Renès Lophanor's new book "I Still Love Teaching Despite Having All The Reasons In The World To Quit” delves into the heart of educational reform, focusing on student engagement and innovative teaching methods. It’s a reflection of his two-decade long journey as a teacher, offering insights into the challenges and triumphs of the profession.

Takeaways:

• The importance of building personal relationships with students to foster respect and understanding.
• Teachers often leave the profession due to lack of support and overwhelming administrative burdens.
• Maintaining a balance between teaching and personal life is crucial for long-term happiness.
• Engaging students through collaboration enhances their learning experience and builds essential life skills.
• Inspiring students can lead to greater resilience and empowerment in their lives.
• Teaching should focus on positive aspects, despite the challenges faced in the education system.

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Last year, for example, 40,000 teachers left the profession in the UK alone and in France there were about 25,000.

And that's something that is global, I would say mainly in the.

In the Western countries.

One of the main strategies that I use is to build a personal relationship with the students and to have mutual respect towards them and to treat them like a human being rather than like a student by finding the words, the right words, the right way to explain to someone what you know.

That in itself is another skill.

My goal is to be the teacher that I wish I had when I was at school.

The reason why I enjoy teaching still is because when I walk out the school building, I leave everything behind.

I leave the school life behind me.

I am now in my new life, hobbies, family time, etc.

I had to change my mindset and tell myself the school is my job, my profession.

Okay?

My real life is outside the school, so I need to live.

Hello, welcome back to the Education on Far podcast.

That was Renes Lofenor and he's got a book out called I Still Love Teaching despite having all the Reasons in the World to Quit.

We have a great conversation about his experience, why he wrote the book, some amazing takeaways from it, and a big thank you to the national association for Primary Education for their continued support and sponsorship of this show.

Really hope you enjoyed this conversation.

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education on Fire podcast, the place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world.

Listen to teachers, parents and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best, authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all.

Hi Renez, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Fire podcast.

It's always great to chat to someone who's got a really diverse educational background from a professional point of view as well as a sort of a learning point of view as well.

And might be great to sort of hear about all those things, but I think most importantly for me, this idea of people getting disillusioned with the education system.

But then do you get out?

Do you stay?

What is it that you do?

And I think our conversation is going to be so supportive for all those people who are especially maybe on that cusp.

So yeah, so thanks so much for being here today.

My pleasure.

Thank you very much, Mark, for having me on your show today and it will be my pleasure to share my insights and with your audience and hopefully they will find something to take away and help them in.

In the life, not necessarily in the Deed in the education world, but in the life in general.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

So why don't we start with that kind of background that you have?

Because it's multi countries, it's studying in different countries, it's sort of, kind of all that culture and upbringing must give you a really unique sort of idea of what life's about, not just what education is about.

Absolutely.

I was born in Haiti and for those who don't know about this place, it's an island located in the Caribbean about 60 miles away from Cuba.

Everyone knows Cuba and Dominican Republic.

It shares the island with Dominican Republic.

And so I lived in Haiti until I was around 10 years old and then I moved to Paris where I continued my studies up to university.

After uni, I came to England where I did teacher training, the pgc.

And I've become now a qualified teacher for the last 22 years and I am still loving teaching.

Fantastic.

And that way that we should jump in into your book from there just because there's so much there about the fact I love your enthusiasm and the fact like you say you're still loving teaching.

And the essence of the book is like, despite all the reasons why maybe you could quit, should quit, understand what that element's like.

So take us into the starting point of that and in essence what you trying to get across to it.

When I started writing this book, actually the book I wanted to write was my autobiography, believe it or not.

But with being in my mid-40s, I thought that could be a bit presumptuous to write my autobiography at such a young age.

So let's leave that for later.

And then I started talking to people a lot about the education system, what I like about it, what I don't like about it, what I would change if I were part of the policymakers.

And then I decided to write the book to, to pinpoint those, those things.

But I wanted to focus on the positive side of things because every time someone is talking about teaching in general, they always go for the negative side of it.

And I'm not blaming them because it's, it is in, it's.

It is in human nature to, to emphasize what is negative rather than the positive.

So I decided to take things the other way around and focus on the positive.

So because I still love teaching and I've noticed that, let's say last year, for example, 40,000 teachers left the profession in the UK alone and in France there were about 25,000.

And that's something that is global, I would say mainly in the, in the Western countries and in the United States don't even need to mention that.

So I wanted to give.

Share some insights on what I do, which has helped me to maintain my passion for the profession despite all the challenges that we teachers are facing on a daily basis in the classroom or in the school altogether.

And yeah, I mean, it's amazing and we're going to jump into what those, what those reasons are.

But I just wanted at this point just to say this is what I love so much about the podcast is because this is the reason the podcast was created.

I was going into lots of schools doing music workshops and I was seeing so many people in staff rooms literally banging their heads against a brick wall saying, I got into it because this was my dream and this is what I wanted to do.

But because of all the reasons I'm sure we may cover, they were like, it's, it's really difficult.

And I was in the privileged position of being able to say, but I know the school down the road or in this county or this part of the country, this was happening.

Either it was a charity providing something or it was a way of teaching or it was something maybe they hadn't thought about.

And I thought if I can a conversation with them about that, maybe it's going to make a difference.

And I think today it's almost like we're sort of 400 odd episodes into the show now and it's like you're going to encapsulate all of this in one go, which is why I think it's absolutely fantastic.

So I'll do my best.

Please do take us into, into, into those reasons and what you've learned.

Okay.

The main reason that comes, that comes to mind when, when you ask a teacher what they think of the, the profession is the behavior issues that they have with, in the classroom with the students.

And what makes it difficult for my colleagues, for teachers in general, is the fact that you don't always have the necessary support that you would need from the senior leadership in order to say to, to solve the problem.

And, but that's, that's one, one reason and I will tell you in a bit how I managed to, to mitigate that in my, my own teaching, my own classroom and other.

Other reason is the, the lack of the.

No.

The increase, the increase of admin.

Admin.

Administrative staff put upon the shoulder of teachers and the excess of testing assessment every two, three weeks and data processing and all that for the salary is not that great.

It's not that great.

And compared to what people who have the same level of education to a teacher would get elsewhere.

So for the most of it, for someone to decide to remain in the teaching profession, it's more than for the money, because if it was just for that, I don't think we would have many teachers left.

And that's one of the reasons anyway that a lot of them are fleeing.

And if I'm still here, that's because my passion for.

For it is still higher than my need for.

For my financial need, even though obviously I would definitely prefer to be paid to the real value of my.

Of.

Of my skills.

Exactly.

You know, you're not going to, you're not going to turn it away should it.

Should it arrive.

Exactly, Exactly.

Especially after 22 years of experience.

Y.

And yeah, I said earlier I was going to explain how I deal with the.

With behavior issue in my.

In my lessons.

One of the main reason, reason or strategies that I use is to build a personal relationship with the students and to have mutual respect towards them and to treat them like a human being rather than like a student.

And by doing so, they will see you first as a human being as well before they see you as a teacher.

The problem I see with students, and I remember from my childhood when I was at school, is the teachers that we saw as teachers were for us unreachable.

They were not approachable and therefore there were not people we were looking up to as role models.

Whereas those who were approachable, friendly, and it was easy to approach them, to ask for help, and therefore we respected them more than those who put for the status of teacher.

And that's.

Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

And I think for me, often it's that idea of we often start with, it should be like this.

So, you know, we'd hope that students come in and you'd have the respect, the discipline would be there, you'd have a culture where everyone wants to learn.

But maybe that's not the case.

And like you say, you'll have more experience of this than me.

You know, maybe that is something which is becoming more and more of an issue.

But if your starting point is, is that despite all of that, what I'm trying to do is, as you've explained, is about creating these relationships, understanding what's going on, then it's a much easier starting point.

Even if the situation may well be different, what you're trying to do and how you're going about it immediately has a different framework.

Yeah.

At the beginning of my lessons in, in September, with all my New classes.

The first thing I make sure I do is to learn everyone's name, everyone's first name during that hour that I have with them.

So that at the end of the lesson, as I'm dismissing them, I stand by the door and each of them will pass and I say, au revoir, so and so.

Au revoir, Caroline.

Au revoir, Paul, or Adios, Jardine, depending on the language I'm teaching them.

And at the end of that lesson, they are so impressed that I remember all.

I remembered all the names, that they see me as the teacher who knew their name.

And by knowing their names, and you call them by the names in the corridor, on the playground.

I mean, they, they, for them, you have noticed them.

You.

It's, it's.

It's like you value them as a person and, and that means a lot to them.

I think that's.

It's really important, isn't it?

And just take us into.

People have got a picture in terms of the subjects you teach in the sorts of age group that you're teaching.

Yeah, I teach German.

Sorry, I have taught German, French in my first few years of teaching, but nowadays I teach Spanish, French and music.

Fantastic.

And anybody who's doing music in school gets my vote for absolutely everything because I know how important it is.

Having been given the opportunity at school and became a professional musician and still have the chance to sort of share that passion.

It's something which is so important and so often gets pushed to one side.

So I can imagine not only doing it, is it important, but having someone who's really enthusiastic about the students as well.

That's.

That's a great way of being.

But I do prefer teaching languages, though.

Music.

I love playing music.

There's.

There's no doubt about it.

And I do use music in my classroom.

I have a guitar right behind my desk and which I use occasionally.

But I find more joy in teaching languages.

And so take us into.

You said that the second part of all this was kind of the administration and all of that kind of thing.

How do you.

I'm sure there'd be everyone thinking, where does the joy come from?

Doing more and more admins.

I'm interested in terms of where that focus comes.

I have absolutely no joy in that in the admin part.

And for me, I can say now, if I am to leave teaching or at least in school, that would be probably the first reason why I would leave.

And there are far too many tests and just most of the time it's for the sake of having some Data to tick the box, because in the underground, you don't really see the real benefit of them to the kids.

Personally, I would rather spend that hour of testing to teach the students new things or to consolidate what they did not grasp fully.

And to me, that would be a much more valuable way to use that time.

And so regarding test, I try to be, let's say, different in the way I conduct my testing.

For example, we regularly test students on learning vocab tests, sorry, vocab list and grammar points, etc.

And what I like to do is to use what I call the power of collaboration.

And I mentioned that in the book because that's something that I really value.

And I said to my students, when you leave school, as soon as you leave school, you will not be working on your own.

You will be working with other people.

You will have colleagues, you will have a boss, you will have relative friends, you will be working in an office, but with other people.

You will not be expected to do anything on your own as such.

And it will always be part of a team.

Yet in the classroom, they want students to be on their own.

They are not allowed to chat to their peers right next to them.

Any test they do, it has to be on their own, individual.

And so I, I try to add the collaboration in the testing process.

So what I do, when we do a test, an assessment, obviously not the formal one, the formal one, unfortunately, they have to do that on their own.

But any others which are not formal, I let them do the test on their own first.

I let them start at least.

And then I said, okay, now you're going to collaborate.

And some would ask, collaborate?

What does that mean, sir?

That means working together with someone and they are so surprised.

It's a test, sir.

Yes, I know, I know it's a test, but I am allowing you to work with the person next to you.

However, there's a catch.

Each mistake you make will count double.

If you want to work on your own, that's fine, then each mistake will be worth one point.

But if you decide to work together, which is fine, but each mistake counts for two points, what do you choose?

What do you think they choose?

They chose most of them, I would imagine.

Most of them wanted to collaborate.

Exactly.

And they, they all did, regardless the risk of losing more points, they still prefer the collaboration, which is a strength in human being.

That's, that's how we manage to be the apex on this planet.

It's through collaboration.

And that's still what's happening in our society.

It's working together, we succeed.

So by trying to teach them that as early as in school, I'm hoping to prepare them more or better for, for the future, for the real life, I would say.

I absolutely love that.

And I think the ability to see the bigger picture within the confines of the system, as it were, I think is a really, really key thing because you bring your personality, your ideas, you're not taking away from anything, you're just adding within those, that structure.

And I think the collaboration thing is really interesting because I think the majority of people or certainly the thing that struck me to begin with was it's not that I think I'm going to get more points because they might know more.

It's more the fact that there's the odd thing, which I think I know, but I'd like that support with, or I'd like to just chat through just to clarify, to make sure.

And actually two plus two doesn't really make double, double the knowledge.

It actually makes more than that because I think you support each other to almost create a third person or a fourth person, which is, which is a fascinating thing.

Yeah.

And we tend to dismiss or disregard the fact that children learn much easier from other children.

And so by allowing them to work together and I'm listening around how they are collaborating, how they're communicating, how one is trying to explain to another who doesn't understand the concept or a word.

And I would step into support if need be or I would learn as well.

Oh yeah, that's a good way to explain it that I didn't think of.

So it's a win, win situation as far as I'm concerned.

And to be honest, the fact that they took the courage to collaborate together despite the risk, most of the time I do count one mistake as one.

And when they're collaborating, is it their own liter, their own choice in terms of collaboration, in terms of who they want to collaborate with or do you have some kind of structure that kind of gives them that?

It depends.

Sometimes I let them decide who they want to collaborate to and sometimes I choose myself.

For example, I would choose a student who is, let's say at the top level in the class, in the class, in the class, I would try to pair that students with the lowest in, in, in the lesson and they would still accept.

They would still accept.

And so yeah, it depends what I want to gain from them.

And when, when I do that, it's because I want that student who, who understands things very well to use their skill to explain to Someone who really doesn't understand.

Because by finding the words, the right words, the right way to explain to someone what you know, that in itself is another skill.

So that I'm trying to make them develop as well.

It really is.

Because we can spend so much time in our own heads, as in, well, you know how this goes.

Or you must understand this, because I do.

Yeah.

But like you say, to be able to get that out in a way which is clear and, and actually, sometimes even your thought processes are one or two steps ahead of actually what you need to do, because you might need to take it piece by piece as you're building these things up.

Like I said, it's such an incredible skill to develop and to not do it in collaboration class, which is.

So what's going.

Everything's gonna.

Class, everything's siloed in those ways to suddenly realize you can do it in any subject, in any way, as long as you have that environment.

Yeah, it's absolutely brilliant.

There's one thing that I really love doing with my classes is during the doing an activity, I would ask everyone who understood the task, put your head up.

And then I would see.

I would see how many.

Okay.

I said, would you like to have a merit?

A merit.

So that's the reward we would give the class.

Do you want a reward?

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay, this is what I'm gonna do.

I'm going to walk outside the door.

I'll stand outside the door for one minute.

And all those of you who understand, you are going to explain to the rest of the class, make sure everyone understand.

If everyone understands, then you will all get a reward.

And those of you who have been explaining, you'll get an extraordinary.

And then I would walk out with my timer and the class would be buzzing, buzzing away.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you would see them going to the weakest students and trying to make sure they understand.

Because when I come back, I will pick someone at random.

And usually they know I would go for.

I would tend to go for.

For the weakest student.

I don't always do that, but I'm.

I let them know, make sure these people know because they might be the one I'm going to choose.

And, and that's, that's.

That's great for me.

That's.

It does my job in a way for me.

And.

But at the same time, they are enjoying it.

They are finding the lesson pleasant.

They don't see it as a lesson as such or as a traditional lesson where they just have to sit and listen to the Teacher.

So as much as I can make a lesson, be interactive.

I do.

I do.

And because that's what I wanted when I was myself a student.

And like I said, my goal is to be the teacher that I want.

I wish I had when I was at school.

Yeah.

Love it.

And I'm curious as to how that looks within your school and your colleagues.

Do people pick up on it?

Do you share these ideas?

Have other people started doing it as well?

Or is it like you say, it's your experience bringing that into just your classroom?

I think that's more my experience.

The thing is, it's.

It's not always simple to, to implement someone else's methods or this kind of methods where the personality has to match.

If, if you're, if you don't have the right personality to do that, it will, it will look fake and the students will not find the same interest in, in doing it.

And I think.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think the bigger picture is important there as well, because I can understand that even if you sort of stood up and said, this is what I do in my class and this is why I do it.

And it works so well for me.

Yeah.

I think without understanding where we started, which was the.

I want to get to know the children.

I want to really make sure we have a rapport and all of that kind of thing.

Without all of that, the rest of it doesn't work either.

So it's not just about doing A, B and C.

It's actually about knowing the whole Alphabet almost and putting.

And putting it in the round.

In order for that to be.

To give the environment for that to happen.

And if I can make sure this.

Yeah.

So connection.

For me, that's the main thing for, for me to be.

Still love teaching.

I had to connect to my students from the very first lesson.

And if not the first lesson, then the second lesson or until I can connect with them, I know I would not be able to teach them or they would not be able.

They would not be willing to learn from me either.

Yeah.

And I think, and I think that's interesting from what you said about having the time instead of the testing, because, you know, if that hour meant that you understood that they had this hobby or a shared love of music or, or something like that, that connection is going to happen much quicker and they're going to gain much more because we, I think we all know that at that moment.

And like you say, with that relationship and then all the great learning that happens afterwards, their test scores would be higher, especially by the end of the year.

So actually there's so much benefit in that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Really amazing.

And you mentioned, you mentioned something about the students.

Did you say, you said the students skills something now?

Yeah.

Their hobbies or their skill sets or their.

Yes, yes.

And that's, that's something that I take, I take into, into account in my teaching as well.

I share my hobbies with them and, and they share theirs with me and I try to include things that are related to their hobbies in the lesson to make it more relevant to them and, and more in a way easier for them to learn because they know the topic, they, they can relate to it.

So.

Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

And I'm curious, in terms of your sort of longevity within the profession as well, is it the, the love of things that you've got outside of the job that really help as well?

You know, is a, is a music person as someone who loves creating arts and stories and I know that, you know, you haven't just decided as of now, I'm going to write a book.

It's been part of what you've been doing for a long time.

So talk about that kind of how you see the job sort of as part of your overall life as well.

Bingo.

You, you freely, you've nailed it.

The reason why I enjoy teaching still is because when I walk out the school building, I leave everything behind.

I leave the school life behind me.

I am now in my new new life, hobbies, family time, etc.

And because I'm able to, to disconnect from the school life, I can live the rest of my life fully.

And, and therefore when I return to the school, it's fine.

I am totally rejuvenated and full of energy and I can, I can go on.

So yes, to, to maintain your hobbies outside of school, that's very important.

I, I am a musician as well.

I do gigs here and there regularly.

And you're a musician as well, you say, right?

Yes, and for me that's, that's very important.

I do rock climbing now a bit less because of, of the writing that has been taking a lot of time and then some other things that I'm involved in, like I'm attending a finance course to educate myself in the world of finance.

By the way, this is something as I'm learning about finance, I am teaching my tutor group about it as well because that's something that is lacking in schools.

In the school system.

It's the, the, the finance education to, to students who, as soon as they leave school will be dealing with credit cards, debit cards, loans, and yet they will have no knowledge, no prior knowledge about it.

So I am trying to, to do my, my share.

Like I said, there again to be the teacher that I wished.

I wish I had in.

Yeah.

When I was in school.

Yeah, yeah.

My, my hobbies keep me, keep me strong.

My family, my friends keep me.

Yeah.

Strong outside of school.

It's so important.

And finance is something which we've covered on occasions here on the show because there are, there are lots of very passionate people about that and it makes a lot of sense because with that framework in place, like you say, as you leave school, you're in a much better position to do whatever it is that you want to be.

Yeah.

To be doing after that.

I know you said the hobbies are important, but there'll be people listening who, who completely agree with you.

I'd like to be walking out the school gates and then that's done.

I'm now in my next life.

But aren't able to do that.

Is that just something you've always been able to do?

Do you have certain skills, certain tactics that enable that to become a reality for you?

If I have been able, or if I've always been able to do that, let's say I've always wanted to be able to do that.

In my first year, let's say in my first year as a teacher, as a newly qualified teacher, I was dedicating a lot of my time to school, to marking, to planning lessons.

I would stay in school until they close, until the caretaker closes the school at 6pm every day because I was enjoying, I was enjoying marking every single book, drawing some, some, some, some anime for.

To.

To cheer the students who did well and those who didn't do so well.

I would draw a little version of that same anime to cheer them up.

And they loved having my drawing in their book because they know that that's a sign that they have done well or they are on the path to doing well and planning.

I would spend a lot of time planning my lessons, especially as a newly qualified teacher.

I did not have the experience to plan fast.

And also I wanted to.

I don't know, I wanted to do well.

I wanted to do so many things, so many things that I wanted my teachers to have done for me.

So that took a lot of time.

And I have spent some nights in the library or the computer room of the University of Southampton, but really the whole night I would go, I would go to the, to the computer room and let's say 6 7pm and I would work, would work, plan and tweak things, create PowerPoint and then when I check the time it's 6:30am and I would just go straight to school the next day and.

But obviously that's, that wasn't sustainable.

And it comes to a point where the body say hey mate, you have to, you know, take it easy.

And so with the family as well, my wife and then when I got my first child, I had to restructure my life in a way to accommodate the family life and the school.

So I learned to dedicate more time or less time to school in order to fill the rest of my life.

And that was actually the best decision because it was healthier anyway.

So I don't know if I did not have a family, if I would not if I would have done it or at least would have I done it as well?

I don't know.

But what I can say is that I have some friends who are single and they dedicate much more time to school than I do and obviously that has a, a negative impact on their mood as well.

Yeah, they, they need to, to learn to disconnect like I have tried successfully done.

And yeah, so no, I have not always managed to do that but now, now I can say I have, I've done it so well that that's.

But I don't know how I could, how I could guide someone to do it themselves.

All I can say is that I had to change my mindset and tell myself the school is my job, my profession.

Okay, My, my what brings me my salary for me to pay to live.

So my real life is outside the school, so I need to live.

So therefore anything that you can do to please yourself, your hobbies, see your friends and study any other things that you want to, to, to become proficient at do, do.

So do not let school take all of your life because at the end of the day it's gonna ruin your health and consequently your body as well and you will not be able to continue for long and you will want to quit.

And yeah, so.

And I really think that there are a couple of things there that strike me.

One, I can identify with that I was a different person pre family than with family.

And it's an easy choice to start to make, isn't it?

In terms of I need this to work for this.

And also I think the fact that your career is also a journey because you are a different person when you're just graduated or you're starting a new job.

And that isn't to say that you, you should do it different from day one because there's something about the reps and like you said, the study and the planning that you did then, which puts you in good said for later on, that, you know, there's a certain amount of, of understanding and knowledge and experience that comes with it, which you can do when you're younger and maybe you need to in some way or another.

I can completely get that.

But I think what I love about our conversation today is the fact that I think everyone listening would go, but I want you as a teacher as you are now.

And you've created that because of, despite of all of those things, because of the positives of outside school, the way you want to be within school, because even just like them talking about it's a job and it has a salary from everything that you said in the first part of the show, what you bring to the classroom, in the school because of all of that is such a positive thing.

And like you say, it's really hard to do that if you've gone too far the other way and you're spending too much time about it.

And like I say, you're not rejuvenating yourself to have that perspective, I think, somewhere because it's not like you're trying to cut corners.

It's the fact that, you know, the bigger picture, you know, the system is the system.

You know what you have to do.

But, you know, the fact that your finance has taken you to have those conversations is a, Is a tutor.

The fact that, you know, understanding that the way people learn might be better as a collaboration, you know, it's just making all the difference.

And I think, I think that's why I love these conversations.

People just thinking, oh, I could just think of it in that way, or maybe I don't need to do this, I could do that, or whatever it is that's striking everybody.

We're all different.

But such a great thing to be.

Able to hear, oh, no, that's.

I mean, for me to say that I would love to be in my own class, as my own student, and it may sound pompous, but, I mean, at the end of the day, if you believe that what you're doing is right, it might not be right, but if you believe it's right, why not embrace it?

And that's, that's, that's what I, I'm trying to do.

And I.

The feedback that I get from the students is telling me that I am doing it right as well.

My.

My colleagues as well.

So, I mean, yeah, so I.

I don't see.

You know, usually when a student see the.

The teachers in town, what is the first reflex?

They run, they go and hide.

What's for me, I say, hi, Mr.

Fennel.

Oh, hi.

And they're with the parents.

Usually you're with your parents.

You see a teacher, you don't want your parents to see anything.

But for me, no, they.

They would come and greet me.

And that means.

That means a lot.

So that.

That's one of the things that make me believe that I am doing it right.

And now, like I said, it might not be right, because at the end of the day, right is not.

It's not universal.

And it can be subjective for someone, and not for that, but at least for those students that I have, it seems to be right.

And I think.

I think the key takeaway is that it's right for you.

And so for someone else listening, there'll be elements of it that's right for them, but there's other elements of their personality and how they teach and how they learn and their experience which makes it right for them.

And, you know, often at this part of the show, we talk about an education experience or a teacher or some advice you want to share, but we've kind of talked about all of that within.

Within the element of the conversation, which I absolutely love.

And it's not always kind of, you know, Mr.

Smith, at this class, it's usually the things like you said, it's the fact that they understood me, they saw me, or the fact that I didn't get that experience.

So I want to bring that into my school.

You know, you shared the idea of the hobbies, the.

The idea of sort of putting in perspective all of that.

I think it's so key, and I think for that to be sort of amalgamated into the heart of what you're doing is.

Is such a really important thing.

And, and you've said it at the beginning of my book.

I have clearly written.

This book is not intended to be a guide for.

To tell you teachers how to do what to do, but only a testimony to show you how have.

How I have done things.

Sorry.

And why it has worked for me the way I have done it.

And that's all.

So you can pick from it what you think would work for you and dismiss some of it or all of it if it doesn't.

But at least I'm just sharing.

I'm just offering you.

That's what I've done.

Now, you take it or you don't.

Use it in any way that you can.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

And is there another resource that you'd like to share?

And this can be anything from a video, song, podcast, book, film.

But something has had an impact, whether it's personal or professional.

Okay, well, there was one.

Since we were talking about exams.

There is a video.

A video.

It's called BE.

Got the name Bobby McFerrin.

Don't worry, BE Happy.

That's it.

Don't Worry, Be Happy, which I covered just like Bobby McFerrin did.

So it's all with vocals, no instrument.

And I recorded it last year and dedicated it to one of my year 11 class just before they sat the GCSE exam.

And at the end of the song, I.

I left a message for them which they really appreciated.

And so, yeah, that's one I would love to share with you.

It's called Don't Worry, Be Happy.

It's on my YouTube channel, which is R E N E S B B W.

I enjoy.

Great.

And we'll have links to these things on the show.

Notes and everything as well.

And I love that.

That sense of building up to an exam or all those things as well, because I very much share with my people, pupils, it's the sense that you've already done everything you can before you've got into the exam.

You don't know the result or how it's necessarily going to go.

But if you've done the work, you put the effort in, and certainly for music, if they've had the opportunity to share what they've done in a concert or something before you've done everything, you don't.

I don't need for you to get X, Y or Z in order for it to be a success or whatever you deem that success to be.

And I think like, say those con.

Constant conversations, the things that make a.

Make a difference with all of that sort of stuff.

So obviously the acronym FIRE is important to us here, Education on fire.

And we're talking about feedback, inspiration, resilience and empowerment.

What is it that strikes you when you hear that?

Inspiration.

Inspiration.

Because for me, if you can inspire someone, not necessarily students, so because we're talking about education, so I would say student.

But if you can inspire anyone, that person will be more likely to get on with the life and empower themselves, therefore becoming more resilient to deal with everything that.

That.

That they face in life.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah.

They're also interconnected, aren't they?

In so many ways and I love the way people count one, one particular thing or the other.

So I really love that, that, that acronym.

It's really great.

I'm really pleased.

So, Venice, thank you so much for chatting about everything and do make sure everyone knows.

Tell us again the name of the book, where they can find it and any bits of final sort of parting wisdom for it.

Okay.

The name of the book, you can't forget it.

I still love teaching despite having all the reasons in the world to quit.

And my name, Vaness Le.

Anyway, if you see that you can't get it wrong and it's available on the, on, on Amazon, on IngramSpark and, and in some, some libraries and shops, but for sure on Amazon you'll find it brilliant.

Thank you so much for your time today and sharing all of that with them.

I really do appreciate.

A pleasure.

Thank you, Mark, very much for having me on your platform.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.