A Strategic Approach to Teacher Career Growth with Sarah Emma Alexander

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

Spencer Payne: Okay, here we go with another episode of front of the class real stories from real educators. Our real educator today is Sarah Alexander. And Sarah, can you share how you introduce yourself to other people in the educational world with some details, however you like to take it, but potentially where you're teaching what, how long fun facts fork in the road decisions, however you like to introduce yourself to others who are in this world. Can you take it away for us, Sarah?

Sarah Alexander: Okay, great. So I'm currently a high school ENL teacher. I am working at a school in upstate New York. I am also on the board of the Binghamton Area Reading Council. So that's something I do in my spare time. I spent the last 10 years teaching in China, the last three of which I was a vice principal at an international school. Yeah, so I've been teaching for about, I would say, 11 years now, getting close to 11 years.

Spencer Payne: And can you share also a little background just because yours is particularly interesting. What were you doing before teaching in China and your career that was completely different prior to education?

Sarah Alexander: Yeah, so before teaching in China, I was actually working at a hedge fund. My last position was at a hedge fund as a manager of operations or an operations manager, manager of operations. So I spent five and a half years working in the finance world, and not even the finance world, but probably the most intensive of the finance world because hedge funds are a very unique and interesting and very tough place to work. So...

After leaving the hedge fund, I kind of just wanted to do something a little bit different and found a new path, but it is definitely completely two different worlds.

Spencer Payne: And you don't have to say the name if you want, but I will just share the one you're referring to is, you know, one of the most well-known high profile, largest elite of the elite cream of the crop. And after five and a half years there, can you just share a little bit about how did education become your second career? Like how did you stumble into from this high profile finance elite of the elite hedge fund to education? How did that become your second?

Sarah Alexander: Yeah, so I was feeling pretty burnt out. The place that I worked for, it was very big on transparency, which is great. Very big on feedback, self-reflection working through issues and it was exhausting. You know, it was incredible because I learned so much about myself, but at the same time, you know, it was just, it was really long hours. I was working from eight o'clock in the morning, sometimes till two o'clock in the morning. And it was just so, so intense that I needed a break. And after I left, I spent about a year, year-ish traveling wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my life.

And I actually came across a Groupon for a TEFL course. And I was like, yeah, it was a Groupon. I was looking at like, oh, I could take a Six Sigma class, like, you know, get my Six Sigma certification, that would be really interesting. And then I was like, what is this TEFL thing? And found TEFL certification, I was like, well, that would be really cool to do for a year. So I took the course in February, I interviewed in March, and in April, I moved to China.

Spencer Payne: That's how it happened as a Groupon? Insane.

Sarah Alexander: So it was very, very fast. I actually had changed my last name maybe a year or so before that and didn't have an updated passport. My passport still had my old name. So I had to go to the passport office and get an overnight passport to be able to get the visa to go to China in time. yeah, it was just I made the decision and went and did it. And I spent a year there. And after a year, I was like, wow, I didn't really learn the language.

Maybe I'll spend another year here. And then I had a lot of friends there and it started to build a life. And I'd actually planned to leave in 2019 or 2020 and COVID happened. And China at the time was actually a very safe place to be. And I had gotten a job in Italy and Italy was intense during the beginning of COVID. They were really not a great place and stayed and yeah, just kind of worked from there. So.

Spencer Payne: And then can you share a little bit about how did you transition all of that to high school E &L teacher in upstate New York in the last three years? How did that transition happen for you? Did you seek that out? Were you specifically looking to get in the States, high school? Can you just share a little bit about why was that your next move?

Sarah Alexander: So I finished my master's at Moreland and got my teaching certification and my master's and I decided I really actually liked being an administrator and I wanted to get my admin certification. So I applied for some programs in the US, one in DC where my certification was through and one in New York which is where I was from and the New York one is synchronous. You actually have to be here or be in the time zone and you need to have a New York State certification to be able to finish the program.

I'm gonna get the admin cert. So I kind of looked between the two and my parents were getting a bit older. And so I decided to come back home to upstate New York and applied for jobs here. And ideally I was looking for something in kindergarten, because those were the age levels I was more used to. And a high school English teacher or E &L teacher position was open and I applied and I got it.

It's actually really interesting for as much as I love teaching small children and there are so many benefits to having those connections when they're younger. Something that I find really interesting with teaching high school is I moved to China not knowing the language. So I moved there, I didn't know the language two months before, or a month before moving there, I hadn't even thought about living in China or moving to China.

And so lot of the struggles that my students have are struggles that I had learning another language, being in another country where I didn't know how to do anything. And so I feel like I'm able to connect with the students more because I've lived through a lot of similar experiences as them. And so I also think it helps me to be able to figure out how to help them navigate situations because they're things that I've had to do.

Spencer Payne: And then I'd love to dig in a little bit more to this, again, this background for almost six years in this elite hedge fund world, intense, long hours, learned a lot to share what you were sharing earlier, but just needed something a little bit different. Can you share a little bit about what are some of the things that you have wanted to take from that role and that world to teaching and what are some of the things that you wanted to shed maybe from that world into teaching? I guess what are some of the things that that world, there are some great skills that you're translating and you're trying to figure out how to translate that into education and what are some things that you're like, I definitely don't want to bring that to the classroom. Can you share a little bit about those pros and cons of your prior career and how they transfer into teaching?

Sarah Alexander: Yeah, so I think two things. So one, think the way I think about planning is probably slightly different and definitely the way that I think about how to solve problems. So I think oftentimes...

When you get into situations, people try to throw solutions at problems, right? We have this problem, you we know there are solutions, we're just going to go and try and solve it. And something that I really took away from me in working in finance was learning that like, okay, so before we even look at what, you know, what we're trying to solve, we need to look at what is the goal of what we're trying to do.

And in a perfect world, or at least in the world we're in, what would good look like? What should that look like? And so being able to kind of say, okay, so within the education world, what are we really trying to accomplish? Because we have all these problems. And yeah, we can make small fixes and we can put band-aids on things. But we really need to think about like in an ideal world, what do we actually want this thing to look like? How do we want to be able to educate students? And what do we want them to be able to do when they leave here?

And so how can we get them to that point and then look at, okay, so now we know what we want to be able to do and what good looks like. Now let's look at what we're actually doing and what the problems are. And let's figure out why we're having those problems. Right? So let's figure out, know, are they training issues? Are they staffing issues? Are they resource issues? Are they, you know, there are so many different types of reasons why you can have these problems.

But until you actually look and try and figure out why you're having the problem, then you can't really figure out what kind of solution you want to have. So really being able to take the time and saying, okay, what do we want this to look like? And why are we having the problems? You know, what's what's preventing us from getting there? And then let's talk about what are all the different ways we can get there, which is solutioning people love solutioning. But taking those steps beforehand, and then really taking the plan or creating a plan and taking it step by step and saying, okay, so now we have the solution, we know what we want to do. And then also let's set kind of milestones in place and make sure at these different milestones of like, is this still what we actually want to achieve? Is our goal still going to be, is our goal currently the same? What new problems are we encountering? And how can we continue to work through that? And I think that...

I know teaching is great and teachers are wonderful, but there is a piece of that that I think a lot of people really don't get enough of. know, and it's, you know, even when you're thinking about in your classroom of, my students didn't get this. Okay, so like, let me, you know, let me just give it to them another way. But really even with something as simple as a lesson of like, what did I want them to achieve out of this lesson? And what actually happened? And let me go back and think about why that happened and what are some different ways I could have, you know, gone through it. And so from something, as simple as a lesson to something as big of, know, we don't have our graduation rates aren't what we want them to be, or, you know, these big changes are happening. And how are we going to help in the long run? And that's another thing I think that really helps me kind of gain perspective of you always need to have short term solutions and long term solutions. They're the things you need to do in the moment to get you to the next piece.

But then you always need to have this kind of long-term plan of how are we going to get to the future and how are we going to make sure 10 years from now that we're setting up the infrastructure we need to not have even bigger problems. And so I think for me, that's something that has been really beneficial and it helps me in my everyday lessons. It helps me in when I was a vice principal and how I was able to help the school solve different problems and how I'm able to help coach other teachers in my previous position is something that I think stays with me everywhere I go. And I think it's a very unique way. When you think about it, it makes total sense, but it's not always something I think people really take the time to do.

Spencer Payne: read 100 % that comes down to like, being very clear of what is the actual what is the problem we're actually trying to solve? And why does it matter to solve that problem? And I'm going to give a really stupid example, right? But it hit home with me my first job out of college, I heard this, you know, this this guy talking about the movie Monsters Inc in terms of business strategy. And I'm like, like, what, like, we're talking about a kids movie, right? But where he went with that was

If anyone remembers the movie, they're in the monsters in that movie are scaring the kids to go generate energy to run their city. Right. And so they think that they're in the scaring business, scaring kids bottles up energy so they can run their city. As kids get less scared, they're generating less energy. They're thinking about like, Hey, geez, how do we scare kids more? Right. That's the problem they think they're solving.

But really, they're not in the scaring business, they're in the energy business. Like that's the problem they're trying to solve. And again, through the story, spoiler alert, I'm gonna ruin the movie, sorry, but it's old, so I figured that's okay. They end up realizing that generating laughter from the kids actually generates even more energy than scare, than fear and the scares do. And so they don't actually need to figure out, hey, how do we scare more kids they needed to figure out, how do we generate more energy? And my gosh, making them laugh generates way more energy. How do we make them laugh? Like they're actually, they're trying to answer a completely different question at the end than the question that they thought that they were trying to answer at the beginning. And that defining the question is so important because if you don't do it well, you can go a solution and go down a whole path that you're not actually necessarily solving the actual root problem that you thought you were. So I'd love to dig in this a little bit more of...

Can you share any other examples of, hey, the group was together and we thought we were solving this, but after really defining the problem and asking why and understanding the context, we actually were trying to solve a completely different problem. Anything that you might be able to share that's a real world example of that, and it could be back in the finance days, it could be in China, it could be in your new school, but anything like that where there was kind of like after some questions and some why, why, why, you're like, oh, actually, that's not really the problem we're trying to solve.

Spencer Payne: trying to solve.

Sarah Alexander: So it's something I've come across, I would say, a couple of times in curriculum. So I've spent a lot of time on teams that are developing or in the short time I've been in education. I feel like I've spent a lot of that in times where we've been developing curriculum. And so taking the curriculum and saying, OK, so how do we make this better? And how do we make the kids learn more? And a lot of times, really what it came back to was we weren't...when we really looked at what we wanted them to learn, it wasn't that we needed to fix our curriculum, it's that we were actually just completely teaching the wrong things. Or I worked at an EF, which is like a training school. My second year in China, I worked at a training school and I became, I took on a position as what they call life club coordinator.

And so as a life club coordinator, my job was to get kids interested in these activities where the goal was really the goal of the life club was to get them to be able to use what they were learning in more real life situations. But what they were doing was they were having phonics classes and they were having reading comprehension activities. And so I looked at it and they were like, well, we need to get more kids engaged in these, know, we're having them for free or remarketing them for free and nobody is joining them. And so I looked at it and I was like, okay, but the goal of what these activities should be is actually getting them to have free practice or you know like free not money free but free practice in terms of actually using what we're teaching them in these classes. So I went back and I was like okay so like this is what our goal is this is what we're offering and for these three courses nobody is signing up for them.

So let's really look at like one what people want to do so what the students would be interested in participating in what our teachers want to teach because a big problem with it was teachers would get assigned, oh, you have to do a phonics life club. And it was like death in the office. You know, I don't want to do this thing. I don't want to teach it. It's not interesting. It's not fun. So I talked to teachers about, you know, I want to do these things. I want to have these activities. This is the goal of the activity. The goal of the activity is to get kids to engage in using their English and fun and interesting ways, but they get to interact with each other.

So I came up with, okay, give me things you'd be willing to teach, you'd want to teach, like where you'd see it on your schedule, you'd actually feel excited about it. Things maybe you're really good at that you think you can share with the kids and do it in a way that's interesting. And then I came up with, okay, so now I'm gonna ask the parents and create a survey for them to talk to their kids about, okay, which activities would your kids be interested in? Which days would you be willing to do it? What times would you be willing to do it?

And I took the information and actually completely rebranded it. So instead of calling them life clubs, I called it EF experience. So our first activity was we did a tie dye activity where we talked about colors and we talked about, you know, how it was with a younger group. But, you know, okay, so like, let's talk about your favorite colors and how can we, you know, mix the colors together and let's talk about how we can tie knots. And we did like some color games with them and did kind of some like exchange of information, but they created t-shirts and the t-shirts said EF experience. And that was our first activity and actually got, not only did the two sessions that we had fill up, we offered two more sessions and we charged for all of them. So the school was able to make money. The teachers had fun doing it and the kids were able to start having activities where they actually wanted to come to them. And so then we had other activities or we did one about the Olympics.

We did one about... I think we did one where they made fruit smoothies and had a party with it. But we did some other kind of scenario type activities. But it was all about what is the goal of the life goal? The goal of the life goal is to get kids to do things that are fun in English. To get them to use their English in ways that is interesting to them, where they feel comfortable using what they're learning in class. And how can we do it in a way where teachers want to teach it?

And so that was something we're really just going back to like the original goal. We completely revamped the program, changed what we called it. And it was great. It was a success. So, you know, they wanted making a lot of money on it. So the company loved doing it. And parents kept signing up for them. So I would say that was one way that my finance experience helped me in a situation.

Spencer Payne: Yeah, perfect. Thank you for sharing that. And you've mentioned the graduation rates a little bit ago and some of the goals. And again, I'm just going to make up a scenario of what we're trying to accomplish, Of like, you hey, in high school, are we trying to get kids to graduate? Seems like a good goal, yes. Or are we trying to prepare kids for to be proficient, et cetera, so they can go actually be a useful practitioner in the real world in some occupation, job, profession, trade, whatever it may be, right? And ideally those two things are the same. But where I'm going with that is for graduation rates, for trying to raise and kind of promote good people who are going out and doing good, productive, solid work in society. You don't have to graduate college to do that.

And like maybe if 10%, 20 % of kids don't graduate college because they need to be contributing monetarily to their household. I mean, again, I'm making a scenario up here potentially. Hey, can we go partner with a car mechanic shop, the HVAC company, the plumbing company, et cetera, and put kids in tracks where they're actually going out and earning in a productive manner.

And if they don't graduate, all right, that doesn't hit that goal, but it hits the goal of being a useful, productive, like helpful member of society with a profession, with a skill that people need. And ultimately isn't that really what we're trying to accomplish? So again, depending on how you define the end goal might completely change how you think about what, what are we going to go do based on how you define the end goal and what problem you're actually trying to solve. So I just, love that example. Thank you for sharing that.

Sarah Alexander: So what you just said actually is really interesting. New York State's currently changing what they call portrait of a graduate. So therein, think I could be wrong, it's about a 10 year kind of process of overall changing what they wanna have students accomplish. And so part of that is getting them...

kind of taking away from necessarily being college focused to being really more career focused, life focused. So whichever path they choose after school, but getting them on a way to do that. So involving more CTE. So giving them more career and technical training. New York State's also adding in where students are going to have to take like, I think my understanding, which again could be wrong but it's basically giving them real life math skills. So teaching them how to balance a checkbook, how to look for an apartment, how to do all these very basic life skills, and then also having career and technical training.

So in business and culinary, in mechanics, in electrical, so all these different subjects. by the time they graduate high school, or even again, if they don't graduate high school, but giving them paths that aren't so academic focused that will give them real life training and experience so they can be successful individuals no matter which path they choose after graduating high school. And so for me, as an ENL teacher, I see a lot of ENL students who are just coming to the country, who, you know, they're 16 years old, 17 years old. have kids in my class who are 19, 20 years old, who are still juniors, because they're just trying to figure out how to graduate. And the language is really difficult.

And for them having opportunities to be able to learn a skill so that they're set up for success because college might just be too difficult for them in this country having to do all those classes in English. It's hard enough when it's your first language. And so actually my certification that I'm currently getting is also in business CTE so that I can, ideally I would like to kind of use ENL and CTE to be able to help students in a more impactful way to make them a little bit more job ready.

But I think for the US, that's something that's definitely changed since I was in school, or even since I left the country of when I was in school, everything was about, you need to go to college. have to, you know, getting everybody college ready. And that's just not the case anymore, which is, to be honest, I think great, because, you know, a lot of people go to college and they spend a lot of money and it's not the right path for them and they don't finish and know if we could set them up for just a successful life and giving them life skills then how amazing would that be?

Spencer Payne: Yes, indeed. So definitely we'll be curious to learn more as this program evolves in New York State, because it seems very interesting. like the purpose, again, and all of that depends on what is the purpose of what high school education or public school education is trying to accomplish. You can completely change your solution based on how you phrase the question and the problem we're trying to solve and why. You mentioned a new certificate you're going after. I'd love to just shift back to you for a little bit of, hey, you've been now in the states for three years, in the education world for over a decade, what are you looking forward to? Like what's something on your horizon coming up soon that you're excited about, energized by, et cetera?

Sarah Alexander: So I've actually only been in the States for a few months. A few months, so I came back in July. So I am three months into my school year, but I'm in a program that will take me three years. So I'm in the beginning of a program that will take me three years to finish. So I'm currently getting my admin certification through Binghamton University, which is a New York State school.

Spencer Payne: okay. thought, okay, I thought I heard that wrong. A few months. All right, here we go. I got it.

Sarah Alexander: it'll give me the certification to be a principal or superintendent or somewhere in administration. But for me, think that I'm, I think I'm a good teacher. I'm not the best teacher in the world. Nowhere near the best teacher. I my teaching skills are decent, but I think for me, where I can have the most impact is in coaching. So being...

Being a coach, helping other teachers, helping to guide teachers is, I think, a way that I can be more impactful. I think helping people to be able to see how to solve problems, how to do things better, how to create better plans is something that is a little bit more in my kind of wheelhouse and something I think I'm good at it. I mean, there's always, you never really know because you don't know what other people think. But I think I've had a lot of success.

I think I've had a lot of success in it. So for me, I think it's a good choice. And I think I can create the most impact. So being able to be in a position where I can help the most people and really help to serve a community and to serve students and to serve teachers and really figuring out how I can help will be an amazing path for me and an amazing next step.

Spencer Payne: On that note of goals and how you can have the most impact, we just flash forward 10 years? You're back near your hometown, be close to parents. Can you share a little bit about where do you hope this world takes you in the next 10 years? What are some of the things that you hope to have accomplished or some of the things that you hope that you can say, did that in three or five or 10 years? Anything rise to the top for you?

Sarah Alexander: If I stay in New York, I really hope that I can help a school to get to being, you know, really supporting like this new portrait of a graduate. So I really hope I can help to create functional programs where students really can be successful. Another path I could see potentially for me is I've always kind of thought about or recently at some point started to think about working for the DODEA and working at a military school overseas, or a school on a military base overseas, and really being able to help students whose parents are serving our country, I think would also be a really great path for me in helping to work at one of those types of schools and bringing my experience both as a teacher in the States and a teacher abroad and somebody who's lived in another country.

To be able to help students to acclimate and to learn to be successful in whatever country their parents get stationed in, I think would be also really impactful. So for me, that's where I hopefully see myself in the future, just figuring out where I can serve the most people in the best way possible.

Spencer Payne: And on a similar note, given your unique couplet of experiences of working for almost six years at, you know, kind of an elite of an elite hedge fund and for spending 10 years in China, given that unique kind of blend of experiences and now being back in the States, is there any top one or two or three things that maybe you wish U.S. education would be more or less focused on?

For let's say high school because that's where you are right now for what high school kids should be learning or maybe what? Maybe this is a little like that was maybe good 40 years ago But maybe we don't need to do this anymore is anything rise to the top for you of things that you wish would be added or taken away again given this unique experience that you've had of being 10 years in China and Six years in elite of the elite had kind of hedge fund world Anything that rises to the top for you on what you wish us public education would spend a little bit more a little bit less time

Sarah Alexander: I wish schools would spend a little bit more helping students to reflect. So I think that teachers are great at telling them what they did wrong, but I think if we could help students to really figure out what they themselves could do better and then letting, having teachers to guide them and how to help them to achieve these goals and really helping them to figure out how to set goals on their own. I think that would be amazing and it would get them to really think about what they want to do with their lives and how they can do everything in life a little bit better. I think that there is still a lot of focus on test taking which I think is, tests are great for some things, but they're not for everyone. And they're not always the best way to measure success. I think that if we can look at things like portfolio assessments or more learning about teaching to essential questions and really measuring students on their ability to learn instead of their ability to learn one specific way would be amazing. So a little bit less rote memorization, a little bit more concept thinking.

And I think that something...something that I think we're doing well is hopefully really if they can work on getting more CTE and moving towards getting students focused on really life skills. So getting them focused on how they can be successful individuals beyond high school and they have more responsibilities is amazing because I do think a lot of schools around the world do still focus just on the academic piece and then they graduate and they get out in the world and it's like, what do I do now? I don't have somebody telling me what to do all the time or getting into jobs. especially I see like now because of there's a lot of, I don't know if disparity is the right word, but a lot of differences in income and not everybody has everything they need to be able to do what they need to do. feel like I'm not explaining this well. So at the moment, I think.

For example, when I was in high school, we had a lot of homework. So we had a lot of homework, we had a lot of responsibility. And while I think for some assignments, not everybody has the opportunity to be able to go home and do homework. Right? Because maybe you need to go and work to support your family, or maybe you need to go home and take care of your little brothers and sisters and you don't have time. But I think there is value in understanding that sometimes after two o'clock in the afternoon, you do still have to have work to do, or you need to take work home with you. So I think having a little bit more responsibility or going back into a world where we give kids a little bit more responsibility.

You know, like I see a lot of in class every day, a lot of kids who sleep, right? So, you know, like really trying to understand like, why are they sleeping? it, you know, the class is just so boring that they're sleeping? Is it that, you know, they're having problems at home and they need, you know, more help and more support and how can we get them that? But there is a sense of, okay, so you're 17, 18 years old. If you're not gonna go to college next year, you're gonna have a job. You're not gonna be able to sleep at your job every day. So how do we do that better of teetering that line of supporting students, but also really pushing them to be able to understand responsibility to set them up to be successful in life?

Spencer Payne: 100%. That'll be a fascinating one to maybe come back to in a few years time as you're only been in the States for three months as you're figuring that one out, as we have a little bit of a follow-up of like, like, all right, what'd you try? How did you do that? How did you get people on board? In the meantime, with a little bit left here before we get close to wrapping up, I am curious over 10 years of teaching in the educational world so far and so much of that being in China where you did not speak the language upfront, I'd imagine there's got to be some crazy wild funny stories or some like, can't believe I'm in this situation type things that happened. Can you maybe share anything that rises in the top for you? And it might not even be in the classroom because again, just from Groupon.

Tefl course to China without speaking the language on a whim. I'm guessing there are some situations that you're like, what did I get myself into? So can you share any that may be in or not in the classroom? They're just like, what is going on here? What wildest stories in your educational career so far?

Sarah Alexander: So I've had a lot of interesting experiences, especially while traveling. When I was living in China, I tried to spend as much time as I could seeing that part of the world. There were some moments in China that I think were very different for me. I remember going to the grocery store and people would follow me around and take things out of my shopping cart. Like, I get to the line, I'd be like, I know I put butter in my cart and I know I put these things, but like people would just take them out of the shopping cart because they were things that they wanted or they needed. And so like, I had to kind of learn how to be a little bit more aggressive, I guess. You know, because there are different cultures and different societies and you know, so that was definitely interesting for me. There was a time I was with my friend in Russia and was almost kidnapped. We were, we actually took the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia.

And we had gotten to Moscow the morning of the World Cup final of Croatia versus I think it was France. And we got into a taxi and the guy said something to us in Russian and we were like, yeah, okay. And it looked like a regular taxi. It had, you know, the markings on the outside and it was our first day in Moscow. And we had just gotten off of, I think we had been on the train for a couple of days. It's a little groggy. So we go to, you know, finish the ride and the guy's like $500. And we're like, what?

We were in the car like eight minutes and he like points to this thing in Russian and he's like, you agree, you agreed. And I was like, we don't have 500, one, we don't have $500. Like we live in China. We don't make American money. We make Chinese money. And also I'm not paying you $500 to go eight minutes. And I look and there's no door handles. So the door handles have been ripped off. The, like the things to unlock the car have been ripped off the things to roll down the windows had been ripped off. So there is no way to get out of the car without having somebody go on the outside. And I'm in there with my friend and I'm just thinking like, okay, what am I going to do? Right? So the guy like starts yelling at us. So he is yelling. And then, you know, my friend and I are explaining like we don't have like, have like maybe $20 with me. Like the, had dropped all of our stuff off at the hotel.

Spencer Payne: Jeez.

Sarah Alexander: It's not that expensive to be there. And also we didn't even have American money because it had been a couple of years since I had been to the US. Like don't have American money, not living in the US, still not paying you $500. And the guy's like, I will call the police. And we're like, yes, please, please call the police. And then he starts to drive off with us in the car. And at this point I'm thinking like, okay, so we could like try and jump to the front of the seat, but who knows if he has a knife or something else.

Spencer Payne: Cheers.

Sarah Alexander: And who knows if you could even get through in the passenger seat to be able to open the door. And I see there are a couple of people on the side, like walking on the sidewalk. So I just start like screaming at the top of my lungs and banging my hands against the window. Cause I think at least then potentially somebody will remember some, you know, screaming person out of the side of a taxi. So he speeds up and then he slams on the brake and he's like, you're crazy. And I just said to my friend like, scream as loud as you can. Like this is our jet like just scream.

So we both started screaming at the top of our lungs banging on the window. And the guy starts to drive off again. And we're just like as loud as we can. He slams in there and he's like, you're crazy. You're crazy. And I was like, let us go. Like just let us go. Because I don't know where he's taking us. I don't know what's happening. And so he gets out of the car and he lets us go and he's like, you're crazy. You're crazy. And we like ran and I went to go and take a photo of his license plate and my phone had like one or 3 % or something because we had been on the train. And so was didn't have enough battery to take a photo and we just ran all the way back to our hotel. And it was one of, I would say one of the more interesting experiences I've had traveling.

But yeah, so I think there are, I know sometimes you think about it like, gosh, I probably could have figured out earlier that that was not an actual taxi or there was no way to get out of the car. But yeah, that was one of my more, I would say more interesting travel stories.

Spencer Payne: I'd say so and and again kudos to you for trying to figure out like well I can't open the door I can't open the window what can I do right I can scream as loud as I can bang on the window maybe somebody will hear maybe somebody will open it or maybe I'll just annoy this guy so much that he'll he'll just give up because this isn't worth the this isn't worth what the torture I'm putting him through so man crazy story

Not in the educational world. We'll get back to education in a second, but kudos to you again for just trying to figure out going back to kind of problem solving and things like that earlier of like, what is in my control? Like, what can I go do right now? And kudos to figuring out a way out of that situation, my goodness.

Sarah Alexander: Yeah.

I don't even know where he would have driven us to. Like, he driven us to like back to the depot with like him and the other people that steal money from people? I mean, I guess potentially something really, really bad could have happened. But I just thought like who in that situation would even have $500? Like, I don't It just seemed like such an outrageous scam.

Spencer Payne: No doubt. Well, a couple more questions here as we get close to wrapping up a little rapid fire quick hitter stuff. But for someone who might be in their first year teaching right now, what advice, what maybe the number one piece of advice you'd give to somebody who's in their first year, maybe they're a couple months in, they're wondering, am I going to figure this out? Is this right for me? Like what advice might you give to that person?

Sarah Alexander: job I've had, have hated and loved at the same time. So for as difficult as it is, there are always things that are totally worth it to be there. So you also just have to, for as everything, everything that you can find that you don't like about something or that's really challenging about something, there's almost always a way to make it better. And there are always more positive things that you can find about the situation you're in.

Spencer Payne: How about smartphones, smartwatches, et cetera, kind of in your school? What's your policy? Like, why is that the policy and how is that working? Allowed, not allowed? What's the story on that kind of stuff?

Sarah Alexander: So not allowed, New York State decided this year it is illegal or against the law for students to have cell phones or smartwatches or earbuds in school. So that has been, I would say, a really big challenge. actually do, I'm on yonder pouch, we have yonder pouches. I am part of the yonder pouch duty team in the morning to make some extra money. So I do morning duty. So every morning I stand there with a giant magnet and help kids to unlock their yonder pouches and ask them if they have their phones and the rounder pouches and it's definitely, I would say it's a challenge. There are a lot of kids who just put them in their backpacks, which to be honest is as long as you don't have it out.

I do spend quite a bit of time reminding students to put their phones away. But from what I hear from teachers who have been there for more than three months, it has been a huge difference. So having students be able to engage in lessons and not be on their phones and actually having to talk to each other when they don't have work to do has been a big change. Like even in my classroom sometimes I teach in, they call it ELI, but it's like a...

small supported study hall. So the students, I have maybe a group of seven students and I check their grades and we talk about like, you know, what are you missing in other classes? How can they help you? And sometimes they don't have anything to do. And so they'll do things like play Uno with each other. And you have a kid who speaks, you know, first language is Spanish and another one who's Arabic and another one who's Pashto and another one who's Urdu. And so all of these different languages and they're all sitting there playing a game together in English.

And so really being able to engage in different ways, whereas probably previous years they would have just sat there on their phones. So I do think it they spent a little bit longer in the bathroom because I think they're probably going to the bathroom to be on their phones and text people. But overall, from what I understand, it's been a huge improvement. And it's great to not have kids on their phones and to actually have them engage in class.

Yeah, I mean it does sometimes like for things where they need to translate. Phones are really great for being able to take photos of things and to easily translate, so that does become a bit of an issue. Sometimes our students have Chromebooks, so for a lot of things are able to use their Chromebooks, but for translation for E &L students in particular, having the phones would have been helpful, but I think it's not a benefit that would outweigh any of the other benefits of not having their phones, because that is huge for them to not have their phones at them in school.

Spencer Payne: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And then what to you is the single best thing about this profession education that kept you in it for a decade after getting into it kind of on a complete whim as a second career? What's the number one best thing about this?

Sarah Alexander: The students, always the students. When I left my last school, I had one of the parents, the kids in my class who I'd had, she'd been in my class for a couple of years. And the mom said to me, know, like, I can't tell you how sad we are that you're leaving. My daughter tells two people that I love her, or that I love them. One of them is me and one of them is you. And it was, you know, like this child who was a complete, you her mom when she first came to my class was like, she's a wallflower, you'll forget that she's there. And in the year and a half I taught her, she became this outgoing, you know, incredibly amazing child with this wonderful personality, who is able to make friends and she cracks jokes and she you know, other kids are fighting to sit next to her.

And just watching this child bloom from somebody who just had such little confidence in her interactions with other kids to this amazingly outgoing individual. And so really being able to see them learn and grow and all of the incredible things that they do is definitely the best part of it.

Spencer Payne: And then last question, any final words of wisdom to any teachers out there or something new maybe that we haven't we didn't have a chance to talk about or maybe any anything that you did have a chance to share, but it's just so darn important. We want to say it one more time. So any new or repeated final words of wisdom.

Sarah Alexander: I think just whatever problems you find, there are usually always solutions. You just need to figure out how to get there and how to do it in the best way possible.

Spencer Payne: Perfect. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your story from high world of finance to education on a whim to China back here into New York state and excited about redefining what a successful high school graduate actually means. So definitely great real stories for a real educator. Thanks so much for sharing your story. Appreciate you.

Sarah Alexander: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This is great.