Building Inclusive Learning Communities with Dana Specker Watts, Ph.D.

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

Spencer Payne: All right, here we are with another great episode of Front of the Class. We've got a real educator here today, Dana Watts. And Dana, to those in the educational world, how do you introduce yourself with what you're doing these days and what your background has been in this profession? How do you like to get past that original high and introduce yourself with a little more background of what you do and what you're.

Dana Specker Watts: Well, someone once described me as a PD and curriculum addict, and I think that's a good way to describe kind of what I do. I live in the world of professional development and training teachers and working with teachers and empowering schools to be better is the heart and soul of kind of what I do. I work for International School Services, and I've been here for about six plus years.

But prior to that, I spent my entire career working internationally and working within our schools, mostly in Asia. And I just have a passion for teaching and making sure that everyone in the building at a school has access to learning so they can be the best selves when they're working with students.

Spencer Payne: Fantastic. where, what is something that maybe you're working on right now, say over the next three to six months with your teachers or certain schools or certain places? Like what's, what's maybe something that people could listen to and say like, what's Dana working on over the next three to six months? Like what's something that you have cooking that maybe is new or something that you've been doing for a long time that, that you're working on over that timeframe.

Dana Specker Watts: Well, so right now, my passion project came from my dissertation for my doctorate and I looked at professional development within international schools and how do we provide equity and access to all schools. I was quite lucky while I worked overseas. I worked at some very well-resourced schools. So we had high-end consultants and authors and researchers coming into our schools and doing professional development.

But not every school has access to that and not everyone at a school has access to that. So basically my passion project has been really developing Netflix for schools where you have similar to how you might want to watch 10 episodes of Friends because there's just some comfort in that, right? So we have courses that are always available on demand and you can watch them whenever you want. But then each month we have kind of the Emily in Paris or the bear, like the new episodes that are coming out so that there's always something fresh and new and people have an opportunity to engage with different consultants around the world. And so a big aspect of what we have tried to develop is to make sure that everyone out of school has access.

So from our security guards to food service,  to our nurses to finance HR admissions and our TAs and our school leaders and board members and of course always our educators. unless we are truly inclusive learning communities, then, or at least that's my goal, is to make truly inclusive learning communities for everyone.

Spencer Payne: Perfect, so trying to help those who maybe don't have the best resources at their particular school, maybe they're more remote, whatever it may be, still have the access to great mentorship, how I did this, all those types of things that they might not have access to. So let's give them access. Any favorites?

Let's see any favorite that you have or most popular from the audience of those professional development, those episodes or like what are the problems that teachers are trying to solve? Like what are some of the top and most important how tos or how do I do this? How do I execute this? How do I, how do I do something? What are some of those popular learnings that people take from you and or some of the ones that you're most proud of creating?

Dana Specker Watts: Well, we actually just ran one a half hour ago on we just wrapped it up. I wrapped up the first of a series on safeguarding and how do we help protect and safeguard not just the students, but also the adults in our building and our community and the parents within our school community. How do we help them transition from one place to another? How do we help with loss in the international school community?

But safeguarding is, I think, the social, emotional health and well-being of just society in general right now is a big conversation within our schools. As far as being proud of different ones, have quite a few, you know, anything we do with AI just goes through the roof. We've done a lot of things on standard space grading and reporting. We did a bunch with Ken O'Connor and Damien Cooper  and on standards based grading and reporting and assessment and how do we align our practices, which I think are fabulous. And then they brought me in to look at what does that actually look like in practice in a school? going from the theoretical to hands on, what does it look like as an English teacher? What might my rubric look like? You know, and things like that. But.

In a very practical sense, this kind of came about from, I was originally in higher ed. And when I first started teaching internationally, they asked me to teach IB, not a big problem, pretty easy crossover. Then they had asked me a year or two later to step in for a middle school teacher to teach humanities. There is a massive shift in between a college age student and a middle school student.

But the last thing I wanted to do was go to my principal and say, hey, I have horrible classroom management skills. I don't know what to do with middle schoolers. And so we need to make sure that teachers have the autonomy and voice and choice to be able to take professional development at that moment when they know they need it. And so one of the courses that we have is all on classroom management. when you need that, you need it.

And you certainly don't want to be told by somebody else that you're not good at. But you need to be able to have access to that at the right moment. And you never know when you're going to need that. Or you could just have a student that you just can't seem to get through to. And so there's always things that come up with teaching and learning that you're not sure until the moment that you need it. And then you're like, whoa, OK, I need to learn this.

So being able to have access to that learning I think is really important. So we also are always trying to develop courses along those lines as well so that we're meeting the needs of across the board.

Spencer Payne: I, I, I've got to dig in on this one, just for a little bit of this transition from higher ed to middle school. And it sounds like from what I thought I heard there, you're feeling a little bit lost at this point, like, Whoa, a 13 year old or is very different than a 19 year old in terms of how I'm supposed to run this day. can you just put us back into that, into that realm of when you were there and a little bit of, you know, maybe your first day, first week, first month of like, what's going through your head? What are some of the things you're trying to accomplish? Are they failing miserably? Are you having some success? What are you and what are you ultimately also for, for those listening of how to maybe get administrators and other people on your side is it's one thing. you said, it just, I'm lost. What do I do? It's another thing entirely. It's like, all right, I've tried this. I've tried this. I've tried this. I've watched this video. I've applied this. This seems to be working and this isn't like.

What else can you, how else can you guide me to help be a better managed classroom, right? It's totally different things than when you just blindly ask for help versus when you're trying things, showcasing what's working, what's not, and then asking for additional help. So can you put us a little bit into the, how are you feeling? What are you trying? And when do you finally feel confident to go ask for certain help after you've maybe tried some things? Can you just shed a little bit of light on this so that if there's someone going through that right now, they might be able to follow your path.

Dana Specker Watts: Well, think that I remember clearly the day that I realized I had terrible middle school classroom management skills because I had been teaching in the middle school for a couple of weeks and I just was having trouble like jiving with like, nothing was connecting really well with the students. And there was something massive happening in the world. I can't remember what it was exactly, but I had a student in class just completely  complaining and complaining about how someone had done something in the hallway and had ignored them or something else and like it was the world's worst tragedy ever. And I said, let's step out in the hall, let's have a little chat. And so the student is having some sort of emotional breakdown and over in my mind overreacting to whatever this was. And I looked at the student and he said, are you serious? Like literally have you not?

You need a bigger view on the world. And I think there had been like a bombing or there had been something big. I'm like, people died today. I'm like, there's bigger things in the world. And I saw another middle school teacher walk by me and look at me like, how did you just say that to like a 12 year old? What are you thinking? And like, I just realized I have no, like I have no concept of what's going through this kid's head. And at that point, my kids were still little. were in, not even in preschool or elementary. And I was like, whoa. And luckily, this other teacher walking by made me realize how out of context I was. The student was very much living what they're lived reality. And I was like, whoa, I have a lot to learn. So I literally went right to, after class was over, I went to one of the counselor's offices and I was like, okay. I need information on how the middle school brain works, how they process information and emotions and regulate their emotions. Like, I think I'm really struggling with this because I'm expecting them to react in a different way than they are. And she was like, yeah, you might need, there's gonna be a big difference here, Dana, and you've got a learning curve.

So she actually, one of the things she suggested that I do is start doing a lot more  discussion groups within my classroom, but also to start working at some clubs after school and getting to understand them outside of an academic context and more in their social environments and seeing how they interact and work together. And then she had me, there were a couple of books, I'm not remembering the name of the author at the moment, but the author was huge into teaching middle schoolers.

And so she helped me go to the curriculum office, get some books. I started reading and learning more about middle schoolers and found out that I absolutely loved teaching middle schoolers. But in the beginning, I was intimidated and overwhelmed by them because they did not understand their headspace and where they were coming from.

Spencer Payne: A hundred percent. I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I just, find this a fascinating question of like, if that same thing were to happen to you today, after being around middle school is for so much longer, having just more assets at your disposal of how to handle a situation like that. Like what might you do differently today? Or what might you advise someone who's coming to your office or coming to your professional development training? Who's like, I've got this kid who's just complaining every day about these little ticky tacky things. Like how do I get them past this? Like what might you do differently or what might you advise someone for how to handle something like that today?

Dana Specker Watts: Well, I would still potentially look at who the counselors are in your building because they understand these students more than anyone and they're an untapped resource often. Teachers don't always, they think of the counselors being there for the students, but the fact that they know so much about the students, they're actually a great resource for the teachers. But I think also there's a lot of...work that's been done over the past few years on third culture kids and understanding what a TCK is within the context of international schools, I would probably do some research into that and try to learn more about students in that capacity.

But I don't know, I don't know if I would do that much that's different. I probably would have asked for help a lot sooner and realized that I think often teachers think that they're supposed to know everything and it's okay to say that you don't. I probably also would have gone to my principal and admitted that I needed some help on just learning more about students in that age group. Just because I knew how to teach college and high school did not mean I knew how to teach middle school in any way, shape, form.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. And sometimes there's a powerful lesson there of maybe we need to unlearn what we, what worked there doesn't necessarily work here. And we might have to actually go unlearn some things that we learned before, because they don't work in this new context. on that note, so teaching internationally, I'm curious to dig into how people, how teachers who are maybe going through that experience for the first time can set themselves up for success. so how do you see as an example, there's setting themselves up for success can be how to manage the classroom, how to work with teacher, other teachers, how to work with parents, also how to work with the administration at your school. I'm curious for how do you see people who are maybe new to their international experience?

Maybe it's their first time teaching internationally. How can they work with the administration to really be on the same page, to set the teacher up for success and really understand, you know, how they ask for help when they ask for help, like what they should do first.  What things they should try to handle versus what things they should, I mean, there's a million questions a teacher might have, right? But how do they work with the administration to really get on a good foundation to set themselves up for success and say their first year teaching at an international school?

Dana Specker Watts: I think if I was brand new to teaching internationally, it's important to know that there's almost a, that you now have a direct line to all the senior administrators. So in the past, I've taught in schools where the principal doesn't step into my classroom the entire time I'm there, and you don't necessarily know the head of school, you don't necessarily know the director of teaching and learning.

In an international school, you know them incredibly well and they're there to help you. So there's this open communication and they really, so that makes that whole transaction a little less, sorry, it doesn't feel as formal, which is really, really nice. But I think,  learning about the culture and country and students that are in front of you is probably the most important thing you can do. And understanding that these students came from various backgrounds and different places and have had experiences that are unlike anything you're going to get when they're all from one country or from one region of the world.

And so a perfect example, in that humanities class, was asked to teach World War II. I thought, okay, easy, I can teach World War II and...

Spencer Payne: And real quick, sorry, can you share a little bit on that World War II of like what country were you teaching in and what was the makeup maybe of the nationalities of the students in your class just for a little context before you start to figure out how do I teach this subject?

Dana Specker Watts: Yeah, so I was teaching actually in India and I was teaching World War II and at the American Embassy School in New Delhi. And we had over 46 different countries represented within our school. are at the heart of the diplomatic area and basically the main international school in the city. And so I'm looking out on my classroom and I have a student from Germany, this sweet, wonderful young woman who is just quiet and shy, but wonderful student. I have quite a number of students from Japan. I have one student who spent a lot of his life in Russia at the American Embassy in Russia. I have students from England. I have a bunch of Americans. And I realized that this is, I've got basically all the major players from World War II sitting in front of me.

Spencer Payne: And not on the same side either. You've got, you've got people who are fighting against each other. Yeah.

Dana Specker Watts: and not on the same side. And my student, and actually the way I realized it was my student from Germany came to me and she said, I don't want everyone to think I'm Hitler. And she said, am, and she was just so quiet and introverted. And she was really nervous that she was going to be perceived in a way full of hatred and things of that nature in the classroom.

And I realized like there's lots of different perspectives within that classroom. And one of my students, we started talking about what they knew already about World War II. And it was amazing. So one of my students from Japan brought up that her grandmother had survived Hiroshima. And I thought, wow, this is a learning opportunity that I would never have if I was teaching back in, I was originally from Buffalo, New York.

Like I'm not going have necessarily potentially that same opportunity. So I asked her, said, do you think your grandmother would be willing to talk to us about this? And it was in the days of Skype pre-Zoom and her grandmother agreed and ended up Skyping in with the students to talk about the bombing of Hiroshima. And so really being able to look at all those different perspectives in the classroom made me such a stronger teacher made me really look at all the different viewpoints. And another example in that same year was I was teaching about what I thought was the Vietnam War, but I have students from Vietnam who called it the American invasion. And I had always learned from a very US lens of what that war was about. But then having students from Vietnam who saw it in a different light.

And really being able to talk to them about what happened and things that happened within their country and then pulling in literature from people from Vietnam and being able to read some of that and having different book groups and things of that nature about what was happening during that time period was eye-opening to me as a teacher. And I learned just as much from my students as I'm certain, I'm sure I learned more from them than they learned from me. I was amazed at how much my, just my lens of looking at the world and how much there is that you can bring into your classroom does through the students. another quick story is I used to do, I totally stole this from my friend, Dave Crocker, years and years ago, back when I was in Bangkok, but he did this book,  I got almost like a choice for an independent reading project every year called Parents Choice.

So at back to school night, he would give the parents a sheet of paper that said, at some point throughout the year, as an independent book read, you get to choose the book your child's going to read. They have to choose. You can choose any book from when you were their age that had an impact on you. And the student is going to interview you and ask you what you got out of the book and they're gonna read it and then they're gonna write a letter back to you and then they're gonna give me a copy explaining what they got out of the book. I learned so, I mean, it didn't have to be in English, it could be in whatever language was appropriate for the family. The parents introduced me to literature from across the world and I have done that now from as young as sixth grade all the way through and I still have taught higher ed courses.

And I love having my parents be able to be able to tell me about rich literature from around the world and voices and stories that I would have never, I didn't know, because it wasn't brought up in the canon of my English lit background.

Spencer Payne: That's incredible. So I just curious on that one real quick. Did any parents ever push back? Like, no, I don't want to do that. Only one.

Dana Specker Watts: I only had one once. it was parents from the US embassy, and they were not big readers. And so they said, well, we don't really read, and we don't have any books that we want to recommend to our daughter. And I said, OK, how about a poem? And they said, nope, we hate poetry. If we don't like books, we don't like poetry. was like, OK. I was like, how about a song, a song that really resonated with you? And we'll have your daughter look at the words and figure that and take that piece. And so they were able to find a song that really meant something to them. It was a Bob Dylan song, which was great because there's great literature and great writing and in a lot of Bob Dylan's work. And then we talked about that. And then the student talked about what that meant, about what mattered to her parents. And so, but that was the only time I ever had parent pushback.

Spencer Payne: And I, the way I love how you offered multiple other suggestions of how to engage by something that they probably that they might like better than a book. And, uh, those listening, right? Like part of the value of the thing that I love about doing these podcasts is hearing some of the things that are just unique to a teacher here, a teacher here, tried this, tried this, they tried this, this didn't work. They tried this and then they started doing it every year because it was just something that like was really impactful. Um, so if I may.

If I could feel free to steal that everybody. That sounds like a very useful, whether you're teaching internationally or not. Right. And again, if there's pushback, can push on, well, what about poem? What about a song? What about a, what about a movie? What about an event? There's a million different things that you could translate that to, but that's just an incredibly powerful way of having the parents have a little bit more hands-on of the educational experience. Only one time through the year. You're not asking for something every week. It's one time.

Right. bring them some hands on experience and then my gosh, what a learning all the kids can have of the other students and where they're coming from and what's important to their parents and to you also, if you do that early in the year, that might impact how you, how you tweak, kind of teaching certain students. So thank you for sharing that and all those listening, feel free to steal that. That's a great example of something you can do in the classroom.

Dana Specker Watts: One thing we would do too is then do a book talk at the end of the year about the books our parents recommended and having kids talk about whether they liked their parents book or not. But having another kid recommend a book like, oh, I didn't want to read this. My parents made me read it. And then they were like, oh, so good. And I didn't realize that they cared about this and blah, blah, blah. All of a sudden, now the other kids are like, oh, well, you know.

This kid said that this was a good book, so now I'm going to go and read it. And so really opened up the conversations about literature in a really fun way.

Spencer Payne: yeah, thank you for sharing that. And one thing, just cause I've never heard this story and I probably will never hear it again. So I've got to go back to this. Like when you get little girl's grandma on the phone who survived the bombings in Japan, like, can you share a little bit more of just like, how did that sound? How did the class react? How did you react? Like that's a very unique experience that I've never heard anyone that I know ever, ever be able to experience. So can you just help us understand what that  phone conversation looked like, felt like, changed perspective, like the class discussion, like, was there a different discussion in the class that day? Did you have some feelings? Like what happened? Like that's just such a unique experience. Can you just share a little bit more about that day?

Dana Specker Watts: Yeah, think, well, the grandmother was really cognizant that she was talking to middle school children, but she was also really pretty graphic and got teared up and was quite emotional in talking about it, which I think made the war not sound like something boring that you were not, but not that I want it to not be born, like, or whatever, but it made it so real. It came off the paper and they realized how it affected generations. And then the students became really interested in what happened after the bombings. What happened after, you know, what's it like now? What did they want to learn?

And what was somewhat amazing is little bit after that, might have been two, three months after that, there was the massive tsunami that hit Japan. And we and my students went above and beyond to do anything they could. They started all these fundraisers at our school for students in Japan who had lost their school and had lost family members and things of that. Like it felt like there was such a connection of my classroom to anything and everything that was happening in Japan. And we ran fundraisers throughout the school and we were sending supplies and doing all these things. And I don't know if the grandmother hadn't shared her life story with us, if my students would have felt such a connection to such a huge, massive current event that was happening in the world. And it just made the world smaller.

And I think that's important because it's easy to see, you know, in today's context, what's happening in the Middle East or what's happening or even everything that's happening in Afghanistan in the past couple days. Like, you read about it, but like then the reality of when you feel like you know somebody there who is going through it and it just then you're going to care a lot more.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. had to be an incredible, again, an incredible day, maybe incredible week in the classroom of an experience that everyone in the education systems read about, but no one's ever heard that voice talk about what it was actually like. So thank you for sharing that. So those were a couple of very interesting.

And very fruitful projects, right. The engaging the parents on your favorite book, et cetera. I am curious to dig in a little bit on some tough days. especially when teaching internationally, if people, or it could be a new school, it could be your first year. It could be any of those things to apply to other teachers who maybe aren't teaching internationally, but when there's those down days, hard weeks.

You're just not getting through to this student or maybe this classroom. You feel like your classroom management's not there. When there's those tough times that teachers inevitably face, right? What are some strategies that you've seen people employ to get back, to get their energy back, to take control? You alluded to asking for help sooner in the process. How do people go about getting their groove back, right, so to speak, when there's that down day down week down month, whatever it might be like, what are some things you've done? And what are some things that you have seen others do? When they're facing those tough times in the classroom, and how they bounce back.

Dana Specker Watts: Well, I think for a lot of people, I don't think I always react the same way other people do. I mean, will, making sure you have some balance is really important and you're taking care of yourself. You're taking care of your own personal exercise, eating right, sleeping right. I am terrible at all of those things. I'm just gonna own that. I don't sleep well or long.

And so I kind of dive in deeper when things, when I feel like I'm losing touch. So for instance, if I feel like I'm not connecting with students or I'm losing my love of teaching, I will dive deeper in with students because, and I will find more clubs, more organizations, more ways, go to a...know, chaperone a school dance, volunteer at, you know, whatever happens to be going on that weekend or whatever at the school to remember why I love it. I don't think that that is necessarily a strategy that works for everyone else, but I become energized by students. And when I see them, sometimes I need to see them out of the context of a student and watch them just be a child and engaging with other kids and see that human aspect that makes me fall in love with them. And another quick story that I just thought of from when I also was in Delhi is I had, there were a lot of students who, I had pushback from the school community that we had a gaming club and I created this gaming club for kids to go and game. And like, Dana, why would you ever create that? Like who needs to game more?

And I said, I just need you to come and see what happens in this group. And people think of gamers like, they're being quiet and they're like tapping away at their computer at home and that's it. The gaming.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, the stereotype, it's some kind of mindless activity until maybe you see the interaction and yeah, go ahead. What did you see? What did they see?

Dana Specker Watts: Yeah. my gosh, my gaming club. So I had a teacher who was totally against gaming walk into my club and it was the loudest group of students you could imagine. They're all talking to each other. The energy in the room was off the charts. So not just sitting with headphones on and not talking to each other. It was, I mean, the volume was a little too loud, but it's so fun and exciting. And he looked at me and he's like, these are the kids who don't talk in my classroom. Who are the kids who I can't get to speak÷ He's like, this is their language. This is where they show their true selves. So he literally started coming every week and gaming with the kids so he could get to know the students he wasn't connecting with. And so I think sometimes you have to do what you, I don't know. For me, I like to immerse myself more because it reminds me of what I should be doing and why I love it.

For other people sometimes it's stepping back and it is taking time and making sure that if you you know that you're Giving yourself time and energy for yourself for me. I do the opposite

Spencer Payne: And then all of sudden that there mean to me in the classroom doesn't sound as bad when you've got a deeper relationship with that person or those students in that class. And now you're kind of on the same team of trying to solve it instead of feeling more, why don't you, there's so many bad things in the world, just get past it. Like when you have that deeper relationship, it's easier to have that empathy, I guess. So thank you for sharing that. And on the note of, again, some wild experiences you've had, the gaming club and then the grandma who survived Hiroshima bomb or one of the two, can't remember which city he said in Japan and World War II. Wild stories.

Do you have any that rise to the surface that we can laugh at? Any fun, crazy? Maybe again, especially teaching internationally, sometimes there's some language barriers. People say one thing in British English and it means something different in American English and then all of a sudden that can create some hilarity. Like any examples of some just fun, wild, funny, enjoyable, energizing experiences that you can share in your classroom experience over all these years that hopefully can get a nice laugh out of the audience.

Dana Specker Watts: I'm trying to think of something funny because I must have like hundreds of them. Okay, the only thing that's coming to my mind right now is, okay, I did have a kid sink in quicksand, but it was quite funny now that he survived. So I took students, we were whitewater rafting in the Ganges and I had, middle school kids that either have hit puberty or they haven't.

So we were like, we had been waiting for my friend who was behind us. And so we pulled over on the side of the river so the kids could get out while we waiting for the last boat, because we were the last two boats of a group of boats that were whitewater rafting. And so my students were jumping on the sand. And we had this great river guide who was from Nepal. He was little. He was the size of my students.

So they're all bouncing. And then they had three boys who were kind of all standing together. And they were kind of in a line. And they saw my lap, my other colleague, coming down the river. And I was like, OK, let's get back in the boat. Well, the two kids on the outside were big. They had hit puberty. The middle one hadn't yet, right? So when the two bigger kids moved, the smaller kid sink. And I thought he was playing around. I was like, come on get out of the sand, it's like, we gotta go, we gotta go. And he's like, I can't. And so long story short, he actually had fallen into a quicksand hole, which I thought only existed in Road Runner and Wild Coyote thing. I didn't think it was real.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, I remember hearing about that all the time as a kid. I've never actually seen it happen.

Dana Specker Watts: Yeah, I didn't know and I guess that's what, because the river bed was quite low then, that sand was really bouncy because there was quicksand in there and we didn't realize it. And so when the big kids moved, it created this vacuum for the younger kid, the smaller kid and he just sank. So, he went down to his knees, it took us, okay, this part's not funny, it took us 45 minutes to get him out. We got him out.

Spencer Payne: And like how far down was he? Was he like down to his knees, waist? ooh.

Dana Specker Watts: And we got him out. No problem. I mean not no problem. It was scary at the moment, but it was Incredible and that night they had all the river guides up and down the river Come back to the camp where we were sleeping to talk about the wheeze that we got him out but like how many kids can say these like they sank in quicksand and then they got dug out and Incredible like the stories that you end up experiencing overseas, people think you're making this stuff up and you're like, no, that's what happened on the school trip. It's not the school trip and you got lost and you ended up in the wrong part of the museum. Like, no, I sank in quicksand and my teacher dug me out.

Spencer Payne: Well, if there's, if there's ever an opportunity to go back and remember more of those, maybe there's a chance for us to do another episode that is just all of the wild, crazy, fun, scary, enjoyable, wild experiences that you've had in this international teaching world. Because if that's, if you said there's, there's hundreds, that's the first one you thought of. Like I want, I want more as an episode too, if we can ever do that. one, one more thing just to wrap up kind of, kind of approaching a school year kind of holistically. And then I'd love to get into some more quick hitter questions for you.

But when, when you or others are kind of facing, it's the end of the year, end of a school year, there's all kinds of metrics and things that maybe the school or tests or whatever it is judge performance of a teacher. but how do you judge for yourself? Like internally, like when you're at, facing the end of a year, what are, what maybe are some of the questions you ask yourself? What are some of the ways that you determine  this was a really good year because of X, Y, or Z, or maybe I could have been a little better? I'm going to try these things next year. Like, how do you go about that process for yourself? maybe what are some questions that you ask yourself and how ultimately at end of the year, are you, are you satisfied or less satisfied? Or how do you get to some sense of like, how did I do this year? How do you do that for yourself?

Dana Specker Watts: So I once had someone tell me that it's one of the nicest compliments anyone ever gave me that I reminded them of George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life as a teacher. Like, did you make a difference in the life of a child? And so at the end of the year, I tried to think about the kids who, like, I think I went into education because I wanted to be the adult that I most needed as a kid and I try to think about my students on who most needs me that year and did I actually reach them. And I love to have my favorite student, I know you're not supposed to have one, but you always do, is the kid who least wants to learn, who does not want to take my class, who hates whatever subject it is or hates school and doesn't want to be there. If I can win that kid over, then to me the whole year,

Yes, I care about all the other kids as well. But like if you can get someone to love learning and to see themselves as what they could be instead of what they thought they could be, to me that's all the difference. So I don't really care about test scores. I know I should, but I don't ever. Actually, I hate testing. I don't, to me it's about those kids that you reach. And I always have told my students, no matter what age I teach, by the time when you graduate high school, if you still want to be friends with me, you can look me up on Facebook and I can be friends with you then, but not until then.

And the amount of students who have done that over, I love it. And some of them do it literally the day they graduate. I'm like, oh, it's so cool now to see some of them. mean, some of them, I'm totally aging myself, but some of them are quite well accomplished adults now. And to have watched them grow and...get married and have children and pursue their careers and travel the world. And I have a couple that are huge musicians and doing cool stuff or doing things that they would have never, it's just amazing to watch them grow. And so it's that longevity. it's my old head of school, I just forgot his name and it will come to me in a minute. Anyway, he used to say, is the transportable gift you can give students when they leave our school? And to me, that's the win always.

Spencer Payne: And do you have this concept of potentially reaching the kid who has potential, maybe doesn't want to learn, doesn't want to be there trying to, trying to reach that student while still obviously making sure all the other kids are having a great experience, cetera. But like, do you have, do you have a proudest moment or a favorite experience or any student that pops into your mind? Uh, where over the course of the year, you kind of, you kind of, you kind of got there and it felt really good. Uh, you don't have to share names, right? Maybe they're.

Dana Specker Watts: Yes.

Spencer Payne: But like, do you have any favorite stories or proudest moments along those lines of any students you were able to reach? And how did you get there? What did it take? Did it take gaming with them? Like, what did it take?

Dana Specker Watts: Yeah.

No, so okay, first of all, that head of school who told me the transportable gift thing, his name's Bill Garrett, and so he would know the student, because he placed the student in my classroom. And the student did not see them, I think had given up on school. And that student, their parent was well known at our school, and so they, I think they felt this undue pressure to have to do well, and so they purposely chose not to. And, I think the student was really struggling. anyway, long story short, it took a long time. And I was able to somehow, and I don't know exactly what I did that worked, but that student was not going to do the IB. The student did not see themselves as an academic, did not see themselves as just caring about learning at all.

And at the end of the year, and the student had excelled in my classroom, had done incredibly well. The parent was really somewhat teary-eyed about the impact that year had had on the student. But when I left the school, the student got up and did my going away speech and did a whole rap poem about me and it was a poem and it was so good and he said he had actually written part of it when he was a student in my classroom and so I actually still watch his accomplishments now and I'm just so excited because he, I think he was on a path mentally that he easily could have ended up  not being who he is now. And I think somehow I had a little bit of impact on that. And I loved, yeah, he might be one of my favorites.

Spencer Payne: Thank you very much for sharing that. again, everybody has, everybody probably has a lot of different possibilities of where their life could lead. And the more that there's a little bit shift over into the more positive direction, the better off we all are. A couple more quick hitter questions as we wrap up. But first, a quick plug. You mentioned George Bailey and the movie, It's a Wonderful Life. I had never seen that movie until maybe two years ago. I don't know how that happened, but I had never seen it before. so, I I saw it later in life. didn't see it as 10 or nine or 15. But my gosh, huge recommendation. If you haven't seen that movie, gosh, watch it. If you saw it long time ago, go rewatch it, make sure you're present for it. Like that's a very powerful movie. Like I was tearing up at the end. Like that's a fantastic movie. Side note, side plug, great movie.

All right, quick hitter questions. What is the number one piece of advice when there's a new teacher starting, maybe it's their first time teaching internationally, or maybe it's their first time teaching ever. What's the number one piece of advice that you might, you might give to that teacher or when you see those teachers who are in that first year, what's the number one piece of advice you end up giving because it's just so consistent. So what would you share with anyone who maybe, you know, it's early September, there's some teachers right now who are starting their first year. What's the number one piece of advice that you give?

Dana Specker Watts: would say, if you can, sit in other people's classes. So I lucked out and I had a teacher who would let me sit. We were sharing a classroom and I would sit in the back of the class and I would put headphones in, but I never actually turned them on. And I listened and watched how other people taught. It taught me so much on all, you only know what you know when you see all these other people teaching the same subject that you're teaching, you learn so much and you grow so much as a teacher, get into as many classrooms as you can, however you can.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, watch, observe, take notes. And as usual, if you see something that you like that another teacher is doing, potentially go try it yourself. You might have to put your little flavor on it based on your personality, but potentially go try yourself. What to you is the single best thing about this profession education.

Dana Specker Watts: the students just helping them fall in love with something that they didn't even know existed before and potentially impacting their life.

Spencer Payne: And the single toughest or hardest thing about this profession, or if you had a magic wand and could change one thing overnight, what would you change?

Dana Specker Watts: Losing a student. That's the hardest.

Spencer Payne: and cell phones in classroom. Yes or no?

Dana Specker Watts: I think, okay, I am a tech guru and I am an ed tech all the way, but I'm starting to think, no, keep them out.

Spencer Payne: Yep. AI in the classroom. One quick one on this, just because you mentioned it earlier in some of the professional development learnings that are out there. Is there a single one best use case that you see where AI can be used to aid students in the learning process? Is there anything you've seen so far where this can be beneficial as opposed to viewed as cheating or no longer thinking? Like, is there one example you've seen where this is actually beneficial for students in the classroom?

Dana Specker Watts: I think you can use it as a thought partner in teaching students to use it as a thought partner and to come up, help them think through different ways to get something done. They can become so overwhelmed. And if you, instead of being overwhelmed by a project or something and they don't know where to start, using AI as a thought partner to help them get started, take it. I use it every day.

Spencer Payne: Perfect. any educators out there who you admire, who you want to give a quick shout out to, there's all, there's always people talk about, appreciate, appreciate your teachers, appreciate your teachers. Let's do it. Who do appreciate and why.

Dana Specker Watts: my gosh, there's so, so many. I'm gonna not do good justice here, but one that comes to mind that is a teacher who I learn from all the time is Dornell Fine. He is one of the finest teachers that I've ever been in front of and I value him all the time. And...my gosh, we have like over 200 in our platform and I love all of them because I pre-screen them. So if I love them, they become on our platform and we work with them. So I think that just anyone who's out there who is vulnerable and trying to learn and to do new things, I think that, I don't know, it's hard to name, just a couple.

Spencer Payne: Perfect, and two more very quick ones. ISS and your Netflix style learning so that educators can go get training, help they needed when they need it. Where can they find out more? Where do they go? How do they sign up? Where would you point people who say, wanna learn more about this?

Dana Specker Watts: Sure, they would just go to our website, ISS.edu, and then look up the edulearn, or our professional development. And we have over 200 courses. We translate them into 232 languages. And the list is growing every day. Like I said, we just ran one this morning. So we have them all the time. And we'd love to work with more people and figure out what schools need.

Spencer Payne: Perfect. Perfect. And as we wrap up here, last question, any new words of wisdom, something that we just didn't have a chance to cover that you'd like to share with teaching or prospective teachers listening out there or anything that you said, but it's so important. You just want to say it one more time and make sure we don't forget. So any new or repeated final words of wisdom.

Dana Specker Watts: And I would say that I always, I say often that teaching internationally is called, I would consider it the best kept secret in education. You will grow so much professionally and you have opportunities to travel the world and to learn with some of the most amazing educators I've ever met in my life. It was the best career move I ever made and wish more people knew about it.

Spencer Payne: And real quick on that note, I can't let that go. When did you make the leap to teach internationally? Where were you? Like how many years have you been teaching? Maybe, you know, what year, what age, anything, anything you'd like to share? Where, where were you when you took your first leap?

Dana Specker Watts: Yeah. When I first thought about teaching overseas, the only thing I knew of was the Peace Corps. And I actually signed up for the Peace Corps, but then I got into grad school and I didn't go. Then I signed up to teach overseas and my husband at the time proposed to me, so ended up getting married. I wish I had started younger in my life. I didn't do it until in the 2000s. so I think I was in my mid 30s.

I wish I had done it earlier. And I was in Bangkok. I had moved overseas for my husband's job. He was with the US Embassy and I started teaching. That's when I went from higher ed to teaching in a K-12 school and absolutely loved, loved it. And spent 20 years in the international schools and now working with international schools here, stateside, only because our headquarters is stateside, but I'm working with international schools every day and I loved it. I wish I had known about it earlier in my career.

Spencer Payne: Perfect. Thank you so much, Dana Watts. Definitely some very real great stories from a real educator spanning from college to middle school to how the heck do I deal with 13 year olds after I've dealt with 19 year olds to incredible stories that happen in the classroom when you're teaching internationally, like having World War II survivors of bomb cities be able to talk to the class unbelievable and sharing some words of wisdom that folks hopefully listening can potentially go put into practice even in this school year, like how to think about success at end of the year, and maybe how to engage the parents in their favorite work of literature, song, poem, whatever it may be.

So thank you so much for sharing and giving some people here listening some actionable, useful, fun, authentic things that they might be able to apply for their school year this year. Thanks so much, Dana.

Dana Specker Watts: Okay, thank you.