Virtually no one has been unaffected by the mandatory shutdown experienced in March 2020. Our guest, Judy Shaner works in a school district where they had actually begun thinking about how to cope several weeks before the order came down. As an anatomy and physiology instructor, she immediately recognized that worksheets wouldn't cut it for her honors students. Learn about her creative solution to keep her students on track to meet their aspirational goals. You'll wish she was your teacher when you were in school.
Transcript:
Diane Dayton
This is changing the rules, a podcast about designing the life you want to live, hosted by KC Dempster and Ray Loewe the luckiest guy in the world.
KC Dempster
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Changing the Rules. I'm KC Dempster. And here with me at Wildfire Radio Studios in beautiful downtown Woodbury, New Jersey is Ray Loewe, the self proclaimed luckiest guy in the world.
Ray Loewe
You do that to rattle my chain every time though?
KC Dempster
Of course I do.
Ray Loewe
Okay, I am really the luckiest guy in a world. But you'll find that out later.
KC Dempster
Yes, yes. So all through our lives people set rules for us, our parents, teachers, the church employers and even municipalities and and, you know, legislation. And, for the most part, these role rules are meant well actually for all the These rules are meant to control us, but usually in a positive way, they're trying to keep us safe and help build a structure so that society can function. But as we get older, some of these rules are not relevant for us anymore. And they can actually start to restrict what we want to do as far as being creative and making a living and things of that nature. So the luckiest people in the world have recognized that and they have learned that they need to re examine the rules, and choose which ones fit them and which ones they can let go and which ones they can change. And that's what we talk about here is is we meet luckiest people in the world who are rule changers, and because they are rule changers, they are free to be themselves. So now you can talk right?
Ray Loewe
Okay, read my shirt.
KC Dempster
I know the rules of parentheses, they don't apply to me.
Ray Loewe
That's correct. So I'm here to say I've been fed up with rules for a long time now and truth. We need rules. And in fact, we have to have rules because rules give a structure. And if you don't have structure, you don't know where you're going, right? Okay? However, the rules have to be your rules. And rules are really restrictive. And they get in my way a lot, and I do my best to get around them. And we have a guest today, who has been faced with rules and she knows what her real job is. And she figures out how to bend the rules to get her job done. Yeah, but
KC Dempster
she's also a rule maker.
Ray Loewe
Well, yeah, we're going to talk to her later. I don't want to give it away. So So anyway, I have been following this group of people are called the luckiest people in the world. And I've been following them for about 45 years, okay, most of my adult life, and they fascinate me, they fascinate me because these are people who have figured out what they want out of life. They know where they're going, and they just go do it. And they don't put up with a lot of junk and they get where they want to go, and they tend to be happy. And the key to these people is that they have certain mindsets. Now, let me define mindset over here because I did go the dictionary this morning. I did pull out mindsets, and a mindset is the established set of attitudes held by somebody. Okay, so attitudes but more important it was talking about why is a mindset important over here. And it's because the mindset frame a person's self confidence. Whoo. And and you know, if you think about it, there are a whole lot of mindsets out there and, and none of them are really wrong. They they're just different and and you have to figure out which are yours. So let me give a classic one real quickly and then then I'll be quiet. But there's always been this concept of Do you believe that life is full of scarcities or life is full of abundance. And you know, we all know things are getting scarce. You know, you run out of oil, you run out of gas or water, you run out of clean air, you run out of all of these kinds of things. Now, there are people who take that really direly seriously, you know, they were going to run out, we've got to conserve, no, we can't do anything. And there are other people who look at this thing. And they say, yeah, we know that's going on. But we have faith that somebody is going to invent something that's going to replenish this. So you know, we used to have coal, and we're running out of coal and somebody found oil, and then we're running out of oil. Somebody even invented electricity. And now we have solar. And I think the people who have the positive mindsets, have these mindsets that allow them to think positively and they feel better. And the luckiest people in the world tend to have these and we're going to focus on three of those today. Okay, our guest has been affected. By rules, you're correct. She's a teacher. So she's a mind a rule setter, okay? However, she gets rules thrown at her too. And she got hit with some really big ones. And one day there was a classroom the next day there wasn't a classroom and what do they do? Okay. The second thing is that another mindset is that the people who I think are the luckiest people in the world, always find a positive solution to anything, you know, you could hide, you can hide under the bed, not get up in the morning, but other people hide under the bed for a short time. And and and then they get up and they start moving ahead. They know what they want to accomplish, and they get around these rules. And And the final one is they take these things and they put it into a plan and they figure out how they're going to move forward with it. And our guest today, right after our short break that we're going to take is on is a master of this. So Taylor Do your break thing.
Diane Dayton
You're listening to changing the rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world. We will be right back with more exciting information.
Ray Loewe
Welcome back. Everybody knows the best breaks.
KC Dempster
Yeah, but we have to decide who's going to talk first when we come back.
Ray Loewe
That's when we have a moment of silence. Right. That's good now, otherwise, we both come on at the same time.
KC Dempster
That's right. Well, I'm gonna defer to you. Right, go ahead.
Ray Loewe
Okay. So we have with us, Judy Shaner. Now Judy, I idolize Judy, okay, she's a teacher. I have friends that tell me she is probably the best teacher in the whole world. Or maybe the second best, maybe, maybe we need to leave a room to aspire a little higher.
KC Dempster
You always leave room for improvement.
Ray Loewe
But she's a pure educator and and she loves teaching and she's in that classroom and She makes things happen. And she takes responsibility for the kids in her classroom and she's concerned about them. Mm hmm. So, Judy, welcome to Changing the Rules.
Judy Shaner
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Ray Loewe
Good. Well, you're excited now.
Judy Shaner
See how this goes.
KC Dempster
We'll rake you over the coals?
Judy Shaner
I'm ready.
Ray Loewe
Okay, so, a little while ago, we had this thing called the classroom. Right. And you went to school every day? At least on a weekdays? Yes. And you had a bunch of kids show up in your classroom? Correct. And you taught them something? What are you teaching?
Judy Shaner
I teach honors anatomy and physiology and I teach honors biology for 35 years.
Ray Loewe
Okay, so how many kids did you have show up in your classroom?
Judy Shaner
Usually about 24 in science because we do labs, so we can't most classes are 30 but for me, it's 24.
Ray Loewe
Right. Okay, so here you are. And then we had this magic day. I don't even remember what day it was. I
KC Dempster
believe it was March 14.
Judy Shaner
March 16
KC Dempster
Yeah, well, that was in the Monday. Right, right. Yeah. 14th was Saturday.
Ray Loewe
Okay, so March 16 showed up and all of a sudden you had orders Don't go. Don't go to class. Right? Correct. And your kids had orders don't go to class.
Judy Shaner
We went to school on the 16th, which was the day we're supposed to be going on our senior trip, which I'm the Senior Advisor for, and we could not do that. And we also had to no longer come to school.
Ray Loewe
Okay. And, but the but the problem didn't go away, did it? I mean, you still have to teach kids.
Judy Shaner
Correct.
Ray Loewe
I guess you could use this as an excuse and hide and say, Well, I guess I can't teach kids anymore.
Judy Shaner
That's definitely not me, though.
Ray Loewe
Yeah. And I think that's the differentiator between people that I believe are the luckiest people in the world. They take this seriously. So you got hit. With this bombshell.
Judy Shaner
We actually happened about three weeks before that, where we had a faculty meeting and our superintendent said, Listen, we have to start getting some plans ready in case we can't come to school. If you spend more than five minutes in the shower thinking about this. I'm going to fire you. That's how unrealistic. This was everybody. Yeah. About a week later, we were given "Oh, no, you have to make up two weeks worth of worksheets for these students." Wow. And then on the 16th, it was Oh, no, you have to come up with three weeks of worksheets. We're not sure when we're going to be able to go back.
Ray Loewe
what are these work? How do you get worksheets to kids?
Judy Shaner
Well, school, obviously this is we had to run them off. We were supposed to start some type of online classroom, but they were saying was supposed to be review, which for me, I don't have worksheets for anatomy and biology. So I knew that wasn't going to work for me. So I had to make a different plan. And right away, I knew that I didn't have three weeks of review worksheets, and maybe in math, you could do that. But for something like my subject, I couldn't do that.
Ray Loewe
Okay, so here we are. We got hit with a change in the rules. Now, this isn't where you got to change the rules necessarily. But somebody came up with a rule and I think you probably agree that in general rule is pretty good. I mean, nobody wanted to catch this stuff that's going on
KC Dempster
And schools are breeding grounds and
Ray Loewe
yeah, you don't you don't want to be caught in an environment where you're likely to either catches or be response. Correct. So we had a good rule.
Judy Shaner
At first I thought it was ridiculous because I didn't think it could possibly be true. I up until that weekend still said, No, we're going on the senior trip. We're going to Florida. This is crazy. This isn't real. And then over that weekend, it became real real
KC Dempster
Yeah, that's that river in Africa called denial.
Ray Loewe
I saw that but they dropped the D must have been an Egyptian spell. So So anyway, we had this thing and no, you had to figure out how to do this and I got the impression that first of all, you weren't happy with just worksheets, right? I could never do so what what did you do?
Judy Shaner
I decided to actually flip the classroom and I bought an AI a What do you call it? The tripod, I bought a tripod and hooked up my phone to it and I started doing my notes as if I were running on the classroom board but on the paper and I started doing my lectures that way and videotape in my lectures so that they didn't miss the curriculum. Right they watched me doing the videos and doing the work
Ray Loewe
that's a pretty sneaky way to become a movie star.
Judy Shaner
Well, I was my face was not on it was much like this paper. Yeah. And
KC Dempster
so so they didn't have obviously your school system didn't have a video conferencing structure ready for you?
Judy Shaner
No, no, and I don't know that we've haven't yet really um there are so many new things out there and we'll see where it goes. But most people were just doing the worksheet type thing and I just knew that I couldn't get my curriculum across and students are going to be interested in that for very long sir out more than three weeks. So I just started video.
KC Dempster
So did you mail the email them the video? How did they see you?
Judy Shaner
We have a thing called Google Classroom Okay, you can upload it onto Google classroom and then they can watch it throughout Google class. Yeah,
KC Dempster
kind of like a YouTube thing.
Ray Loewe
Yeah. Kind of like that. Okay. Okay, so so you got hit with this problem and you came up with your video solution, which was a temporary solution, I think for you. And and and now we start looking ahead a little bit. So you're telling me I think that the class the buses are going to be heavily restricted, or at least maybe, right?
Judy Shaner
The if you look at that, the guidelines, you have to have six feet and you have to have a mask on. And so the most that can fit in the bus is 12 students. So bringing just 12 students school, how long is that going to take? And it's going to be really restrictive.
Ray Loewe
Yeah. So how, how many kids normally are on our bus?
Judy Shaner
45.
Ray Loewe
So you're down to a third, right? Okay, or less than less than that. Okay. All right, and and then what's going to happen to classrooms,
Judy Shaner
so it's funny, I'm on a school climate committee, so we went in and measured classrooms also. So it's Because you have to start thinking, Well, what are we going to do now? How are we going to accomplish this? The most that can fit in the classroom is from between 12 and 14. So we're looking at half at the most Wow, in the classrooms.
Ray Loewe
Okay, so So what's going to happen, you're going to all of a sudden, double the number of teachers so that you can handle these or we
Judy Shaner
know that can't happen.
Ray Loewe
So, so Okay, so what's the creative approach? What What are you? And I know this is all still on the drawing board right on place yet, but but you know, what, what's the thinking? What? Like
Judy Shaner
we're kicking a lot of ideas around that we have a hybrid method in our mind. I know some people are pushing for like an A B schedule where the students would come twice a week and one week would be where you'd produce you'd flip the classroom produce the videos on all of them. I feel that that's too many students don't, I don't think it'd be feasible for us to handle 800 students in a building, because we have 1500 and 50 plus the teachers. I still think an A B won't work. I think more of an ABCD Maybe you only see them once a week. And the rest of the time would be online where you're teaching by way of videos. So when they come in the classroom, you would be doing the assessment, you would be doing the lab, you would be doing the extra help the critical thinking problems, and then they would have to do the online, right. The other days, right. So that's, that's some of the options too.
Ray Loewe
So I think this has some interesting strategic byproducts do use a word here. Okay. So so one of the things that's going to happen is at least the current vision that you had, is kids are going to be home a good number of days, and they're going to be taught by video and buy books and buy a lot of self study. Right? Yes. Okay. And I guess the benefit to those kids is, if you don't want to go to school, you don't have to go to school, right.
Judy Shaner
I think there gonna be a lot of parents that make that up option to Yes, okay. And with this option, you have teachers, they're going to be staying home, perhaps doing all online. that frees up the classroom to spread the number of students out even more, right, which is part of the options too, that we could look at.
Ray Loewe
And so so if I were a student, I'd be going to school once a week, maybe twice a week. Correct. So I might actually look forward to going to school would not
Judy Shaner
this. It's so funny, because that's what happened with all this. everybody's like, Oh, I hate school. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. But they realize how much they love it. How much you love the socialization, how much you love the organization, that discipline of it all? That is a positive that came out of all this students really realize, Oh, I really do love school. Yeah, it's so cool.
Ray Loewe
Yeah, that's the best thing to do is take something people don't show don't particularly like take it away from all men wanted again, and they are just dying to come back.
Okay, so so you're visualizing, let me just get this straight, okay, that your job is going to be first of all, you're going to have to do a whole lot of really good lesson planning. Because you're going to have to try and make it as exciting and as interesting as you can To encourage self study, right? And what do you do with kids that don't learn that way? I mean, I think some kids would love to self study and others are just gonna look for every excuse in the world never do anything, I
Judy Shaner
think you're gonna have to because it has to be a hybrid method, I think you're gonna have to also have those meetings with them. Those zoom meetings where they get accountability, you see them face to face, and they realize, alright, there is somebody behind all of this work, and I need to do it because they're going to tell me I have to do it. And they want the grade. I don't have as much problem because I've, you know, honor students, right? I have very motivated students, I'm teaching anatomy, they want to learn everything. That's the scary part for me is these guys want to go into the medical field, they want to be doctors, they want to get everything they can from me. So I'm lucky that way. The my colleagues that are teaching the lower level students, the accountability is going to be more difficult. It's going to be hard to get them to buy into something where they're staying home and doing it on their own.
Ray Loewe
Right. So how much of this do you think is actually going to carry on into the future? I mean, we we know it's probably going to carry on at least for a year. Until We have a vaccine and everything else. But do you see a change in the way the classroom is gonna be run?
Judy Shaner
I think it's gonna be very useful for students that miss class. Very useful for students that are homeschooled that have school phobia and stress levels and stuff like that. I think that will it will continue to use for that. I think it's an awesome thing. If students want to look at the videos, I'm not sure and they're a little bit behind. Maybe they look at the videos as supplemental at home. Plus with the teacher, I think it'll be all of that will be something you've produced now that you can use. So I think that will be beneficial.
KC Dempster
Yeah. I could have used that in elementary school. I was sick on the day they taught ratios and I never got it right. Never Well, I think I won't tell you how old I am. But that was a long time ago.
Judy Shaner
If you Miss my type of class. They're really behind right now. There's gonna be videos out there.
Ray Loewe
Watch it. I think it's exciting because because all of a sudden, you know, it just sets a different stage so kids that weren't excited about about school, are now going to get a chance to get excited about school again. Kids who can learn on their own are going to have the opportunity to learn faster with their own routine
Judy Shaner
Do you knowhow much I'm learning now. Oh my gosh, the technology, there's so many cool things like there's something called ParaDeck where you can videotape and embed your questions in there. Now, you know, the kids are watching the video, because they have to answer the questions embedded in there. It's, I'm learning so much. Well, it's awesome.
Ray Loewe
You know, believe it or not, Judy, we're at the end of our time. And you know, I would I want to do is thank you for your vision of education. And I think that all these parents and grandparents are home, they're worried about their kids and their grandchildren are going to understand that there are people out there who actually attacking this problem and are coming up with interesting solutions that are not only going to keep education going, but I think in the long run, it's going to improve it a lot. And, Judy, I have to tell you why you are one of the luckiest people in the world may have those criteria and you have the mindsets to do these kinds of things. And Thank you for being out there and teaching our kids.
Judy Shaner
Thank you.
Ray Loewe
So yeah, KC I think we take a really quick break here and then we can close up
Diane Dayton
You're listening to changing the rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe the luckiest guy in the world. We will be right back with more exciting information.
KC Dempster
Okay, welcome back everybody and, you know, Ray throws this term, luckiest people in the world around pretty frequently. And we'd like to make the point that the luckiest people in the world aren't born lucky. But they do live exciting and fulfilling lives as you can tell by the the interview that we just had. And it's because they make the commitment to learn how to be lucky. And it's not enough to for it to be a one time commitment. It's a it's an ongoing exercise and commitment, where you do get these changes and challenges thrown at you and you have to adapt. And that's what the luckiest people in the world do. They learn to adapt and they make work for them.
Ray Loewe
Yeah. And and what they do is they design their own long lives, and they don't let things get in the way. Right. Okay. And I think that's probably one of the the most notable things that we've found by talking with Judy Shaner, a teacher of biology and mathematics and all these great things to to our AP students who really want to get into medical school. And and, Judy, thanks for being here. And thanks, most importantly for being you.
KC Dempster
Thank you. Right. And I just want to remind everybody, we have a brand new website. It's www dot the luckiest people in the world.com. Please go visit it. And, you know, let us know what you think of it.
Ray Loewe
And we'll see you next week.
Diane Dayton
Thank you for listening to changing the rules, a podcast designed to help you in your life the way you want, and give you what you need to make it happen. Join us in two weeks for our next exciting topic on changing the rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe the luckiest guy in the world.