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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 Yasmine Chavez. She teaches at Nicolas Junior High School in Fullerton, California.

Wes Kriesel: So, welcome and thanks for joining us.

Yasmine Chavez: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: And so, to start out with, why don’t you tell me a little bit about like, how did you end up becoming a teacher? What was that journey like?

Yasmine Chavez: Well, I was 10 years old when I knew I wanted to be a teacher.

Wes Kriesel: For real?

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah. I was 10 and I was like, “I’m going to be a teacher.” My dad’s a teacher, so I knew I wanted to be one.

Wes Kriesel: Go back. What did you see? Were you like looking at him as a teacher as a role model?

Yasmine Chavez: I don’t know.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Yasmine Chavez: It was just kind of it was something I knew. He would talk about how he was able to help students and that’s something that interested me. I loved helping people and being able to help them with their education and just being a part of kids’ lives. That just interested me.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, and where was this? Where did you grow up?

Yasmine Chavez: I grew up in Whittier, California.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah, and I was actually homeschooled, which is funny.

Wes Kriesel: Okay.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah. So, I was homeschooled but I wanted to be a teacher in a normal classroom. I don’t know, I was a weird kid.

Wes Kriesel: There’s probably something behind that.

Yasmine Chavez: Who knows? Actually, I really liked being homeschooled, but I don’t know.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Yasmine Chavez: So yeah, so I went to college and then…

Wes Kriesel: Wait, that’s a big gap.

Yasmine Chavez: Oh, a big gap.

Wes Kriesel: Between 10 and college, were there ways that you explored it or…?

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah. Through my church, I was able to teach Sunday school and help in just like nursery and things like that, and I really enjoyed it. So, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Then, I went to college and I got my degree. I went actually into preschool first and I taught preschool for five years.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, wow. Five years?

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah. So, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: You must have liked it?

Yasmine Chavez: I did. I really enjoyed it. It was fun and it just kind of gave me a little break between getting my credential and everything like that. So, I got my really artsy-crafty kind of side from being a preschool teacher, lots of glitter. Lots of different ways to do things, I learned through preschool. And after that, there’s a huge pay discrepancy between a preschool teacher and an elementary school teacher, so I decided to go get my degree and, yeah, I got my master’s and I started teaching here in Fullerton right after my student-teaching, like the same school, Valencia Park. I was student-teaching in second grade, and then I got hired as a fifth-grade teacher and I was there for two years. And then, Jason came and he was like, “Oh, I think you’d be good at this,” and he encouraged me to go learn Java and I learned Java.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. So, back up a second. So, Jason Chong said, “I think you’ll be good at like programming?”

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah, basically programming.

Wes Kriesel: What did he see?

Yasmine Chavez: Because I was in robotics. I was helping with the Robotics Club.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. Okay.

Yasmine Chavez: And he just saw that and Richard [00:03:55 Wu] also saw that, and so I started taking classes for Java.

Wes Kriesel: Now, is there something you saw or did you just take their word for it?

Yasmine Chavez: I enjoy computer programming. I like robotics and I enjoy all of those things, so I chose—well, I took their advice and I said, “Yeah, I think I would enjoy that because I do like working with computers.”

Wes Kriesel: That’s awesome.

Yasmine Chavez: So yeah, so I started taking those classes, and then Robin found out and that’s why I’m at Nicolas now, actually, because she asked if I would be willing to take over the Java course there.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. And Nicolas is one of our schools with the computer science pathway?

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah. So, they teach, or I—they teach—I teach AP computer science and…

Wes Kriesel: No way.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah. So, two of my students…

Wes Kriesel: I already knew that, but I’m just acting surprised because AP computer science at a junior high.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah, it’s pretty awesome, and two of the students passed last year, which was even more awesome.

Wes Kriesel: Wow, congratulations.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah, because I didn’t think—I was really nervous. When I was looking at them take the test, I could see them sweating, and I was like, “Oh gosh.”

Wes Kriesel: Oh my gosh.

Yasmine Chavez: I was like, “Please God, let them pass.”

Wes Kriesel: “Please let them pass.”

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah. So, two of them did pass, which was really awesome. I was really proud of them.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. That’s awesome.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: I mean, I don’t know what I was doing at junior high but it wasn’t computer science.

Yasmine Chavez: Right. Exactly. That was not on my radar at all in junior high.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, because you didn’t have that on your radar as a junior high school student, what’s the difference when you look at them where you’re like, “Oh, you can do it,” because you didn’t have that model necessarily?

Yasmine Chavez: Right. I believe that any student can be good at anything as long as they’re willing to try. So, if a student comes to me and says, “I think I like this,” I’ll give him a chance because to me, if I can pick it up just coming out of it from nowhere, anybody can. And I tell the kids that all the time, “If I can do it, you can. All you have to do is try.”

Wes Kriesel: Oh, that’s interesting. And what’s their response? Because typically, a student will look at their teacher as older, wiser, more experienced, like almost a different class of person.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, how do they respond to you when you say that?

Yasmine Chavez: I think they’re taken aback at that moment, thinking, “Oh, she’s supposed to know everything,” and I approach that idea by saying like, “No, guys, that’s not the truth. I’m not perfect, and we’re going to practice this together and we’re going to learn this together, and if it’s something I don’t know, we’re going to get our hands dirty together.” And at first, a lot of them were like, “You should know everything and you should just be able to tell us,” and it was really cool to be able to work with them, work alongside them. One of my students, Jeffrey Tran, for instance…

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, I met Jeffrey at Robot Nation last year.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah, he’s awesome. I love him. He and I were able to work through his app together and just talk through a lot of the problems and get frustrated together and work through those ideas together, and I think it was a good learning experience for both of us at that point. It was awesome. I really enjoyed it. So, it became more of a collaborative environment rather than me just spilling information into them. So, that was great. I really liked it.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. So, that’s one technique sort of empowering students, saying, “Hey, if I can do this, you can do it.”

Yasmine Chavez: Mm-hmm.

Wes Kriesel: What do you do when there’s resistance, like, “We’re as soon as like really not going with you on that journey,” like the tough students to draw in?

Yasmine Chavez: To be honest, I haven’t really hit too many of those because they’re super-excited to be in coding, for on the coding aspect. But, for the science aspect, because I also teach science as well, I kind of give them a little bit of space at that point, if they’re fighting me and being really resistant. I say, “Okay, so it’s really your grade at this point if we’re going to be doing this assignment or not.” So, I step back, and then I go and have fun with the other kids, and after a while they see that we’re having a ton of fun over here on the side that everybody’s trying and they start to slowly like walk over, come on in and join in on the fun and get their hands dirty and fail and fail. I always tell them, “Let’s epically fail because it’s just great. Let’s really mess up and let’s mess up together.” So, I don’t know, they have a lot of fun with that.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, so one of your techniques is in just let them see you enjoying it and don’t put the pressure on them. It’s like a pull technique. Rather than push them and force them, you’re trying to draw them in because of their own curiosity.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah, because, I mean, we’re making rockets and roller coasters in my class. I mean, at some point, you’re going to get excited about something that we’re doing.

Wes Kriesel: What type of science is this?

Yasmine Chavez: Well, it’s eighth-grade science but we have physics integration, so we get to do a lot of roller coasters, hot air balloons, rockets.

Wes Kriesel: That’s cool.

Yasmine Chavez: So, you might get bored at some point in the class, but you’re going to get drawn back in because we’re doing just really awesome stuff.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, and I like that mindset of just saying, “Let’s try to fail really awesomely. Let’s just go for it.”

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: That has to sort of help them lower their defenses about like students often feel, “I’m supposed to have the right answer. I’m supposed to get the perfect score on the test.”

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Are there any other ways that you encourage that mindset besides saying it? What are some other ways?

Yasmine Chavez: I fail epically with them. So, we’ll build something or I’ll be getting the rocket on the launcher and it’ll just not go on right and it’ll fall and it’ll be my fault and I’ll just own it. I’m just like, “Oh, well, there you go! We messed up and it’s okay. Let’s try again.” So, I try to, myself, fail epically, if that makes sense.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, so just demonstrate it’s okay, and it sounds like you, I mean, you bring it out explicitly like, “Oh, I did this. I should have done that,” and you just talk through it.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Okay. Cool. Do you have any kind of students who tend towards perfectionism and like they’re trying to be that perfect student? Sometimes that’s a [00:10:53 unintelligible].

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: What do you do in those cases?

Yasmine Chavez: With the perfect students, I have one that comes to mind where it was just debilitating to him where he just like couldn’t move past things, and it was a lot of having that conversation with him, it really is okay to fail. And you know, it was such like a weird situation where everybody else was like okay with failing and okay with missing assignments and this little boy, just like he couldn’t get past it. It would just be like tears. I don’t know, I can’t really tell you or pinpoint that moment exactly that helped him start to change that idea. And the one I’m thinking about is preschool, actually. It’s a preschool student. He was just so like he was just crying because it just wasn’t working out, and it was just a lot of me just encouraging him and saying, “It’s okay. We’re going to fail. You’re going to mess up. You’re going to get dirty,” and just giving him hugs because you can when [00:12:07 unintelligible]. I don’t really know what I would do now as a junior high teacher, but for him at least it was a lot of me just really encouraging him, giving him hugs when he needed it. But, he was 4.

Wes Kriesel: He was 4. Okay, so I have some quotes. I interviewed your sister and I asked them a series of questions, but I’m going to pick one in particular. This was the bonus question where she could tell me anything she wanted that she thought might help me do well in the interview, and her quote was that you try to find the worthiness in kids even when they can’t find it themselves. And what do you make of that? What does that mean to you? How do you see that playing out?

Yasmine Chavez: I think a lot of times our students don’t see themselves as—I don’t know how to explain this. They don’t think that they’re where they’re supposed to be or they’re not great or they’re not as pretty as the next person or whatever it may be. And I like to look at them and say, “You are who you are and you’re great because of that, and you’re going to be amazing at your piece, your little niche, whatever it may be. You’re going to be great at that where everybody else might not be great at that.” And I try to communicate that the kids, and I think maybe that’s what she’s trying to say. I really do see these kids as amazing individuals and they all have something really incredible to offer the world, whether they see it or not. They really do, and I try to communicate that to them.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah. How do you tie that into innovation or risk-taking or trying something new? If you believe they’re amazing individuals, then how do you use that to get them to take risks?

Yasmine Chavez: I think it’s like constant affirmation throughout the class. “Guys, we’re going to mess up together. I’m not perfect, you’re not perfect, but it’s okay. And when we get it right, we’re going to party.” When we finally get it to work, with apps even, when that app finally starts to work and it’s starting to come together, we just take a moment and just, “Hey, everybody needs to pause. We need to clap right now. This is working, thank God.” Just super-excitement in that moment. I try to praise things immediately. I try to notice little things for the kids, the students. I don’t know.

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

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, I want to visit a couple other of these quotes. So, your principal, I interviewed Robyn and I said, “What one word would you use to stand for Yasmine?” and she said engaged. What do you think that means coming from her? What does she see? And she said it like, “Engaged,” and she didn’t even pause a second.

Yasmine Chavez: Maybe engaged in what I do because I do really enjoy—whatever I do, I want to do it 100%. So, whether it be teaching coding or teaching science or decorating my classroom or helping another teacher make learning scales or whatever it is, I want to be 100% present in that moment and I want to help in any way that I possibly can, and I’m not hesitant to jump in and help. I don’t know if that is what she means by engaged.

Wes Kriesel: That’s great, yeah. I mean, there is no right or wrong answer. It’s just getting your take on it. There is a moment, one of the questions was a moment when they see you being uniquely you in a way that no one else could be. And so, I asked your sister that question, and so she brought up a moment this past March and she said that you took her for graduation to Disney World. Do you remember that?

Yasmine Chavez: Yes.

Wes Kriesel: And it was, specifically, she just sort of commentated on it was your first time alone on a trip together, maybe like just the two of you off going on this trip, and she was talking about a ride that you were on and you’re on the ride together called the People Mover. And she just looked at you and like there was this moment where you’re just laughing, and that was like her like moment of you being uniquely you, is just she said you have this loud contagious laugh.

Yasmine Chavez: Yup.

Wes Kriesel: You know, evidenced right there. What do you think about that? How does that way of being in the world help you or contribute to your teaching?

Yasmine Chavez: I think, I don’t know, I’ve been told this is kind of naïve, but I like to view the world as a good place even though there’s a lot of stuff that’s wrong. Obviously, there’s a lot of things that need to be worked on, but there’s like this goodness that’s underlining things. If you look hard enough, you can see just happiness, like at Disney World you see these parents just happy to be with their kids, and I laughed because I kept seeing parents looking at the kids instead of outside. They’re looking at their children’s happiness. They’re finding happiness in their children’s happiness.

Wes Kriesel: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah.

Yasmine Chavez: I like that. I don’t know. I think that there is just, I don’t know, goodness.

Wes Kriesel: That’s good.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, that’s a great answer, and it’s a real distinct perspective and it’s almost a philosophy. I mean, it is a philosophy, is you’re choosing to see the world, or maybe it’s deeper than a choice, is you almost can’t help but see the world in that totally positive way, like with faith that there’s something good out there, that people are good and good things are going to happen. And is it true you have a loud contagious laugh?

Yasmine Chavez: Yes, I’ve been told.

Wes Kriesel: You’ve been told.

Yasmine Chavez: My staff, the staff at both of my jobs, have said, “Oh, we know when you’re coming because we can hear you laughing through the hall.” I didn’t my laugh was that loud until they told me that.

Wes Kriesel: All right, so we have another moment shared. This was your principal, Robyn. She said the moment she thinks of when she thinks of you being uniquely you is before the AP test there was a meal or something like that. You wanted a meal for the students?

Yasmine Chavez: Oh, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, tell me about that.

Yasmine Chavez: I knew that the test was going to be hard and I knew that sometimes not all of them were going to get a good meal before they got to take that test, and so I decided to go buy a dozen eggs and pancake mix and just invite the kids an hour before the test and, “Let’s just eat breakfast together and let’s get full and let’s just laugh together before you take this really hard test.”

Wes Kriesel: Aw. That’s cute.

Yasmine Chavez: So, “Let’s just get our stomachs full and just be lighthearted before that happened.”

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: What an interesting way of, I mean, you not only “found” the good but you made that moment good, you know?

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: It’s a very stressful situation. You’re about to take multi hours, three-four hours probably?

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah, it’s a three- or four-hour test.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah. And so, you’re like, “Well, before we do that, we’re going to enjoy a meal together.”

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, it’s like a way of bringing that good into the world.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: And that was a choice. You didn’t have to do that.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Or, did you? I don’t know.

Yasmine Chavez: No, I was not. No. No, I did not have to do that. Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: Okay, we’re going to visit, this is from your colleague, Melinda, and she said the one word, if she had to sum you up in one word, it would be creative.

Yasmine Chavez: Oh.

Wes Kriesel: Tell me about that. Does that resonate with you? Why or why not?

Yasmine Chavez: I like to get things that other people have done and just make it my own, so maybe that’s…

Wes Kriesel: Okay. Give me an example.

Yasmine Chavez: I don’t know if this is silly, but like she shared her syllabus with me and so I was going through it and I was kind of tweaking things here and there, and then I just started changing fonts and I started adding graphics on it and I just started having fun with it. So, I just added my own flair to it, and that’s kind of with my classroom, too, I just add my own flair to things that I’ve seen. I’ll go on Pinterest and I’ll look at things and I’ll enjoy what I see, and then decide to change it to fit what I want or how I see it in my classroom as well. Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: So, we’re going to end with a couple of quotes that sort of, they’re from different people, one’s from Robyn and one’s from Melinda, but they seem to be kind of like after the same type of principle. So, the bonus question, Robyn, when I said, “Anything else you want me to know?” she said, “Why doesn’t she stop? She’s always going,” and then she mentioned a cricket?

Yasmine Chavez: Oh, yeah.

Wes Kriesel: And she said, “She can make the best T-shirt.” And then, in the next sentence, she said, “She’s always four steps ahead of you.” Then, I’m just going to add that Melinda said—twice—your attention to detail and you’re very detail-oriented and you’re a perfectionist when it comes to your job as a teacher. So, how do you reconcile those things of just being driven and always going and being four steps ahead of your principal and being so—let me just read the quote from Melinda. She said, “Everything is so organized and beautiful that you can’t help but admire her talent.” What do you make of that?

Yasmine Chavez: Very nice. I don’t know, I guess I just want to make sure that I’m doing my best for the driven piece, because it’s not really about me but it’s about those kids that are in my classroom. So, I have to make sure that I’m always at my best. Even when I don’t feel like I’m at my best, I have to push through it because it’s not for me, it’s for them. I do what I do for them. And the creative and that innovative piece, because I want my classroom, I want it to be—I tell the kids, “It’s our classroom-home. This is our place. We’re going to be in here for an hour together. This is our home. We have to respect it and love it. And see how I decorate it? It’s because I want you to feel at home.” And so, yeah, so maybe it kind of all I think goes back to that, that I realize that it’s not about me, it’s about them, and I want to make every experience that they have in my classroom, everything that they encounter, be good because they deserve it.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: That’s cool. That’s a very unique, and I mean, it’s a choice. A lot of people could say, “Hey, I’m being paid to do this. I’m going to make sure they have the minimum, make sure my standards are high enough,” and then stop, but there’s something that’s driving you past that and I don’t know if you really like articulated what it is. You say it’s for the students, but what is it about that that you continue to push?

Yasmine Chavez: Well, our reality is that they are what’s going to be in politics, they’re going to be our politicians, they’re going to be our doctors, they’re going to be all of those things, so if I pour my best into them, I’m really pouring my best into everyone’s future. So, if I’m giving them my absolute best, hopefully, they’ll remember that and they’ll pour their absolute best into what they do in the future because, it’s so cliché, but they really are, the children are our future. They really are because they’re going to be taking over when we’re all done.

Wes Kriesel: Yeah, yeah.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

Wes Kriesel: That’s great. Well, that’s a good note to end on. I love it. Thank you very much.

Yasmine Chavez: Yeah.

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

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