Ep 06. Schools Need Team Players, with Kate O’Connell

Coming Soon

This is the first of two conversations with international school teachers, where I’m asking about the trends / patterns / themes they’ve seen over the years working with many hundreds of students and families in multiple countries. So that we might glean tips, nuggets, perspectives, maybe even inside information, that will help us as families as members of international school communities, to have the best experience. 

Kate O’Connell is today’s guest, and she has over 20 years of experience in the classroom plus several years of experience in administration. And she’s got some wisdom to share that will help parents and families, AND teachers and administrators. Have a listen.

Kim: [00:00:00] All right, Kate, I am so happy that you’re here. When I started thinking about this podcast, you were the first person I thought of that I wanted to have on.

Kate: [00:00:08] Yea!

Kim: [00:00:08] And we’re finally making it happen.

Kate: [00:00:11] Fantastic.

Kim: [00:00:13] So for those of you who don’t know Kate, she has incredible passion and enthusiasm that comes through in everything she does. She really embraces lifelong learning and love of learning. She absolutely comes alive when she is teaching others. And she feels like she’s doing what she was built for when she’s leading teams. She’s an incredibly proud, mother. She just beams when she talks about her kids. She is one of the most positive people I know, just spreading sunshine everywhere she goes.

Kate: [00:00:46] Oh, Thank you.

Kim: [00:00:47] I hope that you guys get to feel a little bit of that through our talk today. Yeah, she’s she’s someone who doesn’t just go through the motions. She’s not satisfied to just go along with things because that’s the way it’s been done. But she’s always thinking about how to do things better for the good of the students and the teachers and the school and the community.

Kim: [00:01:07] So one of the things that I feel I’m uniquely positioned to do in my work is to help bridge the gap between parents and their schools. So I’m not a teacher, but I’ve absorbed a lot from my husband, and most of our friends are teachers. During the day I make my own social life among parents, but I know what the life of a teacher is and some of those stresses and some of the pressures. And so I’m just wanting to explore ideas around what teachers and schools wish their parents knew. So how they can be better partners with their schools.

Kim: [00:01:42] Before we get into that, Kate, can you tell us a bit about your background, a little bit about where you’ve taught, in which grade levels, what drew you into teaching in general and international teaching and your various leadership positions and what you’re doing now?

Kate: [00:01:58] Sure. So I’ve been teaching for a really long time. I think this is my twenty-fifth year in education. And so I started after university. I taught in a very rural school district in Michigan and I taught first grade and then I was moved to third grade. And I didn’t have a choice in that move.

Kate: [00:02:19] That first experience really influenced me both positively and negatively about what I thought school leaders should be, how I thought schools should run. And I knew from college that I wanted to go international because Michigan State had an overseas career fair that I wandered into as a senior. And I went up to the tables and I said, this seems awesome. How do I get to be there? How do I get to interview with international schools worldwide? Like, can I interview with you now? I have one more year of student teaching and what do I do? And they said you need to have really, really good references. You need to be an amazing teacher, really flexible, and go out and get two years experience and then come back to us and apply again. So I taught in the inner city of Chicago.

Kate: [00:03:08] And I also having first grade and third grade, I thought it would be amazing to be a middle school teacher and teach the same thing over and over. Like in a day, teach five lessons of the same content. So I had my hand at teaching seventh grade science. And I realized there’s downsides to that. You can be like, did I just say that? It’s hard to keep the classes apart. And I had thirty two students each hour for five hours, so I had like over 150 kids. And I got my first overseas job teaching first grade in Tianjin, China. So teaching seventh grade science, I realized that I am made for little kids.

Kate: [00:03:54] I can handle the types of problems that first graders have. Crying because their mom left, they’ve had an accident or their friend said they were a bully. Like those things are right up my alley. But teenager problems were, oh my gosh, they were like, girls were being mean to each other. And I’m like, just don’t do that. Why would you do that? But I worked with a team, the seventh and eighth grade team, and I could see that people really had a talent with teenagers.

Kim: [00:04:28] Yeah, yeah. It’s a really different skill set, isn’t that?

Kate: [00:04:31] It’s a different skill set. And they had the right humor. They had the right relationship building. And I thought, I know I don’t lack it, but I have it with a different age level of children. So I went back to teaching first grade in China. I was there for three years.

Kate: [00:04:48] In the meantime, I got my master’s in curriculum and instruction. And through that program I met the wife of the principal at the International School at Tanganyika in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. And I started to meet people that had taught there and I thought, oh, if I ever get a chance to go there, I’d leave China to go to Tanzania, because when I meet people who have been at this particular school, their eyes light up. They’re excited. So that’s the place I want to go.

Kate: [00:05:17] And I wanted to go to Africa. I thought that would be amazing going on safaris. I heard stories that when you get hired, you go on a safari for your first four days, which was true. So I moved from China to Tanzania to teach kindergarten. Loved it, but had a very tough year, personally. I had a virus – which the world knows what it’s like when you have kind of a strange virus. But I had a virus and it took me a good two years to get back to somewhat normal. And I’ve never really been the same level of health since. And I got skin cancer and my mom got cancer and ended up passing away. So I moved back home to the U.S. and applied for and got a teaching position in a very affluent neighborhood in the north shore of Chicago. When I was teaching there I met my husband and we had a baby, baby Alanna. He was also an educator, which drew us together, of course.

Kate: [00:06:14] I said we’ve really got to do this expat thing and I don’t want to stay in the US. And another connection we had was that he had also been an expat as a child and he had come to the US from Ireland. So we did the whole job fair thing. I told him how it works and we got jobs, which is where we met Kim at Prem in Chiang Mai, Thailand. And there I taught four year olds. I taught second grade and I taught third grade. I loved it. We were there for seven years.

Kate: [00:06:48] When we decided to move on, we moved to Cambodia. We still really love Southeast Asia and we’re really happy to be able to just move over to Cambodia. And I got a job teaching second grade at Northbridge International School, Cambodia. And after two years there, I had really wanted to become a primary years coordinator for the PYP. Because I do workshop leading for the PYP, I do a workshop leading for Compass Education. And I just thought. And my masters is in curriculum coordination. So I’ve been in education at the time like over twenty years. I’m ready. I want to be sharing. A lot of people think, Kate, just relax, just go in and just teach. Just have fun in the classroom. Don’t worry about the what’s going on with the administration. Just relax, enjoy, you know, what you’re doing. But that, as you said in the beginning, which was a perfect description of me, I’m not satisfied. That just wasn’t using my skill set.

Kate: [00:07:48] And I had the opportunity to apply to be a principal, which I hadn’t considered. Maybe a little bit lying, maybe I had considered it in the back of my mind. I have loved it, every single minute of it. I love my job. I think it was the right time.

Kate: [00:08:05] I wanted to do leadership differently. We often talk about child centered leadership or leading with the kids in mind, which is is strong in me. But what’s also strong is having a workplace that is kind to teachers, that is humane and empathetic. And I felt that many times the principal or the head of school or the leader had had a very short time in the classroom and moved straight into leadership and administration. And what that does is there’s some disconnect between what you’re asking teachers to do and what’s really possible for them to complete, which makes the job incredibly difficult.

Kate: [00:08:47] So that’s a little bit about my background. And now I’ve been the PYP Coordinator, Principal, and now I’m the Head of School of the Giving Tree International School in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. And I love it.

Kim: [00:09:00] Tell us a little bit about the program there, because it’s somewhat unique.

Kate: [00:09:03] Yeah, we’ve got um. When I tell people about the school, they’re like Kate, that school’s made for you. So one of the tenets is we’re a home. So we believe that we’re like a home for the kids, a home for the community. And we’re in homes. Like we’re in villas.

Kim: [00:09:24] Oh, OK.

Kate: [00:09:25] Beautiful villas. And another one of our values is that we’re green. And we’re right smack dab in the middle of Phenom Phen with two of the three of our campuses. And we have designed green walls. We’ve grown our own plants to make green walls that we’ve installed.

Kate: [00:09:42] Yeah, a lot of green space to make a jungle in the city, to give kids the experience of the environment even though they’re in the city. There’s also the belief that yoga and mindfulness is very, very important to children. And so even our kids as young as 18 months are doing yoga every week. So I feel that makes us a little bit unique. We also have a vegetarian lunch. Three of the four board of directors have been trained as Kundalini yoga teachers, which I have as well. So we share a kind of similar philosophy about life and education in the school.

Kate: [00:10:20] We’re also affordable, which is amazing. Because it means I’m working with a different clientele than I have at top tier international schools. I wouldn’t say we’re we’re a lower tier school, but we are an affordable school, which changes a lot of what happens behind the scenes. Meaning that we have a different clientele. We have a lot of NGO parents, parents who are here to do good in the country. Not just wealthy upper class and the people with the biggest packages who are working for the biggest companies. So that’s pretty unique. As well as trying to bring in the PYP, the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program. So we’re trying to have the most affordable education, but also the best possible quality of education.

Kim: [00:11:13] Wow. And the ethos of the school sounds very well matched to what you were talking about, desiring to really take care of the teachers’ needs as well.

Kate: [00:11:24] Yes. Although it’s it’s it’s hard because many times that seems to be about packages. And when you’re an affordable school, you can’t offer the biggest package. But there are ways that you can make decisions that are teacher friendly decisions.

Kate: [00:11:40] I’m currently taking a Harvard course called Leading People and we’ve just had a module on psychological safety. And you can make your workplace somewhere where people feel safe and they feel that they are learning and growing and a place where they really want to contribute and want to stay.

Kim: [00:12:00] Which is not all about the package.

Kate: [00:12:03] Exactly.

Kim: [00:12:04] You just have to meet basic needs. But then beyond that, it’s more emotional care that makes people feel valued.

Kate: [00:12:10] Yes.

Kim: [00:12:11] So backtracking a little bit, what can you say about how you were changed as a teacher as a result of having your own kids?

Kate: [00:12:20] Every absolutely everything that I had ever judged that parents had said to me, like “my seven year old is still sleeping in my bed” or “my kids are fighting all the time and they swear at home, I can’t believe they’re good at school.” Anything. Anything a parent had ever said to me, I experienced. So my level of empathy of what parents go through, shot through the roof. So I’m sure it made me a better teacher, but it really exponentially grew my understanding of what it means to be a parent and the difficulties of being a parent.

Kate: [00:13:01] One thing that always surprised me is parents would come in to parent teacher conferences and when I started teaching, I was 22, 23. And the parents were older than I was, late 20s, early 30s. And they would ask me for parenting advice. I would think,

Kim: [00:13:15] Oh.

Kate: [00:13:16] Why would they be asking me? I have no kids. And now I get it. I completely get that you need help. Parenting is difficult. There are no easy answers, and educators are a really good source of information.

Kim: [00:13:34] Yeah, I was talking with another teacher the other day and she was talking about how the parent knows their own kid, but the teacher knows kids and developmental stages and patterns and whatnot. So they are a good resource for understanding from a broader perspective what could be going on.

Kate: [00:13:49] Yeah.

Kim: [00:13:50] Ok, are there any things that parents do that make you nervous?

Kate: [00:13:55] As a head of school, it’s when they start to complain about things without understanding the reasons behind what is happening, and then parents grouping together. I haven’t really had that happen too much, but going online, that was really hard. And to understand the constraints behind why we set up our online program the way we did. And when parents start talking and start complaining and start gathering people around the issue, that can be very difficult.

Kate: [00:14:29] There are many times decisions we make as educators that we are taking input, a lot of input, from research from, say, the CDC or child development. Like the CDC has not just virus advice, but they do have advice on child development and developmental milestones. And we’re taking in a ton of data and making decisions based on that data. And so something that can look like a whim decision that the school just decided to do is actually really well thought out. And I need an opportunity to tell you that if you have questions.

Kate: [00:15:10] So I would like parents to be open minded and come and say, “OK, Kate, you made a decision to have like only 20 minute session Zooms twice a day. Tell me the reasoning behind that.” Or “why do you feel that’s most effective?” When a lot of parents came and said “it’s not effective.” And there’s no opening for communication or for a change of perspective. So I’m already talking to somebody who’s closed down that this doesn’t work.

Kim: [00:15:41] Yeah.

Kate: [00:15:42] And then there’s no real possibility for us to come to a mutual understanding. And I, I find that frequently parents come to me when their minds and decisions are already made up. And so coming to me in a more timely fashion, when you’re starting to go, “I wonder, I wonder why this is the way it is?” That that would help. I think that would help any head of school, any educator, a teacher in the classroom, as well. Is to say, “why do you do this literacy program for an hour a day?” And they would have a reason for that. Might be their choice. It might be the choice of the school or the essential agreement with the staff.

Kim: [00:16:21] Yeah. So it sounds like underneath what you’re saying is it would be good if parents have an underlying assumption that the school is making decisions carefully and that they’re taking a lot of input from outside experts, from inside experts, from teachers in their school, teachers at other schools. They’re taking input from parents. Like they themselves are parents. And they they do speak with parents, even if they didn’t speak with every single parent individually. And that there are a whole lot of puzzle pieces to put together. Whereas it’s natural as a family, you only, you see your own puzzle piece and you want the school to fit you. Totally make sense. Yeah. So it’s just kind of understanding that there’s a whole lot more to the picture going on. And the school has gone through a lot of due diligence before making its decisions.

Kate: [00:17:13] And we can, and we do, like you said, take feedback. But I find it way more conducive to feedback for somebody to come in and say, “I recognize that…” Let’s just take the online learning, for example. I had a parent who was like, “I recognize that you guys, You went online with two days notice. And you had a plan already in place.” Just some acknowledgement and recognition. I think that’s a good way to always start a conversation with the school leader or an educator. To value first what they do, because teachers and educators are usually doing the job out of a love for the profession. We love education. We love kids. It’s our heart. So it can be quite easy to take a criticism personally.

Kate: [00:18:07] So starting the communication with “this is what I value about what you do. However, I’m curious about this decision.” Or “do you have an opening for me to come talk to you about some suggestions? I have some ideas about how the school may improve.” That happens, but that’s more rare. Usually, I think parents don’t want to bother you. There is a level of frustration that is reached before there’s the communication with the school.

Kate: [00:18:37] So the the problem has been going on or whatever the perceived issue, say, online learning not being sufficient. Until the parent comes and goes, “this is not good enough. What are you going to do? This needs to change.” It’s really the wrong timing when you’re at that level of frustration, because as caring, ethical educators, that will hurt. Because we not only took in data, but we’re personally invested in the kids.

Kate: [00:19:09] Yeah, you’ve asked what do I wish people knew about teachers and educators and leaders? We care a whole heck of a lot. We think about… We have dreams about our our students, and dreams about how to do lessons. We are eating dinner and we look at a menu and we think, oh, maybe I can take away that menu and use it in my class, put it in my little restaurant corner for my four year olds. We are constantly working. We are constantly caring about kids. We don’t walk out of school at 3:00, 3:30 or 4:00 and forget the day and go home and make dinner and have fun. No! We work! Even if it doesn’t appear we’re working. Even if we’re out to dinner with you, we’re thinking. In the background there’s a computer, there’s always a software program going on in the back of our minds about how we can do tomorrow better.

Kim: [00:20:05] Absolutely.

Kate: [00:20:06] Or we might be thinking one student that we haven’t reached yet.

Kim: [00:20:10] Yes.

Kate: [00:20:11] Or the child who is just, really needs something different. Maybe it’s something more. And those kids just weigh on your mind. We care so much. So when you talk to us and have a complaint or criticism, it can often hurt and that can often put very caring people on the defensive. It’s a skill to be able to handle difficult people. And often teachers are very caring people and they haven’t developed those more business oriented skills of handling difficult conversations.

Kim: [00:20:46] Yeah, they have enormous skill handling a classroom. Which is definitely not my area of expertise. And I get completely out of my element and I just throw up my hands when I’m with a group of other people’s kids because they don’t respond to me the way my kids respond to man. So I completely respect what teachers do in the classroom. And it’s a skill set that they develop through hours and hours of interactions. But interacting with parents, as you say, is kind of few and far between. So you don’t have as much opportunity to perfect all of that.

Kate: [00:21:18] Exactly.

Kim: [00:21:21] I am hopeful. I hope that one of the things that comes out of the pandemic, a positive, is that parents the world over have a new appreciation for what teachers do and how hard the job is and the complexities and the the ins and outs. Like it’s just so far beyond what parents typically understand unless they are teachers themselves. So I’m hoping that that will open more empathy and understanding and appreciation as schools go back to normal at some point.

Kate: [00:21:53] I agree. One hundred percent. That is my hope that teachers and schools are seen as essential workplaces and essential workers. And the way we frame talk about teachers and education changes. Because there’s been a lot of blame. Like the teachers aren’t good enough. There needs to be this direct instruction. Or schools aren’t doing their jobs. And I don’t think not valuing, or undervaluing schools, is going to help get you to a point where student outcomes are better.

Kim: [00:22:28] Yeah.

Kate: [00:22:29] And we need to realize the job that teachers are doing has expanded in a way that it’s almost impossible to do all parts well. The average teacher is doing curriculum coordination. They are a psychologist working with parents. Parents may be sick or dying, or children may be going through a family of divorce, or anxiety from a big move. We have to have a really good understanding of child psychology. With the pandemic we have to be really understanding of health, hygiene standards, understanding the virus, understanding how it spreads. And I know some people would say, well, everybody needs to know that, but educators really need to know it, and understand it, and enforce it, and stay current with the news.

Kate: [00:23:21] The amount of work it is to be mentally present for the kids in your classroom, sometimes 25, 32, you are mentally present for. And you know all of their stories and all of their histories and their families. And when you go into a job and you go into your office and the door is closed and it’s just you, it’s a completely different level of mental.

Kim: [00:23:48] Stamina.

Kate: [00:23:49] Like the amount of energy you have to expend. Really being present for kids and not thinking about yourself or what you…. That’s the one thing that amazed me as a teacher. You go in for the day, you start the day, and it’s like the rest of your day, you’re not thinking about what you’re making for dinner. You’re not thinking about your dying aunt. You are present with the kids. And then three o’clock comes and it’s like, phew, back to life. And that whole entire day has gone by. And you have been focusing on those 25 kids.

Kim: [00:24:23] Yeah, it’s pretty intense. What are some good ways for parents to show appreciation? I mean, many parents do hugely value what schools and teachers do. And some of us are coming to understand the value even more during this particular period in time. What are some of the ways that you most appreciate, or things that you have seen that have been wonderful ways to show appreciation?

Kate: [00:24:47] I’m going to answer your question, but in a circuitous route.

Kim: [00:24:50] OK.

Kate: [00:24:50] So I think that creating relationships is really important. And so if you create a relationship with your child’s teacher, with your child’s head of school, anyone that works with your child, if you create a relationship, it’s going to provide the soil to grow that appreciation. Because if you don’t know your child’s teacher or educator and you send them a thank you note, it doesn’t necessarily come off as authentic or appreciative. The times where I’ve felt the most appreciated are people that I have really strong relationships from. They haven’t just told me once, like, “oh my gosh, thank you. You were the most amazing teacher.” They’ve been in the classroom, and they’ve seen what I’ve done. Or they say something specific, like “we really feel like our daughter learned to speak English because she was in your grade two class.” Something that they really paid attention to, or “the relationship you’ve created with my child has been amazing. They come home and say, I can’t do that. Miss Kate said plastic is bad” or something.

Kim: [00:26:02] This is a very special thing about elementary school teachers. You know, you have much more authority than the parents sometimes.

Kate: [00:26:08] Yes. Yeah. So I think what needs to happen for appreciation to really be shown is care about the teacher, notice what they’re doing and give appreciation that is specific.

Kim: [00:26:23] That’s helpful. Thanks.

Kim: [00:26:25] Is there anything you would like to say about boundaries between school and the rest of the community, especially for those of us living in kind of an expat bubble, maybe you run into each other at social events outside of school? Or anything around that that you would like to make note of?

Kate: [00:26:43] I think it really goes with the relationship building. My stance has really changed on this due to the pandemic. In the two previous years that I’ve been principal and leader of the school, I had not given out my personal phone number. I thought that was a boundary I should hold, that my phone number was my private phone number. And I found myself during this pandemic saying, “Contact me. Here is my phone number.”

Kate: [00:27:08] What my new boundary is, is I would prefer you not to straight ring me, but send me a message and say, send me a message on telegram or WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat, whatever. You can send me a message and then say, I need to talk to you about this. Can you ring me? Or we can communicate by chat.

Kate: [00:27:30] The boundaries need to be worked out with the individual teacher or head of school because everyone, I think feels differently about where their boundaries lie. Some people thrive on that interaction.

Kate: [00:27:44] I was just at a dog park and there were previous parents from Northbridge and their student. And if they felt they couldn’t come up and give me a hug and say hi, I would feel so sad. That would feel very weird. But another teacher would not want that sort of interaction. So that’s where I think if you really know your teachers and your school leaders, it helps you to understand. And parents, [ask] “do you take phone calls? Do you give out your personal phone number or is there a school phone number? How do you like to be contacted? If I see you in the park should I come say hi or should I leave you to your family?” I think there’s no clear answer for school leaders in general. There’s no one size fits all answer to that question that it’s it’s really about creating relationships and then knowing and understanding who that person is.

Kim: [00:28:35] Yeah, good. We talked a bit about when parents have a concern, you made a great suggestion to come in sooner, while you’re still formulating, before you’ve decided. Try to come in with a little bit more openness and get the school’s side of things as well. When a parent feels that they need to advocate for their own child to a greater extent. What are some ways that they can do that and be very effectively advocating for their own child, while at the same time giving space for the fact that there are a number of other children in the same class? The school has certain limitations on what they can and can’t provide support for.

Kate: [00:29:17] So I think there are questions. I don’t think I have a perfect answer for this, but I do think there are some questions parents can ask. “Is what I’m about to go forward in advocating for my child realistic?” OK, I can think of a time in that my first job where I had a parent who had a student that was blind and some of her requests, I felt were unrealistic. And what I asked, is I said, can you come into the classroom and we can work together on trying to implement some of your suggestions? And that way you’re going to see kind of the spatial limitations and the limitations of the school facilities and the buildings and the way the kids interact. And after two days in the classroom, she decided to withdraw her her student. This was from a public school. And put him into a school that was that specialized in children who are blind. Because it was through that example of inviting her into the classroom, that she learned that I had limitations and that some things I could change and some things I couldn’t.

Kate: [00:30:28] That’s the other side of it. As an educator and as a leader, I like to invite parents in so they can see so that they can really understand. Because it requires understanding to see there are some things we can change and there’s some things we can’t change. So I think it goes back again to that open mindedness. Because if you come in demanding, let’s say a parent is demanding that their child be moved to another class. My child’s in grade 4A and I want them in grade 4B. Well, they might not understand that there are all sorts of factors that went into the child’s placement and that one move could affect all the dominoes. And there might be a parent on the other side that has said, I don’t want my child with this child.

Kate: [00:31:20] So there’s always a bigger picture behind the decisions being made. So a good thing to do is: “what is the real problem?” So let’s just take the case with that and talk about why is it that you want your child to move from class A to class B? What is the real reason? Is that because they’re not learning? Is that because of socialization? Is it because of the class schedule? A lot of times the perceived solutions may or may not be a solution that actually solves the problem.

Kate: [00:31:52] Parents can kind of ask themselves, is what I’m saying reasonable? Is it reasonable for me to ask for my child to move classes? Ok, say yes. Yes, it’s reasonable. OK, is there more information that the school may have that I don’t understand? So let me gather some information. (And Kim, I feel like this is describing you. I feel like you would do this exact, you would say what what’s the information? Why is this decision?) Just inquire into it. And then, how can I partner with the school to see if what I’m thinking is the solution is really the solution. Let’s get down to the bottom of the problem. Sometimes parents don’t like a teacher, but it doesn’t mean that the child isn’t getting a good education in the classroom. So is it, is it your relationship with the teacher that we need to work on instead of moving the child? Like, let’s look at what’s best for the kids first.

Kim: [00:32:52] Are there things that you see parents frequently think that the school or the teacher has control over, that the parents expect they can change that actually are beyond control of the teacher or the administrator?

Kate: [00:33:06] The way curriculum is delivered. Parents often think they know best how something like how reading should be taught, or how online learning should be. We had many people come in and say, I want it to be exactly like school. So I want them to turn the computer on at eight o’clock and log off at three thirty. Not thinking that maybe that doesn’t fit screen time or maybe that doesn’t give kids an opportunity to actually do any work.

Kate: [00:33:37] Oftentimes I feel parents are judgmental of the way curriculum is presented. In an Asian context, like the one I’ve been teaching in for many years, a lot of parents want a very traditional education. So when they come to our school, they’re like, where are the workbooks? Because they see learning is writing in a physical workbook. And so for us, that’s not an option for a teacher to say, I want to buy workbooks for my kids to work in. We are a PYP school and we learn through doing. We learn through inquiry. We learn through talking about concepts. We are not a workbook based school, so that’s not a choice a teacher can make.

Kate: [00:34:18] But to answer your question, like broadly, I think that would transfer whether it was a PYP, MYP, or DP, meaning elementary, middle school or high school. Parents often feel because they went to school themselves, that they know how best something is taught.

Kim: [00:34:37] So I asked you how becoming a parent changed your experience as a teacher. And how did becoming an administrator change your perception of teachers or schools or parents?

Kate: [00:34:49] So the biggest change is looking back on myself as a teacher. And I don’t know if I would want to lead myself. I saw myself as this really positive, proactive, amazing teacher. And I think it has something to do with the fact that you’re alone with yourself and the kids all day. So there’s no comparison, right? And we don’t have annual reviews per say. We have observations, which isn’t like a performance review in a company. And we don’t have to traditionally prove student growth or student numbers or sit down with somebody. So we haven’t been humbled always by the system. I think I was a very cocky teacher. And I can see. I’ve written to one of my principals and said, “I am sorry.” I put you through the wringer. And I thought I could do your job better than you were doing it. And, wow, is there so much going on that of course, sometimes you forget about A, B or C because holding the entire picture of what needs to happen in a school, you need other people to partner with you to see those details. So the biggest realization I’ve had is what makes a good teacher.

Kate: [00:36:15] And it’s not just about being good with the kids. It’s being a good teammate. And being really, not just proactive in your classroom, but proactive for the school. The school needs teachers and the teachers need the school. And I think that realization has changed the way I see schools. Schools really need to partner with the teachers. Like it can’t be an admin, us and them. There are so many other parts of life and society that are critical of the school. Whether it’s critical parents or critical state and local governments. You have enough problems like if there’s infighting, it does nothing for student learning.

Kate: [00:37:04] We’re all in it together. We’re really literally all in it together. So I hope to inspire teachers to be more understanding of leaders. Like I don’t think that I had it in my heart that that job is as difficult. You tend to think like I’m in class all day with the kids and I can see the principal and she’s just having a meeting with coffee. Or they get to leave for lunch. And you judge based on perceived opinions about somebody else’s workload, which is completely untrue.

Kim: [00:37:40] Yeah, I would say my experience over the past year, it’s like it’s analogous to parents seeing their own puzzle piece and not necessarily understanding all the input that’s coming in, when the school makes a decision. And now I see we went many, many years from a teacher’s perspective and now from an administrative perspective, wow, there are a lot more puzzle pieces behind the scenes then. And you don’t actually want the teachers to know everything. Because they don’t need to. They have a very intense job. They’re very busy. You want them to stay focused on what they do best and they don’t need to be worried about all these other things. But there’s a whole lot more going on behind the scenes. So, yeah.

Kate: [00:38:20] And sometimes they could be told or sometimes they can’t. You can literally not share information. So there’s a whole bunch of pieces of that puzzle you’re talking about that teachers are missing. And then sometimes it’s like you said, it’s protecting the teachers, but they don’t need this level of stress to know A, B or C about the government or about finances. It’s just, it won’t help anyone for that to happen.

Kate: [00:38:50] And one question I have that I I’d be really interested in pursuing further is: how do we get teachers to focus more on what they do in the classroom rather than judging the admin. What does it look like in a school where the teachers and the admin are so, such a seamless team, that the admin trust the teachers to do the teaching and the teachers trust the admin to do the leading. Because I feel in most of my schools there’s been this distrust. Admin distrusting teachers. Are they really doing their job? And then the teachers saying they’re not thinking of this, that. Our job’s too hard. We do too much.

Kate: [00:39:34] And that’s what I’m inquiring into, is how can we create an environment of relational trust and psychological safety. So that we all trust that everyone is working equally hard and doing their job. And that being judgmental, there really isn’t space for that kind of critique.

Kim: [00:39:54] Yeah, and I think, again, similar to what you were saying, when maybe a parent approaches a teacher with a concern, they might take it personally. They might take it more personally than they needed to. I think it goes the other way as well. I think in a lot of cases, admin is not distrustful of their teachers. They do hugely value what they do. But teachers might take it personally and perceive distrust.

Kate: [00:40:16] Yes. Or then criticize the other way. They don’t even know what they’re doing. They haven’t been through my classroom in a week. And you’re like, You don’t know how hard it is to get to every classroom in a week, on three campuses. Yeah. So I think trust building, I really feel that it comes down to relationships.

Kate: [00:40:35] I think relationships are hugely important in schools and creating good teacher administration relationships helps that. Then you understand your teachers. It’s just like we tell our teachers, know your kids, administrators need to know their teachers.

Kim: [00:40:51] Yeah.

Kim: [00:40:52] Is there anything else you would like to add when you think about what you wish families knew and how to be good partners with our schools?

Kate: [00:41:00] Building a strong relationship is just so key because it offers that communication and understanding. And especially in international schools, because we come from different cultures, right? And so somebody can be really blunt or somebody can be beating around the bush. So if you have a really strong relationship with a person, you start to understand more of their culture and what they’re trying to tell you.

Kate: [00:41:27] And then it goes back to your boundaries thing. Like I frequently tell people, if you’re trying to get a message across to me and I don’t seem to be getting it, like just, I give you permission to be very direct and blunt with me. Because I realized as an American, I’m quite direct and quite blunt. And I don’t always. I can sit there with a parent or a teacher and I’m listening and I’m listening and I’m listening. And I’m like, I think they’re saying something that they’re not really saying, but I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re saying. So if you create a relationship where you can know the boundaries and know and learn a method of communication that really works for that person. And the other thing I already said was just really try to always value what you see and what you like. I remember hearing this about marriage that you should say like five times as many positive things for the one negative that you say. And I think that would really apply to the relationship between parents and teachers.

Kate: [00:42:30] We so rarely get positive feedback that it goes such a long way. And if we know you really care and notice what we do, it’s going to be a lot easier to work with you when things aren’t going well.

Kate: [00:42:47] Again, just reiterating what we talked about. Come early and come often. Don’t wait till you’re completely disheartened and frustrated. You know, let us know, I’m kind of thinking this is going on. But can you explain? And I think recognizing. A lot of people have said to me, and it’s so helpful, I recognize that you are in a tough position with the government not allowing schools to open and not mentioning what dates and when, and that automatically….

Kim: [00:43:19] It just softens.

Kate: [00:43:20] It softens. Yeah. We want as educators, we want people to know how much we care, how much we love the kids and we love teaching. We love seeing them grow. That’s what we want. And ultimately we share the same goal.

Kim: [00:43:35] Yeah, yeah. You brought up something that I think is particular to international schools with the multicultural communications, and that just adds a whole nother layer to navigating, Ok, maybe I have this question or complaint about something happening at the school. And the way I approach it from my cultural background might clash with the teacher or the administrator that I’m communicating with in this moment, and can kind of take it off in a different tangent or result in inaction or result in hurt feelings or. All these different reactions can happen just from that multicultural intercultural communications. And that’s that’s, again, something that comes only through experience. It’s not something that teachers are born with or it doesn’t come in teacher training. It comes through real life practice and experience.

Kim: [00:44:26] Yes. And there’s a very good book on that. And it’s called The Culture Map. Yeah, I only wish it had more information on Cambodia.

Kim: [00:44:34] Yeah.

Kate: [00:44:34] But it’s still a good read and I highly recommend it.

Kim: [00:44:39] You mentioned yoga. What do you like to do for fun when you’re able to turn off that computer and your brain that’s always constantly processing school and work.

Kate: [00:44:49] I think you know this. I love learning languages, so I love being able to speak Thai, speak my speak Spanish. So language learning is something like if I had time, wow. That would be. Like I have apps on my phone and I try. I love going out and talking to the people in the alley and saying, “Soksaby. Lia haeuy.” That goes with learning culture because when you learn a new language, you learn more about culture. I’ve started to ask people even in English, have you eaten? Like have you eaten yet? And it’s like Alanna, when my daughter was small and she would say, Where are you going? Where are you going? That would be like, hi, how are you? But it’s because in Thai, and they would say bai ti nai.

Kim: [00:45:38] Where have you been?

Kate: [00:45:40] That really excites me. Learning really excites me. I love, you know, I’m taking this Halvard course on leading people. So learning. I really don’t stop learning. And then doing awesome things with the kids and providing my own children with experiences. I recently took them on vacation and they got to do a camp at the sailing club in Kep. Which many people might not know, that Cambodia has amazing beaches. Beaches that are probably similar to what Thailand was like 20, 30 years ago.

Kim: [00:46:15] Oh, wow.

Kate: [00:46:16] Gorgeous. And so one of the places we like to go is called Kep. And it was, I think in the 50s and 60s, the playground of the wealthy Khmer. And a Khmer is the word for a Cambodian person. And the foreign elite as well. And then it was completely destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. And the kids went in the sailing club and they canoed and they did paddleboarding and sailing. And getting my kids excited about doing new experience, having new experiences. It’s all about, learning. My life is learning. And if it were not covid right now, my answer would be travel, but travel. Like I love traveling and learning languages, having new experiences, eating new food.

Kim: [00:47:10] Yes. Well, for those of you who can’t see Kate, she’s beaming, as I said. This has been a real pleasure. I appreciate having you come and you just always bring a lot to every conversation. So thank you for spending some time with us today.

Kate: [00:47:25] Yeah, I hope it was beneficial to your listeners.

Yes, really helpful Kate. You’ve given us lots to consider, good perspective and some great nuggets.

And we’ve only just scratched the surface. 

Kate mentioned in passing that she leads workshops for Compass Education, and that’s a topic near and dear to my heart that we’re definitely going to come back to. Compass Education is all about sustainability – in schools – and systems thinking, all the way from the way an individual lesson is approached and delivered and experienced, to how entire units and interdisciplinary projects are conceived and carried out, all the way to how the school itself functions – from the way buildings are designed, to how hiring and staffing decisions are made, to how the school networks with other organizations in the community. Whether we hear from Kate or someone else from Compass, we’ll get into a full discussion in a later episode.

In the next episode I’m talking with another international school teacher. Also someone who’s spent most of her time in primary grades. But what I love is that even though I started both of these interviews with essentially the same set of questions, the way the conversation went, we really covered different ground. So definitely tune in next time for some more perspectives that all families need to hear. 

At the moment I’m publishing every other Monday. So The next episode will release on August 31.

And maybe this conversation has brought up some questions in your mind, things you’d love to ask your schools or teachers. Send me those questions so I can include them in future interviews. I’ll definitely be coming back around to this topic again.