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. This episode, we talk to Andrea Calvo. She is the 2019 Orange County Teacher of the Year and teaches at Ladera Vista Junior High School of the Arts.
Wes Kriesel: Well, welcome, Andrea.

Andrea Calvo: Thank you.

Wes Kriesel: Glad to have you here on the podcast. And to get us started, tell us how you got into teaching.

Andrea Calvo: Well, I like to say I sort of fell into teaching, but I didn’t really. When I was in high school, I went to school because of my choir teacher and my drama teacher. Those were the two classes that I wanted to take and…

Wes Kriesel: Choir and drama.

Andrea Calvo: Choir and drama, and I had to maintain a GPA to stay eligible to participate, so I did.

Wes Kriesel: Was that something you had to think about, like, “I have to stay eligible?”

Andrea Calvo: Yeah. No, absolutely.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Andrea Calvo: If your GPA dropped below 2.0, you couldn’t participate. So, I didn’t really struggle in school, I just was one of those kids, you know? So, I stayed eligible. I did well so that I could stay in the show choir, which was the top-performing ensemble, and so that I could perform in all the shows. And I have always loved music for as long as I can remember. Since I was three, I’ve been playing and singing and performing. So, when it was time to go to college, I wasn’t really—I didn’t want to do anything except music.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. And music means vocal music, instrument? What did that look like?

Andrea Calvo: It was vocal music to start with. I played in the band in school and I sang in the choir, and then when I went to a JC and I taught children’s choirs and performed. So, mostly vocal music. That’s the thing that I like to do.

Wes Kriesel: So, when you were a student at a junior college, you were teaching children’s choirs?

Andrea Calvo: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: How did that work?

Andrea Calvo: At a church.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, okay. So, it wasn’t like something you did through the JC. It was just at the same time.

Andrea Calvo: No. At the same time, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, so you were already teaching and doing music. That’s interesting.

Andrea Calvo: Right. Yeah. So, I transferred to Chapman University because they have an opera program which is fabulous, Opera Chapman, and I wanted to sing opera. I had never done opera before. I had done musical theater. And so, I wanted to get into it. So, I transferred to Chapman. I continued to teach. I taught at the YWCA, little music classes twice a week. And my advisor at Chapman said, “You should really not be vocal performance. You should do something like music education because then you can pay the bills sometime.”

Wes Kriesel: Oh, okay. I was thinking, is that like an easy way to let you down? “You’re not that talented.”

Andrea Calvo: No. No, they were really—I mean, that was Chapman 20 years ago, so there weren’t a lot of music education majors. There were like six of us and there were just…

Wes Kriesel: Oh, wow.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah, it was really small, for vocal music anyway. So, I was a music education major and vocal performance—I dual-majored—and about halfway through I realized that I didn’t want to major in performance because I didn’t want to go to New York and pound the pavement and go to grad school and do all of that stuff. I wanted to stay in Orange County and have a family. And so, I kept teaching. The whole time, I was teaching. I taught at the YWCA. I taught at [00:04:02 unintelligible] church choirs. I did an internship at OUSD.

Wes Kriesel: Where?

Andrea Calvo: Orange. Orange Unified, sorry.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah, the City of Orange.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Andrea Calvo: And I taught elementary music at the City of Orange, so like kindergarten, first, second graders, and I loved that and I thought, “Okay, this is where I fit. I’m totally going to teach elementary music. I’m going to be like the teacher that comes in and they all love you and sing songs.” And just as things unfolded, a friend of a friend said, “We need someone in Fullerton to teach dance and choir,” and as a musical theater person, dance was always like my second thing that I did. I didn’t have quite enough credits to dance minor, but I took a lot of dance. So, I was like, “Ooh, me! I’ll do that,” and I started at Nicolas Junior High in 2001.

Wes Kriesel: Wow.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome.

Andrea Calvo: And then, I kind of caught that—but, well, I was a first-year teacher, so I cried and thought it was horrible and, you know, all the things that come along with being a first-year teacher. But, then I just kind of realized that I loved the junior high kids and I really liked what I was doing. I loved that I was able to have an influence, that they were young but still kind of like mini-adults sometimes. Sometimes they were like kindergartners and sometimes they were mini-adults. That’s how junior highers are. And I just loved it, and so I stayed and I kept staying, and now it’s been 18 years.

Wes Kriesel: A couple of questions. Any highlights over the last 18 years? That’s one question.

Andrea Calvo: Oh, highlights like teaching highlights?

Wes Kriesel: Sure, just memories that stand out.

Andrea Calvo: Oh gosh, there are so many, so many fun things. The first show I directed at Nicolas was Annie, and they had never done a musical there before.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Andrea Calvo: Maybe—I shouldn’t say never—but there wasn’t like a tradition of doing musicals. So, I had this seventh-grade girl who was Annie and she sent me a letter when she was graduating from college. So, she and her family had moved away. They were from Mexico City. They had come to Fullerton. Then, they moved to Arizona or something. But, she sent me a letter and she said, “That was the moment that I gained self-confidence. That’s when I knew like I’m going to graduate from high school, I’m going to go to college, I’m going to have this awesome life, because I stood up on stage and I sang Annie and you believed that I could do that.”

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome.

Andrea Calvo: So, that was really cool that she sent me that letter. That was super-cool.

Wes Kriesel: Wow. We could just stop the podcast right there.

Andrea Calvo: Right.

Wes Kriesel: That’s such a great story.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Oh my gosh. Another question is, anything in the first year that sticks with you as a lesson? Because you said it was hard. You were new teacher. But, anything that you would still latch onto and give as advice? What is something that occurs to you?

Andrea Calvo: Oh gosh. The first year was so important to have somebody that kind of got it and that I could vent to. I had [00:07:17 Margie Price.] I don’t know if you remember [00:07:18 Margie] but she taught the opportunity class at Nicolas back then, and every now and then she would just come in and say, “Hey, how you doing? Everything good today?” And I would be like, “No! Oh, this happened!” or something.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Andrea Calvo: So, she was really great and I was fortunate to just find her, and then the band teacher there. We sort of bonded. We shared a classroom and we would stay after school and just talk about stuff, and just having another teacher who was willing to, they were both willing to say, “Hey, you got to try this. This works for me,” or, “How about I just sit in your class and observe that back row and see what they’re doing back there?” So, I was really fortunate to have some good teachers that right away were like, “We got you. We got your back.”

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: That’s great. So, if somebody doesn’t have that, what advice would you give them to get through or how do you connect? You people kind of seek you out or volunteer. What advice would you give somebody who’s kind of in that spot and they don’t have that person who’s coming to check on them? What’s another option that’s helpful early on?

Andrea Calvo: I think, well, it sounds so cliché  to say, but self-care is so important and…

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, talk about it.

Andrea Calvo: I remember being a new teacher and spending all of my time at the school. Especially for music, we’ve got these concerts we’re doing and I was directing a show and I was helping build the sets and we were doing a lot. So, I would go on Saturday and have a team there, and there just was no…

Wes Kriesel: When you say have a team, you mean team of students?

Andrea Calvo: Students, yeah. There was not a lot of parents back then, didn’t have a lot of parent help, but there were a few parents that would come. But, I would have the students meet me there on Saturday and we would sit and like paint sets or we would make costumes and, yeah. One of the instructional assistants, actually, she had a one-on-one student who was in my class and she would come on Saturday. So, we just did a lot. We spent a lot of time at the school and, looking back, it was maybe too much.

Wes Kriesel: Real talk.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah, you got to draw—now, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just in a different stage of life. Back then, I wasn’t married. I didn’t have kids.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Ooh, yeah, balancing that with your own family.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah. So, balancing. So then, it was like, “Yeah, sure I can spend my Saturdays at school. I can spend my evenings at school.” But, it was a lot. I wasn’t maybe taking enough time to—maybe that’s where the stress came from. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d tell someone. You got to find someone. I was afraid to go into the teachers’ lounge.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, really?

Andrea Calvo: There were a lot of teachers. And I wasn’t young. I mean, I was 25. I wasn’t a super-young new teacher. But, there were some really seasoned veteran teachers there, who were fantastic, not to say they weren’t, but I was a little intimidated.

Wes Kriesel: Sure.

Andrea Calvo: I walked in one time wearing my dance clothes and one of them said, “Students aren’t allowed in here.” And I was like, “Oh, I’m the new dance teacher. Nice to meet you.” “Oh, you look like a student,” you know?

Wes Kriesel: Charming.

Andrea Calvo: It was just one of those things. So, I was kind of intimidated. I didn’t go in there very often. It took a while to meet people. So, I think that’s important that, don’t isolate yourself.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Andrea Calvo: I wasn’t prepared to sit in a room where everybody called me by my last name all day long. That was a weird thing. I remember telling my band teacher, I was like, “Does anybody ever use your first name?” He’s like, “No.”

Wes Kriesel: That’s so funny.

Andrea Calvo: It just felt weird. I craved a grown-up conversation. So, it’s important to find someone to support you.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Wow. So, I’m just trying to make a connection. So, when you’re a new teacher spending all this time there, and for those students who were there, so the team of students who was spending extra hours with you, do you see a connection between their experience and when you were in school and like drama and music was some of what you liked the extra kind of non-class time that was a different experience?

Andrea Calvo: Oh yeah, for sure. I think it’s a different experience connecting to the students on a different level than in the classroom.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Talk a little bit about what you think drama and the arts have to offer in that way outside the class on these like mega-projects like a play or a musical, you can’t just get it done in a period, a day.

Andrea Calvo: Right. Right.

Wes Kriesel: So, what does that bring into the student experience?

Andrea Calvo: I think it brings a connection to something larger than, something bigger than yourself. I teach the musical theater class at LV and we like to say, “Putting on a musical involves every single art form,” and then all the core curriculum, too. Because we’re learning, like right now, we’re doing Mary Poppins, but there’s all this literature that goes along with it, the PL Travers books, all of the dialogue, learning accents, and then you bring in history. We’re talking about Edwardian culture and what that was like. And so, it kind of brings everything together and you’re creating this thing that’s way bigger than any one person to do. It takes discipline and endurance and responsibility and being part of a group. It’s kind of like being part of a team, but I don’t like sports analogies. It’s kind of like that, but it’s a little bit different in that we’re not competing. So, it has a different level. It’s just a different thing, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, something you said made me think you could run an entire school if the only curriculum or the curricular base was, “We’re putting a musical show together and everything is taught through that experience.”

Andrea Calvo: Oh my god, that is my dream school. Let’s do it.

Wes Kriesel: Let’s do it.

Andrea Calvo: That would be awesome. What do you think Dr. Bob would say?

Wes Kriesel: He’d probably say, “Go for it.”

Andrea Calvo: He probably would.

Wes Kriesel: He’d probably say, “Go for it.” So, just take one aspect of that. Let’s say I’m hard to convince. So, I’m the math teacher, science teacher.

Andrea Calvo: Right.

Wes Kriesel: Just talk about how you envision that connection being made.

Andrea Calvo: Oh gosh. Well, let’s talk about lighting on the stage. That makes me think of the science teacher. So, the lighting has to, we have to cover the whole stage. So, you have—and I know nothing about lighting. I mean, I know just from on the job, but we hire a person to do our lightning. But it was funny, I was talking to this person and saying, “You just go up on this ladder and you adjust the light and then it has this perfect throw,” and she’s like, “That’s my job. That’s what I do.” So yeah, where to hang lights so that you don’t have shadows? Where to place microphones so you can cover the stage and not have feedback and still pick everybody up? I mean, those kinds of technical things, it’s all about science and math.

Wes Kriesel: Right.

Andrea Calvo: Building the sets. We have to build a set that has a staircase that can hold eight students, but it also has to be light enough that everybody can move it on and off stage, and then…

Wes Kriesel: So that’s a whole—just take that for example, building a functional staircase for a specific part in the play and maybe starting from scratch. What materials are you going to choose?

Andrea Calvo: Exactly.

Wes Kriesel: Is it going to be lumber? Is it going to be something lighter-weight than that? And then, budgets.

Andrea Calvo: Right. Exactly.

Wes Kriesel: If we were getting the students involved in that, we have two options. Do we spend more here and cut on costumes or…?

Andrea Calvo: Exactly.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So then, it’s not just those curricular areas of math and science, but then you’re talking about team…

Andrea Calvo: [00:15:09 unintelligible]

Wes Kriesel: I know you said you don’t like the sports…

Andrea Calvo: No, but yeah, it is.

Wes Kriesel: What does those collaborations and there’s some other word—collaborative is more positive. Like, negotiations.

Andrea Calvo: Oh yeah, for sure.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, let’s have better costumes and a heavier staircase that we’re maybe going to hurt ourselves moving.

Andrea Calvo: Right. Or, it’s we can do black and white posters, and then we can spend the extra money we would have spent on color, we can spend it someplace else. That’s another thing, just making the programs. We use our digital design class at LV to work with us to create all that stuff. So, we’re all in-house.

Wes Kriesel: So, you are kind of working on…

Andrea Calvo: We’re kind of doing it.

Wes Kriesel: …creating a school that’s just about bringing a [00:15:51 unintelligible].

Andrea Calvo: Yeah. Well, I was telling our new principal, I’m like, “We’re going to be all in-house. That’s our goal. It’s going to be all in-house.” But, we have the digital design students. One year, we had them come and meet with our students and talk about the show. And so, we were the clients and hiring them kind of thing and, “Okay, what kind of poster? What size? What do you want us to say? How do you envision? Tell me a little bit about the show so that I can get a sense of it.” And then, those students came back with their designs and then our students chose the ones that they thought fit and then we had those printed. So, things like that, that is the kind of experience that you can’t have without a whole lot of working parts. But, that’s all part of the arts. That’s what we do.

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, so we have some quotes from people. Now’s a good time to turn our attention towards that.

Andrea Calvo: Okay.

Wes Kriesel: So, a moment ago you talked about different types of literature and things like that, reading. I forgot the name of the books behind Mary Poppins.

Andrea Calvo: Oh, PL Travers.

Wes Kriesel: PL Travers. So, here’s a quote and I’ll just read part of this, and this is from Francisco who is…

Andrea Calvo: My husband.

Wes Kriesel: Your husband. So, he’s talking about your last concert and he says your last concert was, “Amazing. It was so diverse and filled with such excellence. I watched in amazement her students perform works by Shakespeare, EA Poe – Edgar Allan Poe, Lewis Carroll, John Williams, Bock, and Harnick.” I don’t know who that is. “Sondheim. Some high schools would struggle to accomplish what you get from your students. Truly amazing.”

Andrea Calvo: Oh, he’s so nice.

Wes Kriesel: He’s so nice. So, talk about the literary connection. What is that show he’s talking about?

Andrea Calvo: He’s talking about our fall show. We called it Ghost Stories because it happens right before Halloween, and it’s kind of one of my favorite things. I feel a little proud about it.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. That’s perfect.

Andrea Calvo: So, I’m happy to talk about it. We were looking to make purposeful connections between literature and music, and so we started with this Ghost Stories—this was the second time we’ve done it—and I just looked for famous poets that composers had taken and created beautiful music. You can find a lot of kind of junk, but I wanted really good music because I don’t want to sacrifice text and I didn’t want to sacrifice music. So, Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe were two of the ones that we chose, and then Lewis Carroll, the Jabberwocky. So, in choir class, we studied the poems, we studied some of the other literature from each of the authors, and then we learned the music and we talked about how the music is telling the story in a different way and encouraged the students. We have art journals at our school, so I encouraged them to use their art journals to sort of make further deeper connections. And then, we involved the theater class. They did a Shakespeare piece, and Edgar Allan Poe; they did The Raven. So, they performed The Raven, the whole poem, from memory, and then the choir sang a piece based on The Raven. And then, we actually had the dance class involved as well. So, we kind of…

Wes Kriesel: Are you the dance teacher?

Andrea Calvo: I am not the dance teacher, no, but our dance teacher is fabulous.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. Awesome. Wow.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah. So, it was a collaboration between dance theater and choir. It was really cool.

Wes Kriesel: That’s cool.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah, and I just like the students, they just get a bigger experience that way, and it is something that they might encounter in the real world. There aren’t a lot of professional choirs where you just go and sit in a theater and watch the choir sing and then— I mean, no one’s paying you to do that. No one’s paying a singer a living wage to do that.

Wes Kriesel: Right.

Andrea Calvo: But, there are music videos that incorporate [00:19:44 unintelligible] music and there are productions and events where they want all this happening. So, I don’t know. It just seems like it’s a cool thing.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, that’s cool. So, talk about how that came to be. There’s this collaboration and you’re proud of it, but at some point, it was not happening, and then somebody had the idea for this. And so, I’m trying to connect to like trying something new. So, can you remember where this came from?

Andrea Calvo: Well, do you want me to be honest?

Wes Kriesel: Sure. That’s better.

Andrea Calvo: It came from, I was doing too much. This sounds funny, but I teach the choir classes and the musical theater class, which I coteach with another teacher, and so it was a lot of outside performing, a lot, like more than really is reasonable for junior high – more than reasonable to put on the teacher and more than reasonable for the students at their age. So, I just called the theater teacher and I was like, “How about we combine our fall things?” because I was doing like a choir fall thing and then we were doing a theater fall thing and it was so much extra time and rehearsals, and then paying for all the things that go into lighting and sound and all that. And so, she was immediately like, “Yeah, I’m down. Let’s do it.” And I’m like, “How about I call Jill and [00:21:03 unintelligible] since she wants to do it, too? Let’s just get it all together.” So, that was, I mean, one of the driving forces was like we were doing too much, we got to streamline and be more purposeful about what we’re doing so that it’s not just we’re throwing up a concert, we’re actually doing something that’s important and relevant, and so yeah.

Wes Kriesel: That’s great, that’s great. I love it.

Andrea Calvo: It sounds like, “Oh, you were so selfish,” but…

Wes Kriesel: No, it’s like necessity is the mother of invention.

Andrea Calvo: Exactly.

Wes Kriesel: It’s like an example of that.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, it’s funny, you mentioned Jill, is that Jill Riley?

Andrea Calvo: Jill Riley, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, her name came up in a quote from somebody else. So, this is from Randa Schmalfeld, the former principal at LV. So, this question was, “What’s a significant moment where Andrea is being Andrea?” So, she wrote, “This Is Me. Andrea led our entire performing arts department in an incredible combined performance of This Is Me for our Schools to Watch celebration last February. Our band, choir and dance students were incredible. Andrea made that happen with partners Rob and Jill.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, talk about that. What was that event?

Andrea Calvo: That was really cool. We won the Schools to Watch award, which was this long process and kind of a big deal. So, we’re super-proud. And the state was coming in to give us this award and they said, “We’re going to do an assembly and you can have a performance to showcase your school.” And they said, “You know, sometimes middle schools, they have the high schoolers come and perform because we want it to be a good performance.” And I was like, “Oh.”

Wes Kriesel: Oh no, you didn’t.

Andrea Calvo: Oh no, you didn’t. So, one thing about me is I kind of like putting on a show. I like collaborating. I love just bringing it all together. So, I immediately asked Randa. She said, “Well, we can’t just have choir. We have to bring in some dance. We need to bring in some instrumental music. It can’t just be one or the other.” And so, I just called Rob and Jill, and I’m like, “Can we make this happen?” We only had three weeks to put it together, but this is how cool our staff is, and what I really love about working at LV is that we have this department that supports. So, they were both kind of like, “It’s a little bit crazy, but sure. Let’s just see.” So, I just started listening to songs and I was trying to find something. So, the other—to back up—they said the entire student body is going to be at this assembly, all 1,000 students. So, that’s like a whole different thing.

Wes Kriesel: Is this at LV?

Andrea Calvo: This is at LV.

Wes Kriesel: In the gym, right?

Andrea Calvo: In the gym.

Wes Kriesel: That’s the only place you could put a thousand.

Andrea Calvo: It was the only place, yeah, which we’ve never done before.

Wes Kriesel: Wow.

Andrea Calvo: And, when we perform, we perform for people who have purchased tickets – parents, grandparents.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, they’re coming to see you and support.

Andrea Calvo: They’re coming to see. So, there’s level of sort of expectation, yeah, and commitment.

Wes Kriesel: Commitment. Buy-in.

Andrea Calvo: So, putting the entire student body in there, and we’re in junior high, so I was expecting, I’m immediately thinking, “I got to have something that the students are going to buy into. I need them to stand up and clap afterwards and not sit there and roll their eyes.” So, we just picked This Is Me and Rob arranged it for bands, and we purchased an arrangement…

Wes Kriesel: I’m sorry, I don’t know, is that a song?

Andrea Calvo: Oh, I’m sorry. It’s The Greatest Showman.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, I just saw that. I was sick last week and I watched it on my sick day, but I don’t…

Andrea Calvo: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, I’ll have to go back and listen to the soundtrack.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah, listen to This Is Me. It’s the one that they sing…

Wes Kriesel: I’ll find it.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. So, Rob [00:24:41 Hastings], he fixed the band arrangement so that it incorporated his entire advanced bands and then I used my advanced choirs, and then Jill choreographed for her Dance 3 class. And then, so we practiced it for a couple of weeks on our own, then we threw the kids together for two rehearsals and just we were like, “This is what’s happening,” and it just was amazing.

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: I love that, I love that. So, we have another quote. So, this is from your current principal, Bill Lynch, and so significant moment is, he said, watching your third-period choir class. He said there’s a combination of general ed students, students with significant disabilities, and you have them all singing and creating a beautiful musical experience together. And then, he says much of your accolades come from your performance with advanced students, but it’s your work with all students that show how great a teacher you are there.

Andrea Calvo: Oh, that’s nice.

Wes Kriesel: I’m getting teary-eyed.

Andrea Calvo: Oh, that’s so nice!

Wes Kriesel: So, tell me a little bit. I’ve actually visited, I’ve seen third period.

Andrea Calvo: Oh, you have seen third period?

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, on a school tour, it must have been last year, we came by.

Andrea Calvo: Yes, I remember.

Wes Kriesel: And so, tell me about that.

Andrea Calvo: That has just been kind of an incredible thing, and I don’t really know how it all started. I can’t go back and just say, “Oh, I decided this or this special ed teacher.” But, music is a powerful thing and for lots of different reasons, for all different abilities, and so at some point, the special ed teacher and I were talking and I said, “You guys should be coming to choir.” And she’s like, “We totally should.” Her class was already going and pushing into dance classes, and so I’m, “Yeah, absolutely.” In fact, all the way when I was teaching at Nicolas, the mod/severe class there would push into choir as well, and it just makes sense to have these students be a part of the school experience. So, they started coming in, and we started a buddy thing where a typical developing student has a buddy who’s in the mod/severe class and the kids volunteer to be the buddies, and there’s always more volunteers than we need, which is I think super-cool.

Wes Kriesel: Wow.

Andrea Calvo: And so then, the kids, they sit as part of the class instead of being separate. They’re just part of the class and there are students that are nonverbal and there are students that have behaviors that are loud and that are different. And so, we spend a little bit of time at the beginning of each semester doing an activity that the special ed teacher designed to help the typical students kind of feel like what it might be like to go through life with a different ability. And then, I just meet with the buddies every now and then and just check in with them, like, “Are you cool? Is it getting to be too much? Do you feel comfortable?” and so far, it’s just been great. So, the kids participate. They come to our concerts. They’re part of our class. We try to get away from like her kids and my kids because they’re all our kids. But, I do have to interject since I just said that, I have an 8-year-old and I said, was talking to someone and I’m like, “Well, I have 235 kids,” and he goes, “Actually, Mom, you have two kids. You have 235 students.” And I was like, “Okay.”

Wes Kriesel: “Oh, okay.”

Andrea Calvo: Yeah. So, I’m trying to put another dollar in the therapy jar for that one.

Wes Kriesel: Well, we’re getting close to the end, but I just want to do a quick lightning round and this is going to be tough. This is just going to be tough. So, the people we interviewed had to pick one word that they said represents you. Okay, so what I’m going to is I’m going to read you all three words, and we know it’s Bill Lynch, Randa Schmalfeld, and your husband.

Andrea Calvo: Okay.

Wes Kriesel: And then, you’re just going to see if you can untangle which word was said by which person.

Andrea Calvo: Oh, by which person.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, there’s no way to get it right. I mean, it’s just…

Andrea Calvo: Okay. It just is.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, so word number one is energy, okay? Word number two is brilliant and word number three is amazing. I’ll give you $5 if you can get this because, I mean, they’re all very positive…

Andrea Calvo: Wow.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, $5.

Andrea Calvo: Energy, brilliant and amazing.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, so current principal, former principal, and your husband.

Andrea Calvo: Okay, I think my husband probably said brilliant.

Wes Kriesel: No, I’m sorry.

Andrea Calvo: No! Dang.

Wes Kriesel: I’m sorry. That is not true.

Andrea Calvo: He would not tell me anything that he said, too. I’m like, “You’re going to get an email maybe,” and he’s like, “Yeah, I did.” “Oh, really? What’d you say?” “Nothing.”

Wes Kriesel: Nothing? “I’m not going to tell you.”

Andrea Calvo: Okay, so brilliant would have to be Rand then.

Wes Kriesel: Yes. Yes, good.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah. Okay.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Andrea Calvo: And energy maybe was my husband.

Wes Kriesel: No.

Andrea Calvo: No!

Wes Kriesel: No.

Andrea Calvo: It was Bill. Wow.

Wes Kriesel: It was Bill. Okay, so we’re going to kind of close here the quote from your husband.

Andrea Calvo: Okay.

Wes Kriesel: So, he said amazing, and then the first part, remember I read the last part of the quote about your last choir performance and the literature?

Andrea Calvo: Right.

Wes Kriesel: But, the first part, it was a significant moment where you’re being you, and so he said selecting a significant moment is very difficult because you’re the type of person who sacrifices daily for her family and for her students. “She’s up early. She stays up late. She works weekends.” Kind of like first-year teaching.

Andrea Calvo: Not a lot has changed.

Wes Kriesel: “She is constantly generous of her time, talent and energy. Furthermore, she uses every opportunity to teach. There is never a missed opportunity to teach for her. I am in awe of her as a teacher.” What does that mean to you about using every opportunity to teach? Why do you think he said that?

Andrea Calvo: Oh gosh. I got a little teary-eyed. It’s really nice. I’m going to need you to forward that to me for later.

Wes Kriesel: I’ll send it to you.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah. No, I do try to take every opportunity to teach. One thing comes to mind and it’s not even something that happened in the classroom, but it was we were driving up to visit family up north and the movie had just come out, the one Auggie, what was the name of that? Wonder. Do you remember that one?

Andrea Calvo: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Andrea Calvo: And we were reading it with our students at school. We had decided as a school that we were going to take 20 minutes a day and read this book together. And I just thought, “My own children need to hear this.” So, we drove up north and I read it to them on the way up there, and we stopped and we talked about stuff and we didn’t finish it until I think it was on our way back. But, what’s funny about that is, as we’re driving up there, or when we got there and we’re with our family, they said, “Oh, I bet the kids were happy to have all that time to play on their devices,” and we’re like, “Actually, we don’t allow devices in the car. Like we’re those old-school parents that are like you have to play games.” And I said, “Plus, I read them the book Wonder.” And they kind of stopped for a second and looked at me, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, well, you’re a teacher.” And it was like, “I mean, you guys are teachers and everything, so like, whatever.”

Wes Kriesel: “Of course, you’re reading in the car to your children on a cross-country trip.”

Andrea Calvo: “Of course, you read in the car.” But, I don’t know, maybe that came to mind when he said “takes every opportunity to teach.” I do think that if we’re not always learning, if we’re not learning every day, then what are we doing? So, I do say that a lot, “Every day is a day for learning something new.”

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome. I love it. And that’s a really good place to wrap up.

Andrea Calvo: Oh, okay.

Wes Kriesel: I want to say thank you so much for being here.

Andrea Calvo: Thank you.

Wes Kriesel: And hopefully it was painless.

Andrea Calvo: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: We can talk after. We could debrief after.

Andrea Calvo: Okay.

Wes Kriesel: All right.

Andrea Calvo: Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

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

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