Help Teach

Help Teach: Episode 5 - An Inside Scoop

Mihai Covaser: [00:00:00] Welcome, learners and learned alike, to Help Teach.

Mihai Covaser: Hello and welcome to our community audio project. I am your host, editor, producer, and project co-lead: Mihai Covaser. I am also a youth living with a physical disability. My most formative experiences living with a disability have come in the Canadian public education system. Many students like me, with physical, emotional, or mental challenges, go through their years of schooling lacking the supports and accommodations they need to partake of the same opportunities offered to their peers. The vision of this project is to provide educators in Canadian classrooms, students with disabilities, and members of the general public, with the tools and knowledge that they need to make our institutions more accessible and inclusive for all. Join me and a diverse cast of guests as we explore perspectives on disabilities and education in this podcast series. [00:01:00] One last message for you teachers tuning in: Listen in each episode for our key takeaway that you can implement in your classroom today to help us further this vision.

Mihai Covaser: For today’s episode, I’d love to give a warm welcome to someone that I’ve known for a long time and that will give a lot of great information for us today. Welcome to the show, Stephanie. How are you?

Stephanie Spees: Hi. Thanks a lot, Mihai, for having me.

Mihai Covaser: Well, why don’t we start by asking you a bit about you? Why don’t you tell our audience a little bit about who you are, what you do, and…yeah, we’d love to hear it.

Stephanie Spees: Sure. I’m Stephanie Spees, I’m currently a grade four-five teacher. I’ve been teaching for twenty-three years, I believe, this year. I’ve taught in a couple different provinces and grades from one to seven, so kind of an elementary round of things. [00:02:00] Yeah, I feel like I’ve been around for a while now.

Mihai Covaser: Absolutely. So, you know, I think it’s a bit of a cliché question maybe, but I think we all are interested to hear about what brought you to where you are now, so how did you get to teaching? How was your journey like getting there?

Stephanie Spees: I think, since I was a little kid, I’d always wanted to be a teacher. My mom was a teacher, and always in kind of in a very high-needs schools, and always brought home stories on her experiences. I always loved working with kids; I coached para skating for many years and just enjoyed working with children, and I knew that I did want a family one day, and teaching would also be a great choice as far as being able to be–having a career and also being a mom [00:03:00] as well.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, absolutely. For you audience members out there, just to give you a bit of context there, my younger brother, especially, is quite good friends with Stephanie’s young ones, as well, so we’re quite close and they’re wonderful kids, so…

Stephanie Spees: Yeah, it’s a great friendship.

Mihai Covaser: Absolutely. So you mentioned there in that little story that your mom worked in quite high-needs schools or environments, and that she brought home stories about that, so would you mind elaborating a bit on that? What do you mean?

Stephanie Spees: Yeah, so she kind of taught in kind of interesting schools, with lots of children that needed extra support in lots of different ways, and the way she loved them was just incredible, and they still…You know, you go downtown and she still meets kids and [00:04:00] they say she’s their favorite teacher, and you love to have that, and hopefully someday, someone will say that about me as well. So even though her days were hard, you know, she loved the kids and the kids loved her. In the beginning of my career, I didn’t have that experience; I tended to–the way that I worked, I ended up in quite, you know, well-to-do schools that didn’t have the needs that my mom had had, and in more recent years, we’ve had more similar experiences that we can have quite interesting conversations together. And, you know, she can give me advice on how she did things, and I can certainly take away a lot of what she did really, really well.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah. I mean, that’s great to hear, you know, [00:05:00] to have the opportunity to grow up and get to know that environment, and to have your role model be so close to you, in terms of what you want to do for a career, must’ve been really nice for you.

Stephanie Spees: Yeah. And I think as you get older, you appreciate it more and more.

Mihai Covaser: For sure, for sure. I know the same thing is true of my own sibling and our parents; he is definitely seeming to go down their path of medicine and working also with children. He has quite an interest in working with kids and he’s always loved being with younger children, so…Yeah, it’s sort of great to have that environment. I’m not going quite the same way, but I’m sure–

Stephanie Spees: You never know, Mihai, you never know.

Mihai Covaser: Fair enough, fair enough. At least they have the one of us, as a bit more of a guarantee there. So you mentioned there that your experiences and your mother’s sort of got closer [00:06:00] over time and you have some stories to share there. What does that look like? What do you mean by that?

Stephanie Spees: Yeah, so, you know, just having students that have, you know, kind of more exceptional needs, and, you know, how to help and serve those students the best and make sure that they’re getting everything they need, and the rest of the class is also getting everything they need. You know, it’s a tricky balance, for sure, and there’s a lot of outside factors that feed into a classroom, that unfortunately you don’t have sometimes the–we aren’t able to influence those factors. We try as best we can to support families as a wrap-around, but it’s tricky at times to give everyone [00:07:00] what they need in exactly the way they need it.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You said something interesting in our pre-talk there, which I really enjoyed, which is that everyone in a class is someone’s baby.

Stephanie Spees: Yeah.

Mihai Covaser: Do you want to talk a bit about that?

Stephanie Spees: Yeah, to kind of keep, you know, as a teacher, I guess, more speaking to parents and like, we want to do well by their children and we want to do the best we can for each child. And everyone needs something at a different time, and sometimes one child will need extra support on a certain day, on a certain time of day, or whatever it happens to be, and just understanding that when I’m giving support to one child fully, it means sometimes another child also might need support at the exact same time. You know, it’s [00:08:00] that balancing act and it can be really a tricky situation that–It’s hard at times to make sure that, you know, trying to give everyone what they need but not necessarily having the resources to do so.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned in my intro to this show, that’s really what we’re trying to shed a light on, you know, as part of this project and that there are gaps that exist in everyone’s experience in education, regardless of whether you’re a student or a teacher or a parent or anyone else, there’s just gaps there that I think really make it tough on everyone to generate the classroom environment that everyone wants to see, right? And it’s difficult to be on the end of that, where you don’t always have control [00:09:00] over that, right, and you don’t always–Regardless of your best intentions, it can be really difficult sometimes to make that happen, just because you simply don’t have–as you say–the resources at your disposal to do so, which is why I’m hoping, as part of this project, we can offer some advice or some knowledge that can help people to supplement that in their experience. And you know, small steps at a time, right.

Stephanie Spees: Yeah, yeah. It is, it’s all about–Really, it comes down to money and funding and all those things that, again, we don’t have any influence on as educators or as students or as parents. You know, it kind of comes from above, so just working the best we can within the parameters that we have, is kind of what we all work together on. I think working together is that big, big piece. With any student, but especially students with, you know, diverse needs.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah. [00:10:00] Absolutely. And I think, you know, as I mentioned, everyone has a bit of a different perspective on it. It can be easy for maybe some of our audience members–especially if you’re a student with a disability who is listening to this and really connects with us and takes interest; maybe you’ve had these feelings or you’ve heard someone else do this–where it’s easy to point fingers sometimes, right, but the fact that we’re all sort of working towards a common goal, or at least many of us are, I think that’s really important to hear for our audience. How does that make you feel? You know, coming home at the end of the day from this kind of environment and knowing that all this is happening, and, as you mentioned, having grown up and cultivated that sense of wanting to do your best for all the students in your class.

Stephanie Spees: I think it’s hard, right, and some days, of course, are better than others; some days, you come home and you’re like, “Yeah, I really nailed it today, everyone got what they needed [00:11:00].” Unfortunately, those are far and few-between; you know, you just wanna clone yourself and have twenty-eight of you for each child, but, of course, impossible. But, you know, we try the best we can and for the most part, I think working as a team is really important to make sure–It’s a job you can’t do alone, you have to be working with all the partners that are stakeholders in this, and it can be pretty disheartening to come home and feel that you missed this completely today, and, “I didn’t get this done,” or, “I didn’t see this,” “I should’ve spent more time with this child.” It can be disheartening some days to come home and feel [00:12:00] like that, like you haven’t met everybody’s needs the way you want to every day.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, I think that’s a great place there for us to take a pause, but don’t go anywhere, audience members! In our second half of this episode today, we’re going to be–as the episode title suggests–taking a look at the inner framework of the education system, from an educator’s perspective, and telling you a bit about all the moving parts that come together to make the classroom that you know and appreciate, or, you know, sometimes don’t. And, of course, listen in, educators, for our key takeaway at the end of the episode that you can implement today to make the classroom more accessible and inclusive for all. Don’t go anywhere, we’ll be right back.

Mihai Covaser: Welcome back to Help Teach. Today I’m having a conversation with Stephanie Spees [00:13:00] on the subject of being an educator with students with all kinds of diverse needs and the unique challenges that come with that. And we just left off talking a bit about what it takes to make the classroom as accessible as possible and the fact that it can be quite difficult, for all parties involved on some days. You know, and we often talk, as I did in my introduction, about the resources that are really lacking in the school system to make it–to have that support be there for all students and all teachers, so I’d love to just start this half by asking you: what kind of resources do you have at your disposal for making the classroom run the way you want it to? Who do you turn to? What happens there?

Stephanie Spees: I think usually my first stop, at least in my particular case, depending on the child, is the learning assistive teacher or the resource teacher. [00:14:00] Those are the two people who generally manage caseloads of children who have diverse needs, and within that, we can pull other specialties in, such as OTs, like occupational therapists, speech-language pathologists…could be counselors, and depending on the child, creating IEPs and learning plans for those children so that they can feel successful in a school setting and also as a communication guide for the parents, as, “This is what we’re teaching, this is how we’re gonna do it, and this is how we’re going to try to help your child be successful.”

Mihai Covaser: Yeah. You know, I had a conversation with my previous guest, Alexis Holmgren, on the subject of IEPs and how much of a tough kind of situation that can be to navigate for a lot of people. And you mentioned learning plans, as well; would you mind [00:15:00] just telling us a bit more about, first of all, what a learning plan is and how it’s different, and then what your experience has been with both of those documents and how that comes together in your class.

Stephanie Spees: Yeah. Every kind of district and school is slightly different, but generally, an IEP is a legally binding document that…Things that are listed in there, adaptations for the child must be followed. A learning plan is more…It could be just that a child is struggling in a certain area, math, reading, whatever it happens to be, and these are the accommodations we’re going to give the child to help them be successful. So it could be using a calculator or giving more time for tests, or those type of accommodations. Occasionally, it does also…You know, if I’m teaching grade four and there’s someone reading at grade two, we’re going to assess them at a grade two level. [00:16:00] You know, so they’re still seeing growth, but at their own level. So it’s kind of a…just a slightly different document. There’s definitely some overlap, but the key one would be that it’s not a legally binding document.

Mihai Covaser: Okay, I see. So I’m curious about this, because from a student perspective, it can be often hard to see how those inner workings come together and why maybe, you know, sometimes what you’re hoping for in terms of accommodations don’t necessarily come through. So I was just curious to ask, first of all, what goes into–who comes to the table to discuss IEPs, usually, and is there sort of a designated or a required representation, right, from which parties to come to the table and discuss that kind of document, and then [00:17:00] whose responsibility is to enforce it, generally speaking, I mean, at least from a technical standpoint?

Stephanie Spees: Yeah. You know, you kind of look at the stakeholders–and again, it will be different for each child, like some children will need an OT and some goals for that, or maybe they need a goal for speech or whatever it happens to be, and some children won’t need it, so it really depends. The team is slightly different for each child, but the ones that kind of remain constant are the resource teacher or the learning assistant teacher, the classroom teacher, and the parents. Those are kind of the key players, and as far as implementing the IEP? It’s generally the teacher that kind of does those, except for when you have students who have goals that are speech-related. Then the speech-language pathologist would be kind of more responsible for implementing those [00:18:00] or making sure that those things are covered through their teaching.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, I see. Okay. Yeah, very interesting, thank you.

Stephanie Spees: Yeah.

Mihai Covaser: And so you mentioned this, both in our first half and then again here; it’s something I can tell is quite important to you, so I’d love to talk a bit about it. You mentioned a couple times that working as a team and having that team around you, that support really is key. So you mentioned a few people that you rely on at all times, but I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about that, like who is it that you go to regularly for that support and why is it so important that you have that team together and that you work together well; what do you do for each other?

Stephanie Spees: Yeah. I mean, this is just a job you can’t do alone–or maybe you can do it alone, but you can’t do it well alone. It’s, you know, to your benefit and the child’s benefit [00:19:00] that you are working together, because it’s such a big job and as I say, you know, it’s one thing to have one child with one IEP in your classroom, but you know, you get up to seven IEPs and a few learning plans in a classroom, and it’s just impossible to do by yourself. So, you know, making accommodations for students that will work for a lot of students at the same time, because often many children need the same type of accommodations. But as far as people that I rely on? If you have a CEA; I’ve been blessed with the most incredible CEA this year and last year, and in previous years, I’ve had many, many good ones. They are incredible, both with giving sometimes that one-on-one support that you just can’t give 100% of the time to children, and for me, the CEA, at least mine, [00:20:00] you know, she sees my blind spots. You know, she sees, “Okay, well, we’re having this activity; how is this child going to…?” You know, making sure they’re part of it, and you know, sometimes when you’re looking at the twenty-six other children, and something’s moved or changed really quickly, and you sometimes haven’t considered all everything, and so having that CEA there to really help you out and to check those blind spots, that “Okay, have we thought about this, how is this going to work, is this student, you know, going to be successful in this way or that way?” Just bouncing ideas off, I’ve been really, really lucky that way. Now while not all classrooms have CEAs, I think it’s my belief that every classroom should have one, just to have extra hands at all times with all these needs, especially nowadays. [00:21:00] I find that we have more and more diverse classrooms; it’s really, I think, such a huge, sometimes undervalued part of our education system. I have nothing but respect for them and the work that they do with children. Yeah, and I think just, again, like working back and forth and as a team with those people that support the children is the number one way to make the classroom a great place for everybody.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah. Would you mind telling our audience what a CEA is, like what that means?

Stephanie Spees: Yeah, a certified education assistant.
Mihai Covaser: Yeah.

Stephanie Spees: So they’re there to help. Sometimes they’re attached to a child, often attached to a child, but nowadays it’s very rare to get a CEA one-on-one with a student; generally, there are several students that are [00:22:00] kind of attached to a CEA, and they are kind of just helping those specific students in general.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Spees: They, of course, usually help out throughout the classroom, but they’re kind of the ones that are meant to be working together.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, okay. No, absolutely, I have definitely had my fair share of diverse experiences with staff, you know, different school staff, with regards to my needs in the system, and absolutely, having a great CEA in the class is just–You can’t really compete with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stephanie Spees: Yeah.

Mihai Covaser: Well, I did sort of shift gears here a little bit, I did have another thing to draw on from what you were speaking about, and that’s about working with parents and with families, because a lot of work happens between you and your staff, other colleagues of yours to make this a great experience, but also, naturally, [00:23:00] the parents of the students are key stakeholders in the class and they’re very much involved, so what has your experience been like working with parents and families to make that classroom environment or to promote that environment that both of you want to see? And what are maybe some–If you’ve had any challenges in that regard or something like that?

Stephanies Spees: Yeah. I think the best experience that I’ve had with parents has been when we’re both coming together kind of with the best of intentions and, you know, them understanding that I’m going to do the best for their child and, you know, they’re also advocating for their child in the best way and understanding, you know, that what can happen and what we want to happen sometimes doesn’t always line up. We try as best we can, but there’s days that it doesn’t line up, so just kind of coming from that idea of grace for each other a bit [00:24:00] and…You know, I think it’s been interesting for me, you know, especially in IEP meetings, is that I can have an idea of what I want for a child to learn that year, and that can be very different from the goals of the parent and what the parent thinks is important for the child. So I think you have to be really, really open to parents and listening to what they want for their child, and you know, what I think is important sometimes isn’t important for that child, and they’re the first teachers, right, as the parents, and so knowing that they know their child best and what they see for their child for the future is really important to honor. And, you know, work together to kind of have that balance of what we think they might need and [00:25:00] what the parents think that they want to have, as well, so…Yeah, coming from that place of–just that working together.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. No, that’s great to hear. And I think that brings us very nicely to our key takeaway for this episode, which, uniquely, in this series so far, needle as it is, is actually a key takeaway more so for parents from a teacher’s perspective–though we also, of course, have a bit of a spin on it to help educators as well, which I think is–You’ve mentioned it throughout, so why don’t you tell us what we really want to have people take away from this episode?

Stephanie Spees: I think for me, for parents: we, as teachers, are on your side. We understand how difficult, you know, situations can become for everyone; we know that it’s not perfect every day, but the more we can encourage an environment of collaboration [00:26:00] and clear communication, the better the classroom can become for your child.

Mihai Covaser: Awesome.

Stephanie Spees: Yeah.

Mihai Covaser: And for teachers?

Stephanie Spees: For teachers, if you don’t already have those lines of communication with parents whose kids come through your class, just consider how you can work together to support the classroom environment you want to see, so that would be what I would say.

Mihai Covaser: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, the fact that–and this project is sort of an example of that really–the fact of just communicating openly and getting out there exactly how each person feels about the situation that we’re talking about, what everyone’s experiences are and how we can best work together to improve them for everybody is just…The best thing we can do for each other is just communicate patiently and really try to make sure that–As you say, we often come into it with the best intentions and the more we can [00:27:00] help each other out and understand where some short falls and some gaps exist, the more we can sort of be there for each other as actors in the school system, and make that come together really nicely. So thank you; I really appreciate you bringing that up.

Stephanie Spees: Yeah, thanks; I think you brought it home there, that’s perfect.

Mihai Covaser: So that does take us just about to the end of our time here, so I just want to thank you very much for coming on. It was a great conversation today and, yeah, I really appreciate your time.

Stephanie Spees: Thank you very much for having me. It’s my first podcast so there we go!

Mihai Covaser: Outstanding. Well, you did a great job.

Stephanie Spees: Oh, thanks, Mihai.

Mihai Covaser: You’ve just heard another episode of the community audio project, Help Teach. I’d like to give a huge thank you to my other co-leads on this project, Payton Given, Maggie Manning, Élise Doucet, and Alexis Holmgren, all youth leaders at the Rick Hansen Foundation, who I’d also like to thank for their continued support in this initiative and others. [00:28:00] Big thank you to Every Canadian Counts and their #RisingYouth initiative for funding this project. I’d love to give a huge shout-out to our community mentor for this project, Charl Coetzee, and to our professional contact helping in the editing process, Chester Hull. My name is Mihai Covaser. I am your host, editor, and producer for this podcast series, and if you’re hearing this episode now, then we’ve officially gone live on my personal site on TransistorFM. You can find all transcripts, episode notes, and links to other resources and hosting platforms there, where you are likely listening now, and I’ll be posting updates on our changes and progress regularly. Tune in next time for more great conversations and key takeaways that you educators can implement in the classroom today, to make it a more accessible and inclusive place for all. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you next time.