RealED Welcome Intro

The hosts of the podcast, Real Ed, are two experienced teachers named Della and Katie. They created the podcast to support and retain teachers. They discuss their challenging experience of having multiple teachers in their team throughout the year and the effort they put into ensuring those teachers were prepared. This led them to come up with the idea of a podcast as a way to help teachers without being physically present. Their mission is to retain teachers and create learning communities that provide mentorship opportunities. They also aim to create literacy opportunities for students of all levels. The podcast is targeted at anyone in an English Language Arts (ELA) classroom, including paraprofessionals, substitutes, and administrators. It will be released weekly on Thursdays and can be accessed on any podcast platform. The episodes will be around seven minutes long, offering practical and direct advice. Welcome to Real Ed. My name's Della. I'm Katie. And we have created a podcast in hopes of retaining teachers and we're going to share with you today who we are. So basically I have been teaching in a secondary classroom for over 20 years English Language Arts. I just finished my 15th year. So between the two of us that's over 35 years experience. Woohoo! That's amazing. We're still teaching. That's amazing. And so Katie share with them why we came up with this podcast. So this past year was our most difficult and challenging year. Yeah because we had a vacancy on our team. There were about five teachers in there throughout the year. It could have been a paraprofessional, a sub, a new teacher, but there were five different individuals throughout the year. And we had to come together and make sure that those individuals were ready because their kids are our kids. We're a team. We couldn't let them fail. So it took a lot of time on our end. It felt like we had an additional classroom really. It felt like we had two classrooms throughout the year. So one. It was hard enough just to have one. Even as a veteran teacher it's still hard when you have more than one. So there were many times like every single day one of us would go in in the beginning, make sure that the individual was set for the day, had all their materials, had the PowerPoint, had the handouts, had everything they needed. Seating charts, rosters, paper, pencil. And then another teacher on our team would come in during about halfway through the day during our planning period and would just check in, make sure any classroom management issues, make sure any lesson issues, they would square it all away. And then at the end of the day the last teacher would come and they would just make sure that the person was coming back the next day. It's so important. And they would also talk about where the lesson was going to go. And grading. If there was anything that had to be graded. Yes. And also like if the kids got the material or if they didn't get the material what they could do from there. So it was just very, very challenging. So Dylan and I sat down and reflected and we're like how could we have made this easier? What could we have done to retain these people or to make it easier on ourselves? Give us that time because we really did lose a lot of our own time with our own classrooms and our personal lives. So we came up with this idea of a podcast. Yeah and we met this past spring and we were just like well how can we help them without us being there? And so one of the things we thought of was this podcast. And we came up with a mission statement just to keep us on track. Because you can't get overwhelmed with all the information that you have to learn in English Language Arts. And so Katie share with them part of our mission and I'll share the second half of our mission. Sure. Our first part is first and foremost to retain teachers. To keep them in the classroom. To let them know that they are not alone and that what they do is worth it and it impacts students every single day whether they tell you or not. Even long-term stuff. Yeah. Just to be able to keep them too. Exactly. Anyone who's in the classroom. And then the second part of our mission statement is to create learning communities that provide mentorship opportunities. So that we're hoping if you guys see it weren't together we're in this together and we provide that support for you guys throughout the year and which is also going to support us and we support each other. That we'll be on the same page and that will help retain teachers too. Well and it's one of the things that got me through last year. Katie and I've worked together for many years. Yes. And we have each other. Like to get through the rough days. To get through the successes. But even our situation last year being short a teacher we were just there for each other to help get whatever we needed to get done. The other part of our mission statement is to create literacy opportunities for all level students. Katie and I teach all levels. By that I mean in our state they're ranked one to five. And so a four five is above grade level. A three is at grade level. And then a one two is below grade level. And we teach all of them. So we help each other. Gosh almost every single day. Yes. I'm trying to catch every student and help them kind of reduce that learning gap if they need that or to keep them learning. If they're above grade level we still want their growth to continue. And so with that who are we targeting on this podcast? We are targeting anybody who finds themselves in an ELA classroom. So it could be paraprofessionals, substitutes, even an administrator who has to do it. Anyone who's in that ELA classroom. Yes. So it's a weekly podcast. And when will it air? We are hoping every Thursday. That's our goal is to make sure we post it by Thursday. Yes. And on there we're going to share our lesson for the week and then how it went. So there's a reflection piece of how it went, what stuck, what didn't stick, and what do we need to adjust for the next week. Where can they get this information? Anywhere where you get your podcast. You will be able to find ours. Yes. So anywhere you can get it. It's seven minutes or less. So hopefully even during planning or lunch if you needed to just listen to it while you were eating, in the car, on the way to work, on the way home. So try to make it short and sweet but it's real talk. Yes. It's not a lot of fluff and so it's going to be very direct. One thing we've learned in all our years is we don't have a lot of time. No. So we're trying to keep it to seven minutes or less. And so anyway we look forward to working with you this year. And Katie, any last words? No. I just hope to see you guys on Real Ed with us every Thursday. Every Thursday. So have a good week. Thank you.