Seeing Light Bulbs Go On with Dr. Susanne H. Thompson 

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

Spencer Payne: All right, here we are, front of the class, real stories from real educators. And today our guest is Dr. Susanne Thompson. Dr. Susanne Thompson, how do you introduce yourself to others in this educational space? What are you working on these days? What's your background in education, teaching, et cetera? Like, how do you introduce yourself when there's other educators in the room and they're curious what life path you've gone on? How do you talk about your background and what you're doing today with them?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Thank you, Spencer. It's also amazing to be here with you. This is a super fun opportunity, so thank you. So I first out of the gate let people know that I've been an educator for 35 years. I am incredibly inspired and excited and energized by this career field. I always have, and I know I always will be. So that's probably the first way I introduce myself. I started my career right out of college as a classroom teacher, a second grade teacher.

I stayed as an elementary school teacher for many years. I had the opportunity to teach internationally, which was an amazing experience. I had the opportunity to serve school districts in a variety of administrative and leadership roles, know, assistant principal, director of curriculum and instruction, assistant superintendent, superintendent of schools for many years. I had the incredible opportunity to work in the ed tech space for 12 years globally.

So traveled all over the world, worked with amazing educators everywhere. And then I had the opportunity to join Moreland University as the president about four years ago. And I was so inspired by the opportunity to join Moreland because my favorite thing to do is to support teachers. Because I was so grateful and so appreciative those first couple of years of teaching my second grade teachers around me, my colleagues in my elementary school building were insanely helpful. So I love serving and being someone who can be an incredible supporter for teachers.

Spencer Payne: Perfect. And that's a, that is a wide ranging background and showcases what is available possible, et cetera. with a teaching start, because, Actually, I would love to get into that a little bit. Like, do you have any sense of, at very high level, right? For those who might be interested in teaching, maybe they're in there now and they're like, you know, I like teaching, but I don't think I want to do it for 35 years to just be in the classroom. I want to see what else is out there. Can you help paint the picture a little bit of.

When did you start feeling that way? Five years in, 10 years in, and what was your next step? How did you make that next step? How did you have confidence of like, wow, these skills I learned in the classroom can actually apply in this other administrative role. So I'd to dig into that first transition maybe from teaching to not quite teaching, but maybe still in education. What was that for you? How many years in were you? What was the role? What'd you think about it? And how did how did the learnings in the classroom help prepare you for that next role.

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Hmm, no such a good question Spencer. So it's probably about three years in to teaching. It was very early on and I was so appreciative of my grade level teammates and my grade level colleagues because I'm a curious person naturally. So I asked them a ton of questions because I knew I had a lot to learn. And one of the things that I so deeply appreciated was the value of those conversations. I was like a sponge and I realized really quickly, gosh,

Spencer Payne: Okay, early, okay.

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: I want to be able to share with other people. I want to be able to help other educators. So what I started doing in my evenings, and it was also a way to help supplement my income because as a first year teacher, sometimes your income is really small. So as a way to supplement my income, I started teaching classes at night for our intermediate unit. That was the local intermediate unit in the state of Pennsylvania. And I loved it. I loved interacting with adults. I loved problem solving with educators. I loved seeing that light bulb go on for colleagues to say, wow, I can try that in my classroom. So that sort of path started me on learning more about what happens at intermediate units, what happens at colleges and universities.

And so that sort of rolled into some opportunities where I tried things, I tested things, and then I thought, hmm, maybe I better go back to grad school. Maybe I better get a certificate to become a building administrator because I don't know that I want to do that, but I probably should have that ticket. So I went back to grad school. Again, I met great people. I had opportunities to do speaking engagements. I had opportunities to collaborate with other school districts. Before you knew it, I was just in a position where I was able to look at some other opportunities, not because I was excited to leave the classroom, but I was so excited to say, how can I help in the field? How can I bring joy? How can I get people as excited, as connected?

So a lot of my career opportunities were based upon, I'm curious about this, I wanna help with this. I was at the intermediate unit working in professional development and a school district that was nearby was struggling with some grading and some assessments. They were trying to figure out a new policy and I said, hey, can I lean in and help? That led to working with an amazing group of educators at that district. That rolled into actually.

You know, I was in my late 20s. I became an assistant principal in the district, got to continue doing that work. That led to me getting excited about curriculum work at the district level. I moved into a director of curriculum instruction. So I think for me, Spencer, it's always been about, I love this field. I love the passion. I love the connection. I love the power of people collaborating and working together and being solution oriented. Our children are our most precious resource on this planet. And I really believe that when we treat our children as an incredibly precious resource, great things happen around us. I've worked all over the world now. Every time I work with people, it doesn't matter where I am, we end up solving problems or we end up being involved in incredible conversation that goes back to helping teachers, helping school systems, enabling communities to feel more empowered.

It's just been a process of being curious and wanting to keep learning that I've been so incredibly blessed to have so many unique career opportunities. And that's part of what I'm excited to share with people. You can have a million different job opportunities in the field of education. And I introduced myself, I'm an educator. I've been doing this for 35 years and that's the heart and soul of who I am.

Spencer Payne: Um, and after 35 years and all these different roles, uh, domestically, internationally, not, you know, in the school system and for-profit company, you know, wide ranging. Can you share, um, do you have any, any teachers, schools, specific class years where you thought, wow.

This one nailed it. This is the best of the best. This is a great example. if only every student should be so lucky to be in this school with this teacher at this time, is there any highlights of just like, that was a phenomenal example of how you engage your students, your parents, your administrators, et cetera. And what could you share potentially of anything that you saw that was truly just fantastic? What was so special about that sauce in that particular environment? What can you share with us? For those who want to be great.

What can you share of when you saw greatness in the classroom and what was so special about it? What made it great?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: It's such a great question, Spencer. I think the times where I've been a part of excellence, the times where I've had the opportunity to observe excellence in our schools or in our classrooms, are when the adults are really coming together in the spirit of collaboration, in the spirit of putting our students first. So some specific examples from my own experience are I love collaborating with my students' parents. They're amazing human beings.

It is not easy being a parent and you send your child off to school and you're hopeful that they have an amazing school experience. So one of my favorite experiences from being a teacher and when I see a lot of collaboration and a lot of excellence happening is when we're partnering. We're bringing our parents into our schools. We're bringing them into the community. We're allowing them to feel like strong partners in the process. We're tapping into their knowledge and their expertise of their child.

We're supporting them and how can we help you as a parent ensure that your child's educational journey is really magnificent and it's really maximized. And what I have experienced as a result of doing that and really engaging with parents is long-term relationships. know, parents feeling a sense of relief, feeling a sense of excitement, feeling supported, and you break down those walls, you break down those barriers, and when you bring parents in, all of a sudden, parents are saying, well, how can I help? Could I do this? Could I support you this way? Should I read extra with my child? And it just creates a win-win situation for the children in your classroom or in your school.

Spencer Payne: So, on, on that note, if I'm a teacher right now and I'm here and well, heck yeah, I want to go do that too. I won't win. I want the parents to be that engaged. Can you share a little bit of how did that happen? Maybe, maybe across all of your experiences. Maybe if there's, if it's applicable to compare and contrast when you've seen that partnership and collaboration with parents, when it's done right. And what are some of the secret ingredients and when it's maybe not done right.

What they could have done instead. So can you share a little bit of, if there's a teacher out there listening who's like, that sounds great, I want that. How do I do that? What might you share?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah. So I did two things that were really, really fun when I was teaching. Because the reality is you've maybe got 28 kiddos in your classroom, maybe you've got 32 kiddos in your classroom, or maybe you're a middle school or secondary teacher and you've got hundreds of students that you're working in. So I think a level of personalization and scale in your communication to parents is like really hits the nail on the head. So two fun things that I did over the course of my career that parents love.

One of them is I used to put together a quick newsletter each week. So it went out to all parents. It was just a quick one pager that was really fun. It was updates. What could they ask their child about? What did we learn this week? So they had great insight. The other thing I did as we started to get, know, remember I taught a long time ago. So I'd harness the power of AI if I was doing this today in a really cool way. But one of the things that used to do on a Friday was I'd record like a two minute audio clip of myself and my students. And we'd talk together, my students would talk about what they learned for the week. And we purposely did it to share that audio clip with parents. So every Friday, parents got a fun update. got to hear me, they got to hear children in the classroom, they got to hear the joy. They also got to hear, well, what did we learn this week? What did we talk about this week? And the feedback I got from parents over the years was absolutely phenomenal.

You know, they say, we feel so engaged in what's happening in the classroom. We feel so knowledgeable. We feel set up for success to support our child. So I think those two little ways, finding cool ways to communicate and share information out with parents, you can do it in quick, fun, genuine, authentic ways that parents are so appreciative of.

Spencer Payne: I want to highlight the quick aspect of that. Do you recall if, again, if I'm a teacher here in this, like, ah, the one more thing I have to do. Um, can you share a little bit? Like you said, quick, we're looking for quick. How much time might you have spent on that newsletter in a given week? Is this, you know, Hey, it's, 30 minutes. It's 15. It's an hour. Um, but you're doing it while you're out on a walk. Like just share a little bit of like, how much, how much commitment was, was this from you for that phenomenal kind of feedback that you got?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, it's a great question, Spencer. So I set up a template. So it was super, super easy. It was the same formatted template every week. And so it took me maybe 10 minutes each week to fill in those key blocks. And the reason the template was so helpful is that parents knew exactly what to expect in terms of information. Here's some key learning objectives. Here's a great resource. Here's what we're going to do next week. And here's a reminder about a field trip.

So it was super quick. Once I set up the template, it maybe took me 10 or 15 minutes to fill that out each week. And parents loved seeing that every week. So super quick. The audio piece, I used to record during a transition time. If my students were maybe spending the last five minutes getting ready for the end of the day, packing up our backpacks or getting ready, I used to walk around and just grab some comments. So it was always a part of something. It wasn't sort of, trying to figure out how to carve out time. And I think time is such a precious resource for teachers. So thinking about how do I integrate this into what I'm already doing? And sometimes I would grab a couple clips, know, end of a social studies lesson, hey gang, let's give a couple shout outs to parents this week and what we learned and what we did.

You grab a couple clips, you mash them together by the end of the week. And I think what parents also appreciated, this wasn't a super polished sort of audio and parents didn't expect that. What they loved hearing was the direct feedback from the voices of the children that are in your classroom. So I think using it as almost even a formative assessment piece and integrating it into what you do becomes a huge time saver.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. And, and as another tool that someone might be able to use to do something similar today, uh, you know, I use all the time is loom L O O M where you can just record quick little five minute video snippets. Um, and that could potentially be something in the classroom to go record. Maybe there's even a time once a week where you have with your students where it's, it's, you know, it's talk to our parents time, uh, and have a quick loom once a week that the kids are sharing. And it might even be something that is a theme of the week.

And I'm, even going to give a very specific example. got, this is, you coaching youth sports, but same, same concept. two of my best friends back home in Ohio were coaching kind of their, their kids soccer team. I think there were five, five and six ish, right? And, like they had the kids, they had the kids ultimately like respond in unison to certain questions. Right. And so there'd be some times of like, what are we going to do a practice today? And then the kids go run. And then they'd say like, what do we not get? And the kids would all say tired. And they think it had these, they had this like little banter going.

And the point I'm making is like, if you're doing that kind of stuff in the classroom, like, my gosh, like record it, like parents want to see that the kids are probably going to love seeing that they're going to, they're going to, they're going to love seeing that two years from now. Like, look how much fun Ms. Thompson's class was back when we did that kind of stuff. so thank you for sharing those. There's even another example of like what I've seen, you know, some parents do on the soccer field, for a similar age group that just makes it fun. And if you're doing that kind of stuff anyway, pop open loom, record it, it's not even extra work, right? It's just showcasing what you're already doing. So thank you for sharing that example. And then could you...

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Exactly. Yeah.

And man, Spencer, if I had the technology available today that teachers have available today, my gosh, it would be so exciting.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah. And I'd like to hit on this point a little bit more too, like, just because partnering with parents is such a hot topic for teachers. Like, how do I do this? Well, can you share a little bit more of maybe how you approached it? And also as, as you're kind of still around teachers in the education profession, any examples that you've seen of current teachers, like how do they really get on the same page very early in a new school year with the expectations of, here's what parents you should expect. Maybe of me this year and how you can hold me accountable. And here's also what I expect of your child and what I expect of you. Like, you seen anybody navigate that really well? What examples can you share on getting out in front of that kind of early in a new school year with parents?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, and I love the fact that you use the words like, how do you help parents understand like, what should they expect? What can they expect from me as a teacher? I've seen a lot of examples of schools and teachers doing a brilliant job of this Spencer, and it's done in a lot of different ways. know, some schools, maybe a little bit more often at the elementary level are bringing in parents and inviting them in, you know, in August before the school year even starts come and sit down and have a tea, have a Coke and a pizza with our teachers and learn a little bit about what you can expect in the classroom. Let's do a tour of the classroom. Let's look at what is your child gonna experience each day when they come into the classroom? What are the tools that your child is gonna have available? When parents can see that, they immediately develop a sense of comfort. They develop a sense of awareness. They have a better understanding of what their child's experiencing.

I think that a lot of schools also do open house nights, you know, in September or October, like bring the parents in, let them come see the school. What I think is also brilliant about, you mentioned Loom. I think what I would be doing now as a classroom teacher or even as a building principal, you know, you could do a tour of your school. Like let's tour our school, you know, even do something fun as like when your son or daughter steps off the bus in the morning or when they get out of the pickup line or drop off line in the morning.

This is what their day is gonna look like. They're gonna come into the building and this, so you're giving parents visual images to understand what does the school setting look like? What does the classroom setting look like? Teachers do a brilliant job of setting up incredibly dynamic, engaging environments in their classrooms for children. There's tons of tools, there's tons of materials. When parents understand those approaches, they develop a sense of engagement and a sense of shared ownership which is so valuable to that child. You know, when the parent and the teacher are on the same page and equally supporting, because it takes a lot of people to help support a child in their educational journey to ensure they're successful in life. And when we partner together to do that.

You know, I had the chance to serve as a teacher member of our parent teacher organization, our PTO. You know, when I was a teacher, I loved being a part of that group because it helped me get to know more parents. It helped me get to know what's important to parents. What what do they want to know about their child's learning journey? So I think any opportunity where you can bring parents in or there's a lot of parents that are working or have work schedules that make it really hard to come into the school environment. We have tools today. Bring the school environment to our parents. You know, give them opportunities to see it.

Spencer Payne: Yep. Perfect. and then that was all kind of setting up the beginning of the year, getting the same page with parents. I'm also curious to explore a little bit at the end of a year, maybe when you were teaching, how did you kind of assess your performance, so to speak at the end of a year of, Hey, did I do a good job this year? Was I just okay? What do I want to do more of? What do want to do less of? And especially then from the angle school administrator, when maybe you're not just worried about your classroom, but you might be worried about 40 teachers in 40 classrooms or maybe more. 

How do you kind of judge and assess the the quote unquote success of your school? All of the teachers at their ability to kind of, you know, be a good teacher. And how did you define that? So can you share a little bit about kind of how you define that for yourself when you were in the classroom? And then also maybe did you look at it a little differently when it's not just your classroom, but now you're you're responsible for 40 or 60 or 80 or 100 classrooms? How do you kind of judge quote unquote success at the end of a school year and the types of things to do more of or the types of things to do less of?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, it's a great question, Spencer. And I think great teachers and great schools actually do it continuously. So, you know, as a teacher myself, I would always sit down at the end of a week and say, OK, where did lessons go really well this week? Where am I positive my students were nailing the learning objectives? Where weren't they? Because that informed my instruction the following week. So think being a very reflective practitioner yourself, collecting a lot of formative data each week from your students to say, where are my students on track? Where are they not on track? And then using that reflective formative data, sometimes summative data, to be able to say, that's got to inform my instruction for the following week.

And I think great schools are also creating environments where grade level teachers or subject area teachers are coming together. Maybe they're coming together every month and they're looking at their formative data, their summative data, and they're saying as a grade level team or subject area department. you know, where are our students really on target? Where are our students struggling? Is it a curricular issue? Do we need to change something? Do we need to think about reteaching? Should we involve our instructional coach? Do we need to bring in, you know, a support personnel from our school to help us? So if you're really doing that throughout the entire year, know, quarterly could be an incredible opportunity for a building principal to sit down with department leaders in their school to say, how do we think we're doing? know, let's look at the kids' performance.

Let's look at what's on track, what's off track, and to be able to course correct and pivot on that throughout the entire school year. There's so much data that schools really do have at their fingertips. But back to your earlier point about time, I think what's critical is for educators, educational leaders, create that cadence so that people are looking at data and looking at performance through a really curious lens and a data-driven lens on a very regular basis. And when you look at it on regular basis...

Spencer Payne: And real quick, can you share maybe a couple of those data points that you might have been looking at when you were in the administrative aspect? Like you probably look at a million things, but like maybe what was the short list of a couple of things that you were looking at regularly that you also wanted your team to know or look at regularly? What's an example or two?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, we're there's there's probably like five basic data sets that we're looking at all the time. We're looking at, you know, attendance. Are our kids there? Are they able to be there? Are they feeling fed? Are they feeling, you know, up to par to be able to be ready to learn? We're looking at, you know, monthly and quarterly marking period grades. know, who is, you do we have anybody that's, you know, the Cs or the Ds or is anybody failing? Like, let's look deeper at those students. Let's look deeper at that data. We looked at a lot of our IEP data. How are our students that have special needs or learning differences? How are we looking at the data that we collect as part of their IEP process to ensure that each and every child is on target?

We also looked at, you know, who you know, from the lens of the guidance counselor, do any of our kiddos look like they're struggling in any way, shape or form? And that's a little bit of a different data set to get your arms around, but we've got to be attentive to our children who are coming in hungry, who are coming in with just challenges in their lives. So we looked really deeply at, you know, our children as people in their lives, but those are some of the top data sets that we looked at continuously. So it's academic data for sure and it's attendance data for sure, but it's also how's the health of the children in our classroom?

Spencer Payne: Thanks for sharing that. And to come back, how does your assessment process potentially change when you're responsible for 100 teachers versus just one? How do you think about that differently? Again, when it's no longer just you, how am I doing, but 100 people, and you share a little bit about these data points, I'm glad we got into that. How else does your perspective potentially change when you're trying to look out for 100 teachers as opposed to just one?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, I think Spencer and the cool part about education today and 2025 is we have an incredible amount of tools available at our disposal that we didn't have back in the late 80s and early 90s when I was teaching. So I think when you're looking at data in a school system today, you're looking at first of all, are we empowering our staff effectively with the data? Like do we put in our teachers hands and make sure they have easy access to all the academic data, the performance data, whether it's standardized or formative assessment data, do our teachers have access to this information? Are we also saving our teachers time by giving them the opportunity to not crunch the data, but are we giving them the opportunity to really think strategically and have analytical opportunities to look at the data? So I think you also tap into the power of the...

adults, the educators who are incredibly talented people. You may have across your school building six or seven teachers who are just data gurus. Empower them, give them opportunities to lean in with their expertise to support their colleagues. you don't have to be the person that's, and you shouldn't be as the building principal, the person that's holding that. Spread that out, be transparent, engage your faculty, talk to your faculty about how do we work together on this? How do we tap into everybody's expertise so that people feel like they have a role and they have ownership in that process?

Spencer Payne: Perfect. And with, again, tapping into all this experience you've had in the classroom, in the administrative side, et cetera, I'd love to explore just some of the memorable stories over the years in your educational world. we'll start off with proudest moments. Are there any proudest moments in the classroom with students, maybe even with teachers, right, when you're administrative, maybe it's helping develop a teacher, bring them along. Any proudest moments in all these years in the education profession that stick out to you that just still make you just smile and light up because there was such a special sauce going on in that particular class environment teacher, whatever it is, what strikes you that you're able to share in terms of proudest moments in this field after 35 years.

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Ugh. Any teacher is going to have thousands of proudest moments because that's the beauty of having the opportunity to connect with people every day. I'll share with you too. And they both came, they were both student related proud moments, but they came at a totally different time in my students lives. Many years ago, I ran into, and we're probably talking 15 or so years ago, I ran into a former student.

He was a mechanic at an auto dealership and I happened to be bringing my car in for service. And I saw this man, you know, in the service bay area. like, that really looks like my Mitch, you know, from fifth grade a million years ago. And as soon as our eyes caught each other, I'm waving like crazy, he's waving like crazy. This young man was born into a series of challenges. He really struggled and had a lot of challenges in his life. So I was immediately so proud that Mitch was phenomenally skilled. He was employed by an incredible car brand. He was doing phenomenal work. He was making a great salary. He came running out of the bay. I came running into the bay, huge hugs, and we only had a few minutes to catch up.

But he said to me, do you remember when you read the Indian in the Covert to us? I'm like, my gosh, of course. He said, do you remember all the accents you did in reading that out loud to us? I said, my gosh. And I'm thinking, my accents were probably so bad. Here's what Mitch said to me. I have two kids now and I read to them and I use accents when I'm reading to them. So for me,

Spencer Payne: Mm. Mm. Because of what you showed him. Yeah.

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, for me, Mitch was reading to his children. Like, Mitch grew up in an environment where the reading that was happening to him was happening within the confines of the school day. So what was Mitch doing? He was doing an amazing thing as a parent. He was reading to his kids. I was insanely proud of him. My other second proudest moment just happened recently, actually. And it was just amazing.

So it has been 34 years since I talked to this woman. She is a woman now. But the last time I spoke to her, she was seven years old and she was in my second grade classroom. And we happened to run into each other on Facebook. And I was like, that looks like my Jessica from 34 years ago. And I thought, let me reach out to her. And this is what Jessica responded. She said, I have been hoping for many years that I would have the opportunity to bump into you somewhere just to say thank you. You were my first teacher that truly cared. The memories and friendships I made while in your second grade class are some of the strongest I still have today. You are one of the biggest reasons why I became an educator and have modeled my teaching after what you shared for me. I hope my students feel the same way about me as I did about you.

There are difficult days as a teacher and sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice but I know I have because of you. So Jessica today has been teaching for many years. She has three children that are all teenagers. She's an amazing mom. And that is an incredibly proud moment because I learn as much from my students, I think, as I hope they learn from me. And she's an amazing woman and she's doing incredible work. And I'm so proud of her and who she's become. And I feel incredibly blessed that...a little, I got to experience a little sliver of Jessica's life 34 years ago.

Spencer Payne: Thank you for sharing both of those. Those are both fantastic. Every teacher should be so lucky to have proud moments like that. So thank you for sharing those. And I'd love to transition now to fun, wild, memorable, maybe hilarious. Any of those kids say the darndest things. I can't believe that actually happened in the classroom that one day. Any of the fun, wild, crazy, hilarious, funny experiences, one or two that you're able to share. Maybe there's some that you can't share anything that you're able to share on that on that vein.

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, and to your great question Spencer, teachers have a ton of funny stories and kids do say the funniest things and it's awesome. I used to say to my kindergarten parents, because kindergartners say a lot of funny things in the classroom, I said, if you don't believe everything that your child tells you about the school day, I won't believe everything your child tells me about home too, because you know kids have can have active imaginations but a very funny story, I was working in a school district that had a big agricultural population, like huge commercial farming environments, both crops and animals, like big animal farming.

And once a year, as a middle school, we would allow kids to really engage in their agricultural heritage. They would drive their tractors to school. They would bring in animals. They would really showcase their agricultural talents and expertise. And we would learn about how are we really feeding the world and how are we contributing to the importance of the agricultural nature of our community. And one young man did an amazing job of bringing in his chickens because he was doing some incredible work with breeding chickens and he was thinking about the health of his chickens and organic, you know, feeding them organic foods and like allowing them to run and, you know, be free. No, he brought in, that's an important question. So he brought in a really large cage that probably had about eight chickens. There were

Spencer Payne: And real quick, are we talking one chicken, 10, two? Are we talking chicks? Are we talking full grown? Like, what are we talking here?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Okay. Two adult hens and then the rest were, you know, not the little tiny, tiny chicks, but maybe juvenile chickens. So had an amazing day with these chickens. You know, I was walking, you know, the, my students out at the end of the day to get on their buses and everybody's getting on their buses and he's getting on the bus with his gigantic cage, you know, that he held his chickens and he was doing an amazing job. And, you know, I'm getting ready to wave the buses goodbye. And all of a sudden a bus driver opens the door and screams out my name and says, help, help, the chickens are loose. And I went immediately running to the bus. And yes, the poor little guy, the chickens had the door of the cage had come open.

Spencer Payne: no.

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: and we had about eight to 10 chickens hopping around the bus. The kids, of course, were loving it and having an amazing time. Absolutely. So part of my job in that moment was to help wrangle. And the kids were fantastic at helping wrangle, but we wrangled about 10 chickens back into their cage. It took us about 15 minutes. But those are some fun, wild stories that every teacher has.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, they're going to talk about that day for the rest of their lives.

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: So I will never forget my days of wrangling chickens on school bus.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Wrangling chickens on the bus. When the bus driver opens the door, it says, help. and then I do want to, I do want to take a turn just because again, it's not always proudest moments. It's not always fun, hilarious. Sometimes like this can be really hard. it can be a hard, hard hour, hard day, hard week, maybe even a hard, a hard school year where it's just tough to connect with that group of kids, whatever it may be. can you share maybe any examples, for folks to learn from of any, any tough times, tough days, tough weeks?

Whatever it may be that that kind of comes up for you. And then how do you how do you bounce back? How do you come back the next day with maybe the same level of energy that when you're at your best How do you clear your head the night before when you know the next day is gonna be tough? So can you share any any strategies examples that you've experienced of how do you handle these kind of tough? stretches as a teacher and how do you bounce back and show up the next day and Turn it back on again, even when you don't want to

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, it's a very important question because working with people all day long, young people all day long, you have to give an incredible amount of energy. That's important. And you're giving them your love. You're giving them your expertise. You're hearing them. You're giving them a lot of energy. So when tough days happen, it can really drain you as an educator and it can make you feel deflated and it can make you feel like do I wanna keep doing this? And I think that when those moments happen, my first piece of wisdom is take a deep breath, give yourself some grace and think about all the 999 amazing things that you did today. Because usually it might be one or two things that didn't go as well as you'd hoped.

But 999 things went really well today. Sometimes as educators, we're really hard on ourselves. We over-focus on something that didn't go well and we forget about all the things that did go well. I think when our schools face challenges that are human in nature, know, I have this young man has traveled with me for probably 20 years now. His name is Andrew and he has traveled all around the world with me. He's always on my desk. He was on my desk when I was in London. He traveled to Egypt with me when I was doing work there. Andrew has always stayed with me because Andrew was somebody that I just felt was important to connect with when I was at the middle school level. He was kind of quiet, but he was a super wicked, smart, interesting young man.

And I wanted him to feel empowered. I wanted him to feel like he was loved. And so Andrew and I for many years just sort of stayed connected. Like we were tied at each other's hip. We joked. We laughed. After Andrew graduated, he ended up passing away in a car accident and those are some of the hardest times for us as educators when our families that we're working so closely with experience loss in our communities. And I just wanted Andrew to see the world. I wanted Andrew to still experience amazing things. So I still connect with Andrew's mom and dad, and they know that I take Andrew with me everywhere. And I think when sadness happens or the dark days happen, we need to come together. We need to pull together as educators. We need to support each other and we need to find solutions and we need to know that we have the strength. We have the expertise. We have great people around us and we're going to keep championing our kids each day and we're going to get back up and do it again.

And quite frankly, Spencer, every single industry that anybody works in has hard days. I love that my hard days are because I care for people and because I get to work with people. So I don't know that I want a hard day in another kind of industry. I love the fact that when I have a hard day, I know that we can come together. We can bond, we can connect, we can create solutions, we can learn from our hard days, and we have the opportunity to grow and improve and continue to serve the lives of really important people around us.

Spencer Payne: Thank you for sharing that. And on that note, we'll kind of do some more rapid fire, quick hitter questions as we wrap up. And maybe this one ties into that. But what to you is the number one single best thing about this profession, education?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: people, like hands down the people, you know, learning about the children that are in your school or in your classroom, you know, seeing their eyes light up and seeing their bright futures ahead of them and giving them an opportunity to be curious, helping them feel confident when they're not feeling confident, like helping them feel loved if they're not feeling loved, know, helping them solve a problem or realize you are really good at math, you can do this.

I think those are the greatest moments of this profession. And the same has been true as my career has meandered around in a lot of different directions. Adults want to feel that way too. If I'm working with other educators in a professional development setting, or if I'm working with our candidates here at Moreland, they want to feel supported. They want to feel like there's somebody that's there for them and has got their back. And that just brings a lot of joy. So it's the people.

Spencer Payne: And on the other end, what's the single worst or toughest thing about this profession? Or if you could point a magic wand at one thing and solve that one darn thing overnight, where would you point that wand?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Well, there's, you know, I'd certainly point the wand and say, all right, let's let's add millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars into our school system so that our school systems, all of them, you know, have incredible resources. Like I would wave my magic wand in a second and add millions and millions of dollars and more people into our school systems. That that would be absolutely one problem that I'd solve right away.

I think the other part that's, you know, harder is that sometimes we get our hearts broken as educators, because if you feel like you didn't make the connection that you wanted to make with a child today or somebody's struggling, you get your heart broken. because educators care so deeply about the work they're doing. So I would wave a magic wand and remind every educator, like, your heart is good, like it's not actually breaking. The fact that you're saddened by something is just a reminder that you care so deeply and that means you're doing it right.

Spencer Payne: Perfect. Thank you. And you did share, you got your masters and it seemed like relatively early in your career. Can you share a little bit more about why then and what were you hoping it was going to unlock for you? It seems like it did, but did it unlock what you were hoping it was going to unlock for you? So when, when did you get it in your kind of educational career? Why that time? And did it unlock for you what you were hoping it was going to unlock for you?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, so I came through a little bit of an alternative path. My undergrad institution didn't offer a degree in education. So I have degrees in humanities and French. But I kind of loved the idea of teaching. And I loved sort of the idea of, wait, there's education classes I can take. And if I take these education classes, I can apply for a license in the state of Pennsylvania to do a job. And I kind of thought, whew, at least I'll have a license to do a job. If I can't get hired, I can at least have a license to do a job. So I got into my student teaching experience and loved it. I knew it was the right career for me, absolutely loved it. Got my license to teach. And then I started teaching and thought, huh, I don't actually have a degree in education. Like I took a lot of classes and I feel pretty prepared.

So I went back and got my master's degree in education with a specialization in reading and reading literacy because as an elementary teacher, I felt like, gosh, I gotta figure out how to unlock reading and literacy. That seemed like such an important fundamental skill. So I was thrilled with the knowledge that I received in that experience. Like I met great people, the courses were incredible.

What I also loved about it is that I was working and going to school at the same time. So everything I learned, I could apply in my classroom. I could immediately test things out in my classroom. So that Spencer started me on a new bad habit. And I say bad habit because my husband says it's a bad habit because I'm like, well, now I have that master's degree. Maybe I should go get another master's degree and learn more. Maybe I should go get a doctoral degree and learn more. Maybe I should take some other classes. Maybe I should go get my MBA. So it started me on a path of wanting to continuously learn because our education research is changing and it's evolving and getting better and better and better over time. I wanted to be sure I always had the right information to empower me to be effective in the role that I was in.

Spencer Payne: And what to you would be the number one piece of advice that you would give to a new teacher who's maybe in their very first year? What would be your number one piece of advice that you'd give to that person?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, that's an awesome question. And I we're in the middle of doing some blogging and some writing to new teachers right now. So I'll share a piece of advice that I shared. And I learned this my first year teaching from another teacher. I wasn't sure I was doing a great job of knowing every day as a 21 year old. Am I sure I know how my students are doing like?

Are they really learning this? I think they're having fun. Like, I think I'm doing a good job, but where's the data? And I was talking to a group of second grade teachers about this, and they said, why don't you try the idea of like, quick quizzing your kids? And I'm like, And they said, not formally. Like, not with a piece of paper and not with a pencil. But as you're getting in line for lunch, as you're walking to the cafeteria, as you're walking in from the bus line in the morning, as you're transitioning, you know, or as you're moving around the classroom, start this idea of quick quizzing. So I decided that we were going to have fun with it. And so I started saying, OK, gang, we're going to have a little fun with this quick quizzing concept. And I told my students about what it was. And I was just going to free form asking them questions like, who remembers? What was our objective this morning when we had our math lesson? What was the first spelling word on the list? Like, hey, what's 2 plus 2? What's 5 plus 5?

And I would do it kind of in a rapid pace and my kids loved it. And then we started charting it. They started helping each other. And what I realized is that it gave me great data all throughout the day. It also meant that transition times can be tricky. And as a new teacher, sometimes your kids can be a little chaotic at transition times. You don't know how to transition them in a really structured, peaceful way to get through them efficiently from one place to another. And when I started doing that, my kids were so focused on the quizzing that they like just got in line. You we just made it to the cafeteria. We got out to the buses on time. And it was an amazing level of insight that gave me so I'm like, so and so still doesn't know what two plus two is. Wow. I thought they had nailed that. Like, let me reteach that. Let me work on that again.

So it was a really fun way to get formative, fast data and see my kids have joy and get curious. And then they started quick quizzing each other, like who wants to be the quick wizard today guys? And then they're owning their learning. So it was a really fun, easy technique and my students love

Spencer Payne: Yeah, yeah.

Great example. I got my oldest is three and we'll do little things like, hey, as we're counting, like, hey, you know, we to our shoes on. We can keep playing for 10 more seconds. I'm going to count one to 10 and you can count with me if you want to. and then once I saw like, all right, he's, he's nailed one through 10. Like this is stupid. Like, like, why are we going over stuff that he already, he obviously knows this. So I'm like, now I'm to start at 11 and we're going go from 11 to 20. And I get to 20, that's when we're going to stop and put our shoes on.

We still haven't gotten there yet, but I'm just, I'm, throwing like random little stuff like that in, just to see like, does he get this? Has he gotten this yet? Like, he's gotten that one. Let's move on to the next round of 10 numbers. You know, as we do that one that might start at 21 and we'll go to 30 and we'll just keep doing random little stuff throughout the day such that, you know, again, how do I take this thing? That's we've to put your shoes on.

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Cool. Mm-hmm.

Spencer Payne: And how do I do this in some way that's actually like useful or fun or helpful or in some way that's kind of similar to your quick quizzes. like, I'm kind of I'm saying it, but I'm also seeing like, does he remember these? And if he mastered it, then I'm moving on. We're going to the next one.

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, and you know what? I love the fact that you use the word remember because what you're actually doing is right aligned with cognitive science of learning. Because when we do quick quizzing like that, what happens is that information shifts from our working memory into our long term memory, and it really helps build skills, especially when you're doing it in a fun practice way over and over. So way to go, dad.

Spencer Payne: Thank you. Shucks. One last question. last one, any last words of wisdom that it could be something new that we haven't had a chance to talk about that you'd really love to share, or maybe something that you did share, but it's sometimes in 45 minutes conversation, you shared something and you're like, that's actually so important. I want to go back and re-highlight that one. So any new or repeated final words of wisdom?

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: Yeah, words of wisdom that I would give to everybody who's listening to this podcast. Get involved in the education field. It is so dynamic. It is so fun. It is so mission driven. If you've ever thought about being a teacher and you're curious about it, go to your local school. Talk to the principal. Talk to the teachers in your school. Volunteer in your school. Get engaged in your community.

Our schools should be communities. Our schools should be places where people are engaging, supporting. As I said, our children are one of our most precious resource on planet Earth. And the more we can get involved, the more we can share. Maybe you're a parent, but there's another parent in your school who's a single parent and they're working two jobs to keep their family running. Maybe you can support them, but get involved in your school. They're great places and they're beautiful, the heart and souls of our community. So I would love for people to say, you know, let me walk down to my local school. I'm curious about a teacher, you know, come talk to us at Moreland. We'd love to support you. It's an amazing profession. And I would love to encourage lots and lots of people to get engaged in the teaching profession.

Spencer Payne: Well, Dr. Suzanne Thompson, thank you so much for your real stories from a real educator and beyond, and all of these different careers you've had since your time in the classroom, which also again, just showcases if you're on the edge about teaching. I don't want to just teach the same thing for 30 years. You don't have to, if you don't want to, there's a lot of places you can go take this thing if you really want to as evidenced by the career that you've had. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom in 35 plus years, couple of great, proudest moments that hopefully everybody out there can aspire to and have some similar ones just like that. So thank you so much for sharing your stories. Appreciate you.

Dr. Susanne H. Thompson: My pleasure, Spencer. Thanks a million. This is super fun.