S2: E3- Finding Joy in the Journey: A Tale of Transformation

• Lack of Support
• Lack of Engagement
• Lack of resources
• Lack of inspiration
• Lack of community

You're not alone! Listen to Silvy's journey to JOY and transformative year within La Familia Loca PLC! The doors are open until Friday the 17th at 8pm CDT and I would love to be your support, cheerleader, and part of your community the rest of this school year!

Transcript

Welcome! 

Welcome back to my podcast, Teaching La vida loca for season two. I'm Annabelle your Maestra loca, and I am ready to kick off season two with even more enthusiasm, magic and tips and tricks for your classroom. Get set for a ride of inspiration, unapologetic authenticity, and ideas to spark more joy in your teaching journey. I'm turning up the excitement and elated to have you right here with me. I'm not just your host and your cheerleader, and I am thrilled you're tuning in, buckle up, and let's do this. Let's tackle teaching la vida loca together. Hello, and welcome to episode three of season two of teaching Vida Loca. We here in New Orleans are in deep Gras season officially. We call that like the Thursday before Mardi Gras, all the way up through Mardi Gras. There are parades, everywhere, multiple parades every single day. We are attending four today, four parades, and we're not even attending all that there are available to see in the city. So, we are officially in deep gras, and we are enjoying it and finding all the fun to be had. And I'm feeling very grateful to live here because I have a week off. If you are not teaching here, why? Why are you not moving here, just move here? It is so beautiful. I'm gonna be able to wear a t shirt today. I am not trudging through snow, the beginning of February y'all. This is the life, like yay. 

La Familia Loca 

So, today to start the episode, I want to talk about some of the trends I'm seeing right now. In teachers in education, specifically world language teachers, and some of the challenges that teachers have shared with me that they're facing lately. These challenges have been shared with me on Instagram, in the workshop that I led last Sunday. And I just want to voice some of these so that you are aware that you are not alone. And give you an idea of how you can tackle these challenges and come out feeling more joyful. And let's dive in. The first and foremost is burnout. This word might feel like it's overused. But really what's causing it is the systemic problems we have in education, which are I mean, it would take what five of these episodes to just touch on them each briefly. There are so many issues that we're experiencing right now. And not many of them are within our control. But we know that we have heavy workloads, pressure to meet standards or to align our curriculum with things that we possibly don't agree with, the demands of teaching and managing diverse student needs, the demands of keeping up with paperwork, the demands of keeping up with all the things that we put on our own shoulders and have pressure on ourselves to try and do. All these things are very real. And that word is used because teachers are exhausted. Teachers are worn down. And that's unfortunately, all too common right now. Lack of student engagement, y'all It is that time of year. February, March is like, Oh, it's a long run. January felt long. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. But February, March is this long stretch of when is spring break again. Oh, my gracious. Lack of student engagement is widespread. And teachers feel frustrated when students are showing disinterest or reluctance to participate in the activities that we're planning. And that leads to a sense of failure. And we should never feel that way about ourselves. Because teaching is literally the hardest thing ever. But it is very easy for us to feel frustrated and feeling like what am I doing wrong when we have such a huge lack of engagement from our students and lack of investment in our classes? Right? Limited resources. This is unfortunately, I love when I hear about teachers getting tons of support from their principals or their districts for their world language teacher programs, but that's not the norm. We see generally, teachers who are math teachers and social studies teachers and ELA teachers, getting all the funding for professional development to go to different conferences to get new curriculum for their classes, to get resources in general for their classes. Our budgets tend to be small if some, some people I know spend way too much of their own money on their classroom because they don't have a budget, right? Limited resources can be incredibly challenging. And it gets worse towards the end of the year, right? Because the answer is always well, when there's just no budget. Isolation, oh, this is the worst. Language teachers feeling isolated within their building, it may be that they're in a full department, like a department full of people who also teach languages. But if you're listening to this podcast, you probably are either fully teaching with acquisition driven instruction, or you're dabbling with it, or you fricking want to take the dive and you really want to try it, right. So, that feeling of isolation can come from listen, I'm in a whole department, I have a department of people, but there is no collaboration happening. I feel incredibly alone, I feel like an island. Or maybe you are a department of one. And that lack of opportunity to collaborate, to connect with others, to share what you're doing to hear different ideas to connect with others is really, heavy. And then the frustration of feeling like you're doing the same old, same old and that you're not seeing any growth in students or progress. We're at that time of year as well, where teachers start thinking of all the things that they haven't done yet or that they wish they'd done. Maybe it's stuff that they've seen themselves do in previous years, and they're like, why haven't I done that yet? Oh my gosh. Or maybe it's things that they see other teachers doing. Remember, don't compare yourself. Stop comparing yourself to those people online. They're sharing the best of themselves with you. There are always two sides. But there's also that as well. At the end of my workshop this weekend, I opened the doors to La Familia, loca PLC, this only happens twice a year. And this community is a community of like-minded educators where I focus on my promise to the members within la Familia Loca PLC is to develop and enhance their skills when it comes to acquisition driven instruction within a like-minded community to unlock unprecedented joy for them and their students. And I wanted to share with you a testimonial from one of my members and her journey within la Familia Loca PLC in the last year because she only joined about a year ago. It hasn't even been a year. She joined in July of 2023. And I just want you to hear her personal journey, and the positive impact that la Familia Loca PLC has had on her teaching experience. Now let's hear directly from Sylvie, one of my newest members, teacher at high school Spanish in Georgia. 

Sylvie Joins Us!  

Okay, I'm joined right now by one of my newer Familia Loca members, Sylvie, and I'm super excited to have you Sylvie, I'm very grateful for your time on a Saturday morning. Thank you, thank you for being here. Why don't you first just tell us who you are, where you are and what you teach. 

Sylvie  

Hi, my name is Sylvia, but everybody knows me as Sylvie. I am currently in Swainsboro, Georgia, small little town here closer to on the way to Savannah, and I teach high school Spanish one and two, still fighting for that Spanish three. Yes, that's where I am. I am from Colombia. But I came to teach in leaving the United States 10-11 years ago.

La Maestra Loca 

And we've learned that you're a Colombian that is not crazy about coffee. We've learned that about you. 

Sylvie  

Yes. Yes, that's right. Coffee gives me migraine, but I just you know, I must brag about my Colombian coffee even though I don't drink.

La Maestra Loca 

That's fair. Colombians are very proud of their country. I love it very much. One day I'll go. So, my first question for you is why you joined Familia Loca since it's since you're one of my newer members, I always like knowing what drew you to the community.

Sylvie  

Well, I decided to join a community last year around July after I attended the first CI Summit. And I was able to see La maestra loca in action. I was, I am still currently super new to the whole CI and acquisition driven instruction and all those things, but I just fell in love with it. I've been you know, dangling with it a little bit for years, but I've never really made the jump. So last year after the conference, I learned so much and I was able to interact with so many wonderful people, and it just gave me the push that I needed because I was so freaking out to start it all. I was like, I don't think I can do these. And then even though you were training, primary, and elementary school, I just decided to attend one of your conferences, and I was like, well, I can totally relate to this lady. This is the kind of teacher that I am and the kind of teacher that I want to be when I grow up. I just love, you know, keeping my students engaged, keeping them motivated, keeping them moving, and just happy. I just want them to be, you know, to feel like at least my class is one of you know, at least at the time of the day that they are looking forward to, or that they can feel themselves or that they can come and just like chill in a way that they're also learning, don't get me wrong, but that they can feel that joy that you always talk about. And ever since I joined, I have improved so much, and I have grown so much. And I feel a little bit more confident in my practices. Like, I feel that, you know, I can, I can totally do this. And I have seen how my students are just learning so much. And I can totally see the difference from last school year to the school year, how much we make fun of you know, ourselves, because when we have a test coming up or something, I asked them, Okay, so who wants a study guide? And they look at me, like, what are you talking about, we don't need anything we know what we're doing. So just seeing that in my students and knowing that they feel confident, and that they are just using their language more and they love brain breaks, I have my pauza person we call it pauza. And they just, you know, every time they look at me, okay, pauza. And I'm like, Okay, which one you want. So, I love brain breaks, they helped my class a lot. It's just awesome. So, I'm just glad that I was able to join. 

La Maestra Loca 

Me too. I'm so and I think you hit on so many things that I love. First and foremost, like, I think a lot of people assume elementary, but I learned the majority of what I do for engagement and classroom community through teaching high school because I was so desperate to figure out what was gonna work people with these very big, tiny humans. And so, I would say most of our community is high school teachers, followed by elementary and middle school teachers. So, thank you for sharing that. And I also appreciate you sharing Hi, sweetie, her daughter is joining us. I love it. Yes. Our kids join these calls all the time. So, what would you say of those? Because we have four live meetings per month. Of those four live meetings? What is your favorite meeting? And why? Is it the workshop? Is it the guest of the month? Is it the group coaching and live q&a or the event, which is like more community building and just not talking about work? 

Sylvie  

Well, to be honest, I love all of them. I love just like sharing time with my like-minded people, just like other educators, maybe knowing a little bit more than me maybe looking for the same answers as me. But I have learned a lot from the guest of the month. I feel like you know, they, they were at a point, they were just like me, and they just found ways to help other people, which is awesome that they just want to come and help us. And I love the coaching time, I was able to participate in one of those. And it really helped me because I was struggling with something that had happened in my class and just to see the amount of good ideas and the amount of support from people that don't even know me, you know, personally, but they were just like, they're ready to share, you know, their own experiences and to share what worked for them. I feel that he's just also means just, it's worth your time. And you don't even have to show your face, you can just be doing whatever you need to be doing with your life, but you can just join, and you know that you're gonna find what you were looking for.

La Maestra Loca 

Oh, that's the most important, my husband even this morning was like, you're doing a podcast interview with a member and you're not even gonna put on a normal, like, any clothing or like brush your hair. And I was like, do I ever for any meeting like we just passed we are like, half the time people are in their beds already, like whatever. So, thank you for sharing that. My last question for you. You already shared how you've grown, which I appreciate so much. And I'm so glad that you're implementing things because part of the model that I built like this blueprint model of how we grow within the community is like okay, you receive the workshop of the month, you receive the incredible guest speaker in a small intimate setting. What are you going to do to implement something that you learn to grow? So, I love hearing that you're implementing. My final question for you is, how have you? And you kind of started to allude to this. How have you specifically experienced more joy in the last year since joining La Familia Loca PLC?

Sylvie  

Well, I see my students are more eager to speak the language, even those that, you know, that are always like hesitant to participate, those that just take your class because they had to. They are just like seeing that you can learn. And that makes me feel just so excited to do what I do. I don't feel that you know, what, I had to go to school on a Monday morning. Yes, I must wake up early. And, but I know that as soon as my students walk in, it's just like a whole Fiesta time. And you know, they come, and they try to speak Spanish to me all the time. And yes, before I had a couple that did that, but it's not the same, like I can tell you it's not the same. So just like, my students feel good in my class, they like coming to my class. Even if they have a test, they like to come to the class and just take it because they know they're gonna do good. So just like, experiencing that, as an educator, I've been teaching for 10 years, but I feel like a whole new teacher, like I'm just like, brand new. With, you know, these new approaches that I have implemented in my class. So just experiencing that, just seeing that you see my students face whenever they get something, I just go crazy. And they look at me like, what's wrong with you? But I just like if they get an answer, right, or somebody that never says anything, she goes and said something, I just go like, Oh my goodness, yes. You're making me cry. Awesome. That's like, you know, the highlight of my day.

La Maestra Loca 

It is. It makes such a difference for us as educators for our joy when our students feel success, experience success, and feel engaged and part of this classroom. That is that's everything to me. And I'm so glad that your experience and I'm so proud that you took the leap and so thrilled that you decided to sign up for Familia Loca so we can support you throughout the year. I'm so grateful for you, Sylvie, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for spending some time on a Saturday morning. Even though your girls are like Mom, what you do? 

Sylvie  

You just said, Mom, what you're doing and there goes my phone. Just saying, mom....

La Maestra Loca 

Sounds good. Okay, well, I'm so grateful. I'm going let you go and spend the rest of your day with your kids. But thank you, thank you so much. What a powerful testimony. I'm so grateful for Sylvie and for her taking a leap and joining La Familia, Loca PLC. After that week-long conference, one of the things that can feel overwhelming in the summer conferences is like, Okay, I'm so inspired. But now what and the fear of going back into school and just going back to what is familiar and what's known. And what you've always done, can feel so easy. So, getting that cheerleading and that consistent coaching and encouragement throughout the year can be important for supporting you as you transition to more acquisition driven instruction. But I just want to focus on for a second the stark contrast between the challenges we talked about at the beginning of this episode, the burnout, the lack of student engagement, limited resources, the feeling of isolation, the frustration with traditional teaching methods, to what Sylvie just shared. And that's the power of la Familia Loca PLC is that we are all in this together, working every month as a community to increase the joy that we are feeling within our classrooms. And it remains consistent for all my members, Episode 51 of season one. I interviewed four or five different members and all of them in their interviews centered joy as the thing that they have experienced most since joining la Familia Loca PLC. And Sylvia's joy is directly related to the increase in student engagement and success. The increase of students feeling genuine success within her classroom because they're speaking and using language because they want to be in her space. And that's because of her taking the risk and implementing many of the various strategies shared within la Familia Loca PLC monthly. Many of the various strategies and tools and resources shared by the incredible guest speakers we have every single month, right so her taking that risk and really developing on the blueprint cycle that I have developed for la Familia Loca PLC shows that there has been extreme growth in her ability to manage her class, to be a leader of facilitating language acquisition in her class, but also part of the community that is her student body in each classroom, that classroom, culture and community that you're developing in every single class. I'm so grateful for her sharing. 

La Familia Loca Monthly Happenings  

I want to tell you a little bit more about what happens every month in La Familia Loca PLC, there are four live meetings per month. The first is a workshop of the month and community workshop. In that workshop of the month, I am sharing strategies and ideas with teachers that they can implement immediately in their classrooms related to our theme of the month and the theme of the month directly connects to the overarching theme of the quarter. For example, this quarter is work smarter, not harder. But this month's theme was flawless February and tackling the multi prep nightmare. So the workshop of the month focused on how can we as teachers with more preps than almost anybody in the building and often less prep time than anybody in the building, maximizing our planned time, and how can we use strategies that we can use across all levels that we teach, and just really be intentional about the language that we're facilitating the acquisition of in each different levels so that we're not over spending so much time planning and prepping that ultimately ends up into late nights at work or heaven forbid taking work home because in La Familia Loca PLC, I focus a lot on teacher self-care, and doing the most for ourselves so that we can stay in the profession for a long time, which means don't work from home. I'm like working towards that for people because a lot of people need support with that. So that was the workshop of the month. At the end of the workshop of the month, we have our community work time. Community Work time is where we split into three different cohorts a high school cohort, a middle school cohort, and an elementary cohort. And we really talk with the people who also teach the same grade levels as us on how we plan to implement and share any struggles that we're going through so that we can get the support that we need within our little cohorts inside the community. The next meeting is our guest of the month and we have had a huge range of guest speakers this month. We're having John Bracy. We have had AC Quintetto. We have had Paul, Jenny Witzig, Diana Noonan, we've had Adrianna Rami, we have had pretty much anybody you can think of Erica Polanski, Justin Slocum Bailey, I'm very lucky I have called on all my friends. Kiel London, Bertha Delgado Claudia Elliott, so many guests come and share their wisdom, their knowledge, their expertise with us. And all of them are directly connected to that theme of the month again, that's why we're having John Bracy this month, who is the expert on making teaching sustainable for us.

Guests of the Month  

How are we making sure that we are taking care of us as teachers and giving our students what they need while also not burning ourselves out. Right. That's why John is our guest this month. For the next session is a coaching session. It's called our hotseat q&a. And when Sylvie said I was part of that once. That means that she was one of the members whose name was pulled for 15 minutes of coaching. And that coaching is done live in front of everybody. And obviously, if you aren't comfortable asking those questions live, you can send your questions in advance, although everybody has been fine with sharing in front of people. But you ask your questions, and then you get support from me. And then at the end, anybody can ask questions at the end of group coaching. So, the group coaching is always different every month, you never know what's going to be brought up because everybody is facing different scenarios. But everybody walks away feeling like oh my god, that was so good. I had no idea I had those questions. And then you have all the answers as well, at least my approach to it. And my opinion now, the beauty of group coaching is you have tons of experts in the Zoom Room with you. So, while I am sharing how I would approach different scenarios, teachers within our community who have 20 plus years of experience, are also sharing experiences they've had that are very similar, or ways that they would approach things right. So that's an important thing to keep in mind. It's not just me it's the community aspect, right? We also have our Lagniappe session which is not related to work. It is something super fun, super different every single month. We have happy hours. We have trivia nights, we have other sessions, we have had artists come and join us and we sip our wine and paint something. We have had members themselves lead sessions. This month, we have a member leading us in a session on finances and how to pay down debt because we have a member who's like super jazzed, her name is Lauren. She's so jazzed by finances. And she, I'm paying her to share her wisdom and knowledge with us. And it's not related to work, and it's just focused on us being humans and being together as community. And then the last two benefits of La Familia Loca PLC are the resource of the month that's shared in Spanish, English and French, and hopefully other languages as our community grows. We do have German teachers, Chinese teachers, Japanese teachers, Indonesian chief teachers, ASL, we have an ASL teacher, so we have teachers of all different languages. But as the community grows, we will have the opportunity to release the resources and other languages as well. But those resources are things that you can use immediately in your classroom that month to supplement whatever it is that you are doing in your classroom. The ones this month are solid for like that fighting that multi-prep nightmare, like things that you can use in every single class. They're beautiful and I'm grateful to have the support of Viviana Tracy who is my right-hand lady who helps me run la Familia Loca PLC, she helps me develop and enhance the resources because she makes everything beautiful. And I don't know how to do that.

The Community! 

And then finally, it's the community. The community for me is what makes la Familia Loca PLC a Familia. It was not always called Familia. That was a term that people within the community started using all the time when they would write in the Facebook community. They would say hey, Familia, this is something I'm struggling with hey Familia loca, this is something I'm noticing in my classes, I'm really struggling with this student, and this is what I've seen so far. And so, they've just been addressing themselves is that so about three and a half years ago, I decided to rebrand entirely and call it La Familia Local PLC because that's what we are. We're a community who is there to uplift and support each other during the good times and during the bad times. And we know that we can stop in the Facebook group anytime, it doesn't have to be just during our four live meetings to say, I am stuck, I need ideas for tomorrow, or I need a sub plan tomorrow because I cannot go in does anybody have any quick ideas that I can use? Or I just did this clip chat. What would you do is a follow up reading activity and then boom, you have all the people there? And oftentimes you have Nicole is another great example Nicole, who works with me. She'll say oh, if you go back into your portal and watch the recording from October 2022, Annabelle shared this idea.... So having access to every live recording it at your fingertips anytime you want on your phone or on your computer is a beautiful way to be able to reuse your benefits within la Familia Loca PLC because you don't have to be live every month. We have members all over the world. One of my members who recorded a testimony for me that I'll share on Instagram later this week is in Nigeria, and she can't attend live. But she watches every recording and one of the beautiful things that she said in her testimony was, it feels like I'm part of the community even when I'm not there live. And that's the power of our Familia.  

Come Join Us! 

So, if you are looking for something to support you through the rest of this year, if you're looking for a community to collaborate with to feel less isolated, to give you ideas for when you're feeling that sense of lack of student engagement, to give you a sense of inspiration and to rekindle that joy in your classroom. I cannot wait to welcome you to La Familia Loca PLC. The doors are going to be open until this Friday, the 16th at 8pm Central and that's just because I've learned that Midnight is so silly for me to be staying up and then doing the whole process of closing the doors, it's just a nightmare. So, the 16th of February at midnight or not at midnight at 8pm Central and the link to La Familia Loca PLC is in the show notes. And you can also just Google it. If you Google la Familia loca PLC, that's the first thing that's going to come up. We would love to have you; I'd love to support you through the rest of the year. If you are experiencing any of those challenges that I mentioned at the start of this episode, if you're struggling with burnout, you're struggling with a lack of student engagement. If you're struggling with feeling like your resources are limited and you're tired of doing the same thing over and over if you're feeling isolated. Please let us be your community. We would love to be your Familia and lift you up and give you the support you need to experience more joy with your students. Like Sylvie shared with us that she has experienced over the last year of being part of our community. I love you, teacher. Hang in there. You're doing awesome. I will talk to you soon. Until next time, I'll be teaching la vida loca won’t this week because I'm off because I live in New Orleans, and you should too. So, this is also a call for you to move to New Orleans, join la Familia loca PLLC, also move to New Orleans and teach here because we are off this week for Mardi Gras and we're just living the life so if you're feeling tired of living where you are, also move here. Okay. I love you take care and until next time, I won't be teaching la vida loca, but I will certainly be supporting you and other teachers around the world. In La Familia Loca PLC, six continents. The only continent we need is Antarctica. So, if you teach in Antarctica, please join me because then I have all said, continents. Okay, I love you, teacher. Have a great rest of your day and I'm so grateful for you. Take care. Bye bye.

Click HERE to learn more and become our newest member!