I like to interview people. And, I like teachers. So, here are some of my interviews with teachers and journalists that like teachers. One of my dreams is to go around the world and to interview people about teachers and teachers about teaching. Maybe some day…

Julia Satterthwaite Shares Why She Became a Teacher and Why She is Staying a Teacher

Julia Satterthwaite, MJE, is a public high school journalism and English teacher. She taught English and Journalism for 12 years in Rochester, Mich., and she is starting her fourth year at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, Calif. Julia is adviser of El Estoque, elestoque.org and El Valedor; a Journalism Education Association director at large; a JEA Mentor; JEA of NorCal digital media chair; WASC Organization team lead; Ed Board member at First Congregational Church of Palo Alto; Advisor of National English Honor Society; a member of MVHS Leadership Team; and a member of Literature and Writing Professional Learning Community.  

Why do you teach? Did you always know that you wanted to be a teacher?  When I was growing up as a little kid, I used to like pretending to be a teacher. I would use manila envelopes and write fake student names on them and create sample student work.

So there's something about the organizing part that I really like. I did that when I was little, not thinking much of it. And then I went to high school and had some pretty outstanding teachers. So part of the reason why I wanted to become a teacher was because I was lucky enough to have some really good ones. I think part of it was that I was at a private high school in Japan, so it was a different vibe in general. I just felt like my teachers were all really interesting people because they came from all over the world. 

Then I went to college, and I wasn't super sure what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to be a teacher. So that's why I ended up at Michigan State because it was the number one education program in the nation at the time when I was choosing a college. And then I was still unsure of what I wanted to do. So I was studying English. I was studying world religions. I was taking Japanese because I was coming from Japan. I looked into doing vocal performance music and I was in the State Singers at Michigan State and then later the jazz choir. So I tried out so many different things. Oh, yeah, and environmental science. I wanted to save the planet. I thought I need to study how to save the planet and that's what I am going to do. That ended up not being a path that was as fulfilling as I thought it was going to be because of the number of prerequisites required. I didn't really want to do organic chemistry, thank you very much. 

At the end of all that, I graduated with three degrees: one in English, one journalism and one in education. I had great job offers and I picked the one at Rochester and I was there for 12 years.  And now I'm in year four here [in California]. 

Is teaching the right choice for you?  Definitely. My dad always told me that I would be a good project manager. I feel like what I do as a teacher is project management. I feel like as a journalism adviser, that's kind of what you're doing. You're helping give people what they need to do their best work. I think education is super exciting. There are certain aspects of it that have gotten worse, certainly, like the amount of time I spend responding to email now compared to when I started teaching is absurd. And that's the part I don't like — the part that's going to meetings, going to professional development that I don't get to choose, responding to emails, filling out paperwork, but the day-to-day interactions that you get with kids are the best. 

When you think about your students and you're teaching, what is it that you want them to know from you?  Ultimately, if you can continue to inspire students to keep learning, I think lifelong learning is such a valuable way to live your life. You see a lot of people who are older and who are closed off to learning new things, and they're just like, “Nope, this is who I am. This is what I believe and no matter what you say, I will not change my opinion.”  And I just think that teenagers are so ready to grasp information and learn and develop new opinions and through interactions with other people maybe adjust their own personal beliefs, through listening and responding to other people. I think my goal for my educational philosophy is to teach people not only to keep learning but to keep listening to other people. When we can listen to other people, the world can become a more peaceful place where people can actually coexist and agree to disagree about things. Maybe through conversation you will change your opinion, and it doesn't mean that you're showing weakness, it just means you have the emotional capacity to admit that your opinion might not have been the best. So I think part of the challenge we have in society now is people are so entrenched in their own opinions. They're not willing to keep learning, and they're not willing to listen. Everyone needs to listen and if they can learn one thing it is to listen well to other people.

How do you bring that into your classroom?  How did that play out today?  Today, in my freshman English class, we were discussing the novel, “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.” We did a cross the line exercise. They line up and if the statement applies to them, they physically cross the line. Throughout the course of the cross line exercise, I read 50 statements. Then students come back into a small group and debrief. Something that that came out of that conversation — and it happens every year — is that kids are like, "Whoa, I didn't realize how many people had such different life experiences from my experience." There are questions about racial background, religion, gender, traumas. They will learn a lot from listening to each other. So I make [listening] ingrained and entrenched into all of my lessons. I think a lot of students come away from activities like this one with a little bit of a different perspective.

In terms of journalism, is there something that you do that you think is a meaningful activity? I do a lot of different icebreaker type activities. We actually do it every Friday in journalism classes, so we call it Family Friday. For example, one activity that I did at a workshop last Saturday was everyone picks a Pantone postcard with a different color. Then they share a memory that's associated with that color. The interviewee is asking questions and focusing on listening, asking follow up questions, being curious. I think people were surprised at how personal other people would get when they were willing to just sit there and listen. I told them that you're not allowed to interrupt or respond by connecting it to your own life, because so much of what we do in our lives in our head is thinking of our next response to the person rather than just listening. 

We also did the 16 Personalities quiz at the beginning of the year. We talked about our different personalities, how that impacts us, how that will impact our staff, and what we need to know about interacting with people from different personality types. In what way is that personality type helpful to you? What ways is it going to present challenges for you? What do you wish people understood about you that they're getting wrong? Because so much of it is like, “Oh, you're an introvert. You must hate talking to people.” We talked about misconceptions about different personality types. I think the more that you can understand yourself, the better you are at understanding other people. As journalism students, that's our goal, obviously, to really put ourselves in the shoes of all of our sources.  

What advice would you give to new teachers?  What do you understand now that you maybe didn't understand as a new teacher?  I think one thing that I became much more confident about as I gained more experience was that it okay not to know all the answers. I think when I was a young teacher, I felt like I had to come up with an answer every single time a kid asked me a question, and now when a kid asks me a question and I don't know the answer, I say, "Hey, I don't know, let's look it up." And we work together to figure it out. I'm much more comfortable in that type of situation. 

I also think one thing that I would recommend for younger teachers is to find other people who are going to bring out the best in you. In this profession, there are a lot of people who are, whether it's warranted or not, just generally grumpy about whatever the case may be. Maybe they got a bad evaluation. Maybe they are sick of how many kids keep getting put into their classes, and their pay scale is going down. There are all these reasons to be kind of upset as a teacher. If you become globbed onto people who are naturally negative, it's infectious and it's going to spread like a disease. And the same is true for people who are really positive. I'm not saying you shouldn't complain about injustices or things that totally warranted, but I think surrounding yourself with people who can help you problem solve will lead to a more positive experience in general. 

What is it at the core that you love about teaching? What keeps you coming back? Every day is different. I find that really interesting and challenging — especially as the publications teacher.  What you do on one given day is pretty much never going to be the same. So, I feel like, again, it's part of my goal of being a lifelong learner. Different news happens every single day. The newest thing comes out and you're like, "Whoa, I never thought I would experience this, but here we are." Every day is different, interesting and it feels adventurous. I think that the untapped excitement of being a teacher is that you get to experience new things every day.

I also think it's a really noble profession. Yeah, I know that in some cases, people who are teachers feel like they’re not treated well. But even in spite of that, when I was in Rochester, anytime I would feel discouraged about my salary, or my class sizes or a parent email that would make me upset, at the end of the day teaching is a noble profession. Other people, whether they say so or not, appreciate teachers. The cliché is that teachers make all future professions, so we're really the most important people in the world. And I think that's kind of true. I think a good teacher can make or break a student's enjoyment of school. I think if you enjoy school and you enjoy learning, you're going to be a better, more civically engaged person in your adulthood. 

Tricia Bobeda Talks Social Media Strategy for Journalists

Tricia Bobeda shares her experience from WBEZ as Senior Editor of Multiplatform News and from KUER where she currently works as Director of Audience Development. Bobeda has advice for high school journalists (and beyond) about what they should and shouldn't be doing on social media.

Ava Butzu Shares Her Practice: Kudos Every Day and a Treasure Chest of Junk

Ava Butzu loves the act of teaching, has a treasure chest in her room, and knows how to stay energized. She shares with us advice that she has learned over her 28 years in the classroom. And, she also shares an incredible presentation about sentence structure that we can use in our classes tomorrow. Ava currently teaches two sections of AP Language and Composition and three sections of Yearbook at Grand Blanc High School in Michigan.  

Why did you become a teacher?  I loved English. But also I think I wanted my dad's approval to some degree and my mom's, but especially my dad's, because I didn't live with him. Both my mom and dad and a lot of my family members were teachers. I think when my dad found out I was thinking about teaching, he was so excited. It was like a good way of building a connection with him. But also, I just love learning. So it makes sense, right? Because I'm always learning when I'm teaching.

What is it that you love about teaching?  I love the actual act of teaching. I love teaching because it's kind of like a performance. And I think I've always loved that. But also, just like any other teacher would tell you, watching your kids grow. It's sort of cheesy and cliche, but it's for sure the best part. 

What were you teaching yesterday?  I was teaching kids different sentence structures and I made them go home and write one of each sentence and bring them in. I told them they were going to have a dance off even though I had no idea what that was even going to be.  But then when I came in the next morning, I was like, "we're doing this!" At their table groups, they had to pick their best sentence for each structure, and we did a sort of dance off. They brought them up and put them under the projector. Everybody looked at them, and we just had a blast. It was fun with grammar, which never happens. They put their sentence under the camera and then they read it as dramatically as they wanted to. Everybody got to vote on it.  For example, every table group read their best loose sentence and the whole class had to vote on the best loose sentence in the class and so that was the winner.

What did the winners get?  I have this treasure chest of junk. It's like all this stuff that I just don't want but can't throw away. They love it. They love diving into the treasure chest of junk. 

What's in your treasure chest of junk? It's funny because I have some lanyards in there from conferences that I've taught at with my name on them. But, I have some good stuff in there like the Van Gogh action figure that had never been opened.  It was probably worth $25. It's just stuff that I collect and don't need. It's fun to see what they choose too. Kids love stickers too, which is crazy because they're so cheap. 

You have so much experience.  So many teachers are coming into the profession, so can you tell us what you know now that you think that new teachers should know? I know that there's always a better way to do something, so I know not to get stuck in my ways. New teachers probably think that,  "Oh, I'll never get stuck in my ways. I'll always be morphing and changing and learning and growing." And, you are. But also it's such an unstable job, in terms of every day is different and you have to make millions of decisions every day. So, as you get older you tend to cling to the things that you think work and there's this fear of moving away from them. But that is like death for a teacher. You should stick to the things that work, but you've got to change all the time. 

How do you keep your energy? Eight hours of sleep every night. You have to sleep every night. And you have to say you're done grading. I think that some people are just meant to be teachers. I'm not bragging, but I really think I was meant to do this. I just love spending time with the kids — all the time. When I started teaching, I used to plan these days that were test and rest days where I give them a day to work on something in class. They had to be quiet and work on it, and they enjoy that too. But now more and more, I don't like those quiet days because I'm missing out on all this opportunity to teach and learn with them and grow. I think to be energized as a teacher, you just have to love doing that. And you have to love the unexpected. 

What's one of your favorite team building things that you do? Team building is sort of just intrinsic to what we do. I actually never used to do anything team building official until I started talking to people like Elizabeth Cyr and Brenda Field and they were doing all these cutesy things like where you make a turkey hand that you trace and you put it on your back and then everybody gets to come around and write something nice on your turkey. It sounds so stupid for high school kids, but they love it. They had this piece of paper where everybody had written something nice to them. That's probably my favorite thing that I've done. I think kudos every day for the small and the big things and taking time to look at each other's work and appreciate it and have other people comment on the work, it feels really authentic. 

Do you do kudos every day? Every day. 

How do you do that in your classroom? I love looking at the actual work, not just saying, "Oh, hey, thanks to so and so for doing such and such," but actually look at what they did. And then everybody else can see the qualities that make someone unique or talented.  

When do you do that? We do announcements every day at the beginning of class, so we do kudos then. We have this virtual book through our publisher where we can flip through the pages of the book as they're submitted. I'll do before school meetings, and they'll come in and get donuts or whatever. We spend 20 minutes flipping through the pages and just all of us talking about what we love in the book. It's good because we only publish once a year. A lot of the new kids don't believe it's actually going to be a real thing, so they get to see it on a projector overhead. They get to see how other people react to their work. I think it energizes them to want to do better and do more. 

You said that you have these announcements at the beginning of class. So kids walk into your class and then...It's so cute. It's so ritualistic. They come in, they sit down, the bell rings, and then two editor in chiefs stand up at the podium and they run the announcements. They give the announcements, and then anybody sitting in the room who has an announcement will give an announcement. It might be a teaching point or a reminder.  They might give a kudos in that situation. The other day my marketing editors announced that it was team building day. They were like, "We're going to play Heads Up!" I had no idea what Heads Up was, but it's an app that you put on your phone. They didn't even tell me they were going to do that, but I just walked off to the side and watched it, and it was hilarious. And I've really learned to trust them. They understand the value of everything. They understand the value of time and so now they know we're going to do this team building thing. It's not going to take forever. We're going to have a lot of fun. And we're going to use it to promote what we're doing. It was so fun just to watch them.

How long did it take? Oh, gosh, five minutes? Honestly, there were teachers across the hall that were like, "What's going on?" They were exploding. They were screaming the answers out they were so excited. I saw this video of it from an outsider's perspective. I saw myself literally walk off to the side and just stand there watching and laughing. I thought, "This is really cool. They run the show." I mean they don't, but they do. My favorite part of the announcements is this thing that we've done for a decade. As soon as we're ready, we do this thing where we rub our hands together and then we go “Ready…” and we spread our hands really wide and then we go “BREAK” and we all clap. It creates this booming clap. 

You do it every day? Every day. It's the coolest thing because you hear this huge, “Ready...Break!” and then everybody stands up and they all go off to work. 

When you think about teaching and what your students learn from you, what is it that you hope that they take from you? I hope they realize that they're capable, and they can do things they didn't know they could do. And I hope they don't get locked into going to college to study to be a certain thing. I hope they learn in my class that there are so many things they can do. They can take chances and risks. 

Robert Petrone Interviews Tracy Anderson About Creating Space for Student Writing in Our World

I sat down to talk with Robert Petrone about Maria Montessori, pedagogy and authentic audiences.