Robyn Hrivnatz and Sarah Bauguss

00:04 My name is Sarah bauguss. I am 34 and today is July 28th, 2011. Where in Redmond Washington and I am calling and friends with Robin resnet. I am 33 years old. Today is July 28th, 2011 a location is Redmond Washington and I am a colleague and a friend with Sierra Boggess.

00:35 So Sarah and tell me about why you wanted to become an educator. What made you decide to go into this profession?

00:45 I wanted to go into education because I left to work with kids and I I love seeing their faces light up when you teach them something and they get it and they get all excited. And yeah, I I I taught math. So especially I think a lot of kids don't like math and I taught at the middle school level in that stupid Glee where kids are starting to really not enjoy math. And so my mission in life was to make math fun and to make it make sense and for the kids to want to learn it. And so

01:27 One of my favorite Parts was seeing those kids that came in with a really bad attitude about math actually enjoying math class and that is a pretty exciting thing for me.

01:39 And I've just I've I've always

01:43 Love's

01:46 Showing kids different ways to do things, you know.

01:52 I think a lot of kids think that there's only one way to do things in mass and I love to show them that there's lots of ways to do things in that they can take it out of the classroom and it's actually meaningful and something that they should need and want to know

02:10 How about you?

02:13 So I'm I guess reason why I became an educator can have that unique situations. And so I became a mother at a very early age and a ridgling when I was in high school. Always thought. Oh, I'm pretty sure I want to be a pharmacist. I love science and I wanted you to have one to save the world and creates rug so I didn't necessarily want to be the person working behind the counter at Walgreens, but I wanted to actually can cough medication that would then later make a change in someone's life. And so as that was that was my goal all the time and I had teachers in high school always said you was making us nominal EduCare. You should really be a teacher and so it's kind of always a little seed that was planted and then I became a mom at early age. So I decided once I had her really can change my life changed the way I view two children and education then I thought if I see I saw the changes at even at such a early age and her

03:13 Life what sitting down with a child does for them and educating them and nurturing them? And so I decided that says my I think this is my calling him to change that so I actually originally enrolled in the University as a business major cuz I didn't know what I wanted to do at that point. I was like that maybe business and after a semester and and University I basically has changed my major and said I think I'm going to go in education. So I changed my major and then just pursue that passion. And so being that I already had a child at that time. I got to practice all my learning that I learned while I was in college with her. So I was learning about the value of reading to your children. And so I did that with her from a very early age and I got to see her grow and and change and like you said, it's the it's the

04:08 The way to sterilize light up when they learn something new and I thought if I can do this with other if my child then I can replicate this with thousands of children and hopefully make an impact in the future. I saw a View kind of education and Educators as those people who plant the seeds for Learning and continued learning for for children forever and

04:34 You you didn't get to see the benefits of your labor working with children. So as I've been working with kids for the past 12 years and the classroom I have now seen kids in the community that are now successful people and that remember me as their teacher and it's very rewarding internally its intrinsic reward to see their growth to see them turn into young adults and then be able to in turn provide something else for society. So to be able to impact a student's life. So then maybe that person so yes, my original dream was to become a pharmacist pain. Maybe I can make an impact on students lives where I'm producing lots of pharmacist in the future. So that's kind of how I in theory started.

05:29 My journey into education

05:33 How is teaching different than what you imagined it would be?

05:38 I'm so I imagined teaching the way I had always been taught.

05:45 So I grew up in a Catholic school system and so is very strict rigid environment. And it was it's classrooms look like they lost forever ago and it's so I thought you know, okay, I guess this is how you do it because that's the way it's always been done and then want to start teaching quickly realize this is an effective if I got to change things and this is this is not an effective way to reach children today. So I then immediately began figuring out, how can I do this differently and one of my other passions and desires when I was in college was the study of technology so actually had a minor in computer science and always knew like at some point in time. I would I'm going to harness those skills into the classroom with the kids. So I began that from the very get-go with my kiddos and really started to infuse technology into my lessons and obviously over.

06:45 The last 12 years we wear worries, technology is you know, so that growth has definitely twisted and turned the way I did things to make with my kids in the classroom were very different. So my classroom is always a classroom with definitely there's a backbones the classroom. There's a structure of skeleton of the classroom, but I view that every kid learns differently and they need different tools to learn. Someone student may be very successful using start technology to another student maybe still okay with using you no scissors and paper wanting to cut and build and create something. So that was my floss to be in the classroom has to always

07:32 Provide toys for students and as I began doing this my classroom, I realize that I'm happy with the results. I'm staying with my students that I felt like a stronger need to impact more people. So I felt like I could impact the learning with 21st century skills my classroom with our students in might with my students, but I felt that so many other students weren't getting those skills. So I had a calling essentially to want to impact more people but that's so that's when I change basically my job position from being a classroom teacher teaching science to moving into a technology integration roll with the school district that then I could provide professional development for teachers and coaches with teachers and show them how education needs to change in the classroom and then I could just impact education on a greater scale. So that's what I've been doing.

08:32 And I love my job. I love what I do. I do. I love seeing the excitement that the changes of the classroom from a very structured rigid sterile environment. Lots of times to now a very collaborative environment where kids are using tools that are native to them that they're comfortable with using and that just makes sense. And I all those things into real world learning and I filled investigations of getting kids outside and and really experiencing learning that's relevant to them and work and then having kids collaborate work with each other. So they

09:11 Are able to build those life on skills. And I mean there's there's not a job out there today and we don't know what jobs are going to look like tomorrow. There's not a job out there today where someone is put in a box and asked to work solely by themselves. So I think we need to build us get the skills that children and so being an assistant that I am in now. I feel like I have a lot more impact and it's also provided multiple opportunities for me in this position to network and collaborate with people from around the world present at conferences and learn from other people that have great innovative ideas. I'm so it's allowed me to grow professionally and allows me to continue being a lifelong learner, which I hope to instill and each life that I touch. So what about you, you know, I'm not sure when I first came in the classroom if I really had

10:05 A specific way that I imagined it would be kind of like you that and what I experienced was pretty traditional rows of desks and worksheets and reading aloud and exciting things like that. But you know when I went when I first started teaching I'm even in my student teaching I started out trying to change that I I did problem-based learning as a student teacher because I

10:39 I don't know. I just I just I guess I just saw that they would be a power in tying real world connections and multiple objectives together for the kids and actually having them create a product that would pertain to something in their local environment. I wish I had them and designing a mall for you know for a local area that that had nothing on it so far so they had to go design the mall what it would look like and they created buildings in which I know it's probably I guess it's a pickle.

11:20 But that's I was you know, it started out as a passion of mine to get the kids working in a problem solving environment and I continued that and then yeah, I follow a similar path is you I continue to bring technology into the classroom. I know a lot of different ways and it could have been anything from using things like Excel for kids graphing. We could have been graphing calculators. You know that there weren't very many online tools when I first start out but in the last few years, they've just kind of exploded there's all kinds of online tools and smart boards and different ways that kids can not just be consumers of of Technology, but actually the producers with it they can you know, create and do and

12:15 Yeah, alright take take their content their math beyond the classroom and take it out of the real world and see that it's useful and it's meaningful. And so I just like you at the same time that's actually where we met there. And I actually moved into the same role at the same time in our school district and we were sent to iste which is international study of technology in education to be able to the circumference. And so I had never met Sarah before I was assigned to be her roommate. I'm in in the hotel. So the joys of public education and getting thrown into a, you know, a hotel room with someone you don't know.

13:15 Hotel room with being strangers that ever said a very first day we met we actually had to share if it is a funny story now that we saw each other and so did we have this on the look we had to go to get to know each other real fast and ever since that day Sarah and I we've essentially became Inseparable interchangeable often and I'm sure our first year working people always would look at me and call me Sarah and vice-versa shefit call Robin. She was actually expecting a child that. Very first trip, which was another funny story. So we were with large large group of people that work in the school district and taking in some adult activities at night with Beverages and Sarah. I was just sitting there and she leans over a very first day we may not only wish are bad, but she's got to share her with me that

14:15 I'm really not all that. Shy I'm actually pregnant but please don't say anything yet. So we had to get very personal very quickly so that we've actually got to know each other and grow on a personal and friendship level ever since then then her son actually was born on my birthday. That's what and we continue to have all these weird connections as our friendship has grown over the past three years. We kind of are the yin and the Yang and kind of finish each other's sentences often and work dynamically together as a team. So I enjoy working with Sarah we have like-minded pedagogy with that when it comes to education, but also to send General in life, we complement each other especially being that we work in science and math together those two subjects that we still are interchangeable and

15:15 Should be taught together. So we've been able to work and produce lots of a cross curricular activities together because we we get it and we get each other and sometimes Sarah I would say is very detail-oriented and then I will sit very globally and have lots of different ideas and Sarah Wells me to focus all that energy and put it down and other times it it did the roller versus

15:49 Absolutely. I kind of depends on the situation. But yeah, we put together some some pretty Rock an awesome stem lessons that bring Math and Science and Technology all together as one and allow classes to collaborate together and go out and do and you go do things outside or create things and build things and problem-solve and move around and and use their use and discover Through Math and Science other thing that Sarah and I have in common outside of education is we both really like nerdy t-shirts our favorite spice shirt woot. So Sarah, what's your favorite shirt woot T-shirt? Oh, okay. So I got a new one that I think might just just might be my favorite. It's called it's a pirate shirt.

16:49 It's like pie rate pay get it cuz I'm a spy and so is a circle graph that has a has a pirate patch on it and it has different sections. So it has like 20% or 30% booty and priority things and it makes me laugh. What's your favorite fruit?

17:18 I've got a couple of favorites probably my most recent acquirement out of a shirt woot my favorites it actually because I got an AR.

17:30 Content areas Mountain View my science background. So I have it. I got a new shirt that has is equals mc squared and it has a little cookie and underneath it. Looks like Einstein so it's the one smart cookie shirt. I have my face.

17:53 All right, so I'm actually switch gears and ask you what has been the most one of my one of my most challenging moments in your career.

18:02 Wow, the challenging. Well, I don't know if I would necessarily say.

18:10 Let me think.

18:15 Well, I think I've had lots of challenges in my life. And so maybe one of my greatest challenges was to finish a four-year degree and about three years cuz I need to get out quick. So I had a little in that I needed to take care of and get off into school and be the responsible person. So that was my biggest challenge in life. So I was in in college. I was trying to raise up an infant at the same time that I was trying to work 35 hours a week. Hold a job down and study and do well in school. So as in life, that was 5 my greatest challenge of had to overcome, but definitely the most rewarding experience I could have had in my career. So my guess my challenges that I've had may have been lots of switches in jobs. So once I left the the classroom and move into a district-level roll quickly having two

19:15 Tell lots of changes really fast and changes about things that you can't have no control over. I'm so when you feel like you're kind of on a magic carpet and things are going really great and you love what you do and then a policymaker takes your carpet and rips it from underneath you and then you could easily have to adapt to that change and it's a difficult challenge after overcome that and I think it also has made me a stronger person and it's made me grow professionally as well. So I love new things New Opportunities and dad sometimes by having that carpet Rifts form out from underneath you allows you to grow and acquire new things and meet new people. And that's one of the most awesome thing about my job is the relationships I've dealt with people.

20:09 Not

20:11 People on a personal level and to see what their stories and where they come from and what they're doing that's effective not only in their professional careers, but with their own families and their life and how they view the world. I I really really enjoy people observing observing people in their natural habitat communities. So being able to be in multiple environments and seeing that interaction. I just find it fascinating.

20:46 How about you?

20:50 I think

20:53 Yeah, even the whole time even working with kids. So I've always sort of Taken.

20:59 I don't know if Global's quite the right word gullible approach.

21:05 Trying to effect change on education and how teachers do you think? So I think one of the biggest challenges for me is to take what I Envision a math classroom or education General to be and to protect that and convince other people to come along with me.

21:29 In and make that change and I think I think that's in the mass world. I think that's one of the toughest places to get teachers to change and to see that

21:43 That things need to be done differently to reach the kids that you're the kids today are different than when I was a kid. I was different than when my teachers were kids and education hasn't changed along with the changing people and

22:05 So I think that's probably my biggest challenge is is finding a way to two.

22:12 To reach

22:14 Not just the teachers around me but more. Yeah, I want to affect change in education everywhere. And so, you know, I start my planting the seed in my own school and then in my own district and you know, it's bit by bit, but it it. I wanted to go I wanted to go further. I want I want all my teachers to see that we need to change what we're doing. We need to do more of a problem-based learning and and bring in the technology to to get those get the kids involved in any other night. I feel like so often than the kids just come in and they check out because they get worksheet so they get lectured, you know, I've talked to Math teachers and they said I just don't understand why my kids are not successful. Well, what have you tried while I've done two different kinds of notes.

23:07 Well, let's try something else. What is spraying in? Let's bring in the TI Nspire technology where you know, it's where you have a graphing calculator that the kids can manipulate and they can visually see what's happening. You know where we're in a spot where the kids I like to call the microwave kids. They want everything and I want it now and you know, not that it's not important that kids learn how to graph but when you're trying to teach what what is slope 2, how does it affect the the way the lion looks and how it behaves so what's your focus right now is your focus on can the kid graph a line or is the focus on the kids seeing a pattern in a relationship? So let's let's make a conscious choice on what my goal is for today. I want them to see a relationship great use some technology that lets the kids see multiple.

24:07 Price of a line at the click of a button so that they can see that relationship and they can see it now.

24:16 You know, what's up? I just I I want one to get more teachers to that point to see to my vision.

24:31 Yes, actually I've waited my position to technology position I've worked with I'll come out to the TI Nspire vs. Teachers training them how to use this graphing calculator and really it's more of a handheld it's it's like a little mini computer now where the kids can actually go and drag lines and points and manipulate and do so, you know, I for two teachers training them how to use that but also providing resources for them to find activities for the kids to work with so, you know, the previous graphing calculator kids go and they graph a line they do calculations. Maybe they find the point of intersection but there's not any manipulation. They're so this this new handheld the kids can actually manipulate like I was talking about before and they can drag a line around and watch how the equation of the line changes. So that's just one.

25:31 Example of an activity right there. And so those are the kinds of activities that I would show teachers and so I would help them to some activities that they can use in specific time periods and i would support them in using that in their classroom if they needed it and

25:52 They would actually go and use those activities and they would ask the questions that go along with it that there is a deep probing questions not just what's the equation of the line but what happens as you drive the lineup? Okay, what happens as you drive line down what happens to that that coefficient there? Is it positive is it negative? What's what it what are you seeing? Can you create a line that looks like this based on what you observed before? And so what what teachers found a friend of mine actually I was working with she told me that the kids would be doing these activities and they would go

26:34 That's why that works. Okay, and she found that the more activity she did.

26:41 That she would come to an objective later in the year that she's supposed to teach and she look at that and she's like, oh, well, we have we already covered that with another activity that we did previously. Okay, so I have more time to spend on something else so I can do this other new activity and she actually she actually looked at her scores on her kids tests and quizzes and compared them from the previous year where they did not use the that technology. They did not use those activities and her scores were higher and the range in the scores was with tighter. So the kids performing at a more stable rate. So she she saw a huge change in her kids performance and in their attention and in their true understanding, they weren't just graphing lines actually got what was going on. So

27:41 I working with lots of different technology tools and with teachers and students in the classroom. I've had so many Educators tell me that they didn't have a relationship with some of the students in the classroom. They had the student who sat in the classroom and was quiet all the time who didn't participate in class discussion, but by providing them with tools that they are comfortable with that they've always known since they've been there. They were born with these digital tools and by putting those tools in the hands of the students that those reluctant hesitant students have come alive in class and they become the experts in class and so it by using different Technologies in the classroom today and not teaching in a traditional teaching environment style the students that maybe you didn't have a relationship with her. You didn't know.

28:41 Much about you you've built an amazing relationship with just because you've given them tools that they feel comfortable with and that they are able to come alive in the classroom West. So that's probably one of the most rewarding things that I hear from teachers, and I've also I hear quite frequently that from teachers who really have converted their classrooms to one of these environment is when when I started doing this is the surrogate is I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself any longer cuz I moved from being the teacher to a facilitator of learning in my classroom and I found myself bored because the kids were all actively involved in engaged and working with each other and I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself since Austin tell myself distracting some of the students in class because I was I was born as a teacher so I began just sending them random work that are things.

29:41 I want to know random pools in and then they they they said you're disturbing you make can I ever try to get to work that I do? Can you leave us alone? So it's it's a transition for a lot of teachers to become a facilitator of learning and I like to one of my favorite things to say about making that change in the classroom today is that the teacher really becomes from it from a teacher to a facilitator and have a student become a Creator not just a

30:15 Not just they are so I'm really taking them and having them crate authentic work as opposed to just sit there and thought a worksheet and it's just it's affrighted a different environment in the classroom. And I hope that continues to grow and that we can make a larger impact and change for education and that our policymakers are receptivo that I think a lot of information that is given to us down. And in education in the lot X is determined by people who have never spent a day teaching in the classroom. And I find that sad and also just the way I are, you know our government and what nots work that they determine what we send them teach our children and political beliefs often take play into that especially being an educator and Texas being in with some of the community in that.

31:15 We are the largest state. We have textbooks companies actually produce their books based off of essentially our curriculum and I just reproduce those for other states stamps different names on those and often are policy makers and politicians and Texas will determine what gets put in some of those books and not that I think you should teach totally out of a book which I do not but it's a resource for a teacher and some of them feel that it's a starting place and so life sometimes content can be left out That's essential for students to think based on what some politician has decided should be the way it is and being in Texas and working in a community I do I'm is a large oil community. So I know from my experience is teaching science talking about climate change was often very difficult in the school. I worked in because of the community and the parents of the students that I

32:15 But their parents worked in the oil industry, they are for sometimes did not want you know actually asked for the students not being class science class when we talked about climate change or talked about theories of evolution so that as Educators hard for me because again, a lot of that it was determined by what someone who would never spend the day in the classroom. Or buy a personal belief from a parent who don't want their child to be educated and I am on the belief as an educator that you should educate children and multiple multiple with all the information that you can possibly give them and that they can throw resources. They can find a special on the web today and if they're not exposed to the knowledge, they need to think about the information and compare it and make their own educated decisions on things and not be only given information limited information based on someone's political or religious belief solat time is Bowser.

33:15 Gray lines in the classroom and sometimes it's hard to work around or with when you have someone who forces decisions on you as an educator in the classroom that limits what she can then deliver to your students. So hopefully, you know that this will change eventually and Educators and scientists and Global thinkers will be able to impact what happens in the classroom and not

33:45 I'm a simple politician.

33:48 Absolutely.

33:51 Have you ever experienced in our community any resistance to anything in your classroom? Cuz I know I definitely had resistance especially with climate change and I don't have any of that in the math class. So did you ever have any parents who are resistant maybe with the way you taught since you didn't teach traditionally?

34:21 Not too much actually there they're usually pretty on board with it because you know, the the kids were learning and their achievement was high and they're happy. So, you know pretty much the only time a parent was upset was if there had a bad grade, so no not too much but about from other teachers may be a teacher who you was a colleague of yours or one of your partners who you talk with wooden in the state of Texas right now. It is a very big push for professional learning communities. So we often we work together with our partners to teach the same content in soda to area and the content the curriculum is the saying that we have to deliver but often it is which is great to debate with each other. Why you believe the way you believe is the best way to facilitate

35:21 In your classroom. Did you ever have any teachers that you work with being that you were kind of an Innovative teacher that disagreed with your your way and thought their way was better and how'd that work out for you?

35:37 Yes, but not too huge extent. I've I've been pretty lucky that in the school. I was working at Twilight. I thought and establish school for my first two years, but then I I helped open a brand new junior high school. And so when my principal chose her staff, she she chose people that she knew would work well together and that would have high expectations and they would have similar goals so not to say that.

36:14 The teachers I work with were always on board with what I was doing but wait we didn't do cookie cutter lessons. So basically we would plan and we will be doing the same objective on the same day and we would be assessing in the same ways like at the same quizzes and tests, but then we would kind of plug in our style of how we wanted to do it in our classroom. So

36:44 I wouldn't say that's a surly that there was conflict and that people were upset with the way I was doing things but they probably didn't they didn't necessarily do it the same way that I did. They would probably stay stuck more with traditional but then you know, I was I was young at that point. I was pretty new teacher. So, you know as I kind of went along and gained more experience, I would create more materials and resources and I would share those with my partner and teacher and so, you know, I got them to try some things out and so they they kind of came on board with that and then

37:32 Would start to create things on their own and so we would share back and forth. So we had a pretty good a pretty good Network going on at my school locally. So, you know, like I said before as I want to make a change go further and wider, so I achieved it at one school district level we're getting there but now I have to take over the world. So I was thinking and just the other day about how education has changed even so greatly in the last 10 to 15 years working in schools and thinking back to and I like my early as his teaching and things that I did wrong or things that may have I got called into the traitors office before and I laughed now because I remember a time 6 years ago that I actually got called in because I had sent a text message to a student.

38:32 Educationally appropriate in but at that time it was definitely as seen as a no no like you don't communicate with kids outside of classroom. And from where we come from then actually getting in a reprimanded for sending a text message to a student to now having 24/7 access to our kids be able to talk to them via social networks and extend learning 24/7. Is there an incident that maybe you can reflect on that has been maybe something similar to happen to you as a teacher and how that would be viewed even today very differently and I can only imagine the things that may be an acceptable today and 10 years. We laugh.

39:19 Well, I would know I think just something as simple as you said in a calculator on a test. So, you know when I was in school, we didn't really use calculators on standardized tests. And and now they are used all the time. So, you know, they're like I said, it's things have changed so fast, you know going from no cell phones at all nor Kids 2.

39:54 Getting my first one in college and now we're starting to actually use them as part of our teaching mobile devices and bring your own device to school and I think calculator sort of the same way they're evolving and that's that's probably the best one specific to math itself.

40:18 So when am I a media goals for today in education and in America would be for every child that is a student that they would have access to the internet in their home and they would have a device to use. What's your that's that's an immediate goal for me. I I think we need to level the playing field for our kids we have kids in the United States who are very fortunate and has homes with 10 devices. All at one time and we have other students to live in homes with dark floors or live in a rural area where they're still not Broadband even out there for them to even get a signal inside their home. So that's something that I think of that I want to change in education and are in America that I want we live in this great plentiful country. And I think it's the Necessities have those things inside the home for everyone.

41:18 And hopefully we get there soon. So is there something that you have as a goal for the United States to embrace change rapidly quickly?

41:29 I think for me it just keeps coming back to changing math education and changing it to problem problem-based and making it real for the kids and rather than just doing stuff out of a textbook actually tying it to something that they'll use down the road and you may be introducing them to people that are in careers currently that actually use math in their career and I want to see why it's important that it's not just another thing that I'm in school cuz I have to be have to learn this and as soon as I get out of college forget about it, I want it. I want kids to see that there's there's a use for it and then it exists everywhere. It sounds cheesy, but you really do you use math everyday and it's everywhere you look it just depends on how you're looking at things.