Hey, everybody. I'm Doug and that's Connor and
this. Is the Bethel School district presents podcast.
Today, we're talking about careers in education, a
program at our high schools that is getting
students ready to become teachers in the future.
It's fantastic, and we'll check that interview out
in just a little bit but Connor. I
thought we would kick things off with a
little trivia contest.
We have each prepared 3 trivia questions that
the other knows nothing about, and we're gonna
share them right now on the air our
audience can play along at home, and I
don't know what the winner gets. You have
any thoughts? No. But I do know that
we're both actually pretty decent at trivia. I
know that because we were on a pub
trivia team once and we won. That is
true. So we got no credit for it,
but we did win. And no prize. That
definitely went to somebody else. Someone else took
credit and the enterprise, but we had the
pride of knowing. It was a job well
done. So it will be this is 2
champions facing off.
I'd came up with 3 good ones for
you, so I don't know. I think I
might stump you on at least 1 of
them. I think you might, but I'm gonna
come out swinging, and this is the trivia
question. That I just came up with on
my own. I didn't know the, but it
was just a piece of trivia. I did
not know, and it got me thinking that
maybe we should try this out.
What?
Is missus claus
first name.
Missus claus. First name. I feel like this
should be very easy, but nothing is coming
to. To be clear, we're talking about Santa
Claus wife. Boy.
I'm Cindy Claus. I'm I'm gonna go Cindy
claus. Cindy Claus. That's... Alright. Alright. That's wrong,
but
I actually had 2 names. I was going
to accept. Now my source on this is
snow dot com because there's a lot of
speculation about Santa Claus wife's actual name. If
you wanna go back to the earliest 1
I found. It's 18 49 in a book
Her name is Ge gertrude.
And the latest 1 I was gonna take
is from 19 70. Of course, there's been
a ton of movie since then featuring Santa
claus. And so there are many of those
were his wife has a different name. But
in 19 seventies Santa Claus is coming to
town. You've seen it, the Clay nation classic.
Her name is Jessica.
I
disagree.
I think it's Cindy. I'm giving myself a
point.
I would have also taken Mary or Carol
as a as So basically, there is no
answer, But good. We're well, let's move on.
And I picked 3 questions, 2 of which
are right up your alley.
1 of them because you're a bit of
a bird. Correct? That is very true. So
this 1 has to do with birds. I'm
gonna just hit you with it.
What? Do you call a group of Flaming?
That's a real good when I was hoping
you're Crow, which everybody knows is a murder,
a flock of Seagull was a haircut in
the eighties Flaming.
I'm gonna go with an order of flaming.
That is a decent guess. I'm gonna give
you a c minus for guessing.
Obviously wrong.
But I love this answer. It's a fl.
A fl of Flaming, which is perfect. Right?
It is perfect. It makes sense. Okay. My
second trivia question for you our third trivia
question overall if you're keeping score at home.
Rosa parks
was in which of these famous Tv shows.
A, highway to heaven.
B
touched by an angel.
See
little house on the prairie.
Wow.
I'm going d, none of the above. This
is a trick question to make me look
like an idiot.
Boy, it
for some reason,
I can picture her with Michael Land and
so I'm going highway to Heaven.
I've love that picture. It's wrong. She was
on touch by an angel. Oh, that was
my second choice. Her I d is very
interesting with that as an outlier in there.
Alright. My second 1 isn't even more up
your alley. You are a devout swift.
So if you don't get this 1, they
are going to revoke your membership. Okay. This
should be very easy. What was Taylor Swift
very first song to chart on the billboard
hot 100.
Your I'm gonna just have to say Tim
Mcgraw right off the bat.
Correct Moon. I thought so. See. I thought
maybe a trick question. Maybe there's something that
chart, like, 98 or something like, No. That
definitely her first. You get to keep your
membership for 1 more year. That that titles
you to membership for another year. Final question
from me, something which came first and you
were of age when these 3 things came
about? Which 1 came out first,
Youtube,
Facebook
or Twitter.
K. I know it was in Twitter, so
we'll take that right off the bat. So
now we're 50 50.
Youtube or Facebook. I wanna say Facebook came
out in 2004.
I feel like it's probably close, but I'm
gonna say Facebook came first. You are correct.
Nicely done. We're gonna keep your Facebook account
active.
Facebook it, 2004,
Youtube 2005
Twitter 2006.
Wow. So I should get 3 points for
that actually, because it... I would give you
a bonus point knowing the actual year. That
was seen the social network a few too
many times. I love that movie.
Okay, Doug. Last 1. This 1 as far
as I know is not right up your
alley, but you've That's okay. They don't all
have to be.
Which popular condiment was once sold as a
medicinal cure. For diarrhea.
There's no multiple choice? No. No. Oh, boy.
Just think... I mean, multiple choices think of
all the popular condiments out there and pick
1 of them. So I'm only thinking mayonnaise
mustard ketchup and
think I'm gonna throw horse rat in because
I feel like that might be the answer,
but I'm gonna say mustard.
Boy, you are close. It is ketchup.
Really? It is indeed ketchup up. Isn't that
odd. I feel like it is,
but
you gotta trust the good people at
Internet.
They do seem to know a lot of
things. I learn a lot of things from
the Internet. And you got some medical advice
very free medical advice
if you need it. Thankfully here in our
district, we are very happy that students aren't
just learning things off the Internet. They have
qualified
amazing teachers that are helping them learn in
class. And we also have a class called
careers.
In education. Yes. We do. And that is
where our students are learning to become teachers
themselves. And Doug, you sat down with 1
of our amazing careers and education teachers.
I'm sitting down with spelling league high school's
careers and education teacher Jenna Wallace, and 1
of our former students Tara Wong. Ladies, thanks
for joining us. Thank you for having us.
Excited to be here. Jenna, I'm gonna start
with you. A lot of people say teaching
is a calling. It's not just a job.
You know, a 9 to 5 punch in
punch out kinda job, what first got you
interested in being a teacher. My mom was
a classified employee in the Bethel school district
for a long time. Like she worked in
schools. She also was Asp secretary at 1
of the middle schools,
and then went over to work in payroll
and worked... Through preschool,
like a clerk. So school's always been a
place I've been. I have 2 aunts who
our teachers as well. So it's just kind
of in my in my blood, I guess.
Now you're a teacher, teaching, possibly future teachers.
What's does that mean to you? It's exciting,
just I have students like Tara, who's with
me today that I get be around and
see their excitement when they go into classrooms
and see that light bulb go off with
students and just see how they help create
a healthy learning community in those classrooms just
makes my heart blow up. Tara for you,
what was it that that made you wanna
start looking at teaching as a career. And
what made me interested in teaching was wanting
to be someone's miss Wallace,
super boost street eco, but to and sharing
many students
that have a reliable adult at all times
is much needed. That's amazing.
How's does that make you feel?
Makes you wanna cry when she says that?
Because tears is a special student and she
really just jumped in? Into this class last
year as a junior,
you take it as a junior or senior
and she just jumped in and I... Threw
Covid. I actually had her right when we
went out in Covid,
missed that last week together when we went
out in March in that trimester, and then
I got her back for Child Development 2,
and we were in just a little side
zoom
session. I did little mini conferences with students,
and I told I was like, tara I
have this class called curves and Ed for
you'd be great. Like, your your assignments have
been great through child development 2. The second
class. Like, I really could see you working
with people, and she just kinda Oh, yeah.
Maybe maybe I would wanna be a teacher.
Maybe, you know, when she she's, like, somebody
else told me that too and I said
I just see, like, how much you care
and how much effort you put into it.
And there she was. Junior year. So it's
awesome. Careers Education is offered at all 3
of our comprehensive high schools here at Span
way Lake at Grand High school and Bethel
High school.
Jenna, can you give me an overview of
the careers education class what are students learning?
Sure. We look at 6 different pillars, so
ranging from college app. Access. So especially for
students like the month of October, Fa opens.
We need to get, look at college application
deadlines, so that's 1 of ours.
We start off with healthy learning, how students
need to feel safe and comfortable in their
environments and how we set that up. We're
also gonna look at equity and opportunity for
students, synergies in inequities equities in education.
Also, they do an internship, so they'll spend
about 4 months, 3 to 4 days a
week, with,
elementary teacher, usually, some... If we get middle
schools, that's great too, but it's a little
bit hard with the scheduling, and they work
with a mentor, and they have weekly activities
that they're kinda of focusing on, like, they'll
focus on how they communicate with parents and
how teachers handle discipline, how they do use
technology. So basically all these
d justification of education things that we do
to help them see if this is really
something they wanna go into. I think that's
really important because a lot of people have
that's sage on the stage thought of teaching
just someone standing in front of a room,
just lecturing all day. That's not what education
is at all. Terror for you before you
took this class, what were your thoughts on
teaching teaching. I mean, you've been a student
your whole life? What what were your thoughts
coming into the class? Well, I didn't know
it to spec. 1 thing I learned and
that was very I was the different types
of waste students learn.
Every student in all classrooms have a preference
on how they personally understand the curriculum being
taught. For example 1 thing we learned from
as well was that there's visual learners, and
then there's others that are physical learners, and
then there's a whole bunch more audio learners,
you know. And it was... Eye opening for
sure because then it also let me know
that I wasn't, like, I didn't feel so
bad about myself when learning the stuff, just
knowing that there's just different ways it could
be taught. You know, every anybody he can
learn in all of those ways. You might
have a preferred style, But just... So a
teacher just doesn't give direct and instruct, and
a teacher has activities. They do dialogues. They
do engagement activities where maybe you discuss where
you write it, Maybe you discuss out loud.
So maybe you go outside and you look
at nature, you know, you can do math
in different ways. So just finding ways to
have a variety in your teaching. So... And
that's 1 thing that our districts pushing for
is universal deadline for learning is having multiple
ways for kids to show
their learning of a standard So Tariff for
you is an eye opening experiences class.
Jennifer you, what's something you teach that would
surprise most people? We talk a lot about
in inequities equities and education and looking at
the students actually pick a topic, and they
have to do a presentation on something they
feel an educational issue. And so
we brainstorm issues. They... Looked at, maybe, like,
the start time for school, they looked at,
you know, why are certain people suspended more
often,
also looking at privilege and how that's impacted
education and how we look at the brain
and how important it is that we target,
you know, hit different places and make people
feel comfortable. So it's kinda fun when they
get to... And see what an equities are
out there and giving them access to do
a presentation and convince us
about those things, so that's fun for me.
See that maybe people don't know that we're
doing that, giving them the opportunity to see,
like, what's maybe wrong with education and how
can we help it. So we can get
more teachers in, and we get more students
meeting standard and get more students graduating and
joining the workforce, and that's a big thing
I think people don't understand about the course.
You for sure and about teaching too. I
mean, it's an ever evolving. You know, we
didn't figure teaching out a hundred years ago,
and it's been mastered. It evolves with the
times and and the things in the ways
that we need to teach people. A lot
of our Ct classes have a hands on
component to them Careers education has that internship,
terra for you, how does this class compare
to other classes that you took care its
Emily lake. This class definitely was the class
that would be the highlight of your day.
Even on days when you didn't feel your
best, knowing that young kids were watching. The
clock like a hawk waiting for you to
walk through that door was like the biggest
daily welcome, and it would change her mid
instantly, of course. Reaching the biggest motivation to
intern was definitely the students? Like, by far
the students? Where did you do your internship
And what grade were you teaching? I was
at Chemistry Perry Elementary and I was intern
for Kindergarten. Oh, my gosh. That's that's had
to be the highlight of I'm sure it
was a highlight of their day. It had
to be a highlight for you too. That's
so fun. Jennifer, do you have any students
that have gone on to become teachers? This
is the
start of our fifth year of the course.
All students actually, at the end of the
year. Take the para pro exam, which will
give them
opportunity to come back to the district and
work as an assistant maybe through college or,
you know, possibly,
give them a leg up, I guess, getting
an interview on the district. So I have
some students, 1 who's a pair right now
at Cedar Cross Middle school, and some others
that are dillon college, some that decided education
wasn't for them, and they said I'm out
of here. I... A lot of times compete
with people who are in the medical field,
so they wanna do service type related jobs.
So it really depends we'll see where it
goes. This year, the enrollment has almost doubled
for my classes.
Lake. So that just gives more opportunity,
and we had doctor. Lan come in and
talk to our students and told them all
he wants them to come back and work
in Bethel, hopefully. Ban as teachers. So that's
my goal is to get more back into
this profession and kinda grow our own. I
love that we have classes like this here
in the Bethel School district. When I was
in school, it was mass science in English
Just what you needed to graduate. I didn't
really have a chance to explore different careers.
And well, I worked at Wendy's after school.
I guess that's a career exploration of of
some sort. But I love that we have
these options journeys. Like you said, for kids
to find out what they wanna do or
what they don't wanna do both are equally
important in our career and technical education classroom
messes are a great example of how we're
doing that here. General wallace, T Wong. Thank
you both so much for joining us today
to talk about Careers years in education. Thank
you. Thank you. It was fun.
Wow, great interview, doug, Love hearing from our
students as well, and that's do it for
us this week. We will be back same
time next week. See you then.
Gonna