Episode 58: Season 3 Teaser

Links to resources mentioned in this episode:

Episode 45: Zooming In on Podcasting with Students Part 1

Episode 46: Zooming In on Podcasting with Students Part 2

Episode 47: Zooming In on Podcasting with Students Part 3

Episode 48: Zooming In on Interviewing with Dave Malkoff

Episode 50: Zooming In on Research and the Writing Process with Geoff Edgers

Episode 54: Zooming In on Voice and Speech with Ashleigh Reade

Birch Meadow Way Podcast Website (in progress)

Birch Meadow Way Podcast on Apple Podcasts

Robert FitzPatrick Twitter

Robert FitzPatrick Website

Want to learn more about MLMs in a fun way? John Oliver on HBO’s Last Week Tonight focused an episode on MLMs in 2016. This video is well worth the time (about 31 minutes). Very funny and chock full of facts. Robert FitzPatrick is in it for a short bit too!

**Warning: explicit language

Transcript:

Melissa Milner 0:09

Welcome to The Teacher As... podcast. I'm your host Melissa Milner, a teacher who is painfully curious and very easily inspired. In this third season, I explore my interests as the main focus of the episodes. If you have listened to seasons one and two, first of all, thank you. Second of all, this season will be a little different, it will still be centered around interesting topics and their connections to education. I'll continue to have interview episodes, maybe a top 10 episode here and there since they are very popular, but also some episodes will be just me sharing about a topic. Similar to my Podcasting with Students episodes from season two. New episodes come out every other week. If you enjoy the podcast, please share it with anyone you think would benefit from listening. It really helps the podcast grow. Thank you for supporting The Teacher As... I hope you enjoy season three. (transition music)

Melissa Milner 1:07

I'm so excited to start season three of The Teacher As... When I started this podcast July 9 2020, I had no clue what I was doing or what I wanted the podcast to be. My first season was mostly interviews about topics I was interested in, and served the purpose of keeping me busy that first spring summer of the pandemic, as well as providing me practice in editing, interviewing, etc. My second season morphed into a grief podcast for many episodes. Obviously, nothing I could have planned for, but it opened my eyes to what is important. I realized that this is my podcast, and my experiences and passions can be better incorporated into it. It will be interesting to see if anyone who has been listening all along will notice the shift. I also wonder whether anyone will care when the episodes are more directly about my interests and passions. I mean, who am I?

Melissa Milner 2:02

So, this is my passion project, and I hope you stick around to enjoy the journey with me. This season, I continue sharing about podcasting with students. In season two, I did a three episode series on podcasting with students, as well as three interviews related to the topic with Boston Conservatory educator Ashley Reade, Washington Post writer Geoff Edgers, and investigative journalist for The Weather Channel, Dave Malkoff. I'll share the links to all these episodes on the episode 58 page on theteacheras.com. This year, the vision for the school podcast is to have last year's podcasters now in fifth grade, share submissions for segments as well as our current fourth graders. If you would like to hear the first season of the Birch Meadow Way podcast, I'll put a link on the episode page as well. Last year was our first time podcasting. And I reflected that I wanted there to be more of a connection in the segments and episodes. So this season's Birch Meadow Podcast focus will be change.

Melissa Milner 3:01

Okay, back to The Teacher As... podcast. Along with episodes about podcasting with students, I will continue to share my passion for film and everything related to it, including directing and editing. I have had episodes here and there about this lifelong passion, but will explore the parallels to education more this season. One episode I'm drafting is The Teacher as Film Editor. This really focuses on teacher choices, transitions, making decisions as a teacher in the moment, but also the decisions we make when we're first planning a unit. What do we decide to cut, the lens in which we're looking at our curriculum, and again, being in the moment with students and making those decisions about what to cut. What transitions need to happen. The inspiration for The Teacher As... podcast came from reading a book about a film editor. So I really want to sort of circle back and do an episode, at least one episode about it. I also want to reach out to teachers about these decisions, these teacher choices that we make about curriculum, and in the moment decisions during a lesson and hopefully, get some people to call into the website. I have a voicemail option right on the website and I have some questions I'd love to hear answers for, but that's coming later in the season.

Melissa Milner 4:27

I also have a passion for nature, and in particular birds. And I'm hoping to explore that more this season. I also have some cool interviews planned about writing math, and a lot more by now you're understanding what I meant in my intro about being inspired very easily.

Melissa Milner 4:45

I have a new inspiration, a new passion that I've really been doing a lot of research on and will continue to do so: coercive control. It includes cults, MLMs... I have personal experience with MLMs. I will share my takeaways as well as what I wish I had known before joining. I will also share a recommended binge list of documentaries, podcasts and books that have really educated me about cults and MLMs, as well as motivated me to research how we as educators are maybe not arming our students with all the facts and red flags before they head out to the big bad world. I'm working on setting up interviews with high school teachers, maybe college professors, and experts who've written books about MLMs and coercive control. I know what I went through, and it was nothing compared to what some people have gone through, but I think I could have avoided a lot if I had learned things in high school, or even college. Unless a student is interested in economics, business or sociology. They might not learn about MLMs, pyramid schemes, and coercive control. Maybe it's mentioned in psychology classes, but I don't remember it. And now everything is hidden behind wellness and self help. It's really hard for someone who doesn't know the language and the red flags. It's hard not to get sucked in. I'm excited to share that I just booked Robert Fitzpatrick, the author of Ponzinomics, the Untold Story of Multi Level Marketing. He was also just recently in the LulaRich documentary on Amazon Prime. I'm really excited to interview him.

Melissa Milner 6:32

Well, that's it for now. And I can't promise that I won't have new interests and new inspirations that have not been mentioned in this episode., but I really just want to thank you for listening. And I hope you stay tuned for some pretty interesting topics. For my blog, transcripts of this episode, and links to any resources mentioned. Visit my website at www.theteacheras.com You can reach me on Twitter and Instagram @melissabmilner and I hope you check out The Teacher As...Facebook page for episode updates. Thanks for listening. And that's a wrap.