a job and you gotta have a career. I want people to be employed. But learning for the sake of learning, right? I think we've gotten so far away from just the importance, the value, the necessity of actually just learning and being a learner. And if you have the resources, if you have the opportunity to get an education, to chase that kind of higher education, to keep educating yourself, getting an education for the sake of education, for being a lifelong learner, I think that is not as much in the center of the conversation as I would want it to be. And I know that this is veering off into kind of like maybe artsy fartsy humanities kind of world, but we're so, you know, our culture is so obsessed with just productivity, efficiency, money, success, right? That is so much of the conversation. And learning, being a good person, service to others. Um, what can I do for the world? Like, what does the world need? Like volunteer philanthropy, way less. That's an that's an adjacent part of the conversation. That's an on the side. Nobody would say it's not important, but they won't show that it's important. They'll put it as a satellite importance. And I think that's a mistake. If I was making my perfect school, that would be the heart and soul of it. And the practical part, I feel like if you follow your heart and you follow your passion and you really work hard at it, that you are gonna make that work. You can make that work. I know that's a little romantic, but I believe that. And I think that's not what the conversation is about. I think I have different priorities than I think basically what it comes down to is my priorities are just really different than what like capitalism is about in society. I try to actually keep that on mute a little bit, not super loud, because I know that for some students and for some families, they don't really that doesn't resonate with them. It's like, I need success. I need to make some money.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:49

That is a cultural thing too, as we know. Like there are some cultures where you can talk all you want about like caring for kids or whatever, and they're gonna be like, Look, I just care that my son or daughter gets in this school and get me in a good college. All right, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:03

And, you know, I'm always like over here, and I and I taught college apps, and it was like, why do you want to go to that school? Like, why is it that important to you? Like, those are the kind of things I was asking them. And I'm not saying you should or shouldn't. I would never do that to a student or say, like, you know, this is what's important and you shouldn't care about that. I try really not to do that at all with students, but you know, just to like offer them like some perspective of like, why is it so important to you? What is it that you really want on this pathway? And low-key, some of them are gonna straight up just say money. And if it's money, I guess go for it. But I guess I might just say, hey, uh, is that the only thing that you think you want from life? You know, really think about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:42

That was the first time we heard low-key in this interview. It took more than an hour to get to the first low-key. That was good. That was good for us.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:50

Yeah, I tried.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:51

Okay, so and then the final one is what do you still think is the the biggest misconception that parents or families that are not the students still have about high school? Like, what's a misconception that you feel like either you've dealt with or you think that there is still from outside, from parents or people not involved on an everyday basis with the high school life?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:12

I don't know. I think sometimes people I think, first of all, I think the big problem is that uh very few people understand what teaching looks like. I don't think people understand what teaching and learning looks like. Um, I really struggle with that in my classroom to really like actually inform my students and make them like make it transparent to them. Like, how do you know if you learned something? How do you know when it's working? Like, how do you know you got some knowledge or some skills? Because I don't think people know how that works. I think everybody is just chasing points and chasing grades. And we've done a lot of work in our district to try to like shift the focus onto, you know, more skills and more um progress and less about points and less about grades. But like we were just saying, I mean, get my kid into the good college, right? I mean, so I think there's just again, I think it's it's a really hard thing to shift because our world is really just set up on this this meritocracy. It's like you gotta have the points, you gotta get the grades, you gotta get the scores. Um, and from my perspective, what I know about learning, it doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter. I mean, the points are just so irrelevant. I mean, sometimes it's a slight motivation, but not even a good one, usually. It's just so irrelevant to the actual learning and the actual experience. I wish people thought of learning as just a really valuable experience you're having for good, for bad, for if you failed a class, well, you learned something, right? Right. You know what I mean? I just wish that was more of the attitude. I don't think society views education that way. I think it's just like gobble up those points, Pac-Man style, get on to the next thing, try to get money.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:58

Okay, as we're finishing here today, is there any question you have for me? Anything that's come to mind during this time frame we have together? Because I will say Christina and I uh haven't talked to each other face to face for three years, even though the last time it was on the podcast as well. So bad, bad job by us. We used to spend we used to spend our Thanksgivings with our families together in a in a key part of our lives. Yeah, these are some of my favorite memories. I know Christina's sister Carrie also, like we we remember these things. Our families were very, very close.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:31

Okay. Anything you have before we finish up here?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:34

Yeah. I mean, I have lots of questions for you offline, I guess. But um one question that came to me as we're talking is I mean, I was wondering, would you are you ever do you ever picture yourself being like an administrator? Would you ever be a school principal?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:47

Okay, so this is the greatest. I'm glad you asked.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:49

It seems like you would make a really good one. I would love to be at your school if you were principal.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:54

Okay. So I think there are aspects that are fun about it, but you you've just touched on one of the hot button topics of me. I always tell people the worst thing you could do with your life is be an administrator at a school.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:09

Sounds like truth for me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:11

Because I so much enjoy being a teacher and being able to see the students on an everyday basis. And I know it really hurts some administrators' feelings. I'm sorry to any of you who are past administrators, but kids don't care about administrators. Like now, the teachers do. Teachers care a lot about that, sometimes too much. The parents care when their kids are in school, but they care more in the negative fashion. Oh, I'm hearing from this VP or this principal. My whole point is if you love teaching, why leave it? Right now, I have friends and and some former students who grew up wanting to be administrators, right? So that was their, they like that part of it. And that's okay. I just when I have when I see good teachers, like if you told me you were gonna be an administrator, I'd be like, Christina, stop. Don't come on. What are you thinking? I would tell you that because I care, because I know what you can do in a classroom. And and I feel like when teachers leave, whether it's monetarily or whether it's because they feel like I'm tired of dealing with kids, okay. If you're tired of dealing with kids, don't be around kids. But that world of administration, and I'm sure there are other um I know other professions and the same thing kind of applies, it would not make me happy. Like I I want that everyday hustle bustle, and I can't see myself getting to an age where I wouldn't want that. Part some aspects I do think are fun. I would like to do master scheduling. I like that. Like I love logistics, but that's like the part most people think would they would not like to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:46

Yeah, you have you must have the math mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:48

I like doing that.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:50

Yeah. But yeah, I I think it's I've made the comment. You could offer me 500 grand and say, be it be a VP for a year, and I'd be like, sorry, man. No thanks. No thanks. No thanks. Because it wouldn't make me happy, and it's so far away from what I what really gets me going. Yes. Um not to say there aren't great administrators out there, because there are some great administrators.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:16

No, there's yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:18

I just mean for me, right? It's my hot button, like, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:24

You know why I think I thought of that is because I totally agree with you, by the way. Yeah, admin does not appeal to me at all because I'm like, I feel like it just takes everything that I like about teaching out. And, you know, but you're still on a campus, so what? But I do like the idea of like applying what I like about taking care of my students to taking care of staff. I feel like staff is really neglected. I don't think that's something that most administrators prioritize is like, how do I really take care of my staff? Like put the mask, oxygen mask on the adult first, and then you know, I don't think they have that. And I think if they did, everything would run so much better. And I come from a school that has good administrator. I I I love my administration. I mean, and I feel like they're they're good to us, but not not perfect. I obviously I have critiques, but um, the reason I thought of that question for you is because I always kind of picture this like dream principle, right? Like I do think, and I think it would be hard at a big high school. I think maybe at a smaller school, you know, maybe it's more, it's easier or something. But I do kind of have this, maybe it's a fantasy, but I have this idea of like this ideal principle that would be kind of like your energy that could really sort of set the tone on the campus, you know. That's like really like I don't know, it's kind of all your vibes. Well, I think that you brought it you brought that. What?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:55

You give the same kind of personality too. Well, so my cousin David has been on this multiple times. He has been an SRO for many, many years. In fact, I think you probably met him back when we were kids. He's one of the greatest people in the world. I would love to be on a campus that he was a part of. I would love to put together a campus that you and I could be a part of. So when I think of like school perfection, I think of getting all people who I know are fully like bought in to their own specific topic or their own specific area. My cousin Dave is an SRO, like he makes a humongous difference to so many different lives, and that's perfect because that's what you need on a high school campus, right? Yeah. So I think of it more in those aspects, but that's why I like talking to you because I'm like, man, I wish we were at the same place because it would be a good one. I know, it'd be so fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:46

So in that's that's the pie in the sky. So don't think of us administrators, but think of if we were all on a campus together.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:52

Yeah, that that would be so fun. That would be that'd be very cool. Hey, who knows? Could happen. I mean, I figured I was kind of doing the math, and I'm like, I think I have probably another 10 years I need to stay. I do sometimes I feel like, oh, can I do this for that long? I mean, it is exhausting. It is exhausting. I feel like if I had a little bit less, like not as intense, not as many classes, not as many students, not as many days. Like if I had a four-day week, yeah, I could keep doing this for a long time. But it it wears me out. I bring a lot of work home, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:25

Just so I would my advice to you or anybody who's saying that is look at it as a season. And then I have used this and not when I talk to you, but that the the school year is like a pregnancy. So this is how I envision, okay? So each school year is a pregnancy, it's a full term. So the year starts off with.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:45

No wonder it hurts so bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:46

The glow, the glow, right? First trimester. Everyone's pumped up.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:52

I was actually put nauseous in the beginning, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:54

Not you, not that one. But that that, oh, we just found out we're having a baby, da-da-da-da, that, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:00

Excitement, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:02

And then you can have the sickness first trimester.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:06

Some people worse than others. So some people, the year starts turning October, November, December.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:11

And then it levels back out. But then by the time you get to that third trimester, and I'm talking in pregnancy terms now, when we compare that to the school year, by the time you get to end of April, beginning of May, you just need the baby to come out.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:26

You just need it to end up.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:28

That is why each school year is like a pregnancy. Now, it doesn't have to be a negative or positive. I'm not saying you like it or dislike it, but when the year ends, the year needs to end.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:39

It needs to end. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:41

Our downtime is like two months. Not that we're not working during that time, but right, right. When I think of every year like that, it makes me not not be so concerned because I go, hey, this is normal. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:56

It's very true. Like that's good, that's really good advice because I do usually it's my husband that will kind of remind me, he's like, oh, this always happens at this time of year. Oh, this is normal. You always feel this way, you know. So he'll, and I'll go, Oh, wow, you're right. And then you pop out of your like hole for a while and you actually run into some other teachers that you don't talk to usually, and they're struggling, you know, and you're like, Oh, it's all of us, okay, this is normal. So it's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:23

And I I've had that conversation with teachers too, as we finished, like I've told them it's okay. Like, you're gonna have days, maybe weeks that are really tough. And it might be because of just the classroom or it might be your life or whatever. But just know if you're a teacher, you know how to do this, you can get through this, and you'll get through it.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:45

You don't have to crash out, you don't have to throw chairs, you don't have to swear at your kids. It's gonna be um, you know what? The kids feel it too. You know, the kids are going through the pregnancy. Ugh, I hate to say that, but you know, the metaphorical. They they feel it too. And so that's also double whammy. It's like when we're hitting our low point or our tired point or whatever, sometimes they're also like, you know, it's the same, they go through those seasons, and then it's just like, you know, grit and bear it. You're just kind of getting through. But yeah, good advice. Good advice, Mike.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:17

Yeah, well, that I appreciate that. I I I remember I thought about that and I was like, it's kind of like this, kind of like this. Oh okay. So let everyone know where you teach once again.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:27

Uh it's Mission Vista High School. Yeah, Mission Vista High School in San Diego County. So just to put it on the map.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:35

So if you're ever down there or you need to find a high school in that area, that would be check it out, check it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:41

Dual magnet school, it's pretty dang good. I will say I've taught at one other high school. I feel so lucky to be at my school. A lot of diversity. Um, mostly a staff that really cares, really works hard. You know, I work with great teachers. I like my admin a lot. Um, yeah, I'm lucky. I feel really lucky to be at my school. It's not, you know, it's not without its problems, but it's it's I feel blessed, really.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:09

And I would say the same thing. I love being where I'm at. And I would tell people, anybody who ever is whatever age you are struggling with those things, like, look, man, nowhere we work ever is gonna be perfection. So the goal is to make it as bet as good as it can be. But I just want to say thank and this is not the final time you'll hear from Christina, because trust me, we could go an entire episode on just certain questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:30

Right. Yeah, we're talkers.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:32

Uh, but the whole goal is to other people who have been involved in education or are thinking about it because we want the best people to do this. That's the other thing is my my hope is that somebody somewhere listens to you and listens to other great teachers and goes, shoot, I think I might want to do this. And then that's how we keep the uh magic happening. So, Christina, thank you so much. Of course. I appreciate it. And yes, just so you know, we did our families lived across the street. We we played school. Christina was always the teacher. Um, she was very strict, very strict. And but this is I I feel like it it brought us to this point in our lives where we're now talking about education on podcasts. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:17

Full circle, wonderful. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:20

All right, not her final time, Christina Dumbeck. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:25

Thank you. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:27

And that is going to do it for today. Once again, a huge thank you to Christina for being willing to come back to the podcast to do a second interview and to talk really intimately about thoughts and feelings involved in her own specific education and what she is doing today. I hope you all enjoyed it. If this was the first time you've ever listened to the podcast, remember you can go back and listen to any episode that you would like. They're almost all evergreen. Christina's first episode was episode 59. Of course, you just listened to episode 79. And the entire goal for me to when I began the podcast back in 2020 was to bring you people I feel are super interesting, great life stories, unique life situations. And you have been able to hear all kinds of people if you've been listening to this podcast for any time at all. If this is your first time, hey, welcome. Check out some episodes, and we'll see you back here the next time. If you are trying to get in touch with the podcast, the email is the mic is on at gmail.com. That's the M-I-C. It's a H N at Gmail.com. On Instagram, it's Oni B P E. A H N I E B P E. All right, we have more things coming in the year of 2026. So continue to have a great day, and we will see you later.