Dan: 0:00

Yaronda Kilgo is an elementary school teacher. Last year, she taught kindergarten. She says the first few days of school are really important.

Yaronda: 0:09

The first day is kind of like a shock. Like, don't know what's happening. I don't know what's going on. It's normally the second day that it's like, oh, no. I gotta go back. And there's...

Dan: 0:20

That wasn't just a one off thing.

Yaronda: 0:22

Right. It wasn't just like a fun day. I have to go here five days a week now. Oh my the first day is kind of like they're understanding what's going on and the second day. It is like crazy town, crying, upset, wondering why I gotta stay.

Dan: 0:36

So how do you get a group of kids, some of whom have never been to school before, to buy-in to the whole idea? Luckily, Yaronda has a superpower.

Yaronda: 0:45

I love teaching kids. So as a result of that, I think they get it. I'm gonna keep it real with you. We're gonna have a blast. I'm gonna teach you a song. I'm gonna dance. I'm gonna be silly. I wanna laugh. I love to hear kids laugh. I think that's what they remember most.

Dan: 1:03

And she says it doesn't take them too long to get comfortable. Sometimes too comfortable.

Yaronda: 1:09

Kindergartners are gonna tell you every single thing. They will gas you up. It is, oh, I love your shoes, Ms. Kilgo. And the very next minute, it can be, are you pregnant? And pat my belly. They just say what comes to their brain. It's I'm comfortable, so I'm gonna laugh. I'm gonna snort. I'm gonna ask my teacher the questions, I'm gonna let my friends know how I feel because this is my home.

Dan: 1:41

I'm Dan Heath and this is What It's Like to Be. In every episode, we walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession, a Christmas tree farmer, a marine biologist, a TV meteorologist. We wanna know what they do all day at work. Today we'll ask Yaronda Kilgo what it's like to be an elementary school teacher. We'll talk about the teacher who inspired her to teach, what it's like to tell parents something they don't want to hear about their kids, and what happened when raw sewage flooded her classroom, stay with us. Yaronda said her favorite lessons to teach are the ones that combine literacy and math so kids start to see that they go together.

Yaronda: 2:31

I love literacy. I just love it so much. And any part of my day, always try to incorporate it, but math is my favorite way to show my student that you... kindergarten, first, second, whatever, that reading is everywhere. So my favorite, favorite standards in the whole wide world are my math standards where we are teaching them story problems. And in my story problems, I love to incorporate those irregular high frequency words, which are words that don't follow the rules like the. We know t says "t", h says "h", and e says "e". It don't say any of those things in the word "the". So teaching them, right? And that's just so crazy... The English language is not crazy, but once you understand the nuances of it, it's phenomenal. But we're teaching those students strategies for words that don't follow the rules. And so when they see it in story problems, when they see it in math, they're like... and I'm like, see? Teaching them how to read their story problems and understand that we need these words and these spelling patterns that we've taught and that translate into understanding math. I mean, it blows their mind. Teaching students nouns, and we say, like, a noun is a person or a place, thing or an animal. And then we put those into the math for our word problems, it blows them away. They're like, wait a minute, nouns? We can do nouns and math? I'm like, yes. So anyway, I can put that into math and literacy and making those connections, literacy and science and making those connections, it's a win win and it sticks.

Dan: 4:02

What is different about the way elementary school kids learn versus adults?

Yaronda: 4:07

Me, speaking for me, like, I think I'm a kindergartner at heart because I love kinesthetic learning. I love whole brain approach. Nobody wants to stand up and have a teacher say, today, kids, we're going to read about. No. I'm like, who are the characters? Like, that's just how I learn. So I learn through being engaged, being active, hand motions, songs, rhyme. And I think that's the reason why teachers and adults hate staff meetings and meetings so much. Right?

Dan: 4:35

Yeah. We're supposed to be mature enough to just sit there and listen. But in reality, we never really change.

Yaronda: 4:40

Never really change. Like, we, my eyes pop up immediately when somebody starts rhyming or ask us to stand up. And I think I enjoy the realness of teaching in an elementary school because they still love that.

Dan: 4:54

I remember in one of my daughter's elementary school classes, like, one of the rewards was like fifteen seconds of silliness. And it was like just a huge I mean, they were psyched if they earned the 15 and I'm just thinking that is the sweetest thing that that's where their heads are at at that stage. It's just being given license to make weird noises or flap their limbs around like that's enough.

Yaronda: 5:19

Right. It's so funny because I'll tell my kids I'm they we're always in competition with each other. And I'm like, whoever is the vocab hero today, you're gonna get ten extra seconds of recess. And we don't teach time in kindergarten. So they're like, ten extra seconds? Woah. Yay. Ten extra seconds. And it's so cool to see. But because my classroom is was Pete the Cat, and it was also a superhero themed, they would love getting Pete pellets. So and a Pete pellet would be like one jelly bean or one Smartie. So any little thing right now they just love or five extra minutes of recess is a whole class or popsicle outside. It's just little things. They just love to know that they'll be rewarded for hard work, which is what we also care about.

Dan: 6:08

What is a typical day like for you just in in time terms? Like, when when do you get to school and when do you leave and do you take work home and all that stuff?

Yaronda: 6:16

Oh, yeah. I mean, please, we should find some way to pay teachers more. On a good day, I can get in at about six-thirty. The bell rings at seven. Students typically go eat breakfast and then come in. Man, when I first started teaching, I was leaving with custodians at night. I will have custodians come to me and ask me, what time we leaving, Ms. Kilgo? I would literally go pick my daughter up from school. We would go eat, spend some time together, and I would come back to work around four or five and stay sometimes with custodians. It just depends. The beginning of the year is a lot more stressful. 9 o'clock.

Dan: 6:53

Oh my gosh.

Yaronda: 6:54

I'm telling you, it just depended. And, again, it goes back to all you have 21 kindergartners, and of those 21 kindergartners, you have 10 different needs going on at one time in literacy. So it's my job to make sure I structure my day in a way that every student gets what they need from the time they walk in to the time they leave. Even homework was differentiated. You might get something totally different than another student based on where you are. Towards the middle and the end of the year, you're tired. Right? I might get in around six-forty-five, and I might leave around three, three-thirty. Because now we're we're refreshing and we're reviewing, so I've built a lot of those strategies and skills and those resources in my classroom for the whole year, so now I don't need to stay as late.

Dan: 7:37

I suspect everybody listening has heard about teacher burnout as an issue and, you know, all the consequences of that. In your opinion, what's the biggest cause of that burnout?

Yaronda: 7:50

The workload.

Dan: 7:52

Yeah.

Yaronda: 7:52

Definitely the workload and how much you care and invest who you are and what you believe in into your students. We want all students to be successful and to be able to thrive in this world. And then you have so many needs, even personal needs, students that need additional resources at home. It never turns off. We have spouses that can come home from work, and they don't have to worry about it's nothing on their brain. They're pretty okay. We come home, and we worry about Johnny who has limited resources at home, and you're trying to support and connect them with different stakeholders in the community. You have students that have missed several days of school, so you're trying to catch them up. You have lesson plans. You have curriculum night coming up. You have homework that you need to check. You need grades that you need to put in. Lesson plans that you need to complete. Anchor charts you need to do. It it never ends, and you feel kinda guilty when you say Saturday, I am going to do nothing. But in the back of your mind, the stress builds because that means all day Sunday, that's something that you need to do, or you need to come in extremely early on Monday to get it done. The work of a teacher is never done. And no matter how many years I've taught every year, it is more work put on our plates for sure.

Dan: 9:08

Do you feel like you have to wear many different hats in this job?

Yaronda: 9:12

Man, yes. I am a nurse. I am a counselor. I am a food nutritionist. I am all the things a parent at sometimes, a comforter, a supporter, a leader, a learner. We wear all the hats with our students, especially right now, we have nurses that are working at two and three schools. So we have a nurse two days a week. So you have a nosebleed, and you have all the things, and you're trying to support students. Counselors, well, if we share counselors two or three different schools. So again, a lot of times, no one is there to support. You have to do all the things and try to make your best judgment on a lot of different things.

Dan: 9:54

I mean, teaching a room full of kids how to pronounce letter sounds and do basic math and and how to manage themselves, I mean, that is a hard job. And then when you layer on top of that, the fact that they have radically different, family backgrounds, they have radically different bases of knowledge, some of them have a peanut allergy, some of them scream and throw things every time you change the subject, some of them don't speak English. I mean, when you layer on that stuff, it just becomes an impossible job. I mean...

Yaronda: 10:29

It really is.

Dan: 10:30

I just admire you and your colleagues so much that you have to be the front lines of dealing with that much variability.

Yaronda: 10:38

Yes. It is so true. I'm talking to you now. I think I might have to go ahead and put my resignation in because you're you're helping me...

Dan: 10:46

I don't know. I'm bumming you out. Oh my god.

Yaronda: 10:51

I'm gonna be like, listen to me, guys. We are doing too much. Yeah. But you're absolutely right.

Dan: 10:56

I just talked to this podcast host...

Yaronda: 10:56

Yeah, I talked to this podcast host and I'm out. I'm out. You gotta listen to it too. We all gotta take a stand. But seriously, like, we do so much and because we're so used to it, I think that's why now you see more than ever, no my daughter was at, new student orientation, and they called it education majors. It was six. Six students. They kept saying, is that all? Is that it? Six students out of the hundreds of students that were at new student orientation. What we're seeing in my county specifically is that more than ever teachers are coming in that don't have teaching degrees. We're losing our teachers with teachers degrees to go into real estate and all of the things where they have less burnout and they make more money.

Dan: 11:39

A while back on the show, I talked to a daycare owner and we had a funny exchange about the factor with little kids. You know, how hard it is to keep things hygienic and how they're getting sick all the time. So I asked Yaronda about the same thing.

Yaronda: 11:54

Listen, it came to a point one time that I had to put on gloves just to tie shoes, and I said, you know what? You're gonna tuck or tie. You're gonna tuck it or you're gonna learn to tie it because I'm done. But I think especially in kindergarten, oh my goodness. You touch something wet and you're like, my god. I have no clue what it is. What it is. What is it? What is it? What is it? I kept hand sanitizer around my lanyard, like, on my lanyard.

Dan: 12:16

Is there anything that that the kiddos do that really grosses you out even after all these years?

Yaronda: 12:22

They they just so nasty. Right? So you always you always have and we have bathrooms in our classrooms, and it's like, somebody didn't flush the toilet, and you go in and there's tissue everywhere, and it's just, like, all kind of mess in the toilet. I'm like, why? Why y'all? Like, come on. Or you you will have some students that will blow their nose and then put the tissue on the table or the desk, and I'm like, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh. Or they won't even use tissue because they're so engaged in what they're doing or playing outside that they'll just like swipe it on their jacket.

Dan: 12:56

But a jacket used as a Kleenex is not even close to the grossest thing she's witnessed in her classroom. That honor goes to a day she will never forget.

Yaronda: 13:06

We were smelling a little something funky, but I taught in a pod and it was four classrooms connected by a bathroom. So all four classrooms, the girls had a bathroom that all four classrooms the girls would use, and all four classrooms in the boys' bathroom, the boys would use. They were saying, like, it's water on the floor and blah blah blah. So we ended up contacting our custodians, and they came in, And they were like, you can't use the bathrooms. You need to go to gang bathrooms, which are bathrooms situated in our schools that anybody can go in, and there's several stalls. So we were like, okay. So I'm teaching, and the kids are going out now. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Something like, what is that? Like, I don't understand it. So I get up and I walk over, and it is literally poo flowing down my classroom out into the hallway. And I have a brand new just bought listen. I'm still paying on Affirm on this 2024-2025 rug from Amazon. Okay? Beautiful alphabet rug. It is soaking wet with just poo. Okay? So I had a poop cruise. And I said to myself, like, oh my goodness.

Dan: 14:14

I mean, how is that not like a shut down the school kind of thing?

Yaronda: 14:17

It was the end of the day, so it was like they were able to kinda go outside and then transition into the buses. But what happened is is that one of the classrooms, like, the toilet got clogged, and it had it's it was a mess, and so I guess it just overflowed and it went all the way through. But I went and I went to the store, I got all of these little little shot cups. And I filled them up with Fabuloso to kinda get the smells out. So I just, like, the night before I put all of these cups out to kinda get the smell. I had to move everything, clean everything with the custodians. It was terrible, but my rug was ruined. It was nothing to be done, but luckily, my wonderful principal, she ordered a new rug for me. So. That was, it was dreadful. Dreadful.

Dan: 15:07

So an update here. You remember in the last episode with a humanitarian worker, Grace Jackson, we announced a fundraiser for the organization she works for which is called GiveDirectly. And folks, you responded. The donations from just our show, including the match from me and another GiveDirectly donor, have just passed $25,000. Amazing. I appreciate your generosity so much. And if you haven't had a chance to donate yet, feel free to join the party. That link is still givedirectly.org slash what it's like. That's in the show notes. This is the last episode where I'm gonna plug this, fundraising campaign, so I just wanna say thanks for making it happen. In a world beset with bad news, we created some good news here. I'm thinking of that family in Rwanda who very, very soon, because of you, will get a ping on their mobile phones that tells them, boom, your life has changed. That leaking roof is fixable now. Your child has the money they need to enroll in school again. You did that folks. You made that happen. And with that, let's get back to the show. Yaronda told me about some of the teachers that had a big impact on her growing up. One of them was Ms. Jordan, her high school cheerleading coach.

Yaronda: 16:40

She would not let me let up. She was really really hard on me and I I had my daughter in high school and she had really tough conversations with me about you do not give up. You do not stop. I see so much potential in you. I want you to fulfill your dreams. Don't let this stop you. I will never forget how she instilled in me resilience and perseverance.

Dan: 17:04

Mhmm.

Yaronda: 17:05

But the teacher that I remember the most was Ms. Robinson. She was my second grade teacher, and she did look like me. And I will never forget it was a time when my mom worked second and third shift. She did the best she could. She had her first child at 12, and we really struggled in a lot of different ways. And we had snack time where it would be graham crackers or something on the tables. And we were allowed to take one, but it was a Friday, and I know I my mom had to work, and my sister and brother were taking care of me, and I wanted some extra snacks to kinda hold me over for the weekend, and I took more than I was supposed to. And I looked over at Ms. Robinson, and she saw me. And I immediately got nervous. I'm like, she's gonna say something in front of all of my friends. She's gonna call me out. She's gonna call me a thief. She said nothing. She said nothing to me. I'm I'm not gonna cry. She said nothing to me, and so we went on about our day. We went to recess. We went to, related arts, which is where you go to music, science, those kind of things. We came back. We went to lunch. We came back, and the end of the day happened. And I'm nervous all day. I'm thinking she's gonna say something to me. She's gonna pull me to the side. How do I address this? At the end of the day, I went to my book bag, and it was it was a lot heavier than it normally is. And I opened it up, and it was fruit snacks and juice boxes and graham crackers and peanut butter crackers and all the things in there. And she never once said anything to me about me taking those graham crackers, but instead, she chose to show kindness and connect with me on another level as a second grade student. And every Friday from then on when I would go to my book bag, it would be different snacks and food for me to carry home. And I will never forget Ms. Robinson. She never, heard this story. She never heard the impact she had on me. She's no longer with us, but that is a true testament to a public school educator. Little moments plant seeds in our students that they will never forget. And if it was some way for me to thank her, I really would. And how I chose to do it is to give back to our public schools. So I will be forever grateful for what she instilled in me that day and every Friday of my time in her classroom.

Dan: 19:27

That's in just incredible compassion Mhmm. And responsiveness. And I and I know that experience must have made you such a a more empathetic and and caring teacher for the students that you serve.

Yaronda: 19:41

Absolutely. And it helps me look in a different lens because we have all of these rules. And sometimes, does it even matter? I had a student put a hotdog in his hoodie and I could have been like, no. You don't take food out of the cafeteria. I got down and I said to him, like, what is this for? And he said, this is for my little brother at home. And it just resonated so much with me. And I could be, no. We don't do that. Go put that in the trash can. Or I could be like a Ms. Robinson and show that student like, I get it. I understand you. I feel you. I know exactly what you're going through. I was in the same shoe that you're standing in right now, and I got you.

Dan: 20:28

Part of Yaronda's job is to make sure the kids are in the right educational setting for them. And it can be a difficult conversation to tell parents that their child might be better off in a different setting.

Yaronda: 20:42

I've gotten angry parents sometimes that are like, wait a minute. Are you sure? And of of course, just collecting that data and saying having those relationships is it shouldn't be a surprise. Right? Let me show you. This goes back to what we talked about, every time we've met or every time we talk. This is to support your student. This is to get them exactly what they need. This is nothing negative. Because especially in the black community, it can be stigmatized as of, oh, you know, you need extra services and you need this. No. This is a wonderful opportunity for your student to access their learning in the way that they learn best.

Dan: 21:17

What's the hardest conversation you've ever had to have with a parent about their child?

Yaronda: 21:23

Oh, we all cried in this meeting. Admin, me, the parents, this student was in a general education classroom and had serious needs. I mean, I had to sit with her even when she ate because I was scared that she was going to choke. And so the very serious conversation was not only was she gonna be leaving the school that we were in, she was gonna go to a separate setting. With students that have specific needs that could not be met in a general education classroom. So I think having that conversation, she we all cried and cried and cried. She agreed with it, but I think it's a realization of education and schools look different from my daughter that I did not anticipate.

Dan: 22:06

Oh, I see what you're saying. It's like this is the time when probably what she worried about or feared, now we're in that world. Like, I can't really deny it anymore.

Yaronda: 22:18

Right.

Dan: 22:19

Yeah.

Yaronda: 22:19

And how we envision kindergarten and they're gonna go off and thrive and hey, this is going to look different. It's not bad but it can be scary for a parent because, you know, we always think about our students in such the highest light. And when it deviates from our goals and our plans, it can be a scary thing, but she is thriving. They are happy. They think this is the best decision now. But in those moments when reality hits you, you just cry for your expectations, you cry for your child, and you cry for an unknown future now.

Dan: 22:52

Oh, that's well said. What about the other side? Which kids do you look back on and say, you know, I made a huge difference in their lives, like we had a breakthrough when we were together?

Yaronda: 23:05

Oh man. I had one student who's in fourth grade now, She dressed up as me on Character Day. She had her Pete the Cat and her Pete the Cat pointer. She had her little glasses on, and she had her little braids and a little dress. And all day, she was like, you guys will call me Ms. Kilgo. And every time I speak with her mom, we're friends on social media, she'll say, Ms. Kilgo, I just wanna thank you. And she was like, because you instilled on her in her that someone that looks like her can go off and be influential and be impactful. And every year, every time she's asked what does she wanna be when she grows up, she says, I wanna be a teacher like Ms. Kilgo. And that is just something that I just can't I can't even describe the feels that I get from hearing a student say, I wanna be a teacher because we don't hear that that much. And that might change when she sees the salary, but, as of right now, she still wants to be a teacher, and it is because of the time that she spent with me in kindergarten, and it's just an amazing feeling to have.

Dan: 24:06

I have to ask you about this one thing. So I saw a video of you accepting the award for North Carolina Southwest Regional Teacher of the Year. And in your remarks, you described yourself as "extra", and everybody in the room immediately started laughing. Like, what what did you mean by that?

Yaronda: 24:24

I am so extra. And what I mean is that, like, if it is Character Day, I'm decked out. We're gonna eat what that character ate. We're gonna have what that character had. I'm gonna speak in her voice all day. And I'm telling you, some days on the one hundredth day of school, I got a old wig. I got a hunched over. I got a cane, and I Ms. Shilgo. Instead of Ms. Kilgo, I'm her great grandma. And still to this day, I have kids that are like, was that really you, was that really your great grandma? I'm like, that was my great grandma for sure. I'm extra in making sure my students have exactly what they need when they need it. I'm gonna go to your house. I'm gonna celebrate you. If a parent calls me and says they're on the side of the road, I'm gonna be there. If a child says that they're struggling in this regard, I'm gonna go to the store and get what they need. I am very much so extra in everything that I do. Every letter of the week that I teach, I have earrings to go with it. We're gonna eat our shapes. We're gonna eat those letters. We're gonna eat those words. If you come in my room, it's gonna be different. I'm gonna create a song for everything. I'm just over the top in what I do for my students.

Dan: 25:30

So, Yaronda, we always end our episodes with a quick lightning round of questions. Here we go. What's the most insulting thing you could say about an elementary school teacher's work?

Yaronda: 25:42

That we're babysitters. That we don't deserve the pay that we've gone to school for, that we work so hard for.

Dan: 25:50

Who would say that? I've never heard anybody say you don't deserve the pay. You hear that?

Yaronda: 25:56

Oh, yes. Just recently, we had a sick like a walkout for a lot of our teachers in our county because we were promised a $2,000 supplement that was reduced to $1,000 that now they're currently voting on, and a lot of teachers are upset about it. And so WSOC TV picked up on our teachers protesting outside of our central office for Union County Public Schools. And one of the things in the comment said that they knew what they were getting into. They knew that the pay was low. And, really, like, I have to avoid avoid the comments at all costs on some of these things because it is like, no. We deserve a livable wage. Like, we are the only profession that we fight to just get a thousand dollars, which is a supplement that goes across ten months. So you're looking at about $60-$70 dollars a month as an increase, and we're fighting for that. So check the comments is what I would say. Check the comments.

Dan: 26:51

Oh, man. I wish those critics could spend one day in a club because I have done that. In college, I was trying to make some extra money, and I was a substitute teacher, and, you know, of course, they can call you into any classroom. And, you know, I'm 19 or 20 years old. I don't know what I'm doing. And I get called into a first grade classroom, and man, at the end of that day, it was like I had fought a war. I was -

Yaronda: 27:15

Preach.

Dan: 27:16

I was done.

Yaronda: 27:17

Preach.

Dan: 27:18

Yeah. So everybody should have that experience.

Yaronda: 27:21

Preach. I agree. Those comments will not exist anymore. They'd be paying more.

Dan: 27:26

What is a tool specific to your profession that you really like using?

Yaronda: 27:31

Oh, this this has gotta be so basic. I would say Flair pens.

Dan: 27:36

Flair pen. What does that mean? What's flair pen?

Yaronda: 27:38

Flair pens are certain type of pins that this is where it comes into being extra. You have some teachers that are kinda bougie, and we don't write, you know, sometimes you just get it we'll accept everything, like the little dollar store pens, the little ballpoint pens, but we really love Flair pens. They cost a little bit more, but they just glide on the page and there are lots of different colors. We love those. For me in my classroom, I have a microphone that I use. Again, going back to being extra, and then outside on the playground, I have a megaphone just so I'm too big to be running all around that playground. So I turn on my megaphone and I can call out exactly who I need and they can hear me from across the playground.

Dan: 28:16

I love that.

Yaronda: 28:17

It's non negotiable.

Dan: 28:18

What phrase or sentence strikes fear in the heart of an elementary school teacher?

Yaronda: 28:25

Staff meeting. Meeting.

Dan: 28:28

Because you have all these meetings like in addition to all the basic stuff. Right?

Yaronda: 28:33

Yes. So that's one thing. And another thing, if you're at a school that doesn't have a good climate or a positive culture at this school, hearing that the principal is doing rounds or doing observations, that can also strike fear in some teachers. Or a lockdown drill.

Dan: 28:47

Oh gosh. Yeah.

Yaronda: 28:48

Code 500, just to be serious, like a Code 500 where we have to go into an area which is right now is very much so scary, right, because it's a reality that can really strike fear, especially when we it's not announced and we don't know about it. We genuinely don't know what's happening in our school or if it is a drill or if it is in our school or something from because of the area. That's very scary for us now.

Dan: 29:15

Man, oh man. It's gotta be the number one indictment of our current society that there is such a thing as a lockdown drill. What a horrifying horrifying thing. Alright. Well, on that pleasant note, here's the next question. What is an aspect of your work that you consistently savor?

Yaronda: 29:37

Just getting to know students and getting to understand who they are and their personalities, I savor when my students get it. Right? And my kids will say, I got places to go. I got people to see, and I got integrity. And I'm smart. I am somebody. They believe it and they receive it, and they look at each other and they say, when it's time to work in collaborative groups, they'll say they'll stand up and they have hand motions. I'm not above you. I'm not beneath you, but I'm right here with you. And that's kinda what we hold dear all year long and the amount of students who are willing to be class leaders and support one another. It's phenomenal to see even on a kindergarten level.

Dan: 30:16

Do you miss your kids in the summer?

Yaronda: 30:18

Oh, absolutely. Two years ago in their kindergarten end of year books where they have, like, their graduation pictures, they get to write about their teacher, their friends. At the end, I write a handwritten note to every family.

Dan: 30:30

Oh my gosh.

Yaronda: 30:31

Oh my god. I'm talking about cramps in my hand. And I they have my number anyway, but the kids don't really have my number. And this is a true testament to me being extra on what they learned. So I put my number in, and I'm like, if you ever need me, don't forget here's my number. That afternoon, I am telling you, my phone started ringing. And I said, hello. And it was a student, she's like, hello, Ms. Kilgo. Do you know who this is? And I'm like, oh my goodness. And I'm like, hi. She's like, I'm in after school right now, and I got your number for my book. And she said, you know what we're about to do? And I said, what? She was like, have Papa John's. And I said, okay. And then I had another phone call and another phone call, and the parent called. She said, did you tell John to call you? And I'm like, no. And she said, I told him he he's not gonna be sitting here calling your phone all night. But, again, it goes back to you're gonna miss them all when you want them to connect. So that summer was so funny because then they would text me like, hey. This is so and so texting from my mom's phone. Do you miss us? Are you working at the school? Like, we miss you. So it's just really cool. You you miss every single one of them, but then you're also excited to know that you get to do the same thing with another group of kids in just a short amount of time.

Dan: 31:49

Yaronda Kilgo is an elementary school teacher and curriculum facilitator. She won North Carolina Southwest Region Teacher of the Year last year as a kindergarten teacher. I was so struck by Yaronda's description of all the hats she has to wear, a nurse, a counselor, a nutritionist, a surrogate parent, a comforter, a supporter, a leader, a learner, and that's not even including the teacher part. And then when you take that variability of roles and add in the variability of the kids in the room, I mean some kindergartners start school already knowing how to read, others start school not knowing how to hold a pencil. Imagine being able to deal with such a vast range of needs in real time. It's like an emotional juggling act. And think of what that demands of the juggler. You've got to be someone who's comfortable with chaos, improvisational, efficient, relentlessly positive. By contrast, think of the electrician from a few episodes ago and how he loved the order of his work, you know, laying out his tools in a precise arrangement trusting that the right process would allow him to perfect the work. But let's be honest, in elementary school classrooms, there is no perfection. We just gotta keep those balls in the air And we're lucky, aren't we, to have people like Yaronda in our kids' classrooms. Weaving literacy into math, turning lessons into songs, advocating for kids who need special support, surviving the meetings and training days, and cultivating what's special in every child. Folks, that's what it's like to be an elementary school teacher. A shout out to recent reviewers on Apple Podcasts, Darren GMN, DNE Listening Service, and Maurice Frank. And I also wanna read one bit from Green Sea Flowers Review. The person says, recently after listening to the pharmacy tech episode, I thanked a pharmacy tech for the expertise her job requires and she said, thank you. People don't understand all that I do. I feel this podcast has given me appreciation and awe for people I would not otherwise know or meet. Thank you for that green sea flower. Thanks again to all of you for the donations to give directly, and if you wanna join in to the happy donation party, the donation link is right there in the show notes. Happy holidays to all of you and we'll have another episode ready for you on December 30. This episode was produced by Matt Purdy. I'm Dan Heath. See you next time.