Nurturing Educators to Stay in the Profession with Dr. Keshia Swaringam

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

customized professional development, educator retention, innovative educational leaders, strategic planning, digital learning coach, video reflection, AI support, teacher autonomy, classroom challenges, professional growth, teacher support, educational leadership, teacher retention strategies, classroom technology, teacher development

SPEAKERS

Amy Vujaklija, Joi Patterson, Keshia Swaringam

Keshia Swaringam: 00:04

Getting each one of those teachers customized, targeted professional development to help them grow in the areas that they need that's going to make the biggest difference. It's just showing them that we care, we value them, and we want to keep them in our school systems.

Amy Vujaklija: 00:18

Welcome to our podcast, teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi. I am Dr Amy vujaklija, Director of educator preparation,

Joi Patterson: 00:29

and I am Dr Joi Patterson, Chief Diversity Officer. Our podcast addresses issues through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion, along with solutions for us to grow as educators. So

Amy Vujaklija: 00:45

join us on our journey to become better teachers and leaders. So let's get into it. Good morning. Dr, joy, good

Joi Patterson: 00:54

morning. Dr, Amy,

Amy Vujaklija: 00:56

how are you this fine day? I

Joi Patterson: 01:00

am wonderful. I'm excited about a new academic year. I'm excited about the fifth season of teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr joy. And I'm excited about the things that we're going to talk about this year. One of those things being why educators stay and today is another reminder of why we need to support such great educators. So I'm excited about our conversation today.

Amy Vujaklija: 01:34

I am too, and I want to remind educators in the classroom or administrators and district leaders that there are so many avenues in education. There are so many directions that people can take. It's not all or nothing if things don't work out in a classroom. There are so many directions you can go, Yeah, but even if you're Yeah, even if you're just looking for something in addition to the classroom, there are directions for that too. Yeah. So that's something that's really exciting, and it's not all or nothing in education, and

Joi Patterson: 02:14

you and I are a testament to that. I always consider myself a teacher, right? I'm sure you consider yourself a teacher. We've moved on to higher education to support educator candidates and other aspects of education. So both of us are, we're still teachers at heart. The person that we're going to be speaking with is a teacher at heart. And so you're right, just because we expand out of the classroom. We still give back to teaching, and we support those who are in the classroom doing all that hard work.

Amy Vujaklija: 02:50

I think so too. Well, let me introduce Dr Keshia swearingham, who works as the vice president of sales at Sydney. We'll talk more about that later. She lives in Henryville, Indiana and supports innovative educational leaders and K 12 school districts across the Midwest. Keisha has held a variety of roles within both K 12 and higher education, and is a licensed teacher building level, administrator and superintendent in Indiana, she specializes in grant writing, innovative funding, strategic planning and designing high quality professional development experiences for educators at every age and stage of their career in education. She holds a Bachelor's of Secondary Education and Social Studies from Indiana University, a master's degree in secondary education focused on technology from IUPUI, a master's degree in Strategic Management from the Kelley School of Business at IU, an education law certification from IU, education specialist in educational leadership from IU, and a Doctorate of Educational Leadership from IU as well. Welcome. Keisha, welcome. Dr swearingham, to our podcast, welcome. Dr

Joi Patterson: 04:19

Keisha, yes, you are all of that. I know I see you smiling. It's always interesting when someone is reading your bio. And yes, you are all of that. So thank you very much for being here. I want to delve into our audience, getting to know more about you. Dr Keisha, you see, I've just given you a new name so you can run with that. Before you came on, Dr Keisha, Dr Amy and I, we were just talking about, you know, as we transition from the classroom to other fields in education, we are all still teachers. At heart, I consider myself a teacher, and so we've just. Expanded into other things that support teachers in the classroom. So can you start off by just telling us about your education journey? What was the education landscape like when you started your career? So let's talk about where you started to where you are now, just a little bit Absolutely,

Keshia Swaringam: 05:17

if you remember back to the early 2000s I graduated the first time from IU around 2009 and the landscape was much different than it is now in terms of what jobs were available. And so I came out of of school ready and raring to go, so excited and could not find a classroom to teach in, because there weren't even job openings to apply for, let alone to try to get an interview and get it. So I was very fortunate to get the experience of going into higher ed. First, I worked for Ivy Tech Community College as a grant specialist for a while, and got to master some of those skills. And I was over the moon excited when I got a phone call from a local school district that said, Hey, we've got this job opening. It's October. You're going to be our fourth contracted teacher this school year in October. Do you want it? And I was like, Absolutely, When can I start? They're like, How about Monday? This was Friday. Yeah. I was like, Yes, I'm ready. So I got there. I got there, they gave me my books, and I was off to the races, ready to go. I'll kind of talk on some more of that later, but once I got in there, I was a social studies teacher for a few years. Ended up being excess after my first year, because I was the fourth contracted teacher and got moved to a different school, which was an incredible experience as well, amazing kiddos there that still hold a deep place of my heart. And then from there, I was picked up as a digital learning coach the other school district came by watched me teaching in my classroom with those netbooks when those first came out, and kind of the rest is history. From then, I've been in the EdTech piece of it ever since leading through administration and getting my superintendent's license, and then now ending up kind of on the business side of things. When

Joi Patterson: 07:11

you are a great teacher and a great leader, things happen, right? Things just start to happen. And it's happened to all three of us, and you just as a teacher, you're just always on board, what's next, what's next, what's next, what's next, and there's a lot that's what's next. So before we get into some other questions, I want to talk to you more about Simbi, which has really revolutionized our approach to educator development, shifting from a focus, from compliance driven activities, because I know my husband, he's retired now, he was in teacher ed as an art teacher. And even my daughter now, though she hates like we have to go to these mandated meetings, right? Teachers are feeling that way right now. We have to go to these mandated meetings that have nothing to do with what I'm going to be doing in the classroom is taking up my time, and we got to implement this new thing. This doesn't work, you know, so all of those things that features complain about, but you guys are now doing you're doing real life things with measurable growth in both educators and students alike. So tell us more about Cindy when I look up the acronym, or when I see it, I see, seeing is believing in me. I don't know what Simbi actually stands for, but I do know that that acronym, if seen, is believing in me, which seems very, very appropriate, as this revolutionized educator professional development system. So you can you tell us more about Cindy?

Keshia Swaringam: 08:43

Yes, so Sydney absolutely does stand exactly for what you said. Seeing is, so you you got it. I'm glad that worked, and you're right. So the whole, our whole gig, is helping teachers and leaders get back to the amazing things that they love doing the art of teaching and leading the things that we're driven and passionate about, and we end the skill right that teachers bring to the table. And what we do at Sydney is support with the science of teaching by helping you to spend less time at your desk. Nobody went into teaching to be sitting behind a desk, right? That we went for the relationships and for the the building, with kids and with parents. And so what we do is we use video and AI to help do that. Video reflection is so powerful, just like in sports, what do we do after a game? We watch the game take back. And so we're into that space with helping teachers to reflect. But we also know that teachers have a lot on their plates, and so we provide a co pilot, the ultimate co pilot, I would say, that comes alongside teachers, gives them that one on one support Answers literally any question they have about education, they just type it in. It gives them research based answers, gives them feedback on their teaching and learning, and will even help them to make. Accommodations. It will help them to do all the things that are really hard and that maybe take up some time in the classroom. It helps them to do those things so they can get back to what doing what they love most, which is being with our kiddos.

Amy Vujaklija: 10:12

That is fantastic. And I want to ask a few questions, but I wanted to start first with some highlights that you had, and what ahas you discovered while you were in the classroom, because you've got to bring all of that into this business space right now. So tell us what what did you learn when you got that October job and moving forward?

Keshia Swaringam: 10:38

Man, where do I start so many things I learned, I definitely I've had to really think back on it, I would say the thing that I probably learned the most is that I had to let go of some of my control. I came in as a new teacher thinking I'm going to create this lesson plan and the kids are going to do exactly what it is that I have planned out and it's going to work because I saw someone do it once, or I read it in in Harry Wong's the first days of school, right? So I just had to know, I had to let go of some of that control. And boy, the difference it made when I started listening to my kids, they started saying things to me like, well, I didn't get it, because you talk so fast and so loud and you know, and you're not walking around the classroom to everybody, you're helping the same group of kids. And I thought, No, I'm not. I'm getting around to everybody. And what I started doing, actually, before Sydney, before I knew Sydney was a thing, I started recording myself for my own practice. And when I started watching that back, I was like, holy cow, I do favor this left side of the classroom, or actually, I'm working with these kids because they need the most help, but then I'm also neglecting these other kids who could really use some enrichment and pushing to the next level. And so that, combined with what I knew from my educational training, you know, when zaretta Hammond says the person doing the talking is doing the learning, and I was talking a whole lot, and my students weren't getting to talk very much, and so it was just big ahas like that. And I wish that I had had a tool then, like I know of now and then I'm getting to share that would actually have measured those data points for me and give me something actionable that I could work on. Wow,

Amy Vujaklija: 12:17

absolutely. And that was the beautiful thing. When there's an opportunity for two teachers to be in the classroom, you can do the co teaching, but there are lots of different models. You can do the teach and assist. You can have someone just collect data. But when there's not that set of hands available, or that sort of set of eyes available, you can't do that. I mean, when we think about our focus theme this year, Dr joy and I are really, really wanting to concentrate on educator retention. Like, why do educators stay so we did leave the classroom. We expanded our reach. We're an educator preparation now, but we still want people to be in the classroom. So we want to hear how and why you would transition as an educator in the classroom to an educator in the business sector and and what did you have to grapple with?

Keshia Swaringam: 13:19

For sure, that's a great question. I was definitely not one of those people that left K 12 because I was burnt out or because I didn't love it. Actually, the opposite of that is is very true. I when I became a teacher funny story because I loved I grew up watching the History Channel with my grandpa, and I knew how exciting and interesting that content was, and I was a big history nerd. And when I got to high school, I took all of these advanced history classes, everything I could take, and I had so many teachers that unfortunately were not engaging. It was super boring, and people hated the class, and I thought, oh my gosh, it doesn't have to be this way, like I want to make a difference. I want to go in and show kids that history is relevant, that it is engaging. And I think the same thing is true in my shift over into the business world. I went into teaching with not a whole lot of support, with not a whole lot of I walked in the first day and they literally handed me my textbooks and said, This is what the last person did. Here you go, Oh, and here's your class rosters. You have lunch at 1140 and I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like, I've never been in a school working by myself. This is all new to me. And I just thought, as I'm going through this process, and even as I was doing instructional coaching and leadership, I went on that pathway because I thought, oh my gosh, it doesn't have to be this way. I hate that teachers are struggling. I hate that they're out there because just, you know, worrying and drifting in the wind, right? I want them to have the support that they need. And so whenever I saw this tool, when I saw Sydney, I was like, that's something that's worth leaving the classroom for. That's a way that I can get in front of more administrators and leaders and teachers, and I can make a bigger. Difference on a larger scale, and then I also on a personal level. I was a single mom for a long time, and so I took a little step back to be with my kiddos and to raise them, but I fully plan on going back and working using that superintendent's license just as soon as my kiddos are grown.

Joi Patterson: 15:17

Yes, yes, and the new name doctors, swaringham. Oh, okay, alright, Doctor Keshia, that's much easier for me. So thanks to the new husband for that new name. Huh? Right? Yes, yes, ma'am. You know, one of the things that caught my well, you and I, actually, we have a lot in common. I was introduced to the classroom after coming from the STEM area as a research microscopist, and just really thrown in the classroom. I started off with 40 non English speaking students, and I was a science teacher, and it was like, here's the textbook that was in Spanish. And, you know, like, Here you go. Good luck. And I was so excited for the opportunity to shape lives that I did everything that I could do, to create some best practices for myself. And again, those experiences for some people, it makes them run away, but it made me run towards, you know, how do we make this better for other teachers, so I can totally relate to what you're saying. You know, one of the things that caught my attention about you is that I received an email about the torture teacher department. So you're going to have to tell us a lot more about that. And immediately what came to mind is like, Oh, now, who is this person emails about the torture teacher department? We oh, about that. We want to talk about that. And me not being a Swifty fan, you know, I have some Swifty favorites, but not a fanatic, where I was like, torture. I didn't catch the alignment to that. And now I see it all the time. It's like, oh, that's what it means. It's where they get it from. So it totally makes sense now as I read more and listening to you, so oftentimes that is how teachers are feeling right like, why can't we eliminate these barriers for them? We recently had a speaker Jeremy Coleman, and one of the things that he talked about in teacher retention, he says, let's create an atmosphere that's so great that they don't want to leave it seems easy on the surface, right, but it's something that we really should be working towards. How do we create an environment where this teachers? And I don't even like the word teachers, because that's where we get mixed up. Your job is facilitating student learning, not teaching, going back to what you said, if you're the one doing all the talking, you know, then who's learning? But we need to create that kind of atmosphere where we're eliminating these barriers and supporting us. So tell us more about the tortured teacher department, and what was the thinking around this title, and what's the impact?

Keshia Swaringam: 18:00

Yeah, absolutely. So I am a huge Swiftie. I have been since she first came out, released her first album, and now my daughter and I are getting to listen to it together, and we were sitting there and watching the Grammys when she announced that she was releasing this new album, and it was called the tortured poets department. And so the whole idea of this her, it's her 11 studio album, the whole idea there is that there's this big mix of emotion with a bunch of really sad, dark depression, but then she also uses this, like humor on the side to help her get through it, and like a lot of hyperbole. And so the album is incredibly popular. It jumped all the way to the top. That has the highest streaming for a single day, a single week, even on Spotify. But some of the songs really resonated with teachers. And we saw this all over Tiktok, all over Facebook, Instagram, you name it. They started posting reels and stories that had lyrics or the songs in the background. And so one of those was, I can do it with a broken heart. That's what the song's called. And there are the line in the song that specifically says, I cry a lot, but I am so productive. It's an art teachers were immediately posting things, pictures of them in their classroom, like I do all these things, and I, and I'm working really hard, and I, and I'm should be valued for this, but instead, I leave at the end of the day, and I'm crying, right? I'm upset. You know, I provided pencils to all my kids today, and here's a picture of the drawer where they're all broken. That's how I feel at the end of the day. And so they started to really reflect on that. Another song that she, that she put out there was a line from it that said, because I'm a real tough kid, I can handle my stuff, they said, You gotta fake it till you make it. And Baby, I did. And so there were a lot of teachers that are like, Hey, I got thrown in, and they're just telling me to fake it till I make it. Here I am. I'm smiling, I'm putting on a show and just trying to get through so that was kind of the the vibe that happened in full. Transparency. It wasn't a novel idea that I came up with with the tortured teachers department. I saw these posts, and then someone one of those ads you know that are generated for you from what you like, and look at, had a picture of a T shirt, and on the t shirt, it said the tortured teachers department. And I thought, holy cow, that's it like. That's how people are feeling. I hate they feel this way, but just like Taylor, Swiss music helps a lot of people get over some of the the emotions that they're feeling, I think this kind of relates to teachers. And so my full goal was to reach out to try to help. And overwhelmingly, yes, you responded to the email, but overwhelmingly, I saw administrators. I saw teachers. I saw people that I had never been able to talk to before come and say, When can you come help me? When can you come help my school? Because we need help. We are drowning after covid, all of these social emotional needs in addition to academic needs. It's not that I don't love teaching. I'm just worn out. Man. How do I do it? And so that was the goal, was to be able to reach out and give them a good solution, whether that's through Sydney or through something else, to try to make sure that they feel like they are supported, and keep more of those great teachers in the profession.

Amy Vujaklija: 21:10

I want to visit that line of thinking a little bit more. When we first started with this podcast, it was in covid. I mean, that's why we started the podcast. We had a Facebook Live event like, hey. We kind of like this, and we were so used to having those conversations just down the hall from each other, popping our heads in each other's offices, but we couldn't but what we did have access to were online discussion boards where teachers, educators were venting. They were it was, there was one that was an anonymous Padlet, and it had post upon post, 1000s of posts, actually about how overwhelmed people were and this is in the droves of 2020, 2021, and they were overwhelmed. They're switching to online lessons, and they don't have the support or the Wi Fi or the bandwidth, not just internet bandwidth, mental bandwidth, to really carry forth their lessons. Well. Now we're four years later, so we feel like we are on the other side of things. Actually, even a couple of years ago, we kind of had this mental, Oh, we're back to school now we're on the other side of this, but I don't know that we are. So I'm wondering, what are you hearing now from teachers, from educators, from administrators. You said you've been getting emails. Oh, we need your support. What is it specifically that you are hearing?

Keshia Swaringam: 22:51

Well, to your point about feeling like we're on the other side, I hear a lot that teachers are saying, Yes, we're back to school. But that doesn't negate the fact that we lost so much instructional time, and we want to the reason why we're upset, the reason why we're overworked is because we care, because we're working really hard to support the needs of our kiddos. The problem is that all of this has been added to our plate. Nothing else has been taken off. And the other thing that I hear over and over again from teachers and from administrators is I try to plan all this really amazing PD for my teachers, but they're still upset about it. They still think it's one more thing, and that's because we've missed the mark. I think, as a group, we tend to sometimes do PD for teachers to teachers, instead of actually asking them for feedback. So what I hear the most from from teachers is, Dan, if you could show me something that's actually going to help me, it's going to save me time, it's going to allow me to collaborate with my peers. If it's going to measure my progress and give me individual feedback, I'm all in. I'd invest time all day, every day, to get better. But if you're asking me to sit in the back of a cafeteria while an expert comes in who doesn't know my kids well, then I'm checked out, and you're just showing me you don't value me because you're not listening to me. The thing that we see, you know, overwhelmingly, and this is not, this is not new research here, but that people who are successful, they work really hard, right? Successful people work hard. The thing is, is that they work even harder when they can see their success. So once you're able to show it to them, they're able to be able to believe it and see it, and they work harder towards that progress. Now I didn't come up with that one of our champions. Her name is Tonya Goree. She works at Cypress Fairbanks ISD in Texas. She actually says that phrase all the time. She talks all about how we've got to make people see, be seen and feel valued in their work.

Joi Patterson: 24:47

So I want to follow that same thought, and I want you to kind of maybe give us an example, because we know that there are many barriers to student learning and exceptional teaching. Can you share? Away and how we eliminate some of those barriers that are within our control. So if you could give us an example,

Keshia Swaringam: 25:09

I think one of the big things that we hear as a barrier is time, right? So finding a tool, Sydney is one of them. There are many others out there, but finding a tool or a process that respects your teacher's time and allows them to collaborate with each other in meaningful ways. So sure, you could do the pineapple chart outside the room and see when you're going to visit each other, but often that visitation time when you're able to see another teacher teach is not convenient or it's not the right time to see a good lesson. So one of the things that I've seen work really well. We have schools that we work with that have they call them Sydney Tuesdays, and every Tuesday, their teachers share an example from that week of them teaching now that serves a couple of purposes. One, the teacher gets to self reflect, that's one. Two, the AI gives them immediate feedback on how they're doing, so they're getting consistent quality feedback aligned to what they're looking for. They get to choose. And then three our new teachers get to see our mentor teachers teach, and our mentor teachers get to learn some new tricks too, from some of our other folks. So I see that being a huge, huge way that they can help support, in addition to time with making people feel valued. I see so many times people are like, well, I did a pizza party, or I gave a jeans day, right? Teachers are not pets. They don't need to be rewarded. What they need to be they need to be respected, and so all those things are nice. How do I actually say you're the professional I want to support you as you grow. You know what you need, and if you don't, I'm happy to help you, but let me put you in the driver's seat. So I think just giving teachers more autonomy and letting them have a little bit more control over over the time and what they they work on, is really key to overcoming some of those barriers. That's what's going to lead to real and once upon

Joi Patterson: 26:55

a time, teachers had a lot of autonomy. This is last 2030, years that much of that autonomy has gone away, and you're speaking exactly to what I said my husband, you know, before he retired, would complain about sitting in the back of the cafeteria listening from folks that come from downstate that's never seen your students to tell you how to make improvements for your students, which they've never, ever worked for, and some of them have never been in the classroom, and it's hard to receive that information. So being able to say, okay, provide me with some PD, that's kind of tailored to what I need at this time, at a time when I need it most, makes sense.

Amy Vujaklija: 27:39

Oh, absolutely. And you're right. I mean, time is the biggest barrier, probably to a lot of the things that we the nice to have and the need to have no additional planning time to just meet with other teachers about classroom strategies, thinking about classroom strategies, or strategies in general, what are some strategies that could help educators tomorrow? What are some things that educators need to keep in mind that they need to be doing in order to have a successful school year?

Keshia Swaringam: 28:15

Yeah, oh my gosh. I'm so excited for this question. Yes, it doesn't matter if they have access to Sydney or to something else regardless, I think the biggest thing that they can do is be open, take a breath, right and be open to change. And I think that that starts with listening to our kids more in our classrooms, listening to what they need, having more individual conversations. But I would also say if they could do one thing to change their practice right now, I would highly suggest that they start dipping their toes into the world of AI. There are free tools out there as well that they can use. But even if I type into chat GPT and ask it, you know, how do I make accommodations for a student with XYZ disability, it's going to be able to give me some really good ideas for how I can ratchet my teaching and learning up another level. So I think AI is a really powerful tool that a lot of us are scared of. If we haven't learned how to use it, that would be something. And then the other thing, I would say, is just being willing to make connections and be open for feedback. There are so many different teachers in their building. They have so many resources just down their hallway that they could tap into. But that requires them to be vulnerable. That requires them to ask for help, and it also asks them ask for them to be reflective. They've got to be able to kind of video themselves or record and reflect on the day. Absolutely,

Joi Patterson: 29:34

one of the things that you talked about, and I always tell Amy, we talk about, there's different types of teachers, and sometimes I think we need to be honest about the type of teachers that we have. And we have some teachers that kind of fell into teaching. This is not what they were expecting to do. Life changed. They may have started substitute teaching, and that turned into one thing into another thing. So. They just fell into teaching. This is not, you know, they hadn't planned to become a teacher. Then we have those teachers where you study teachers, and you go in and you do your job. I mean, you do a fair job. You're a teacher, you're a professional educator. And then you have those teachers that are just all in these are your true professionals. They are continuously growing. I really want to tap into those who even fell into teaching, because I was one of those who fell into teaching. You know, I transitioned from a STEM field, I started substitute teaching, and then the administrator said, Well, can you do this? Can you do this? I kept falling into these situations, but rising to the occasion. And the reason that I'm mentioning that is because that pool is growing. You talk about when you started teaching and there was no shortage, we had an overage, a surplus, of teachers, and now we have a teacher shortage, and that pool of teachers who are just falling into it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and as that gets bigger and bigger and bigger, that impacts student learning, and so creating tools and strategies like this not only helps that teacher that's that lifelong professional, but also those teachers who fell into it, or those teachers who, day one, have a degree in teaching and say, Here's your book, Good luck be able to survive and strive. And as you said, educators, you know, we know that they will stay if they feel nurtured, if they feel respected like a professional. What are more ways that we can nurture educators to stay

Keshia Swaringam: 31:49

yeah, that's, that's a really good question. I think the the biggest thing that we can do, the biggest problem that I see that I'm going to get to the solution, I promise. But the biggest problem that happens is that we often talk other people out of the career of education. So once they get in, there's all this negative talk about this is so hard. And you know, there was a survey done not too long ago where the people that were discouraging people from becoming teachers were their parents, who were teachers. And so it was just this vicious cycle. So I think in order to start to address the problem and to nurture it. We've got to make it an attractive profession again. I have, I have a superintendent friend. He always says that he's bringing sexy back, and he means he's bringing sexy back to teaching. Because I

Joi Patterson: 32:32

always want to say that, and then I'm always afraid. Okay, as the chief diversity officer, I don't know if I could get away with that, but, I mean, they even make selling insurance sexy, right? But yes, make teaching sexy, Yes,

Keshia Swaringam: 32:49

yep. I mean, that's exactly what we need to be working on, is to get more of the people in, right? But the people that we have to nurture them. What is challenging is that our administrators and coaches, even if they were just all in trying to get to every single person they can't, and the more people that they have to coach and support, they're getting in. And it's becoming more of an evaluative landscape. The teachers are moving, yes, as an evaluator, not as a coach. So I think that's another big way. Is if we can move away from some of that evaluation, yes, we have to do it. No one's saying that's going to go away. But if we can move more into a formative coaching role, and we can see our instructional coaches and our administrators and even our veteran mentor teachers as somebody who's there to help, that's going to provide that extra support, somebody who's an ally, somebody who's coming alongside, not someone who's there to judge them. And I think that that can start by modeling, that can start by administrators learning having how to give better feedback. That can start by just listening to our educators for sure. And I think that coaching cycles are extremely important, whether the district is providing them or outsourcing those with somebody else, but getting each one of those teachers customized targeted professional development to help them grow in the areas that they need that's going to make the biggest difference is just showing them that we care, we value them, and we want to keep them in our school systems.

Amy Vujaklija: 34:11

Say something about this sexy profession, we're shying away from those kinds of words. But when you think about a calling, when you think about a profession, we use words like passionate. We use words like, Oh, I love my job. Those are those relational types of words that we use and we are trying to find that career that allows us to have that emotion that allows us to have that relationship with the career and also with our colleagues, and have that mutual respect and that appreciation and Darren, may I say love that you love your colleagues and you love the people who are in front of you. You. So it's interesting that we shy away from some words and dive into others, but you're right. Teachers are falling out of love with teaching, and we need to again, a relational word like nurture. You know, we use that to try to keep people in the profession

Joi Patterson: 35:19

absolutely well. I We appreciate you so much, Keisha, and we appreciate this conversation so much, because this gets us a little step closer to where we want to be and how to support teachers, how to support educators. So thank you for doing the work. Thank you for remaining in education and expanding your work.

Keshia Swaringam: 35:46

Thank you for having me today.

Amy Vujaklija: 35:50

Thank you for listening to teaching and leading with Dr Amy and Dr Joi. Visit our website at G, O, v, s, t.edu/teaching, and leading podcast to see the show notes from this episode,

Joi Patterson: 36:07

We appreciate Governor State University's work behind the scenes to make publishing possible. Stay tuned for more episodes with Dr Amy and Dr Joi.