What do you want to be when you grow up? Your host, Katie, really doesn’t have an answer to that question. In this podcast, we talk to people about their jobs and what they do to help you to find your own answer. Today’s guest is Mr Jeff Bryant, an English teacher in California since 2003. He teaches students who are intellectually gifted, and his focus is on philosophy and academic writing rather than on traditional literary. Before he was a teacher, Mr. Bryant was a salesman and then an actor. Today, you’ll hear why he is grateful to be a teacher and considers it to be a wonderful career, how 9/11 changed his life’s direction, and what his day-to-day looks like in the classroom. He also tells us about the four kinds of rigor that the education system should develop within kids and why he believes that the intellectual kind is the most important to prioritize. Find out how the needs of gifted kids are often misunderstood and hear why, as a teacher, it is so important to find an age group where you thrive. Join us to hear all this and more from this inspiring teacher today!
Key Points From This Episode:
- An introduction to today’s guest: Mr. Jeff Bryant.
- The story of how he found his place at a teacher at the first school he worked at.
- How he tried different careers before becoming a teacher.
- What Mr. Bryant wanted to do before he found teaching: acting and sales.
- How 9/11 changed the course of his life.
- The immediate sense that he had that he wanted to work in education from his first role.
- Night school, substitute teaching, and why he likes that he came to teaching at an older age.
- Why, at first, Mr. Bryant wanted to be a kindergarten teacher.
- The creative license and trust he is given because of the flexibility of his work environment.
- How his class differs from the ordinary curriculum with philosophy as a jump-off point rather than literature.
- Why administrative rigor is such an important part of learning.
- How academic learning ordinarily lines up with things that can be quantified.
- The misunderstood need of gifted children.
- What the idea of intellectual rigor means to Mr. Bryant and why it is what he focuses on.
- Why it is so important to create meaningful emotional connections as a kid.
- Why Mr. Bryant considers how he dresses to be a part of his job.
- How planning enables him to be spontaneous in the classroom.
- The girls club he hosts on a Friday where they quietly watch movies.
- His daily schedule and why he procrastinates on grading.
- The benefits he experiences as a teacher including meeting interesting kids and hearing fun stories about his own eccentricities.
- How he has learned to withhold advice and be an ear to kids.
- Why, to be a good teacher, you have to know what age you work best with.
- Why Mr. Bryant believes that all education is moral education.
- The challenge that putting kids in schools at a much younger age poses.
- The fourth rigor: social, emotional rigor.
- The new teachers at his school and their focus on the fourth type of rigor.
- Why teachers have to use their time on holiday to decompress.
- How the teaching year is structured and how teachers use their time off.
- Mr. Bryant’s advice for those interested in teaching: it’s a wonderful career!
