18 Years of Teaching with Emily Chaskelson

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

Spencer Payne: Okay, here we are with front of the class, real stories from real educators. Our real educator today is Emily Chaskelson. And Emily, can you share with the audience a little bit of background of how you introduce yourself maybe to other people in the educational world? What do you teach? Where do you teach? How long you've been doing it? All that good stuff. Maybe a curve ball, maybe a fun fact. How do you introduce yourself to others in this world?

Emily Chaskelson: Okay, well if we are in my classroom, I'm introducing myself as Miss C. My name is Emily Chaskelson. I teach English language learners at Myers Park High School. I am about to be entering my 18th year as a public school educator.

Spencer Payne: Perfect. And what drew 18 years ago, what made you say yes to this profession? What drew you to this in the first place?

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah. It's a little bit of a long story. I have an undergraduate degree in journalism actually, and never thought in a million years that I would ever be a teacher. That was far, far, far from my list of things I wanted to do. and I kind of have an affinity for language. I really enjoy languages. I studied Spanish in high school and then I was living in Chicago after I graduated from the University of Kansas and I started taking extra Spanish classes there at Harold Washington College, a couple other community colleges there. And the jobs that I had at that time, I was working with a lot of Spanish speakers and I just started to notice this kind of divide that the language barrier was creating between different employees, employers and managers.

And I just kind of fell in love with helping to bridge those gaps for those who did not speak English as a first language and with the love of Spanish, I just knew I want to do something in that direction. And I was like, okay, what is it? Do I want to get a master's in Spanish? Started looking at the curriculums for that. I'm like, you know, I'm not super interested in Spanish literature. I don't want to go down that deep dive. No offense to Spanish literature. No, that was not on the books. And then,

Spencer Payne: to become an expert in Don Quixote?

Emily Chaskelson: I found, my husband was transferred to Charlotte and I found a master's program in teaching English as a second language. And I was just like, you know what, this sounds like something I think that I've enjoyed my time working with different language learners. I like working with this population. Let's give it a shot. And I fell in love with the program and what happened in the curriculum.

Spencer Payne: so a very roundabout way, which as you said, was not something that was ever on your radar to become a teacher, but here you are and teaching, is it teaching English as a second language in high school? Is that your scope today?

Emily Chaskelson: eah, they call the the lingo changes all the time, but that is essentially if you were ever to hear ESL, ESOL, right now the lingo in my particular district is I would be called a ML teacher, multilingual learner, because essentially that is there because this might be a student's third language, fourth language, we don't want to just say it's their second language.

Spencer Payne: Got it. And can you paint us a little bit of a picture of in that high school setting? What does your class look and sound like? How many languages are spoken? Where are people coming from? Are there folks who, you know, do they speak some English? Pretty good. None. Like, can you just paint us a picture for those who aren't in your room of like, what do you see when you look out at your classroom?

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, it's a lot. It's complicated. As far as English language proficiency levels, I might have somebody who it is their first time in the United States. It's their first attempt at learning English all the way to somebody who may have studied English in their home country and has a pretty good base to start with. We try to really kind of level it out, but sometimes...

I need to take a newcomer into my senior class, I'll do that. As far as diversity of languages, since I've done this job, mean, there's been moments where I've had in one classroom somebody who might speak Nepali, Chin, a Burmese language, Vietnamese, French, Spanish. It just, yeah. And actually those are my favorite years, believe it or not. Yeah.

Spencer Payne: And in a classroom that varied with that many different base languages and that many different proficiencies in English, the language in which you are teaching, how in the world do you approach, I guess, some students are more advanced, some are more behind. Like, how do you approach teaching when the student body you have has such a varied foundation of the fundamentals?

And what do you aspire to get to in the same grade at the end of the year when there's such a varied foundation that you're starting with? And I feel like this could apply to many other teachers in other contexts, and it might not be language, it might be reading proficiency, it might be math proficiency. So how do you approach this concept where your students are all at a very different base? How do you approach that? And where do you try to get them by the end of the year?

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, sure. Mm-hmm. It's a, I mean, that's probably the number one challenge. One of the top challenges in my particular classroom, but probably, like you said, for a lot of teachers who have varying proficiency levels. I think that I like to kind of, this is gonna sound strange, but maybe teach in the middle, okay? So I'm not, I'm giving the lowest proficiency something that they can comprehend but lifting a little bit up and then finally trying to reach those higher level students, they're probably gonna have an extension piece, you know?

So let's meet in the middle, let's see where we can make adjustments to maybe advance this a little bit or maybe take it down a notch. So you might have assignments that are different tiers, you know, like you might be giving out, and this is a lot of work, but occasionally, okay, student X, Y, and Z, this is your directive and student...you know, ZX, this is what you're gonna do. We're gonna meet in the middle and present, but this is the differentiation piece that we're gonna be working on.

Spencer Payne: And how at the end of a year, do you have some sense of, I do a good job this year? Did I do a great job? Was I just okay? Um, cause in other instances, maybe there's, you know, the 12th grade calculus teacher test scores, plus maybe some sense of, you know, student feedback parents, but I know, I don't know if, there standard tests that you're trying to teach kids towards at the end of the year? And if so, like, how does that also compare to the personal side? Like how at the end of a year are you like, had a really good year this year or just okay and here's the things I wanna work on. How do you kinda judge that for yourself?

Emily Chaskelson: That's a really good question. I kind of will take this twofold. In the beginning, like you mentioned, the standardized test piece, my students will still take any kind of state mandated exam, but for the subject that I actually teach, they have a language proficiency exam. So they come in and they get a baseline level of English. And then at the end of the year, they take it again in the spring. And then measures are reading, writing, speaking, and listening. So for me,

Spencer Payne: Okay.

Emily Chaskelson: that is my own personal academic measure. If we're talking just academics, what I like to see is did my students improve in reading, writing, speaking, and listening? And typically on that test, the writing piece is the hardest. if I see a student, it's scored, I'm not gonna go into the scoring details, but it's like level six is the highest one would be where you start. So if I have a student that comes in with all ones, they're complete newcomer. Even if they're jumping up, to a two or even a three, to me that's a huge success. Even though there's like an exit criteria that they may not have met, but that's not going to happen in a year for an English learner. So even just that little bit of improvement is huge for me and I always celebrate that with my students too.

The other piece of this, like you said, there's a personal piece of it too and more of like a less academic, but if my students can...sort of see themselves becoming more confident using English. And I can see that in their interactions with peers and their interactions with other teachers. If I see them to start advocating for themselves with other teachers, then I know that I've also done my job. So it's where a student might come in just terrified to say a single word. And by the end of the year, they're speaking full sentences and having conversations and feeling comfortable and confident. And that to me is a win.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. And, and how, how, how maybe on day one or week one, do you, attempt to set the tone of expectations in your class with your students and their teachers? And there's another nuance with this, with what you do, which is, you know, do you have to act like, you have to ask the parents of like, well, what language are you speaking at home? How much practice are they getting with English outside of just my class as maybe, you know, some way to gauge how much progress know, if they don't make too much progress, but they're not speaking English at home, it might not it might be like, I guess I can't blame myself as much because they're just not getting the reps in. I guess how do you approach that?

With how you set the tone on what expectations are for your class with the students and the teachers? And how much do you explore that question of like, are you are you guys teaching? Are you guys speaking English at home? Do you need to help the parents because some of them might not speak English? How do you how do you approach that?

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah. I mean, at the beginning of the year, I let my students know that I have pretty high expectations, right? And that, especially in regards to using English. When parents come in, like, let's say we're having an open campus night before school, I'll have a syllabus that kind of outlines what our goals are in this class, share that with the parents, and then if I can communicate with them, depending on what language they're speaking, right?

Some of the parents do speak English too, and that's always a plus. Just kind of communicating with them the importance of that learning at home as well. But I gotta say with technology now, even Netflix, students have all of these tools. And a lot of times my students will come in and not honestly tell me, well, I really didn't speak much English over the summer, but I watched a lot of movies in English, or I listened to a lot of music.

And those tools honestly are pretty helpful, you know? So even if that's the homework, like, hey, maybe as a family, you guys just try watching something, put it in English with whatever your language subtitles are so you're hearing it, you you're exposed to it. But it's tough, it's tough to keep that exposure at home, right? If that's not the family's native language, it's really hard to, you know, have them conversate like that. But a lot of times my students are also acting as translators for their family. So in a lot of events, they are helping the parents to translate, you know, doctor's appointments, any kind of thing where the parents might need some help with English. And as far as working with other teachers, thankfully, I work at a school that's, we're a community, we're a family, and everybody's kids are everybody's kids.

So, I kind of helped do a little bit of a professional development at the beginning of the year, just kind of outlined some tips to work with our English language learners. What can you do in your classroom to help them? But the exposure level to English in their classes is tenfold for them, and they may not have the extra support sometimes.

Spencer Payne: and you mentioned your school, kind of treats every, every student is our students, very community focused. have you been teaching there for the entirety of your 18 years and how did you find it? And even if you joined later, how did you find that school? It seems like that's something that you like, you, you spoke, you seemed to light up when you said that. So how did you find a school that has that thing that you're looking for? Did you get lucky your first time or how'd you find it?

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, yeah. Well, no, no, I did not. So when I graduated from grad school, my license for teaching English is K through 12, which enables you to have a lot of flexibility. But I knew that I really wanted to teach high school. I did my student teaching in high school at a Charlotte Meck school. And then when it came time for my first job, I could not get into a high school.

So I started  my first five years at a middle school, taught sixth, seventh and eighth grade. It was a really great place to learn how to do this profession. Really hard, really difficult, struggle a lot, but you know what? I had a great team there too, and it really just taught me the foundation for doing this well. And then a good friend of mine who I happened to have gone to grad school with, she was working at this high school, and as soon as they had an opening, she was like, come over and you're gonna like it here. I know you're gonna love it here. on. And ironically, I had done some clinical stuff while I was in grad school at this high school as well. So I just knew they had a good reputation and it was known as a good school in the community. So I was very lucky to get there.

Spencer Payne: Nice. And one thing I'd like to explore a little bit, just cause you, you've mentioned that first five years in middle school, but you wanted high school. Now you're in high school is, if there, if there's a teacher out there listening, who's maybe teaching high school, but they're about to teach middle or teaching middle, but they're about to teach high school going either direction. What, anything, might you share as key pieces of wisdom, words of advice of what, what are the major differences or changes in approach or what's the advice that you might give to someone who's going.

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah.

Spencer Payne: Maybe used to high school and now going to middle or used to middle and now going to high school. What changes?

Emily Chaskelson: Mm-hmm.

That's a really good question. I think in middle school, obviously, there's a maturity level that isn't quite what you have in high school, especially sixth grade, seventh grade too. I feel like eighth grade is kind of this year that they're starting to prepare themselves for high school, so they're a little bit easier to work with in my opinion. I think that if you were transitioning up to high school, There's a lot more autonomy in high school. I think that the kids are a little bit more in tuned, maybe, this is hard to say, but maybe with you in middle school. There's not as many distractions.

High school, there's so many things going on. There's extracurriculars, there's clubs, there's this, there's that, there's so much. So you, know, regaining that focus, especially when students are older in like 11th and 12th grade, is a little bit more of a challenge ironically than maybe working with a sixth grade group. I feel like sixth graders are still a little bit malleable in a way, where high school's a little bit more set in their ways.

So you have to approach, I think you have to work with the upperclassmen, I've been working with upperclassmen for a while, just in a more, I treat them like adults and we have that conversation a lot. know, like if you...can't follow the rules or do what we need to do here, you you're 17, 18, I need you to, you know, act like that. Yeah, so you just don't have that in middle school. It's a different, I think a different behavioral approach and mindset altogether.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so the, you're 12, I'm going to treat you like a mature 12 year old. Maybe that conversation doesn't quite work as well as it does to the 17 or the 18 year old.

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, exactly. So yeah, it's a shift in your mentality too, right? You know, because you can kind of play a bit more with the sixth and seventh graders. And I feel like, you know, the 12th graders tend to be a little bit more serious. We still have a lot of fun, but you know.

Spencer Payne: And in 18 years of teaching, especially in this world where you might see students who can't understand hardly anything to a couple of years later, their full sentences, they under, they, they are now a part of the culture. any proudest moments that, that you can share in these 18 years, any particular students, and you don't have to share names if that's not okay. Right. But any, particularly proudest moments that you can share over those, those 18 years.

Emily Chaskelson: Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I have a few. mean, it's a really I'll share a story. I have got a couple stories. First, I just want to share that some of my students in the last couple of years have received like full scholarships. And to me, that is like the ultimate achievement. They've come here, they've adapted to a new culture, they've learned the language, they've adapted academically, they've done everything that they need to do. And other people have seen that. And and for sure, I think it was two years ago, two of my girls both got scholarships.

And that was huge for me, a huge win for them too. But I had recently got a text from a former student who I happened to have kept in touch with, I just didn't think when she was from Myanmar, Burma, and had lived in a refugee camp there. And when she came over here, her English was like, surprisingly, she had a little, know, she could read and write pretty well. The speaking part definitely wasn't there and it took a lot of time working with her, but she was patient and she learned well. And I had gotten a text, maybe it was last year, and she's like, first she sent me her graduation photo from UNC Charlotte and was like, look, Missy, I want to share this with you because I feel like, I think the sentence she said was like, when I sat in your class, I could not put full sentences together. And here I am graduating from college.

And then the next year, she was like, can we go to lunch? was over the summer. And I said, okay, sure. hadn't seen her forever. And she surprises me and tells me that she now has also become a teacher. just, she said, you you taught me how to be patient and persevere. And I want to give that gift back to people. And it just, it's a pretty incredible feeling, you know, to have that. I'm

Spencer Payne: Yeah, I mean, this is someone who said you were so impactful to my life that I want to go do what you do and have that impact on others. Like that's a pretty, that's gotta be, I mean, do you remember how you felt when you like, that's gotta be a pretty special feeling like.

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's very much like tears, you know, and I, it's funny too, because you don't think at the time, I don't, this wasn't a student who I was, you know, super close with at all times, I, you know, we had a good relationship, but I didn't think, I think that's important for teachers to remember, you never really know what your impact truly is. And remember that because a few years later, you could get a text from a student and not know how much your impact really mattered. yeah, definitely a huge, I mean, I have her graduation picture up on my board now and I tell my students about her and yeah, it's a fun story to share, as well as the girls who got scholarships.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah. well, yeah, thank you for sharing that. And then on the, maybe on, on the, on the opposite end of that spectrum, you know, can you share about, you know, I'm sure it's not, it's not always those proud moments in teaching, right? There's tough days and tough weeks and tough and tough years where maybe you just feel like I just didn't connect with this group of students for whatever reason. can you share a little bit of, of maybe any, any particularly tough times, moments, years, whatever it may be. And then like, how do you, how do you bounce back?

Like, how do you, how do you go home and kind of ugh. But then get back up and just like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to do what I can to make today a good day. Like what are, so any, any tough times that you can share and then how, how do you bounce back from those? How do you, how do you try to see the good in a bad day, bad week, bad month? Like what, what, what have you done that's worked for you?

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, mean, yeah, you're definitely gonna have bad days. You're definitely gonna have some students that are rough. You're definitely gonna have times where you just, you're so tired, you're so exhausted, you can't believe that you have to deal with this class or this particular student. But I think that seeing students through to the end and watching that arc of change that happens a lot is really what kind of gets you through and reminding yourself that by the end of this,they're gonna come around, they always do. I've had rough moments where I once had a girl walk out in the middle of my class and yell at me. That is something that's really unexpected.

And in the moment, think another thing to share with teachers is really the importance of depersonalizing and remembering, hey, you know what?  they're not actually fully formed adults yet. Their brains are not fully formed. Even though they're 17, it's still, they're not there. There's a lot of heightened emotion at this age. So you have to take that off yourself. And that is one way of getting through it too, because if you continue to just hold that in and say, oh, why did this happen? Well, it's good to reflect, but in this particular instance, she later came back to me that same day in tears, apologizing.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Chaskelson: And so, yeah, it's kind of that let it go, there's something going on there, we're gonna come back eventually.

Spencer Payne: Do remember like in that moment, like what you did? Like, do you freeze when she walks out? Do you just, all right, we're going to see if she's okay, but we're going to move on. Do you walk out the classroom? Like, do you remember what you did in that moment?

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, yeah, it's funny that you say that because the students, I mean, and this is kind of the importance of establishing a really good mutual respect between the students and you at the very beginning of the year. So that when things like that do happen, the students don't escalate, you know, the students are kind of like, Whoa, you know, like, what, why would you do that? And that then you know, you've, you've established that, like, what happened? Why would she react that way? I think that I needed to have a minute outside to just kind of like, told the class, okay, guys, let's just give it a second, walk out, take a breath, you know, maybe talk to a colleague, tell security, hey, you know, she left my room, FYI. And then take a moment to just kind of recompose yourself and say, okay, this happened, it's okay, we're gonna move on, maybe there's some things going on in her life right now, we're gonna give her some time and space.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. well, applaud to, I mean, in a moment like that, that maybe you're not prepared for, haven't seen before, you never know how you're to react until something like that happens. but a a plods to, to you for kind of helping to calmly deescalate. Cause there you could, it could be easy in a situation like that to take that a whole nother direction and take this thing and actually make it worse for you and the student and the whole classroom. so, and sometimes the simplest thing to do is that.

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah. Yeah.

Thanks. Yeah.

Spencer Payne: advice you got when you were seven, like, just stop for a moment and just take a big breath. Sometimes that's the best.

Emily Chaskelson: And you know, honestly, like that's kind of what I would tell a lot of teachers when they're going through, you know, I don't think that like, I'm not a proponent of yelling at my class, I never do. It just doesn't work. So for me personally, that deescalation piece is really, really important in the education world, like daily if you need to, you know. And just that breath, that pause.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, it's usually powerful. There's a, there's a statement from, I might butcher the exact, the exact quote, but it's something like, you know, it's from this guy who is like a mentality coach to kind like Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan and all these like elite level basketball players of like separate the stimulus from the response. like in any moment there's a, there's a stimulus like that student yelled at me or whatever.

And if you really think about this, like there's a delay between that stimulus and your response, right? And it might be a deep breath and it might be one second. It might be a microsecond and you're like, what are you doing? Right? But like, but the point is, is like, if you can delay that a little longer to breathe, you'll probably have a better response if you can separate the stimulus from the actual response that of the thing that you end up choosing to do. Much easier said than done. Much easier said than done.

Emily Chaskelson: Right.

Yeah. Yeah. mean, I mean, I, yeah, I would definitely share that advice with new teachers. And as a new teacher in year one, two or three, yeah, it's going to take some practice.

Spencer Payne: 100 % Are there any things that you've consistently done in these 18 years of teaching that seem like they really just like you're in the zone that things that they work really well for you. And maybe you're surprised more teachers don't don't do those things that have become  your routine of however you handle day one or week one or after Christmas break when people are kind of like, I'm a little foggy. Like, how do you handle that first day? Are there any things that you consistently do in your teaching career that worked really well for you that you're surprised more people don't do?

Emily Chaskelson: I think you said something you even said about your routines. Well, I think establishing routine in the classroom is extremely important, especially for my particular population. You know, from day one, letting them know this is how things are going to go. This is what we're going to do. I mean, certainly you can change things up, but just the idea of this is the daily routine. This is how it works. Just so they know coming in, there's no surprises.

I can be comfortable here, I know how this goes. And also that establishing of mutual respect from the very beginning. I think that's so key. And I think a lot of ways to do that is, know, last year at our school, we did a new initiative that I actually really liked. And we established a class contract together in which, okay, here are my rules. Now let's come up with rules together as a class. And there are different exercises to do this.

But then we keep that contract at the front of the room all year. Everybody's initials are on it. We signed off on it. And there are all these things that like, okay, this is not tolerated in this room. So if something's going on where somebody's, I don't know, maybe it's disrespect, right? And that happens in the class. You say, okay, we made this contract. Are you agreeing to the contract right now? And that's way it's like, okay.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, yeah.

Emily Chaskelson: We made this together, we all agreed on this. This is our experience, not just me receiving teacher.

Spencer Payne: Do you remember or can you share maybe a couple of things that were on that list? And also is that list, is it like handed down from the school? Is it unique to your class and you kind of build it together? So can you share a little bit of how that list came about? And then can you share anything that was actually on that list for your class last year?

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, it is not. It is unique to each class. So I did it with each of my classes. And I think what we did, if I remember correctly, is we kind of shared ideas together at the board. What do you want things to feel like? What feels good to you in this class as far as respect for each other? What kind of words can we come up with that represent what you want to see as our like norm? Norms is not the word I probably used, but for this class. And I can think of like, you know, no disrespect being like the first one on there. Like they would say, let's care about each other. I think one of the more advanced students might have even said have empathy for others. They might say like, listen while the teacher's talking. Don't you know, interrupt other people, just basic kind of stuff, you know, but like, it's not things that you think about that 17 year olds are gonna sit around and have a conversation like, hey man, how do you want to, you know, how do you want this to go? Let's talk about empathy. It's just, and I do think that those conversations, thankfully they are becoming more of like a, hey, we're gonna do this in our school type of thing. And it's really important.

Spencer Payne: Yeah.

And, well, thank you for sharing that one more question. I'm curious about, cause it's one thing to put those words on a page. It's another thing to attempt to live them. And I would imagine, it's probably falls more on you. would guess at the beginning of the year to ask like, well, Hey, someone said that. Does that really align with number four? and it probably takes a little coaxing before they feel comfortable. Maybe not being a tattletale like, you're not doing number three. You're not doing number three. But, but I guess how, guess maybe.

How have you seen, mean, you only did this for one year, right? So you're maybe still morphing, but like, how have you seen the, the students start to self correct self question? Like, did that take a day? Did that take three months? Like, and how do you, how do you, is there anything you tried to do to help reinforce that? Cause it doesn't really work if it's just you being the police, the police person the entire time, right? How do you see them take ownership of that?

Emily Chaskelson: Right, right.

I mean, I think that comes back to kind of the mutual respect establishment in the classroom, right? If the students are gonna respect you and the majority of them are on board with that, then it kind of just becomes this trickle down thing where it's like, we wanna be in this classroom together and we wanna have this experience. So when one starts acting out, it is kind of a beautiful thing to see others just say, hey, you know what? you know, let's not do that right now or don't be disrespectful to her. But it does take practice, you know, it is that establishment of norms over and over and over again, right? It goes back to the routine. We come in, we do the warmup, we do this, we put our phones away and now we're ready to be respectful. And if in the middle of it, something happens, then after I've kind of established it a little bit, you hope you can put the oneness on them.

On instances I can think of like, you know, students now have to put their phones away and you know, every once in a while students will call each other out and be like, Missy so and so didn't put their phone up. And I'll be like, okay. And then they'll be like, yeah, so that's kind of a, and it's not always the quote unquote typical tattletale that does that behavior. And when you see, I know a lot of teachers, we do share this that we love when this happens, when it's like, maybe you've even had a student that is really, disengaged in the beginning of the year and has a little apathetic about school and then all of a sudden that is your student that's doing that, that's a pretty prideful moment too. Yeah.

Spencer Payne: Definitely. And on that no phones point that you just made, two questions here. Is that something unique to your class? Or is that something that the school is mandating? where is that rule coming from? And then I'll ask my second question after that.

Emily Chaskelson: That, I think it was last year or the year before. Yeah, I've been teaching through the whole phones things, but last year, thankfully, our school adopted a policy in which we all have a box in our classroom, and when the students walk in, it is put up, and it is locked for the entirety of the class. We give them back in the last five minutes of class. Yeah.

Spencer Payne: Yep. Okay. So school, so school wide, and then can you do a little compare and contrast of what has that been a positive impact? Has that been a negative impact? Has that taken a ton of for the first two weeks, like wrestling to finally get people to pay attention? Like I guess at its most simple, like, how has that gone? How has that change gone? Yep.

Emily Chaskelson: Amazing, yeah, mean, honestly, one of the biggest benefits is actually the students' engagement with each other, okay? So prior to this, you'd have this, you'd be talking to a room full of this. And it was a battle between you and the students, put it away, do this, please put it away. It never worked. And they wouldn't talk to each other. They'd be sitting right next to somebody, you know. The resistance piece, it...

Again, if you just do it day one, hey guys, this is what's happening. We're gonna be putting our phones up every day and here's the bad news. I'm delivering it right now. So let's get used to it. We're gonna rip the bandaid off today. We're gonna do it today, day one. And then you'll get a lot of, ugh. Okay, okay, you're gonna get them back. But then again, the routine gets established and they just do it.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Chaskelson: It's a beautiful thing to like, we stand outside at our doors in between classes. And so the next class would come in and by maybe a couple months in, not even, all the phones are up, they're at their desk doing the warmup. I haven't even said a word, I haven't even gone into the room and that's happening. So that's a big win too.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. That's a beautiful thing that you don't even have to ask anymore. It's just a known thing. and to, the, on the point you mentioned of ripping off the band-aid, there's an old quote. remember that I just always struck with me. It's like, there's, there's two ways to rip off a band-aid quickly and painfully or slowly and painfully. Which one would you rather do?

Emily Chaskelson: Yes.

I might steal that for day one. Yeah. Right.

Spencer Payne: You got it. Cause either way it's going to hurt. especially, especially like you got a little arm hair on there. Like you didn't share like it's either way it's going to hurt. So we'd rather do it fast or slow. A couple more quick hitter questions as we, as we kind of wrap up here, but, you know, lot of our audience are folks who are maybe early in their profession or maybe they're, they're about to get their license. They're teaching license. After 18 years in this profession, what is the number one piece of advice that you'd go back and give either someone new or maybe even to yourself?

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah. That's good.

Spencer Payne: who is maybe walking into their first or second year in this education profession. What would you share?

Emily Chaskelson: Hmm, that's tough. But I think, I really think that sometimes new teachers tend to want to be friends with the students more than anything. I just want them to like me, you know? And I think that that like piece is going to come. But I think that you really have to work on the respect piece first and foremost. If you don't establish that from day one, it's going to be a little tricky sometimes to get that back so, and then also just sometimes I think you just gotta let loose a little bit, you know, we tend to be really tight type a teachers, know, do this, do everything, you know, like this, this, this, but just slow down a little bit, you know, by the end of the year, you're going to accomplish many, many things. and I know that the first couple of years of teaching can be really overwhelming. So  depersonalize, gain the respect of the students, and just slow down a little bit.

Spencer Payne: And to dig in just a little bit, how do you feel like you gained that respect on day one of a class? And I realized you tried, there's a new thing your school did last year with kind of like the core values or whatever it was that it was called exactly, but I guess how do you establish that credibility first?

Emily Chaskelson: Well, I I think it's twofold. I think you have to show them that you're not scary, right? So be at your front, be at your door every time students are coming in. Greet them by their first name. Make sure you show them that you know them, like, oh, hey, Maria, how's it going? Every single morning. And then I think that that routineness of this is how things are going to go. These are the consequences just making sure that is well established from the get-go is really important. And being that kind of person who, it's a fine balance between, you don't want the kids to be afraid of you by any means, but you want them to know they can trust in you as well. So I think just kind of presenting yourself as a person who is that is, I don't know how to say how to do that exactly, but I think that that's what you wanna emulate.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah. I'm reminded there's a couple, you know, going over the ground rules sometimes, you sometimes people just don't want to hear them. zone out. You know? So anyway, where I'm going with this is, is, one thing that, that I saw someone do that I thought was really interesting was to make the ground rule is kind of a fun experience instead of a scolding. And as a, as a dumb example of this, this was in a, classroom setting, where, know, you couldn't get credit if you were more than like 20 minutes late to the class for like a four hour kind of adult course.

Emily Chaskelson: Mm-hmm. Yes, absolutely.

Spencer Payne: And so there was a sports reference video played at the beginning that was like a referee with the whistle throwing flags of like, if you're 20 minutes late, that's a delay of game. Like you will not get credit. And so it was just like, it was just this like, how do you do the rules in a way that's maybe a little different, that's a little fun, that's got a little flair that then people remember. There's also a visual now, right? Because there's the ref with the whistle and the flag and it's easier to remember versus just words.

Emily Chaskelson: F**k.

Yeah, mean, red card, throughout red cards, right?

Spencer Payne: Yeah, there you go. Throw out the red card. Yeah, those are some just little things if you're a new teacher of like, sometimes sometimes the visual helps tremendously versus just the words.

Emily Chaskelson: Ha.

Yeah, mean, visuals and gamification of anything is huge. Like you'll have full buy-in if you can do that. And with technology, I mean, that's really easy to do. You could say to the students, okay, blah, blah, blah, here's the rules on paper. Now get ready, because we're gonna do Jeopardy with them. And that'll give you buy-in as well.

Spencer Payne: Yep. Yep. Nice. Well, a couple more real quick ones here before we wrap up. Did you get your masters? And if so, when did you get it in your journey? And why then? And what did it unlock for you?

Emily Chaskelson: Mm-hmm.

Well, this is a simple one for me because I, like I said, I had no prior experience in education. And when I moved to Charlotte and I knew I wanted to do this TESOL program, I was like, well, I'm gonna do this first before I go into the classroom. So I was in the master's program to become a teacher essentially. But what it gave me too was a really good student teaching experience.

Spencer Payne: Yep, yep, got it.

Emily Chaskelson: because it was all tied into the master's program. the things that we read and the projects that we did in that class, I think really helped prepare me for the kind of cultural competency that I need for the classroom that I'm in.

Spencer Payne: Yep. And then AI, everyone's talking about it. It's everywhere. How are you and your school maybe embracing that over the last year or coming into this year? You know, shut it off, use it, but try to harness it for good things. And if so, what good things? what is your and maybe your schools, maybe your yours especially approach to how you use or don't use AI in your classroom.

Emily Chaskelson: well particularly, are you talking about just with the students or even just for me as a teacher?

Spencer Payne: I'd say more with the students, but if there's any number one hot tip of like, it saved me so much time for X as a teacher, feel free to share that too.

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, with my students, it's a tough one because a lot of them will take advantage of it and have been taking advantage of it. I think that what I'm trying to focus on is harnessing it for good and in a lot of project-based ways, right? So maybe for the help, once you have your information that you've researched, now let's use AI to help enhance your presentation you know, or however you want to put it together. I definitely need to do more exploration with it. But I know as an educator, I haven't really used it a lot for this, but my colleague has. know he has been using it a lot to help with his lesson design. Like if he's studying, just for example, Romeo and Juliet, you know, help me design a week long study that includes a reading, listening, speaking, and writing component to this particular lesson.

Spencer Payne: Okay, and What is the number one single best thing about this profession to you? Well, I've been doing it for 18 years after it was never on your radar

Emily Chaskelson: and it's worked for him.

My students are pretty great. I love, love, love working with seniors especially and love seeing them get to that finish line. And in particular what I do, the growth is pretty huge. So the joy that I get from the sense of accomplishment from these students, the sense of empowerment that they have, the confidence that they have when they walk out of my classroom.

It's really gratifying. It's just a gratifying experience. I don't know, I'm a people person and these students for the most part are pretty great and gave me great joy even on the toughest of days. That you can always find one on your hard days that's gonna help get you through.

Spencer Payne: on those hard days or maybe what's the single worst thing about this profession or the hardest thing or the thing that if you could point a magic wand and say I'm gonna change this one thing overnight where would you point that one?

Emily Chaskelson: Hmm, that's tough. It's a lot to balance. It's a lot to juggle between lesson prep and grading and responding to emails and doing professional development. There's just a lot that goes on. And our days move really fast. you you got to be ready to, you know, maybe not go to the bathroom for an hour. Maybe, you're gonna have a 10 minute lunch and a student's gonna come in during that lunchtime. So I think that you just have to be super flexible and be okay with things changing at the drop of a hat as well.

Spencer Payne: And if there was anything, folks out there who are not in the educational field, maybe we're talking to parents, maybe just the public at large who's not an educator, maybe there's no educators in their family. Is there any one thing that rises to the top that you wish more of the public at large knew about what it's like to be an educator or a teacher in the US today? Like if there was one thing you're like, I wish everybody just knew this, what might you point to?

Emily Chaskelson: It's really demanding. We are never allowed to turn it off. so when people have jobs that maybe they work from home, maybe they're in an office, you're not on the entire time. I could be student facing for eight hours a day. And that means that whatever kind of day you're having, doesn't matter, you gotta be ready to give it. So it just takes a lot to do that every day.

Spencer Payne: And anything else you think is valuable, fun, worthwhile to share with the audience of teachers and prospective teachers out there? Any new words of wisdom, something we didn't get to explore or anything that you shared already that you feel like, you know what, I know I said this already, but this is so important. I want to say it twice. So any new or repeated words of wisdom?

Emily Chaskelson: I also didn't, I don't think I mentioned the importance of your colleagues and I think that you can really learn a lot from other teachers if you're open to it. I think that if you have an open mind and you get an opportunity to either co-teach or sit in on somebody else's class or even just do a little planning with another teacher, I think that can really help you immensely. And I know that I would not be where I am today if it wasn't for other team members that I've had that have  helped me through a lot of those times. So don't forget that even though it's your classroom, there are people all around you that can help you.

Spencer Payne: And on that note, just because I don't want appreciation to go unstated, would you mind sharing maybe one, two, three of those colleagues that you appreciate that you go to for advice, tough times, whatever it may be? I hate to leave appreciation not go said. So can you just share who are some of these educators who you look up to, who you learn from, who you aspire to be, who are your confidants?

Emily Chaskelson: Mm-hmm.

Okay, thank you to Dana, to Mary Jo, to Taylor, to Erica, to Sally, Dan, Chris, Bucky. I've got many, so many. Even my AP, even my administrators. I really like my administrators too. So shout out to all my admins.

Spencer Payne: perfect. Thank you very much. I one one thing that was said to me a while ago, I can't remember where I got this. But something like if if someone did something well, and you thought in your head, wow, I really appreciate that, like, you're like withholding goodness from the world if you don't tell that person. So I just try to coax more of that out anywhere that I can.

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, that's good. you know, same could go for teachers in your classroom. A lot of times people call parents with negative information, call them with positive information.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. actually that's a fun one. One of our teachers on this actually shared that she said, sometimes I'll call us a call a parent and just say, little Johnny or whoever it was, was awesome today. Cause it's, it's so unexpected. Cause usually you only expect it to be a bad thing, but like, why not call a parent when something great happens? So we'll, we'll leave it that with words of wisdom, like shout out the good call, call somebody when something great happens. let them know, well, Emily, thanks so much for sharing this, this, these real stories from a real,

Emily Chaskelson: Yeah, I love doing that. Yeah, it's great. Yeah.  Yes.

Spencer Payne: non-traditional, never wanted to be, but now love being an educator story. Appreciate it.

Emily Chaskelson: You're welcome. You're welcome.