Teacher Appreciation: Teachers Who Shaped My Future | Ep. 98

T.D. Flenaugh celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week by highlighting four influential teachers who shaped her life. She praises Mr. Beu for instilling potential and honesty, Ms. Nelson for treating students as scholars and preparing her for college, Ms. Coerr for fostering a love for nature and journaling, and Ms. Byler for her meticulous editing of scholarship essays and introducing her to Zora Neale Hurston. Flenaugh emphasizes the importance of teachers in preparing students for life and encourages parents to support their children's education. 

Transcript

TD Flenaugh: 0:03

Teachers. Oh, I'm live and there's something extra in the back. I wanted to... Much better OK. So today is the end of Teacher Appreciation Week, and I have been a teacher for quite a while, but today is more story of time about the teachers that helpedshape my future. And so you don't want to miss this episode, because I'll also be giving you tips on how to spot a good teacher and how to you know work well with a teacher to help shape your children's future. Stick around good stuff. Hi. Thank you so much for joining joining us. I am TD Flenaugh, we have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources strategies and sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on success. Hey, hopefully it's all good in the hood. I have heard a little crackling. I hope we don't have any technical issues, but thanks so much for joining us. This is episode 98 of the falling for learning podcast in the end of its second season. Big things happening. I'm on deadline to take care of some big things, and so I will let you know about that in the near future. But so that's why I'm going live today, because I'm getting it done even when I'm feeling tired. Because, of course, I want to shout out to my teachers. I'm going to talk about four specific teachers that are, you know, really stand out now I've have a lot of teachers. I would say that most of my teachers are were like, really great teachers, but there's four that I'm going to talk about today that were really amazing and really deserve a lot of credit, as far as shaping some of the things that I am even doing to this day. So the first teacher that I want to talk about is my second grade teacher, Mr. Bu I feel like you, if you've been following me, you've heard about him before. We are Facebook friends, and maybe one day, he'll grace us with his presence on my podcast, we'll see. But he was such a great teacher. One thing that he always taught you know, every day we talked about potential, like we have the inside of us, the ability to do whatever we want it to do. And so he really talked to us about our future. He really gave us time just to talk, just ask questions about whatever we wanted to ask questions about. And he talked to us, you know, on a range of things about real life. During that year, my grandfather had passed away, my my father's father, and I hadn't met him, but my dad was obviously very sad, and I told him about it, and I don't know how soon after or before he read this book called The fall of Freddie the leaf. And it was a book about death, but it was about how everyone dies. Everything dies. And there was a leaf on a tree named Freddie, and, you know, he had, you know, over time, prepared to die, just like other leaves had had died because of the seasons and all of that, just like the cycle and the circle of life. So he really, you know, was really good about teaching us, just like being honest with us about different things and talking to us about whatever we wanted to talk to him about. And so, you know, that was mister Bucha. He was really about that later on in the school year. He also started talking to us every day about unique, by us being each one of us being different and and we have gifts that are unique to us, that only we have. And, you know, using our potential to do whatever we want to do is really important. So putting those two things together really helped me to, you know, have perspective about who I was and who I could be, and believe in that ability, right? And my ability to to make things happen, to get work done. And to focus in on what I want to happen in my life. So Mister BU is, you know, really just stands out to me. I'm still in contact with him, like he even came, you know, and took me off to dinner my family for my 40th birthday. He also came before that too. He came to California, he came to our house, and my husband probably is the one who cooked dinner, but he wasn't my husband at the time, but later on, of course, he became my husband. But so it, you know, so so many great memories just to stay in contact with him. Yeah. So you know, those are just some things, like, really, not always sticking straight to the curriculum, but being very good about exploration for us, right? And if you are teaching your kids at home, that's also something you should be thinking about, is exploration, you know, really letting the kids drive, sometimes the things that you're talking about and studying is really important. The second teacher that I wanted to talk about, and I've talked about her a lot as well, is Miss Nelson. Miss Nelson was my fourth grade teacher, and I actually didn't know that she was black. She was very light skinned, light complexion, and but she was really a great teacher. She was really serious. And when I was in fourth grade, that was the year, you know, that we had some separation in my family from, you know, my mother and but what really stood out to me is just how she treated us, like scholars, like school was important and we were important and we could do these important things. And that's what it really got to me about her now, in in my district, often kids read To Kill a Mockingbird in eighth grade or ninth grade, maybe seventh grade, but when I was in fourth grade, we read To Kill a Mockingbird. Now we were the highest reading group, but that's what we read, and I just really feel like that's when, actually, when I found out about her being black, because she was telling us about how she had was passing and a swimming pool, and one of the kids when the white boys in the neighborhood was saying, you know, she's black, and then so she couldn't go to that swimming pool anymore, and so she was telling this story, like, in the middle of, you know, in class. And in the middle of class, I was like, Well, wait a minute, are you saying you're black, you know? And she's like, Yeah. Like, what did you think I was and I was like, I hadn't thought about it. I hadn't thought about our race. I didn't know that she was black. There was another black boy in the class, and Frank, he was sad that he thought she was, like, Asian. But you know how when you're that age, you just say Chinese or whatever, because there wasn't a lot of diversity in Alaska, right? So, you know, we were the two black kids, and then we didn't even know we had a black teacher. So, and we didn't discuss this, neither Frank court and I did not discuss like we had a black teacher, but I was just very surprised and and obviously the rest of the class realized I was very surprised too, and maybe they didn't know either. I have no idea what they thought, because I was just surprised. But I was very well acquainted with Ms. Nelson, because I, if you don't know, I'm cold phobic. I am against cold weather. And I did grow up in Alaska, just to tell you, okay, so part of my becoming a teacher, I do attribute to my cold phobia. Okay? I went out for recess. Was supposed to, but I obviously found many ways to help teachers during recess time, and I helped grade papers and help put together bulletin boards and organize things and all of those things. And of course, those skills are still used to this day. And so, you know, I, you know, we talked about a lot of things, and she was very helpful. I remember she even gave me like a hygiene little packet, because I guess I was a little stinky. So there's some information. I was a little embarrassed, but she was all About the business for me. To back things up a little bit, going back to not having that much diversity ... my second grade teacher, Mr. Beu, back to him. I realized when I got in his class I had moved away from Fairbanks, which was, you know, a city in in Alaska, into North Pole, Alaska, which was less diverse, not a bunch of diversity in Fairbanks, but much more than in North Pole. So I was the only black kid in that class, and I was feeling a certain kind of way. So I don't know future nerd or current nerd, forever nerd, whatever. I found a book I, you know, impressed upon my mom that I had to have this book. And I got the book, and it's called, Why are people different? And my teacher read that book to the class. I read it, you know, I wanted him to have it. He said he read the book every year to his class. And Why do I cry on this podcast sometimes, not always, but sometimes. But anyway, when I became a teacher, he sent me the book, and I actually never - didn't remember it until he gave me the book. He sent me this book, and that's when I remembered. But I didn't remember it before then, so I was like, yikes. I don't know who I was in second grade. I mean, a lot was going on. But yes, I just had the forethought, like, I gotta get a book for my teacher, you know. And Why are people different? And it talks about, you know, I think I maybe passed that book on to someone else. But it was a great book, obviously. And it was amazing anyway. Enough of that. Anyway. One other thing about Mr. Beu, he sometimes, if I was having challenges, he would like, come and talk to me, even when I was in Ms. Nelson's class, if he was, like, having music, he was like, let me, you know, I guess Miss Nelson or somebody, would talk to him about my challenges, and he'd like, I would be able to go and talk to Mr. Beu during my, like, little upset times. And that was amazing, you know, like he just kind of followed up with me. One thing that we still laugh about to this day, my mother and I, is that Mr. Beu on my report card. Said, you know, Taiesha is finally learning that she's human and she can make mistakes or something to that effect. So because, if you also know about me, I am a recovering perfectionist, and I was full fledged perfectionist back then, and you know, I would get upset if I missed something on a paper and whatever. So he was, you know, just giving a little report card comment about how I was learning how to accept mistakes. There was many more years of me torturing myself over not trying to make mistakes, but I had some inkling of of getting over it in second grade, little moments, I guess. Back to Ms. Nelson. Ms. Nelson was really good at she really, like, in fourth grade, prepared me for college. Like, how crazy is that? She told me about academic scholarships. And I know I've talked about this on the podcast before, which I only knew about sports scholarships before, Ms. Nelson, but I already did really well in school. Really would get, you know, basically had a little meltdown if I got less than perfect. And so to know that you could get a scholarship for getting good grades was just amazing to me. And of course, you know, that's what I aspired to do from that moment. And of course, that happened. I got an academic scholarship going to college. She taught me the courses to take. She told me the like, you know, to challenge myself with, you know, hard courses, Advanced Math, and I did go all the way to calculus, and when I was a junior in high school, and she also told me about activities to take, and she was like, whatever activities you take, make sure you get leadership roles. Make sure you stay involved with it for four years or more, or two years or more. You know, she really was telling me about what to do in fourth grade, and I remembered those things. She even was specific about give people two weeks ahead of time before your scholarship. You're going to need. She was saying you need, you're going to need. Recommendations and, you know, I'll get into this right after these messages. The R.E.W.R.I.T.E. Method and The R.E.W.R.I.T.E. Method Workbook are your go to resource for helping kids to learn to fall in love with writing, it has the tips, tools, resources, strategies and skill building activities to help kids fall out of writing heat and into loving to write, get your book set today. Okay, so, okay. As far as it came to asking for recommendation letters and recommendations for scholarships, because sometimes it's more than just a letter. They may have a checklist or a rating form for the teacher, so she said, give them two weeks ahead of when it's due. So if it's due on the 15th of June, tell them that you need it by June 1. Ask them two weeks ahead of time. So you're asking them on May 15. And then she said, make sure you write them a thank you letter afterward, right? So these are things that my family wasn't teaching me like she was teaching me these things. And you know, that was amazing now she actually had my sister, who's four years younger than me, so she had my sister. Four years later, I was in eighth grade, headed to high school, and my mother was at the time, doing a beauty Beauty School, cosmetology school, right? So Ms. Nelson would go get her hair done at the cosmetology school. Now this, I think, is like, so like genius, right? Because she did not get her hair done by my mom, right? Because that could be complicated if she doesn't do a good job. Blah, blah, blah, she got done by someone else, and then she went to my mom and talk to me, talk to my mom about me. And was like, what class is she going to get in for high school? She needs to take advanced classes. She told me to take them. But again, that's not all my within my realm of control, a lot of that has to do with parents, right? And in in middle school I was in advanced math. I was taking algebra in as eighth grader, right? And so I had taken pre algebra in seventh grade, algebra as an eighth grader, and I advocated for that was able to do it. So then in high school, I wanted to take, like, Algebra Two or or whatever the sequence is after that. And my mom was telling her, you know, Well her her progress report. She didn't get A. She got a B. They're saying that maybe she needs to take algebra again. And they're like, no, she's they're gonna say that, but she needs to be in the more challenging classes to make sure she's prepared for college and all of that. And she said, so they're going to tell you that, but you make sure you tell them she's going to take it. And of course, I got an A by the by the end, but you know, they make the course decisions before that. And she's like, and I didn't even know this part, like this like an update, because my mom told me maybe, like, I feel like 2020, so not, you know, very recent that she told me like that. Ms. Nelson was like following up, telling her exactly what the school officials were gonna say and what to tell them in response. So she was so amazing. Like, who does that right? And knew not to get her hair done by my mom, because, again, you may not, it may complicate the relationship, but got it done by someone else, and made sure she followed up and talked to her and told her what to say. Because parents, you don't always know what to do to advocate for your kids. You don't know the inner workings. Some parents will try to tell me, they think they know what's going on, and they don't. And they think they know, but they don't. So listen to the teachers, and even though you think it may not make sense, or you've heard how it was before things change, and in a particular school district or a particular area, you don't know how it works. So let the teacher guide you and listen, listen, because they know okay. And so I got into my advanced courses and all of that kind of stuff. And of course, when I went to college, it wasn't a big deal because I had taken challenging I had been taking challenging classes, so every like as I was going through matriculating. Challenging myself. Everything was just a little step up, and I was never overwhelmed. And when I was, well, yeah, I was overwhelmed in calculus, but really that had to do with the teacher. And I'm not going to say her name, but it was the teacher. She was messing up, but I got tutoring because I was a tutor, so I had access to tutors. So anyway, I'm not going to poo poo on the teacher. Okay, but you know, I don't remember her name anyway. But anyway, so I've talked about Ms. Nelson. She also was really helpful about really taking me through the writing process and really taking ownership of the writing process, writing on napkins, writing on Scratch, pieces of paper, when ideas come to you, that's when you write them like you know, when you wake up from a dream, write it down like she was about business when it came to writing and being a scholar, and what it meant to be a scholar and about studying, I mean. And so she taught me so much, and I just really loved her. Really love her for that. She was a serious teacher. So some people so this is what I want to say. Like, I feel like Ms. Nelson, I like, I don't, I don't think I, I am the teacher that any of my teachers were, that I'm talking about. But I feel like I see a lot of myself in Ms. Nelson, like I'm very serious, and I may not be like that sweet, popular teacher, but I'm about business, like I'm going to help you get what you need right. I'm going to push you and challenge you to do more than you wanted to do. And of course, you may not at the time, really love it now, because of the super nerdiness I have, I loved it, but some of you may not love it, right? You're like, okay, she's doing all this. She got us doing all that. And may not appreciate it, but you will need it in the future, and you will think back like, Oh, my teacher had me doing this. I've done this before, and maybe you don't appreciate that teacher, like the popular, very sweet teacher that you know was always like fun. Even though I really talk about falling in love with learning, and I talk about how important it is, but it is, it is something I have to keep reminding myself, too, because I'm very serious when it comes to education and really challenging kids to do more than than maybe other people would have them to do. Where people say, Oh, that's too much, but I'm like, I'm going to scaffold you there. I'm going to get you there. So please know that when teachers are challenging or pushing your child that they're not trying to be mean, that they're trying to get them prepared for the future and set them up for success and give them a competitive advantage. And sometimes some parents push back and like, okay, that's too much, or blah, blah, blah, and other teachers will even do that, who have low expectations for the kids, they have a probrecito kind of thing going on. And you know, I'm not about that. I believe your child is brilliant, and they could do brilliant things, and I believe that they can struggle through it with my support. I'm right there. I'm not leaving them out in the cold to struggle. I'm right there with them, supporting them. So please, please don't commiserate when your kids are trying to say things are too challenging. Work with your kid and let them know that they're able to do hard things because they're brilliant and they have the ability to do so. So I'm going to take it. So I went to my second then I went to my fourth grade teacher. I'm going to go to my third grade teacher, Ms. Coerr. Now, I have not talked about her very much and but she's, like, a really short, petite lady. She's really cute. She wore like a really short haircut, and she really respected us as, like, scholars. And, you know, she we lived, right? You know our not we lived, but our school was right by the woods, right? And Ms Nelson, not Ms Nelson, Ms. Coerr would have us go and do like nature walks. And she would hold up in her hand a moose nugget, which is poop, right? She would be like, here is moose excrement, and it can tell you a lot about what the moose eats and their health. And, you know, it was, like, gross, but at the same time, so challenge, so, like, intriguing, right? Like it was, and I believe people, like, would make jewelry out of, like, I guess, like dipped moose excrement or maybe it wasn't actually, actually moose excrement, but maybe it was like a cast, like a like something that was in the shape of moose excrement they make, would make stuff out of it. Or maybe they made it with the actual stuff, I really don't know. But anyway, she had us looking through microscopes. She had, as you know, really respecting ourselves as scholars. The other thing she had us do was journal. So she's the one who introduced in a real like set, gave us a practice. Now, of course, you read about it in the books. You see it on TV, where people were like journaling and stuff like that, but she actually had us journaling and was using writing. She had us think about and have a practice of using writing as a confidant, but we could write down our thoughts and untangle some ideas or problems that we were having on paper, right? So I really respected her for that, and really carried that practice with me throughout my life. So I really, like, really, you know, love, miss, miss, miss core. She was amazing. And she, you know, just taught us so much. Um, another thing about Ms. Coerr now I don't remember how, what, you know, what the relation, or like, whatever it was, but she, I remember, she told me she had her kid in college, and her kid went to college with her and went into classes with her. And do you know I had my kid in college, and I actually had my daughter in classes with me some days. And, I mean, that's something my teacher told me about, like, she didn't stop, and she kept going. I don't know if that was graduate school. So she was older, you know, I was, you know, obviously, at the end of my teen years, but, you know, I don't know, but she just told me that's something that she did. And I ended up doing something similar in college. And I remember that she was telling me that she did that. So I was, like, interesting, right? Something, okay? And my last teacher, I'm going to talk about in Ms. Byler she was my 12th grade teacher. So I went to three high schools, and my last high school was at Grant Union High School in Sacramento. That's when I had left home and moved to Sacramento and graduated from there, but there I applied to, like, almost like, 40 scholarships. And I was an independent student, and Ms. Byler was the person who, every time I did a scholarship essay, right, every scholarship wanted the essay. She would revise that essay, edit that essay. And when I'm talking about edit and revise, remember she was working with a perfectionist. That would be a 13, 567, 13, I don't know, back and forth, back and forth until she was like, Okay, it's ready, but I would give it to her. She'd mark it up. I'd give it back. I fix it. Give it back. She'd mark it up. I give it back to her. She'd make mark it up again, Mark You know, it would go back and forth. And she was there for me. She was patient. She did that for me. She was amazing. And so I really, you know, love that she did that. She also introduced me to Zora Neale Hurston. I did not know who that author was. We read Their Eyes Were Watching God in her 12th grade English class. And you know, I was just amazed by Zora Neale Hurston still am to this day. And, you know, but she introduced me to that she also introduced me to something again that I am currently a part of right now, which is the writing project. I'm part of the California writing project. I've worked with the National Writing Project, with the UCLA writing project, all of that. But so in in Sacramento, she had me be a part of a writing project thing, and I have the anthology. I was one of the people who worked, one of the editors on the anthology, and so, like, I didn't even make the connection to, like, many, many years later, like, this was a writing project thing, and this, and I'm in the writing project, but, you know, it's amazing. And I just recently working doing a project with the writing project. Had met a teacher that works at grant where I graduated from high school, and he's like, all of us go to the writing project, you know. So I was like, wow, it's still going and, you know, just, just something near to dear. It's like, means a lot to me as a writer. It with the writing project, we develop ourselves as personal writers so that we can actually speak to how best to teach writing. And so Miss Byler did that for me. And, you know, really, all of those teachers put together, you know, really helped me to become the person I am today, the teacher I am today. And I just really want you to know that teacher appreciation is a time when you can just say thank you to the teachers a little if you don't have to spend a lot of money, but it means a lot if you just write a little note or a letter or something and tell them you appreciate them, because it is a work of love. Mm. Like we are, like, pouring in to ourselves, like things that we could teach you about life. I was writing something today, and someone was, I was, I said, I started this podcast to help parents and educators, like, help kids toward success, and someone's like success in school. And I was, like, no success in life. The whole point of school is to make sure that our kids are able to function as adults, you know, in the world and so no, it's not just about them getting an A in school or a B or passing a class. It's about them being able to take these skills and use it in their lives so they could have a fulfilling life and a happy life. So I am saying Happy Teacher Appreciation to all the teachers out there. Thank you for what you do. All of my teachers are amazing. I only have a 30 minute podcast usually, and I chose four teachers to talk to about talk about today, and that's Mr. Bu, Ms. Coerr, Ms. Nelson and Ms. Byler. I love all of you, and I hope you are living your best lives, and you know, carrying on your legacy wherever you go, because you are I'm part of your legacy, and I appreciate you. I hope that you do something today, all of you, educators, parents out there to give your kids the competitive advantage, thank you. Thanks again for supporting the Falling for Learning Podcast, new episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com/@fallingforlearning, or listen on all major podcast platforms such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more for more resources, visit Fallinginlovewithlearning.com. We really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week.