Intro: Welcome to the Teacher Interview Podcast. I’m your host, Wes Kriesel. I work as Director of Innovation and Instructional Support in Fullerton School District, and every week we sit down and get to know a teacher better. My goal is to learn what drives and guides teachers, especially when venturing into that risky territory of trying something new. Join me. Today on the Teacher Interview Podcast, we spend time with CaroleAnn Curely. She teaches third grade at Laguna Road Elementary School in Fullerton, California.

Wes Kriesel: All right, so welcome to the Teacher Interview Podcast. Today, we have CaroleAnn Curley, and you’re teacher at what site?

CaroleAnn Curely: Laguna Road.

Wes Kriesel: Laguna Road. And so, we’re just going over what to expect a little bit. So, we have some interviews I’ve done ahead of time and they’ve given me some information, so those are like jumping off points into the interview, but our general theme is to explore trying things new and what do you think about that and why do you do it, because I’ve heard you try things that are new and even before the podcast we’ve talked about a couple of things. But first, to start us off, tell me your journey into teaching. How did that happen for you? Why did you become a teacher? Where were you?

CaroleAnn Curely: Okay. I played the piano growing up a lot. My mom was a piano teacher. So, by high school, I was already teaching piano.

Wes Kriesel: Really? Wow.

CaroleAnn Curely: So, my mom had a, in her family room, a grand piano.

Wes Kriesel: And this is classical music?

CaroleAnn Curely: Classical. And then, in her back bedroom, she had an upright Steinway. And so, I would teach in the backroom. When I had students that were really good, I’d pass them on to her. And so, that’s kind of I worked my way through college, too, but I started teaching piano when I was 16, 17, around there. My mom would coach me.

Wes Kriesel: Were you getting paid?

CaroleAnn Curely: Sure, sure. I put an ad in the PennySaver and I’d interview my students. If they didn’t practice, I’d say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t have room for you.” So yeah, I really enjoyed it.

Wes Kriesel: That might be the best quote out of the whole interview, is—you screened your students?

CaroleAnn Curely: Sure, sure.

Wes Kriesel: I love you already. That’s so brilliant. Okay, keep going.

CaroleAnn Curely: And then, I passed the ones on that were dedicated, you know, onto my mom, because I didn’t really have a credential to teach music and she like took them to adjudications and things like that.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, I’m sorry.

CaroleAnn Curely: Adjudications, like where you play for judges.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, so it’s like a recital but with consequences.

CaroleAnn Curely: Well, they’re positive…

Wes Kriesel: Or prizes.

CaroleAnn Curely: Well, it’s like positive. You get—okay, so you might do your pieces for a panel of or even just one judge, and then they would give you comments on how you can improve. They would give you feedback, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Uh-huh, feedback. Oh. That’s great. So, you started teaching, and then you actually helped earn your way through college by teaching piano.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yes. Sure.

Wes Kriesel: While living at home or…?

CaroleAnn Curely: Absolutely, I lived at home and then I would take how many students I needed back when tuition was nothing like it is now. And I love teaching. I love working with kids. I like seeing them grow. And then, when I got to college, I thought, “You know, I really want to be a teacher. I really like working with kids. I like making a difference in their lives.“

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. But, you’re not a music teacher per se.

CaroleAnn Curely: No.

Wes Kriesel: So, how did you decide on, “Okay, I’m not going to study music, I’m going to be…?”

CaroleAnn Curely: That would be my dad. He is an auditor for Security Pacific National Bank and he wanted me to have a job that had health benefits and a retirement plan, because being a music teacher is a good supplementary income but he wanted me to always have a secure income and he’s just like, that’s the dad part of him.

Wes Kriesel: Well, I guess I was thinking, you could be a music teacher in public education.

CaroleAnn Curely: Oh, I see what you’re saying, yes.

Wes Kriesel: So, at some point, you decided…

CaroleAnn Curely: I love too many things. So, being a general education teacher, you get to teach math and reading and science. And so, I became a liberal studies major so that I could have the gamut of all the subjects.

CaroleAnn Curely: And where did you go to college?

CaroleAnn Curely: I went to Cal State Fullerton.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, that’s awesome.

CaroleAnn Curely: A long time ago.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, yeah.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: That’s great. Okay, so then, where did you first start teaching? Tell me a little bit more about that.

CaroleAnn Curely: Okay, so I did student teaching at Fern Drive School and they hired me there.

Wes Kriesel: No way. What?

CaroleAnn Curely: There you go.

Wes Kriesel: That’s great.

CaroleAnn Curely: I had one interview.

Wes Kriesel: I love that story. That’s cool. Okay, so we have a couple—anything else you want to say about your journey into teaching? I’m going to pull up my notes from our interviews.

CaroleAnn Curely: No, I don’t think so.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

CaroleAnn Curely: I’m good to go.

Wes Kriesel: You’re good to go. Okay, so I interviewed a couple of people and I wanted to start off with this one. So, this is from your principal, so Ryan, and he actually added—I asked three questions and he gave me four answers.

CaroleAnn Curely: All right.

Wes Kriesel: So, I’m going to read this one because it just stood out to me. So, it says, “On a personal level, she gave my wife and I a book about a mom with her two sons, and we read that book at least once a week and it makes us cry every time.” And he says, he uses the words, “You’re intuitive and thoughtful and you’ve gone above and beyond to support your colleagues personally and professionally.” So, tell me about either that book or—I don’t think I’ve ever given a boss of mine a present like that that people would describe as intuitive and thoughtful.

CaroleAnn Curely: Aw.

Wes Kriesel: So, tell me more about that…

CaroleAnn Curely: Well, I love children’s literature and I have two daughters. I loved to read to them when they were young. And so, Ryan has two little boys, and so there’s this one book that I thought of. It’s how the mom loves each son completely and wholly but in a different way. So, one son, she says, “I love you the bluest,” one son, “I love you the purplest,” and then it’s just how she loves each son for who they are. And so, when they had their second child and Ryan would say how different the boys were, I thought of that…

Wes Kriesel: Oh, so you made that connection.

CaroleAnn Curely: I made that connection and I thought, “I bet they would love to read this book with their boys.” And, it also, for their boys, it helps kids understand that it’s okay to be who you are, that your parents love you for who you are and you don’t have to be like your older brother.

Yeah. Yeah. So, let’s draw a line between that and innovation. Innovation can broadly define trying something new, so if you are innovative, that means you’re not just trying it once but you’re trying it twice. So, think about like the boys, the sons. You love this idea, you love that idea differently. So, out of all of your experiences trying new things, almost like these ideas are kids, how do you find you become attached to ideas differently or certain things you try in the classroom make you feel differently? And talk about that kind of idea with innovation.

CaroleAnn Curely: Hmm. Well, I like to take long walks and I get lots of ideas when I’m walking, and sometimes I think I have an idea that I’m going to implement with a certain class and then I get to know them, their personality and their gifts and talents, and then I totally go a different way. So, I would say, how I attach myself to ideas is I go to conferences, I read a lot, I look around on Twitter, talk to [00:07:55 Jason and Pablo and Anne and Susan], and then I get to know the kids.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Talk about that part. I think that’s really interesting. You have an idea and then you’re watching the kids, and is it before you try something or while you’re trying it or after that you see the connection that it makes a difference for them?

CaroleAnn Curely: Okay. So, sometimes I’ve tried things over summer, like I’ve made a sample project that I never ended up doing at all because I [00:08:24 know] the kids, I’m like, “This totally is not going to fit them.” So, sometimes I’ve done it early and then other times I’ve implemented it [00:08:31 unintelligible]. Sometimes, I’ll get the idea as we’re working. So, this year, Jason and I built a little Kamigami, well, our students built the Kamigamis, but we…

Wes Kriesel: So, define Kamigami for our audience.

CaroleAnn Curely: It’s a little robot that looks like a little bug and they can code for it on the iPad. It’s pretty simple block coding, about like Dash. If you think about what you’d code for Dash, it’s about the same. And so, while we were building them, I thought to myself, we could save the boxes and make like a little house for them. So, I got it in the spur of the moment. So, the kids created this little environment and this little house and it lived right on their desk, so it was their personal learning buddy. So, sometimes I just get it in the moment, sometimes as we’re working with it. Like with the Kamigamis, I got the idea, “Oh, we’re going to the arboretum and we’re studying these biomes. We could make little biomes and then have the Kamigamis live in the biomes, and we could talk about how maybe it’s going to adapt, so tie in the science standards. And then, we were working on area and perimeter and I thought, “Oh,” and we were studying the City of Fullerton, “we could build a Kamigami town.” In fact, as I was thinking about that, and on Monday afternoon we have innovation lab, I was expressing that to a parent…

Wes Kriesel: What’s innovation lab? Tell me about that.

CaroleAnn Curely: Okay, it’s kind of like math lab, but I asked the kids…

Wes Kriesel: So, math lab in my experience is where you go for you to get tutored.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yeah, okay. So, some teachers have math lab. It’s where you do maybe tiling and you do…

Wes Kriesel: Okay, like hands-on, manipulative…

CaroleAnn Curely: Like different math activities, right?

Wes Kriesel: Mm-hmm.

CaroleAnn Curely: So, I switched it over this year to innovation lab. I asked the kids, “What do you want to be an expert on?” and some of them said, “I want to be better at coding a Hopscotch, some wanted to make things out a little bit, some wanted to make boardgames. And so, I just basically have them sign up on a Google Form and say, “What are you interested in?” And then, I met with parents and I coach them on, “Here’s what we’re looking. You’re not making the game. They’re making the game. But, you’re kind of facilitating discussion with them to say, ‘Well, what’s the strategy going to be? And if you draw a card, what’s going to happen?’” So, basically, everybody’s creating on Monday afternoon.

Wes Kriesel: That’s cool. That’s great.

CaroleAnn Curely: And I try to have them create something that went with the learning goal of what we were learning in our classroom.

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome. So, it’s like 20% time almost, if you’ve heard that idea, or Google…

CaroleAnn Curely: Right. Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, they’re just free exploration and creating something.

CaroleAnn Curely: Right.

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome. I love it. And tie it to a learning goal if you can swing it.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yes, yes.

Wes Kriesel: That’s great. Okay, so I got us off-track with innovation lab, but you were talking about the Kamigami and perimeter and…

CaroleAnn Curely: The city. So, during innovation lab, I was standing, talking to one of the mothers at the boardgame station and I said, “You know, we should build a city for these little robots.” And she said, “I’m a city planner.” And I said, “Are you kidding me?” So, she came in the next week with a PowerPoint on what she does and how city planners work and organize a city. So, now my class…

Wes Kriesel: Wow. And what grade are you teaching?

CaroleAnn Curely: Third grade. So, now they all signed up for different committees. I have the guys that are…

Wes Kriesel: That’s fabulous.

CaroleAnn Curely: Okay, I went to Home Depot, I bought this huge canvas, and they’re putting the road committee designing all the roads. I have the park and rec department. So, they’re planning this whole city and they’re building it out of cardboard.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. That’s awesome.

CaroleAnn Curely: And we’re measuring area and perimeter, which we could also do volume now, too. We could extend it. We’re doing a lot of measuring.

Wes Kriesel: That’s cool. That’s great.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: I’m glad the Kamigami topic came up because that was in my pre-research, and actually, before I, because I work with Jason, so I’ve heard about the Kamigamis and the pet Kamigamis. So, that’s great. Let’s go to, here’s another bit of feedback from your principal, Ryan. So, I’ll just read the quote and then we can talk about it.

CaroleAnn Curely: Okay.

Wes Kriesel: So, “CaroleAnn is so easygoing until something she’s passionate about is questioned. I remember a staff meeting my very first year where I was explaining PLCs and tracking guaranteed and viable standards, and the staff was giving me a lot of pushback. CaroleAnn stood up and said that we are responsible for building a framework for future generations of Laguna Road teachers.” She’s like that, always has the best interest of all students in mind. So, do you remember that moment?

CaroleAnn Curely: No.

Wes Kriesel: You don’t remember that?

CaroleAnn Curely: But I do remember, I know why I would have said that.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

CaroleAnn Curely: So, Laguna Road, we have a lot of very veteran teachers on our staff, and we do know where our kids are at. We actually don’t need guaranteed viable standards. You could just ask a teacher and, man, we know it. But, my point is, many of the teachers at Laguna are beginning to retire and the younger teachers are coming in, and I do feel very strongly that we need to create, the PLC is a good system to build this framework to support your teachers.

I remember my first years of teaching. I was lost. I didn’t know what I was doing. And I came out in the time of whole language. So, I walked into a fourth-grade room at that time and they said, “Here’s the book. Here’s a novel. Teach reading.” I was like, “What?” right?

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

CaroleAnn Curely: And teachers today, they don’t have two years to figure it out.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, I started teaching in the mid-nineties, so I was at the end of the whole language.

CaroleAnn Curely: I was ’87.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. So, eight to 10 years.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yeah. Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: That’s interesting. Yeah, I went through that. I was like, “I didn’t learn any”—I was high school, but I didn’t learn any strategic phonics or anything.

CaroleAnn Curely: Right.

Wes Kriesel: I learned it later, but yeah.

CaroleAnn Curely: Right. Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: That’s fascinating. Okay, so go back to your story. So, in this instance where you spoke to the staff, so that’s a moment, and you don’t remember it but if you are passionate about something, you see that it could make a difference, and other people are not necessarily seeing the value of that, how do you, let’s say it’s something new that’s maybe or not people’s comfort zone, how do you work with colleagues to help support taking them down a path they may not be comfortable with?

CaroleAnn Curely: I jump first. So, I jump first. I say, “Here, watch me do creative chaos and not freak out.”

Wes Kriesel: So, you try it.

CaroleAnn Curely: I try it, and then I show them how much fun it is, and the kids, they show how much learning has gone on, and it works out better that way. I mean, I just—am I making sense to you?

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, yeah. So, you go first and you try it so that you take the responsibility to like put, you know, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak.

CaroleAnn Curely: Right, right.

Wes Kriesel: But then you said, so then you share with your colleagues. So, what’s your strategy just talking to a colleague who’s not going in that direction, and you’ve tried it? So, do you have any tips or tricks for talking to people who are uncomfortable with that? Do you take them out for coffee? Do you just rave and rave and rave till they start asking questions or have you thought about it?

CaroleAnn Curely: I think one thing is to accept where they are and not necessarily try to change and shove it down their throat, honestly, okay?

Wes Kriesel: Well said. Yeah.

CaroleAnn Curely: But, it all starts with a relationship I think of friendship. And then, sometimes I’ve said, “Okay, that sounds like a lot. How about if I set up the accounts for your class? Let’s switch classes. You’re really good at this other lesson. You take my class for that, I’ll do all the messy setup for you,” because that’s overwhelming for them. They’re like, “Okay, that’s cool.” So, I just took that off their plate. They don’t have to worry about setting up whatever’s stressful to them.

And, just like we scaffold with kids, scaffold with your colleagues. So, take a project and say, “Okay, why don’t we just do this?” So, in our STEM lab, we’re looking to do some Scratch coding. So, the comment that I’ve heard is, “Oh, well, that’s too hard for my kids.” So, I said, “Here,” and I made a simple, simple project. I said, “What about if we just start with this?” and they’re, “Oh, oh! Oh, we could do that.” So, then I got them. We do a little…

Wes Kriesel: [00:17:31 unintelligible]

CaroleAnn Curely: Because after that, their kids will take it further. The ones that are ready, they’ll just run with it.

Wes Kriesel: Right. So, that goes back to the other thing you said, is, “I try it first and then I share with them,” and then scaffolding’s part of that. But then you said something about, then the students tell them. So, your students in your class talk to other students or other teachers. Do you see that happen where ideas spread because the students are expressing interest?

CaroleAnn Curely: Oh, I see what you’re saying. Maybe. I don’t have a good example of that, though, but I do have an example. What happens is the student will take it to the next level. So, if a teacher introduces Scratch coding, that student goes home and is totally excited and brings it, “Look at what I coded,” and all of a sudden, they realize, “Oh, it’s okay. The student went way past what I know, but I’m good with that.”

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, because once that happens, you’re not going to tell those students, “Stop learning,” and then you can release and go, “Okay, they’re learning on their own. I’m the facilitator.”

CaroleAnn Curely: And I think that’s a really big puzzle piece with innovation, is you have to be really comfortable going in a land where you don’t have all the answers to start with but that’s okay, and your kids can help you. And sometimes when I did—I did a lot of Scratch coding last year—I had students that went way beyond me and they kind of show and I just say, “Well, you do the mini-lesson this week and show the students your coding and what was going on in your head.” And they got up there [00:19:08 on a little stool] with a pointer next to the Apple TV and they taught the class. It was great.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, I love that.

CaroleAnn Curely: And they say kids learn really well from their peers.

Wes Kriesel: Right.

CaroleAnn Curely: It’s good, takes the pressure off me, too.

Wes Kriesel: That’s great. It does, and then you can just kind of sit back and observe and think about clarifying questions and watch how other students are receiving the information. So, it puts you like, instead of being active, you’re like observing and soaking up details and kind of you’re learning instead of performing.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: That’s great. There is a great word you used that I haven’t heard used before. You said something about innovations like going into a new land?

CaroleAnn Curely: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: And I think that’s really interesting. I think it shows a lot of empathy for people who are not comfortable in that space to actually visualize it. It’s disorienting physically or you don’t know where to turn or you’re not sure what your landmarks are. How do you, because so far you’ve been very like, “I just jump out there,” but how do you make sense when you’re in a place that you’re experiencing new things and you’re not exactly sure? How do you get through that? What’s your North Star? What are you paying attention to?

CaroleAnn Curely: Probably two things. One is that when you innovate, or when I innovate, I often have too many ideas.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

CaroleAnn Curely: I have to—well, there’s so much out there, you know, use this app, Flipgrid, this. They’re all good. Most of them are good and worthy. But, you kind of have to have your content and your purpose, and you need to be really purposeful in innovation so that you can create toward something meaningful with your kids, and you got to kind of peel things away and have focus so you’re going to do this and you’re going to do it well. And then, evaluate, either build on that or then turn a corner and try something else. And I’ve actually learned that sometimes less is more, right? To do less, but do it well and do it deep, and the kids really feel very proud about it. And then, the other thing is just true grit and perseverance. You just can’t give up easy. There’s going to be days where the Internet doesn’t work, the Apple TV goes down, this and that. You just have a backup plan and you just say, “Well, carry on. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, it’s so interesting. There’s just a lot of wisdom packed in a few words right there. You talked about how, “I have a lot of ideas,” like you, so you are the type of person who can come up with ideas but yet, sometimes, simplicity is really more effective. So, how do you kind of, I guess, discern or adapt your natural creative, like let’s you have 12 ideas or 10 or five, how do you then get to the point where you’re like, “Okay, this one is the best for the students?”

CaroleAnn Curely: All right. Number one, audience. You got to know your, like I have third grade, so I need to know what makes them tick, their different learning styles. I have a lot of kids in my room who love to build this year. They’re the builders. They love to build.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. Like Legos or…?

CaroleAnn Curely: Like this cardboard city, Legos, anything. They’ll build anything. You give them their pencil box, they’ll build a tower out of their pencil box. So, knowing your audience, knowing your content, what are your standards, I think those are the big things.

Wes Kriesel: So, it’s about having many ideas and trying to find the one that’s most important. So, you said knowing your kids. So, you have 10 ideas, but your students are builders. “Oh, let’s go with the idea that has building in it because it’s tapping into that affinity that they already have.”

CaroleAnn Curely: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: But then, you might have 10 ideas and here’s the content standard you really need, let’s choose the two that are really aligned with that.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: So, you’re kind of looking for, out of creative ideas and possibilities, alignment with who your students are, which I think you said in the first minute of this podcast, it seemed like, aligning with your content. So, you mentioned another word, purpose, and so it occurred to me like you said, “I’m trying to find ideas that are…you have to remember your content and your purpose,” so sometimes those are aligned and sometimes those are slightly different. Can you talk about like, what do you see when you think of content and what do you see when you think of purpose? And, yeah, talk more about that.

CaroleAnn Curely: Okay. So, back to the Kamigamis that we’re using this year, we in third grade work in writing workshop. My students need a lot more just fluency and writing informational text. So, we took that little Kamigami and every Friday we talk about the learning goals that we covered for the week, and they write a script from the point of view of the Kamigami about what they learned with an introduction—strong introduction—a main idea, supporting details, partner sentences like we talk about in writing workshop, strong conclusion, because they really needed to just repeat that. They needed to deepen and practice that skill in a meaningful way. So, they type this on their little iPad on a dock, they have little groups that they formed, and then they vlog it. They create a little vlog and post it on Seesaw.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, so they’re writing a script from the point of view of the robot about what they themselves have learned, and then the vlog is them reading it on camera?

CaroleAnn Curely: Yes. Yes. But, it’s like the robots reading it.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

CaroleAnn Curely: So, you actually don’t see the child.

Wes Kriesel: You don’t see this child…

CaroleAnn Curely: You just see the robot.

Wes Kriesel: But, you hear the child’s voice.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: Brilliant.

CaroleAnn Curely: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: I love that. I love that. So interesting, because then it’s disarming in a way because it’s like the robot is becoming the actor and is gaining proficiency, and so there’s this distance between how I feel about whether I know things or not and it’s almost like play. It’s play-acting, which is really empowering, right.

CaroleAnn Curely: And every week, they’re practicing writing a strong introduction, a main idea with supporting details, with a conclusion.

Wes Kriesel: But, it has this fun method to do it, so it’s not like just, “Let’s try another intro.”

CaroleAnn Curely: Yes. And then, I have a lot of artistic students, so they’ll build props. Some of them, the techie ones, will green-screen on Do Ink. So, they green-screen. And sometimes, it launches off from learning goals. I have a group of kids who are really into atoms, molecules. “Can we do it on the water molecule?” Of course, you can. [00:26:21 unintelligible]

Wes Kriesel: That’s great.

CaroleAnn Curely: So, it’s not always like, “This week, I learned about area,” or “This week, I learned about whatever.”

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Well, we’re getting close to the end of our time. We’ve been going 25 minutes so far. So, I’ve given you a couple of quotes from Ryan. But, I did want to—so Jason’s the one who’s like, “You have to have CaroleAnn. You have to talk to her. You have to interview her.” So, I did want to share one of his stories, and it looks like I didn’t get it pasted in this document, so I’m just going to go from memory.

CaroleAnn Curely: Right.

Wes Kriesel: So, the way he tells it is the idea of the Kamigamis started by you approaching him, and you said, “Is there anything new you want me to try?” Does that fit with your memory?

CaroleAnn Curely: Yeah. Every year, I say, “What you got for me? What do you got new for me?”

Wes Kriesel: “What do you got new for me?”

CaroleAnn Curely: “You get to go to fancy conferences, bring it back, bring it back.”

Wes Kriesel: “Bring it back. Tell me what’s new.”

CaroleAnn Curely: Because I want to go to those conferences, too.

Wes Kriesel: So, tell me about that mindset and, how do you keep that perpetual, like you just said, every year it’s like that? How do you keep that open mindset? Because you can have a great success and then think, “I’m going to do that again and perfect it,” and a lot of times we get comfortable doing things that we know more the ins and outs, so it’s less unpredictable ground. But yet, you are saying, “What do you have new for me?” and you might even add it on to the thing that was new last year, so there’s another layer.

CaroleAnn Curely: Right.

Wes Kriesel: So, talk to me about that mindset and why it’s important that you ask that question.

CaroleAnn Curely: Well, I’ve been teaching a long time. I don’t want to tell you how long, but I think I said 1987 earlier in the interview.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, yeah, it’s already out there.

CaroleAnn Curely: Okay. In my educational experience when I was in school, I had a lot of teachers who I think they did the same thing for 20-30 years, and they were bored with it and us students were bored with it, too.

Wes Kriesel: Right.

CaroleAnn Curely: And this is an era that there are so many amazing resources and tools to up the ante for kids, to engage them and to give them feedback, quick feedback, to make learning come alive and meaningful, and I love teaching and I want to be the best teacher I can be, and I want to bring it to them. I want them to leave third grade saying, “Whoa, that was totally awesome,” right?

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, yeah. “She’s the best!”

CaroleAnn Curely: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, I love that. Okay, so I just want to say thank you. We‘re at our time, and so thank you for joining us and hopefully it was enjoyable, and we loved having you on the podcast.

CaroleAnn Curely: All right, thanks.

CaroleAnn Curely: Okay.

Outro: This has been the Teacher Interview Podcast. Thank you for joining us.

[00:29:38]