Leading with Empathy with Jenny Mitchell

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

Spencer Payne: Okay, here we are with another great episode of Front of the Class Real Stories from Real Educators. Today with us is Jenny Mitchell. And Jenny, can you share with us a little bit more about what you are working on in the educational profession these days and where you're spending your time?

Jenny Mitchell: Happy to share and thanks for having me do this. My name is Jenny and I am currently the Director for Teaching and Learning at Kaohsiung American School in Taiwan. For a majority of my career, I have been teaching in international schools about 15, 16 years. Started out as a teacher and now a Director for Teaching and Learning where I work whole school.

Our school is pre-k to 12, so I work with all divisions, especially the teachers, on the teaching and learning portion of what happens in the school.

Spencer Payne: And how long have you been doing that aspect? So you're going from teacher to almost a teacher of teachers. How did that come about and how long have you been doing that?

Jenny Mitchell: Yeah, well I started as a teacher, I moved into then becoming a PYP coordinator. So if you know the Ivy program, the PYP is the primary years program. So I was the PYP coordinator, the curriculum coordinator with that and wanted to try moving into a whole school role. This is my first whole school role, Director for Teaching and Learning in Taiwan. just going into my second year now and really love being able to work on the big strategy and supporting the school from the little ones at age four all the way until they graduate.

Spencer Payne: Okay, and just also for context for those of us who are not familiar with the Taiwanese education system is to graduate, is that like it is here, 18, is it a different age? What's the scope of kind of ages that you currently are responsible for and maybe have taught throughout your career?

Jenny Mitchell: Sure. For a majority, I would say all of them actually. I've been in international schools, many of them sponsored by the US State Department. And several of them have been American schools. So they follow the American system. So it's a very traditional K to 12. They go to 12th grade, same years, same age levels. And when they graduate from our school, for example, they do get an American diploma and if they do the DP program, they get a DP diploma.

The school that I'm at now is international. Actually, we cannot have any students from Taiwan unless they have an alternative passport, attend our school. So the Taiwanese system requires that the Taiwanese kids do go to their system, but it's very similar to our American system anyway.

Spencer Payne: Got it. So we've got, uh, you know, over, over a decade, 15 years of teaching a lot of international experience, a very wide range of ages to now this one year in this teacher of teachers role. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. Uh, how did, how did you choose or maybe get chosen to go pursue that role? And after your first year, uh, maybe what was most surprising to you in a good way or a bad way about kind of teaching your fellow teachers?

Jenny Mitchell: Right? I think the most surprising thing to me is I never thought I would be in this role. I can think back to when I was teaching and I met someone who was in this role at one point and I thought, oh, I don't know if I could ever do that. It doesn't sound interesting to me. However, I think education has changed. And I think this role is becoming more and more important because of the crucial components that we need to be teaching kids about sustainability, about economics, about social justice.

And moving into this role, I think one thing that I love is we get to bring in consultants. I get to work with teachers on professional development, sending them off to different schools or to workshops, bringing people into our school and really just moving it along, thinking about what do kids need by the time they graduate and how can we bring that into our school and develop those learning experiences that are so important.

Spencer Payne: And yeah, I'd like to explore this in two directions if we could, cause I like to ask all the teachers, right? How at the end of the year, do you feel or judge for yourself? How you had a good year that year? Like, what was your impact or test scores or relationships builder? How do you judge for yourself if you kind of had a good year this year? so I'd love to explore that a little bit with you because now give us some context.

How many teachers are under your purview and in, and it's already hard to say, how did I do? How did I grade myself this year teaching? Maybe my class of 20 or 25 or 30 kids or whatever it is help us understand how many teachers are under your purview. And then how do you grade the job you're doing of helping all of them do a great job? Like, how do you think about that?

Jenny Mitchell: Mm-hmm. It's a great question. I think there are a few pieces to that. So to answer the first one, we have 130 teaching staff. So about 100 teachers and 30 teaching assistants at the school that I work directly with in some capacity. And a big part of my role, especially coming into this school, has been curriculum documentation. So that when teachers come in, they know what they're teaching. They know how to teach it. They know what the expectations are. So a big measure this year or this past year for me has been, have we gotten a lot documented? And we did, and that was great. And next year we will be finishing it. But I think the most important thing for measuring success is the well-being and happiness of everyone in the community.

And it sounds really cliche to say that, but in October, November, teachers are going to decide, am I going to stay on another year? Am I going to continue at this school? Most teachers move into a a contract from year to year. And so many teachers will be up for contract renewal in the fall. And so a good measure of how are we doing, are the teachers happy? Are they happy with what they're teaching? Are they happy with the school environment, with how they're treated and respected and well cared for as teachers?

Spencer Payne: And, and curious, how do you measure that? Like obviously one, one at the most simple would be retention rate. Like how many people choose to come back every year who we extend an offer to every year. Um, but how else do you think about that? And do like, you send them surveys? Do you have them come into your office and like ask the a hundred people that those questions? Like, how do you, how do you kind of, um, unpack that?

Jenny Mitchell: We do, send, this past year we sent a faculty survey just to gauge how things are going. It was a pretty brief one. In the fall, because we're up for accreditation, we will be sending a very detailed and thorough survey to measure how teachers are feeling. And it will cover everything from what they're teaching to do they enjoy living in Gaosheng? Are we helping them find apartments? Things like that. So surveys are very important, but it doesn't...

capture everything. I think you can get a good feel of how things are going just by walking around the school. Are the teachers out eating lunch together? Are the conversations positive? Are they happy? Is there laughter? Are you hearing of lot of what we call parking lot conversations, which means things are not going so well and there may be some issues to address.

So I think a combination of getting some documentation on it, knowing the teachers, helping them to understand that if there is a problem, it's important to address it. That all plays into that.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. There's a reminded of a couple of things I've heard of kind of how to, how to keep your eye on the pulse, so to speak, especially when there's a lot of people that, that you're responsible for. And maybe some people don't want to share things or whatever that may look like back, think this is in the seventies, like the Lee Iacocca is really well known as like a CEO of a automobile company. He, he supposedly put his desk out on the factory floor because he wanted to see and hear and smell and watch. like, like no survey is going to,  make up for what you see and hear with your own eyes and how you see people interacting with each other and are they energized? Is everyone slumped? Like nothing is going to make up for the ability to actually go see that.

And one other question I've heard some people ask is something along the lines of, what's something that just like feels off? Like maybe it's hard to explain, but just there's something that just feels off. 

You don't have to have the solution for it, but like what, what feels great? Like you always want to come like what's, what's working really well, but also like, what just seems like it's not working as well as it could, or we don't talk about it enough, but it feels off and just see where people explore with a question like that. Cause you can uncover a lot, which that's a really hard question to answer in a survey where there's an ABCD box. It's really hard to do. So doing both of those things anyway, I think is, a really interesting way to kind of conduct, like how, how are we doing? Are we serving our teachers and are we serving our kids? And on that note of serving the kids.

You mentioned earlier around, hey, what is the expectation of what these students will know how to do? Know how, like, what will they learn? What are the expectations of what a responsible young 12th grader will know how to do or know what to say or the skills they'll have by the time they graduate? It seems like you're kind of at a little bit of like a crafting that in some capacity. Who crafts that with you? And on what basis do you decide, do you decide like, what curriculum do we need to shed and what do we need to add? Cause you can't just keep adding things forever. Cause then just, your list becomes too long. You gotta, you almost have to buy a new shirt. You gotta get rid of a shirt in the closet. Right, so how do you decide that? Who's your brain trust? How do you go about thinking about that? And how do you decide what should a responsible child in today's world? No, no. By the time they graduate from the K through 12 education.

Jenny Mitchell: I could probably spend 30 minutes answering that question, but I'll try to summarize it as best as I can. It's something I think about every day because it's a huge part of my role. So we are an Ivy school. So a lot of our kids were dual track, so they can choose to do the DP. And the DP program is quite specific when it gets to 11th and 12th grade. There's a syllabus, there's content they have to learn, and that is basically handed to the teachers and

Spencer Payne: Ha!

Jenny Mitchell: You know, they upskill and they teach the DP. And we also just have a traditional high school track, which I suppose would be more like what we would see in schools here in the US. But overall, even up until the point where they have the DP, there are a lot of decisions that we have to make about what kids need to learn. And we're in a very lucky place, I think.

This is always reinforced when I work with my cohorts at Moreland who are in large districts, is because we are a private international school, we have a huge amount of autonomy. We are partially sponsored by the US State Department, so there are things that we are required to do, but in terms of the teaching and learning, we're really free to make adjustments. So right now, a lot of the conversation has been about the...

the schools needing to adapt and change to meet the needs of today's world, not even the future anymore, it's of today. And there's a term called wicked problems and wicked problems are those that are really complex, they really don't have a solution. So we talk about the energy crisis. But if we change from oil to solar energy, for example, that causes a lot of problems for people who are in the oil industry. That causes some economics problems and we have to solve that. And so it's not just a simple, this is what we have to do. And I think we're at a time in the world right now where we have a lot of wicked problems. And kids are going into the world with, know, carrying much of that burden. They're going to be the ones who are working on solving this.

And so a lot of what we're thinking about now is with AI especially, the knowledge is there and kids can find it. But what do we need them to have? A big survey we did last year with parents, students, and teachers was about our mission statement and what is missing. And we all determined it was empathy. Empathy is something that that kids who graduate need to have. With empathy, you're going to want to solve and help and become a citizen of the world.

Especially since a lot of our students are kids who are potentially going to be future business leaders in government. You know, they're set up for success from quite early on. So I think it's important that we are looking a little bit further with than just knowing, you know, what is the algorithm for solving this parabola problem. We have to think about the skills. We have to call them soft skills, but I don't think they're soft. I think they're really crucial skills for kids in building those with the curriculum. it's, we haven't solved it yet. I don't know if any school has. But we're really evaluating what can that look like? lot, you know, less knowledge, less fact memorization, more building those skills and those attitudes.

Spencer Payne: You've only had a year. That's understandable.

Yeah, just on the point of like, even just the framing of the question sometimes helps come up with an answer, right? Of like, you mentioned the quote, the energy crisis. And if you talk to 10 different people, you could have 10 different definitions of what that even means. 10 different ways of solving it or 10 different constraints you have, like just to make up an example, right? If you're like, hey, the mandate is to go from all oil to all solar in 10 years, how would you do it?

Well, that also constraints creates a lot of constraints. Like, well, do I use existing technology? How many, how much land do I have available for solar panels? Cause you need a lot of lands to go do that. Like, where's that land going to come from? Who's going to pay for it? Like, do have to move people out of their homes? Like there's a lot of other secondary concerns once you unpack some of that stuff. so it just becomes a, it becomes a very interesting, like you said, complex, multivariate question that hopefully you can kind of unpack some things with a sentence like that of like, well, have you thought about this? Have you thought about how much land you need? Have you thought about what happens to the recycling or the, you know, the, the disposal of some of those when they need to get replaced? there's a, there's a lot, there's a lot there that we open minds to like, Ooh, maybe this is actually more complicated than I thought. not, not, not to mean that that leads to not doing anything, but more that it leads to like, I have appreciation of like, this is maybe more complicated than I thought. There's more considerations here and maybe.

Jenny Mitchell: Exactly.

Spencer Payne: Maybe that's why this requires some knowledge across multiple domains and bringing that together to try to figure out what problem we're actually trying to solve and what constraints we have to solve that problem. Yeah, not easy. So if you haven't done that in a year, understand it. But if you figured it out, let us know.

I'd love to turn over more towards you and kind of your teaching career and some of your memorable stories and experiences in the classroom. And first of all, are there any specific teachers, and feel free to shout them out, who you have most loved, appreciated, wanted to emulate maybe as a student or as a teacher. And maybe one thing, if anything, that you have kind of stolen from them and maybe made it your own just because you really liked how they did something. Maybe it's how they approached the first day of class, how they handled the interdisciplinary issue, you know, any, anything it could be. So are there any teachers that you really appreciate emulate? And maybe what's one thing that you've taken from them that you've tried to apply yourself?

Jenny Mitchell: Great question. I think probably two parts. As a student, I had a teacher in seventh grade, seventh grade civics teacher, Mr. Menner. And I remember it was just one thing he had mentioned to me as I was entering the room that day into that classroom. And he said, you know what? You're doing a great job. And you are someone who if you set your mind to it, you can do anything.

And it was one phrase that has stuck with me my entire life with many of the decisions that I've made, with things that I've been too scared to do or felt intimidated, I have remembered that. And it gets me to think about...

One phrase can make a difference, and it can be positive or negative. And so when I'm in the classroom, I always pause before I, you know, if I'm in a situation where I need to say something to a student, and maybe it's a little bit more of a tense situation, I always need to think about, okay, what am I going to say? How is this going to come out? What relationship have I built with this student to be able to make this a safe space?

And the other teacher I can think of, that I have worked with, so many actually, but there's one teacher I worked with, her name is Kim Henderson, she's actually an instructor for the program, we worked together in Germany together, and probably the most positive teacher I've ever met, and just her energy, her positivity, her way with supporting parents has, I always think about what would Kim do if I'm in a situation where things are maybe a little bit more challenging or parents are upset, I always think about how would she approach this and how would she really try to understand what's going on and get a sense of the problem.

Spencer Payne: And I always love to dig into any specific examples if you can, if you can, you don't have to share any names of parents or students or anything like that, but is there anything that she specifically did with parents or one situation that you can recall, but you kind of watched him like, wow, I didn't know a person could handle it that well. That was incredible. Like this, was there a situation or any particular example that comes to mind of maybe what she did that left you saying, wow, what would Kim do? Cause that was really good.

Jenny Mitchell: know if there is a specific example, but I will say that when there were things that came up that parents were upset or something happened with a student, the next day it was a clean slate. And she was able to almost start fresh, keep the positive attitude. And I think by doing that, parents tended and students and teachers around her trusted her a little bit more because they felt like they were in a safe space.

Spencer Payne: Hmm. and any, as you look back on your career so far, any proudest moments rise to the top? Anything that still makes you smile? Maybe even maybe it two years ago. Maybe it was 15 years ago, right? Anything that just makes you light up when you still think about it. Like that was, that was what this, this education profession is all about. If only every day could be like that, or every moment could be like that. Is anything rise to the top for you of moments like that that you can share?

Jenny Mitchell: Yes, though I think it made me cry more than it made me smile. I jumped in one year. I was hired as a third grade teacher. I went and visited the class and got a sense that maybe this class was having some challenges. started my third grade class year and in previous years, they had gone through a lot of teachers, there had been a lot of things where they just weren't stable as a group. And because of that, there were a lot of behavior issues, academic issues, they didn't get along as a group. And so for the first six weeks of school, I just said to the principal, said, listen, we're just going to work on community building. And we did.

And but it extended through the entire year and towards the end of the year, I went back to the principal and I said, we've still got work to do. I'd like to loop with them to fourth grade. She was okay with it. Meanwhile, there was one particular student in the class who was really experiencing some challenges. She had an undiagnosed learning disability. We sensed it was there. And then in addition to that very emotional, a lot of outbursts, she didn't have, I don't think she had any friends the third grade year.

Fast forward to fourth grade. We've gotten her a diagnosis, so she's understanding kind of what's going on in her brain. So that's helping with the frustration a little bit. We've talked about the outburst. We've talked about some strategies. She's worked with the counselor. We've done a lot of work to this point. And I can remember one morning at morning meeting, we were all sitting in the circle and I always let the kids share highs and lows as we go around.

And when we got to her, she said, it's not a high or a low, but I just want everybody to know that I've been diagnosed with these things. I'm really struggling. This is why my brain is doing what it's doing. And I hope that you can help me. And within 10 seconds, there was a classroom hug. Everyone was hugging her. They were hugging each other. And from that moment forward, she was never without a friend on the playground.

Whenever it was typically math she struggled with or reading, there was always somebody sitting next to her helping her. And it actually got other kids to come out and say, here are some of my challenges too. Can you help me? And it was the best. Third grade year was the toughest year I've ever taught. Fourth grade year with those kids, best year I've ever taught. So, yeah.

Spencer Payne: That's a powerful story and a powerful, very short sentence. I have this, I have this thing. It's not good or bad. This is why I've been struggling. I could really use your help. Sometimes that's all that needs to be said really powerful moment. I am curious to dig in a little bit more though, if you don't mind on, you know, the rewarding moment happened fourth grade after a whole year of a very tough year for you. I love...

I'm really curious to explore two things on that third grade year. If you'd be willing to share a little more. One is, how did you build community? Right? This, this, this class is not together behavior issues. They've seen so many teachers in the past. They probably don't even know if you're going to be around. So whatever you say, they're wondering like, do I really need to listen? Cause are you going to leave in two months? So one is like, how did you foster building that community and kind of breaking their old patterns?

And two, you mentioned it was a hard year. So like, did you bounce back after a tough day or a tough week or a tough month with those kids? So how did you build community and how did you keep pushing on and getting through those really tough days or tough weeks when maybe you're questioning like, should I just go teach another class? Like, how did you get back to, you know, your best version of yourself the next day? Like, how'd you do that?

Jenny Mitchell: Yeah. Well, you were right in saying about the teacher being there because many times when I would be out sick, or I remember one time I was going away on a professional development, I was going to a conference and the kids came to me and they said, are you going to come back from your trip? And so just small things like doing a quick video call with a substitute teacher to check in or talking about something we're going to do when we come back because there was trauma there. so kind of digging into that was helpful. Also just the support of other teachers, the counselor, teaching assistants, everybody in the school played a role in this. But I think the most important thing was not focusing on academics because quite honestly at that point the kids, we could do math.

But within five minutes, they would be having meltdowns or arguing with each other. And so by setting aside the academics, we did a little bit every day and really focusing on team building and how do we manage stress? How do we communicate with each other? What do we do to solve a problem? I think doing that in the beginning of the school year then gave me a foundation for once we did move into more intense math, now we're going to use some of these strategies.

One thing I continued with, however, was 30 to 45 minutes every morning we had a class conversation. We had a morning meeting. We got to learn whose mom was traveling for work, whose dog was sick, whose little brother kept them up all night, maybe didn't get some sleep. And by doing that, we get to know each other more, but I also have some information that might be helpful. How did I get through it? A lot of...lot of patience. I walked to school that year, walking to and from school, I listened to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts just to kind of set my mind, not necessarily even about education, but just to escape a little bit. And that helped. it, you know, I think as teachers, we tend to take everything very personally.

And it hits hard when you go into an environment like that every day. But seeing little bits of progress I think keeps you going.

Spencer Payne: extreme detail. How long does that walk every day to and from school?

Jenny Mitchell: Well, it was uphill going to school. So it took me probably 25 minutes to get to school and maybe 15 on the way back.

Spencer Payne: Hmm.

Still 40, 40, 45 minutes solid of walking, every day, highly underrated, not only form of exercise, but also form of, like you said, kind of, I don't know, decompressing, getting your mind clear going on a long, there's a reason why people have been talking about going on long walks for like thousands of years. Like it's very relaxing and calming and it's also great exercise. So fun plug there for the zone to cardio walkers out there and

Jenny Mitchell: Yeah. Yes.

Yes, it is. Yeah, that's the new book.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, anything that you've consistently done in your teaching career that just seems to work really well for you. and maybe you're surprised more people don't do it. Maybe you've told other people to do it and they just like, I don't know if that'll work for me. So anything that works really well for you, but you're surprised more teachers don't do that thing.

Jenny Mitchell: I hate to go back to it again, but I will because I think we talk a lot about spending time building the relationships in the classroom environment with kids, but teachers often feel the pressure to get through the content. Well, I can't do that. I can't spend 30 minutes doing that because we have to learn about this, this, and this. But I really believe if teachers spent more time just talking to the kids, having them talk to each other, not about necessarily, doesn't even have to be about the content. It's kind of that go slow to go fast. When you build this, everything else will come along. So I think teachers have to take a step back and just be okay with doing whatever it is, a morning meeting, an afternoon meeting, something where you're getting to know each other a little bit more.

Spencer Payne: And one more super detailed question. If a teacher says, you know what? I've heard that from a lot of people. I'm going to do that this coming school year. I'm going to do it. I'm going to have a 15 minute morning meeting with my kids every year. And they're wondering, but like, how do I start? Do I ask a question to myself and answer it? Do I ask them a question? Like, how do I start? could you maybe share a little bit of like, what are the first two minutes of the morning meeting look, feel, or sound like? Like, how do you open up that conversation so that it can get, so that can foster the type of conversation that you're hoping the kids are going to have.

Jenny Mitchell: Mm hmm. One thing that I've done is I always have a quote on the board. And so when the kids are entering the room, they know they put their things away, they sit down and they talk to a partner about the quote. What does it mean? And what does it mean in my life? And that gets them talking. And quite honestly, if they're talking about things other than the quote, that's okay, too.

But then once the kids are all there, we sit in a circle. And my big question is just share a high and a low of something that's happening in your life. So something good that's happening, or and or something that maybe is not so good that's happening. And we go around in a circle and all the kids they can pass or they can share and it's a very very simple strategy that I think works really well.

That's what I would do.

Spencer Payne: Thank you. Yep. Thank you for sharing that. I always like to give people a little bit of like, that sounds like a good idea, but how do I starting is the hardest part. So I try to give a little bit of like, how do I start? And then I'd love to hear one more of kind of your stories in the classroom. And then we'll go to a couple more quick hitter questions before we wrap up. But do you have any of those fun, hopefully fun, funny, wild kids say the darndest things in class experiences that you recall through your years in the classroom?

that maybe made you burst out laughing and the whole class burst out laughing. They were just one of those just like, this is, I had to write this down because so-and-so said this today and it was just, it was perfectly timed. It was so funny. It was, they thought it meant this and it actually meant whatever it was, like any of those fun, like enjoyable laughable moments in the class that just really stood the test of time that you might be able to share.

Jenny Mitchell: That's a great question. I don't know if I have an answer for that one.

Not a specific one, but I'll say that many of the kids in my classes are English language learners. And so sometimes there will be like a misconstrued idea of something or a different vocabulary word or an accent, for example. So sometimes if they pronounce something...in a class, Spanish especially, and the vowels sound different, it comes out a little bit different. So there has been a lot of laughter, but I don't think I have any specific examples. One thing I wish I would have done as a teacher is every year write things down as kids say them.

Spencer Payne: Hmm. Hmm.

Um, that there's a, there's a good one right there, right? Go journal at the end of your month, quarter week, whatever it is of like, what were the most memorable, you know, positive quotes, funny quotes, maybe, uh, fighting words among students and maybe how I could have handled it better. Just like, write those things down and remember I've said it on this podcast a million times. One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite coaches was the shortest pencil is worth more than the longest memory.

Jenny Mitchell: Yeah.

Spencer Payne: As much as you think you're going to remember something, that was a really funny line in that movie. Give it a month. You will forget unless you write it down. If you write it down, the shortest pencil is worth more than the longest memory. well, we'll look forward to your journaling over the next couple of years so we can go answer that question a couple of years and a couple more quick hitter questions.

Jenny Mitchell: love that.

love that.

Spencer Payne: as we look to wrap some things up for a new teacher, someone who's maybe about to start their first year or maybe they're in their first or second year, they're new or they're very early in this profession. What is the number one piece of advice you might give to that teacher to help them out in their journey or said differently, what advice would you go back and give yourself in your first year in the education profession?

Jenny Mitchell: I'm going to answer with two things. One, be yourself. And two, don't expect perfection. So just because you've heard a teaching strategy or something works well for one teacher, it's okay if it doesn't fit your teaching style. And not everything is going to go perfectly, so just stay true to who you are, to your personality, to the way that you interact with people.

Don't try to be someone else who you're not which also sounds cliche, but I think as teachers we see others doing things and we think, I should do that because it works. But you know what? You also have to do what works for you and what works for your students.

Spencer Payne: 100%. Yes, when you try to do something that works for somebody else, but you do it in a different way, it might completely lose its value. You got into this a little bit, but let me get more detail. How do you set the tone for a new class on day one with the students and maybe with the parents, however the parent interaction looks like? Maybe it's at their first parent-teacher conference, whatever. But how do you kind of set the tone of what is class with Miss Mitchell going to look like? And what are the expectations? What are the expectations they should have of you? What are the expectations you should have of them? Like, how do you set that tone and set that foundation early on, maybe the first day or the first week of a new class year?

Jenny Mitchell: Two things I think I've done in the past that have worked really well is one, I share about my personal life. My kids, my students have always loved hearing about my cats, for example. I always tell stories and it makes it relatable, right? Everybody can relate to a pet in some way. So I share that with parents, but I also have the parents do an activity. It's the first homework assignment and kids always get a kick out of this because their parents have to do the first homework assignment. It's called a million words or less.

And I stole this when I first started teaching from someone. And the parents are tasked with, in a million words or less, tell me about your child. And they can type it. They can write it. They can write it in their own language. And I just do translate. But parents really appreciate this. And this is when I learn about if kids were maybe preemies, and so the parents struggled with the first year two of life because they were worried. Or I learn that actually this child has lived in six different countries. Parents really appreciate that. And the other thing I do is I give a lot of information so that parents feel comfortable about what's coming that year and students feel comfortable. But we also practice our routines and procedures over and over because if kids know where things go, how to do it, how to act, then they can focus on the learning.

They're not worried about where do I turn in my homework assignment or what's going to happen when recess bell rings. That's all predictable for them.

Spencer Payne: and a million words or less. Has anyone come close to a million words? Because that could take you a long time to read.

Jenny Mitchell: I think the most I've ever gotten, funny enough, has been two pages, two written pages. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Spencer Payne: yeah. Thank you for sharing that, by the way. That's a really powerful exercise as a recommendation for others. Did you did you get your masters? And if so, when in your kind of journey did you choose to go approach it? And what has that unlocked for you afterwards?

Jenny Mitchell: Well, I do have my master's. I got it soon after I finished my bachelor's degree because my bachelor's degree was not in education. And I realized soon after that I wanted to be in education. I did a study abroad, lived next to an international school and said, hey, this looks amazing. So I finished my bachelor's degree, went back and got my master's. This was way before Moreland existed.

And it was a brick and mortar school. I did my master's in education, which was also my teacher certification, and ended up with that. I'm working now on my doctorate. have hopefully less than a year left, but we'll see how that goes. And I think that by doing, having advanced degrees, especially a master's degree, not only does it increase the pay scale, for example, but I think it goes beyond just the general information you get in your bachelor's degree. You can really focus in on your subject area, on classroom management, on exploring things that maybe are more interesting to you rather than just general education in general.

Spencer Payne: I gotta ask because we can't just gloss over this. So you're studying abroad, you have no intentions of being a teacher, you're living next to an international school, and all of sudden your whole life changes and you decide to go become an educator. What did you see that changed your entire world trajectory?

Jenny Mitchell: Well, it wasn't just the international school. I had been, you know, in high school, I did internships at the elementary school. In the summers, I worked for the park and rec department. I worked at the YMCA and the kid program. I had done it through high school and college. was always working with kids in some capacity. But I always had in my mind, I can't be a teacher because of who wants to spend the rest of their career in a school. And so even though it was definitely something I was passionate about, I loved doing, I sought out that, for some, there was a block there. But once I had seen that I could be a teacher and it doesn't look like necessarily that I have to teach in my hometown, I can travel the world and do it, well, that sounds amazing, right?

So you have...the adventure component, but I get to be in a school, which is what I love. And I think opening my eyes to that, to the existence of international schools was really the key there.

Spencer Payne: And AI is talked about everywhere, especially now in your position as being kind of a teacher of teachers and being able to help kind of set has some autonomy on the curriculum. How are you, if at all, or maybe not, how are you embracing AI in the classroom for you, your teachers, your students? How are you approaching this thing? Because there's highly debate. Some people are ignoring it completely, shut it all off. Some people are embracing it, but only for the good things, trying to define what the good things actually are.

So how, especially in your position with autonomy and responsibility for the school and all the teachers, how do you think about this and how, if at all, are you using it or not using it in your school?

Jenny Mitchell: Well, we're embracing it, not to a sense that we think that it should replace anything necessarily, any of the major things that are happening, but we know that it's here to stay. And Taiwan is in a unique situation because we have the, they're making the chips, right? And the AI chips that are running a lot of this. And so we have parents coming in and saying, are we going to be a hub for AI at our school?

Well, the answer is we don't know yet. I don't think many of us know how AI is going to play a role, but we're embracing it in a sense that we're exploring what it could look like. So when we get back to school in August, our first teacher PD, we have two consultants coming in, two AI consultants, to come in and work with teachers on what can this look like in your classroom. And it doesn't mean that it has to be used, but they're going to show some teachers tips and tricks for, you know, emails or how can we use it to support some of more of the mundane tasks that we have? But also how can it, right now what we're exploring is how can it increase the time that we can spend with students, which seems strange, but how can AI create almost a more personalized tutoring experience so that kids can build skills at their level that's differentiated so that we can take our classes together, our 20 kids and say, Let's go cook. Let's use our knowledge of fractions that you just practiced with your personalized tutor. And let's go do a cooking lesson and build your skills on how to cook.

So I think AI, what I'm hoping that we'll move towards is giving us more time, allowing us to differentiate for the students even more than we are now so that we can dive into the projects and get back into art and PE and music. And it gives us more time in that sense rather than having to teach all the kids the same thing at the same time. So don't have an answer, but we're working on it.

Spencer Payne: Yep. And what to you is the single number one best thing about this profession?

Jenny Mitchell: I would, you feel like it's important. I think what we're doing is important. And I think the best thing are just the relationships you build with each other and the impact you see on being able to not necessarily change lives, but have an impact on someone's life. And it goes both directions.

Spencer Payne: Hmm.

And what is the single hardest or worst part about this profession? Or if you could have a magic wand and just point it there and change it, where would you point that wand?

Jenny Mitchell: Same answer.

Same answer. I'm going to say probably the people is, you know, we're in the people business and everybody comes into education with a different perspective or a different hope. And so when you're working with so many people, not just the kids, you know, you have 800 kids and 130 teachers and I don't know, 2000 parents, that can be challenging. And you know, lot of conflicts come up. So.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of relationships to manage. especially then, yeah, the parents you got two that might even have a different idea that are telling you conflicting, like there's a million relationships there. It can make it very, very difficult to navigate. Well, thank you so much for wide ranging from teacher to teacher of teachers and.

Jenny Mitchell: Yes.

Spencer Payne: Uh, how are we using AI and didn't, wasn't going to teach. Okay. Now I'm going to teach. We've got some really good stuff here. I really love the million words or less way of kind of embracing how to engage parents on the first day of the classroom. Uh, but with all those great nuggets that you shared, uh, are there any final words of wisdom, things that we didn't have a chance to cover here today that, that you really love for, uh, teachers and prospective teachers listening to hear or anything that you've already said, but it's so important. You want to say it again. So any new or repeated final words of wisdom?

Jenny Mitchell: Thank you.

Yeah, I would just say, you know, give it a shot. If it's trying out a new strategy in your class, if you, you know, we just recently did a webinar on teaching internationally. If you want to move to teaching internationally, get rid of the what ifs. Don't think about it. You know, just dive in, give things a try because I think there is a lot out there that we could be doing and a fear of failure in a way, but nothing ever feels so bad that you can't recover.

You know, so be daring, be courageous, and try something new.

Spencer Payne: try something new, be daring, be courageous. Good advice for people will be on just teachers out there. Jenny Mitchell, thanks so much for this great conversation on a real story from a real educator. Thanks so much.

Jenny Mitchell: Thank you.