“People Over Things” with Cole Cooper 

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

Spencer Payne: All right, well, here we are with front of the class, real stories from real educators. Joining us today is Cole Cooper coming at us from Iowa. And Cole, could you share with us and the audience here for the fellow educators out there? What do you teach? Where do you teach? How long you've been doing it? What's the rundown of your current educational profession and what you're working on these days?

Cole Cooper: Yeah, I'm the athletic director, well, activities director, PE health, weight training teacher, Griswold Community Schools in Griswold, Iowa, which is southwest Iowa, very near to Omaha. How I got here, I got my master's degree through Moreland and I thought it was time to kind of take on an administrative role. I was trying to move back to my home state of Idaho where I where a lot of my family is, but it's impossible to find a place to live there because it's very expensive to live in Idaho now. So my brother and sister-in-law were living there and they said, well, we can't live here either. can't afford to live here either. So we got to go somewhere. So we decided somewhere here in the Midwest and we decided Iowa. I had a few offers from schools here and I decided on Griswold. It's been an awesome journey so far.

Before this I was in Montana. I was a head football coach. I did PE health there as well. And before that I was in Idaho, a couple schools in Idaho doing social studies, art, PE health, weight training, you name it. I have a lot of different credentials under my belt because a really wise professor I had in college said, the more you have the more knowledge you have and the more certifications you have, the harder it is to say no to you when you go into those interviews. So that made sense to me at the time and so I took advantage of that. So I'm able to teach all kinds of things. it's not hard to want to hire somebody that can fill a lot of gaps in your teaching staff and just trying to recruit people. So that's how I kind of got to Iowa was

Spencer Payne: There you go.

Cole Cooper: Kind of wanting to be with family and we all just kind of made a journey here together.

Spencer Payne: And shouldn't we all have that advice? Make it hard for other people to say no to you by just being that good and that credentialed. Well, that was a, we got a journey now from Idaho, Montana, Iowa, different teaching roles, coaching roles, and now administrative roles, which we'll explore. But maybe first, can you help us understand, like, how did you get into this profession education in the first place? What drew you to it? How old were you? Like, how did you get involved in this world in the first place?

Cole Cooper: I... It's such a roller coaster ride with me. My wife, if she was sitting right here next to me, she'd agree. She's helped me through a lot of thick and thin. Just kind of growing up and learning to, you know, what is it that I want to do? Because growing up, I always had to do what I had to do in order to survive. I never really thought, well, what do I want to do? And so...

Spencer Payne: And real quick, what are some of the can you share like, what are some of the things that you had to do? Like, is this kind of like 10 years old paper route mowing lawns 14 and like, I got to maybe like, I got to go work at night going back and like, what were some of those things that you had to do? Just give us give us a little background there you don't mind.

Cole Cooper: Well, I mean, it started when I was really young. I thought my dad was, I have to credit my dad, he put a really good work ethic in me when I was really young. I worked at a pallet recovery business. I don't know if people out there know what pallets are. It's everything that gets shipped on, you know, over the nation, right? So in a pallet recovery business. So my dad got me a job.

Spencer Payne: all sitting on wooden pallets. Everything you know is sitting on wooden pallets at some point.

Cole Cooper: a friend of his was like, yeah, I'll hire your kids. So was like 10 years old, working with a Sawzall, cutting all these pallets up and then remaking them. I did that, jeez, I did that for about two years. And then when I got into high school, right after ball games, so I was really into football and basketball, just kind of your generalized sports. After games, I would then go back to that pallet recovery business at night and clean up after everybody so I wouldn't get home until 10:30-11:30 at night after games and so that was to make a little extra money to you know pay for my gas and my truck and things like that. I ended up going to college and you know played football in college and eventually you know I ended up flunking out at a point of course we'll get to that point.

But I've done, jeez, I helped my dad at an HVAC company, heating and cooling company. I did that for a while. And then 2009 hit, of course, and everybody remembers 2009 when everybody lost their jobs. I ended up having a hard time finding a job in 2009 because I didn't have a college degree and I didn't have a lot of work experience. And so I got passed over a lot, I guess.

And jeez, after that, I worked at a produce place. I worked as a waiter. I was a waiter for about three months, just trying to support my family, trying to make things meet, ends meet. And then I ended up getting a job at Home Depot as a part-time guy. And then I worked full-time. And then I ended up being a manager of a couple of departments. And so there was a point in there was a point where my wife and I moved to Texas because I was supporting her to get her college degree. She's a nurse. So I was working multiple jobs just to support her. She got a job in Texas and I was like, why not? Let's move to Texas. So we ended up moving to Texas and I guess what got me into teaching was I was going to the University of North Texas at the time. I got my degree and then I kind of just sat down and I was like, so what do do now?

That's when I called a coach of mine I had. It was my basketball coach, Mr. Randy Potter. He's retired now, which is weird when you're friends with your coach that yelled at you and demeaned you and everything like that. Now you're like buddies now. It's kind of like that circle of life, you know? And he said, why don't you get into teaching? Why don't you coach? I you got a good head for it. You got a good mind. You're good with kids. And that's how I got into

Spencer Payne: And real quick, before he says this, is that something you ever thought about before? Or is this kind of the first seed being planted in your head of like, I never thought about that. Maybe I could be good at that. like, is that the first time that ever was in your mind to potentially go teach and coach?

Cole Cooper: You know, not really. Just kind of looking back at my life, I struggled a lot. I struggled a lot in grade school. I think they just kind of pushed me from grade grade grade. I struggled a lot, but I always tested high enough. Now that I'm an educator, I understand now. I always tested high enough that I didn't meet the criteria in order to be on an IEP or a 504 plan. I always just tested high enough.

And I'm not really sure what my parents knew what to do to help me. It wasn't until I got to college where I finally mustered up the courage to go talk to somebody about it. And they find out that I have like this extreme case of dyslexia. And this whole time I'm sitting here like, man, I'm just stupid. I'm dumb. I can't understand what I'm reading. My mind's going here when I'm supposed to be here. Like I didn't understand why I wasn't able to concentrate things like that. Someone at the University of North Texas finally just gave me some pointers on how to help me and I've used those pointers all the way up till now and it's helped me tremendously so I just was like it was like a light bulb came on was like my gosh this is what has hurt me my whole life that when I flunked out of college the first time was barely passing tests I was reading I was doing homework

Repeating my homework two three times every time I'd go home at night just to make sure it was right, you know. And finally, I just got to a point where I just like I don't want to go to school anymore. I'm stupid I'm dumb. That's when I went to go get a job and Home Depot came about all those things. So But I in my mind, I always thought you know, if I ever become a teacher I'm gonna be a lot better than what I had and It's kind of like my email signature there it my email signature where it says, you know.

It's a quote and it says, be the teacher that you needed to be when you were a kid. And so I try to be that person for my kids all the time and whatever they need, just kind of that servant mentality.

Spencer Payne: And when I'd love to dig into that for a second, like, what do you, what do you mean by that? Or maybe what are some examples? Um, and how do you go about being that teacher that you always wish you had and now being in a position to go be that person that you wanted you, you, you could have used when you were 10, 12, 14, 16, whatever age it was. So how do you do that? What are some, what are some examples?

Cole Cooper: Well, so when we look at the world right now, so this is kind of like what I start with every year with kids when I talk to them. When we look at the world right now, we got a lot of people with their head down looking at their phone. It's a lot of self-centeredness. And we sit here and a lot of us teachers, a lot of us professionals and people just in the world are sitting here wondering, you know, why do we have such huge anxiety issues? Why do we have such huge depression issues?

I think a lot of it is people are trying to, they're just envious of what other people have. And they're trying to copy or they're trying to be like, and they're just not really comfortable with themselves. And so what I kind of tell the kids is, you know, it's okay to have anxiety, it's okay to have depression, it's okay to have those things. But what's going to help you the most with that is having a servant's heart. So when other people are dealing with those issues, if you can come alongside them and help them with that in whatever way you can. that's gonna act that's gonna be like food to your soul too. It's gonna help you as well.

And so I just kinda was thinking one day you know I I ended up losing about five years ago I ended up losing a baby boy. And so when it happened with me and how I got to this point was I was at my last school and just kinda pushed that grief down. I pushed that I just pushed it all down because I didn't want to deal with it. And then in the middle of the class. I thought I was having a heart attack. I was literally like, oh my gosh, what's going on inside me right now? And I always made fun of people like this. I always called them weak and just push it down, be a man, be strong. And it changed my mind about the whole idea with anxiety issues because now I have it because I never dealt with my issues of losing my baby boy.

I was having this breakdown in the middle of class and I just thought, okay, I feel better. I breathed it out, felt better. And then it happened again next period. And so that's when I call my wife, who's the medical professional. I was like, something's going on here. So that's when I ended up going to counseling and she kind of helped me through that with, you'll never get over the fact of losing your child. I don't know who would be able to do that. And it's something you don't wish on anybody.

But with your anxiety issues, focusing on helping serve others can help heal yourself and kind of just kind of make that choice every day to serve others because you're hoping that they'll serve you in your time of need as well. And so kids seem to, I've kind of had that everywhere I've gone for the last five years and it seems to really help in my class. Kids tend to be a little bit more empathetic in my classroom. I can't speak for the other teachers in my school, but I have a lot of SEL type stuff in my class where we learn these empathetic behaviors and we learn to help each other and it's really helped my journey as well to be able to not just grieve but to heal from that, just take that process of healing of losing my child. So I guess I take life and put it into the classroom and it's helped me out and it's helped my kids out a lot.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, obviously very, very sorry to hear that. And are you able to share any examples of how you bring that servant mentality to the classroom and maybe examples of what you've done? Like if I'm teacher out there right now listening, I'm like, that sounds good. I want to do more of that, but I'm not sure exactly how or what that means or what can I do in my classroom tomorrow to exemplify what Cole's talking about? Can you share maybe like how you go about doing that? Like how do you...

How do you invite kids to share more? How do you become that servant leader? What are some examples of things that you might do maybe on the first day of class of a new class or when people are asking questions, like, can you share a little about how do you go about doing that so that someone listening might say, ooh, I can maybe, I can take that idea and I can go do that tomorrow.

Cole Cooper: Yeah, a couple things I've done when I was kind of full time in the classroom. Man, I wish I had it for you. There's a font that you can use when you're putting things up on a power board or a TV or whatever your school's using. There's a font you can use to actually help kids that struggle with dyslexia that aren't really vocal about coming out with it saying, I'm struggling here.

So you're kind of masking one or two kids' issues in your class and you're kind of developing this classroom that is kind of unified. You're helping that kid and you can mask it, you can hide it, so now you're helping this kid but everyone else is just like, okay, that's a cool font. And so that's one thing that's helped me and I've had many kids come up and say, hey, thank you for putting that, changing that font, using extra pictures in your class to and then just because a lot of kids are more visual learning or kinesthetic type learning now. If you can kind of gamify your room, gamification of your room is huge. used to do when I was doing a middle school geography class, you probably remember this Spencer World of Warcraft. So you now you have class craft.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, definitely.

Cole Cooper: And so I used a company called Classcraft where it was the same kind of concept. you gamify your classroom to help those kids learn as well. I got to give a shout out to like Quizlet, like all these things. If you could gamify something in your room, I recommend, especially in the 21st century student, gamify your room in some way because they're going to eat that up a lot better and digest that a lot better than just being in the front of the class and wah wah wah and they're thinking about something else. You can't wait till your class is over kind of thing. That's one thing I've done is font, gamifying. Another thing is, another thing I've tried is having those, I call them check ins.

And so just kind of make a, just kind of make a pact with your student saying, hey, if you stay after You know, just have them stay after class. Don't have them bring in before class because as kids are coming in, they're seeing that you're having that conversation with that kid. And now that's where, you know, gossip happens and stuff like that. So I always have them just, just that pact between you and the student or students and just have that, just have that one-on-one conversation with them at the end of the day saying, Hey, is there something I can help you with? Right? It always comes back to that servant mentality.

Did I present it well enough for you to understand? And if they say no, you have to have something right there and then to help them. And so I know the schools want you to differentiate all the time. There's always differentiation for IEP students and that's overwhelming for teachers. mean, my first couple of years is very overwhelming, but I have found if I kind of quit overthinking it, and just go directly to the kid and say what do you need? Because not that piece of paper that says IEP and the kid's name on it. Sometimes that isn't going to help either. So you got to go to the kid and say what can I help you do? Can I give you YouTube video? Can I send you a TED Talk on Google Classroom? Can I gamify this for you in some way where you understand the coursework that I'm trying to give you?

When you generalize the classroom, hiding everybody's imperfections, it makes it more of a flowing classroom. And kids just tend to be more empathetic because they're doing the same things that the other kids are doing. And you're also challenging the kids that have the IEP. You're also challenging the kids that don't that meet general classroom requirements. So the top things I would do: Change the font usage on your PowerPoints or Google Slides or any kind of presentation. And gamify everything. If you can gamify it, do it. And then you gotta have a rubric or plan on how to grade that as well. And then also just having those one-on-one packs with kids. Because if you do that, I have to think on my perspective. If I had a teacher do that to me, or do that for me, I would have ran through brick walls for that teacher.

Spencer Payne: I would say, do you, do you share that with students? Like I'm like, do you ever say like, Hey, I'm, I'm creating this packed me and you. because this is how, as I look back when I was your age, this is how I wish teachers would have interacted with me. So I'm trying to go give you what I wish I would. Like, do you say that to them? Does that resonate? Yep.

Cole Cooper: Yeah, that's exactly what I say. I have no problem telling my life story to kids. I have no problem telling kids, hey, I was your age too, believe it or not, 9,000 years ago. I get it. I was your age. The only thing that's really changed is our technology. I mean, a lot of kids are still kind of the same. We just, added a technology piece to it and now we've created all these extra issues, which kind of puts a little bit more work on the educator.

But at the same time, you signed up for this and you thought it was going to be easy, but then you found out, oh crap, this is a little harder than I thought. The thing is, is you don't have to overthink it. I see that so much in educators and teachers now, where they just way overthink things and they have to meet every single point on that IEP standard list. And like, you don't have to hit every single point, but...

What is the kid gonna remember the most in your classroom? What is the kid gonna remember the most? Are they gonna remember that worksheet that you put in front of them? Or are they gonna remember the kindness that you showed them so they can learn something from you, not just the course content, but just life, just being human and putting those things into our society of, you know, I remember when Mr. Cooper was nice to me when this happened and then, if your kids are coming back to see you and you were a math teacher,

That's great. You did a great job with those kids. Now me as being almost 20 years as sports and things like that, that's easy because those kids will always come back to want to use the weight room or chew the fat on whatever sports team is going on. That's awesome. I love those. There's nothing more unique than a student athlete and a coach relationship. There's nothing more unique than that. But if you can get your kids to come back to you, if you're a science teacher, math teacher, an English teacher, heck a PE health teacher like me, and they want to come in and just say hi to you and sit down with you for five minutes and just, those are moments you can speak life into your kids and don't take advantage of those times.

Spencer Payne: I say, yeah, say on that note, how, how I realized you're more in the kind of athletic director kind of coordination administrative role now, but when you were in the classroom, right? How with based on this conversation, right? How, how at the end of the year, did you kind of look back and say, I had a really good year this year, I was okay this year, I could have done better here. Because as you mentioned, like there's some test score stuff, there's, there's some numeric objective, like, basis for that, right? Like test scores, etc.

But then there's also the like, do my students actually like me? Did I did I keep my word with my packs to those five students when they proactively sought that out? And I delivered. So there's a lot of ways that you could kind of judge like, did I have a good year this year? Do I feel like I made the impact I could? How if at all did you at the end of a year teaching kind of judge that for yourself? Because there's a million people judging teachers, right? test score, all kinds of things. Like, how did you do that? Like, how did you determined for yourself? Like, did I have a great year this year? Or what could I have done better? Or what did I do really well that I want to do more of? Like, how did you judge that for yourself at the end of the

Cole Cooper: First thing, you gotta be okay with yourself. We tend to overthink ourselves quite a bit. Where we put ourselves on a pedestal or we're stuck in the mud or we're below the mud and we're drowning. You gotta be, what was a way to put it? There was one guy that I really liked to listen to. said, if you can sit alone in the dark for over an hour and just sit there and ponder to yourself.

You're good. But what do most people do? They look at their phone. They get, God, I don't want to do this anymore. They got to go, right? So if you can be okay with yourself and be okay with your decisions that you make, there's no reason why you should feel bad at the end of the year about anything. And of course, I let my principal here know, hey, I got this student. I have this pact with them. I don't want to keep sending this student to you all the time because they're acting out in my room.

Spencer Payne: scrolling. Yep.

Cole Cooper: Your principal has millions of other things to do rather than to watch your kid. And you sending that kid all the time to your principal shows that you do not have good classroom management in your room. And so me being in and a lot of teachers will push back on me with that. You say, well, I can't have a good classroom when they're in here. Why? Why can't you have a good classroom when they're in there? Is there a job they need to do? Is there some kinesthetic thing they could do like handing things out or help being, hell, make them a teacher's aid in your room. Like an unofficial teacher's aid in your room. Of course they have to do the work, but have them, maybe they're a gifted kid and they're not stimulated enough by what you're giving. You don't know those things until you have conversations with kids.

A lot of teachers go into a classroom and they just assume that all kids learn this way. all kids like these things. That's why I don't, when I was a teacher in the classroom, mean PE is a classroom to me, but when I was in like a generalized type classroom, I never handed worksheets out. I hated worksheets. Everything was project based. Everything was based on STEM kind of stuff where they kind of created things. And I just kind of delegated that out. Have you ever heard of the four colors personality test?

Spencer Payne: I don't think I have, can you share a little bit about that?

Cole Cooper: Yeah, when you very first thing I do very first day And this is how I get my groups for PE and this is how I did my groups for history and science stuff when I started breaking people out Kids don't like the personality test I give every year and some people lie on it So they're able to be in the groups that they want to be in right so you have four colors You're either an orange a gold a green or a blue, okay?

And so orange is more spontaneous. I just like to go with the flow. I love life, right? Gold is more, I need to be kind of a leader. I'm more the get to it. If I'm on a team, people tend to look at me. And then you have blue, which is tend to more sympathetic, more feelings based, more emotional based, says the right things at the right time, someone's down. And then you have green based, which is a rule follower.

And these are the people like, no, that's not what the rubric says. The rubric says to do it exactly like this. And we have those four types of people in our society. And so I learned this at a professional development I went to in Colorado where he says four color personality test, it's like a 40 question test, and the kids have to be honest. They cannot skew their answers in a way where it gets them.

And I know these kids well enough now, I know they're lying to me or not. And so then they answer these questions in each color. And then they add it all up and whatever color you have the most in, that is your personality. Now sometimes you're a goldish blue and a greenish yellow. So that happens sometimes. So you kind of tend to lean these ways on certain situations, right?

Spencer Payne: Yep. Yep.

Cole Cooper: So that's the first thing I do is I give out that the very beginning of the year. Do mindsets change? Yeah, they do. I mean, I'm 40, 41 years old now. I'm not the 18 year old boy I was. So my mind has changed completely, right?

Spencer Payne: Yeah, yeah.

I'm out of curiosity. What do you notice about me before you did those personality assessments versus after like how did the how did the makeup of your class change? Like how did that help? How did that help you and how did that help them?

Cole Cooper: Yes, so what I did, I'm glad you asked that because I was going to just kind of leeway right into that. So what I would do is you want one of each color in every group. And so everybody is good at one job with each station, with each group, with each project that you want to do. And when you do that, it forces kids to be with somebody they usually wouldn't be with because we tend to, golds tend to be with golds and greens tend to be with greens and right, zebras with zebras, lions with lions, all that stuff, right? And so we tend to, when you create your classroom, I'm gonna say force, because kids have a choice, but when you create your classroom environment where they're learning from different people, when everybody has a certain job, you're not only, you're not only, crafting those strengths more that those kids have but now you're developing those things that they might not know about with.

Because blue kids tend to be more a little more artsy and a little more people pleasing they want to make sure everybody's happy and then you have the green person that tends to be a little learn a little bit more empathy for people that are like a blue color and then blue people tend to they don't want to rock the boat so they're just okay, I'll just do what you want because they're they're they're afraid to rock the boat, but when they see people that are more like gold or people that are more like orange they tend to come out of their shell a little bit more and I've noticed that in PE health because in my PE classes I don't do the common okay here's a basketball figure it out like I just I'm not that kind of PE teacher I I I have a unit I have a whole unit of when kids make their own to make up their own games and I give them a rubric and I was like this is what you got to do and I give you I give them a month to figure it out

But when I say, it's group time to practice a certain skill, they all just kind of go in their groups and they laugh together because blues tend to not be as strong as golds or oranges when it comes to sports as well, know, percentage speaking. And they'd learn to laugh together and they learned to not laugh at each other, but you know, I remember one of the last days of school, took the kids to, I took kids to a trampoline park.

So we got enough money, I took him to a trampoline park in Council Bluffs, which is right next to Omaha. And it was awesome to see so many kids do basketball together or do some kind of obstacle course together. There was no judgment. mean, we look at schools now and there's so much judgment and negativity. And it's just like, man, if you can get your school to stop doing that, that'd be great.

It's awesome to see with all that work through the year of putting them in their groups based on one little test I give them at the beginning of the year, they grow so much from that. And that not only filters from my classroom, it could filter into the next classroom and it can filter back onto the sports field or the activities like speech or debate. We have musicals here and so every now and then if we were done in I would see kids practice lines together and it would be like I would never would have thought this kid would practice lines with another kid. Practice lines for our musicals, sorry. Yeah, like singing musicals. We do musicals in our school. And so they practice their lines and that is awesome to see. I just, when you...

Spencer Payne: And I'm sorry, I practiced lines for those who are like singing. Yeah. Yeah.

Cole Cooper: When you have that mindset of servanthood, so it always comes back to servanthood, you always have that mind of servanthood, how much better is the world gonna be if you can start something and it just spreads like a wildfire and you can just kind of engross that into your kids to take that with them in life where they learn to serve others and be the people that you want in your community.

Spencer Payne: Well, you're definitely lightened up and you're looking happy smiling, thinking about some of these examples. and is anything really like rise to the surface for you of like just proudest moments in this teaching career of yours so far, anything that like any, any, anything particular that just like that, that right there was such an incredibly great moment for this kid or that class or whatever it may be. Anything, anything rise to the surface of just a particularly fantastic, great, excellent, wonderful, proudest moment for you in the, in your teaching career.

Cole Cooper: give you two because one is on the sports field because some teachers out there are also athletic coaches and then I'll give you one in a classroom so I'll start my sports. was at Parma High School which is in Idaho we're coming off back-to-back state championships so there's a lot of pressure and me kind of emulating my head coach I used to be very combative in the way I talked to people. It was this way or I'll find somebody else. And so me as a defensive coordinator, and this was just practice by the way, this wasn't a game, what I'm talking about. Kid did something wrong in practice, my head coach saw it, pointed it out, ring the kid, front of everybody just like demeaning.

It's hard to think about because I don't see myself do that anymore. And so I'm trying to teach my coaches here to not be that way. And so that makes me look bad. Since he demeaned the kid on my side of the ball, that makes me look bad. So what happens is he comes over to me, I get in his face. I used to chew a lot. I chewed for almost 16, 17 years. And I remember, I just remember when I was yelling at him, I could see tobacco juice hitting his face through his face mask.

Right? So you can just picture that. Just these little brown specks. And I used to be out here. I used do the grizzly cut, long, like the nasty stuff you can get. And we had a tobacco policy at school, but they still let me chew in front of the kids. And after that happened, he looked at me and he said, you're just like my effing dad. You're just like my effing dad.

And I had no clue about this kid's home life. I had no clue that his dad was beating his mom at nights. I had no clue that his dad was making him smoke cigarettes with him, do cocaine lines with him. I had no clue about any of this stuff. And so when I was yelling at him, it just reminded him of that father figure that he was looking for, but he couldn't find it. And so, Turns says that, Turns starts walking to the locker room and he's just,

Spencer Payne: Jeez.

Cole Cooper: shedding pads, know, shedding his helmet, you know, and I never saw that kid again. I never saw him again. He, he, he, I guess he went to another school or he just quit school. I think he was a junior in high school, sophomore, he was a junior in high school. I never saw him again. And so when I used to have social media and things like that, I used to try to find it and I could never find it.

So that's the last thing I ever said to that kid without having to be able to apologize. And I said right then and there, went home and I couldn't sleep that night because I was like, man, I need to change the way I get to kids because it's not working how it did for me. And so I just made a pact with myself and said, I can't shout anymore. to this day, I don't shout at playing fields, don't shout at officials, I don't shout at kids, I just don't need to raise my voice in order to make my point come across. So, choosing your words wisely in body language and your tone and things like that, those things are very, very important. So, that was one thing that I knew that was one of those, I find it as not a proud moment for me, but it was a life changing moment for me.

And in the classroom, I had a kid, this is a true story, I remember talking about this on Moreland when I was doing my teach prep class and it scared everybody in the classroom like, oh my gosh, I don't want to be a teacher anymore. And so I was hired on, this kid would not get out of his seat, would not get out of his seat, wouldn't go to the principal's office. So I got so upset with this kid, I picked the kid up in his seat.

And he was punching me in the face, he's punching me in the neck, he's elbowing me in the chest, and thank God I'm a big guy, because I can handle that. And this is a 13 year old, 12, 13 year old kid, and I slam him outside my door, and I shut the door, and I didn't see him the rest of the day, because you know, big old fuss, principal comes out, takes the kid, and then, I mean, that was a great day. And so I was like, oh man, what a great day, awesome, I got that kid out of my room.

Well that kid at the end of the day comes back in, name is Josh, let's call him Josh, comes back into the room and just tear filled eyes and sits, literally sits on the floor by my desk, doesn't grab a chick like, like he's like a little child, he's like a five year old kid. I have a three year old boy and he does that. And sits by my desk, goes, what do I have to do in order to get your attention Mr. Cooper? That's like, what? This kid is so smart. I cannot believe how intelligent you are. And that's when I had to make a very important choice in my career of, well, I'm not gonna kick kids out of my room anymore. I'm not gonna raise my voice in my room anymore. And so I have, you know, have strat.

Spencer Payne: What did you say to him in that moment? Do remember?

Cole Cooper: I don't even remember what I said. I remember turning in my chair and looking at him and I just lost my breath. was like, I don't know what say to you right now. I was expecting something totally different like, I'm gonna get the school board for you or something like that. I was expecting something completely off the wall. As soon he came in the door, I was like, oh, here we go. And then he says that and...I just remember turning in my chair, I don't even remember really what I said to him, I was still just flabbergasted with, you know, what do I have to do to get your attention? And come to find out this, it's another one of those kids that, you know, this kid watched his dad pull a knife on his grandfather and beat his mom to a bloody pulp. mean, these kids with the life things they have to deal with, it's unbelievable.

In Montana, I worked right next to an Indian reservation. And my wife was the school nurse there. And she'd come home crying all the time. Some of these kids, what these kids have to do with domestic abuse, physical abuse, drug abuse, sex abuse. I mean, just terrible, terrible things these kids have to go through. But you're never gonna know that unless you talk to the kid. And you're never gonna know that. you're not gonna learn it from a piece of paper. that gets put in front of you that says IEP or 504. You've got to find a way to get some kind of personal relationship with the kid. And in order to do that, you've got to get out of your shell as a teacher and not give a crap what the other teachers think, not give a crap what your admin thinks, not even give a crap what the world thinks and what TV says.

And you've got to get in a way, you've got to be able to somehow relate to that student. Because you don't relate to that student, you're going to lose them. And then you're going to go into the summer going, thank God. that was such a long year. my gosh. Other than you go into the year thinking, man, now how can I make my class even better? And so it's kind of up to you as a teacher if, you know, and I have found that when I relate more to my students, they want to come into my room.

They want to, they can't wait to learn what we're learning about that day. They can't wait to talk to me about the ball game on Saturday. And you always make time for those kids. Those kids know that that's why I have an open door policy all the time in my office. You ever need to talk to me? I have a sign over my office that says people over things. So it's always people first, not I need to get my grading done. I need to have that meeting with the principal. I'm a part of the RTI team. need to go.

You get a kid that comes in your room, they trust you enough to really want to talk about something. usually it's not chewing the fat. Something's going on in their life with boyfriend, girlfriend problems, dad problems, mom problems, all kinds of things. So you have to be open to those kids. And that's having a servant's heart, is to be able to help where you're needed.

Spencer Payne: for both of those examples, it sounds like you change direction permanently and quickly as a result of kind of the reactions from both of those kids. You know, you talked about not being asleep at night. Then I'm not going to, I'm not going to scream anymore. I'm not going to yell at kids ever again. it's one thing to say.

People do this all the time. New Year's resolution, right? It's one thing to say, I'm gonna change. It's another thing to do it. Can you share a little bit of like, how did you, how were you able to do it? For those out there who might be, you know, it's the summertime, next year, I'm gonna be different next school year, right? And then maybe a month in, you're kind of back to your same old habits. Like, how did you make those changes that you wanted to aspire to stick? What helped you do that?

Cole Cooper: Sorry, my cheerleading coach waved at me.

It is so easy to make an excuse about everything. It's easy to make an excuse, it's easy to say, I'm gonna lose weight in January and the average person lasts about two weeks, right?

I can't say that my story is so profound that it made me change quickly. What I can say is that if you truly love your job, if you truly want to reach kids, if you truly want to help a co-worker, I mean this doesn't have to be about teaching either. This can be someone that works a manufacturing plant or something.

You have got to morph your mind in a way in order to have that servant's heart. I don't see any other way to do it. I've seen people put a rubber band on their wrist and go, okay, now I'm not thinking about it anymore. No, you're not. You're thinking about slapping that the next time you think about. There's so many things I've done. I've read books. I've, I mean, I've gone to the bar and drank myself silly. I've talked to fellow teachers that were in the same boat as me, but I found out I don't need to talk to those people because it actually makes it more toxic. That's why I don't go to the teacher's lounge, because the teacher's lounge is about bashing kids. Every school I've been in, I've never been in a positive teacher's lounge. And for me, the quickest thing that I can...
quickest thing that helped me is finding people that were like-minded like me. That were like-minded and they held me accountable.

Spencer Payne: Well, if I may, in that example, your head football coach is screaming at the kid. You're screaming at the kid. You want to make a change. So you're not in an environment where you have that like mindedness. Like, do you have a conversation with the head coach of like, I don't want to scream anymore. Can you stop too? Like, because I asked that because you're obviously in that situation, you're not necessarily in a like minded situation. And maybe he didn't have the same, you know, divine intervention at that moment that you did. like, do you, even more tough?

Cole Cooper: Yeah.

Spencer Payne: How do you make that change in an environment that isn't necessarily of like mind to the change that you're trying to make?

Cole Cooper: So that takes courage. So in that story, I sat on that 24 hour rule. I sat in my own filth, right? I sat in my own stuff. it was about a week later, listening to all these other coaches around me, demeaning kit. then it was hard for me at the beginning because someone would mess up. it just, gosh, dang it. And it just, that's you.

That's not the kid. That's something inside of you, whether it's you're not getting something that you needed as a kid, right? So I had somebody say, I heard another, I think I was at church one time and the pastor said, we're really just big kids in bigger bodies, right? And so we just, have to learn to, we have to fix ourselves first before we can fix everybody else. So it took me a good week, week and a half to finally just get the courage to go.

And what's funny about this is that was my head coach when I was in high school. He ended up going to another school and I ended up getting in on the job because I knew the guy, right? And I waited till it was after practice or after practice that day and I went up to him and I was like, man, I just, I think we could do so much better with these kids. And he's just like, yeah, I think we can do. And I was like, no, you're not understanding what I'm saying, coach. And this is when I was in my twenties.

And so, and this guy's in his 50s, you know, like, I'm like speaking to my mentor. And I said, man, we gotta stop shouting. We gotta stop treating kids and demeaning kids and F-bombing this. you know, obviously I can't say what we would say, because it was some of the things we'd say to kids were just terrible. And then we would laugh about what we said to the kid after practice. You know, it's like,

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah.

Cole Cooper: It you look back on that and you can't help but feel guilty about what you did and It was for me. It was so for me going to my coach and saying we need to change our atmosphere Now it's off me now. I'm playing tennis with this guy. I hit the ball back into his court What is he gonna do with it? I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do and hopefully People will see a difference that I'm making in me right

Not a lot changed the rest of that year and we ended up going like five and four. We didn't do very good that year. The next season, was different because my coach was a little more happy. He was a little more joking around with the kids. He was a little more, I remember one of our kids through an interception in practice just didn't read the defense right. And here we go, it's gonna come out and it didn't.

It didn't come out. He pulled the kid aside and was just like, okay, next time do this. And I was like, and I never did kind of a second. I didn't talk to him about it ever again, but I always sit there and wonder, was that me that helped change him or did someone else see something and say the same thing? Now, you know, two of one word helps change other things. Right. And so it just, I like to think it was me, but I don't know if it was me.

If you live a certain way, people notice things like that. People will, why does, you know, why is coach, people call me coach Coop. I'm Coop everywhere I go. Why is coach Coop here till seven o'clock at night? Oh, why is coach Coop, why does he eat lunch with the kids every day? Why does he pick a different table every day to eat lunch with kids? Yep. Yep.

Spencer Payne: Is that what you do? You go eat lunch with the kids and go all around different tables?

Cole Cooper: I do it at different tables, sometimes I have him come in my office, like, hey, tell me about life, what's going on? And then one day I went to my principal and I was sitting standing right by him and I said, hey, I think we need to fix our lunchroom. goes, what do you mean? I was like, look at all those heads stuck in a cell phone. Look at all those kids. Just, we had like 60 kids in the lunchroom and I would say 52 of them were on their phone. I was like, you know what I think we should do? And he goes, what?

I think we should get board games and card games and I think we should get all that kind of stuff out and just have that be our lunchroom activity. And so I asked all the teachers, hey, you got a game? And they gave me like life and scatagories and gestures and UNO and any kind of card game you can think of. And I kind of just made a little announcement and said, hey, this is what we do from now on. And I just come up here, put your cell phone down. Obviously, you know, if they want to be on their cell phone, that's fine.

It took one kid and then you know how one person does something then it can just spread like wildfire, right? If one kid did it, okay that popular kid did it, now this artsy kid did it, it all comes back to the four personality colors. Okay this one kid did and now you got those kids playing with each other and it's just creating an environment where people want to be at. And in order to do that, that takes huge courage. And if you're first year teacher and you see something you don't like, you might have some pushback. I did. I had some pushback my first year of teaching. But at least I said something. At least I'm not going home every night miserable at my job because I don't like my job and I don't like where it's going. At least I'm putting it out there and I no longer have to carry that burden on my shoulder.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Plus, if I could add to that, like the football coach example, right. Is, some people maybe speak up and they, if they don't get what they want right away on the first interaction, they think they failed or they think it's a lost cause. And that's not necessarily true. Right. Like you mentioned, even with that, that head football coach example, right? Like you had that first conversation that season, nothing really changed. Went five and four. It wasn't a great year, but, it sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong.

You showed up differently every day. You, you still showed up. You, you had your conversation. Maybe it changed something, a little thing that year, maybe not, but you changed. You showed up differently every day. And then you started to notice that, man, that actually next season, I don't know if it's because of me, but maybe it is because of me. Like there's a, there's a sea chain. There's a, there's a, there's a vibe shift. Like things have changed a little bit. Where I'm going with that is sometimes you put the seat out there. It gets, it doesn't take but you're still watering it. You're still, you're still watering it. You're still, you're still putting a new seed in every day. You're watering it. Sometimes it doesn't take, it doesn't take, it doesn't take. Sometimes it takes a season or two seasons and you keep being you. And then all of a sudden people start to see like, man, I like the way coach Coop is showing up. Maybe I want to do a little bit more like coach Coop is.

And if you have a long enough timeline over trying to make the change that you're trying to make, you might have more luck making the change that you want to make versus just thinking, I told them, they said, no, I guess this isn't the place for me. A lot of people give up at that, right? And that's not necessarily the end of the story. There still is the next day, the next week, and the next month, and the next season to continue trying to be the change you want to see, be the teacher you want to see and inspire that for other people. So I just want to highlight that because a lot of people walk away from that first no, and that's not the end of the story. There's a lot more story left.

Cole Cooper: But think how, but for me, think how much more you can grow from the word no. Like, I've been told no many times in my life. And yes, I wanted to stomp my feet and cry and I'm just gonna go find another job. And, and I mean, where are you gonna grow in that? Like there's no grow, there's no growing if it's just unicorns and it rains skittles and like, like there's no growing in that. That's just pleasure.

That's just having a good time all the time and pleasure is fleeting. Like it never lasts. We grow through suffering. We grow through hard times. We get better when we mess up. And a lot of people, I'm not saying, maybe not a lot, but many people have forgotten that. I mean, when there's a struggle, you should really embrace that struggle. It's, I...have lots of memories of where I struggled mostly. I could have easily, you know, with losing my son, I could have easily just cradled up in my shell and just completely went another direction in my life. But I used my son's tragedy to give back.

I'm not saying that, you know, it takes all that pain away, but it helps in my healing and it helps me make a choice every day to get out of bed. Cause there are days like, gosh, this world is so tough. Am I liked at work? Do my kids like me? My principal's gonna come into my room today, but maybe he'll forget if I call in sick today. I mean, there's all kinds of things and the routes we could go to, but making that choice every day through the crap of it, through the muck, through the bad days and the hard days, being there for your kids, being there for his fellow coworker. And for me, and my boss has said this, I'm so glad that he said, man, I'm glad you were with me on that moment. My principal's saying that to me. And so when people see that, okay, I don't do it for, I don't do it for giggles and being, you know, being that guy that says therapist across his head. I do it because it's the right thing to do.

And it's in, and I go home better every day. might be exhausted, but I can sleep better at night knowing that I did everything I can today to help my school district be the best that they could be. Because since I got into public education, it used to be just my kids, just my kids, just my kids. But now my mind's kind of morphed into public education and just education in general is about all kids. So, but yeah, you're right on the money there with.

Just don't give up so quickly. mean, what's the average teacher now, like two or three years or something like that? COVID happened, we lost 30, almost 30 some 5 % of teachers with COVID. We have teachers just quitting left and right. And it breaks my heart because if somebody said something or if somebody felt like they had a mentor or somebody that just came along and said, hey, I notice you, man. I noticed that you're going through this.

I want to let you know I want to help you. What can I do to help you? Not to be Superman or be in superhero mode, but just to be a human. mean, just to... You don't want people to sit there and suffer. None of us do. But it takes courage to do that. mean, this teaching job, this career it shows, yes, it is difficult. And there are days like, man...Was it a full moon last night? Like what's going on? Right? But man, I could just think back on all the memories I've had in almost two decades and just, my gosh, I've grown so much from that.

Spencer Payne: Well, thanks so much for sharing that story Cole as we wrap up here any any final words of wisdom, any final quick something we didn't cover that you just want to convey out there to potential potential teachers or newish teachers out there listening or anything that you said that you feel like it's just so important. You just want to want to repeat that. So any any new or repeated just final final words of wisdom to any perspective or new teachers out there.

Cole Cooper: And I know I'm pushed for time, so I get it. So I'm go as fast as I can. So I woke up today, what am I gonna say in this podcast today that can resonate not just from getting results in the classroom, but we're getting results with kids? What can I say today? And I think I conveyed a lot of that in my own personal story. But if you're a brand new teacher coming out of Moreland or coming out of Harvard, whatever.

I don't care where you went to school. It's about what you can bring to the classroom.

You need to find, you need to find people that you want to do life with. I mean, you want to do life with these people because you're all going to have trouble in life. You're all going to lose. You're all going to win. You're all going to be envious. You're all going to be curious. all going to, right? You need to try to find those people you want to do life with and then do life with them. Have them over for dinner. Go have the beers every now and then. Go to sporting events and support kids together, sitting together in the crowd.

That's one thing is to find people that you want to do life with. And secondly, teaching is not a competition. Teaching is not a competition. I've been in instances where I've had fellow PE teachers and fellow history teachers that were super jealous of my classroom. They're super jealous that kids want to go to my class over their class. Kids want to register for my class over their class. Hey, why do you have 40 kids in your class and I have 10? Right?

Teaching is not a competition. The best advice I can give for people that might feel little envious of other teachers because they're a little more popular is one, is what they're teaching correct. And two, in a way if you can't beat them, join them. Right? And when I say that is come alongside them. Don't make it a competition. Come alongside them and hey, let's do something together.

That's a lot better than the backstabbing and the teacher's lounge and the other things of complaining. Because there's too many complainers, we need more doers in the world. And the first place we can look for doers is in the classroom. Because we are head of the next generation coming up. And so what do you want to bring to the next generation of students? Do you want to bring a lot of hatred? You want to bring confusion? You want to bring things like that with what we deal with now? Or are you going to bring in servant type mentality to help kids realize I can help others and to really really make a change that is Ultimately my goal if I can retire Ultimately my goal is I would love to see a world where people are serving others instead of worrying about their own game all the time so if anybody can resonate with my words today, and it helps them for next school year and It changed their life That would be awesome to be that...that'd be something worth being rewarded for.

Spencer Payne: Well, thank you very much, Coach Coop, for sharing the very real, very authentic, wide ranging stories from not just your teaching career, but even prior to your teaching career and all the, like you mentioned, roller coaster rides that you've been on to get here. So thank you very much for sharing your story. Much appreciated. And hopefully some great words of wisdom out there for folks of, what was it, people over things? Is that, was that what?

Cole Cooper: People over things. And the other thing is fear is a liar. Fear is a liar and people over things. So, but thanks for having me on. I really enjoyed it.

Spencer Payne: People over things. There we go. Good words of wisdom to live by. Yeah, I appreciate it so much. Thank you joining us.