A Serious Love for Learning with Dominic Helmstetter

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

Spencer Payne: Okay, here we are with another episode of Front of the Class Real Stories from Real Educators. And our real educator today is Dominic Helmstetter. Dominic, to those in the educational world, how do you introduce yourself? What do you teach? Where do you teach? How long you been doing it? Like, how do you like to describe what you do to others in the know?

Dominic Helmstetter: Yeah, well, hey, first, thanks for letting me join you here, Spencer. I'm excited. This is highlight of my day. So, Dominic Helmstetter, I've been teaching for 18 years now. I am currently at Perrysburg High School. That's a suburb of Toledo, Ohio  if you're trying to look for some geography there. I'm a ninth grade government teacher. I've taught social studies across the board, but this year I've got ninth grade government. that's, you know, I guess a little bit about me. just look, I love learning. I love learning with my students. I love integrating any kind of technology or any kind of tools that make learning fun. So if I had to describe myself, that's the focus for me.

Spencer Payne: There's so many, first of I love it when there's an introduction where there's so many interesting threads that we can walk down. We can talk technology, we can talk nerding out on government and history. We can talk ninth grade versus, actually here's where I'd love to start though. You mentioned your ninth grade government right now. Can you help us understand, has it always been high school? Have you bounced around different grades? And have you always taught government? What else have you taught? Just give us a little bit more of the, yeah, the.

Dominic Helmstetter: So yeah, so this is my fifth year doing government I've taught. My licensure is 7 to 12, so I've taught all those grades. Before I started teaching what I'm teaching right now, I taught a push, which was, I think, my favorite class of all time. And then I moved to a different building. So I different assignment. And I've taught seventh and eighth grade history. So junior high, which is fun and exciting and goofy and, those kids are so unapologetically honest with you.

So I've had a chance to teach seven, eight, nine. And then when I started off, I taught 10, 11, 12. So I've had a chance to bounce around a little bit. I've done a little adjunct work on the side and a lot of consulting with universities and districts around here. So I've worked with lot of teachers as well. And it's just, like I said, I'm serious. I love learning. I love talking about learning. this is just, it's fun.

Spencer Payne: Well, can you help us understand a little bit all that moving around seventh all the way to ninth AP history government like are some of those for someone out there who might be thinking, maybe if I teach, might be stuck teaching the exact same thing every single day for 30 years. And I want a little more variety in life. You've obviously had some variety in this experience. Can you share a little bit about those bouncing around middle high school, different teach, different subjects? Is that coming from you? Is that coming from the school?

Dominic Helmstetter: Yeah.

Spencer Payne: Is that coming from both? can you help us navigate maybe a couple of those twists and turns along the way of how did you go from APISH to government and how have you navigated those changes and why?

Dominic Helmstetter: No, that's a great question. I think at the beginning of my career, it definitely came from the school. They were like, hey, this is what we need. And at one point, I was teaching five different preps. And that can really stretch you thin because it's a lot of changes. Later on, it was more of a choice. So when I was teaching junior high, I had the choice, because someone laughed, I had the choice to add AP US history.

So that was something that I really wanted to do because for me it'd be a tremendous challenge. mean, it's just, it is every bit of college as you can imagine, but we're still in high school. it's something I'd never done. I'd done honors but I wanted a push. And so I asked and I sought it out. technology is just, the funny thing is, I mentioned it in writing my introduction, but technology is this weird thing because I'm old enough now where I remember a college professor saying that a whiteboard is is the greatest technological advancement in education. And it's a little different now with all of the things and AI and it's,

But technology is something that I wasn't taught to teach with. So it's something that I've had to learn along the way and something that I've had to learn about with my students. you, especially with freshmen, they're going to walk in and they're going to assume they're going to think they know more about technology than you do. So you got to make sure that you're fully prepared for what's going to walk in that door. And you're going to have all different levels of technology skills, but you still, gotta be ready for all of them. getting back to your question, like...

Right now I'm at a point where I can choose and I think it's a lot of fun. I love the younger grades, those middle school grades, just because you can be goofy, you can laugh, and that's a rule in my classroom. I'm serious. I expect us to laugh or smile at least once every single day. So if I'm not seeing a smile from someone or laugh from someone, I've got some work to do. So just from a vibe standpoint, a culture standpoint,  point that's a an absolute expectation and you know we're young enough and they keep me young that we can we can just do that and it's it's not a problem when you get to a push a little bit more serious the content you've got to have quality depth of knowledge with the content

Spencer Payne: Yeah, yeah, yep.

Dominic Helmstetter: And it's less about the instructional strategies, more about the content on some days. So you gotta be prepared for that because there's definitely a difference.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. wide ranging. And I do want to highlight that point you made of early in the career, sometimes these different grades, different subjects are maybe coming from the school. but when you prove yourself, you do those things. Well, later in your career, once you're known, you're trusted, you know, your people are, you know, you're doing a good job. The school knows you're, you're doing a good job. Then you can start to say, there's an opening in AP US history. I want to teach that and you might be the first one to go get it because you've proven yourself. So I just want to highlight that for maybe younger folks out there. Sometimes you don't always get the dream job right away. You got to, you got to do the ones that you, that the school needs you to do, but usually there's a give and take do those well. And later you can probably get the ones that.

Dominic Helmstetter: You know, I think it's important to remember too is when when you start off and you get that first full-time job That's the first time you're really alone in a classroom with a group of kids and you're responsible for a lot And you've got to do a lot because teaching isn't just what do you know? It's how are you connecting with those kids and developing relationships with those kids? How are you managing the needs and the things that they come into class with? because in some cases that 50 minutes with you is  the best 50 minutes of their day and you've got to really make it worth that time.

Spencer Payne: Can you share a couple of examples of how you do that? what's a way that you have, again, over 18 years, what are some strategies or some tactics or some things that you have found that work for you as ways to connect with that student and attempt, don't always succeed necessarily, but attempt to make that next 50 minutes the best 50 minutes of their day? What are some things that you've tried over the years? Maybe some things that didn't work, but like what are some strategies that you might share with other people of how to make that connection?

Dominic Helmstetter: Yeah, you know, like I think the first couple years I was just so focused on me that the to be honest, this is something that I just didn't put a lot of time and effort into. I feel bad thinking back on that because you really need to because the kids are buying stock and you just as much as the content in a way. So I think the most important thing I try to try to learn as many of my students names and likeness before  they walk in. I try to do that as much as I possibly can. And you know when you've got 150 kids walking in that can be really challenging especially if you are in high school. So freshmen they change a lot from eighth grade to freshman year. So some kids will walk in and they look absolutely nothing like their picture.

So trying to learn their names as quickly as possible but just having a conversation, talking about really anything except school. What do you like to do? What's your favorite video game? What kind of music do you listen to?

You know, hey, what would your friend what did you do with your friends this weekend? What's your favorite ice cream? food Any little thing that makes them special makes them unique and makes them different. I want to try to figure that out and find out

Spencer Payne: I'm curious on that note, is that something you dedicate some time to in the first day, the first week? Is that something that every week, maybe going forward as you're teaching a full year of class, it like, know, Tuesday for the first 10 minutes, we're getting into some of that personal stuff before the lessons? Is there a structured way that you try to fold that into the daily weekly lessons, the first day, the first week? How do you do that? You just let it happen organically when the day just feels like...

No one's paying attention today, like we're gonna go personal, like how do you actually go about doing that?

Dominic Helmstetter: So I think, I believe you have to be very intentional. You can't just hope it happens. You've got to plan for it. And for me, really kind of the first week and a half, two weeks of school is about us. It's not so much about the content. So like I might schedule in like five or 10 minutes to explain the content or explain what they might expect when we start getting into it.

But for the most part, the priority is getting to know them, trying to learn as much as I can about who they are as people, what type of skills they're walking into class with, what are things that they have struggled with historically, what are things that they've excelled with. And then for me, kind of sitting back reflecting a little bit and starting to come up with a game plan on how I believe I can take all of those things that I've learned and start feeding it into class and feeding it into the learning structure that we're going to have in here. I think when we're really into the content, we're moving along, that five minutes in between class is mission critical for me. We're listening to music. I'm walking around. I never sit during the day. And I had somebody be like,  well why would you work that hard? like because they deserve it. The kids deserve it.

So I'm walking around. I am not a person who's gonna stand by my doorway. I'll go in the hallway and I'll walk the hall with my kids.  I'll be in my classroom and I make sure that I have at least some kind of a conversation with every single kid as they're walking in in that five minutes because I need to know that they're ready to go because when that bell rings, it's time to rock. So I've got to know that they're ready to go. And if they're not, I need to find something. If a kid's had a bad test, maybe that affects their focus in my class. So what can I do to help them? Maybe I need to walk a lap with them so they can walk it off. And we can just talk and kind of unload a little bit. Maybe they just need a sweet treat or a high five. Maybe they just need to see somebody smiling so that they know that you care it could be anything it really can so those five minutes Absolutely. I'm very very intentional with using that time in between class Because you know I can't I want to

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, on this note, sounds like, just reading between the lines. sounds like, you know, when that bell rings, I want them ready to rock. sounds like you probably have a relatively high expectations of what you expected the students in your class. How do you set that expectation on the first day, the first week, first two weeks with not only the students in your class, but also with their parents of what you expected them, but also what they should expect of you. and maybe even a little bit of not, not just how you set the expectation, but.

How do you foster the accountability going back both ways of, you know, if they're not living up, how do you go about encouraging them to live up? If you're not living up and someone feels like your energy's off, how do you encourage them to call that out for you also? So how do you set the foundation and how do you set the standard and how do you hold the standard? That's almost one of the harder things.

Dominic Helmstetter: So I think, all right, so as a parent, I get so frustrated when I don't know what my kids are doing at school. And I get frustrated when I don't know how to help my own kids when they come home with work. So the number one thing that I'll start with is I connect and communicate with parents. So at least a week before school ever begins, most of the schedules are locked in. So I'm already emailing parents individually. I'm emailing parents as a collective. And I continue that throughout the year. So I email my parents every single week, Sunday at 5 p.m. on the dot they know to expect it every single through the whole week

Spencer Payne: Every single week through the whole school year, you're sending, is this like a generic to all 30? Is this an individualized? Like, how are you approaching that?

Dominic Helmstetter: So I send an email that goes to everybody and then I will send separate individual emails. I always do a recap of the week. I share details. So if we took a test or had some sort of an assessment, I share that data with them because I want them to see the numbers. And we chart that in class as well. We've got a giant leaderboard on our whiteboard and each class we chart our data as a group so that students see as a class.

We're modeling this type of goal setting and then they're gonna do it individually as well and again parents know that they're gonna have those individual goals and those individual data sets that students are keeping track of but also our class-wide ones so I'll share out the class-wide ones and share observations and trends that I'm seeing from them in class and things that I really want to focus on the next week or the upcoming week I'll give them strategies to help them things that I think could help them be impactful at home.

Whether it's just hey just spend five minutes and ask these two questions Maybe it's something just that simple but I want to empower my parents to be part of our learning be part of our class and the greatest thing that that happens is when parents email you back or they just stop in or they they call and they tell you about a conversation, I mean we were Last year we did this fourth amendment lesson where we were analyzing Jay-z's 99 problems  as a way of understanding search and seizure. now look, was 90s, that's my timeframe. So I got 12 emails from parents just laughing emojis and everything saying that their kids were.

Spencer Payne: They knew that song when they were cruising around too, right? Yeah.

Dominic Helmstetter: Yes, mean, their kids are just going on and on and on about Jay Z. Look, my kids didn't know who Jay Z was, but as soon as somebody said that he's married to Beyonce, he's like, Oh, this guy's got to be cool. And I'm like, yeah, Beyonce's husband is cool. But like parents, they'll email and talk about how they're listening to music rocking out. So it's great to hear that. But then to get the same thing from students because, you know, I tried to do the same thing with students, send regular postcards to them, emails, little messages, things that I've noticed, try to connect them. So you talk about that accountability piece and I can just have a quick conversation because of that rapport and be like, know, hey, you looked a little sluggish yesterday, you know, what can I do to help you?

Are you good? Is there anything going on? How is your last class? Hey, I noticed you had a math test coming up. How are you? Are you prepared for that? Are you ready for that? It doesn't have to be just social studies because all these things are interconnected. And you just got to be aware of that. And I encourage my students to communicate with me too. In fact, I always tell them, and we do this at least once every quarter,  I tell them, look, I give you guys grades. I assess you. It's only fair that you get a grade me. So I give them an evaluation of my teaching and tell them to give me their honest feedback on where we're going and how we're doing. What did you like? What did you not like?

Spencer Payne: Can you share maybe some of the most impactful things that you've heard on some of those assessments back to you, either good or bad?

Dominic Helmstetter: Yeah, so, you know, I think the cool thing is they're like, hey,

I just wanted to let you know that Miley Cyrus is not the greatest musician in America. And of course, I dispute that. Party in the USA, one of the greatest songs ever. I named my daughter Miley. So I think there's enough evidence here to prove that they're going to lose the debate. So they give me that in my evaluation. But I love stuff like that, where it's...

Like it's a comment on the relationship that we've got together. And to me, that's great feedback. That's great data that says, okay, I've been able to connect in a meaningful way with music, with movies, with whatever in these areas. That's great. And listening to them talk about sharing what we've done in class, not just with their parents, but starting to share it with their other teachers and their teachers coming up to me and asking, those are other things that to me, I know I've connected.

Last year, had a parent email me shortly after we did one of these evaluations and they just commented and said they thought that was really cool. I'm like, all right, this is great. And they're like, if you're wondering what kind of an impact that you've had, I promise you you've had a huge impact. And they described in detail conversation that her son was having on Xbox with their friends about how I think they were playing Halo and how these were First Amendment violations and different Bill of Rights violations and they were explaining why it is and what it is and she's like when they're playing video games and having an in-depth conversation about the Bill of Rights you know you're doing something right so that's just those are things

Spencer Payne: That's gotta be a, that's a great feeling. Yeah, that's hugely meaningful. I'm curious that, actually one quick comment and then one quick question. It's not like that, hey, I'm disputing Miley Cyrus is not the greatest artist of all time. Like it's almost like the height of a good relationship when you can kind of talk trash and you know it's a joke and you know it's fun banter. It's like, that's almost like the pinnacle of a really good relationship, right? Like you're not gonna talk trash to somebody that,

Dominic Helmstetter: It's meaningful. Yeah.

Gotta smile, gotta laugh.

Spencer Payne: You don't have a good rapport with. Yeah. Yeah. And then quick question that hour or that, that email that you send every Sunday, um, just ballpark. Like how long does that take you? Is that an hour? Is that three hours? Is that a half an hour? And what do you think is the ROI on that time? It seems like that's opening up all kinds of great dialogue. So if there's a teacher out there who's like, geez, an email to every student every Sunday, that sounds like a lot of work. How much work is it really? And what's the impact that you see from.

Dominic Helmstetter: So I'll schedule my emails because every week is a little bit different. So one of the things that I kind of do on the side, I mentioned I do a little consulting. So I work with other teachers and I mentor teachers that are in college. And I work with a couple of local universities. I broadcast high school and college football and basketball because that's where my wife and my family are. That's where  my students are, so that's another way for me to kind of get involved and get engaged. So I'll schedule my emails, but I'll spend about an hour writing one email that goes out to all of my parents because I wanted to be, I wanted to have some real information in it.

So I'll not only review, reflect, which is extremely valuable in the planning process, I'll not only include those reflections in the email, but I also break down every single day and I outline what our essential goal is for that day, why it's important. I'll share resources, whether it's a link or part of an assignment, but I'll share resources for each day so that there in front of them. I will tell them where their child can find these resources and I know I don't have to say that to the kids because it becomes a routine on how it looks and where it's at but for a parent you don't think about schoology but maybe once a week if that so it's a nice reminder for them but the other thing I'll also do is I'll preview content so if I know we're gonna get into something that can be very personal. I'll email parents and include that in this two, three, four weeks in advance and I'll just flat out say, this is what I want to talk about in class.

This is the approach that I would like to take. Here are the resources that I'd like to use in class and these are the tools that I'm going to have your students, your kids engage with. I would like you to take a moment when you have it over the next week or two, look over it and if you have any questions, if you have any concerns or if you have any other resources that I could use to supplement or add, please let me know. So just including them in that planning process as well. So like this email it's got a lot to it a lot of layers to it But I got to be honest some of the best resources have come through these interactions For example, know again the Bill of Rights, you know, I I asked if I just asked my parents does anybody know a lawyer or a judge And I had five parents respond one of them said look my neighbor's a judge You want me to walk over there right now and talk to him about coming in to your classroom like yeah

Spencer Payne: Incredible. Yeah.

Dominic Helmstetter: So we ended up having a panel. We had a judge, an attorney, and a city councilman all kind of come in and do this panel and talk about rights and things. And I got my little study buddy here. But some of those opportunities are possible because I try to make that connection with the parents and with the kids. And it's just, it's fun. It's cool.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, that's great. I love that. And then that allows for taking this, you know, theoretical book learning and let's compare that to the judge and the lawyer and the city council person. And like, let's talk about how this actually meets reality and how this thing really works. I think that's a really cool experience that probably wouldn't happen without you asking, right? Sometimes you just got to ask. I love to come back to technology a little bit, just because you hit on that earlier in your introduction. There's AI's,

Dominic Helmstetter: Definitely.

Yeah, definitely.

Spencer Payne: Everyone's talking about AI in the classroom. What does it do? What does it mean for people's minds, et cetera? Could you share a little bit about your approach to maybe what's a, what's a, what is a technology, a top one or two that you have used in the classroom in the last year or two that you find a great benefit from, especially in teaching the classroom, maybe energizing, gamification, whatever it is, take that however you'd like to. What's a technology that you really liked and maybe what's something that you're hoping to learn more about in this coming year that maybe you're dabbling with or you're trying out. So what's working and what are you trying next?

Dominic Helmstetter: Yeah.

So that's, I mean, it's a great question because technology, education technology is such an important piece. Most schools are one-to-one, so you just, you need to be proficient. And if you're a new teacher, I strongly recommend that you become a certified Google educator. That's where I started, and it was a huge breakthrough for me because a lot of schools have Chromebooks. And that's a great way to get yourself familiarized with some of the day-to-day tools that kids are interacting with. I think for me, the first tech tool that I would recommend anybody really dive into that I use daily. I'm a huge Edge of Protocols fan, and I know that's come up in your podcast in the past. So Fast and Curious is, it's at the beginning of every class, and I talk about students tracking data and creating goals. That Fast and Curious is a big part of it.

And in Ohio, we have a big emphasis on high quality student data. and I am one of those people that I spend a lot of time trying to make sure that we've got quality data and that we're using it properly to inform our instruction. using something like a GIMP kit quizzes or we should say way ground now that's still I've got to get used to that but quizzes or way ground whatever you prefer I still call Twitter Twitter and not X so yeah.

Spencer Payne: So do I. for a while.

Dominic Helmstetter: So, but those Kahoot! Blicut! That's a student favorite. They love the Blicut! But things like that, use that a lot to get the initial engagement. I'll use it as a pre-teaching tool. So I'll give them brand new content without prefacing anything and see what they know. And I tell them, because I want to, I really want to instill a mindset that they don't have to be perfect. I'm not perfect.

You will make mistakes, but we're here to support each other. I tell them, look, I don't care what your average is, what your accuracy is. I care if you try. All right, you can control that. And I've got a giant poster up there, you know, talking about that, you know, the effort people put in. So I want to see how many questions they can answer, how many questions they can go through. I openly encourage them to have a blank sheet of paper right next to them.  jot down anything they didn't know or anything they had a question about or anything they had an aha moment about I always think of Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory and he's like Bazinga It's just that like surprise moment. So what's your Bazinga moment? so having them write that down and then I always do three minutes no more than three minutes.

My students have gotten anywhere but you know, you'll do like 50 questions Maybe at the beginning and the highest I've ever gotten is about 1200 questions in three minutes. So we've had a pretty wide range. Accuracy by the end of the week, so four to five days, we will always be in the 90s no matter what because it's a constant, constant focus. We chart that on the board. They chart their individual because if I've got a couple kids that are struggling, they're charting it and then we're talking on the side. Maybe that's the quick conversation at the beginning of class during those five minutes. It's like, hey, I noticed you did this. What's one thing you remember? Or what's one thing I can do to help you out? Maybe it's just as simple as, right, well, we're going to do the buddy system. I'm going have you sit with somebody. Or hey, maybe I'm going to help you, so we're going to sit together.

If I've got a teaching assistant in class, maybe they're sitting with the teaching assistant or maybe they're just sitting in a different seat period. Any number of things can have a positive impact on their learning. So using those tools a lot, because your question is about technology. But I use AI a ton. It's.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, I say how do you and the school maybe approach that, especially from the student facing perspective? So maybe not the background tools that you use to be more efficient, et cetera, but like, how do you, how do you or don't you encourage students to use it? When do you use it? When do you not? Like, how are you and your school maybe approaching the use of AI from a student standpoint?

Dominic Helmstetter: Yeah, and that's such a, I think a divisive question depending on where you're at. Personally, where I'm at, I want them to use it. I want to use it. I model me using it in class. I model how they can use it in class. So we talk about data. Maybe if they create a presentation, we pull it up in the brisk app that's on my computer we can get immediate feedback on their presentation before they present. So then they've got that feedback there, but then they can go back before ever presenting or turning something in and they can make adjustments, they can make improvements, they can get peer to peer feedback on something like that. I think it's...

I say this is an interesting topic because I teach with a lot of extremely talented teachers that do not use AI in any way, shape or form. They don't believe it. They think that students will cheat with it. And my first response to them is always, well, how have you shifted? And I believe the shift is very important. How have you shifted your instruction to match the change in education versus the way you used to do it? So if I'm in a social studies classroom and I'm asking my students to write a five page research paper. Am I asking them to just go home and do it alone on their own?

Well, then what is that modeling for them or showing them? It's a no guardrails approach and I'm hoping that they come back with something that pleases me versus if I'm in class and I'm intentionally intentionally changing the way I teach where maybe we create a stations activity out of this writing process where they they ask chat GPT give me five things about the cold war that I can write on. and just a list to help brainstorm. Sometimes that's the hardest part for kids. They just don't know where to start. So maybe help them get kickstarted that way. And we could do that as a class so they could see it. But maybe some of the other stations are, OK, write five sentences about that topic. First thing that comes to mind. And then the next station is they have to find a high quality resource on their own. And then they have to supplement or add to that five sentence paragraph that they just wrote.

Maybe the third station is they take their writing and they plug it in to maybe it's a class companion or a short answer AI tool or chat GPT or or brisk or magic school Whatever your your choice is Maybe you take that writing sample and have them plug it into an AI bot to give them feedback now Of course a lot of these tools you can put the rubric in there. You can put the information in there. You can set the parameters. So when the kids get their feedback, it's not gonna be perfect. It will never be perfect. You still have to put a little into it. But the idea is they're gonna get some trusted feedback, something that they can actually use, take back, reflect on and then make a couple changes. And then maybe the fourth station of that is a one-on-one with the teacher where you check in and be like, okay, you you've had a chance to reflect, to write. You've had a chance, maybe you create a buddy system for one of the stations where they get peer feedback. So you've had peer feedback, AI feedback. What's changed? Show me what's changed.

and then you can talk about it. Well, why did you make that change? How's that going to help your writing as you continue going through it? Again, how did you shift and change the way you teach? That's what I challenge those teachers to consider because if you provide no guardrails, if you do absolutely nothing to develop these skills, and they are skills that need to be mastered, I want my kids to be able to evaluate the work they've done with AI. I want my kids to be able to create new, amazing, cool things with AI. And...I want them to be able to defend their analysis and the analysis that's been given to them. I want them to have a level of AI literacy that it requires me to put a little in. So it's an intentional constant daily thing. And I've had a chance to kind of present at a few different conferences on AI. And every time before I do it, I always tell my students what I'm doing, where I'm going, but I include their work in it.

So I have them evaluate my presentation and I'm like look I'm gonna share this with teachers What do you guys think and they always harass me about why did I pick that? Example to to share because they want they want they're like this was cool. You got to add this but again that shift how are we intentionally Shifting the way we teach the way we learn the way we view instruction in our classrooms that's a very important thing and that's something that I try to challenge and support my colleagues with.

Spencer Payne: I always, I always like to try to make connections from very odd places. so there's an old 90s movie, Starship Troopers. and I just rewatched that one actually not too long ago. And there's a, a scene at the beginning where the teacher's asking, what's the difference between a civilian and a citizen? And someone raised their hand and answers. And the teacher's like, yes, perfect. Exactly from the textbook. Right. But then he asks, but do you believe it? Is it really true? and then the students like, I don't know. And so that's where in this AI world, someone can get an answer to something right away. there's just so many interesting ways to then, do you believe it? Is that true? In what context might that answer be different? There's so many interesting ways that you can still play with that and challenge so that, I don't know, in my view, you can still try to have the intelligent conversation that learning and teaching is all about.

Even in an AI world where it's not cheating and giving them the answer, because you can still ask some of those Socratic questions to pull out like, how do you really feel about that? Does that make sense? In what context might that not be the case? I love it. Transition now over to some more rapid fire kind of quick hitter questions as we were, as we kind of wrap up here. But one of those being, Hey, 18 years in the classroom, you've already shared some proud moments, like teachers talking about how their son is playing X-Box and talking about the first amendment with their friends, right? Like, but is.

Does anything really stand out to you as like a true, like that's one of the proudest moments I've ever had in 18 years of teaching. Is anything, anything come to the top for you of proudest moments that you'd love to share with the audience?

Dominic Helmstetter: Yeah, so there's a lot of things that I'm really, really proud of. It's the personal notes that students give you.

You know, those are things I've got a box in my classroom and I keep all of that because it's meaningful to me. I had a class last year that they loved a project we did so they printed off the last slide. We were making political ads because it's an election year. somebody made a political ad to have me become president of the United States, which I didn't win by the way turned the banner at the end of the political ad into a flag. So it's hanging up in my classroom So that's I mean, I've got stuff like that that very visual that is I'll just look at it and you smile because it just you are where you where you want to be but I would say the one thing that I I'm most proud of is and I'm just gonna go back to that Jay-z song a little bit I had a student stop me the very next day and he's like, have you ever heard of Mobb Deep? And I'm like, yeah, of course. No clue. And he's like, yeah. So we just started talking about Mobb Deep. he's like, I've got this song that I can't stop listening to called Temperature Rising.

And he went on for 15 minutes describing how temperature rising is an example of the Bill of Rights and everything that we've been talking about and studying. And he said, hey, can we do something with this in class? And I said, well, why don't we sit down and let's make a lesson together? and let's do this tomorrow. So we sat down and we created a lesson based on song that he was interested in and we created a class challenge. And the winner of this class challenge, okay, I brought in Peeps because the kids were talking about that candy.

So I went and got the nastiest kinds of Peeps I could find. Dr. Pepper, hot sauce Peeps, they were disgusting. But I got Peeps and then the winner also in addition to candy,  they went on our wall of fame so they were immortalized on the wall of fame but we created a class challenge out of temperature, out of rising temperature song and his Mobb Deep and
I had him lead the lesson. didn't. I was a student that day. So we literally switched. I was in his seat. He was up front. He was leading it. And what we did is we gave him lyrics. We created a rubric together to judge the work. Every group had five minutes. And they had to analyze the lyrics of this and able to find and circle and annotate all the examples of the Bill of Rights that he was telling me about. And he had a success chart.

So he made a list of things that he thought connected. And our list got up to about 42 different things in this song. So the groups, his goal was the groups are going to find as many of these 42 things as possible. And then we went through it. We graded it. And we gave everybody strategically a challenge. So they could challenge the results of another group, but they had a limited number of them. So they had to be again very strategic, but they could challenge the results. So there's some friendly banter. But the whole point is this was a student created lesson because he loved something that we were doing. And those are the things that I love the most. Those moments. Yeah.

Spencer Payne: And made a connection, right? And made an un, like a non-normal, non-obvious connection between the song he likes and these things you're learning. was like, actually, I think this ties, that shows you like he's paying attention, right? He's thinking about this beyond just the 45 minutes in class.

Dominic Helmstetter: Yeah, definitely.

And it's yeah, it's real, authentic learning. That's what I'm proud of. I'm proud of my kids. So.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah. You shared a lot of, you shared a lot of proud moments, exciting moments, students doing really cool things. What about the opposite? Any low moments in the career and then it could be a bad day, bad week, bad month, the whole year, just like, did I even reach anybody this year? So any low moments and then ultimately for others who might be experiencing those, how do you bounce back? How do you keep going? Like how do you turn it around the next day or the next week when you're experiencing one of those lows? we all have.

Dominic Helmstetter: I mean, you're gonna have something. It could be a comment. It could just be a look. It could be someone's attitude. It could be anything that kind of just sucks the life out of you at any particular moment and drags you down a little bit. But I'm a huge Ted Lasso fan. So season four, filming right now, I'm very excited. But...

He says which which animal has the shortest memory a goldfish And so I just try to keep that goldfish goldfish mentality when those type of things happen because The the kids that I have are amazing. I love every single one of them and I genuinely truly care about every single one of them. I know they don't mean it and it's just part of growing up and just part of being young and figuring out life for yourself and guess what? Being a teenager isn't easy, okay? Because one day you're talking up here and the next day you're talking down here and it's any little thing.

My son, he's grown five inches in the last year so we had to go out and buy him a whole new wardrobe because nothing fit. He was walking around with things that are way too small and it's hard to be in that world and especially social media as well. So I just I genuinely believe it is not personal and that I can't take it personal.

I need to listen, I need to learn, I need to reflect. That's a really important thing. It's something whenever I have student teachers come in, that's the first thing that I tell them. Like, hey, what are we supposed to do? I always, always tell them. Number one thing, we need to reflect daily because that's how you're going to learn. That's how I learn. You need to be engaged and you cannot lecture. This is a no lecture zone because I don't want them to get comfortable with just standing and giving information to kids and allowing them to passively accept it. I want them to be involved. I want them to be engaged. I want them to get used to having those conversations because they can have the greatest impact through those conversations and understanding your depth of knowledge and weaving that into those conversations. So for me, I constantly remind myself and reflect on that. And it's just it's worked well for me.

Again, some days are harder than others but it's still I care about them. I want them to know that I care about them no matter what and that's how I do it.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, perfect. And a couple more real quick ones for you. Did you get your masters? And if so, when in these 18 years did you get it? Why then? And what did that unlock for you?

Dominic Helmstetter: Yeah, so I've got two master's degrees. I've got a master's in curriculum and instruction, and then I've got a master's in education leadership. So I've got both of those. Obviously, the instruction is a very big interest for me.

Education leadership also an interest for me. It's a goal that I have long term for myself But I just I can't can't take myself out of the classroom right now and just I'm enjoying it I'm having fun. So it's just not the right time But it definitely unlocked some different things. I think I'm gonna like the education leadership one was probably the most impactful degree that I got and the reason is because just the understanding of what it takes to be an administrator.

I think can help you as a teacher because everybody's got those evaluations, those dreaded evaluations, but I've gone through everything. Literally, I've gone through everything and taken everything that my evaluator has taken. I am an OTES certified teacher as well. So I'm certified to evaluate teachers in the state of Ohio. Not only my license, but I'm certified. So I've literally done everything that the person into my classroom is done. So I understand what they're looking for. I understand what they're trying to accomplish. I understand what's going on in the back end.

I understand more about teaching and learning because I can see it from multiple perspectives and it's just made me that much better. It's allowed me to help other teachers who have upcoming evaluations and they're like, man, I'm thinking about doing this lesson, what do you think? I'm like, hey, let's walk through it together after school or hey, I'm happy to come in and sit down and I'll give you my two cents about what I saw, what I noticed before they ever come into your classroom, it's allowed me to be better. It's allowed me to help others and have those conversations. So I think that's been definitely the most impactful degree.

Because it's just it's a perspective thing now. I made the mistake. Okay, so I waited to do this all okay And it was it was one of those deals where you know, my wife was she was moving into a new job So I held off I waited till year five before I started to go back For the first degree and it took me two and a half years During that two and a half years. We had two kids so it's incredibly hard to go to school because some colleges, they have very unpredictable schedules. So you don't know when or where or what time your class will be. So when life starts to happen, it becomes incredibly difficult. And I thought my wife was gonna beat me up when I said I wanna go back to school again.

And I did but if I was and this is what I tell my student teachers I'm like look if you have the opportunity to go back to college do it right away okay because if you can go and do a plus one think of it this way it's less money it's less time you have the same reward and upside because maybe you're looking at it from a pay scale well you've got your masters and then while you're teaching you can get your plus 10 and kind of max out with more graduate work if you really want to. But the time thing, when life happens, there's no stopping it, okay? So you wanna take care of that ahead of time. it's just, they don't, they're young. They're like, look, the world is my oyster. I have nothing to worry about. It's like, well, okay.

You never know what it's gonna look like But it's just I would strongly recommend do it early do it do it quick. The plus one is a great way to go Because you're still in that college mode and I just don't know how to explain it but the brain of somebody who's learning full-time Versus the brain of somebody who is not two very different things and that mental shift can be challenging sometimes and if you're in college while you're teaching and this is what I did you got to also think like you still need to dedicate the necessary amount of time to helping your students get the most out of their experience you can't put that off because you have a paper or you have to read a book so that's what I always tell them like hey if you got that chance do it do it early and you know get it checked out of the way and if you're looking if you're going through that through that interview process I guarantee that a school because I've been on those interviews I guarantee if a school looks at two candidates that are the exact same and one's got a master's and one doesn't they're gonna pick the person who's got a master's so it can only help you and that'd be my recommendation to anyone listening

Spencer Payne: What to you is the single best thing about this profession?

Dominic Helmstetter: Kids, I mean, seriously, like I think I would genuinely struggle. I told you I'm just not ready to jump into administration full time.

Right now, I would genuinely struggle if I didn't have the relationships that I have with my students because even now during the summer, there's some days I wake up, it's almost like you feel lost because you don't have those people in your life. And when you get the occasional email, that's the best thing ever because it's like you're back to school and that first day back, being able to see your old students and how they've changed and grown and evolved and getting to catch up is just awesome. And you can't stop smiling during those moments. it's just those kids, it's all about them.

Spencer Payne: and what's the worst or the hardest thing about this profession or the number one thing that you wish you could change, if anything.

I think I lost your audio. There we go, yeah, there we go. And so the number one thing that you would, that's the hardest or the worst thing or the number one thing you wish you could change.

Dominic Helmstetter: Am I still here? I still here? Okay, alright. Yeah.

Yeah, so at the beginning of every July, we get an email from our HR director. Don, I love you, by the way, if you're listening. Yeah.

Spencer Payne: I say the email from HR, I can see how I'd like to change that. I might too.

Dominic Helmstetter: So yeah, we've got our annual list of training sessions that we need to complete. I think the list is up to about 30. So you've got all these little things, bloodborne pathogens, policies, rules, and some of it's just necessary. You have to do it. But that's the stuff about teaching that's just not as much fun. It's there.

It just, you know, the evaluation and I'm a huge proponent. I kind of explain just everything I've done to try to make sure that I'm knowledgeable about it. And I volunteer in district level committees for evaluative purposes. I'm a teacher. But the evaluation, it's when you have those conversations, it's extremely valuable, but some of the paperwork that goes along with it, like a lot of teachers just don't like that kind of stuff. And I think some of the requirements to gain licensure also, it seems like it's ever-changing. So I think it's changed three times since I've graduated college the first time there. I think those are some of the tedious things that we wish would get over faster so that we can focus on our students and just kind of enjoying those moments. But yeah, that's what that's one of those things I'd say.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, let's just get to the meat of the good stuff. Any final words of wisdom, anything we didn't touch on that you just want to give a quick one minute add on or anything that you already said that you feel like it's so important, you do want to say it one more time. So any new or repeated, just final words of wisdom.

Dominic Helmstetter: Yeah, so like we talked about AI and I just I can't talk about AI enough. I'm a huge huge proponent of using it in every way shape and form that I possibly can. I think the most important thing to remember is you need to constantly learn as much as you can about it because the way AI is right now, that's the worst you're ever going to see it. It's only going to get better. mean, Google just launched a whole bunch of new things that I've got to spend time looking at because kids are going to know about it.

But I need to teach myself to those type of things constantly. And there's a lot of really amazing training programs out there. School AI has got some really great stuff. know, Magic School has got some great stuff. Quiziz or their new name, I'll just keep it to Quiziz. There's some really great training programs and you can collect all your badges and make a game out of it. But those things are extremely valuable because they can give you a little insight on how you can use those tools or how you could approach teaching and learning just a little bit different, but it's a constant, constant thing. I am pretty proud about the amount of work and the amount of time that I put into my professional learning. Even though I've gone back to school and I've got graduate credits, I still try to attend at least six different conferences every single year.

Not just social studies conferences, although in December I've been accepted to present at NCSS, the National Social Studies Conference. I'm really excited, looking forward to that. But it's not just the social studies conferences, it's the conferences in technology, AI, and just teaching. You need to diversify because every kid every year, when they come into your classroom, they're different. You've got to be prepared. can't just roll out the exact same thing every year. It's not a cookie cutter mentality. You've got to be willing to adjust a little bit. So just trying to learn as much as you can. really, I need to emphasize that, especially with AI, because it's there. It's going to be here. It's going to be here to stay. You need to find ways to invite it into your classroom, into your practice, into being a co-teacher. You need to find ways to do that. And the best way is just to get to know it.

So just that is kind of what I'll reemphasize but extend on a little bit just because I think learning is a huge thing and it's something that I'm a huge proponent of.

Spencer Payne: Well, thank you, Dominic. That certainly is a lot of real stories from a real educator talking, talking relating hip hop songs to the bill of rights. A lot of technology, including weekly emails to parents that uncover all kinds of opportunities to bring like additional guest speakers in the classroom. So thank you for sharing all your wisdom after 18 years teaching and good luck to your another cadre of students lucky enough to have you as the head of their classroom here coming up soon.

Dominic Helmstetter: I really appreciate it and thanks for having me. I love doing these type of things. Love talking with good friends about fun stuff. So thank you.

Spencer Payne: Much appreciated, thank you.