Character Building and Snowball Fights with Rainier Lee  

Please note, this transcript is generated by AI and may include some errors. 

Spencer Payne: Okay, here we are with front of the class real stories from real educators with Rainier Lee and Rainier, can you introduce yourself with a little bit of what are you currently teaching? Where, who, all that stuff that a fellow teacher would be curious to learn about.

Rainier Lee: Yeah, for sure. So hey guys, yeah, Spencer said I'm Rainier. I currently teach in the Netherlands, but at an international school, so everything is in English. And I am a social studies teacher and head of department. I teach grades six, seven, eight, nine, and 10. But yeah, I... No, yeah, yeah, so basically just in the Netherlands, in Holland.

Spencer Payne: Good.

Perfect. And how in the world are you, are you from there? How in the world did you end up teaching in the Netherlands?

Rainier Lee: Yeah, people are always curious about that. It's a weird thing. Well, actually I've been an international school teacher for the past I want to say six years So before the Netherlands it was South Korea and then Honduras and now the Netherlands How I wound up in Holland is because I'm half Dutch. I know I don't look it but yeah I'm half Dutch There's a big ethnic community in the Netherlands of people called Indo's and they're basically descendants of the old colonies in Indonesia and mixture of Dutch Indonesian.

So yeah through that, I have the Dutch passport and everything.

Spencer Payne: Perfect. Well, now there's two more interesting things to explore, which are first, how did you get into education in the first place? What grabbed you about that profession? Why did you choose education? How did you end up here in the first place?

Rainier Lee: Yeah, I think that's the million dollar question. A lot of people always ask and the typical answer is, I was called to help students and this and that. To be honest, I hated the idea of teaching growing up. I was an anthropologist beforehand, a cultural anthropologist. So I was always interested in culture and I taught on the side here there as a substitute teacher or through different religious organizations. But yeah, I just found myself living abroad teaching English and I fell in love with it full time and decided to go as a career, get my teaching credentials basically and go full on with it. And I don't regret it.

Spencer Payne: And can you help us understand where were you in life at that time when you started teaching English and decided, maybe this thing that I said no way to, I'm actually, I actually kind of like it and maybe I'll even go deeper into it. How old were you? Where were you teaching English? Like, can you put us, give us a little bit of a sense of where you were in life at that time when it seems like your whole direction in life decided to change and go in education.

Rainier Lee: Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. So my origin story is no. So, well, basically, it was I had finished my first master's degree in Pennsylvania. For anyone who's curious, I was born and raised in the United States, grew up there my whole life. I was around, I want to say 26 years old after I finished my master's, the educational career that I had was more in university.

And if anyone knows who's taught in university or who's gone to university, it's really hard to get tenured or at least get professorships. So I found myself with a master's degree. I had taken education classes focusing on multicultural education in that taught on the side to kind of pay myself through university. And I thought to myself, look, things are getting kind of comfortable. My wife and I are now starting to ease into middle class and think about buying a house and so forth.

And we thought to ourselves, sounds like the most boring thing ever. So I saw a English, I guess, teaching abroad thing online. And I was like, hey, to my wife, should we just go move abroad to Korea? We had never heard much about South Korea. So we went to, we were living in what I think Pennsylvania at the time. We went to go try Korean food and we said, yeah, let's go move abroad to South Korea.

Spencer Payne: And like, I'd love to dive into that a little bit more, right? So living in the US married, right? So it's, it's not just you, you have to kind of convince to go out and venture. It's your, your, your wife as well, your partner. And so how

How in the world you said you went to go try Korean food and said, this is good. Let's go. Was it that simple? Like, help us understand how you made that transition into, into like, I'm going to go, we are now going to go move across the country to a place we have never been before to go take a new job in a new place and basically start a whole new life. Like how, how did that actually happen?

Rainier Lee: Yeah, I guess the one word for it is curiosity. So if anyone there doesn't know what an anthropologist is, basically, I would study culture, languages, different things like that with my career before education. So naturally, I was just curious. I even made the comment earlier that my grandparents came from Indonesia. So I have some Asian roots down the road. But yeah, I don't know. always even when we are dating, we said, let's kind of get the most out of life and explore it.

And when it came to changing my career and becoming a teacher, I thought to myself, what's the fastest way to fully immerse yourself? And that's teaching abroad. And that kind of, don't regret it one bit because it did kind of fully immerse myself as a teacher. Yeah.

Spencer Payne: And no better way to fully immerse yourself in a culture than to actually teach that culture's youth and do it in multiple countries. It sounds like you're actually, still an anthropologist. You may just maybe not, you might not have that official title, but you can call yourself that for sure if you'd like to. And I'd love to dig in now. So South Korea and you're currently in the Netherlands and there was a stopover. Where was it? Did I hear Ecuador?

Rainier Lee: Yeah. It's Honduras.

Spencer Payne: Honduras, got it. And so like, how did that come about? Are you doing two years in each place? How are you deciding where to go next? Like, for someone who's hearing this thinking, I want to go have an adventure, I'm curious. How are you finding your next job? How are you approaching all of this?

Rainier Lee: No, it's an interesting thing. like for those international school teachers, once you get in, you have lot of opportunities, but basically the contracts are two years a piece. Typically outside of Europe, but in Asia, South America, Africa, et cetera, they'll actually pay for your housing and pay for you to come back to your home country once a year. So it has a lot of perks, especially as an American. I wanna say we...

are super privileged just with our passports. If you have a passport and a teaching certification, it's kind of the gateway to go teach anywhere in the world. So yeah, it was, I wanna say two and a half years in South Korea, only one year in Honduras because there was some political instability going on there. And then currently in my second year of the Netherlands, but I think we're gonna kind of settle down here. But yeah, typically you just finish your contract and you think to yourself, do I wanna stay there? Do you wanna go abroad?

where else do I want to go? And it's a buffet of different countries and experiences. So why not?

Spencer Payne: Yeah, one more question on more of this multicultural anthropological side, and then we'll go back to education. But for how might you, for someone who's curious, like of how people approach education, teachers, respect for teachers, maybe pay, maybe how much parents are involved, just how a country or people embrace education, you now have been a student in the US, a little bit of teaching in the US.

You've also been done teaching now in Honduras, South Korea, and the Netherlands. How might you compare or contrast kind of the approach to education, maybe respect for teachers, parental involvement, what people want to learn, however you want to dissect that, how do you compare and contrast kind of approach to education and what you've seen across those four different countries?

Rainier Lee: Yeah, I guess that's the million dollar question. I'm gonna try to summarize it so it doesn't take forever. I feel like I could actually, we could write books on this. But let me try to think. I would say for three things that pop up as an educator, right? So I'll say it from a teacher's perspective. When you go abroad, you're typically looking for, I wanna say three things. One is finances. We'll just be honest about that. A lot of us, especially as teachers have student debt. So you wanna go abroad to pay off that student debt.

Lifestyle is another thing. Are you going to have a better lifestyle as Americans? We get stuck into our kind of systems and our little places, but people internationally travel quite a lot more. So lifestyle that kind of goes into it. Do you want to move to a country that you want to travel in? And the third one is career. I mean, from for me, I feel like I've advanced my career quite quickly compared to a typical teacher because you have a lot of turnaround internationally. So when it comes to South Korea,

Yeah, how you're treated as a teacher is phenomenal. It's a whole culture centered around respect for teachers, their educational tradition, I want to say, goes back to the Qing dynasty in China. So there's a whole cultural structure where you are really appreciated financially, but also socially within the structure. mean, your classroom will be even if you have a classroom of let's say 30 to 40 students, they'll bow to you when they come in, they say, comes Hamidah, San Sanim afterwards, thank you teacher.

you can really, yeah, redirect a class, I wanna say, by just a glance, or saying, think that's too much, buddy, like, and then it'll be like, oh, whoa, because it's a culture that's very collective, and it's a culture that you don't wanna lose your face and your honor, like, I don't wanna say your actual face, but you don't wanna lose your honor and disrespect for the teacher. So for me, South Korea as a teacher was really nice because, yeah, it's easily directing the students, they're really respectful.

Parents are extremely involved in the students. I know there's stereotypes, negative stereotypes in the US of Tiger parents considering East Asian parents and the whole model minority, is like stereotypes, but the sense that a whole country has parents that really want you to get the best out of it. All the parents want the students to go to Harvard. All the parents want the students to go abroad, et cetera. So it's really helpful.

Rainier Lee: When it comes now that's that's most of Asia to be honest, China will be the same Japan will be the same to some extent Thailand Vietnam and of course Singapore now when it comes to Honduras, it's a little bit of a different story I want to say there's more of an economic Inbalance as you would see in most developing countries. So there's there's the top 1 % the bottom 99 % Typically if you're gonna go teach abroad, you're gonna be teaching the top 1 %

So in Honduras, it's a little bit of a different story. mean, the students have a lot more energy, a lot more passion and things like that, but the classes are a little more difficult to manage because there's less of that collective, I want to say, culture that you have in East Asia. And it's more like America to an extent where some teachers could get burnt out.

Netherlands, to contrast to that, is also interesting because international schools are actually subsidized by the government. So it's common for, let's say, a typical Dutch person to be learning three or four languages and having their main study in English. But the students here in the Netherlands typically are students from abroad who are parents who either working here or immigrated here or a huge current

Ukrainian refugee population as well. Mixed with some Dutch kids who grew up abroad whose Dutch isn't that good, so they go to an English speaking international school. So it's different.

Spencer Payne: Yep, got it. Well, you're right. We could certainly go on that for much longer. But that being said, I also do want to talk about actual education and stories and moments in the classroom. So first, you've now been teaching for what, six, seven, eight years ish. How long have you been teaching for?

Rainier Lee: Yeah, I want to say full time. believe it's seven, but I was, but if you want to add the part time on and off when I was in university, I'd say about 10, but yeah, seven full time.

Spencer Payne: Perfect. And so we've gone now from, have no interest in teaching at all to this has been your full-time profession for over seven years across three, four different countries, depending on how you choose to count it. What has kept you in this game so long? do you, what, why do you, why do you keep coming back to teaching?

Rainier Lee: Yeah, it's crazy. used to, again, growing up hate the idea of a teacher because you'd see all your teacher friends or your teacher parents or the friends of your parents, etc. I mean, one of my grandmothers was a teacher too. She was always exhausted. But I don't, it's the curiosity. Going back to like the beginning of our conversation, as someone who grew up multicultural and someone who studied anthropology, you're just curious about stuff.

And to stay into it, I'd say my biggest advice for anybody if they were to take it is just pace yourself. You're not gonna become the best teacher in one year. Make simple goals for yourself. But yeah, just pace yourself and have fun with it because really it's a job. And you're gonna have fun at least abroad too. You could probably hear it from the stories, but I'm learning stuff from my Korean students when I lived in South Korea. I'm learning stuff from my Honduran students who shockingly like Honduras is such a unique multicultural nation, the majority of my students were Arabic, right? Who fled their, yeah, right? So they'd have names like Said, Abar, et cetera. And these aren't recent immigrants. These are from the 1900s Palestine. yeah, so they fled in the early 1900s. Most countries didn't take them because they were Arabic, which is the story, but they were Catholics, right? Because there's a huge Catholic population in the Mideast. So.

Yeah, they went to Honduras apparently, actually the president of El Salvador that is always in the news is Arabic, right? So there's a big population. So you learn those things to find, wow, Honduras is interesting. The elite class is Arabic in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala. In Korea, you learn that collective kind of respect for when you see people on the streets or when you're talking to elderly people. So yeah.

It's a curious thing. Even I find myself today learning new things. We have an influx of Israeli students because of the conflict happening right now who come to the Netherlands because the majority of their grandparents or great grandparents came from Europe who fled during the Holocaust. So it's just a super interesting, I don't know. You said like I'm an anthropologist in the classroom. It's true. Basically, I'm just an anthropologist that finally gets paid. I'm not writing my papers for universities for free anymore. Now it's like, I actually get paid for this.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. And it's all real. It's not historical textbook, like learning. is like, you're actually seeing, you're actually seeing like history being made with, with immigration and, and influx of certain people going to certain country and why, mean, you're, you're, I'd argue you're closer to being anthropologist than you ever would have been sitting in a university setting.

Rainier Lee: Yeah, yeah. And these are how my units are made too, right? So I teach at an IB school, which is very contextually built, right? Our units are built too. So it's really fun to kind of just make a unit, let's say for eighth grade, I made a unit on culture, right? We follow the typical teacher, I do, we do, you do process. So I do, I taught them naturally, because I lived in Pennsylvania, in Lancaster for a bit. So I taught them about the Amish culture, right?

Spencer Payne: Yeah.

Rainier Lee: and I correlated them being a homogenous culture with South Korean culture, which is also where I lived also, so that's fun. But then you build the units and the projects around student-based learning and conceptual learning to when the students actually bring their projects forth, they're literally just funneling me new information as an anthropologist and a teacher to be like, wow, okay, next year I'm gonna use your culture as an example, et cetera, et cetera. So it's a fun process.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. one complete side note, just because you mentioned Lancaster, Pennsylvania, home of major Richard Winters of Band of Brothers lore, just out of complete curiosity. Are you aware of that? there like, are this is the town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania? Like, are they proud of this? Is there a monument to him there? Like, how does that, I'm just curious. I'm just, I'm just curious because I have not been, I'd be curious to learn because he's a legend if you watch Band of Brothers or read that book.

Rainier Lee: Yeah.

Spencer Payne: I mean, that's like the prototypical example of a leader. So just curious if there's any information about him in town locally.

Rainier Lee: No, for sure.

No, for sure. It's actually because Lancaster is Amish-run basically, but also Mennonite. They traditionally ran it. And before that it was Quaker. So you don't really see many war memorials as interesting as it sounds. So even though he came from Lancaster, and there are many famous people who come from Lancaster, a lot of the radical during the Civil War Prohibition era, or excuse me, the Civil War era, post Civil War, the radical Republicans who wanted to like oust

the Southern Democrats, we have a lot of that coming from Lancaster because they're really anti-slavery, but because it is a modest county based in Mennonite, Quaker, and even Amish-like ideals, you don't really see much of that, as weird as it sounds. But you would in other, because I lived in other states too, you would see like a giant monument, you know?

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. Sorry for the tangent, which always, always curious, always curious to. we could do that as a whole separate side note, I'm sure. but getting back into some of your teaching and some, moments, I'd love to, I'd love to dig into some moments in your nearly 10 years, seven full time in the, in the classroom. do you have anything, you know, coolest, most enjoyable, proudest moments, anything that you did, your, your student did your, your entire classroom did that kind of still makes you look back and smile.

Rainier Lee: No, no, no, I'm, you want to talk history? I was like, let's go.

No, yeah.

Spencer Payne: that maybe even 50 years from now, you'll still remember that because it was just such an incredible moment. Anything that you can share, they're just fun, enjoyable, proud moments in the classroom.

Rainier Lee: Yeah, yeah. Well, I wanna say, I had this question asked to me, so I'll use the same example because, yeah, my school asked the same thing. I think one of the most memorable moments I have as a teacher are those moments actually outside of education and more so into character building. So one time it was snowing here in the Netherlands, which is actually kind of rare as shocking.

But it was snowing and one of the students looked out the window with just amazement. She was from Israel, right? And then she was looking, I was like, okay, like Alona, like what's up? Like, are you okay? And she was like, this is the first time I've ever seen snow in my entire life in person, right? And that was like, shock. Then I like did a little poll in the room, a little formative assessment. I was like, okay, guys, let's be honest because we have a lot of Indian students as well.

who here has never actually seen snow in person and like five hands went up and these are sixth graders, right? And I was like, stop it guys. Everybody get out of the classroom. Each one of you guys get one snowball and you're allowed to throw it at me. If you hit me, there we go, right? So I took all the students and of course the amazement because if you have students from India and Pakistan who it's very formal in school and even.

Spencer Payne: Yeah.

Rainier Lee: different parts of the stuff that, oh my gosh, my social studies teacher is a psychopath. He's literally gonna walk us out and like in full on like British red coat formations like line up and we like all throw a snowball at him. Yeah, so it was fun. That was my most memorable moment that happened actually last year because it's those memories, right? It's breaking down the stress for a student from a different country who just immigrated maybe their country's having a war, et cetera.

Spencer Payne: Haha!

Rainier Lee: then now their first moment can kind of be like an exciting moment of snow.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, thank you for sharing that because it could have been so easy to just ignore her mystification at seeing the snow or not ask the students or not go outside. But sometimes, sometimes you got to break the lesson for seven minutes.

12 minutes, whatever that took to just go have a real human moment that people are going to remember probably for the rest of their life. And I'm sure you didn't actually lose any momentum on whatever you need to get done that day, or maybe you made up for it the next day. Like you still got to the same place with having this incredibly deep human moment that I'm sure, if know, five of those students who had never seen snow before will probably remember for the rest of their life. and they probably all went and raved about how fun the day was at school that day. I'm guessing.

Rainier Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then at least then I can like rave about it too, because it's a memory for myself too. But yeah, yeah. And I think those those are important, especially in education. Because, yeah, any schools like this schools in the US too. But I taught primary for a few years, right? Actually, the majority of my my, my background is in primary was I was a first grade teacher, a kindergarten teacher. And for us, the main thing that that you need to do is build a community, right?

and build a classroom culture of fun, of making mistakes, right? Of daising out at the window, not being like, hey, focus, we're talking about Genghis Khan conquering like half of the world, right? So, but like to actually have that space to like give trust, allow the students to ask questions, allow the students to have more of a longer processing time. And then for me, that happened in the, I think that was in December. So here in the Netherlands, my county basically starts from September, right?

September to July, no, yeah, September to July. So it was the beginning of the year. You're just building routines with the classroom. You have students from every different nations. And it really allowed for that open dialogue of like, okay, it's not dumb for a student to ask, hey, can we have a classroom outside? Or hey, can we do this? Or hey, it's sunny, et cetera. So it's nice. I like those moments a lot.

Spencer Payne: Yep. That's fantastic. And on a, maybe up the ante a little bit, any wild, crazy, I still can't believe that happened moments or the students said that, especially considering you've got now three, four countries you're pulling from. Uh, you know, there's kids from some of these schools who are again, like you said, in Honduras, like there's

There's kids from all over the world in all of these schools. So I mean, are there any just wild, crazy moments or things that you can't believe that happened? Maybe even just because people are from different worlds and they don't even understand that I said this thing and it's offensive to this person. And it's normal to me. Like there's a million things that imagine international world with, such a wide range of students from all over the world. what, yeah, what have you seen that you're able to share of just kind of wildly crazy? I can't believe that happened type moments.

Rainier Lee: Well, yeah. Now, one would assume if you're interacting with all these cultures, or especially if you have these cultures interacting with each other during social study lessons where a lot of history is very touchy, right? That you'd have a lot of incidents. actually, when it comes to the students, they're very respectful. And it really gives me hope for humanity to be like, wow, like us as educators, our jobs are really important because...

It's as they grow up into their adult age, then that's when they start becoming racist, prejudice, nationalistic, closed-minded, et cetera. But one that pops up is in South Korea, I taught little kids, and you know how in English we go, mm, those words, right? In Korea, the word for that, they use a word, is actually the N word.

Spencer Payne: Yes.

Rainier Lee: in the USA. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you would have a lot of kids just saying the N word, just N word as their filler word. So that shocked me right off the bat where I was like, Chi-Yun, what? What did you say? And then like I had to learn. So that was quite a shock I wanna say culturally, especially coming from the US where you would never in your wildest dreams ever say that. But yeah.

Spencer Payne: What'd say?

Rainier Lee: It's one of those things where then you again learn, you go on your little rabbit trail and you see that Korean rappers use that word all the time. Not because they're using the word, but because it's the filler word, right? it's quite interesting. Yeah, there's this famous band, BTS, right? And BTS J-Hope, when I worked in South Korea, one of the cities was Gwangju, which is actually where J-Hope, the rapper is from. And he got in a lot of hot water when he was in Los Angeles or something using that

Spencer Payne: Really?

Rainier Lee: And he was like, no, I'm sorry. This is just our filler word.

Spencer Payne: This is the equivalent. That's the equivalent of us saying, or, or like, like that's, that's how they use that phrase. Geez. That's wild.

Rainier Lee: Exactly. Exactly. Now they don't say it as much because the culture is so structured and like very formal, but they'll use it here there. And it's just, that's one of the biggest, guess, linguistically, linguistic shocks to me. Outside of that, cultural mannerisms as well. The idea of a short bow, different things where in South Korea, of course, everything was taught in English.

but there will be some Koreans sprinkled here or there. And when you teach little kids and they're learning English, they'll revert back to Korean to you. And of course my last name's Lee, which is the second most common South Korean name apparently. I found out that too. So was like, gosh, like here we go. And then it's in the height of COVID. Schools never shut down in South Korea, but you always wore a mask. So with my mask and everything, they're like, this guy's gotta be half Korean or something.

But so they'd revert back to Korean and stuff like that. But yeah, it the layers of the language, when the little kids would not speak formally to you, it would be like, ooh, you know, you're not supposed to be doing that. they'd be all sorry. Like, those type of things. But yeah, I'd say the n word was the most the most shocking South Korean thing. And then finding those little glimpses of curiosity of Honduras, like having a big Arab population or

The Netherlands also for me, I mentioned earlier in the, the inner, the, the discussion that like I'm part I'm Indo, my mother's Indo. She's Dutch and Indonesian. And in the U S growing up, I mean, we blend in with Mexicans or Filipinos. We never really like have that strong community, but here in the Netherlands, my gosh, like every other person is Indo. And when I'm like, Oh, you look slightly Asian. Oh, you look slightly Asian too. Like, Oh my gosh.

So it's those curiosities I want to say. Yeah.

Spencer Payne: Yep. Awesome. And, in the classroom, you know, kind of, you, you mentioned that snow experience and kind of creating a culture of authenticity and maybe being okay with, with asking a dumb question or failing or all that kind of stuff that you mentioned. are there any things like that or others that you consistently do in the classroom that just seem to work really well for you that maybe you're surprised other people don't do more of that too.

Rainier Lee: Yeah, I think the one thing that I would say that I do more than often is I admit my mistakes. So for me, I'm actually quite dyslexic. So I make spelling mistakes regularly, right? So I'm open with the students. I'm like, look, guys, sometimes I'll make a mistake and that's okay. So I think having that, I don't know, different teachers, some teachers want that authority up here. I'm the expert. I know exactly what you do.

and you're down here. Yes, there's still that as a teacher, of course, we're adults and we have like more respect, but for me, it's more of that connection, right? So for me, it's, hey guys, look, I have dyslexia. Like sometimes if a student says, Mr. Lee, you spelt because wrong. I'm like, oh shit. Guys, like I have dyslexia. It's a thing, like it's okay. But then it creates that connection, right? Cause you have those other kids with dyslexia.

who are always seen as dumb or always seen as not as good. And they could see a teacher who is like made it in education, right? Who's teaching them about grammar, teaching them about writing essays and stuff, who is kind of come from where they come from. So have that openness with them. And how I do it typically with my students is we have a structure at our school with social studies when you're doing research, right? It's called the OPCVL.

Have you heard of it?

Spencer Payne: I have not. Can you share what the acronym means for others who maybe have not heard of that?

Rainier Lee: Yeah, for sure, for sure. So this is kind of like our language, right? When you're doing research or you're writing papers or anything like that, or you're kind of looking at where information is coming from. It's OPCVL origin. Where does it come from? Purpose. What is the, let's say YouTube video or let's say paper meets, origin purpose content. What is actually in it? Value. How is it value?

to your research and limitations. Right? So that's the language that I use all in my classroom. Now I start each class with, guys, let's all make an OPCVL for yourself. And then of course the I do, we do, you do, I model it for myself. Origin, look guys, I come from the United States. Right? This is my origin. When I'm gonna teach you guys about the Cold War, I'm gonna try to be as objective as possible, but.

Look at my origin guys. Some of that little bit is gonna blink in when I'm comparing communism and capitalism. That's just natural, right? Purpose, my purpose is to get you through 10th grade and go to 11th grade, right? Really simple. That is my purpose as a teacher. Content, I tell my students it's basically your hero stats, right? Like what do you come with? I say, guys, I'm multicultural. I have two passports. I've worked in these countries at such a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I have a lot of content, right? Value is...

I can like go on that content and use it. I can teach you guys about different places. Limitations, I have dyslexia. I'm teaching five different grades. I have these different things. Everybody have, even the limitations can go to your, back to your origins, right? So there's those five things. Now, if you build that and then have the students do that, the culture then becomes in the classroom more of a conversation and less of a, I do this, you do this also, right?

So it's modeling, basically.

Spencer Payne: Yep. Thank you for sharing that. Like the more tangible examples we can suss out the better because then it's something that people might say, I'm going to try that tomorrow rather than the generality. So thank you for being very specific about some of the things that you're doing in the room. I'd love to switch over now to a little bit more of a kind of rapid fire, quick hitter questions, more aimed at maybe advice for younger teachers or those thinking about joining the profession.

Rainier Lee: No, wait, yeah.

Spencer Payne: And you kind of hit on this a little bit earlier of like, you're not going to be the perfect teacher right away. Um, but maybe reiterate or expand on what's the number one piece of advice you'd give to someone who is, uh, maybe in their first year teaching, or maybe they're about to go start their first year teaching or what advice might you go back and give yourself at that same time, knowing what you know now. So what's that kind of most, most important, biggest piece of advice to a aspiring or younger teacher?

Rainier Lee: for sure. Well, I would say in the profession of teaching, and this is not just in the US, right? This is internationally. We have one of the highest burnout rates, similar actually to, I want to say social workers, which is crazy, right? We were educating. We're not just educating, but we're kind of developing the next generation. And it comes out with a ton of burnout. So my one most credible, I would say, advice for anyone, new teacher, second year teacher is pace yourself.

We really wanna be in this profession for a long time because it builds on itself, right? It's gonna get better and better and better and easier and easier and easier. So set just one simple goal for each year. For me, when I moved to the Netherlands, I started teaching a new system, the IB system, right? My first year was simple. I'm gonna learn that system. I'm not gonna put a lot of pressure on myself to be the perfect evaluator.

I'm not gonna be the perfect lecturer. I'm not gonna do this, this, this, one goal, just learn the system. My second year, the goal is what? Fix the curriculum a little bit, right? And just make it really simple and kind of see this growth mindset. I know we use it all the time in education, right? But we gotta sometimes look in the mirror and actually look to ourselves and say, let's have a growth mindset. The flower's not gonna bloom in like one day, right? You have to grow it.

And there are gonna be cycles of crazy weeks where you're stressed out, cycles where it's easy. But the really easy way to, easy way, the most plausible way that you can get through that is set one simple goal for each, yeah, so that'd be my advice.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. that's great. And would you mind, could you share maybe the last one or two or three years of maybe what, was, what was your one goal this year or last year? How did you do that for yourself?

Rainier Lee: Yeah, it's difficult. And I wasn't the teacher where it's like, oh, it's my first year's teaching. I'm gonna set a goal, right? So I only really started doing this in the last, I want to say four years. So when I was in Honduras, I went from language schools to an actual international school. So my one goal was to learn how international schools work.

What are the student populations looking like? Are these kids multicultural? Are they third culture? Are they cross culture, et cetera? Just learn the student population. What's it like? And then I come here to the Netherlands, I think, yeah, simple. First one was learn the new curriculum. The next year was, yeah, infuse.

those stories that I'm telling you guys about, right? The Arab people in Honduras, in South Korea, all these different things, the Amish, etc. Infuse those stories into the lessons. And then I guess for my next year, it's all going to be about balance. Because I'm gaining more, I want to say opportunities, but also more stress at work.

I'm the head of my department. I'm the head of Model United Nations. I'm the school photographer sometimes. Like there's a lot of these things and that could be fun, but of course for me it's balance. So the next year is balance. Simplify things. Don't teach as many subjects. Don't teach as many grade levels. Just simplify it because yeah, sometimes you need a break.

Spencer Payne: Yep. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. And you mentioned earlier that you did get your masters. Could you share a little bit more about the rationale behind why and what did that unlock for you that maybe you wouldn't have been able to do or earn or advance or whatever it may be had you not gotten your masters? So can you share a little bit about the rationale upfront of why you got it? And then has the reality matched what you expected? Like, were you able to actually go do what you thought by getting that?

Rainier Lee: For sure. Well, I think when it comes to your master's degree, people get it for two, two different reasons, right? One, the typical thing is you get it to advance your career and get paid more. That's just the simple, simple reason, right? Or the second one. Yeah, yeah, pretty good reason, right? And it does do that, right? Second reason is you want to do it to advance your careers in a specific direction, right? So I had actually already had a master's degree, I have two master's degree, right? Degree. My original one came through my cultural anthropology background. So

Spencer Payne: That's a pretty good reason.

Rainier Lee: But when I was teaching, I felt like I was missing one thing, and that was a background in teaching. Outside of getting my teaching certification through the program at Moreland University, which was amazing, right? I still wanted to specialize in something in education. And for me, that was ESL, so English as a Second Language. So my second master's, which is a master's in education, is actually in teaching students of different languages. And I would say it was the best thing, right?

I look back and was like, shoot, more than, offered a multicultural one and like global, all these things. But, but for me, it was that when I, when I went to international schools, I saw that teachers were being hired from the UK, South Africa, America in their subjects and their professionals in those subjects. Right. As, as anyone is, but none of them were ESL specialists.

And internationally speaking, I want to say 85 to 95 % of your students are ESLs. Even if the language is like really nice and really good, truth be told, the majority of them English is their second language. So for me, being the high achiever that I am where I'm like a Pokemon collector, I got to collect them all, right? So I wanted to get another master's and I thought to myself, it could be in globe international relations.

or multicultural education, which doesn't make sense because my background's already anthropology and I'm already teaching students of that. So for me, it was ESL and it has extended. If you want to talk about finances, financially speaking, it helps not so much in Europe, right? Because there's a different structure, but in Asia and Latin America, even the U.S., it helps quite significantly because it doesn't just say you're a teacher. It says you're a specialist.

in a specific region of teaching. For me, it's ESL. So they can always, if I'm hired anywhere, they can say, okay, this guy knows how to teach students of different languages. If you get one in special education, you know how to teach students a special education. And I would say, I'm not even an ESL teacher. I'm a social studies teacher, right? I still use that master's degree every single day. The stories of...

Rainier Lee: bringing down the stress, having a culture of fun and culture of acceptance and a culture of flowing, right? Those are all ESL practices that I learned with my master's degree on how to bring down the stress because as you bring down the stress, language develops twice as fast, right? So I'd say for me, yeah, a master's degree, if anybody's looking into it, go for it. It's gonna, yes, advance your career because you're seen as a specialist. And then if you have experienced

kind of combine with that, it really helps. But really, it's gonna give you more tools. And for me, yeah, the ESL tools that I use in my classroom, I love every day and I'm thankful for every day too. Yeah.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Great. Thank you for that very in-depth answer to that question. And a couple more real quick hitters here before we wrap up. What is the number one best thing to you about this profession?

Rainier Lee: Ooh, okay, everybody knows it, but I'm actually gonna say vacation time. Vacation, the kids, the joy, the this. No, guys, let's be honest. What career gives you what three to four months paid vacation in a year? This is insane. Really, for me, and if anybody is gonna try to become a teacher from another career, you could pursue both at the same time.

Spencer Payne: Ha!

Rainier Lee: On all my free time, I go traveling. go to take photos. I love photography, right? So I take photos of different cultural experiences that again, I can take and like use in my units, right? But the vacation time, like what in the world, who would give you three to four months paid vacation? It's insane.

Spencer Payne: Yep. And what on the other end of that, what is the single worst thing about this profession? Or if there is one thing you could just change overnight and make it instantly better improved, not have to do it at all. Like what might you change? What's the worst thing about this profession or what might you change if you had a wish list?

Rainier Lee: that's difficult. Yeah, I would say more boundaries put on you with teaching by your school, right? So I'm gonna break it down just real quick, right? Because I don't want to like keep us too long. But there's no boundaries on how much you can work. Some teachers work on the weekends, some teachers go till midnight. Bless her heart. I have a friend who is like

Always the first one there, always the last one there. I say, what is your week and how was it? And she's like, I was grading, I was doing this, I was prepping lessons. And it's like, bless your heart, that's too much. So for me, schools really should be the ones saying, don't work so much. Stop doing this, I see you're not taking your lunch breaks and you're eating your sandwich as you're grading the students work or as you're prepping for a lesson.

So if I could change anything, it would be the culture around education where we are seen as the saviors to the next generation, right? We sacrifice ourselves for the education of kids. I'd change that if I could.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, got it. And anything else that you'd like to share you think is valuable, fun words of wisdom that maybe just hasn't come up yet, or maybe something that you've already said that is so important, you're just going to restate it here at the end because it's worthy of being said twice. So any, last words of wisdom, either new or repeated.

Rainier Lee: Yeah, well maybe I'll sum up what I have kind of said, but have that growth mindset. I wasn't always a social studies teacher. I taught special ed. I taught ESL. I taught kindergartners. Like, you know what I mean? Use your past experience, even if it's outside of education, to build upon each year. Because really in education, things are going to continue to change. You might be teaching different things, but do it, right? So I use ESL, what do you call them, for non-ESL students. I use kindergarten techniques, not the simple eyes on me, sweeties, no, but like the funness, the kind of craziness, making mistakes on purpose so kids can catch it being kind of cheeky, you know what I mean? So build your career to where everything goes towards a purpose or to where everything can kind of pile up and like create a positive snowball effect in education, if that makes sense.

Spencer Payne: Yep. Awesome. And I must, I must throw out a paradox that I've, I've heard so far, which I don't think is a bad thing. I actually think it's a very interesting tension that you've been able to balance for yourself. This concept of, you know, the best part about teaching is three, four months paid, right. And not wanting, not wanting, uh, educators to necessarily be martyrs or have to work on weekends and have someone to tell them to slow down. Um, but you balance that with.

What comes through to me is a genuine caring for your students and a genuine love of learning and applying that knowledge to the classroom to help your students in a way that I just find if all I guess I'd say this way, if all someone heard was the best part about is the vacations, they'd be like, oh, this person might not be a serious educator, but they listen to the whole thing. Like you're obviously infusing all these things you've learned and all this growth mindset that you've talked about into the classroom to go help your students.

Rainier Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Spencer Payne: and create these natural moments like the snowball example that like the type of teacher who only cares about vacation wouldn't do that. So I guess I applaud you for having this balance, right, of being able to live the life that you are seeking to live while at the same time having a growth mindset for yourself, applying that for the students.

showing the authentic side of you, but not being so all in that you're burning yourself out, right? Because that's the balance we all try to seek and it seems like you're doing that well for yourself.

Rainier Lee: Yeah, and that's one of the things too, because if you're burnt out, the teachers or the students are not gonna like it. And you're not gonna be best educator, you're not gonna be the best husband or wife or partner, et cetera. So it really is, and I say this coming at, I wanna say the middle of my career, right? Was I like this in my first four years? Of course not, right? You wanna be gun ho, save the chill, like everything, right? And that's not to say that you don't appreciate the students and you don't love them and you don't care for them, but you really...

In anything, if you want it to last a long time, you have to pace yourself. And that's why I even said for first year teachers, second year teachers, pace yourself. Know the stats. There's a huge burnout rate, right? Know the stats that like, this is a very difficult job. But with it, you have to kind of commit, know your boundaries, right? So yeah.

I'd say that. But again, also when you go on vacations, go travel to the places your students are from. It's amazing. They bring back candy for them. that's the best.

Spencer Payne: Oh, that's fantastic. Well, Rainier, thanks so much for sharing your story. Real stories from real educators. Appreciate all of the wisdom, the real world examples and the hopefully the story that many people have never heard of the ability to go bounce around from different countries and basically be two profess, have the life of two professions in one. You're an educator and you're a real life anthropologist. So thank you for sharing your story. It was awesome. And we hope.

those listening got a lot out of this and maybe sparked a little curiosity of, geez, I didn't know I could do that. Maybe that could be interesting.

Rainier Lee: Yeah, go for it. Yeah. Well, thanks, Vince, for everything.

Spencer Payne: Thank you.