Discussing current events or politics is difficult and in many cases discouraged in most classrooms these days. But what do high school Social Studies teachers do when the curriculum naturally leads the discussion in that direction?

Insert Anthony Curran. Anthony is a 19-year High School US History and Law teacher at Bayport-Blue Point High School in Bayport, New York. We discuss his approach in the classroom and his unique path to being an educator.

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Music by Patrick Patrikios

One of the skills I think it's so vitally

important teach right now, especially in the social media

age is how to disagree without being disagreeable when you're

on social media. You know, if somebody is to the left of you

call him a communist if somebody to the right of you, you call

them a fascist, we call people names, we say nasty things about

for what because we disagree on an issue. How can we disagree?

And maybe disagree very passionately, but still have the

students feel safe when they're leaving? And one of the ways I

think I accomplish that is by feeling that look, I'm putting

myself on the line with you guys, too. I'm not asking you to

do it. But I'm going to sit in the corner and just play

referee, I'm going to do it with you. And hopefully at the end of

the day, we disagree. That's fine. We'll still be okay when

we leave and that's the skill they need to get out of this.

Hello, and it's great to have you back for another show. If

That is Anthony Curran, High School US history and law

teacher at a Bayport-Bluepoint High School in Bayport, New

you're new to our audience, welcome. I think you'll like

York. He joins us to discuss his career path, and how he

this podcast. My name is Mr. S. And today we have a special show

addresses current events in the classroom. Join us, as it's time

lined up for you. One of the challenges faced in my

to Get Schooled with Mr. S.

discussions with social studies teachers, is how to weave in

current and topical events in a way where you preserve the

objectivity and interest for students. Sometimes

administration can be very restrictive on teachers, don'

give your personal opinion don't even discuss the issues

Of course, if you're teachin social studies, that approac

isn't going to work. You nee something that allows th

students to first understand th material, make a context of i

and then be able to debate an discuss it critically. Now th

question comes in for teacher is how do you walk that fin

line between getting th students to interact on thes

issues versus injecting your ow opinion into the debate? Or i

that okay? So our guest Anthon Curran will talk about tha

challenge, and you'll find ou more about his unique path t

the classroom. It's all comin up next on Get Schooled with Mr

S

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Welcome back to another episode of Get Schooled. Mr. S and I'm

very excited to have our next guest on he's a veteran social

studies teacher in Bayport-Blue Point High School in New York.

And we welcome Anthony Curran to the show. Anthony, thanks for

joining me on Get Schooled.

Thanks for having me.

You have a very interesting career arc that landed you in

education, would you share that with the audience?

I never intended to be a teacher at least when I was in college.

And it's a good lesson for students that what you think

you're going to do with your life isn't necessarily where you

end up. Um, I went to college, I was going to be the next Yankees

broadcaster. In fact, I started out in print journalism, but a

friend of mine that was taking a class with told me why don't you

join the radio station? You like sports, they need sports

broadcasters. I said, Okay, I'll do that. And I had a blast and I

did radio I called Hofstra football games or when there was

Hofstra football, called Hofstra basketball, games, baseball. But

maturity wise, I wasn't ready to make a career out of it and do

the type of things that you need to do to get to a career there.

So the travel the the amount of work that you have to put in

outside of doing the broadcast. I just wanted to get on the air

and broadcast and So I took the L SATs, I went to law school for

a year I was enjoying school. I got into law school at Hofstra.

And about a month in, I knew that law school wasn't for me. I

like the idea of the law, I just kind of knew that I wasn't going

to make a good lawyer. So I had paid for the year, very

expensive year. So I stayed for the year. And again, got some

good advice from a couple of very good friends. You know,

you'd be a good teacher, you like talking you like being in

front of people? Why don't you give teaching a try. So I

transferred to the ED school. I took education, I enjoyed it, I

found I felt like I finally found a home where this is what

I want to do. This is what I want to do 24 hours a day, seven

days a week. But I needed money. I had been in school for now,

five and a half years at this point. And New York City had a

program where you can teach professionally without being a

student teacher, basically a student teacher in a classroom.

So I got hired on in the fall of 2000. While I'm still working on

my teaching program to go teach in Brownsville, New York, one of

the most challenging neighborhoods in the city. And

it's funny, you know, 20 years later, it's still I think, the

best teaching I ever did. You had kids that desperately

desperately wanted to learn from you had some that didn't. But

the ones that wanted to learn for you would do anything for

you. The problem was, is that once the city realized they had

somebody who they seem to like, but didn't have their

certification, they would kind of mess with your certification

to make sure you couldn't go anywhere else. So they told me,

I was teaching an English class at the time in addition to

social studies. So they said, Well, we can't really give you

certification right now because you're not teaching a full

social study schedule. Luckily, I had an advisor at Hofstra, I

gave him a call. So what should I do? He said, Give your give

your notice. And I said, Do I have to give a month's notice or

anything like don't give give a week's notice? What are they

going to do? cancel your certification, you don't have

one. I have a student teaching spot opening up in Baldwin, a

teacher dropped out and I don't want to lose the spot. You can

be student teaching in Baldwin. So I quit New York City one

weekend, and I'm student teaching after I've already been

a teacher in Baldwin the next week, which was kind of bizarre.

I went from teaching social studies and English to seventh

graders to student teaching with a teacher that taught seniors

full time. And I did that made it through did a year of subbing

in Massapequa in my home district where I went to high

school and thought I was going to get hired full time there.

But they negotiated a union contract where the AP teachers

beforehand had taught four classes a day. And now they were

going to teach five and they went from needing a teacher to

figuring out how to not lose two of them. And all of a sudden,

I'm interviewing now and I got hired in Bayport blue point very

Luckily, where I've spent the last 20 years and or 19 years,

I'm going to be going into my 20th year next year. And so

that's the path I took to get to where I was

In an alternate universe, if the city had handled it differently,

do you think you would stay there longer?

Absolutely. If the city had worked with me on my

certification, I would probably still be just teaching in

District 23. I loved it there it was, it was tough. It was the

toughest work I've done in 21 years of, of being in the

education business. But it was the most rewarding teaching kids

that came into your room barely able to read, you know, seventh

graders barely able to read, and you're teaching them how to

read, you know, teaching them social studies where they hadn't

ever gotten that before, and they're getting it from you. And

they would, I can't stress enough how the kids that wanted

to learn there would do anything for you. And it was just such, I

don't get me wrong, I love what I'm doing. Now, I love my

students now. But it is a different level of reward when

you get it from kids that can't get it from anywhere else. And

the appreciation that you get just from a student to teacher

is just something I saw my first year teaching, and I'll probably

never see, again,

The education has a greater value. I know from my

experience, in some of the students, they don't feel they

need the education because maybe financially, they've got it or

maybe they take over the family business. It's a really

different dynamic, isn't it?

It's different in the sense that to get the buy in that you have

to come at students, especially now. But really, most students,

it was a lot easier to find the buy in there. But now you have

you have to relate it to the students in some way the

students have to feel in there and there's nothing wrong with

this. By the way, the students have to feel like there's

something in it for them. You're giving them something that's of

use to them. Otherwise it's just going to go in one of the areas

not the other because they're saying themselves, well how am I

going to use this in my next step in life, whatever it is, or

if it doesn't involve being in a in an 11th grade social

classroom. So I try as much as I can to relate it to their real

life, which is easier, say in a social studies class than, say a

math class. You know if you're doing trigonometry or something,

but when you do it, and they catch on that there's a

connection to them, then you've got them all in.

Have you grown? How have you grown as an educator? With all

your years in Bayport? That's a long time.

Yeah, it's, you know, what happens? I feel like every few

years education reinvents itself. I came in. And a lot of

it is technology based. To be fair, I came in, I was teaching

on a chalkboard. And I got to share a classroom with a teacher

who if you ever seen the movie, a beautiful mind would use every

inch of the board, and was willing to give me about four

square inches that I could use myself. So now I'm using an

overhead projector, which again, 20 years ago, I mean, top of the

terminology. And then all of a sudden, you'll remember the

smartboard movement happened. Yeah, everything you thought you

were doing before. And, you know, I was a curmudgeon, even

at the ripe age of 25. So I said, Oh, God, new technology,

what am I going to do with it, you know what, I'll make a

beautiful overhead screen. And then you realize what the

technology can do, and it totally changes the way you

teach, I can link a video into something I'm doing. Um, I can

have audio tracks of actual speeches, rather than having the

kids read a speech, I can have an audio track of the actual

speech going on behind me. And that changed everything. Then,

of course, in the last few years, the last couple of years,

you had the inclusion of things like Google classroom where you

had the the ability to send videos to kids at home, and you

had the ability to have assignments linked at home. So

if a kid wasn't in school, they could basically get, you know,

50 to 60%, of what you were doing in the classroom, rather

than when they come back, okay, here's what you missed. No,

here's, you can get what you miss every single day. But it

requires you to have that all ready to go every single day in

advance on us on a computer system that you may not quite

understand. But you're kind of figuring out as you go, and

you're getting training and such, but you really have to

figure it out for yourself. And now of course, with the

pandemic, it's come full circle, where now we're teaching by

Google, which none of us ever expected to be doing. But it's

kind of we've adapted on the on the fly. I know, teachers love

to use the phrase learning to fly the plane while we're

building it. And this is certainly that. But it kind of

it seems driven by technology. But it seems like once every few

years, everything that you're doing kind of evolves.

It's funny, you mentioned Google Classroom. This is my 20th year

of teaching. And I went from someone asking if I put stuff on

google classroom, and my response was what is Google

Classroom to over the years, posting just the assignment,

then attaching the assignments, then attaching links, and now

it's now the primary mode in this pandemic, I only take paper

in a pinch, you know, because of the pandemic. So it's amazing,

just how quickly things have ramped up.

What I've noticed is up until this year, leaving this year

out, it freed up so much time in my classroom, where before you'd

have students write down notes. Well, now I could send them the

notes in advance of the class, and they have it in front of

them. And I can do other things that don't involve the notes. If

they want to write things down, they can, but I have their notes

that I would normally be taking, you know, 10% 15 20% of a class,

just them transcribing. Now. It's stats 20% of the time in my

classroom, I got back to do whateve r I want.

What do you think his students would say they like best about

Mr. Curran's class? Hmm,

I'd like them to say my sense of humor. I don't think that's so

true, though. I think what they would say they like, they have a

friend in there, not not a friend in the sense that, you

know, I'm gonna be buddies with them when the class is over. But

they're coming to a safe place. They know for that 40 minutes,

they're going to be safe with me, I'm going to do my best to

teach the material to them. But they know that no matter what

happens, I always tell them your grade in social studies, it's

just a number. Nobody's going to remember 30 years from now, what

you got in US history? Sure. I don't remember what I got in US

history in high school, it doesn't matter. I hope that they

feel comfortable in my room, they learn a little something

for 40 minutes. And I think every student I have would come

back and say, You know what, it was a place I didn't mind being

and it was a place that if nothing else, I felt safe going

in there. And I didn't feel worse cooling out than when I

came in. I think that's what they would say,

that's a good, I think that's a good base standard. Because if

you have that, then you can hit those higher things on the

ladder.

And it's also you know, having a little bit of enough self

reflection to say, you know what, they're not going to leave

the class worried about what the Ulysses Grant presidency was all

about. Just for example. That's it if they learn the basic ideas

of citizenship and the basic ideas of what it means to be a

citizen and what our history means and what our history

teaches us without having to know all of the scams Is that

more of the Ulysses Grant presidency, then they're doing

pretty well. That's how I look at it. And because I look at it

that way, I think the students get that as well.

That makes sense. You're very involved beyond the school day

and in ways and making connections. Can you talk a

little bit about what you do beyond the last bill?

Yeah, um, I always thought for a little bit about going into

coaching, I never really did get into it. And I always joke,

there's like, the 7500 reasons I don't. But um, I always got

involved in the sports outside of coaching. Um, I do score

books for multiple sports. I do clocks for multiple sports on

the PA voice of football, pa voice of basketball. And, you

know, it allows me to draw on some of the skills I learned in

college, when I was actually going to college as an undergrad

to do something, I actually took those skills and actually did

something with them. I always joke, I'm like the, I'm like the

bowling pins at the end of the game, the score is never my

fault. So I get all of the fun of the sports. Without any of

the hard decisions like who to cut from the team, on how many

hours of practice to have a week, I basically get to show up

for the games, and get the fun part of it without having to do

the really the God's work that coaches do. I mean, I I'm

thoroughly in admiration of every coach that puts in that

kind of time. And the amount of effort and the amount of caring

that goes into being a coach, I get to see the reward end of it

and have some fun with the students Besides,

and there is pressure to win at that varsity level. I think

anywhere you know, it coach goes one and 12 for three straight

seasons, even the district they may pull the plug so but as a

scoreboard, operator, you're right, I've done it. You enjoy

it, you can just watch the game a nice way to connect with

students.

Yeah, you know it. It's a funny story, I tell it and this was

from a bunch of years ago, I'm standing up in the box doing pa

for football. And a parent comes up to me and says, oh, thank you

for saying my son's name. Right? He had a hard name to pronounce

this out. Thank you for taking the time to learn my son's name,

right? And they I saw, Okay, thanks for enjoying the game or

whatever. And then they're leaving, and you see them

trudging down the stands. And you know, the next place they're

going is to yell at the coach about something. So I see none

of it on that end.

That's interesting. Wow. And you do some work? You're involved in

the Union as well.

Yes, I am the grievance Chair of the bay Port bluepoint Teachers

Association. Um, I like to consider myself, you know, kind

of the lieutenant in the army rather than the general, I think

you can appreciate that. I'm usually carrying out the orders.

But I, I go in and solve contractual problems. That's

kind of where my love is, is knowing our collective

bargaining or I said contract and I broke my own first rule,

the rule is this an agreement and both sides agreed to it. So

we don't call it a contract. And now it's a contract. But knowing

our collective bargaining agreement, and most of the time,

it's, you know, people have a misconception of like, oh, the

district decided they're not going to pay you this week. And

so you're gonna go in and file a grievance. It's not like that

No, 99.9% of the time, it's well reasoned people on both sides,

that there's just something in our CBA, that's not clear. And

both sides legitimately can read it one way or the other. And my

job is to go in there and convince them that the way I'm

reading it is better for all of us in the way they're reading

it. And sometimes it works. And sometimes it doesn't, I like to

think I succeed more often than I fail. But it's allowed me to

have a very good, a really good relationship with the

administration of the district, which I know a lot of fellow

grievance chairs, don't. But I over the years, whether they've

been superintendents, we've been thrilled with their

superintendents, we're not as thrilled with I've, I can

proudly say that I've enjoyed a pretty good relationship with

all of them. And I think all of them would say, if nothing else,

that I'm fair, they may not like where we end up on certain

issues. I might not like where we end up. But I like to think I

was fair, and that I listened to everything that they had to say

and that hopefully they listened to me.

So the legal background really helps with things like that,

because sometimes when I'm doing similar work, I'm saying, geez,

I wish I don't know the legality of x, you bring in some of that

k nowledge that you had when you went to law school.

Um, some i think i think it could be both a plus and a

minus. It's a plus in the sense for exactly the reason you said

I have a rudimentary knowledge of the things a first year law

student would have contract like contract law basically was it

which is what would apply here, where it's where it can be a

problem is I have to remind myself Yeah, I know some of this

stuff, but I'm not a lawyer. And they have lawyers working for

them. Sure, that are a lot more versed in this to me, one of the

first things I learned is is to have a great relationship with

your LRS, labor relations specialist, who we have an

excellent one, we have, I think the one who's the best in

Suffolk County on Long Island. And I can put a phone call into

him basically anytime a day, and run something by him say, here's

what I think. And he'll say, okay, that's where you're right

or no, here's where you're totally wrong and stop being a

lawyer. And having that resource and knowing I better use that

resource rather than thinking I know, it all, has been very,

very valuable.

I think that work, too. It's that balance between when when

do you talk, when do you have to fight I mean, that is, you know,

that I wrestle with that, too, that must be a challenge.

The solution, and this is, this is the way I've handled Luckily,

I have a president who agrees with this, the solution is

always to try to figure out, you know, I always think like, by

back to like Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi, you learn karate, so you

don't have to fight. Um, I always look at it as I want to

get a settlement, because you can end up going into an

arbitration and happening upon an arbitrator that totally

disagrees with your position and leaves you 10 times worse off

than what the district was offering you to begin with. So

fighting for us always is a last resort. We might go in there, we

might scream at each other. We might disagree with each other,

we might, you know, use a couple of tactics that we have at our

disposal, that makes the district very uncomfortable. But

I think both sides agree that the last place we want to end up

with is somebody else telling us what the settlements going to

be. At the very least let us both myself and the district

side of it feel like both of us came to some sort of agreement,

even if it's one that neither of us likes, rather than letting

somebody do it for us and leaving either one or both of us

in a position we're really unhappy with.

And that makes sense. I like to talk Anthony about your world

since the COVID. Shut down March 2020. How, what's your overall

take how when it first happened The following year, give us some

insight about how you adapted to the COVID world as a teacher?

Well, it's obviously as we're talking now, it's right about

the time when everything started to shut down. It was right

around this week.

About one, yeah,

went bad exactly a year. And we went home thinking we were going

to be home for a week. And when were we going to make up the

time are we going to have to come in at the end of the year

and make it up during summer vacation. And what if you had a

vacation planned and then we kind of came to the realization

that this is going to be for the long haul. And we started doing

the online classes, our district made the choice other districts

didn't, that we weren't going to do a live online teaching, we

were going to have office hours, you were free to online to teach

live online if you wanted to. But there was going to be no

pressure to do so. I kind of did a hybrid I learned screencastify

very quickly. And I was making kind of podcasts of myself.

screencastify allowed you to do that and kind of bring your

Smart Notebook files into it and add video if you wanted to. So I

did kind of a combination of me doing these podcasts. And me

being available during office hours for students that wanted

to discuss them. And then I would add in some assignments as

we went. We got to the end of the year. That that took us all

the way into June. And we never did go back obviously. In the

fall, we went back originally we were not doing live teaching we

were doing at the high school level a two day on today, today

on with a blue what we call blue and gold groups, half our

students on Monday, Tuesday, half our students on Thursday,

Friday, with a Wednesday hybrid online day where the students

would basically come in for extra help. And that went for

the first couple of months of the year. Then the the second

phase of it was okay, we're doing away with the Wednesdays.

And now we're going to have students three days a week, and

two days a week and then kind of flip flop the next week, the big

change to us was starting in November, we went to live

teaching online and how to do a hybrid format where you have

half your students in the class and half your students on the

computer at home. And it was something that every teacher

kind of had a different way of doing it from some who were very

interactive with the students at home to some who were not nearly

as interactive and the students at home were basically seeing

the smartboard hearing the class, but it wasn't very

interactive as they were sitting in the classroom. And I think a

lot of it was based on what we what your technological ability

to pull that off really was. I freely admit I was kind of

towards the latter, where the students are with me and can ask

questions and speak up if they'd like. But really they're not

interactive to the same level that I am with the students in

the room I felt when I was trying to be interactive with

the students at home It was to the detriment of the students

that were in front of me. So I kind of made it so that I wanted

to give as much of the face time as possible to students that

were in front of me. And when the both group was going to be

in later in the week, they would get the same thing for me.

Interesting. In and are you happy with your performance in

this COVID errors or things you you any takeaways from it that

you'll take for the post COVID era?

That's a great question. It's it's tricky, in that I don't

think that anything I'm doing this year is going to be

relevant as far as the teaching in the classroom during the 40

minute period, I don't think is going to be the same next year,

at least I hope it's not. I think what I'll take from it is

the usefulness of Google Classroom, I think we talked a

little bit about it before the usefulness of getting

assignments to students getting video to students, getting

interactive assignments to students. I got much better at

that this year. And I think that I will carry forward no matter

what I do. As far as the teaching in the class, I'll be

perfectly honest, I hope I never have to do it again. Sure. Maybe

I'm being totally unrealistic. And I'll find myself there. And

I'll try to improve on it a little bit every time I do it.

But I I it's not a in my opinion. It's not the healthiest

way to do education. I don't think it's good for the

students. I don't think it's great for us as teachers,

every four years that I've been doing this for 20 years. So we

get the email, there's a presidential election, don't say

anything about politics, nothing nada. But I'm a math teacher so

that I can I can pull that off. You are in a different position,

obviously, as a social studies teacher, so how do you handle

those controversial questions, especially when election time is

coming?

I have a different way of doing it than some of my colleagues

do. I've always felt it's always been a tenant of how I teach

that, how can I expect students to have a discussion in a room,

if I'm not willing to participate in it? It's easy to

say, Okay, I'm going to be the moderator. But I'm asking kids

to lay their feelings on the line there. And they're really

some of them. Some of a lot of it comes from home. And that's

to be expected. That's where most people first learn about

politics is in the house. But a lot of them by the time they're

16, and 17 years old, have developed their own opinions.

And I'm asking them to share those opinions. How do I do

that, and then not share my own, it's not fair to them. So what I

do is I started the first day of the year, especially my 12th

grade government class, it comes a little later with US history,

because it's not generally that type of class, I'm going to have

that type of discussion, I'll do it. But especially with my 12th

grade government, I will start on the first day and say, Look,

I'm a registered Republican in the last in the last

presidential election. And in fact, the last two now, I voted

blank on the presidential election, because I didn't think

either candidate deserved it. But I voted a mostly Republican

ticket the rest of the way. I am, by and large, a Republican,

but I have some democratic leading tendencies. And you'll

figure them out as we go along. And I'll speak to them as I go

along. But I want you to know where I stand on issues so that

when we talk about these things, judge me on them. If you think

I'm being unfair, tell me I'm being unfair, if you think I'm

showing an innate bias, tell me but I'm asking you to find the

innate bias in everything that you everything that you read

everything that you listen to, I'm telling you where I'm coming

from. So you could decide if what I'm saying is stilted in

any way. I tell the parents that some back to school night, and

I'll tell you in out of my 19 years in Bayport, I've probably

taught senior government 15 or 16 of them. And all that time I

haven't gotten a complaint. What it allows the students to do is

know they have a safe space where they can argue with me and

say, Here's why I think you're wrong. And I'll say okay, but

have you thought of this, here's why I think you're wrong. And I

like it better when they disagree. It makes for a much

more interesting class. But one of the skills I think it's so

vitally important teach right now, especially in the social

media age is how to disagree without being disagreeable. You

know, when you're on it, when you're on social media, you

know, you just you know, if somebody is to the left of you

call them a communist or somebody to the right of you,

you call them a fascist, we call people names, we say nasty

things about them. For what because we disagree on an issue.

How can we disagree? But leave the room still, where I talked

before about them feeling like they have safety in my room? How

can we disagree? And maybe disagree very passionately, but

still have the students feel safe when they're leaving? And

one of the ways I think I accomplish that is by feeling

that, look, I'm putting myself on the line with you guys.

Chill. I'm not asking you to do it. But I'm going to sit in the

corner and just play referee, I'm going to do it with you. And

hopefully at the end of the day, we disagree. That's fine. We'll

still be okay when we leave and that's the skill they need to

get out of this.

And what a great skill to have, because society has become so

polarized that I mean, we grew up in the 80s and 90s where the

disagreement did look more like probably how your classroom is,

you know, we disagree on policy, but we you know, we're all we're

all on the same team. I don't think See that anymore. So that

is, I think that's great that you're fostering that in the

classroom.

I kind of teach it historically, as our country is supposed to in

the way our government set up, the way our Congress is set up

is supposed to work from the middle out. Just just all the

problems that you see in the Senate, they're supposed to be

some sort of collegiality and some sort of agreement. And when

these two sides get so split far apart, and I'm not saying one's

right or one's wrong, they just get split so far apart, that

there's absolutely nowhere to agree in the middle, that it

just breaks down. And there's just a level of nastiness to it.

That's just very, very unfortunate. And I, and I hope

at least for the students I see in front of me, I'm trying to

show them, it doesn't have to be that way. And it wasn't always

this way. And let's try to find one thing we agree on before we

leave the room.

I'm putting you in a time machine, I'll send you back to

your rookie year. What would you say to your younger self in

Brownsville? What advice would you give?

That's a great question. It feels like so long

ago, just you've stumped me on this one, I would tell myself,

understand that everything that you're going to do is going to

kind of what we talked about before it's going to Moulton

change every few years. And just because first of all, don't

think you've figured everything out at first anyway. But even

when you think you have figured it out, just understand. Far be

it for a social studies teacher, to quote, The Great historian,

Rowdy Roddy Piper, but just when you think you have all the

answers, I changed the questions. When you think you

finally had it figured out, I'm going to you know, it's it's

going to be a totally different world. A couple of years later,

you think you finally figured out in the classroom, here's a

smartboard, you think you finally figured out, here's

Google suite, you think you finally figured it out, here's a

pandemic for you. And it's going to change and it's going to

evolve, and that's fine. And you're going to feel like a

brand new teacher all over again. And you're gonna feel

like I thought I had this all figured out. Now I stink at

teaching again. That's okay. You will figure it out again, but

just understand, never get in that comfort zone, because

you're going to have to figure it all out all over again, a

couple of years later.

That is our first Rowdy, Rowdy Piper reference, on get

schooled. It's great. I wanted to another thing too. I been

asking recent guests. You have a kind of a pep talk for the

teachers who feel disrespected feel their morale is low. Any

any words that you could throw to our teachers in the audience

who are feeling down at this point in the COVID era?

Far be it for the grievance Chair of the Union

to quote the superintendent here, but credit to him. His

name is Tim Harney, and he's his good bosses I've ever worked for

in my life. He is truly a wonderful man. And one of the

things he said is that we all you know, when somebody asks,

How are you doing? Um, you need to be able to tell somebody have

somebody that you can talk to, that when the answer to how are

you doing is not so good. Talk to them. Don't be afraid to find

somebody to connect with somebody where you can say to

them, I am having an awful day, I don't feel like this is going

well. I don't feel like I'm appreciated. And let them listen

to you. For me, it's always I just by my nature, it's always

other teachers. But even if it's an administrator, somebody that

you can go to and say, I'm struggling here, and be honest

about it. Um, don't struggle by yourself. It is the worst

feeling in the world to not only feel like you're in a hole, but

you feel like you're in a hole and there's nobody you can turn

to I guarantee that for everybody in a building, there

is at least one person you can turn to. And I've told other

teachers if there's nobody else you can turn to and turn to me.

I will always be a voice. I will always be somebody that will

listen to you and give you the best advice I have in the moment

might not be what you want to hear. But I will give you the

best advice I have to give you in the moment. Even if it's just

hang with them. It'll be better tomorrow. That's what I would

tell people don't struggle by yourself. Because when you

struggle by yourself, you just dig that hole deeper and deeper

and deeper, to the point where when you finally ask for help,

it's too late. And you've dug yourself into where you can't

get out of it easily.

Anthony, thanks so much for joining us to talk about your

experiences. We've been talking with Anthony Curran, a high

school social studies teacher at Bayport blue Point High School

in New York. Anthony, thank you so much for your time today.

Oh, thank you again for having I think this is really important

to do.

Once again, thanks to our guest Anthony Curran for joining

us on Get Schooled with Mr. S. Now it's time for my "raise your

hand" portion of the show where we answer listeners questions. I

feel it's important to hear from parents and teachers around the

nation and share our collective experiences. So in order for you

to get in touch with the show, you may tweet us

@getschooled_pod or email us getschooledwithmrs@gmail.com. So

raise your hand and join the conversation like Colleen from

South Florida, Colleen emails, Dear Mr. S. I am a parent with

this student in fifth grade and I want to make sure she is

strong enough in math and sciences as she is heading into

middle school next year. How can I help her get more interested

in math and science, especially this summer? And as a middle

school math teacher, what do you feel is most important for

students to concentrate on as they head into middle school? I

look forward to your answer and enjoy listening to your podcast.

Thanks for raising your hand Colleen. I think fractions

decimals percents are very important. It coming out of

fifth grade into middle school, the ability to convert them

percents 75%, three quarters, they should know their benchmark

percents. So I would just let her work with flashcards for 10

to 15 minutes, try to keep it light. It is summer. It's been a

tough year, I wouldn't go to content heavy, but that is

something she will definitely need in middle school. And I

think just to try to get her interested, you might talk to

family members and friends who have STEM careers. You know, can

she talked to a biologist? Can she talk to someone who's a

doctor. So just to open her eyes, because at age 10 and 11

it's hard to even know what you might want to do as a career.

But if the students especially at that age, upper elementary,

lower middle if they can see some real world connections,

that makes the learning more interesting because it gives

them a spot to where they may want to go with education.

Thanks for raising your hand Colleen. Once again, if you want

to join the show, you can reach us on Twitter @getschooled_pod

or by email getschooledwithmrs@gmail.com.

That's a wrap for this week's podcast. Don't forget to

subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get

your podcasts. If you're enjoying the show or have any

suggestions. Leave us a rating and a review. We always

appreciate that. Or connect with us on Twitter @getschooled_pod

email getschooledwithmrs@gmail.com.

Today's show is produced and edited by the beer cat group.

Music by Patrick Patrickrios. Thanks for listening to Get

Schooled. Mr. S. See you next time.