In this episode of The Jeff Bradbury Show, Jeff Bradbury interviews Tyler Como, an educator and principal from Canada, about his journey in education and his experiences with podcasting. Tyler shares how he got into education and his passion for making a difference and helping people grow. He also discusses his book, 'The Elemental Educator,' and how it led him to start his own podcast. Tyler talks about the equipment and software he uses for podcasting and the lessons he has learned from his guests. He also shares his experiences as a building principal and the innovative programs he is implementing in his school. If you are a new listener to TeacherCast, we would love to hear from you.  Please visit our Contact Page and let us know how we can help you today!

Conversation Takeaways

• Tyler Como is an educator and principal who is passionate about making a difference and helping people grow.
• He started his journey in education as a tennis coach and eventually became a principal.
• Tyler wrote a book called 'The Elemental Educator' and started a podcast with the same name to connect with educators and share stories of growth and transformation.
• He uses a RodePod mic and a Vocaster 2 audio interface for podcasting and edits his episodes in Descript.
• As a principal, Tyler focuses on creating optimal learning environments and removing barriers for his teachers and students.
• He is implementing innovative programs in his school, such as flexible seating, land-based agriculture, and e-sports.
• Tyler believes in the power of interweaving and creating opportunities for students to work together across grade levels.
• He emphasizes the importance of being rooted in strong leadership qualities and finding joy in the work you do.
• Tyler is currently pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership and is researching decision-making processes in education.

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction and Overview
• 01:03 Tyler Como's Journey in Education
• 01:17 Who is Tyler Comeau?
• 03:59 Lessons Learned from Podcasting
• 04:32 What can you learn about yourself from podcasting?
• 06:10 Tyler's Podcasting Equipment and Applications
• 08:33 The Elements of Education
• 10:15 Tyler's Writing a Book!
• 12:53 Tyler Como's Doctorate in Educational Leadership
• 13:51 Education in Canada
• 22:58 New Chapter
• 32:24 Learn More about Tyler Comeau today!

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About our Guest:

Tyler Comeau is a dedicated educator, leader, and lifelong learner with a passion for pushing the boundaries of traditional education. As a Doctoral Candidate of Education in Educational Leadership from the University of Saskatchewan (2026 Completion) and a Master of Education in Educational Administration, Tyler has a robust academic and professional background. Tyler’s career spans various roles, including Principal and Assistant Principal within the province of Alberta and teaching positions in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. His extensive experience includes leading staff and students through outdoor education programs, curricular structure, optimizing engagement, operationalizing a mission and vision, supporting individuals, FNMI engagement, and coaching numerous athletic activities.

Links of Interest

• Website: https://elementaleducator.com/
• Twitter: https://x.com/elementaleduc
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw4aYyzvNj52DGnQUXx20ynivtJIK_wU5
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elemental_educator
• Podcast: elementaleducator.podbean.com

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Jeffrey Bradbury (: 00:03

Hello everybody and welcome to the TeacherCast Educational Network. My name is Jeff Bradbury. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm making TeacherCast your home for professional development. This is the Jeff Bradbury Show, a podcast where we talk about interesting people doing amazing things in the world of education. I have a fantastic guest on from the country of Canada talking today all about how he is building his brand through educational podcasting and so much more.

Hope you guys are having a great summer so far. I just got back from Denver at the ISTE conference and my goodness, it was absolutely amazing. Don't forget to head on over to teachercast .net to check out all of our blog posts, our wrap ups, and those booth interviews were absolutely amazing. So head on over to teachercast .net today. My guest today recently invited me onto his podcast and we got a chance to talk a little bit about some of the things that he's been doing in the world.

And I said, I would love to have you on the show. So today I want to bring on my good friend, Mr. Tyler Comeo. Tyler, how are you today? Welcome to the show.

Tyler (: 01:06

I'm doing good, Jeff. How are you?

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 01:08

Very, very nice. I'm going to cut that one more time. I want to bring on today my good friend Tyler Como, right? You said, Come on. I want to bring on today to the show my good friend, Mr. Tyler Como. Tyler, how are you today? Welcome to TeacherCast.

Tyler (: 01:15

Yeah, come on. Yeah.

Tyler (: 01:24

I'm doing good. Thanks for having me, Jeff.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 01:26

It is so great to have you on recently a podcaster you're you do a lot of things in the world of education. You are a principal of your own school. Tell us a little bit about your journey, my friend.

Tyler (: 01:39

Well, it started when I was in grade school, probably high school. I was a tennis coach and loved getting to interact with not just kids, but adults. And I started tennis in schools programs and I went and did a bachelor of science. And while I was doing that in the summer, I was a tennis coach and thought, well, this is, this is still really fun to do. I wonder if there's a way to hang onto it when you are done being a tennis coach. My initial plan was to get into physiotherapy. And then I realized that, well,

if I became an educator, there was a way to stay connected with what you were doing, which was helping people reach goals that they were trying to reach. And so I got into education and thought right away, didn't even want to start with the teaching side of it. I said, I want to become a principal. So I went into education wanting to get into administration right away, got my teaching contract, got into my masters. And when I got my first stint as an assistant principal, I went, holy cow, there is so much more.

than just principalship that you can strive for. You can strive for central office, superintendent, but then I stumbled upon just general education consulting. And that put me down this big path of all these different things that I wanted to do in education. And it ultimately was rooted in my core value of wanting to make a difference and help people grow. So from there, I thought, I'm gonna write a book. I'm gonna write a book that is going to change the world. And...

You know, it might not yet, it's not out yet, and hopefully it is soon. But the ultimate goal with it is to just create outreach with people and really build a community of people that are just striving to be better, not just for themselves, but for the other people around them. So with that came The Elemental Educator, which is the name of my book. And from there, I thought, well, you know, if I'm just pushing a book out, I need to...

I need to connect to a bigger audience too. So I need to get on social media. And what better way than to connect with educators and talk about this book that's coming out than to host my own podcast and to invite people to come onto my show and talk about the elements and how they interact with them. So Elemental Educator was born and I've got to sit down with some incredible people. It has been, even for me, the best professional development I've got to be a part of by just hearing the stories that everyone has to share. So that's kind of where we're at now.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 04:01

I love that story. And it is very similar to how you know, I got started here, I wanted to do something different. Podcasting just was the medium that I chose. And then having that opportunity to sit back and, you know, meet other people. I want to ask, over the last couple months of you doing this, what have you learned?

Tyler (: 04:23

God, what haven't I learned? I've learned so many ways to not market something. I've also learned that everybody that's in education or is in leadership is rooted in that idea of wanting to make a difference in some way, shape or form and wanting to do it for others. And I've yet to sit down with a leader that's in the leadership role strictly for themselves.

And so if anything, I've learned that we are moving in a very good direction of transformational leadership.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 05:00

So let me take that a step further. As a podcaster, and as somebody who's now putting themselves out on that market, what have you learned about yourself?

Tyler (: 05:11

Well, I learned that I really like to work hard. I am goal -oriented and I push myself to the limits. I'm also learning that, you know, a lot of these are validating moments in things that you're doing as well. So you're sitting down, you're hearing these incredible stories and you're going, wow, I love that you did that that way. I'm rooted in the same thing that you're rooted in. We're just in different settings. And so...

For myself, I'm learning that I'm rooted in very strong leadership qualities when it comes to transformational mindsets, when it comes to growth mindsets and empowerment and being there for others. And for me, that's probably one of the best takeaways I could get from it is knowing that you're doing the right things.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 05:57

so many leaders who I had the opportunity to speak with over the last few days in Denver at the ISTE conference did approach me about creating a show. And I think that's amazing having that opportunity to create that voice. And as you said, this is I can speak for myself. This podcast is the best professional development that I can create, right? I want to learn something, I'm going to bring somebody on. That's, that's been what I've been doing here for the last 13 years. So

Tyler for those who are out there with their little pen and paper, how are you doing this? Let's do the nerd conversation for a second. You know, every podcaster says what's your microphone? So let's just break this down because I want to get this on record here. What's your microphone?

Tyler (: 06:40

Well, if you asked me a month and a half ago, when I first started, it was a Blue Yeti and I was using a USB connection and I was doing some in -person sittings and I was using voice meter banana to find a way to wire everything through Audacity to set myself up. And I was going through the wave files on Audacity and editing them. And I was going, man, there was a time where he was talking and I coughed or something. I have no way to edit that out because it's all one track.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 06:47

Mm -hmm.

Tyler (: 07:10

And I said, you know what, if I want to take this seriously and if I want to do the best I can do for other people, I need to get better equipment, especially when I'm doing in -person interviewing. Don't get me wrong, the Blue Yeti was incredible for every time I was meeting people online. So I switched to XLR microphones. I'm using a RodePod mic right now, running it through a Vocaster 2 audio interface and loving the results, loving the sound. Just overall, it's a much better direction.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 07:38

Now, if your head is spinning from listening to this, don't worry, I will put everything in the show notes. We're going to work together after the episode to get all those different things down here. We will make sure that we have opportunities for that. So currently, you said that you're using what as your editing software?

Tyler (: 07:54

So currently, well, I guess before that I was using Zoom. And the thing about Zoom that I learned very quickly was it records just at your recording site of the host. So I was getting an audio quality from my guests based on how good our internet was. And sometimes that boat was OK for me, sometimes it was not so good. And that's apparent within the first six episodes. You could tell when we had a good internet connection and when we didn't.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 08:06

Mm -hmm.

Tyler (: 08:21

So since then I switched to Squadcast to do all of my recording. It's local site based, much like the Riverside that you're using right now. It has that ability where it doesn't matter what your internet's like, we're gonna get them at their local site and then it's gonna upload after that. But I do a lot of my editing in Descript.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 08:39

I started looking at just script and even a few days ago in Denver, I had somebody like show me the whole descript area. And it's got some pretty cool stuff. You know, as you mentioned, I've been using stream yard for a while. And this is the second episode actually, that I'm recording using Riverside. I love the AI features. I know just script has it. I'm thinking that I might need to get a subscription to both I think just script will allow you to upload past episodes.

And then you can then cut everything up, whereas I'm pretty sure Riverside only does current and, you know, like the current episode. So, you know, there might be a descript in my future here. When you're looking at this, how are you putting these shows together? Are you just finding guests or do you have a theme and you're trying to find guests to fit the theme? What's been your philosophy for creating a podcasting curriculum?

Tyler (: 09:32

Yeah, before I jump into that, I think you lost the battle on who said AI first. So just point for me there. You threw it out there first. So let that be known. But you know what? The elements from Elemental Educator, they're in everybody. Everybody has an Earth. Everybody deals with air, which is adversity. Everybody implements and goes through change, which is water. And everybody has to make decisions or take risks, which is their fire. So my theme is specific to the elements, but

Everybody can fit that mold. Everybody has a story that relates to how they make decisions, what they're rooted in, how they faced adversity. So my target audience right now is anybody in leadership positions and anybody in education. So I say anybody in leadership positions because it doesn't have to be a school principal. It doesn't have to be a superintendent of a division. It can be anybody that's a leader in any organization. Right now to get my outreach, I am, I'm doing a lot of the work here. I'm contacting people.

seeing if they have interest in the show, seeing if they have interest in sharing their story. And it's been pretty successful so far. I've had a lot of people come back and say, yeah, this sounds incredible. I'd love to share my story with you. And it's led to some, like I said, some really great conversations.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 10:41

That's pretty awesome. Now you had also mentioned that you're working on your book. Tell us a little bit about how that came about. When can we expect to see it?

Tyler (: 10:49

Yeah, so I was sitting in my capstone class of my masters just spitting some typical science philosophy. I'm a science teacher at heart and I like to spit some random science facts at people. And I think we were talking about, well, I was going into a tangent on how why did we believe Aristotle for so long? Because he was wrong about the formation of matter saying that everything originated from the four elements and it was Democritus who opposed him and ended up being right all along with Atomos.

't until, I think it was like: 1500

in a master's program, starting a doctorate program soon, I want to back this with some research too. And so I went in and found the research behind missions and visions and core values. And I started rooting that through just through basically trying to bridge the theory and the practical world together. And so I went and talked about earth. And then I said, okay, well, I've also been through a lot of adversity. So I'm going to talk about my air and how I've gone through adversity and how others should go through adversity and what that can look like and how we can navigate that and the research behind the methods that I'm talking about.

And then we went into water, which is the idea of fluid dynamics and implementing change. And so once again, it was my story from my end around, you know, how did I, how did I go about embracing change and implementing change? What does the research say about the best way to implement changes? And shared some just general experiences on what you can be doing when you are faced with needing to make a change and what your first steps can be.

And then fire was the fun one because it's the risk taking, it's the decision making. It's the one element that I always say can be an external source. You can have an external flame burning or your internal flame. So it's the one element that can exist in multiple areas. And a lot of it was just, I took a leap to become an assistant principal where I was commuting 90 kilometers a day to get to work. I then jumped to principalship the year after not knowing if I was fully ready after being told I wasn't ready.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 13:07

you

Tyler (: 13:08

Here we were. It went quite well, I would say. And so again, it's my experiences around that. I am currently being reviewed by a publisher. So I'm hoping it could be any day here they get back to me and just say, yeah, we're good to go. Or they could come around and say, this is horrible. You need to make some revisions and go somewhere else. And fingers crossed that by the end of this year, we're pushing something out.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 13:31

Well, good luck with that. I certainly know that journey. You know, I've been through multiple publishers over multiple, multiple years, and I'm looking forward to things. I spent some time in Denver with my publisher, just kind of finalizing some stuff and trying to get everything to move forward. So, you know, here's to a good second half of 2024 here. And hopefully by the end of the holiday season here, we'll see two two amazing books coming out talking about, you know, how we can support educators and education here. I want to touch on one more thing that you

mentioned, which is you are now a building principal, you touched a little bit about this. But how is that? What is that like? And what is it like trying to lead a building at this time of you know, where we are in education, there's so much change, there's so much stuff up and down. Maybe talk a little bit about what education is like in Canada. It's another there's a little bit of a difference there. But what is it like these days being a building principal?

Tyler (: 14:29

Yeah. And you know what, Jeff, there's, there's a lot of change happening where I am right now. We've got a new curriculum rolling out in Alberta that, you know, we're slowly phasing through each grade. And the hard part was, well, I guess I don't know if it was, it was that hard, but going from a teacher to an assistant principal in a different school to a principal in a different school, I became pretty well equipped on how to interpret an organization's vision and mission and then start operationalizing that.

And so one of the things I always preach is you need to seek to understand before you can be understood first. And when I say that the team around me through collaboration, we were able to create optimal learning environments. I truly mean that. And all I had to do was come in, listen to what their needs, their wants, their areas of adversity were, what challenges we had to overcome and see what everyone was rooted in to then help create that alignment.

on what direction we need to move and why we need to move that way.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 15:31

And talk to us a little bit about the building that you lead. How many students, how many teachers, how many administrators?

Tyler (: 15:38

Yeah, so I'm the only administrator in the building. I don't have an assistant principal. We're a very small rural school in Dewberry, Alberta right now. So our school is a grade one to 12 with a private kindergarten. We have around 80 students for enrollment anticipated next year. We will have a grad class next year. We didn't have one this year, so we're working towards that. But we're quite small. We're quite rural. We face many challenges when that

comes to mind, we have multi -grade classrooms, which are incredible opportunities for the kids and for the teachers to get to work with. We do have the luxury of smaller class sizes because of our population size. And we get to do some really cool things in our building about that. So we have a chicken coop where we have laying hens in our backyard and we offer a green certificate program where kids can earn up to 16 credits by interacting and going through the process of

laying hens development to then laying eggs. And then we partner with one of our local colleges to be able to come in, assess the kids and give them 16 credits from it. And next year, we've also dove into eSports. So we have purchased some eSport equipment that we are planning to go heavy in with and get into the gaming industry. You know, anything that we can do to create opportunities for kids, we're trying to explore that avenue.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 16:57

That is an amazing opportunity right there in one building. You've got first grade and you have 12th grade

I mean, I know as an instructional coach, that's crazy going, you know, putting a hat on in kindergarten, and then you go down the road, you have a hat on in middle school or something, but you got to be moving those hats constantly. If you're going to be talking at a kindergarten level, then suddenly, you know, disciplining a 17 or 18 year old, how do you manage all of that? How do you stay organized? Talk to us a little bit about how you keep, you know, active and productive and not just sitting at your desk constantly, because I don't I don't see you as the person that's just sitting in their office every day.

Tyler (: 17:35

Well, let me start by saying my teachers do a lot of the lifting for me. They have made the environment the place that it is, and I'm so fortunate that I don't have to deal with as much discipline as maybe some of the other schools are dealing with. We are very blessed with the kids that we have. I'm very blessed with the staff that I have. But you know, you kind of mentioned it at the end there. I'm not one to be in my office.

as much as I can. I don't like to be what's considered a carpet walker where your office is the carpet and you know the halls and the classrooms are usually not carpet. I'm out and about, I'm floating into classrooms. I'm always checking in, what do you need, how's it going and not just with the students but with the teachers as well. How's it going, what do you need and trying to support them any way I can. My job as a leader is to remove as many barriers as possible for them and

Also to show them how they can remove their own barriers. Because when we can work together to remove barriers, I don't become the go -to person to solve every problem. I go to the, I become the go -to person to celebrate all of the, all of the new achievements with. And that's what I really try to work towards is I want to be a place of celebration, not a place of discipline. So one of the other things that's, that's probably harder is my staff probably have it harder than me because I have teachers that are teaching

their grade 12 math curriculum, and then the next period they're going and teaching the grade four phys ed and wellness. And so they have to jump and shift mindsets too, where I do teach some myself. I teach a lot of the science nine, science 10. I'm teaching bio 20, chem 20 as well. But they have such a dynamic range of what they need to be doing and they do such an incredible job of it.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 19:16

You're teaching biology and science and you are principalling K through 12. And the podcast and the book.

Tyler (: 19:26

Yep. You betcha. You betcha.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 19:34

triplets doesn't sound so difficult all of a sudden.

Tyler (: 19:36

You know, it's not, you know what? It's not difficult if you find things to be excited about within it. The podcast is nothing to me because I'm excited about it. I don't mind. I don't mind that extra hour at night working on it because I'm excited to do it. I don't mind that book because I'm excited about it. I don't mind what I do at work because I'm excited about going every day.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 19:39

So, how did...

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 20:00

And that's an amazing attitude to have. And I hope everybody has that. If it's, you know, was it the Steve Jobs quote, if you're going to work, you're not going to work?

I'm saying that completely wrong. But I think you can get the idea. You know, if you're going, I had somebody once say to me, if you get up and you go to school, you're on the right track. If you get up and you go to work, it's that's not where you go. Kids don't go to work every day. And neither do you. You go to school, school is a place where excitement happens and fun and entertainment and all that other good stuff. So I want to ask you the same question about the podcast. Since becoming the only building administrator and chemistry teacher.

Tyler (: 20:15

We're getting there.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 20:41

What are you learning about yourself internally? I mean, that's a huge I mean, you're you're you're handling all the budgets and the staffing and the meetings and also your lesson planning. What are you learning about yourself with all of that?

Tyler (: 20:55

You know, I'm learning to let go the little things and I'm picking my big rocks. And I'm becoming more and more okay with the things that I like doing, letting other people do it, but really holding onto the things that I love doing. And the things that I love doing, you know, like teaching the science, I love doing that. Teaching some phys ed.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 21:01

Okay.

Tyler (: 21:25

I liked doing it. I didn't need to do it. I was okay giving it up. And what I really learned about myself was it took some time for me to become okay with giving up the things I liked doing to prioritize the things I love doing.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 21:29

Mm -hmm.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 21:41

Hmm. I bet it's very difficult for you to make a daily schedule for yourself.

Tyler (: 21:49

You know what? Not at all. Actually, I'm quite proactive with that. And I sit down and I have a meeting with myself every Monday morning for about 20 minutes and 30 minutes or 20 to 30. And I sit down and I go through what does my week look like? What does my month look like? What are some things that are coming up that are important? And, you know, the schedule tends to make itself.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 22:12

I was just wondering, do you schedule all of your classes in the beginning of the day so you can be an administrator in the second half of the day? Like, what does that daily look like for you?

Tyler (: 22:21

Yeah, so it's actually the total opposite of that and it can fall wherever I need it to fall because I'm building it for the kids. And so it's about what works for what the kids need at that moment and then where do I fit myself in to help them along the way. And our division, we offer, we have a common timetable in high school. So we do video conference classes for

some more advanced classes like our physics 30s class. If I have a student in my school that wants physics 30, they might receive it through video conference from a teacher that's teaching it a hundred kilometers away to their kids. But my kid gets to join the class virtually. And so we build this common timetable. So from the common timetable, we take a look at, you know, well, how many kids are enrolling in each of those classes? Where do we fill the teachers to teach those classes? And then whatever's not filled, I get.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 23:01

Okay. Okay.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 23:19

Makes sense.

I just think that that's really neat that you have an opportunity to see the fence from both sides. You have an opportunity to not only be writing this book, but you're also doing the podcast. But you're also out there making sure that I mean, you know, I don't know about in Canada, in America, I've keep hearing this term lean learner where you are the one that's out there setting the example and doing it. And what is it like for your teachers to have you as an administrator when you're right down the hallway, getting your hands dirty in chemistry, right? Like,

That's got to be an interesting relationship. You're a colleague with the person that you're an administrator of How how are you working and building all those relationships?

Tyler (: 24:01

God, I hope they like it. You know, that's a whole other interesting topic because when you get to the idea of higher education or post -secondary education, you have the instructors and then you tend to have associate deans and depending on the college you go to, they're in scope or out of scope. And what I mean by that is all of the faculty are essentially within the same union and principals where I am are a part of the union that teachers are a part of. So even if I didn't have a teaching load,

I'm in the same union as them. I have to adhere to the same rules as them. And I don't leave that union until I move up to an assistant superintendent job or a director job. Right? So you're in the union with them no matter what. We're always walking hand in hand with them. I love that I get to teach. And I think every administrator should teach something in their day. Maybe it's only one period, but they should teach something.

And the reason for that is it actually keeps them rooted to their teachers. It's not so much about the teacher needing to be rooted to the admin. It's about the admin needing to be rooted to their teachers and needing to understand what are they dealing with every day? What are their kids like? What is the planning like? What is the regime of having to go down in reps like? It's a whirlwind for everybody, right? And so by me doing that, you know, on the downside, I become unavailable sometimes because I have to teach. But on the upside,

On the upside of it, you know, one, I'm taking a class away from somebody that they no longer have to teach. but two, I get to understand so much more about the kids in my building and what my teachers are working with every day that they show up.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 25:44

You know, I remember having a conversation with somebody.

not too long ago, but with the conversation turned around to any administrator that walks into a school district at the district level should be required to teach at least a marking period, just to see, you know, and I'm not talking about somebody who was a teacher who has been, you know, upgraded, if you will, but just having that experience of, okay, who are these students? What's the background? What are the families like? How's how are they really, you know, you have to have that opportunity to do that. And, you know, for myself, come

from, you know, recently being a district administrator, now I'm back in the classroom, I, you know, if I ever get back up there on that seat again, I've got a much more different way of looking at life than if I didn't have these middle school teaching experiences. So there's a lot of, you know, look, all the respect for what you're doing. And congratulations on all the success. What are your goals?

for this coming school year? What are the some of the things that you're working on? What are the some of the things that you're trying to innovate with? What does the next 12 months look like for you as a principal?

Tyler (: 26:51

I love this because this is the moment I get to brag about all the cool things we're doing.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 26:55

You still haven't said the letters yet. I'm just warning you. So I'm looking to see it.

Tyler (: 26:58

Yeah, no, I'm actively, it's up here. I'm remembering this. So we are implementing flexible seating in our Division 1 elementary room next year. So right now, if you walk in there, it's pretty traditional desks. And I just had a presentation from somebody.

And they summed it up quite well. They said, if you walk into a classroom that's thriving and they have desks, it's all good. But if you walk into a classroom that's not thriving with these desks, it looks like, it looks like tombstones and it looks like a graveyard and you just have the Rose and that resonated with me. And I went to my elementary teacher who is currently a grade three, four teacher next year, going to teach grade one, two, three. And I said, what do you need to be successful in your role? And they said, I'm really looking.

to try and flexible seating next year. And I said, that sounds awesome. How can we make that work? So they sent me a list of some things that they thought would optimize their classroom. And I said, let's try it. So do we have couches coming in? Yeah. Do we have bar stools coming in? Yeah. Do we have high chairs and rolly balls and whatever you can name coming in to provide kids with a space of comfort? Absolutely we do because that's probably what's best for kids is to first make them feel comfortable in a room so that they can then learn. And that's only division one elementary.

We have converted our junior high next year, where in the afternoons they are going to be partaking in just a land -based agriculture program. So we are essentially ridding the afternoon of your traditional blocks of math, science, ELA, and social, and we're replacing them with holistic programming that's focused on where we are, which is a very agriculture -heavy environment. So we have harvest activities planned. We are going to go ice fishing.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 28:41

Mm -hmm.

Tyler (: 28:46

we are going to bring in elders and have conversations. We're going to spend as much time as we can outside with these kids, do a lot of learning off the land with the whole idea of let's connect them to the community that's around them. Because the number one comment I hear from a lot of kids is when am I ever going to use this? Well, through the land based program, everything they're doing are things that the professions around them are using it for. And so we're with intention connecting that.

At high school, I already touched on it a little bit. So I won't talk about the e -sport a ton, but we are getting into e -sport next year. We are going to have some competitions. We are going to sign up with the high school e -sports league. I think it's a North American based program based out of the USA, but we get to be a part of it for free, which is very awesome. So we're going to dive in and I got to learn how to play rocket league over the summer because that's a free game that we can offer kids. So on top of everything, I'll be trying out a little game here and seeing how it goes.

But what's really cool is I talked about our chicken coop program. We have a bus getting donated to our school that we are actually going to shell out and convert into a greenhouse. And so we're not only going to offer the chicken coop greenhouse screen or the chicken coop green certificate, we're going to be offering a greenhouse green certificate as well, where we're going to be, you know, doing our basic gardening routines, but also offering another 16 credits for herbs, vegetables, fruits, anything that we want to really create and grow.

But then we're going to be giving that back to our community and seeing how can we interact with our community and support them through these programs as well.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 30:23

That is an amazing. Next 12 months, dude, I got to schedule you for like, you know, March and April to come back on the show to talk a little bit about that. I'm just curious with a building like yours.

I want to ask this the right way here. Do your upper grades get a chance to work with your lower grades? I mean, how much interweaving do you have in here?

Tyler (: 30:47

Yeah, that's a great question. So they still have to be in school. And I think that that's really important to state is they are required to have their own in curriculum. There's still instructional time. But within that, there are options, programming's and our options have embedded leadership opportunities within them. At the high school level, we have an entrepreneurial ship program that we're giving credit for next year. And that's an opportunity for us to, with intention.

have our upper grades linking with our lower grades and whether that's reading to them, whether that's letting the grade ones show them something that they think is really cool. It's finding ways to connect. One thing that we're really excited for next year is just with the idea of the Leader in Me initiative. We're also going to be asking our lower grades to take on some leader tasks like answering our phone over lunch hour and taking notes for us, becoming supervisors at lunchtime that help out our teacher that's out there and

being a little monitor for us. And we want to get our high school involved in that as well and see how are they willing to help out at the lower elementary levels? Can they hop in and help a class when they have a prep? Can we offer them work experience credits and they're going to spend an entire semester supporting a grade one, two, three classroom? What does that look like for us? So yeah, we are, we are looking to see how can we get them interacting more because it is a powerful opportunity.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 32:08

Dude, congratulations on all the success for that. That is, I mean, that is outstanding. Is there, you know, funny, I have a lot of questions for you, but I don't want to ask them necessarily on the podcast. But I mean, you've gone through all this, all this education. I really what I really want to ask is, is there a doctorate in your future? But I don't know if that's a fair question to ask you on a podcast.

Tyler (: 32:21

Yeah

Tyler (: 32:27

I'm in it right now. Yeah, no, I'm one year in. I've got the second year residency coming up in August here. It's a doctorate in educational leadership. My dissertation topic is all around policy cycle and how we make our decisions and what roots us in our decision -making processes and how do we take a look at a policy and make a decision based off of it. Big surprise, Elemental Educator, and how we make decisions with Earth.

There we go. You know what though, you said that you don't want to talk maybe, well, no, not talk is the right term, but there's some questions that we'll have later. You'll be a really good guest to also join the kids at my school who are going to be launching their own podcast next year to connect with individuals that are trying to get into creative and innovative mindsets.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 33:09

Will they be starting on zoom also or will you take them directly into some of the more programs that use those letters that shall not be mentioned right now?

Tyler (: 33:17

You know what? I want them to learn the traditional way first. So I want them doing their recording potentially just through call in FaceTime through a recording system right into Audacity, right into Hindenburg maybe something like that where they can go in and edit, learn how to edit the WAV file first.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 33:37

That's awesome. I love it when kids are out there doing creative stuff. I love it when leaders are the ones taking the risks and putting themselves in front of everything. Tyler, I want to say thanks for coming on. I mean, there's so much stuff that you have going for you. And, you know, congratulations on the podcast. The only thing I want to end with is can I get you back on when the school year starts? I'd love to do a follow up with you here. And maybe we can get our classrooms in Connecticut and in Canada connected to each other.

Tyler (: 34:03

God, I would love that. That would be incredible.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 34:07

So you heard it right here. We're gonna have Tyler back on in a future show Tyler one more time. Where can we learn more about that podcast? Give us your some of your social links to share

Tyler (: 34:16

Yeah. So my Instagram is at elemental underscore educator. That's where I probably push most of my content from, but I'm also on Facebook as elemental educator. I'm on X as elemental edu. And my website just launched actually yesterday, elemental educator .com and on there, you will actually find my podcast, which is on all major platforms. It's on Apple, YouTube, Spotify, iHeart radio.

tune in wherever you want to tune in to get your podcast. It's on YouTube as well. I've started posting the videos as well onto YouTube. So that's just Elemental Educator. It's Elemental Educator everywhere.

Jeffrey Bradbury (: 34:53

We're certainly going to make sure that we have that and all of the links that we mentioned today on our show notes over here on the Jeff Bradbury show. You can find out all of our archives over at teachercast .net slash podcast. And of course, don't forget to check out all of the stuff that we have going on over at teachercast .net this summer. I hope to have you guys not only on the show, but listening to the show. And if you can hit that like, subscribe button and share this with your colleagues. And that wraps up this episode of the Jeff Bradbury show. Thank you guys so much for being here on behalf of Tyler and everybody here on TeacherCast. My name is Jeff Bradbury.

reminding you guys to keep up the great work in your classrooms and continue sharing your passions with your students.