This episode features an enlightening dialogue with Ms. Amanda Dillard, the District Teacher of the Year for Cobb County, who shares invaluable insights regarding today's educational landscape. Ms. Dillard, a special education instructor and esports coach at Pope High School, explains the paramount importance of fostering robust relationships with students, emphasizing that today's learners require not only academic instruction but also emotional support and understanding. She reflects on her own journey into teaching, initially resistant to the profession due to her upbringing, yet ultimately discovering a profound passion for engaging with students and nurturing their growth. Furthermore, Ms. Dillard advocates for the necessity of parental involvement in education, encouraging parents to maintain open lines of communication with teachers. This discussion serves as a poignant reminder of the multifaceted role educators play in shaping the lives of their students, transcending mere academic responsibilities to encompass emotional and social development.

Guest:

Amanda Dillard

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Takeaways:

• In our latest episode, we explored the inspiring journey of Ms. Amanda Dillard, the Teacher of the Year in Cobb, who epitomizes dedication in education.
• Ms. Dillard emphasized the paramount importance of building relationships with students, fostering an environment of support and understanding.
• The discussion highlighted the challenges educators face today, particularly in addressing students' mental health alongside academic demands.
• We learned that the recognition of Ms. Dillard serves not only as a personal achievement but also as a voice for all dedicated educators in Cobb County.
• The conversation delved into the significance of parental involvement in education, urging parents to connect positively with teachers beyond times of crisis.
• Lastly, Ms. Dillard articulated a profound belief that education should prioritize the learning process over mere grades, advocating for a holistic approach to student development.

Cobb's teacher of the Year shares some practical, inspiring insights you'll want to hear today on the Inside Scoop. Welcome to the Inside Scoop. Before we jump in, take a moment to, like, subscribe and share this episode so more families can stay connected.

And remember, you can watch us on YouTube or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts. With about 9,000 teachers working in Cobb, one of them rose to the top to become this year's district teacher of the year, Ms. Amanda Dillard.

Amanda, welcome to the podcast.

Hi. Thank you for having me.

So you are a teacher, a special ed teacher at Pope High School?

Yes, I am.

And I also heard a rumor that you are an esports coach.

I am. I'm the esports coach as well.

Okay. That's a whole other podcast. Yeah.

Oh, that would be a fun one.

Okay, so now that gets into the debate of esports. Is marching band a sport? But again, absolutely.

They have 12 hour practices.

Okay.

So one thing that people who may have attended your handprint ceremony on the square probably heard you say is you made the statement something along the lines of, I didn't always want to be a teacher, but I became a teacher. And my story is about why I want to stay. Can you kind of tell us what's what? What is your story?

Yeah, so I. My part of that speech as well is my mother was a teacher or is a teacher.

And I would get super annoyed because I was at school all the time and I'm like, I'll never be a teacher. Like, I don't want to be at school all the time. I'm not going to do that to my kids. And I actually went into college looking to be a geneticist.

I just, you know, had this idea in my head, I'm like, that's what I'm going to do.

Just a light science.

Yeah, something easy.

Genetics.

Yeah, just a little bit dabble of science. And once I kind of got into it, I was like, you know what? I don't really enjoy this type of science. I don't enjoy being in a lab.

I like to talk with people. I like to help people, be around people, get to know people. And so my mom, she kind of nudged me. She was like, well, do you want to try teaching?

Would you be interested in teaching? And so I did some classroom observations and things like that and decided that, yeah, I'll give it a try.

And then once I really got into it, especially with spudge special education, you really get to know the students as people. And you get to love them as people. And I just growing on those relationships, really, it made me love it. It made me love being a teacher.

Well, there's no doubt if you're a teacher, you are definitely. You're in a people world for sure. So what is it that you think today's students need?

I mean, first of all, I think you kind of touched on the relationship aspect. Right? That's huge in your world. So what do you think today's students need from their teachers and their schools for that matter?

So today's students and in today's society, I think there's a lot of pressure placed on kids. People don't realize the amount of pressure they're under and that they feel.

And so I do think that the relationship is first and foremost in the classroom. Getting to know them, what are they interested in? Yes, we're going to also learn about math, but I want to know about you as a person.

Maybe you're not going to use math when you grow up. That's the number one thing I hear in high school. When am I going to use this?

I get to know them and we do usually find a way that they might use math. But I think what they need is really support, recognizing that they're not machines, they're kids, they're people.

And if you think about it, we're asking them to juggle math, English, science, history, electives, a foreign language. It's a lot that even adults would feel a lot of pressure doing to dabble in all of those different things and be successful.

So I think the biggest thing they need from us is understanding and support in their adventures.

Yeah, well, I mean, every one of those is a huge challenge. And some, I'm sure, more for some students than others, but.

So today's device driven world, social media and all that, how do you keep them focused and engaged rather than being tempted to get on their phones? I'm sure that's a battle, right? I mean, always. But obviously you are teacher of the year for a reason.

And I'm guessing that has something to do with how the students perform in your classes, how successful they are. What's your secret sauce? How are you keeping them engaged?

So as far as engagement goes, I like to embrace things. So, you know, social media is out there, trends are out there. I embrace things like 6, 7.

It comes up a lot in math and so I just get ready for it every time I get it killing.

Half of the audience right there.

So I think just embracing things that they find fun and yes, you Know, it might get a little bit annoying sometimes, but I still try to embrace the fun because that's what keeps them engaged, is establishing that relationship with them. They know you care. Establishing that, hey, it's okay, we can have a little bit of fun in math.

But now let's get back to business and just acknowledging that those distractions are there and talking with them through those things, because those distractions are not going to go away. Even adults struggle with technology and distractions of technology.

And so just talking with them about responsible use and helping them learn to navigate technology today.

So not ignoring the distraction, but learning how to cope with it, how to deal with it.

Exactly. Learning a healthy balance.

So just for those of you who may not have been at the ceremony at the Strand on the Square, she worked in, just at the very beginning, a, what was it you said? Students. She had pretty good sized class representation there. Students, don't worry about this.

The speech is only going to be about six, seven minutes long. And they caught that and went nuts, right?

Yes, yes.

Because you were identifying, you were calling them out and showing them that you appreciated their being there.

I do, yeah.

So what do you think? What do you wish more parents knew about how learning happens in the classroom?

I mean, as parents who are not in the classroom, you know, it's kind of a mystery area. We have an idea of what based on what we experienced. Right. But today's classroom is very different.

What do you wish they knew about your classroom today?

I think one of the things that I want parents to know is that it's not all about grades. Grades are huge, grades are important, but everything is not grade driven. It's really more about the process.

So, you know, hey, did you fail something? Yes. You did. However, are we in the process of learning it? Yes.

So I think parents, they oftentimes just see, you know, a C came in and they're like, oh my goodness, you made a C. What's happening? But what's actually happening in the classroom is that we are working behind the scenes, we're remediating, we're going over those things.

It's a process. And so we need to celebrate the process and the work that's going in with the students and the work that they're putting in.

Maybe sometimes more than we celebrate the grade. Again, not saying that grades aren't important, because they are.

But I think a lot of times parents, they only really have access to the grades and so they don't get to see how hard their student is working on that process of Learning. And so just making sure they're celebrating how hard kids are working in the.

Classroom in between advances. And you actually brought to my memory an experience I had with one of our old teachers.

We saw her, she seemed like 100 at the time, but she was probably 30. And one of the things that she told our class on day one was, I'm going to teach you how to fail.

And what she meant by that was, she's going to teach us resiliency. Right. So it sounds to me like that's kind of your heart.

It is, yes. Yes.

Okay. So what is a challenge that teachers face that kind of goes overlooked by parents or society in general?

I think one of the challenges is just a balance. Teachers finding a balance. In today's world, we have a lot of things now that have come to light with student mental health.

And so it's beyond academics now. I kind of think of all of us as sort of counselors as well. So, you know, yes, I'm a special ed teacher.

I go in to help with math classrooms, But I'm not only teaching math. We're also teaching those social emotional skills. We're helping them cope with and deal with social situations.

So I think that's something that's not always seen. You know, they think, hey, you're the math teacher. You teach math, Right? No.

We're also responsible for helping them with those social emotional things and helping with student mental health.

Now, what's interesting to me in this conversation, my mind has gravitated toward a general ed classroom. You're a special ed teacher, and so there's even more of a need to emphasize those things. Right.

So I just want to call that to your attention viewer, because it's not as straightforward as it might be in a general ed. You've got to go the extra mile, the extra, extra mile to help your students.

And I am an interrelated teacher. So we are in a general education, education classroom still. And so it's an inclusive setting.

And I think what's really beautiful about the inclusive setting especially is that, you know, yes, we have kids in there that have disabilities, but you would never walk in and be like, hey, you've got adhd, you have autism, you have a learning disability. You don't know that. And that's where we really work on that inclusivity.

We work on that social, emotional piece to where everybody feels accepted and seen. And I actually have kids sometimes that don't have an IEP that come to me and say, hey, how do I get an iep? You can't just get that because the.

Support is so good.

It's become. I love it because it's become such an accepted thing. It's not this stigma anymore. It's really a culture of acceptance in the classroom.

And again, when you walk in, I'm not only helping these certain particular students, I'm helping everybody. And so all the kids are comfortable with going either to myself or to my shared teacher.

I think that's just one of the really beautiful things about the inclusive settings.

Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely a positive.

So being elevated to the position of teacher of the year for the entire district, that's got to be really, maybe a little intimidating. Right? What do you hope that your recognition does for Cobb teachers in general?

How do you hope or what do you hope your recognition does to help people understand and see Cobb classrooms in the right light?

So I don't view it as just my recognition. I keep telling people, I'm like, it's not just my recognition.

There are hundreds and thousands of teachers that work in Cobb county that are just as deserving of this type of recognition. I'm excited to be able to offer a voice to all of those teachers this year. I'm excited that I was the person nominated them.

But I think that my main drive this year is just to help people see teachers, especially as a special education teacher, see the things that we're doing for students. And again, we just have. We have so many an overwhelming amount of amazing educators in Cobb County. So I'm happy to be a voice for them.

But, yes, it's not. I don't feel like it's my recognition. I just.

Again, I'm happy and lucky to have been chosen this year, but it could have been hundreds of other teachers.

We do have a lot of great teachers and employees in general. But I think, number one, it speaks well. Humility is a great teacher. And number two, that's a very good point.

You're not elevated because you're the best of all of them. You're elevated because you represent them well.

Yes. And I want to say, too, I've learned from so many teachers in Cobb County. So that's another way I feel like I'm representing them.

I am a product of learning from my colleagues, learning from other teachers along the way. So we're all together, represented. They can all come ride in my car anytime. Anytime they want to come. Drive the car. Come on.

Okay. All right. That's another question I didn't think about. So what car did you end up winning?

I Got the Kia Telluride lease for the year.

That's cool.

Yes. It's very fancy.

It's very nice. Yes. So I don't know if it's okay. So just in case you're not aware, the teacher of the year for each level actually. Right.

Receives a free lease of a car from Ed Boyle's dealership. Either Jeep. Kia, Honda.

I'm going to say Hyundai.

Hyundai. Okay. Yeah. And for an entire year, free.

Yes. Plus insurance.

Well, that was the thing that got me. Because I'm paying ten grand a year with teenagers in the house for insurance, I'm going, what's the better deal? The lease or the insurance?

But it's both.

It is. It's both. Both.

That is fantastic.

Yes. We're very fortunate. To have that opportunity. To be recognized like that in the community, I think has been amazing.

So all of us, I know, are very thankful for that opportunity.

Yeah, for sure. If they want to, you know, like, give a car to podcasters, I wouldn't be against that or just pay for my insurance.

So if every parent listening or every listener comes away from this podcast with one action in mind, what would that action be? What would you like them to do as a result of hearing you on this podcast?

I would love to encourage parents to reach out to the teacher, not just in times of need, but also during positive times, because it's just as important to establish the relationship with parents as it is with students.

So we work hard to establish a relationship with all of our students, but we would also like to have that relationship with parents so that we're working closely together with them. So I would encourage you to, you know, just reach out, email the teacher, say hello, even if.

Again, even if you're not having any kind of issues, a nice little email, hey, so and so really loves your class, or hey, thank you. You know, math's not so and so's favorite. However, we appreciate all the work you're putting in this year.

I actually print and save emails sometimes that are nice. It's very meaningful.

There are hard days, right? There are. And if you can draw on one of those emails to help you out of that down mood in that moment, that's certainly a plus.

Yeah. And we also, it's, you know, even during times of needs, like, we want to help the students, that is our main drive.

We don't want to see anybody fail. We want to help them.

So if there's something that you feel like your student needs extra support for, if you guys are going through something at home, that you need extra support with and it might be impacting your student at school. You know, reach out to us, Let us know. Just give us a heads up like we, we will bend over backwards.

I would guess that 100% of our teachers in Cobb county are willing to go the extra mile to help students be successful. If you just reach out and let us know.

And this time of year, I'm sure toward the end of the semester, as much as as much encouragement as you could give a teacher is probably well placed.

It is.

Okay, so one last question for you. What's the one thing about you that your students don't know that they would be surprised to learn about you?

I can rap the whole Ice Ice Baby song by Vanilla Ice.

Take it away.

Let me get a beat.

Mike, can you make that happen? You can wrap the entire Ice Ice Baby.

I can.

Okay.

I can.

Okay. Well, we.

That is our next podcast.

Okay, well, we will set up a whole other episode just for that. It may show up on social. You never know. That's an option.

Well, Amanda, thank you so much for coming in and thank you for joining us on the Inside Scoop. If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure you, like, subscribe and share so others can stay connected.

And as always, thank you for listening to this edition of the Inside Scoop, a podcast produced by the Cobb County School District.