(Season 7, Episode 4) The Joys and Challenges of Teaching & Mom’ing at the Same School

Do you teach? Do you work at a school in any capacity? Do you have kids of your own? Do these offspring of yours attend (or have they attended) the same school that pays your paycheck? If you have selected yes to just one of these questions, this episode is for you. But if you selected yes to more than one . . . well this episode may hit some very familiar notes (and I wish we could have invited you on as a guest.)  Join host Taylor Davis and guests Anna Frame and Lea Crongeyer for an exploration of the intersection of parenting and working as a school professional. 

 

2:58-3:20: Inquiring minds must know; what does a child call their parent when they are actually teaching them in a classroom setting? 

 

4:22-6:57:  How being a teacher and being a parent are sometimes very different and sometimes very similar; also we discover Lea has basically taught every kid in the world. 

 

7:05-8:14: Why Anna Frame is a lot less fun as a mom than a teacher; and the interplay of high expectations and “not MY kid!”

 

9:45-13:33: A surprise side effect of being a teacher momma: we never want to infringe on our kids’ teachers’ time or stress them out in any way.  

 

13:38-14:55: The added entanglements for mommas who are not only teachers at the same school but also ALUMNAE! 

 

14:56-16:30: “The balance of challenges and blessings” when your own kid is in the exact same grade you teach; the things we miss but also the insights we glean.

 

16:40-17:20: Julie’s surprise reveal that Lea Crongeyer is the real reason she ended up working at St. Andrew’s.  (When I was considering the job she texted me, “it is one of the most precious gifts of my life to have taught at the same place my kids go to school.”)

 

17:28-20:25: Julie’s biggest point of tension in these dual roles of administrator/teacher and momma is also incredibly generative.

 

20:26-21:16: Lea drops some major wisdom: “So parenting you do so much of it with your heart you have to have a lot of self control as a teacher . .. you can’t be momma bear at school”; and Taylor points out sometimes we have too many “inside” insights. :) 

 

21:16-23:20: Anna shares the good side of all this: we have a cheat code for what to talk to kids about in the car; also that year Lea let Taylor wake up  her own kid from nap.

 

23:40- 25:26: Being a momma-teacher makes you have so much grace and empathy for your kids’ teachers and other cheat codes that can give us a leg-up on our parenting partners.

 

25:31-26:38; 28:18-29:58: When your kid gets in trouble, sometimes [a different kind of] the swooping in is helpful; also why Julie loves student-led conferences.

 

26:48-27:33: Listen here to find out which of our children was NOT a good napper and required an elaborate ticket system to stay put!

 

30:25-31:40: Josh Brister finally gets on the mic to drop wisdom about how parenting has impacted his view of the parent/teacher relationship; also our podcast’s most dramatic moment in the  history of its existence!

 

31:41-32:46; 34:24-35:00: Not only do we give teachers more grace when we are in our parenting role, we give parents more grace in our teaching role; now we know how hard it is!  

 

32:47- 34:23: How parenting shifts our view of the value of writing qualitative comments to parents.

 

35:00-35:50: Sometimes we are very, very bad parents.  True confessions.