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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 Tricia Hyun. She teaches at Parks Junior High School in Fullerton.

Wes Kriesel: Tricia, Dr. Tricia, welcome and so glad to have you here.

Tricia Hyun: Oh, no. Thank you, I’m very excited about this. The work is really fascinating to me.

Wes Kriesel: So, I’m looking forward to this conversation. We’ve been trying to connect for a while and you’re busy. I’m just going to put it lightly that way. You’re busy, and we’re going to hopefully dig in and find some more out about you.

Tricia Hyun: Great. Great.

Wes Kriesel: So, we know we have some interviews that I’ve done with people you’ve referred me to ahead of time, and so we’re going to bring in their words as we go through.

Tricia Hyun: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: But first, would you tell me how you became a teacher or when you maybe first thought about it or seriously considered that? What was that like for you?

Tricia Hyun: I was in the first grade.

Wes Kriesel: No way.

Tricia Hyun: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: What?

Tricia Hyun: My parents moved us from Pennsylvania to California and, when I got here, I started kindergarten and it was so hard because I was a second-language—I didn’t know that I was a second-language learner and I only recently discovered that I probably should have been in an EL program and I wasn’t.

Wes Kriesel: Wow. Wow.

Tricia Hyun: But, I remember entering kindergarten it was really rough, and my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Harris, taught me how to read, and I remember loving her, just loving her. She was—I’m sorry, Mrs. Harris was kindergarten. Ms. Harvey was first grade.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Tricia Hyun: And I remember thinking that I wanted to be a teacher just like her, you know, models and mentors.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Tricia Hyun: But, it probably didn’t surface until ninth grade that I realized, “You know, teaching is something I really need to think about.” Well, then I went to UCI and was a bio major for two years because everyone was a bio major.

Wes Kriesel: I went to UCI and I was a bio major, for about a year and a half.

Tricia Hyun: I mean, the impetus on biology at that school…

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, “I’m going to be a doctor,” that’s what I thought.

Tricia Hyun: Yeah, you had to be, right? And so, all my friends in the dorm were doing that and I did it and thought, “This is not what I want to do.”

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Do you remember what it was that made you aware this was what you did want to do?

Tricia Hyun: Well, my ecology class and failing it twice.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. Okay. Enough said, yeah.

Tricia Hyun: Yeah, and that was supposed to be the easiest class at UCI for bio majors.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, really?

Tricia Hyun: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: Wow.

Tricia Hyun: I just…it didn’t…yes, let’s change the subject.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Mine was chemistry, just so we’re clear.

Tricia Hyun: Oh, okay, okay.

Wes Kriesel: I dropped before the midterm and changed majors.

Tricia Hyun: Okay. And there’s a big park in the middle of UCI.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, Aldrich Park.

Tricia Hyun: Yes, and I saw kids, or students, reading, classmates sitting there, reading with a blanket, and I thought, “What are they doing?”

Wes Kriesel: “What is that?” Yeah.

Tricia Hyun: And I thought, “Well, I should take an English class or something,” because they were reading the classics and I remembered enjoying the classics in high school. And so, I started that first class with deciding to be an English major and I loved it, absolutely loved it. And I added Latin and Greek and just really loved learning the language, which brings us, wraps us right back around to kindergarten where I was a Korean speaker at home from kinder through 5 years old, and then I show up to elementary school and everyone’s speaking English.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, and you’re like, “What’s going on?”

Tricia Hyun: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, that, I had a spark of curiosity when you said she taught you reading and I was wondering if it was just being taught something or whether it was reading that was particularly important to you at that time.

Tricia Hyun: It’s interesting because I don’t remember a lot of Montessori prior to 4 years old. I don’t remember a ton. I think the move had something to do with me not remembering a ton. So, I’m not sure if it was—well, I do remember Curious George and how enjoyable those books were in the first grade.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, right? Yeah. That’s great. That’s a great memory.

Wes Kriesel: So, yeah. Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Very cool. So then, after college, how did you proceed from there, [00:05:02 grad program] or…?

Tricia Hyun: Yes, it was Claremont grad school, become a teacher, do an internship in your first year. I did an internship at Claremont, in Claremont Unified School District. I was a fourth-grade teacher for a year and a half, but then I got pregnant and I had to stay home for six years, which I didn’t really—

Wes Kriesel: Oh, interesting.

Tricia Hyun: That wasn’t the plan considering I had just gotten the master’s and the credential. And that was a large reason why I did the doctorate because when I came back, leaving education in 1999 and then showing up in 2006, it’s a whole different world. Because now, we have the World Wide Web.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, yeah. That’s interesting.

Tricia Hyun: And in 1999, they gave you a classroom and a plan book with no computer; in 2006, the Fullerton School District said, “Here’s your map book and here’s an email address.”

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Right? Yeah. That’s wild.

Tricia Hyun: And I remember thinking, “It’s not going to hurt to go back to school and learn a few things.”

Wes Kriesel: How interesting. Okay, wow. That’s wild. So, after you had your child and you came back to work, so you’d been in Fullerton ever since then?

Tricia Hyun: Yes, yes.

Wes Kriesel: Wow.

Tricia Hyun: And Fullerton is a tough place to leave.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Tricia Hyun: And Parks is a tougher place to leave.

Wes Kriesel: So, I pictured you, when you said fourth grade, I just picture junior high all the way. So, have there been other lower elementary experiences or has it been mostly junior high?

Tricia Hyun: It’s such a great question. My first job was when I was 14, teaching English to a girl who lived clear across the city. I rode my bike to her house.

Wes Kriesel: Did you? That’s awesome.

Tricia Hyun: Three days a week, taught English to her. Then, I did a number of babysitting opportunities that involved teaching reading.

Wes Kriesel: Really?

Tricia Hyun: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: I love that.

Tricia Hyun: And then, I tutored all through college for extra dollars. And so, yes, I only taught fourth grade, but by then I had felt like I taught every single grade level.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, yeah.

Tricia Hyun: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Somebody else, I think it’s CaroleAnn Curley, started by teaching piano lessons to neighborhood kids.

Tricia Hyun: Oh, yes. Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: And so, it’s interesting, sometimes that theme is there, like you were teaching all along.

Tricia Hyun: Yes. Yes.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. Well let’s dive into some of our feedback from the people you gave me to interview. So, this is from Dick Gale, and so his role—I met him this year through you. So, would you say a little bit about who he is?

Tricia Hyun: Sure. He originally started as a history teacher. He started to work for CTA as a staff person, and then he took on CTA’s nonprofit, which is called The Institute for Teaching. The Institute for Teaching has a motto which is strength-based teacher-driven change. And so, when I heard those five words, I was hooked. What does it mean to be strength-based and what does it mean to drive the change as a teacher? And so, I’ve been working with them for a good two years now. I think I started in 2016, and every turn that I take in the area of leadership and union leadership has been a really neat turn because I’m learning so much about the partnership that an administration has to have with their teachers.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. That’s good, that’s good.

Tricia Hyun: Mm-hmm.

Wes Kriesel: So, I’m going to give you a quote from him.

Tricia Hyun: Okay.

Wes Kriesel: So, this question, the question he was responding to, is a moment when Tricia is being Tricia as only Tricia can. So, it’s like a very archetypal moment, and I’ve actually experienced this, so this resonates with me. He said, so more than once, he has seen you work a roomful of people that you don’t know well and then just loving to meet them and learning about them in a genuinely inquisitive way. So, I’m curious how that resonates with you.

Tricia Hyun: That is so nice. So nice.

Wes Kriesel: Is it true?

Tricia Hyun: Yeah, I’ve never really…

Wes Kriesel: Do you see yourself that way?

Tricia Hyun: I’ve never really thought about that. However, I do like to do that and I have said to my son that, although I’m an introvert and I need my introverted time, I love people, and I have said to my son things like, “I’m a people person.” Malcolm Gladwell’s book called Blink resonated with me right away because I felt for a very long time in my life that I had a sixth sense about people, and if I meet someone, I really feel that I can know within seconds or minutes of talking to that person their lens, where they’re coming from, you know, [00:10:34 human experiences.] And I think that having had so many strange and just diverse experiences in life, I’m so curious about everyone’s experiences.

Wes Kriesel: So, let’s go back to, I think the Gladwell book is, if I remember right, it’s about those, like how we form decisions almost before it seems like you can even have proper data, but those like intuitions are something we should pay attention to.

Tricia Hyun: Yes. Yes.

Wes Kriesel: So, I’m really curious about that, and then I want to go back to, what does it mean to you to be genuinely inquisitive about people? You’re curious what about? If you were getting to know somebody, what kinds of questions are you asking or what are you curious about?

Tricia Hyun: Hmm, that’s a really good question. Well, the setting he’s talking about is a lot of presentations that I’ve been doing with CTA. And so, a lot of the presentations and the audiences that I’ve been in front of are new teachers, and so I’m very curious as to issues of equity, for example. I’m very curious as to where they’re coming from, what school district, where in California, is the area remote, and if it is remote, then, do you have iPads at your school and are you guys 1:1 the way that the Fullerton School District is 1:1? And nine times out of 10, they have very few resources or very little to access. Their children, they don’t have Internet at home. And so, yeah, I’m really fascinated by that because about a month ago, I went to Ontario to do a presentation to middle school teachers, about 40 middle school teachers, and to try and tailor the presentation to an audience where the children do not have Internet at home, that was hard. And so, I do love to know—you know, language arts people, our big thing is, “Know your audience.”

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, yeah. I think that makes sense in terms of professional development, but it’s also definitely representative of the classroom, too, is getting to know students. So, let’s see if we can take this—so it’s interesting, you’re making quick decisions when you meet people and kind of getting a few data points about tailoring your professional development presentation. One of the other things we talk about is intuition. So, how does intuition play into relationships? If you’re trying to make a friend, you can say, “Hmm, this is not going to work out. I’m going to go look elsewhere,” but in professional development or in the classroom, those are the people who we have in front of us for the day or the year. So, how do you use intuition when you’re in a relationship that you’re, for lack of a better word, committed to? You’re supposed to be the teacher for the year or the professional development provider for the session, but you have these intuitions about people, so how do you filter that or set things aside or really embrace your intuition? Talk about that a little bit.

Tricia Hyun: Right. Well, when you talk about intuition, my first reaction is trust-building, the values, the ethics, the principles and morals that people have. So, a lot of adult learning wraps around transparency and trusting the audience and trusting that your presenter, for example, will—and myself as a classroom teacher—will give the children the benefit of the doubt or give them an opportunity to build trusting relationships with their peers or with their teacher. So, I think some of the biggest mistakes that I’ve made as a presenter wrapped around not knowing the audience and allowing them to trust that I was not going to leave them out and forget about them because I went to two miles forward in this direction and they were five miles back in a different direction, and you lose them right away. The minute you make an assumption or the minute you create a lens that is not wider and too narrow, you’re going to lose half the audience. So, my intuition oftentimes wraps around, for example, quick decision-making. Just this week, I had to make some really quick decisions and it wrapped around, “What is your gut instinct that is good and right and true and virtuous?” And you know, I’m wrong a lot of times, but at least I try to wrap around the morals and the principles, the values and the ethics.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, the theme of the podcast or the interview, eventually we’ll get to innovation and I see it like a way to connect it. So, you mentioned like going two miles in this direction and your audience is five miles back. So, sometimes with innovation we’re trying to go into new territory and either our colleagues or the students may not be there with us. So, how do you use your intuition and building trusting relationships when it’s like, “Try something crazy, new, risky in the classroom?”

Tricia Hyun: I think the most valuable thing that I’ve learned in the past two or three years is to know thyself and trust myself, trust that I can only be me. So, in the case of innovation, if I saw you working like all this equipment right now and wanting to learn what Wes Kriesel knows, but looking at this and being able to say honestly and candidly, “What is this?” and wanting to know yet trusting that you’re a great teacher and willing to teach it to me so that I can use this, for example, in my classroom. So, when you say innovations, the first thing that comes to mind are the number of errors that I will have to make…

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, that are down that road.

Tricia Hyun: Yes, and being okay with those errors, because I remember speaking at CUE in Napa about two or three years ago and Jay McPhail was like in his first year with FSD, and I remember thinking, “Wow, they showed up. This is great.” Well, it was a complete flop. I didn’t feel good about it, okay? I really didn’t feel good about it, and I had to learn that you can only be yourself, and if people aren’t going to like it or trust it—or they’re going to trust you for who you are and you have to give them that benefit of that doubt, right?

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Tricia Hyun: And you know, they were so kind and nice, like, “It was great! It was fantastic!”

Wes Kriesel: But, inside you had a different assessment.

Tricia Hyun: But, inside, I didn’t feel good about it. And so, innovation, I had to make the mistake, really make the mistake, and then I had to work at it for a year or two and make the mistake several more times and keep my head up high through it all and think about things that your parents have told you, for example, “Know thyself,” “Know from where you have come,” and just keep marching forward with your head up high.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. It’s interesting, there’s a lot there because there’s that idea of knowing yourself. So, somebody comes alongside you and they’re doing something different and innovative, it sounds like you’re almost saying, “Give yourself permission to ask, ‘What is that? Can you share with me?’” So, humility is part of that.

Tricia Hyun: Exactly. That’s a good one, humility.

Wes Kriesel: And you can be humble and not be brave enough to ask the question or take the risk of, “I don’t know what that is, can you explain it?”

Tricia Hyun: Right.

Wes Kriesel: So, there’s humility and risk-taking, but then that part about making errors and just accepting that as part of the path, that’s something else entirely. So, there’s a lot going on there.

Tricia Hyun: Yes, right, and the trust that you’re requiring or you’re asking me to or you’re thinking about asking me to learn this innovation but I really don’t want to, what happens there? And then, trusting that you’re okay with, “I’m not there yet, but do you have something else that I can learn? Because that looks really hard to me.”

Wes Kriesel: Right. That’s interesting. So, part of it, so the trust goes both ways, is if somebody’s trying to lead somebody down a path, I mean, they have to build trust to take the person there but then it goes back the other way, you have to respect the person enough to go, “This is maybe not where we need to go right now. Let’s ask where the, let’s say, teacher, wants to go in terms of innovation or trying something new.”

Tricia Hyun: Yes. Right.

Wes Kriesel: That’s good. I have another moment I’d like to share with you and see. So, this is from Mike, and you just introduced me to Mike and he’s a counselor at Parks.

Tricia Hyun: Mm-hmm.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, so his moment, I asked, “Share moment when Tricia’s being Tricia as only Tricia can.” So, he said you invited him to be a part of the Orange County Teaching Think Tank, and so I’m going to almost just read this verbatim: “She asked me fully prepared with her rationale, ready to address any excuse I might have not to participate. Even with as little of free time as you allow yourself, she thought it through and she had a plan at the ready for my assent or refusal. Given that, how could I refuse?” So, do you remember this moment?

Tricia Hyun: Yes, I do.

Wes Kriesel: So, what is that when he says like you came prepared to ask him to participate, like prepared to the hilt almost?

Tricia Hyun: So funny.

Wes Kriesel: Is that a typical way you operate? Is that familiar or is that kind of an exception?

Tricia Hyun: It’s familiar in that, and I don’t know if this is going to come off wrong, but if I know I want something, I do want to be prepared to face any obstacles or barriers and, generally, I have been very blessed to have lived a passion-based lifestyle where…

Wes Kriesel: Say more about that.

Tricia Hyun: I consider myself very lucky that I wasn’t that child who was told, “You have to be a doctor or a lawyer or engineer and you have to do this or you have to do that.” I was very lucky in that I was told, “Do what pleases you,” like just really enjoy your life passion-based. Then again, my father was rarely in our lives because he was so passion-driven that he lived, breathed his craft and his sport and the things that he enjoyed doing. And so, again, I consider it a great privilege that I got to live this passion-based life…

Wes Kriesel: So, you piqued my interest. His craft and sport, is that something you can say more about?

Tricia Hyun: Oh, yes, sure. My father is an avid golfer, and golf can consume you as any sport can but to the point of he was in tournaments every weekend and he would come home on Sunday and have a trophy behind his back, and he would say, “What place?” And we would always go, “First,” “Second,” or “Third.” We would say a number, and he would present this big trophy. He had trophies that were so large, like the Tom Bradley trophy, 2 feet by 2 feet high, yes.

Wes Kriesel: Oh my gosh. That’s incredible.

Tricia Hyun: It was, and he did this for a long, long time.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Tricia Hyun: And so, my model was, “Do what you do, do it well, and do it a lot.”

Wes Kriesel: Go for it, yeah. Wow. That’s interesting.

Tricia Hyun: It’s terrible. Yeah, good and bad because, at the end of the day, you need to spend time with your father, and so he has made up for it after, like when he had to stop playing due to age, and so he has made up for it in the last 20 years, and we joke about it to this day that he has had to spend a lot of time with me and my children because he was so busy when he was trying to raise us.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, and that’s interesting, I mean, I just want to express appreciation that he’s there and around and able to do that, you know, because sometimes you hear those stories where somebody wasn’t there and then it’s too late, you’re gone.

Tricia Hyun: Yeah, you’re right. Right. Yeah, good point.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, that’s a great one. So, we were talking about, so that’s where that passion-based kind of lifestyle came from.

Tricia Hyun: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: How do you reconcile that with the classroom? Because sometimes the classroom is maybe seen as there are some things you have to do and people’s individuality or creativity sometimes get set by the sidelines.

Wes Kriesel: So, that’s where the strength-based movement merges with my life, which is when I think about the way I was as a student or a college student, I go back and I think about the moments when I felt great about myself or I felt that I did it, you know, that epic win, and generally it was wrapped around strength. So, if I was really good at something, then I felt great about it. That sounds like such common sense, right? So, I was really great at reading and looking at text, and I remember an English class, raising my hand and connecting the text to a biblical story or an art piece that I had seen. And so, that strength resonates and the passion is really strength. And so, Dick Gale was the one who introduced me to the StrengthsFinder book and I took the test, and you know, in college we take the Myers-Briggs exam, we have the multiple intelligences that we do with our students, and then, just recently, I did the StrengthsFinder one, and one of my strengths is connector, which makes…

Wes Kriesel: Interesting.

Tricia Hyun: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: From that story…

Tricia Hyun: Right, exactly.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, working the room and being genuinely interested in people.

Tricia Hyun: Right. Yes, and connecting people.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Yeah, right, there’s a point in getting to know somebody, it’s because you can connect them to somebody else who can help them or where they may have a potential for a great relationship. That’s interesting.

Tricia Hyun: Yes. Yeah. And so, I think your question was wrapped around classroom, right? Classroom instruction, how we…

Wes Kriesel: Right, right. How do you bring that passion base back into the classroom?

Tricia Hyun: So, ideally, you want to see your students create their successes based on some things that you know about what success feels like or looks like in your own life and in the people around us. So, we might study Martin Luther King or study different heroes culturally in our country and in other countries in the world to know where success comes from and how we get there. And so, in a classroom, I do believe that if we can, all of us can, the community, the people who are out in our cities helping raise our children in the Fullerton School District, the teachers, the administration, if everyone truly believed that every single child had a talent or a strength and we had to foster it and nurture it and provide opportunities for them to use that talent, then they will find their strengths and use their strengths by either opening a coffee shop or becoming a watchmaker or a doctor or a teacher or a philanthropist. So, I just really see that is the dream, that if we’re in education, we’re in it for the kids, all of us are, and what do we all know about the children? We all know that they come into the world with a set of talents or strengths.

Wes Kriesel: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, a couple of words that just come back to me from this conversation, you talked about valuing meeting a lot of people because of the diversity of experience. So, diversity, equity, you also talked about when you’re doing professional development and wanting to be aware of what other people’s situations were, whether it’s one-to-one iPads. So, diversity, equity, and then, so the passion base, so it’s really interesting to me, like it’s almost like a moral imperative, like we have to nurture each of these individuals as they are.

Tricia Hyun: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: So, that really means being aware of how we’re different, and then also making sure if we’re different and we need different resources to get to the same goal. To me, that’s one of the definitions of equity, is different resources to get to the same solution or outcome. Yeah, that’s really interesting. So then, the passion-based approach is kind of a wild ride because it’s not easy.

Tricia Hyun: It isn’t.

Wes Kriesel: It’s not just, “Read this and we’re all going to do the worksheet.”

Tricia Hyun: Right. Right.

Wes Kriesel: So, say more about that. What does it take to go down that if it’s not the easiest path? If somebody else was like, “Ooh, I want to know more about that,” what should they enter into that investigation with? What kinds of attributes would [00:29:30 unintelligible]?

Tricia Hyun: I think the hardest part is truly accepting failure, and what I mean by that is it sounds so deficit-based, but what I mean by that is to attempt the personalized learning modality and the approach of approaching every child’s strengths, to go in that direction is a little slower at the beginning. So, you have to be okay with slow in the beginning, and then there are a couple of steps chicken you’re going to miss, and there’s failure involved because the lesson isn’t exactly the way that you planned it because, “Although I wanted everyone to do this assignment with paper and pencil or on a particular app, Child X here can’t do it that way because not only is it not his strength, but it’s actually the worst way for the child to learn.”

Wes Kriesel: Interesting. Right. Wow.

Tricia Hyun: So, if the sound of the pencil touching the paper hurts a child’s ears, the last thing I need is for that child to be holding a pencil, putting it to paper.

Wes Kriesel: Right. That’s so interesting.

Tricia Hyun: So, that child really needs the app that involves rhythm or music or the innovations that we are creating for them.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. And when you express it that way, then it brings me back to that means there’s a need for humility to say, “I planned this, the child doesn’t need that, the child needs something else, and so I have to kind of put my ego aside and my pride aside and get that curiosity mindset going, ‘What is it that they need?’ if what I planned isn’t it.”

Tricia Hyun: Yes. Right.

Wes Kriesel: Interesting. Well, we’re over the 30-minute mark already.

Tricia Hyun: Oh no, oh no.

Wes Kriesel: But, so we’re going to wrap up, but we’re going to do a couple of kind of like a speed round.

Tricia Hyun: Okay.

Wes Kriesel: So, one of the questions that I asked of the people I interviewed was, “Give me one word to represent Tricia.” What’s interesting is neither one of them gave me one word. They gave multiple one-word answers.

Tricia Hyun: Oh.

Wes Kriesel: So, that’s telling in itself. So, I’m just going to pass you one of the words and ask you to give an example of how that’s true from your life.

Tricia Hyun: Okay.

Wes Kriesel: So, this is tough. It’s like a test.

Tricia Hyun: Yeah, that does sound hard.

Wes Kriesel: It’s like a test. Okay, so, Dick Gale said visionary. So, go, you’re on the clock. Explain how you’re a visionary.

Tricia Hyun: I have a vision for all children in California.

Wes Kriesel: Ooh, that’s good.

Tricia Hyun: Yeah. The goal is small. The large would be nation.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is just California.

Tricia Hyun: The world. Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. Okay.

Tricia Hyun: Just California.

Wes Kriesel: Check. You pass the test. Okay. All right. Now, down here, Mike said…he had several mindsets, but I’m going to…or several…oops, I gave away part of the answer. So, I’m going to say growth mindset, so how’s that true about you? What’s an example you can give to say you have a growth mindset?

Tricia Hyun: I absolutely love learning and will never stop.

Wes Kriesel: Give me an example, a recent example of learning something new.

Tricia Hyun: I watched a first-year teacher give a lesson and it was one of the greatest learning opportunities on pedagogy and how to teach.

Wes Kriesel: Wow. Awesome. Love it, love it. All right. Here’s another word. This is from Dick: passionate.

Tricia Hyun: Oh.

Wes Kriesel: I already know, I’ve seen examples just in this conversation, but what’s an example that you would say demonstrates that you’re passionate?

Tricia Hyun: My two children at home have received and have been my passion project for the last 18 years, because my daughter turns 18 on October.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, wow.

Tricia Hyun: Yeah, so 18 years of a passion project, I’m a little tired. Plus a full-time job.

Wes Kriesel: You’re almost there.

Tricia Hyun: Yeah. So, I have three more years to go with my son.

Wes Kriesel: Interesting. Okay. And Mike will end it here. Let’s see. There are some that he shared like “on a mission.” I think that fits with visionary. You’ve already showed that. Dynamic. What’s an example of…?

Tricia Hyun: Oh, that’s so nice. That’s so nice. I’m changing all the time.

Wes Kriesel: That’s interesting.

Tricia Hyun: Yes, just changing all the time. I don’t know why. I’m not sure on that one. But, I do know that I’m very willing to change and willing to accept change. I’m not afraid of change.

Wes Kriesel: Well, I think that’s great. Well, that takes us well to the end of our podcast and interview and this has been great.

Tricia Hyun: Thank you so much. Thank you.

Wes Kriesel: I feel like I’ve learned a lot.

Tricia Hyun: Well, that is so nice of you. I feel like I learned a lot from you, too.

Outro: This has been the Teacher Interview Podcast.

[00:34:55]