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 Matt Stricker. He teaches at Parks Junior High School in Fullerton.

Wes Kriesel: All right, Matt, thanks for joining us.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: And so, the way this will work is I have some pre-interview work I’ve done, and so I’m going to bring some quotes from other people who know you into the conversation and then get your reaction. But first, let’s start with just kind of talking about how you got into teaching. So, what was that like for you?

Matt Stricker: Sure. So, teaching was kind of in my blood. My mom and my dad were both teachers. My dad was a junior high history teacher for his whole career. My mom taught kindergarten. My mom’s parents, she was a theater and language arts teacher in the junior high setting; my mom’s dad was a principal of a Denver public school. So, it’s in my blood. I knew from a young age, I think, that—I don’t know if I thought I had to be teacher, but that’s the only thing that really crossed my mind. So, I kind of knew going even when I started college that that’s kind of the route I was going to take.

Wes Kriesel: That’s pretty amazing.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, where did you actually go for your teaching credential and what was that like?

Matt Stricker: So, my undergrad was at Hope International University here in Fullerton, and then my teaching credential, I went across the street to Cal State Fullerton.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: And then, where did you start teaching?

Matt Stricker: And then, someone in my program got hired at Sunset Lane Elementary and she actually recommended me for an interview, and so I went to interview with, back then it was Dr. [00:02:02 unintelligible], and she gave me an offer like the next day. So right out of college, right out of my credential program, I was at Sunset Lane and [00:02:11 starting up there.] I was there for three years, I think, at Sunset.

Wes Kriesel: Wow. So, but now you’re at Parks teaching PE?

Matt Stricker: Yeah, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, Sunset Lane to Parks, PE, explain that.

Matt Stricker: Yeah, it’s quite an interesting story. When I first came out of college, well, when I was going through the credential program, I wanted to be a PE teacher.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Matt Stricker: I kind of got talked out of it by some people that I respected because it was a time when a lot of budget cuts along the visual arts, the performing arts, were being cut. And so, people were telling me, “Hey, the next they’re going to cut is PE, so if you go to your PE credential, I don’t know how much job security there is in that.” And it’s like, a 22-, 23-year-old kid, I’m like, “All right.”

Wes Kriesel: That made sense, right.

Matt Stricker: Right. So, I went and got my multiple subject. I started at the elementary level. And then, there was an opportunity to go to Parks and teach junior high. My friend  [00:03:02 Phil] had just got onto Parks and started teaching junior high, and he was at the elementary before and was telling me about it and it sounded good. So, Principal Larry Beaver then offered me a position at Parks to teach core because I only had my multiple subject. So, I could teach the two classes, so I ended up teaching health and science and then history, and I did for a long time. I did that for like, I don’t know, eight to 10 years or something.

Wes Kriesel: Wow, yeah.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: It’s a good run.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: But then, in the back of your mind, you’re like, “I still want to try that PE route.”

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, how did that happen?

Matt Stricker: So, I knew I wanted to go to the PE route. We got pregnant with my daughter, who’s 5 years old now, and when we found out that we were going to have her we weren’t really prepared for it or expecting it. And so, I was like, “If I’m going to get my PE credential, I’ve got to do it now before she’s born because I don’t know if I’ll ever do it.” And so, all I had to do was I had to pass the CSET. There are three parts of the CSET. And so, I literally studied every night for like three months. That’s all I did, was study for the test, and I took all three parts in one day. It took all day long.

Wes Kriesel: Oh my gosh. Wow.

Matt Stricker: And most people were saying, “You’re not going to pass all three parts in one day,” but I was determined, so I did. I passed all three parts and I had my PE credential for the next year. And then, I think I got two PE classes that next year, so I was upstairs in the building for four classes, came down and taught PE for two, and just kind of started from there. Then, when Brad Sand, who’s a teacher in our district forever, he retired, there was a spot that opened and I finally got to slide my way down to PE.

Wes Kriesel: Wow.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, what was it about PE and were you an athlete? Was that your background? What do you see that bringing for our students?

Matt Stricker: Yeah. So, for me, my background is athletics. And so I played, back in high school, I played some football, I played some basketball.

Wes Kriesel: What position?

Matt Stricker: So, I was mostly a basketball player. I played a two guard and a little bit of crisis point guard when they needed me to. And then, I actually got to go play at Hope. So, that’s what brought me to California, is I played basketball at Hope International.

Wes Kriesel: So, I didn’t even—that didn’t register. So, you didn’t grow up here?

Matt Stricker: No, I grew up in Colorado.

Wes Kriesel: Oh.

Matt Stricker: Yeah, just outside of Denver, between Denver and Boulder.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, nice.

Matt Stricker: Yeah. So, go Broncos, go Rockies, go Nuggets.

Wes Kriesel: It’s beautiful.

Matt Stricker: Yeah. Yeah, it is. It’s a great—but, I go back now in the winter, it’s too cold for me. I’ve become a wimp in California, so yeah. So yeah, I came out here. I kind of got stuck here. I always thought I’d go back, but when I got the job right out of college I just stayed here and now my life is here, my family’s here. So, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, what does PE mean to you with students? Why do like that?

Matt Stricker: So, for me, it goes back to, and I’ve been a teacher in the classroom, so I don’t want to offend anybody, but what I’ve found for me personally and the way that I’m wired is that I learned so much more about life and about just kind of how to face things from athletics that nobody ever taught me in a classroom. So, I learned a lot about adversity, overcoming adversity, how to work with people, how to work with people that maybe I didn’t get along with, because we had to. We had a common goal as a team we’re trying to accomplish and, if we can’t figure out how to work together, it’s not going to be okay. And so for me, just taking those life lessons and being able to apply them a little bit, for me, sports is what did that for me.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Matt Stricker: And so, a lot of these kids that come to our junior high, they’re not sure what they’re going to do in high school, so it’s fun to kind of like encourage them to find a sport to try because, even if they’ve never tried it before, a freshman year is a great time to go try something. And so, we try to instill that in junior high school, “Hey, try this. You’re good at this. Find something you’re good at. I see you’re good at this. Go try it out and see what happens.” We have kids come back that would never have been in sports but a lot of them find track and there’s all kinds of different things they could do in track and field, so they’ll come back and they’re like, “Yeah, I got to compete at this and at this meet and at this meet, and here’s what I won. That’s really rewarding to see that when they come back because they were never going to play sports.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Matt Stricker: And it’s not just me. We have a great team at Parks that kind of encourages the kids to go that route.

Wes Kriesel: I love that.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, can you think of a specific example where, so you know the value, it teaches you how to handle adversity, teamwork, but can you think of an example where you saw that manifest in a student and what were they initially faced with in your PE class, and then how did you approach kind of getting them to move through those steps that you already knew the value to? Can you think of a specific…?

Matt Stricker: Yeah, I can think of some and especially—I teach a physical conditioning elective now. So, I’m not teaching any PE classes this year. I’m all the conditioning elective, which is a weight training, a resistance training class. It’s inside during the day.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. I think I walked through that space like the first of week school?

Matt Stricker: Yeah, yeah. You probably did, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: It’s cool.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: It’s very cool.

Matt Stricker: Yeah, we’re excited about it. But, sometimes we get kids in that class that don’t sign up for it, because maybe they came late in the year or maybe all the other electives are full, so they get tossed in conditioning. And so, every year I get two or three kids that are just like bummed out when they come in, and they walk in that first day and I start explaining it and you can see in their eyes they’re either sad or they’re mad. And so, it’s happened a couple of times where I’ve had these kids that come in that don’t want to be there, and so I pull them aside and say, “You know, I get it. I understand. But, here’s an opportunity. Here’s an opportunity for you to try something new and you’re not sitting on your desk right now, we get to move around.” And so, you see them start from this spot where they’re like really unsure and really not confident at all, but when we start doing these movements and I teach them the movements and they start to like, you see them try one time, and when you go over and say, “You know what? You’re good at this. This is something that you can do,” and you see that light that they’re like—it almost makes me cry a little bit because you see them light up a little bit to know like, “No way! I never thought I could be good at this,” and then when you just give them that little bit of confidence to say, “Yeah, you’re good at this. You can you can do this,” and they take that and they run with it, and you can see them run with it and understand that, “You know what? This is not something that I thought I was going to be good at, this is not something that I ever imagined I could do, but I’m doing something that’s different, that’s out of my comfort zone.” I think a lot of times that leads to, “I’m going to go up in the building and maybe I’m not the best math student, but if I could do that, maybe I can do this, too,” and we do see that every once in a while. We do see that progression happen and it’s fun to see, and I’m glad for those kids.

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome. And so, if people are listening to this, one thing you might have heard but maybe you didn’t really know, so Matt’s like, I think you said, “It almost makes me cry?”

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: But, you were emoting and I was feeling it, and that’s something I think the people I interviewed, like they kind of hinted at as that kind of passion or commitment or dedication.

Matt Stricker: Mm-hmm.

Wes Kriesel: So, I’m going to dive into a few of the quotes.

Matt Stricker: Okay.

Wes Kriesel: One of the questions I ask people is a significant moment with Matt, and so this is from your wife, Vanessa.

Matt Stricker: Okay, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: And so, she said, “The Saturday before school started this year, Matt, our kids and I went to,” your weight room, or the conditioning room?

Matt Stricker: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So that you could finish getting things ready. “As he worked, the kids ran around and played in the room. Once he was done with the work, he and I sat and looked at his room that was like transformed.” And so, you’ve had a dream for a long time of a space like this and you’ve been kind of patiently waiting for it to come together?

Matt Stricker: Mm-hmm.

Wes Kriesel: So then, she says, “In that moment, here are some things that stood out. Number one, Matt doesn’t do things halfway,” and you put your whole heart into it and you have high standards, and two, you work hard even when no one’s looking, and then three, you not only value your students and your work but family is your priority.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: And you make every opportunity to be present with the kids even if it means bringing them to work.

Matt Stricker: Right. Right, right, right.

Wes Kriesel: So, do you remember that moment?

Matt Stricker: Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Wes Kriesel: So, tell me about that.

Matt Stricker: So, I’ve been asking for a long time to get my room painted. There was a mural that was put up in the early nineties. It was—I don’t want to, again, don’t want to offend anybody—it was terrible. It was like this color splash everywhere and it made the room feel small.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, wow.

Matt Stricker: And so, I’ve been asking for like five years, “Can we paint that?” And of course, there are other priorities in the district and I know that, and so I was never bitter about it. But, they finally told me this summer they were going to paint it, so I moved all my equipment to the middle of the room. We went to Colorado for vacation. We come back, there’s like a week left before school and it’s not painted. And I’m like, “Oh, man.”

Wes Kriesel: Oh, no.

Matt Stricker: But then, I hear, my principal, she tells me, “It’s getting painted. Don’t worry,” and they did, and thank you to Scott and the whole district staff, the maintenance staff. Maintenance and operations did a great job. It’s painted now, but it got done like the Friday before school started. And then, I was asking, too, there’s always carpet in there and it’s hard to, like the carpet, to work out on, and so I’ve been asking for the rubber flooring. And I know we got donation from PTSA who helped us out and we got the flooring in, but the same thing, as soon as the painting was done, then they put the floor down. So, I got kids come in Monday, but it’s Friday now and I need to get it ready.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Matt Stricker: So, yeah, I came in on Saturday and the kids came and we were able to get the space ready, and to be able to bring my kids in to see that, too, is fun because it was always my vision to be a teacher at a school, I would love to have a gymnasium, you know? Like, where I could just bring my son around and we could shoot baskets or something.

Wes Kriesel: Dream big, dream big.

Wes Kriesel: But, to have them in the room with me [00:12:10 unintelligible] and run around is special because that room, when we got that room, it was before I was even certified to teach PE yet. So, we were talking about conditioning, me and my colleague Jeff, we’re talking about conditioning, and so he’s like, “Let’s see what we can do.” And so, we were able to clear out that room. They gave us an empty room and said, “Go ahead,” and he taught it for the first year or two with pretty much nothing. Some community members brought in some stuff to help us out, but it wasn’t much of a space. And when I moved in there, there still wasn’t much down there. There’s a lot of body-weight exercises, things like that. But, man, just through kind of perseverance of trying to get some grants and some donations from some of my students’ parents, putting in some of my own money to try to get it going and to see where it was then, and then thinking about that night where we were getting ready with the rubber floor is down, I’ve got all this equipment I’m moving around, and being able to provide things for the kids that they’re going to want to come work out now. They want to come in the room. And you know, for some of these kids, they’re going to be athletes, and to introduce them to the weight room before they get to high school, because I’m a coach at Sunny Hills. I coach basketball and I coach football at Sunny Hills. And when these freshmen come in, they go to the weight room, they’re scared, they’re intimidated. But, to have just a little bit of a basis for what’s going to happen, I feel like they can go more confident [00:13:24 unintelligible]

Wes Kriesel: That’s cool. Yeah, that’s awesome.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: I love that. And it’s an interesting connection, we always talk about preparing kids for college, but those athletes and those students who that’s going to be like a big part of their lives, introducing them to like that high school, you know, like the weight room, that’s part of preparing, since, I mean, I remember I came in the high school football a freshman, I came from a small private school, I didn’t know anything about weights, nothing. I walked in, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what are they doing?”

Matt Stricker: Right, right, right.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, I felt totally lost. So, I totally identify with that. So, one of the things we talk in these interviews about is risk-taking, innovation. So, how do you see that moment where you’re kind of putting in the, I don’t want to overdo it, but the blood, sweat and tears on a weekend with your family, putting these finishing touches on, and you mentioned perseverance, like it was a long process—it wasn’t a weekend.

Matt Stricker: Right.

Wes Kriesel: How would you connect that to somebody else like a fellow teacher who wants to try something, or how would you maybe encourage them or talk to them if they’re talking about, “Oh, I wish something”—well, let’s take a reluctant teacher. Somebody’s like, “I wish it were different but it’s not. I can’t do anything.”

Matt Stricker: Right, right.

Wes Kriesel: How would you motivate like a colleague?

Matt Stricker: Man, the first thing is that stuff like this, it doesn’t happen overnight, and I don’t mean for that to be discouraging, but I mean for that to be like if you have something that you want to try, you have something that you want to do but it’s not in the cards right now, you can take steps to start preparing for it instead of just sitting on your hands and saying, “Oh, that’s not going to happen.” Because for me, it was. It’s been a journey. This is my 18th year in education. This is kind of what I’ve always wanted to do, but it’s taken me 18 years to get here.

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome. Right.

Matt Stricker: And so, sometimes people come down like, “Man, this is your workspace?” They might be jealous or whatever. I’m like, “Yeah, but it’s been 18 years of working to get this done,” right?

Wes Kriesel: Right.

Matt Stricker: And so, I would tell people, “Man, don’t give up on it. Don’t give up on it. Take small steps to get there and it can get there, but it’s not going to happen overnight.”

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Matt Stricker: And so, that was for me, too. I had to take those steps to get that credential, to take those steps to say, “You’re going to give me an empty room? Okay, I’ll take it. That’s not what I have envisioned, but I’ll take it for now.” And so, I can do some things with that, and I get a little bit of equipment and like, “Okay, this isn’t perfect but I can work with this. I can make this happen.”

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Matt Stricker: And so, yeah, just to not be discouraged and know that opportunities are going to come. I mean, I was just thinking on the way over to this interview, I don’t mind going to work every day.

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome.

Matt Stricker: It hasn’t always been that way. And I’ve always tried to love my students well, the best that I can, but there are some mornings where I’m just like, “Man, really? I got to go teach about this dynasty again that nobody cares about?” But now, I feel like I can go to work and I can—this is something I’m passionate about. This is something I care about. I want you to be healthy. I want you to have a healthy lifestyle that goes into high school into adulthood. And especially in this day and age where so many kids are just sitting around like swiping screens all day, it’s kind of nice to have an opportunity to show them, “You can’t swipe your health. You’ve got to actually get up and do something.” And so to have this space where I can do that, I mean, that’s cool.

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome.

Matt Stricker: I think, I mean, even in this interview, you said, “I wish we had a gym,” right?

Matt Stricker: Right, right, right.

Wes Kriesel: So, part of what I’m picking up from you is like envisioning it, picturing it.

Matt Stricker: Yeah, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: And so, this space that you’re like, “I want a space of my own,” and then when you got it it wasn’t ideal, but you’re like, “I’m going to take it,” but you’re already kind of forecasting out where you wanted to go, so that’s really cool.

Matt Stricker: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: All right, I have another story to ask you about. This is from your principal, Laura Makely. And so, I’m just going to read a part of this and you can tell me if you remember it.

Matt Stricker: Okay.

Wes Kriesel: So, watching you play in the staff-versus-students basketball game last year, so she said you have a no-mercy approach. She said you were intense and competitive, but you showed great pride in the students’ last-minute score that beat the staff team and then you congratulated them in a way befitting the highest example of sportsmanship. So, do you remember that?

Matt Stricker: I do, and I hope not too many students listen to this, because we play this game every year and our goal is that the game comes down to the last shot every year. That’s the goal. That’s the goal.

Wes Kriesel: Seriously?

Matt Stricker: So, if we can manipulate it to the point where it comes down to the last shot, that’s what we want. So, everybody stays engaged the whole time and we can make an exciting ending. And so, we ham it up a little bit. Sometimes, I’ll dribble off my leg, like, “Oh man, I turned it over,” and get upset about it. But, we do, we really try to make these things and we’re usually successful. We had a kid in I think 2010, Stanley Johnson, who is now in the NBA.

Wes Kriesel: No way!

Matt Stricker: And so, back then—he plays for Detroit Pistons now, but back then he was like a 6’3”, 190/200-pound eighth-grader, and so that’s the only year that we legitimately, we lost by six. We lost by six. Man, we were trying to come back and we couldn’t do it. But, other than that, we do, we try to get that to come down to the last minute. And this year, they got a turnover with like five seconds left, they went down, they got a layup at the buzzer, all the kids rush out of the stand, you know? It’s a great moment for our school because it’s so much like school pride for the kids and the players are all happy. And so, I mean, yeah, I love that. I love having that school spirit that kind of overflows on the basketball court there.

Wes Kriesel: All right. So, I’m going to say, okay, let’s say you’re giving a keynote and you’re in front of like a thousand teachers, and they’re not PE teachers, and you’re trying to take that moment and explain how they can do that. Because it’s like this: Pablo and I, we call it magic, like you’re creating some sort of magical moment, which is like the empty the stands and rush out.

Matt Stricker: Right, right.

Wes Kriesel: So, how do you get other people to see that possibility in our schools and our classrooms? What would you tell other teachers how to do that? What’s the secret sauce? Like, the basketball game seems a setup. There are two baskets. The rules are already defined. But, how could another teacher kind of take that principle?

Matt Stricker: I think it comes down to like you got to set up your students for success, and students are going to come to you at every level and so that’s going to look different for different kids. And so, I think back to my days in the classroom before I could do all this stuff that I love doing now and it’s like, it’s finding these kids’ strength, it’s finding what they’re good at, and then it’s putting them in a situation where you can set them up for success. Maybe this kid is not a great writer, but maybe this kid’s a great speaker. So, how can you put them in a situation where they can get their thoughts out in a way that they can vocalize and hear it and make them feel really proud about themselves? And maybe this kid’s super-shy and they don’t want to do that, but maybe there’s a job behind the scenes you can give this kid on this project, and then they’re able to take that, and if you’re able to congratulate them in some way and they feel that pride—I think it’s all about setting up kids for success. Sometimes, we as teachers, I think, we get frustrated. Especially, we get frustrated with students who we feel are underachieving, underperforming or whatever it is. But, I think it’s up to us sometimes, too, to find, what is it going to be that’s going to turn something on for this kid in their own head, in their own heart? It’s hard sometimes. It’s hard as a teacher sometimes to find out, especially when you’ve got kids giving you pushback and things like that. But, I believe that every single student, every kid, has something to offer us, something for themselves that they could open themselves up, too, to say, “Man, I’m unsuccessful. I feel good about this. I take pride in this.” And I think that’s our job to find that, figure out what it is, and then let them experience that. Because that’s what is the game, right? These kids are fired up because they beat the teachers, right?

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Stricker: But, I mean, I think the same thing can be said for this kid that’s fired up, they just found out that, “I’m really good at this skill and I didn’t know that before,” and you as a teacher, you helped bring that out.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. I love that. I’m trying to think of like, okay, so you have these teachers in front of you and so you—maybe we can unpack this a little bit—you have a belief in every student, like there’s something there that can be tapped into, that can be amplified, that can be magnified. Let’s say you’re a first-year teacher and you don’t yet have that belief. You just haven’t seen it. How do you help that—or maybe it’s a veteran teacher who’s just never experienced teaching the way you do.

Matt Stricker: Right, right, right.

Wes Kriesel: What do you tell them to look for in those moments that we share as teacher and students? What should they be looking for to find that kind of the secret thing that works for this student?

Matt Stricker: I think it’s like trying to tap into their interests somehow, which is hard when you’re teaching subjects. I think back when I was teaching history and I’m like, “I don’t know how to find out what this kid likes or what this kid doesn’t like.” But, I feel like it’s when you present opportunities to learn the material in a different way besides just, “Hey, here’s the book.” Like, “We’re going to try this today. For you to tell me the information that you got and you’re going to give it back to me, let’s try it in this way. Let’s try it in this presentation form. Let’s try it in this way over here.” I don’t know, but to not do the same thing over and over and over and over. Because that might get five kids if you do the same thing over and over and over and over, but it’s not going to get the other 25 who are like, “This is terrible.” And so, to be able to try new things, to be able to try to be innovative, to try doing it on a different—for me, it was like devices. Once the iPad started coming in, I was like, “Man, I can’t do this. I’m not good with technology.” And so, to be able to embrace that… Actually, back in the day—I just thought of this—when they tried the rule out the 1:1 computer program in the Fullerton School District, I was one of two teachers at my school that they rolled that out with in my history and my science classes. And so, I was like, “What? I have no idea what I’m doing right here.” But, to be able to like, “All right, this is something new, but I’m actually going to step into it with a halfway decent attitude,” instead of just push back and be like, “I’m not going to use it…” Because I think for us as teachers, man, we work hard, and I think sometimes when we are given something like that, we could go one of two ways with it and we could say, “Okay, I’m going to step it into it, I’m going to give it a try,” or you could just be resistant and say, “I’m going to do the absolute minimum just so I can get through it.” But, I mean, it’s having that shift in mentality because you might have a kid who’s going to be really successful now because of this new thing.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. There’s something you said, or there’s actually a couple of things, that I picked up. One is you said, “Okay, we’re going to try this new way,” and I think you’re kind of hinting at the students like, “We’re going to try this,” means there’s some degree of uncertainty or like, “We’re on this journey together, like I’m not the expert,” and so maybe it’s a vulnerability with the student?

Matt Stricker: Yeah. And I think, too, I think back to my conditioning class, when I took over the first year, it looked way different than what it looks like right now. The way that I set it up, I set up on like five-day segments and every Monday was same thing, every Tuesday was the same thing. And it kind of worked that first year, but when I evaluated it and I asked the kids, too, at the end of the year I asked the kids, “What did you like? What did you not like?” and taking their feedback, and I was like, “Okay, this has got to change a little bit.” So now, I’m on six-day segments, which works out even better because we have so many like you have a Monday off here, you have a Friday off there, so now you’re missing stuff. But, on these six-day segments that I set up, day one is always the same thing but it’s not always going to be a Monday, right? It could be a Tuesday or Wednesday.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Matt Stricker: And days two through five, we’re working out, day six we have a circuit training day, and it’s always different. And it’s able to help, you know, if a kid likes to work out this way, that’s great for this day, but if you like the circuit training, it’s coming. And so, it’s all that being vulnerable to say, “It wasn’t the best it could have been that first year. I had to learn some things,” and then just to be like you have to kind of have that humility to say, “Okay, I wish it worked well, I wish it was perfect, but it wasn’t. So, what can I do now to change it, to make it better?” And now, too, with the iPads that are here, I’ve made a video for every single exercise that I’ve taught the kids. So like last year, I think I taught 77 exercises, and if you go to my website, I’ve made a video for every single exercise.

Wes Kriesel: Is this a public-facing website?

Matt Stricker: So, it’s the PowerSchool Learning [00:25:25 that used to be Haiku. So yeah, you can get onto the website. It’s just like a really long name. Yeah, go to Parks Junior High website, find Coach Stricker under Conditioning, click on it, you can look at all that stuff. You can even work out at home now because you can watch my videos.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. I’m going to do it.

Matt Stricker: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So now, the kids have the opportunity, too, because then sometimes in class, they’d be like, “You taught us this but I forgot it.” Right now, I’m trying to help like five different students at once. And so, I’m like, “Hey, you got your iPad. Go click on a video. Go watch the video.”

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. And it’s you doing the exercise?

Matt Stricker: And it’s me doing the exercises. I have a little voiceover from like iMovie and it shows them the body parts or the muscles, groups that it works, which feeds into, too, I used to give them—this is another thing that I had to change. I used to give written tests. So, we’d have a little unit. It’d be a written test about exercise nutrition or something like that. And I was like, “All I’m doing in this class is making them memorize stuff and give it back to me. How is that helping?” So, I switched it last year to make it performance-based. So, I have these performance assessments five times a semester where they come, as everyone else works out, I pull them over individually. They know beforehand, a week beforehand, “These are the exercises you need to know.” I pull them over and say, “Hey, all right, you got to perform a pushup,” and they got to tell me the muscle group it works, they’ve got to explain it to me as if I’m a kindergartener that’s never done it before, and then they have to perform two repetitions of it and I’ve got a rubric so they can see like, “[00:26:44 unintelligible] 30 points. Here’s what you did and here’s how you can improve.” And it’s so much better than having them find—they’re telling me stuff in the written test they could look up on the Internet in two seconds, what’s the point?

Wes Kriesel: Right, right. I just got chills as you’re describing that because I’m like, “That’s like a really personalized approach. It’s one-on-one. You’re talking about them. It’s conversational.”

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: I mean, that sounds awesome to me.

Matt Stricker: And for some kids that don’t test well on paper, I mean, especially if they’ve just been to six classes where maybe they feel really bad about themselves because they messed up a test here and messed up a test here, [00:27:13 unintelligible] they can come down and they can explain what their thing is. Some of these kids, man, that maybe don’t excel in the classroom, they come down and excel in physical conditioning because they’re athletes, and then they can explain this stuff. This is stuff that’s interesting to them.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Yeah. And then, because they can explain it, there’s ownership in a new way, not just, “I’m an athlete,” but like they can articulate it, like they have to explain to you. And then, that plants seeds about what they could do in the future.

Matt Stricker: I feel like you’re right. Yeah, definitely.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, yeah. Like training and coaching and all sorts of things beyond just being somebody who performs athletically.

Matt Stricker: Yeah. I had one kid last year who told me [00:27:46 unintelligible] assessment, he’s like, “I’m usually not smart.” I’m like, “No, no, no. No, you’re smart. It’s just you need a different way to show how you’re smart. Good, you’re a smart kid. It’s just this is a different way to approach it.”

That’s cool. I love that, and that’s like almost creating that magic moment for that student where like you gave him, you set him up for success.

Matt Stricker: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. I love that. I feel like that’s your motto, “Coach Stricker: Setting them up for success.” So, we’re getting close to our time but I did want to share, there’s another story. So, this is from Phil Ling. You gave me his name and I asked him. So I said, “What’s a moment, a significant moment, where Matt was being kind of Matt like no one else can?” So, he said a number of years back, a relative of yours was diagnosed with a kidney condition.

Matt Stricker: Yeah, my cousin.

Wes Kriesel: And then, needed a transplant. And so, then you jumped in and had yourself screened to see if you’re a match. And then he said, “When you discovered you weren’t a match,” he said you were just heartbroken because you couldn’t help. And he said that’s the kind of person that you are, is you desire better for others over yourself. So, does that resonate with you or what do you think?

Matt Stricker: I mean, I would hope so. I would hope so.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Matt Stricker: You know, like my cousin, man, he needed a kidney transplant. I actually was a match, and so we went through the process. He was in Colorado, I was in California, [00:29:12 unintelligible] blood work, going to hospitals. I feel like we were at the end of it and it was about to like be [00:29:19 unintelligible] go out to Colorado and get it done. The last test I took, the doctors told me that on my end of it, if they were to take the kidney out, I had a—it was weird—like an inadequate or maybe it’s many blood vessels running out of my kidney. If they took it out, they thought I would bleed to death.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, geez.

Matt Stricker: And so, all of sudden, we had all these preparations that have been made and he was excited to get it and I was excited to give it to him, and then at the last minute they’re like, “No, you can’t do it.” And yeah, man, I was super-bummed out. It was a big deal back then. Luckily, my cousin, his brother-in-law was also a match and he got the kidney. It’s just a 15-year anniversary, actually, and he’s still doing great, so that’s awesome. But yeah, I just feel like that’s part of what I believe. That’s part of, gosh, I don’t want to get religious or anything like that in here, but I mean, that’s part of what I believe is my role in the world as a follower of Jesus, is that I’m supposed to help others, to treat other people the way they want to treated, that kind of thing. I’m sure a lot of people think that, too, but as teachers, we actually have that opportunity to do that often.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, we’ve talked like teaching is a hard profession, we work hard as educators, and so you’ve kind of highlighted these ways where like beyond what’s normal, like we can kind of, to use like an athletic kind of metaphor or figure of speech, is like, we can dig deep. And my football coach in high school, he used to have a colleague go into the well, dig deep, and really give out and pour out our efforts for others.

Wes Kriesel: And so, yeah, thanks for spending time with us here.

Matt Stricker: Yeah, sure.

Wes Kriesel: This has been great. The time just flew by. Anything else you would like to add just in terms of encouraging other educators?

I think the big thing for me is that we live in a world that’s so much instant gratification and we want it now. And so, I really just think that even as I listen to myself talk, just to have that patience to say, “You know what? This is what I want to have happen. Here’s my end goal. I want to, being in junior high school, I want to be teaching a conditioning class. I want a room where I can do that.” And to look back 18 years ago, man, I was far away from that. But, to keep pushing through and keep the dream alive, so to speak, man, stuff can happen. And I never even knew my room would be the way it is now that I’d have six classes of it, that last year I had four. This year, there’s enough kids that signed up [00:31:54 unintelligible] all-day physical conditioning, not even [00:31:56 MPE] anymore. And so, yeah, it just is an encouragement to know that if you have an idea, if it’s a good idea and it’s good for kids, it’s going to stick at some point. Stick with it. Don’t give up on it.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. That’s great. I love the fact that you just kind of outlined like your story is one of perseverance but also, it’s not just perseverance without vision, it’s perseverance with vision, and so just like picturing what’s going to come. And it’s really not—I mean, it is your passion, but it’s for the benefit of the students. So, it’s like for others.

Matt Stricker: Appreciate it, appreciate it.

Wes Kriesel: So, awesome. Well, thank you, Matt.

Matt Stricker: All right. Thanks, Wes. I appreciate it, man.

Wes Kriesel: Appreciate it.

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

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