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In this episode of Conscious Pathways, we explore the crucial aspects of education with this week’s esteemed guest, Kylie Elizabeth, aka The Virtuoso Educator. With over a decade of experience in both classroom teaching and administrative roles, Kylie brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to the table.
Key Takeaways
- Parent involvement is crucial for a child’s education and success.
- Parents can support their children’s education by being engaged, advocating for their needs, and building partnerships with teachers and schools.
- Positive perceptions of education are important for attracting and retaining educators.
- Education is a collaborative effort that requires the involvement of parents, teachers, administrators, and the community. Parent engagement and support are crucial for the success of students and schools.
- Administrators need to support teachers and address issues of teacher retention.
- Creating a strong school community involves involving parents and families in meaningful ways.
- Technology has both benefits and downsides in education and requires careful monitoring and guidance.
- The future of education is uncertain, and there is a need for ongoing discussions and improvements.
- Parents should be proactive in monitoring and guiding their children’s technology use. Technology has a significant impact on children’s education, and it is important to find a balance between its use and other activities.
- Hands-on learning and pen and paper activities are essential for children’s development and should not be neglected in favor of technology.
- Creating healthy bedtime routines and limiting screen time before bed can improve children’s sleep and overall well-being.
- Transition time between activities is crucial in education and should be prioritized to help students adjust and refocus.
- The education system needs a reset to address the current challenges and ensure that all students have equal access to quality education.
- Literacy is a fundamental skill that should be prioritized in education to ensure that students have the necessary foundation for learning.
Transcript
Brittney (00:00)
Hi, and welcome to Conscious Pathways, the podcast where we explore the intersection of education and social justice through transformative conversations. I’m your host, Brittany. And as always, I am so honored and excited that you have joined me on this podcast. Thanks for listening. I know I’ve gotten a couple of extra…
listeners over the past couple of weeks. So I just want to thank you so much for tuning in and joining me on this journey. It’s always such an honor that people choose to spend their time listening to me talk to people and that’s always just so great. So thanks.
Today I am joined by a wonderful and beautiful former educator, Kylie Elizabeth. Kylie, AKA the Virtuoso Educator, is a mother of two and has a unique educational and professional background with experiences in K through 12 classrooms and administrative roles for 10 plus years. The Virtuoso Educator understands the importance of the virtual world.
Kylie Elizabeth, aka the Virtuoso Educator, is a mother of two and has a unique educational and professional background with experiences in K -12 education and administrative roles for over 10 years. The Virtuoso Educator understands the importance of cultural responsiveness in education and strives to share best practices, experiences, and ideas to help parents, educators, and students build strong relationships for any educational environment, enclose educational gaps, and overall help children to thrive.
Our conversation was so heartwarming and beautiful. We covered topics around parent and guardian engagement and involvement in schools, but we really dived into technology in schools and social media and the impact on our students and the impact on our lives just in general. This conversation was just so wonderful and you know, Kylie brought so much data and knowledge to the conversation. So I’m really excited to share that with you. So let’s get into it.
Brittney (01:53)
Hello, hello and welcome to Conscious Pathways. I am joined by Kylie Elizabeth. Welcome to the podcast.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (02:00)
Thank you so much, Brittany, for having me on today.
Brittney (02:03)
I am so excited to have you on. Right before I started recording, we were talking about, you’re in Arizona right now, so we’re kind of talking, I’m in San Diego, so about where we are and have you been in Arizona for a long time?
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (02:17)
I moved to Arizona this year will be four years in June for me. So right during the pandemic. Yeah. And I love it. Mm hmm. It was fun. Fun times.
Brittney (02:20)
Wow.
Oh wow, you moved right during the pandemic. I also moved back to San Diego. I was here before and I moved away. And then during the pandemic, I was like, I think I want to go home now. So.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (02:35)
Oh, that’s funny. Yeah, I haven’t had that thought yet. It’s too cold in Wisconsin. I don’t miss the snow. I don’t miss any of that. Oh yeah, I’m from Wisconsin, so I don’t miss any of it. I will stick it right here to Arizona. It is a little hot, but I’ll wait out those a couple months compared to the snow, so it’s all good.
Brittney (02:46)
Yeah, no. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I grew up with snow. I lived on the East Coast for many years and it’s beautiful to look at. I don’t love being in it. And oftentimes when you live in the snow, you do have to be in it sometimes. Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (03:06)
Yes.
Yes, yes, up to your knees. No thanks, I don’t want anymore. Slip on the eyes, shovel the stairs.
Brittney (03:13)
Yes, up to your knees and you have to scrape out the car and it’s just, uh, it’s so much work. Yeah. And it’s just like, you know what? I’ll pay the sunshine tax. Yeah, I’ll, I’ll pay it. It’s fine. If I just get to stay in the sunshine, I love the heat. I’m a California girl through and through born and not mostly raised, uh, in Southern California. So for me, I’m like a little lizard. So I will just hang out in the heat all day. Like it’s fine. I’ll chill.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (03:24)
Right, pretty much, basically. Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah.
Brittney (03:42)
I’ll get my summer tan on. But I’m so excited that you’re joining me today. I was looking through your bio and doing my research and I’m just so excited to see the topics that you discuss and so excited to have you joining me.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (03:43)
Great.
Thank you. I appreciate it so much. It’s nice to be like on the other side, you know, I’m used to just podcasting everybody. And so thank you for the invite. I really appreciate it.
Brittney (03:57)
Yes. Yes, yes.
Of course, I know it’s like different to be on the other side because on this side it’s like, okay, I have the questions, I have this, is it recording? And on the other side you’re like, I’m vibes. And I love it. Yes, yes, yes. So tell me a little bit about how you got your start in education, who or what inspired you, how did we get here?
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (04:06)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yes, I’m just here for the show.
Yeah, so my educational journey is pretty interesting. And I do talk to a lot of different people about it. But.
We’ll kind of go back to elementary days and primarily middle school. So I’ve always been a choir student in like theater. I’ve always loved singing even when I was a baby like my grandmother, she used to call me Screamy Mimi because all I would do is like scream and yell all day. And then you know we’d go into elementary and fifth grade is probably when I really started choir. And then in middle school. I just really had a really awesome choir.
teacher and she just was you know really nice to everybody like the really cool teacher and she also did the theater after school for the afterschool club and you know I just really got kind of got inspired by my teachers even a couple others in that middle school and you know I just always felt like included in her group and kind of at that point was like oh I want to do you know I want to be a teacher and I want to kind of be like her and same thing
teacher. So I stayed in choir. We did all the extra choirs I could in high school and I really loved it. And so I had the goal of being a music teacher in…
while I was finishing up high school and then I did get recruited to a music program in my college in Kenosha, Wisconsin, UW Parkside. So I went to school for music education to be a middle school or high school choir teacher.
In long story short, my school at the time, they had suspended their education department and I was a student that got caught in the crosshairs of if I could be in that program or not. Long story short, I had just graduated with my music degree without the education and then I went to my license to master’s program. So I kind of went into a program right away to do my master’s and I don’t know how much longer you want me to go on this story, but it does
Brittney (06:22)
Um…
Mm-hmm. Oh, go. Hehehehe.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (06:33)
I don’t stay in music all the time, but that’s kind of how I got my start was just really interested in The teachers that really you know were caring and were really involved with their students like really show that they cared and I kind of strived to be a person and a teacher like that and I will say that I
Pretty sure I kinda had that title too, as like the cool, fun teacher when I taught high school for seven years. So it was really fun for me. But yeah, so I kinda went in a different track too, so I don’t know how much you want me to explain that, but that’s how I got started. Yeah.
Brittney (06:59)
Mm.
That’s so exciting. I love that you found your, you could like to combine two of your favorite things, which is teaching and music and combining those things together, which makes sense. The virtuoso educator. I get it now. Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (07:20)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes, thank you. I’m glad you know the term and everybody, a lot of people are like, where does that come from? And so yeah, virtuoso, by definition, you know, just means well-rounded or somebody that’s like highly educated and all those things and you know, and then it is also a musical term that we use in music. So to describe the feeling of the music, I just kind of like love that word and
Brittney (07:34)
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (07:49)
When you talk about me teaching things that I love, so when I say I kind of transitioned, so as I was in my master’s program, I switched over to doing long-term subbing while I was still finishing because I still wanted to teach. And I ended up getting looped into a culinary arts class at the high school in Racine, Wisconsin. And my grandmother used to have a catering business ever since I was little. So from like the age of nine to 23, I worked in this family restaurant
Brittney (08:03)
Mm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (08:19)
all those years so I had the experience so I was able to then teach the class and then that kind of led me into the world of Career and Technical Ed and Family and Consumer Sciences and so I ended up teaching all of those classes for about seven years before I moved here to Phoenix and then once I moved to Phoenix I transitioned to use my master’s degree in administration and curriculum and instruction. I switched over to administration. I ran a small what we call a micro school.
Brittney (08:24)
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (08:49)
I ran that for about two and a half years and then I switched over to a role at the Department of Education. So I’m kind of like all over the place but I get to, I do oversee family consumer science programs here at the state and you know I just really love what I do and then kind of on the flip side I offer my consulting services and some other things through my own personal business around education.
Brittney (09:00)
I’m going to go to bed.
Mm.
Yeah.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (09:19)
over the place but I love what I do and I love the topic of education and it’s highly important obviously that’s why we’re here but yeah so that’s kind of what the world that I’m in like everywhere.
Brittney (09:26)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that’s amazing. I always love hearing about what people do with their kind of degrees around education, right? Because there’s so much that you can do with that. Like, obviously, you can do teaching and go into education and, you know, teach the grade levels that, you know, you vibe most with, whether that’s early childhood, you know, middle school, elementary, high school, right, college level.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (09:37)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Brittney (09:56)
You know, obviously that’s one direction you can go into, but there’s also a multitude of ways that you can utilize your knowledge of education and utilizing your knowledge of development, human development, how people learn, right? So there’s so many things that we can do with it. Cause I know as, you know, as women educators and everything like that, you know, burnout is, it kind of just comes with the territory of education. And so, and so knowing that you can.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (10:20)
Yes, absolutely. Yes.
Brittney (10:24)
step out and do something else, and education will always, you know, be there in some way or another. So you could always come back to it once you’re feeling, you know, refreshed and revived and you’re like, okay, I’m ready to get back in that classroom. Because I think as educators know, it’s hard to stay away.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (10:26)
Thanks for watching!
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Oh, no, it is. And I think for me, the transition happened during COVID. So 2020, spring of 2020, or the end of the school year in 2020 was my last year of teaching. And I kind of watched my seniors. I had a lot of senior students when the pandemic started. And they missed out on prom. They missed out on graduation. It was very depressing in a sense. And I knew I did not want to be behind the screen teaching people virtually.
Brittney (10:56)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm, yeah.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (11:09)
So that was rough, but then in my position now, you know, I get to travel the state and see all these programs. And every time I’m in a culinary room, I’m like, man, I’m like, I miss teaching. Like I want to come back in the classroom. And but I’m like, oh, do I really like? No, probably not. But at sometimes I miss it. And sometimes I like really do just more miss the engagement with the students and getting to have those conversations and kind of guiding them because that was the best part of the job for me. Yeah.
Brittney (11:20)
Yeah.
Hehehehehehe
Mm-hmm.
It really is. It’s those students that like they just they just reel you back in to it sometimes. Uh yeah I miss I miss there’s a lot of aspects of teaching I don’t miss but there’s a lot of aspects like working with the students working with the families and the curriculum and just all those really beautiful things. I do miss those aspects of it. Um yeah it’s looking…
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (11:43)
Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, they do.
Mm-hmm.
Yes. But all the drama, nah. I don’t want the drama no more. Because we still hear it, you know, in my role I still deal kind of with some of the drama, but it’s like, nah, I don’t have to, it doesn’t, you know, not directly to me do I have to deal with it. But yeah, education is not a…
Brittney (12:09)
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (12:16)
easy role or easy field to be in, which some people mistake it as. But yes, that burnout is definitely real, especially for new teachers. I would say even seasoned teachers post-COVID, that just changed a lot of things. And then I think just the dynamic and the politics in education right now just make it 20 times worse than what it should be. So yeah, so there’s always those pieces as well.
Brittney (12:18)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (12:46)
right reasons, stay and try to bear it out as much as possible. But at the end of the day, we’re still all people and we have only so much that we can bear at a time. And that looks different for everybody. So.
Brittney (12:48)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
It really does. It looks different for everyone. And, you know, as we keep advocating for changes within our educational system, we’re getting there, we’re slowly but surely chiseling away at it. But it’s a big system. And so it’s gonna, it’s gonna take a lot of work and a lot of advocacy and a lot of activism to get there. You know, but in the meantime, we can keep taking care of ourselves and doing what we can, especially for those students. But I know there’s
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (13:10)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Brittney (13:26)
A lot of your content that you talk about, you’re talking about parents, you’re talking about community, and you’re talking about partnerships within education. So do you wanna kind of go a little bit more into that about how can parents be involved in education? What does that parent involvement look like?
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (13:35)
Yeah.
Yes, yeah, absolutely. So parent engagement and involvement is also another topic that kind of got me into wanting to be in education, just stemming from some personal things in my childhood. And parents being involved in their students’ education is, or I shouldn’t just limit to parents, right? Any guardian, anybody that is watching over children that are in school, school-aged children.
Brittney (14:00)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (14:07)
and supporting anybody, even if they’re through college or all those things. But it is really important to have a support system in our education. And I am basically utilizing my platform to really just have parents and guardians and people in the community just really be more aware of some of the topics that are happening in education. And just to kind of start thinking on themselves and what they’re doing within their own homes
Brittney (14:10)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (14:37)
their schools and how do they network with their children’s teachers? How are you supporting your child to the best of your capability, right? And it doesn’t mean that you’re home. And I do tackle kind of any educational platform. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing public, private, homeschool. At the end of the day, you still have to give your best as that parent and guardian, that support of that child. Especially because some school environments aren’t the best for kids.
Brittney (14:44)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (15:08)
And a lot of people kind of mistake that they’re like, oh, you’re only highlighting the negative things. And it’s like, I’m not. We do talk about the good things that happen. There are great things that happen in schools. And even my children in the new district that they’re in this year, they are making wonderful gains in their academics due to the staff that they have. They have very dedicated teachers. And I love that for them. But there isn’t that in every place or for every child in every family.
Brittney (15:15)
Yeah.
Thanks for watching!
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (15:37)
It’s more of, let’s not just rely on the schools to do things for us. Like we have to, if we’re uncomfortable with what’s happening with our kids, we have to be able to advocate. So I share resources on and content on, do you know what to do to advocate for your child? Is that if they’re being suspended, do you know how to get help with that if it’s not justified? Do you know if they are?
Brittney (15:43)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (16:01)
receiving bad grades all the time. Do they have an IEP or a 504 plan? Is it being followed? Because both my children have one of each. And, you know, I have to advocate over and over like, hey, remind, like, my daughter has a 504 plan. She should get extra time to do her homework and she shouldn’t be penalized and Risa’s taken away for her homework not being complete, you know, kind of those types of conversations. And even stemming to, you know, what is your engagement with the school?
Brittney (16:07)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (16:30)
And a lot of people do kind of feel that they can’t go to the school and be included and all these things. But I elaborate on ways of being included, like inclusive in the schools and joining and engaging with those teachers is are you following up with them more outside of just the parent teacher conference? Do you check on how your child is doing at home? Do you have these conversations daily? Like, hey, how did your day go? Like, did anything bad happen? Did anything
Brittney (16:52)
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (17:00)
with your kids, but then also reminding parents that they can join the PTA at schools. They can show up to school board meetings to hear what is actually happening within their school or their district. And just having people be more aware because if you are especially relying on public education, which most of us do have to rely on that to educate our children, then you need to be included and have a voice because at the end of the day the people whose voices
And a lot of times it’s not people within our community or within a lower class of community or income because they can’t afford to give that time up. But at the end of the day, we have to make the time and we have to do what’s right for our kids to be able to support them in their education. So I talk a lot of different ways of that. And just the people that are on my podcast, you know, kind of reach out to me or I reach out to them. But they have resources.
Brittney (17:48)
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (18:00)
educators with really great resources for you to utilize or connect with for other supports as well.
Brittney (18:07)
Yes, yes, yes. And oftentimes when it comes with, you know, parent-regarding engagement, you know, educators, we want parents to be involved, right? Most of us do. I can’t call, I can’t speak for every single educator. But I did have an educator come up to me at a conference recently. And she was like, you know, what are some strategies that I can use to get my parents more engaged in our program?
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (18:20)
Yes, absolutely.
Brittney (18:34)
you know, we want parents to be engaged and we want to do that in ways that are culturally responsive and sustainable, right? We want to do it in a way that makes sense for our families to be engaged. And so it’s, you know, a mutual relationship here. Like, you know, the teachers want to see that engagement. And I think that parents want to be engaged, but sometimes there’s that disconnect on what’s the best way to be engaged and what’s the best way to promote that engagement. And also, you know,
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (18:39)
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Brittney (19:02)
While it is unfortunate that parents do have to be these constant advocates, especially if your student has a disability or special needs, you have to constantly be there attending those meetings, being in contact with your teachers, being in contact with the school, making sure that things are being handled and done correctly. In some ways, it’s unfortunate that you have to consistently do that because you’re doing that in addition to whatever work you have, whatever other things are going on in life. So it’s just kind of an additional thing that you kind of
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (19:11)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Brittney (19:32)
in a lot of ways have to do, but there are ways that partnerships can be made to make both people’s lives a lot easier and to really make sure that student is getting the best quality of education and they’re getting the best resources and they’re getting everything that they need in order to be successful. That’s what we want at the end of the day.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (19:34)
Yes.
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s the main point is to be successful. And it’s not to say every kid is going to be a perfect GPA. At the end of the day, we’ve got to meet the kids where they are. But I do believe with more support from home, and I advocate that education does start at home first and our kids learn our habits.
Brittney (20:00)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (20:12)
learn our mentalities around education and you know for me as an educator I try to instill good habits with my kids even around mindset of education.
Brittney (20:13)
Mm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (20:24)
explaining the importance of it. And yeah, they’re not going to use every skill that they learn as an adult. I think that’s a question of like, why do we got to know this? Like we’re not gonna, you know, and I still kind of think back to certain things that I did. I’m like, why did I need to know that? But eventually things kind of as we get older and mature, and we think about, you know, if our career goes in a direction or changes, like we do reference a lot of times, our memories and our skills that
Brittney (20:24)
Mm.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (20:54)
I think it’s important to put a good mindset around education. Therefore, our kids will be more inclined to learn. But again, not saying that that’s the only thing that hinders a lack of education in schools, because we know that there’s a lot of things. But that is important, I think, for the narrative to come from families, that it’s important. Also for those that kind of talk bad on the role of teaching itself and can degrade
Brittney (21:02)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (21:24)
put down the position or the career of an educator. I’ve had so many students in my past when I taught early childhood education and future teacher prep courses. They’re like, my parents don’t want me to be a teacher because of blah, blah. And it’s like, these are the people that are educating your kids. And unless you’re gonna do it, you can’t sit here and tell them not to do it. Let them do what they’re passionate about. Because I think I shared this data in my last podcast.
Brittney (21:26)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (21:54)
about 100,000 educators exiting the field by the end of this year. And.
Brittney (21:59)
Mm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (22:01)
It’s due to multiple reasons. And I kind of equated that, you know, think of these are health care professionals. Think of these are lawyers, if they’re, you know, whoever like main essential, you know, we’ll go back to COVID days, essential workers, like educators are essential and they’re essential to our communities. And we can’t talk negatively upon it as well as we have something as issue. We need to show up and speak on it. Don’t use social media and don’t, you know, not bring your kids somewhere because you don’t agree.
Brittney (22:04)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (22:31)
to have those conversations.
Brittney (22:33)
Yes, yes, yes. And I couldn’t agree more. Just our perceptions of education, they really do matter. And as we’re seeing, we’re seeing a lot of educators leaving the field. And exactly what you said, during COVID times, we saw that teachers are essential workers, right? So kids had to be home, parents were home, and they’re like, this is hard. They’re like, how do the teachers do this? How do you guys do this all day with like,
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (22:57)
Yeah.
Brittney (23:02)
multiple students. We’re thinking about, you know, early childhood education too, because that’s my background, and you know, having to teach students virtually at that age is hard. Their attendance bands already aren’t that much yet. And then you’re adding screen to this? Okay. And but our perceptions, they, oh, so fun. But our perceptions really do matter, especially when we’re talking about
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (23:04)
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah, great, wasn’t it?
Brittney (23:31)
education, we’re talking about the importance of this field, and seeing all these educators leave and seeing how dejected educators feel and how it takes a real toll on their physical health, their mental health, their psyche, like all of these things, it takes a big toll on them. And so when we talk negatively about our field or our negative, you know, view of teachers, that’s not necessarily making future educators want to study education.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (23:47)
Yeah, absolutely.
Exactly.
Brittney (24:01)
It’s not making people want to follow this field. And I remember even when I was younger, I wanted to be a teacher. Like I went to third grade, I had a great third grade teacher and I was like, this feels really nice. I liked this experience. I wanna do this for other people. And I don’t know who it was, but someone told me like, oh, you don’t wanna be a teacher. Like they don’t make any money. Which again, I’ve said this before, it’s true. But also, we do pay teachers more. But.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (24:12)
Yeah.
It is true. It is, unfortunately.
Brittney (24:30)
When I did finally get in the classroom and start teaching, the way it just clicked, the way I felt so passionate about what I was learning, what I was doing, the impact that I was making, it just made so much that I was so passionate about and continued to learn it. And even today continuing to learn more about education and it matters the way that we talk about it, the way that we support our teachers, the way that we support our, you know, just students as they’re navigating through this. Like it’s hard enough as it is, we don’t need to make it even harder.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (24:48)
Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, and you’re right. And you know, everything does start from the top down. And sometimes it’s kind of, it’s a teacher, it’s an admin, it’s a student, you know, it is, it’s a parent, because there are parents that kind of go in all arms blazing, like they’re ready to, you know, but it’s like the approach, I guess, in our world that we’re in, and everybody’s experience is very different. You know, we definitely need to…
Brittney (24:59)
Hehehehe
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (25:27)
do better by supporting. Because at the end of the day, I say this all the time, it takes a village to raise children and just to support each other. It’s even raising each other and supporting each other. And schools that I find that schools that have like really great like parent engagement and pro.
Brittney (25:36)
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (25:46)
usually have a lot of programming where parents are invited to the school and not just for the kids, right? Don’t not to come for a parent-teacher conference and like a play or something. It’s specifically geared for the parents to, you know, learn something new. You know, I just got it invited got sorry, excuse me, got invited to my children’s school to help do their literacy review, you know, like go do these types of things like be involved and you find that the climate of
Brittney (25:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (26:16)
where families usually are more…
looped in usually are more engaged with that. And then on the flip side, you know, those administrators who really understand from the top down that teachers have a lot on their plate and, you know, are they finding ways to alleviate that less students in the classroom. But as we lose people that student teacher ratio is going to get worse over time or we’re going to just continue to lose people. And then that kind of goes into recruitment and retention and the
Brittney (26:28)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (26:49)
and you know the list kind of goes on so it’s like we have to have foundations in all of these areas that support a school system and if we don’t that’s when we’re going to continue to have these problems in that way.
Brittney (26:52)
Yes.
Mm. Yes, absolutely beautifully put. And, you know, on the topic of just having programs, intentional programs for parents to be involved and engaged in it right outside of your traditional parent-teacher conferences, or you’re, you know, you’re pulling if you’re constantly kind of your only interaction with the parents is to either give them negative information or negative feedback. Or it’s a stressful environment like parent-teacher conferences, not supposed to be stressful, but like
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (27:29)
Right.
Brittney (27:32)
the educator or the school, right, is negative. And then if you think back, we look about cultural responsiveness, right? And a lot of people of color have had really negative interactions in school. So when they have kids, right, their perception of school is already warped, that, oh, this really sucked for me, so it’s probably gonna suck for you too, right? So if that’s where they’re coming from, right, you already have this barrier and this wall up. And so finding ways that you can incorporate families that is holistic, that is…
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (27:35)
Yeah.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm.
Brittney (28:01)
culturally relevant and responsive and finding ways that gets them involved in that. Because not only are you making connections between the teachers and the parents, you’re making connections between the entire like school community and the families, right? And just really strengthening this idea of your school community. Because that’s when you actually get.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (28:14)
Yeah. I’m silly.
Yeah.
Brittney (28:23)
so much benefit from it. And that’s when you’re getting the community involved in. The parents are actively engaged and like their feedback and they’re giving you feedback and their feedback is actually heard and incorporated are all really amazing strategies to just make sure that, you know, parents and families and guardians are just holistically involved.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (28:32)
Yeah.
Yeah, and yes, and you say some good things.
Over time, education and for people of color, it’s a rough subject because it is included in not the best times of our history. And so people feel some type of way about it. And you know, over time narratives kind of can continue even through 2024. You know, we still have these racial discussions about education and we kind of, I call it like a zigzag, like we have a very big
Brittney (29:11)
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (29:19)
of these topics in education. I think a big point that a person made to me on another one of my podcast is he was like, we have a bad, say we have a bad experience in our school as a child. We know.
Brittney (29:22)
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (29:39)
for black bedrooms at the school, has very racial issues, a lot of racial issues. And the student, this was the scenario. The student doesn’t do well, right? They struggle with reading, which stems all the way from their early age. They drop out of school early. They end up in the prison system because they did something. They come out of the system and now they’re a criminal with a record and they can’t work.
Brittney (29:50)
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (30:03)
right, all these things, then they have a child, right? But then what do they do? They send the child back to the same school district because that’s where they live. And they have it moved out of that environment. And I think that is a big, that was like, oh, I didn’t think about sending the kids, our own children to back to where we came from, right? And nine out of 10, you know, I won’t say even say nine out of 10 times. I’d probably say two out of 10 times, we’re moving out of places that are not good for us.
Brittney (30:11)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (30:33)
even in a personal foundational relationship, a lot of people have a hard time pulling out of environments where they’re familiar with, right? And so to up and move like I did to Arizona, like everybody can’t do that. And some parents can’t afford to move out of their community to get away from that negativity that’s in their environment. And that’s another conversation too, you know, there’s so many things that go.
Brittney (30:42)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (30:59)
into that and into people’s perceptions. But again, I think at the end of the day, we’re all knowing that.
literally we’re here to educate our kids and to make them, you know, viable citizens in our community because I get so nervous for my even my eight-year-old and 11-year-old. I get nervous for like what is it going to look like when they’re older? Like what is high school going to look like for them? College, like you know, are we going to still have these issues that we’re seeing today in education?
Brittney (31:10)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
home.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (31:30)
as adults for them, what is the world going to look like? You know, it’s scary to think about, but we need these kids to be educated, because I know you probably all see the statistics, like average reading for fourth grade competency, like proficiency is 40% across the state, average, like across the United States. 40% of our fourth graders are proficient in reading, and that’s just literacy skills. And so that’s scary, because a lot has to do with technology, which I won’t start in that conversation right now,
Brittney (31:48)
Mm.
Yep. Yeah.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (31:59)
that later but technology is a huge thing too as parents and as educators you know there isn’t a reason why even with the integration of technology why we cannot be as active as we need to be or even just basic communication. We’re all on our phones checking social media, we’re all doing things on computers and tablets there should not be a reason that you don’t check in.
Brittney (32:05)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Yeah.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (32:25)
every other couple days with not even, you know, even on the little apps, talk to your teachers. And I do this weekly, but that’s because my son has a history of behavioral issues that I just check it, hey, how was he this week? Was everything okay? Anything I need to know about? And usually they’re really good about saying things to me if something happens, but you know, every once in a while the day goes and we don’t hear, but it’s like, that’s what happens too when parents get things at the last minute, like, oh, this happened last week and this week, and then you’re like, well, you didn’t say anything
Brittney (32:33)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (32:55)
to me. And you know, so it’s kind of like all of those things, like, they have 30 kids, you might have two kids, like check up on your kids and you know, but it’s a lot to it. There’s so much to it.
Brittney (32:57)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
There really is so much to it. And I wholeheartedly agree that technology can be such an amazing benefit. It can provide that kind of open lines of communication. Obviously, a lot of teachers just don’t want to give out their personal numbers, because then that crosses a very, very important boundary that we do not want being crossed. But a lot of multiple reasons, right? We don’t want that. But I love that there are apps that kind of
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (33:25)
Yeah, don’t, yeah, we don’t do that. Multiple reasons. Yeah.
Brittney (33:36)
create that middle line so like your information is still safe, but then parents can still have a spot where they can communicate to you. And then you can still have your boundaries where it’s like, okay, I don’t, you know, the app does not give me notifications past this time. I don’t want to see that protect your space, you know. And I love that because it does create an open line of communication between, you know, the parents and the teachers where they can ask questions and, you know, do these types of things.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (33:38)
Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Brittney (34:02)
technology does have its downsides, obviously, of course. And I know you probably saw this more with social media and how that impacts, you know, just the older students. I usually am like with really young students, so they’re not social media very much at like three years old. But you know, it is getting younger and younger and younger that, you know, technology is just a part of our everyday existence. And so.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (34:16)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Brittney (34:26)
But I don’t think we as educators are fully prepared and don’t have the full guidance on like, okay, how do we mitigate this? How do we have these conversations? What does this look like? So that’s just, that’s a whole deep conversation that we can get into. So,
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (34:38)
Yeah, we probably should have a, I mean, we could talk about that on my, when you come onto mine. Cause I, listen, that’s like a huge topic. And it’s so funny cause it’s like, I joke around. I’m serious, but not serious at the same time. But like I use my kids, my kids are like my personal research, like around this, like around these topics. And you know, what is it that I’m doing? And you know, I’m not perfect. I’m not a perfect parent. I don’t.
Brittney (34:42)
Yes!
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (35:02)
paint myself that way. I’ve had in a past relationship, I had, you know, even things said to me as a parent, like you should be doing blah, blah. Like, and it’s like, oh, I didn’t, you know, even as an educator, I was like, dang, I’m not doing what I should be doing 100%. And, you know, kind of correcting myself and my behaviors. But technology, you know, I even noticed a big difference between my eight year old and my 11 year old. Because if you think about the time when it came,
Brittney (35:04)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (35:32)
COVID hit and my son was right at starting kindergarten when that happened. And he went from a week of in-person kindergarten to now virtual everything. And then we see why our fourth graders or third graders have the impact of very low scores because you think back to 2020, 1920 school year, this is where everything came. But then you also see a very big addiction pattern
Brittney (35:45)
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (36:02)
And so, you know, you even say like you teach three year olds, but if you notice like three year olds are given if you go to a restaurant, if you go see kids in the car, like they have it to their face. And it could be educational. Great.
Brittney (36:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yep.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (36:17)
even the over excessive use of screen time does affect brain chemistry and causes things like ADHD. Like it goes into health and even for us as adults, you know, I think for us in our generation, like we were kind of eased into it and now we’re just kind of used to it. Like this is what it is, but we have the cognitive function to step away, read a paper, you know, physical things, touch, write. Like I have to write stuff down. I’m a writer. And but our kids and even my 11 year old
Brittney (36:23)
It does.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (36:47)
You know, she, they’d rather be on a tablet. Like they’d rather.
be looking at a screen, like even then going outside and playing. It’s like, no. And so you take the, you know, if my son has a punishment and he gets his electronic taken away, like he has a very big, drastic, overarching response to that, like not happy versus my daughter. You know, she’ll be upset for a minute, but then she’ll kind of, you know, be okay. But those younger kids that throw tantrums, I just saw a video about this 12 year old boy who literally tore his mother’s house up.
Brittney (36:55)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (37:22)
I tell you every glass thing broken in their house over a cell phone being taken away It can be very like an issue if you don’t mitigate and monitor What your kids are doing what they’re watching the content even if it says it’s a kids channel
Brittney (37:27)
Wow.
Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (37:38)
You sit there and watch it. Did you see the commercial that popped up if you’re watching YouTube streams? Like it’s not kid friendly. And I talk about this in one of my podcasts real quick was that my daughter was using this app. It’s very similar to Instagram, but it’s using avatars. And one story short, she had like 1.4 thousand followers. And I’m just like, wait, what is this? Like.
Brittney (37:39)
Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Oh wow. Yeah.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (38:03)
Yeah, so we can break that down later, but I’m just like, this is not okay, this is not safe, you don’t know who you’re talking to, you know 10 people, like this is not, you know, so we have to be careful. And just because our kids are in high school, like that bullying, all of the things, like it’s starting younger and younger. You’ll see these kids maturing, I don’t think they’re maturing, they just are being exposed to things way too early. And we’re not gonna be able to control everything, but you need to have those conversations with your kids.
Brittney (38:06)
Oh my. Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
It is. Yes. Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (38:33)
and actually look at their stuff and talk to them through those things. And yeah, it’s important.
Brittney (38:34)
Yes.
Mm hmm. It is. It’s incredibly important. Exactly what you said, kids are being exposed to more technology, younger and younger and younger. And so it’s important then that we’re monitoring that as you know, the adults in the room. And because sometimes there’s, you know, we’re not saying to like, hide things from your kids completely, right? But there’s some things that do need further nuance that at certain ages, they’re not
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (38:46)
Mm-hmm.
No.
Brittney (39:03)
able to comprehend the nuance of certain materials and certain conversations. And so sometimes it’s like, we, you need an adult to kind of guide you through that and meet an adult to know where you are developmentally, what you can understand and what you can’t understand. You know, it’ll, it surprises me sometimes I’ll see kids, you know, coming into preschool and again, they’re, you know, three, four or five years old. And they’ll be talking about a certain movie that they watch like, Oh, I watched this movie and you know, they might have older siblings or, or something like that. And I’m thinking about that. And I’m like, that’s
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (39:08)
Right.
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm.
Brittney (39:33)
is kind of violent, you know, especially for them to see it at that age. It’s their brains aren’t ready yet for that type of materials. And they’re not ready to like kind of understand that because their brains are so black and white. They don’t quite understand nuance and don’t quite understand these certain things. And so there are certain conversations that need to be had certain.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (39:36)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Brittney (39:55)
certain things that need to be put in place first before we start even thinking about seeing those things. And it can sound like you’re being a helicopter parent, like, oh, it’s just a movie, it’s fine, but it’s like, okay, but I’m looking at it from a developmental stage, right, and looking at, you know, knowing who that child is and can they handle this information and are they ready for these conversations? Like they might just not be there developmentally. So it might just be, hmm, we’re not gonna watch this movie. We’re not gonna watch this show. And.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (40:00)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Brittney (40:24)
It does take a lot because like you said with YouTube, you can put on a YouTube video, but then the ads, I’ve seen some crazy YouTube ads. I’ve seen some crazy ads on Instagram. Like.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (40:29)
No.
I have a condom ad on a kid’s, a condom ad and a sexual ad on a kid’s YouTube plan. Like what? Like, you know, come on guys. Like, but that’s the thing. And they sneak it in and I say they, whoever controls what it does, the content gets snuck into these videos with their kids. And it’s scary. And even just what I saw, you know, if her dad had not said anything to me about that, I don’t know how.
Brittney (40:40)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (41:00)
took for me because I knew about the app but I didn’t I thought it was like really you know
Brittney (41:05)
Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (41:06)
friendly and then I like saw him like, oh no. And so you know, you don’t know what you don’t know. You really have to sit and watch things with them. And some of this stuff like just teaches really like strange behaviors and you know, social media influencer, you are called an influencer for a reason, because you are influencing something. So you got to think if kids are like, you know, my like Mr. Beast is one, some like a lot of my
Brittney (41:12)
Yes.
Yeah, you are.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (41:34)
the people that are playing Minecraft and think but just the conversations they’re having in general while they’re playing the game it’s just like wait what did they just say like and then but this is tailored for kids you know what I mean so I try to you know really watch that a statistic that I shared on my platform was
Brittney (41:35)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (41:54)
children 8 to 18 spend seven and a half hours a day in front of a screen for entertainment alone and that’s not even including their school their school day and you know and all of the successive screen time can equal up to about 114 days a year so think about that 114 days a year we’re sitting and adults too we’re sitting in front of a screen and what that effect does to the human body what it does to our brain especially the younger they are and they’re developing
Brittney (42:00)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (42:23)
So when we’re talking about developing personalities, developing characteristics of who they are as a person, that’s going to start developing in their brain, and they kind of stay that way. And of course, it leads to a lot of things like sleep disturbance, ADHD, and other behavioral disorders. And my son is autistic, and I talk about him a lot. He is high functioning, but he sometimes misconstrues social cues. And
Brittney (42:36)
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (42:51)
I’ve noticed and recognized he finds things very funny when it’s not, but then I heard this show he was watching one day and I’m like, I get it now. So it’s like, and then I had to cut that out, you know? So it’s like, you have to kind of understand your children and some of our kids are a little crazy and some of them like really are like ways that we don’t want them to be, but it’s like, are they developing this themselves naturally or are they being influenced by what they’re selecting to watch and play on?
Brittney (42:51)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yep.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (43:22)
Yeah, no gun games for my kid, you know, no Grand Theft Auto, like none of this stuff. Like, no, we don’t play these types of things like graphics and stuff like that. So we do have to be careful and that’s kind of a big thing. I talk about it real quick, you know, with the kids being on technology all day at school and I know you did this. I hate.
Brittney (43:25)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (43:44)
being behind this computer. Like I love podcasting, but with lights in our eyes all day and just like, and there’s some days where I’m just like, oh, I don’t want to open this computer. I don’t want to stare at the screen at my job. I have three laptops, you know, three computers. It’s just like, it’s overwhelming. And
Brittney (43:47)
I’m going to go to bed.
Yeah.
Yep.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (44:00)
So you think about that for an adult, how overwhelming it can be, but just imagine, you know, a child in a classroom with fluorescent lights, with a screen in front of their face, even high school students, you’re going from one class to the other just to open a laptop. You know, where’s the hands-on? Where’s the physical, tactile, kinesthetic?
Brittney (44:04)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (44:22)
components of learning. There’s so many, there’s auditory, visual, kinesthetic, all of these different ways of learning, but we are now in this age very heavily reliant on technology. And when I ran my micro school…
Brittney (44:23)
Mm-hmm.
Goose.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (44:38)
with my teachers, I encouraged, like, because we were with a program that did require a certain set of hours on the online curriculum. And so I said, okay, listen, you just use this online curriculum, right? But we’re gonna use this as supplement to some physical workbooks.
Brittney (44:47)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (44:55)
pen to paper these kids can’t write like you can’t read anything they’re saying why because they’re not practicing handwriting skills they’re on a computer typing they can’t even type because they’re not even learning the proper typing skills you know what I mean so it’s like you have to you have to give them pen to paper um and I advocate pen to paper um I’m um
Brittney (44:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yes!
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (45:16)
a kinesthetic and a visual learner. So if I’m writing something down and like a couple weeks go by, I’m like, I know I wrote that down and I visually remember writing it down and that’s just me. And I know a lot of people are like that, but it’s like, if you get these kids out of these habits, they’re not ever going to pick them up as they’re older. And I do fall back on my fundamentals of learning. And even as I was teaching, like, oh, I remember this worked for me when I was a kid. So let me kind of bring it back. And so, you know, I’m very old school in that sense. I don’t rely on technology.
Brittney (45:25)
Yep.
Mm.
Yes.
Hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (45:46)
can at home, you know, you bring out those flashcards and games and teaching them to bake and cook, like use fundamental skills to teach academics, like all of those things. And we’re getting away from that, unfortunately, in schools. So, so much to talk on that one.
Brittney (45:51)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yes, yes. And it’s, yeah, it’s so tricky just navigating the tech space, especially in education, because as you mentioned before, if you try to take away the phones, you’re going to get a lot of resistance from the students, you’re going to get resistance from some parents as well, because they like, I want to be able to keep in contact with my students, because, you know, obviously, in United States schools, there’s a lot of concern about safety in schools, understandably so. And so,
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (46:25)
Yeah.
Brittney (46:31)
you know, students want to have their phones and parents want them to have their phones so that they can get direct contact with them. The downside of that is, is that students are constantly on their phone and like that statistic that you said, they’re constantly just doing things on their phone and growing from it. It’s just, it’s trying to find that balance because it is so overstimulating and it does take so much of your mental energy that, you know.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (46:37)
Yeah.
Thanks for watching!
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Brittney (46:58)
Like I, I agree. So I do so much work on my computer just for my own work. And then trainings, I do a lot of virtual trainings. Um, and the podcast I’m editing and doing all this stuff. And the other day I just sat outside with a book and I was like, Oh my goodness, like a physical book. I was like, this is amazing. I haven’t done this in so long. Just sit in the sun with my physical pages. I’m like, wow. I like, I felt relaxed. Like you think I’m going to watch a show. I’m going to do this. I’m going to watch some TikToks for a couple of minutes. Like I’m going to relax.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (47:12)
Yeah?
Uh huh. Yeah.
Brittney (47:26)
But it doesn’t really relax you because you’re just getting more stimulated.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (47:30)
Yep, absolutely, you are and you do and people wonder why their kids can’t sleep and I ask them well
what time do you make them get off their electronics before they are winding down for bed? Because a lot of kids, you know, their minds are still going and even my daughter tells me she has a hard time falling asleep sometimes and it’s like, well what did you do to relax your mind before we lay down? And I did get out of the habit, I do need to do better myself with that, but just making them, you know, read again before bed. Usually they’re reading other times of the day but…
Brittney (47:37)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (48:02)
I think moving that more towards like the bedtime, because again, they’re away from the screen, or my son, I started a bed habit, and sorry to his future girlfriend, but he’s gonna be listening to like meditation music his entire life at bedtime. But he, you know.
Brittney (48:07)
Mm-hmm.
Hehehe
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (48:18)
uses that to kind of wind down and listen to music before he goes to sleep and to try to like relax himself and you know like a calming environment and the same thing like I My kids hardly use my trampoline in the our trampoline in the backyard So I use it as my beach chair like I just go out there and just lay down in the Sun and take like 10 minute and you know just Relax, but then you think about that right we need this as adults, but high school middle school. They don’t have
Brittney (48:20)
Yeah.
Yeah.
There you go.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (48:46)
breaks to go outdoors unless it’s gym. And that’s in a whole nother discussion, but it’s like those things are not integrated in their day to day. And it does lead to a lot of…
Brittney (48:49)
No. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (48:59)
over-stimulation and stress, and especially if they’re in a learning environment and they can’t digress or take a break between, or just recoup from one content to the other, that transition time that can be rough for our kids. Just being mindful of those things as well.
Brittney (49:02)
Yes.
Yeah.
Absolutely, absolutely. We put a lot of stress on students and those transitions and they get in the classroom and we’re just like, okay, let’s do this now. It’s like, okay, but they were just in the classroom for like 45 minutes to an hour and then they just transitioned to this. And so it makes sense, right? That they might be a little wound up, that they might be a little like, you know, going stir crazy. So like building in that activity to like, okay, let’s take some breaths. Let’s wiggle it out. Let’s do what we gotta do to get us to a space where we’re ready to learn.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (49:37)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well.
Absolutely, and you think adults like a woman, you know, when all of us teachers are in conferences or if you’re a person that goes to conferences all the time, if you’re an all-day eight-hour PD by time you get to that last like one or two sections of the day, like you’re done, like it’s you’re over it. Like even if the content is really interesting and you know, and I always try to put ourselves in these kids shoes because we expect so much out of them.
Brittney (49:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Yeah.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (50:13)
But it’s like, do we expect this from ourselves or can we do it ourselves as adults? And you gotta think it’s a lot harder for them to do, especially when we’re talking about managing emotions and all those things and yeah, it’s a lot. It can be a lot.
Brittney (50:13)
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Mm.
It’s a lot. It’s so true. I know we kind of got on the technology piece and we went there and I loved that. Oh, no, it’s fine. I think I think that was a great conversation. It was meaningful. It needed to happen. But how do you reimagine education?
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (50:33)
It’s sorry, see we got away, it’s okay.
That’s a great question.
Interesting. So I saw, I don’t know if you’ve seen this, there’s like a meme going out where the guy’s like mopping the ocean and then to try to like clean up the ocean, right? But he’s mopping it and wringing it out in the bucket. And the caption says, this is educators trying to clean up the education system. And I kind of laughed, like I was like.
Brittney (51:05)
Yeah.
Thank you.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (51:15)
That’s actually a really great depiction of what’s happening. But my response to that was, we don’t need this ocean anymore. We need a new ocean. And so when I say reimagining, I do feel like we need a reset. I don’t know what that looks like and how to get there 100%. But I just know because of years and decades of issues in schools.
even leading to the new policies and things that are happening on a federal level around education.
down to funding. It doesn’t make sense to me. And things that don’t make sense to me actually kind of aggravate me because it’s so simple, right? It could be so simple if we just allocate equal amount of funds per pupil, regardless of where they’re at, make sure your teachers are paid, make sure you have current up-to-date reflective curriculum for everybody.
Brittney (51:53)
Mm.
Yeah.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (52:15)
your teachers are certified, all the very basic foundations. And it’s hard to play catch up of decades of problems. And so for me, I feel like it just needs a whole reset and set the standard high. The standard is very low right now. And we get compared all the time to other nations and how they’re performing. And even within our own nation here and different demographics of students and how they’re performing, if we’re teaching all the same,
Brittney (52:21)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (52:45)
right? Or if we’re following specific curriculum that is supposed to be the best for our kids, right? Because these are what schools are picking, like, why are we still seeing these negative trends in education? Why do we still have all of these problems? And so to me, it is structurally a reset. You need to get the right people in place. I don’t, I’m not ageist to say that, just a caveat, but I do feel that people that have older mindsets that can’t adjust with time
Brittney (52:47)
Yep.
Thanks for watching!
Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (53:15)
are the people that are hurting us the most in holding back, kind of keeping traditional ways. And you know, everything comes down to money. And unfortunately, when money is involved, politics are involved. And I don’t feel that education is the place to have these conversations. We should be educating our kids.
Brittney (53:19)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (53:34)
all of our kids and there should not be these issues with teachers and even me, even me in my current role, I shouldn’t need two jobs, okay? I shouldn’t, like we dedicate so much time to what we’re doing and it’s a simple fix. It is. If you really think about it, how simple it could be, but for some reason they like the problems, the drama, and we’re gonna just keep having it. And so at the end of the day, I think that reimagining is…
Brittney (53:36)
Mm-hmm.
It has.
Mm-hmm.
It is. Yeah.
Hehe
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (54:03)
is, you know, it’s a structural reset and it could be scary for some people, but I do think it’s fundamentally important because, yeah, it’s a lot. And I think also on the flip side of that is just to give equal access for everything to everybody. And I don’t think we would have nearly as many problems as we see today.
Brittney (54:09)
Mm-hmm.
Yes, you had so many beautiful gems in all of that. I am here for a total education reset. I think we just need to be really intentional about our education system and what we actually want to see from it. I think sometimes that’s gotten lost. I think there’s a lot of money to be made with the school system being the exact way that it is. There’s a lot of money to be made with the prison industrial complex.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (54:31)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
Brittney (54:54)
there’s a lot of money to be made in these really big aspects of education. And in those pursuits of, you know, capitalism, basically, we’ve lost our way in education and we’re failing so many students, so much potential is being failed because we’re not focusing on the right thing. And we’re not focusing on what students actually want and what they need. And being able like education is such a beautiful thing because we’re learning so much about it.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (55:04)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yep.
Brittney (55:24)
on a regular basis, right? Our best practices are constantly changing. All right, our understanding of how people learn is constantly changing. We’re still understanding things about how the brain works, right? And so as we keep learning and growing, we need our education system to also keep learning and growing and growing with the times, growing with the students that we have today, not the students we had in the 50s, the students that we have in our hands right now today. What do they need? What do they want? What is the future looking like for them?
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (55:25)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Brittney (55:53)
and being really intentional about how we’re approaching that. So yes, I couldn’t agree absolutely more. Just total, total reset. Let’s just, let’s just take a pause and start over.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (55:56)
Absolutely.
That’s, I, yeah. Because you would think how many things would you have to fix? Like, why are we gonna keep fixing? They don’t wanna fix it. So let’s just start over, like, let’s start over. And I think the biggest piece is listening to the students. They will tell you exactly what it is that you need to know. And I’ve, I wanna go now, but I had a really prime example of my, of 18 seniors advocating for something and.
Brittney (56:11)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (56:30)
and their senior last year of their school career before they went to college telling somebody, the principal, what they wanted to see out of their education and it wasn’t given to them. And it discouraged future teachers. And so, you know, it’s like, we have to be very careful when we’re playing with money.
Brittney (56:35)
Mm.
Mmm. Yeah.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (56:50)
in association to education, and this is why people have so much negativity when it comes to education, and why we fight over it anyways, because it is about the money, unfortunately. But, you know, hopefully we’ll see what that looks like. But again, I think at the end of the day, parents just have to do what’s right for them. If it’s homeschooling, if it’s charter, if it’s public education, you know, do what’s right for your child.
Brittney (56:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that’s good.
Mm-hmm.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (57:14)
I just, you know, I think I advocate for all my literacy people. Just make sure they can read. That’s fundamental, you know, like.
Brittney (57:20)
Yeah. Yes. Yes, please.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (57:23)
That’s the basic of everything, as long as they can read. Because I’m tired of seeing these statistics of our kids not being able to read, of adults not being able to read. Like, it’s 2024, we have so many resources, what is happening in the early elementary years that we’re not educating our kids appropriately? Or if it’s the parents, the students, what is it? You know, but we need to figure something out because this is going to not look pretty for us in the next decade or two with this current situation.
Brittney (57:26)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
So much resources.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yes.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (57:53)
current trend in education.
Brittney (57:56)
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I did a whole podcast on literacy and just exploring that. And it’s, it’s a whole black hole that we start going down and we’re like, but why are we anyways, I won’t get on that, but it’s still down. But yes, we need reading, we need writing skills for our youth. It’s going into college, they don’t have reading and writing skills. And that’s a whole other conversation as well. But I want to thank you so much for joining me. It was such a pleasure.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (58:06)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Brittney (58:22)
Beautiful conversation and I learned so much. Thank you for bringing in the stats. You brought receipts. So thank you.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (58:24)
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Yeah, that’s the one thing you’ll get from me is the data. I love data, so we can talk about that next time.
Brittney (58:34)
Yes, yes, I loved all about that. Where can my audience find you? Where can they see your podcast? Where are you hanging out on the Internet?
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (58:44)
Absolutely. So you’ll find me at the virtual so educator. And so I am on Instagram, Facebook, and then my podcast stream on YouTube. So it’s all the same tag name. So you’ll find me there. And I hope you guys will join me. I also do sign ups for my podcast. So if you’re an educator or parent or anybody that just wants to talk on a topic of education, you guys can join me on my platform as well.
Brittney (58:56)
Mm.
Mm-hmm. Yay!
That is so beautiful. Thank you so much for joining me and sharing all of your beautiful knowledge and just beautiful essence and energy with me. I just loved having you here. Ha ha ha.
Kylie Elizabeth, M.A.Ed- The Virtuoso Educator (59:17)
Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for getting it. It’s only 8 or 9 15 now here. And so thank you for getting me up and energized this morning to start my day. Yes. Now I’m going to be like, oh, we would just talk about it. I’m going to be thinking about a lot of these things today. But yes, thank you. I appreciate being here.
Brittney (59:27)
Best way to start your day. Hehehehe.
Yes, yes, me too. Absolutely, thank you so much.
Brittney (59:40)
Thank you so much for tuning into Conscious Pathways. Don’t forget to like, share, and follow Conscious Pathways wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave a rating or review. It really does help the podcast to grow and reach more listeners just like you. You can find more Conscious Pathways on YouTube, on Instagram, a little bit on TikTok, but not that much.
And you can also follow me on LinkedIn. It’s just Brittany Carey. So if you’re curious on what I talk about over there, you can come join me or you can find out more information on consciouspathways .org. I would love to hear from you. So please just follow and like and comment. I love getting feedback from people who listen and just people who have questions. So feel free to talk at me. I love it. And until next time, don’t forget to navigate your conscious journey with courage and kindness.
and I’ll see you then for more transformative conversations. Bye.
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