S1 Ep1 Introduction, Why We Became Teachers

Two reading teachers discuss when they felt the magic of unlocking literacy with their students.

Transcript:

reading teachers lounge podcast episode 1_final

Shannon Betts: [00:00:00] RBI podcast episode one. Hey Shannon. Hey Mary.

Mary Saghafi: Are you ready to start this podcast thing? Okay. This is the Reading Teacher's Lounge where listeners can eavesdrop on professional conversations between elementary reading. Teachers we're passionate about literacy and strive to find strategies to reach all learners.

Shannon and Mary are neighbors who realized that they were literacy soul sisters at a dinner in their Atlanta neighborhood. Once they started chatting about reading, they haven't really stopped. Come join the conversation.

Shannon Betts: Hello and welcome to the Reading Basics Intervention podcast. This is episode one.

I'm Shannon. I'm Mary. I've been teaching for over 16 years. My specialty is locating the missing pieces in students reading, development, and choosing. Just read activities to fill those gaps.

Mary Saghafi: Hi, I'm Mary. I'm a teacher, wife, and a mommy. [00:01:00] I've taught in all elementary grades. I have Orton-Gillingham training, and I've been helping students with reading issues and dyslexia.

I love talking all things teaching. I believe that humor goes a long way when asking students and teachers to do hard things, and I'm excited to share with Shannon along with all of you.

Shannon Betts: Okay, so this is our first podcast and we're gonna spend some time introducing ourselves and sharing our teaching experiences.

Mary Saghafi: So Shannon, how did you first get into teaching?

Shannon Betts: I. Thought I wanted to be something else for a while when I was a kid. 'cause I used to say I wanted to be an interior designer and things like that, and a writer. But then I found elementary things from first and second grade that did say when I grew up, I wanna be a teacher.

Like so many young girls do. That's so funny. I did too. I bet a lot of teachers have thought that

Mary Saghafi: probably.

Shannon Betts: But I really made the decision when I was in high school. I babysat a sweet girl with special [00:02:00] needs and I was able to learn sign language and communicate with her. And so I wanted to go to college to become a special ed teacher, but my college did not have a special ed program and so I ended up going into regular elementary education.

Mary Saghafi: That is

Shannon Betts: my path as well. We have so much in common. It's crazy. And so I was recruited to come teach here in Atlanta in 2002 and I've been teaching ever since.

Mary Saghafi: And

Shannon Betts: here you are. Yep. Still teaching away. Yes. I have been a reading specialist for many years. About half of my career has been as a reading specialist and half of my career has been.

In the homeroom setting, and currently I'm teaching second grade. What about you, Mary? What made you become a teacher

Mary Saghafi: So similarly? I also did not know that. I was going to actually be a teacher. I come from a family of teachers, but it was never forced or it was never indicated that that [00:03:00] was what I had to be.

My grandmother was a kindergarten teacher. My mom is a special education teacher. And then a couple years later now, my sister has become a special education teacher too. But in college I was sort of. Finding my way and I thought, oh, elementary teaching sounds like pretty good path for me. I'll just see how it goes.

And I started tutoring while I was, you know, in my program for some service hours. And I had this sweet little girl who was working with me and you knew. As soon as she was coming down the hall, she wore these big, clunky shoes and she had these gangly long arms and it was just kind of a little awkward.

Friends. I can totally picture her. So she was just. Such a joy for me to teach. I loved working with her and she adored me, and I, I'd never really experienced that. I have a younger sister, but this was such a different teaching experience for me. So she was really trying hard to read and she made some good [00:04:00] progress.

But I will never forget the one day we were just kind of walking around on campus. It was a pretty day outside and she grabbed my hand and she said. You are my favorite teacher so far, and that was the first time I really felt like, oh, I am doing this teaching work. This teaching part has to really like, you know.

Touch their souls and it, and it makes a big impression on you. So that's the sweet side of my story, but I have to follow it up with this other part of the story because this is what my, all my friends in college just love. They all knew this sweet little girl that I used to tutor. And so one day I came back and we're sitting chatting about what happened.

So she comes in, gangly down the hall, clip plop, clip clop, and she sits down and she's got her book and I'm kind of giving her some space to read. And she's got her book and she's kind of tipping over. And it's those college chairs. You know how it has the round desk? Yes. And she's, she's tipping her [00:05:00] way over.

And I can tell she's trying to tap my foot or something and I'm casually ignoring her. And before you know it, the entire desk. Just flips completely upside down. Oh no. And with her little wire rim glasses, she just looks up at me. So surprised. She goes. Whoa. How did that happen with this gravely little voice?

And it is just the one of those stories that just warms my heart. Yes. And I think when I am teaching, I really live for those little moments, those little. When you're connecting with the kids, you connect with them. You love them for who they are in all of their glory and sometimes not so much glory, but they are just growing and changing and learning every day.

And I love that about teaching kids. And you know, I could laugh with her about it too when she's looking up at me. So surprised I said that. Really surprised you, didn't it? It surprised me even more and I think, you know, finding those moments are just like so essential to [00:06:00] making connections and helping kids to feel safe in your presence and try and challenge them to do hard things and in return they challenge you to do hard things too.

Shannon Betts: That's true. Because for the moment they're under your care. We're part of each other's life journey. Yeah. For the year or more than we might have them. I had some of my reading intervention students for multiple years. That's my only looping experience, but you're just a stop on each other's life journey and you both change through that connection as teacher and student.

Mary Saghafi: I, I think that that is so, you know, beautiful and wonderful and little people. Yeah, that's why I'm teaching. They're just little people and you're just growing them into adults. And it's precious too to remember that, you know, their parents trust you with doing this hard work of training them, helping them learn, helping them, you know.

Change the world. And it sounds so [00:07:00] cliche, but you know, when the kids are in my classroom, they really are my kiddos for that year. And I don't forget them. Yes. Well, we're

Shannon Betts: with them for

Mary Saghafi: eight hours a day. No, which is a long time. They touch your heart and they're your kiddos. So all my kiddos out there, we still love you.

Well,

Shannon Betts: that brings me to another question, like what has kept you. In teaching. Hmm. Because I've been tempted to leave quite a few times 'cause I've been burned out sometimes. Yeah. But what I love about teaching, there are two main things. One, I like that we have two new years 'cause everybody has a New Year's in January, but we get a fresh start in August every year.

And we can just do over and we can reflect and then do over and always

Mary Saghafi: continue to grow. That's one of my favorite parts of teaching too, that first fresh. Smell of new crayons and, you know, the clean school, clean school and how hard those first six weeks are, and how you are really tired when you go home after [00:08:00] those first couple weeks of school because you're really teaching them how to be, yes.

How to be in, in a lot of different ways. How to think, how to behave, how to do what are the new routines and rituals. And I, yeah, it, it goes. It's hard work. I think the thing that keeps me is that every year brings a new challenge that you can't really expect or anticipate, but you really, Hmm.

That's kind of like the exciting piece of it, I suppose. Yes. Is really, you know, you never know what the day is gonna bring and you are required to juggle a lot of hats. Do a lot of tasks throughout the day, and some of those are really fun tasks and some of them are mundane and that's what sort of causes the burnout, I think.

But maybe for me it's working with really passionate educators and other people who, you know, [00:09:00] kind of inspire me to keep trying and doing more and caring in a different way. Mm-hmm. You know, trying to get myself to learn in a different way.

Shannon Betts: Yes. I do love that intellectual challenge. Yeah. When I chose education as, as my major, and I was an honors student in high school, and I remember them saying, well, why don't you wanna be a doctor or lawyer?

And I said, now I want to be a teacher. And really, now that I'm in the field, teaching is one of the hardest jobs there is. It requires so much advanced thinking, especially working with struggling students as you try to diagnose and prescribe. What you need to do to meet them. And so I love the intellectual challenge and I love even meeting students where every other strategy I haven't that has worked in the past doesn't work with just one child sometimes.

Mm-hmm. And that's when I discover, I keep trying things and keep trying things and keep discovering new things. And then that moment when they finally get it. It's worth it. It's worth, it's worth [00:10:00] all the stress that we have to do every day in the classroom. That moment when they become a reader is the high that keeps me going.

I

Mary Saghafi: agree. It's it, there's nothing more exciting than working with a kid who is struggling. And when they start to build up that confidence and you know, they're in the library and they pick out that just right book and you know that it is a just right book, they can actually read

Shannon Betts: it. And they're not just mimicking reading or pretending to read the words, but it's actually a book that they can gain meaning from

Mary Saghafi: and something that they're excited about and passionate about.

And you know, when. I'm thinking of this one boy who I've been tutoring recently. He picked out this great picture book that I had never read before and it was hilarious. It was about too many toys and this little boy who, you know, had to donate a lot of his toys and it was just such a lovely book and it was just the right book for my student to read.

And that those moments stick with you? Yes. [00:11:00] So,

Shannon Betts: It was one famous author, maybe Catherine Patterson maybe who wrote Bridge Toter, I can't remember. But I used to have it hanging over my desk and it said that it was, it's one of the greatest responsibilities and gifts that we actually get to match books to readers as teachers.

Mary Saghafi: I love that.

Shannon Betts: I absolutely love that, and I apologize to her if I'm misquoting who said it, but somebody said it and it was a good sentiment. Agreed. So you have had an interesting career. You've done a lot of different things. And so what are you I have doing currently?

Mary Saghafi: So currently I am working as a reading tutor.

I have some training in Orton-Gillingham, which is the training that is most effective to work with students with dyslexia and, I am working one-on-one right now with two students. I'm also raising two little girls at the moment. So my classroom is located in my basement, but I still am very much dedicated to my own classroom.

And [00:12:00] I also am working with some other families too, are having some challenges within the public school system. And really we are really working to build a bridge with the school. So. I do not like to be called an advocate. I'm more of like a family support teacher who comes and brings ideas that can work within the framework of what's actually already going on in the classroom.

And I, I found that to be really rewarding and challenging and also. Something that really keeps me on my toes. And although I'm, you know, surrounded by little people, littler than elementary school people I I really enjoy this aspect right now of, of my career. So that's what I'm up to right now.

Shannon Betts: Mary, it's so fascinating how your career has, I kept developing even as you're staying home with your girls. And so I look forward to learning more about what you are doing with the [00:13:00] kids you're tutoring as well as the parents that you're assisting. So as you can see, we have very varied experiences in education, but what we share is a.

Firm belief in strong literacy foundation.

Mary Saghafi: Mm-hmm.

Shannon Betts: And also in meeting students where they are within their ZPD, so that they're not as frustrated Yeah. In school. And you will see that as we continue to record our podcast. So stay tuned because we're gonna be doing some episodes about sight words, a reading scope, and sequence.

Just decoding literacy jargon for teachers. We're gonna be sharing a lot of effective resources that help us and our students. We're gonna be discussing key development stages in the life of a reader, some in-depth episodes about reading levels, including Lexis, and much more. Thank you so much for [00:14:00] listening.

Please subscribe so that we will, you'll continue to hear our great content and write a review. We would really appreciate it, so we could be seen in more of the search engines and reach more teachers and

Mary Saghafi: readers. In ending, we're gonna give you some sage advice. The advice for today is make sure to take time and read to your kiddos, and also make time to listen to them, read to you.