Special Education Teacher

Teacher and union leader Pat Frain joins us to discuss the creative, caring and tiring work of an educator. From his career in construction to his work in education, Pat has spent decades building the future of the United States using blueprints and lesson plans.

Listen to learn about how special education functions in a school, how being in a union can impact one's career, how to become a teacher who can connect with students, and how the profession is changing.

Discussion Questions:

• Who was your favorite teacher and why?
• What seems scary about making a career change?
• What are the possible benefits of a career change like Pat’s?
• What are some important qualities for a teacher to have?
• Research: What are some example union jobs? How are they different than non-union jobs?

Please send suggestions for future guests to projectlaborpodcast@gmail.com. 

Our instagram is @projectlabor. Leave a comment or question and we’ll be happy to answer.

Music by Brotheration Records

Project Labor is a 501c3 nonprofit organization incorporated in the state of New Jersey. All donations to Project Labor are tax deductible in accordance with the Internal Revenue Code. 

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Transcript

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Danny 1:24

He's Irish, he's friendly, he likes punk rock, New York sports, and U.S. history. He's a career changer. And if somebody said he was a bouncer or a boxing coach, you'd believe him. You could tell how modest he is by how many shout-outs he gave during our interview. He's full of gratitude, and I'm grateful too that I get to work with him. Pat Frain is a high school special ed teacher. Pat, welcome to Project Labor. So, Pat, how long have you been a teacher?

SPEAKER_00 1:50

I've been teaching here and just in general for 19 years in Somerville. For the most part, um resource rooms for US one and US two, and I've also done some I do a lot of in-class support too. I've also done English science, um, the world language one time.

Danny 2:06

How do you connect to students who are who are maybe having a difficult day or seem like they hate school?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

I think humor has a lot to do with it. Just to be able to kind of like uh maybe see what they enjoy, see what they get into, and just kind of take that and just use that to try to tie it into whatever they're into. Um for the past few years I've had a couple of uh brothers who are really into baseball but hated school work. But they were big Yankee fans, so I could just take that and I would just use that like um just saying today, as a matter of fact, the day we're talking right now is the um the anniversary of Jackie Robinson getting his first contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945. So I mean I took that last year and I just said, yeah, all right guys, um 1945, Jackie Robinson got his uh first contract, the first African American to uh get a major league contract. He started in 47, who do you play for? He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers today. I said, Who are the what's going on with the Dodgers today? They were the World Series. And um who do they lose who do they beat in their first World Series? They beat the Yankees in 1955. Who won the MVP for that? Jackie Robinson. So just it all ties in together.

Danny 3:09

Yeah, that's awesome. You gotta have uh good connections with students and find out what they like, and then maybe it's in common with what you like too. So that that could make it even easier.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

That helped, yeah.

Danny 3:21

There's so much material to cover in history. Do you have a favorite topic or time period?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

I like the Cold War. Just the whole communism, spies, the intrigue. It just really it's Yeah, I try to make it as fun as possible. There's um like a spy drop where I'll just uh give the kids a sheet of paper with hints on it, and they have to go around the building and find different things in different spots of the building. There's also like um I have them we go to the library, and if somebody's speaking in the library that day, I'll have them look at their mannerisms and we watch a video on different ways people can tell if people are lying or if they're just not being forthcoming. And uh the kids really love it. They they enjoy it, they have a great time with it.

Danny 3:57

That's awesome. That's outside of the box thinking, and it's kind of like uh something that'll become memorable for the students later, not just facts.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, I hope so. And uh I think it will. Is this sound? Yeah, yeah. The civil rights are very uh um that that's a really, really important topic that I really think um a lot of things just get glossed over, and I really don't think people know enough about the nuts and bolts and exactly what happened and how many people had to suffer and how many people went how many people really went above and beyond and just didn't get the credit that they deserve.

Danny 4:33

So, how'd you get into teaching? Was it uh through general education or special education?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

So I was um I was in constru I was in construction at the time I was getting went back to school. I was going back to school working full-time and uh going to school full-time. To be a teacher, my wife suggested that I take special education because that'd be more marketable. And uh I'm glad I listened to her. I was going to school in New York, at a uh small little Catholic school, uh Dominican College in Orangeburg, New York. So their uh their credentialing is a little different than New Jersey. Um you don't need to have to pass the um the praxis. There is no praxis test. There's a couple of tests, but not the same as um here in Jersey.

Danny 5:10

Do you have to get a bachelor's degree from college there?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Um in New York you needed a master's. Oh, okay. So I came here because I just wanted to get a bachelor a bachelor's. So and so um my wife had gone back to school when um she she's um she was an accountant and she hated it. And so she went back to school for occupational therapy. And while she was going back to school, you know, I I kind of supported us and and she said, you know, she made the suggestion why don't I go back to school? I love to write and I wanted time to write, and um so she said teaching would be a fantastic opportunity for you. You love history, give it a shot. And so I went back to school and I and I did. I really enjoyed going back to school and I really enjoy teaching history. Yeah.

Danny 5:50

Every teacher has a different style and and perspective. How do you think yours is different than others?

SPEAKER_00 5:55

I I think having worked in um the moving industry and construction for as long as I have has just gives me another um a view of things and just I I think it really helps me see things in another way rather than just totally as an in an educational sense.

Danny 6:10

Yeah, teaching is uh it can be a physical job, but it's really not as physically demanding as being a moving man.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

No. I mean, yeah, there there's no pianos. Yeah.

Danny 6:21

So has teaching provided you a little bit more time for independent projects, creative stuff?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

That was my plan. It just never really works out. I I guess um as soon as I started teaching, we had our our daughter, Emma. And so that just took up like another, a whole different facet of our lives that we just weren't ready for. But we we managed.

Danny 6:40

What skills do you think transferred over from your previous careers to your career in teaching?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

I would have to say probably just um the experiences there. Give me a better um a better idea and a better understanding of what the kids that I'm working with on a daily basis have to know. You know, when a kid says to me, uh, you know, why do I have to know what happened in the War of 1812? And I said, Well, you don't, but what's going on in the world today still has a lot to do with what happened back then and just gives you a better perspective.

Danny 7:06

Oh yeah, good point. Trade war, tariffs, and congressional versus executive power. Say 25, 30 years ago, did you uh uh imagine possibly becoming a teacher while at your previous job?

SPEAKER_00 7:18

No, no, it never fazed me. I it I never would have thought of it otherwise. Uh Dan, you both and I, we're we're both products of Catholic schools. So um I remember um Sister Nicolina telling me like in fourth or fifth grade, Fran, you'll be a ditch digger for your entire life, and that's all you're ever gonna be is a ditch digger. So I mean that pretty much just set me up for what I was gonna be doing for the next 10 or 15 years afterward.

Danny 7:40

Yeah. But it also maybe uh made you realize that's not how teachers should be, and you're not like that as a teacher.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

No, I hope not.

Danny 7:48

What was a typical day like at your previous job?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Get up in the morning, uh, get to the job site, work, um, you know, uh depending on I I was actually I was I was pretty fortunate that um I was able to um I could do math decently and um I my writing was okay. And no doubt the other guys wanted to do that. So they they put me on a lot of jobs where I'd have to like uh measure air quality and control and different things like that, uh different pollution issues. And so I I I went I transitioned from like actually just um what's a good way to put this without uh cursing? Uh I I transitioned from really hard work, actually a lot of physical labor, to um kind of just kind of sliding into like um different um working with numbers rather than um working with a jackhammer.

Danny 8:35

Can you talk about your experience being in union earlier in your career and then later when you took on some leadership roles?

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Wasn't quite as involved when I was I was involved. I would go to meetings and I would go to um different uh protests, but I would never uh I was never I would never think about taking a um a leader position leadership position. But um when I started here, I was uh the John Venisi, the guy who was uh the president before I was, he said, uh you want to get involved, and I said, Yes, I do. And so we um once I got my tenure, he became I became the membership chair. And from there I became the grievance chair, and from there I became the second VP, did a first VP, and then John said, I'm retiring, and just dropped it in my lap and I became the president. And it was uh that was another whole um just something I really wasn't prepared for.

Danny 9:20

Yeah. And that's a big role, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

It was. And it was a very contentious role with the administrations at that time. There was uh a lot going on, there was a lot of uh issues with the contract, a lot of things they wanted to change, a lot of things that we weren't going to change because it just was detrimental to us. When I was president, we never actually had a contract on the due date for the first three contracts that I had. We finally got one towards the end. Uh but I do have to give uh a shout out to Carrie Ireland because her relationship with the with the board was really phenomenal, and she really was really great at just kind of like um I was very blunt, whereas she was very more uh she was much more um amicable.

Danny 10:01

And Carrie is an ESP or educational services professional? Yeah, she's the union includes teachers, and who uh who else is um eligible to join the union?

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Teachers, custodians, bus drivers, um, school psychologists, guidance counselors. Okay. We're all inclusive.

Danny 10:17

So you were elected president of the teachers union, the local district teachers union. What are some of the successes uh you had in that role?

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Like I said, there's a very contentious relationship between um the superintendents and myself, and there were several um people that I had to get lawyers for who eventually I think um well they they a couple of them filed lawsuits against the district and and they walked away with um some six-figure settlements because of uh just the way they were being treated here.

Danny 10:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

And I I'm I'm really happy that I was able to uh help them with that. And and in general, just like um a lot of the times it's just people needing someone to talk to and just to vent to, and that I could be there for them. I just I was able I appreciate being able to do that.

Danny 11:01

In the twenty or so years you've been teaching, have you ever run into any former students out there in the world?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

I have. It's tough because um, and and Dan, you're gonna see this too. Uh when you see them and you don't remember their names, it's kind of crushing for them. And I always feel so bad sometimes when I do run into a student and I don't remember their name off the bat. And it's um there's something you just never forget. And it's it's always a pleasure seeing some uh I was at the dog park one time and I ran into a student that was just a real um button, a bulldog, to put it uh mildly. And he was there with his dog, and I had my two dogs there, and we just started talking. And he's doing well for himself now, he's a mechanic. And when he was here, he was just he was a pain. And he apologized. He made it a point to uh apologize to me. He said he knew he was a pain. He he said to apologize to uh Terry Tobiano, who was another teacher I used to work with, and he just he said he knew that he was being a pain, and he just he he's he just apologized. I was really shocked for him to say that, but it's really cool.

Danny 12:05

And I I I know you've you put me in touch with one of your former students who I believe now owns his own business.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Oh yeah, Giovanni Lacourt, and Gio is fantastic. I mean, Gio has uh Giovanni's over in South Boundbrook. It's a great restaurant, get the opportunity, please. The Italian food is fantastic. If you get the chicken palm, it's enough to feed a family of ten. All right. So the food is great, so please. And um Joe's meat market, they're that's his parents, they're from Branchburg, and um they're phenomenal also.

Danny 12:31

That's awesome. That's awesome that you were able to uh celebrate his success after after school. I think because everyone has had teachers, everyone has gone to school, uh, it's easy to make assumptions about what the job is like. What what do you think are some of the misconceptions about either the the field of education or special education in particular?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I I think uh the general education population just doesn't really quite understand why there's two teachers in a room and why they're paying two teachers to be in a room at different times. And I understand that. I mean the way the the property taxes here in New Jersey are are insane. But um I'm not just there for the special ed kids, I'm there for every kid in the room. If somebody else needs a hand with something, I'm there to help every single student. I have a Carosa and I have a great relationship with that where we can just uh bounce off each other and just like who needs help with this and who needs help with that. And I think a big misconception is that um why is my kid in a room with uh two teachers? Why why are there other special ed kids in that room? And they don't really realize the inclusiveness and how you know it helps the the kids who aren't special ed, and it helps kids who are special ed, you know, they they they see each other, you know, they they build relationships, they form bonds.

Danny 13:37

Co-teaching can be hard, and not everybody likes it. What's your experience been like collaborating while teaching?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Like like I've said before, I'm very, very fortunate to be uh here. I've never really had a bad experience with any teachers that I've worked with here. I guess when I first started, I wasn't sure what my role would be. I was just 40 years old.

Danny 14:48

What's a tip or a trick you learned early in your career that helped you with special ed populations?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

When I was um when I first started out and I needed a part-time job, I was working in a place called Mithene, which is a school for kids with cerebral palsy up in uh Pia Pack. And one thing they really showed me is that all the kids are in wheelchairs. And they said, don't stand over them, don't hover over them, get to their level.

Danny 15:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

And they it just makes me feel so much more comfortable and so much less threatening, too.

Danny 15:12

Being a special ed teacher means you're working with students with learning disabilities. You have to coordinate with social workers, psychologists, the child study team, families, other teachers. And you have to help students who may be vulnerable and even dealing with psychological issues or trauma. How do you uh handle the emotional labor of this work?

SPEAKER_00 15:37

That's a really hard one because um there are so many different personalities and there are so many different needs. And uh you know we try to be there for all of them. And a lot of the times uh I'm just not equipped to just I mean, if one student's having a really hard time. I had one last year who was having a really tough time with uh something that was going on in his family, and uh, I just said to him, I wanted to talk to him every day, and I did, I listened to him. But at the end of the day, I just said, listen, I have to refer you to the guidance counselor because this is really out of my scope. But um absolutely you want to talk to me, you can talk to me. Anything you want to say, I'm gonna keep it you know between us as much as I possibly can. But there are other people you really have to talk to because the other professionals in this situation I'm not.

Danny 16:16

Yeah. Is that is that uh can that be feel tiring for a teacher? Or how do you make sure that it doesn't feel too tiring and exhaust you?

SPEAKER_00 16:27

It's really hard to leave the stuff at the door.

Danny 16:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

And I'm sure you have the same problems too, Dan. You go home and you're both of you probably just bounce stuff off each other all the time. My wife and I do it constantly. But I'm trying to make it a point not to do it with my wife. And I'm I just I get up in the morning, I exercise first thing in the morning, I get home at night, I take the dogs for a nice long walk, and that's my downtime, that's my decompression time. And uh, you know, although you know things do pop up in my head, and you know, I do wake up at three o'clock in the morning at time saying, Oh, what should I do about this and what should I do about that? And it's hard not to do that.

Danny 16:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

But um I'm trying not to.

Danny 17:01

What advice would you give to uh a young person who's thinking about becoming a teacher or a career changer uh looking to do the same?

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Think long and hard. Um I I do think maybe um don't jump right into it right after school. I mean you're a perfect example of that, Dan. I mean, you've done several things and you came back to teaching. Maybe doing something for a year or two rather than just jumping into teaching and give you a better idea of what other people are doing. It kind of um it gives you a better understanding of what's going on.

Danny 17:29

What are some of the problems that teachers face today?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Lack of respect and just a misconception of exactly what's going on and what we do. We're not we're not glorified babysitters. And I think uh one of the bigger problems that we have right now with politicians and politicians who haven't been in a classroom since they've been in a classroom, and they're writing laws and regulations that we have to follow, and they have no idea how we know we would do something like that.

Danny 17:55

What is something that you think would positively change uh the experience of being a teacher?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Having parents get more involved, especially in a district like Somerville, where um we have we're we're on both ends of the spectrum. We have people who live in these big mansions for, you know, a million dollar million dollar houses. And we have people here in Somerville that are working three jobs just to get by. And they're the ones that we really have shouldn't be concentrating on. They're the ones who they're the ones that they fall through the cracks because the parents aren't there for them. Whereas you have the helicopter parents in the other place that it might just they're constantly, why isn't this happening for my my son or daughter, why isn't this happening? And we really should be thinking more about the kids here in town that um don't have the person to advocate for them at home as much as they really need it.

Danny 18:39

Have you ever felt like you were uh a parent in the classroom or a history teacher at home?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

My daughter and I talk, we have similar politics. So we when we do get together when she's when she is home, we do talk politics quite a bit. And um she probably schools me more than I do her. Um as for being a parent here, I mean we're all concerned about our students, and if we see something, we try to do whatever we can to help them.

Danny 19:04

Most, if not all, teachers do student teaching, where they uh come into a classroom in a school and they and they practice on a part-time basis with real lessons, real students. Did your uh experience involve student teaching? Yes, it did. Where did you student teach? Here. Oh, I at the oh right, okay. I was 40 years old. So how did that feel?

SPEAKER_00 19:26

It was um kind of humiliating. Um so I, you know, here I I ended up um my wife and I we socked some money away, and I took um part of my pension from my previous job. I cashed that by 401 in so you had enough money to live while I was while I wasn't working, while I was doing this and I wasn't not working. And I also tried to um work at a target midnights and then come into school the next day. I did that for about two weeks. Um I had one in this in this room, as a matter of fact, the uh the person that was my my mentor, he left me alone and we were the lesson was going great. And so I broke out a worksheet and I said uh to the class, you know, we we're gonna do this worksheet, we're gonna knock it out, then we're gonna go over it. And one student looked at me and said, I don't have to beep and listen to you. You're nothing but a beeping student teacher. And I, you know, the old me, I mean the the construction worker in me would have just um flipping around on it, but I didn't, you know. Um there was several things that you know I should have said that I could have said, and not and I I'm still here right now.

Danny 20:33

So there's a lot of uh not taking things personally, which can be very challenging for anybody. And um, yeah, like you said, meeting people where there are, you know, that's a that's a call for help sometimes if if students are act uh reacting in in uh perhaps unbelievable ways, that's really you know, an maybe an unmet need that you can locate eventually.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Well, ironically enough, uh John Venezia, the guy who I was talking about earlier, he uh used to do the crime and law classes here, and he had a connection over at the um at the penitentiary over in uh Rowway. So he would take the students over there just to give them an idea of what jail was like.

Danny 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

And that student that said that to me that particular time was there and said, Hello, Mr. Venezia. She was uh yeah, she was an inmate.

Danny 21:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

So you're right, that was a crypto. Yeah, yeah.

Danny 21:24

In your time as a teacher, has uh special education or teaching in general changed?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yes, it has. I would um when I initially thought about becoming a special ed teacher, when I initially thought what a special education teacher would do, I immediately went right to Mithene. And I figured I'd be working with kids with cerebral palsy or students with uh traumatic brain brain injury or something like that. Never really not understanding the whole scope of like things, things like an ADHD and um I mean autism has exploded over the past uh what, ten or fifteen years. I mean New Jersey has the highest amount of kids with autism in than any other state in the country, right?

Danny 22:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

But um I mean, when I was younger, I I they would just lock those kids away.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

And uh that and that's horrible. I mean, now that they're actually, you know, including them in classes and they're getting they're having a shot, I it's really it's been a change for the better. But um we really have to do more to follow their IEPs, and we really have to just not worry about the cost as much as and what the cost is and not how much uh just get them the services they need rather than worrying about the my minutiae I guess.

Danny 22:30

You mentioned IEP. What does that stand for?

SPEAKER_00 22:33

An IEP is an individual education plan, and that's for kids who are classified. And the classification could be it's a bunch of different things. There's other health impairment, there's um emotional issues, there's physical issues. And um depending on what the issue is, we have to do the modifications for that particular student to make sure that they get the full educational benefits that they deserve.

Danny 22:58

So overall, more students are are classified as uh uh having learning disabilities?

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Yeah, especially as the biggest department in the school.

Danny 23:06

Oh wow. Hey, I'm Danny, host of Project Labor. There's a lot of podcasts about work. A great majority of them have to do with how to be an entrepreneur, how to make more money, how to work hard and play hard, hustle and grind. You want to retire in your 30s? You want to make your first million? Well, our show won't be like that. We're going to document and listen to the stories and successes and struggles of real people, independent non-corporate radio, for workers, by workers. Thanks for listening. What's something that you would change about the school, the district, or your job in general?

SPEAKER_00 24:16

There's several things I'd like to say, and I don't want to put my foot in my mouth. And I I think hopefully that maybe we're heading towards that right now, but I think um people on the Board of Ed need to be more education focused and not more tax focused. So I and we are leaning towards that. I mean the But several board members now are actual educators, which means they have a good idea of what's going on. And for the longest time, there was no um, there was like maybe one teacher on the board, and that teacher was just always overruled by everybody else on the board that was more concerned about um sports than anything else.

Danny 24:50

Performance evaluation is an important part of any job. Uh teachers get observed by administrators uh at least two times a year, two or three times a year. Can you describe uh how evaluation works for teachers?

SPEAKER_00 25:03

It's really so subjective. And I guess a lot of it has to do with um what mood the person observing is in that particular day or what they see or what what they're talking about, like um with other administrators. I I know that um for quite a while, especially when I was president, I there were people here who uh who weren't tenured that were phenomenal teachers that they let go because it was almost like a quota system on how many people they should let go at one particular time. And thank goodness those superintendents aren't here right now. But it was just really, I mean, our hands were tied. And it you go through their evaluations and their observations and everything looks great. But at the end of the day, at the end of like uh, you know, May rolls around and each building automatically has two people getting laid off. You know, what's what's that all about? Why why does each building have two people getting laid off three years in a row? I mean, uh is it just six people every year getting, you know, what they're not doing their job? But um, like I said, that was uh two superintendents ago, and I'm glad that you know they really are starting to find. And the teacher shortage really has a lot to do with that right now, too. So I think uh unfortunately we're not in a good space, but we're in a better space than we were for people that are doing a great job and don't have to worry as much about um the politics.

Danny 26:15

Yeah, the teacher shortage uh is something that came up seemingly quick, but maybe could have been predicted by teachers. What what do you think is the reason or one of the some of the reasons for the teacher shortage that that America faces?

SPEAKER_00 26:30

I I think a lot of it has to do with um well with us who came with uh Chris Christie. When he came in in what, 2012, chapter 78 hit us really, really hard in our wallets. And just the lack of respect, I mean, the um the verbiage that was going on with him and other people on in his particular uh avenue, where they were just like uh they were they were shredding us and we're babysitters and um drug mules and just uh some of the the terms that were being thrown around about us were just really align misaligning us fake time, just really slandering us.

Danny 27:02

Yeah, unfortunately people are quick to misalign uh what what is historically and stereotypically uh a women's profession. Remind me again, you mentioned chapter 78. What is that?

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Chapter 78 was uh making us pay for a certain percentage of our insurance, and it turned out to be thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. So when I first started, my first year, teachers didn't pay any of their insurance. Then um we paid two percent. And then he came in with this uh chapter seventy, and the th they just got together and they they figured this this formula out to that we would pay a certain percentage of our salaries towards our health care. And when it all was said and done, the amount that they came up with was just really astronomical, and it was just that's what really started the whole ball rolling of people just not getting into education and people that were in education just leaving.

Danny 27:50

A lot of American workers, uh in including teachers, have side gigs or part-time jobs. What are some of those uh experiences that you've had?

SPEAKER_00 27:59

I did some bartending. Um that that was always fun. Um but wouldn't mind getting back into that. Uh I I tried um retail for a while. That just wasn't my thing. And I've always like um a couple of summers I would like get back into like construction or I'd you know help out some friends who are doing plumbing and carpentry and just work with them for a while. But uh, you know, my knees aren't working as well as they used to, so uh I usually come back to um here and I work in the summers here.

Danny 28:26

What do you like to do outside of work?

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Well, I I do enjoy writing um and so uh wait for my book coming out, Grants Toom, which hopefully it'll be out uh within the next six months. I'm looking for an agent right now, we'll see what happens.

Danny 28:39

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

And walking my dogs. That's that is just that, like I said, that's my de stressor.

Danny 28:43

And that's a uh a nonfiction or a fiction book? It's a murder mystery. Oh, cool. In what ways has teaching been different than you imagined?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

So, Dan, I'm gonna go back to our Catholic upbringing.

unknown 28:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

So I'm gonna tell it not to. I remember the first year I was uh I was teaching, I was in this room as a matter of fact, and there was one student, and he just blurted out, he cursed really loud in the middle of the room. And and I said, Beep, what are you doing? Well, you know, why why are you saying that? And he goes, Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Frank. I just blurted it out. And I said, Well listen, I've got to give you detention now. And he goes, Okay, not a problem. So I called his mother, and his mother said, Well, what did you do to provoke him into saying that? So I mean that never would have happened with us. Uh you know, just like, okay, you know, go home, take your shots, and that's it.

Danny 29:28

One thing everybody has in common is there's some teachers we uh remember fondly, and there's other teachers that we'd uh choose we'd we'd much rather forget. Are there any teachers that uh you try to be like or e expressly try not to be like?

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Well, yeah, I mean we we had brothers that used to teach open up a textbook and just read the textbook or word for word, and we had to just go along with it and take notes out of the text, you know, just and that was ridiculous. That was boring. But um I also had another guy named uh Mr. Tepper who really made it a point to just like um find the the idiosyncrasies, the um the different things in history that uh you really kind of latch on to, like um but like the the things behind the scenes. Like um like Somerset all right, Somerset County. One thing I really we're focused on the revolution right now, and um nobody really knows exactly how much Somerville and Somerset County were so important to the American Revolution. Nobody knows that George Washington, well I shouldn't say nobody, a lot of people don't know that George Washington lived over in the Wallace House for a summer, for a winter. And um he marched his troops out of Main Street here in Somerville. Washington Rock over here was the lookout they had to make sure the troops, the British troops didn't go from New York to Philly. And um that Jockey Hollow was worse, ten times worse than uh Valley Forge was in the winter. More soldiers died in Jockey Hollow than they did in Valley Forge for the winters.

Danny 30:44

Wow. Yeah, and the the distances that they traveled by horse and by foot seems kind of crazy. Uh it's it's amazing to think about that today, now that we need need cars to get around New Jersey.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Yeah, they average 20 miles a day. Wow. Walking.

Danny 30:59

I want to talk to you a little bit about COVID, had such a big effect on teachers and schools worldwide. What would your what was your experience like with COVID affecting your job as a teacher?

SPEAKER_00 31:09

It was a nightmare. Um and and you you've gone through it too, right? You were involved in educ you got out of education during COVID.

Danny 31:15

Yeah, exactly. I was a grant coordinator for a votech in New Jersey, and in March of that year, 2020, they said uh we were gonna take off one day to have meetings about what we were gonna do if the school was out school closed for a longer period of time, and after that day, we did not come back. As an ESL teacher now, most of my students are immigrants, and they immigrated from countries where they did not necessarily own a laptop or a computer at home. And from what I've researched and what they've told me is they more or less did not go to school during COVID at all. Or maybe some countries like Guatemala, for example, held classes over the radio. And now, even though it's four or five years out, we're definitely still working on uh mitigating the effects of COVID.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

So I with us, it was um nobody really knew. It was just such uncharted territory. So we figured it would be like maybe a couple of weeks and it turned into like the year, and then um the superintendent at the time devised a um a hybrid schedule where some of the students were coming half the day and the other students the other half of the students were coming the other half of the day and they would work remotely for the other half of the day. I think we made out a little bit better than most. But it was also a big issue with like a lot of people who had to deal with people at home who were vulnerable. So they're coming in here, they're being exposed to the stuff that these kids might have at the same time they're going home. You mentioned five oh four, it's what about 504? So five oh four is just a legal body document, but it's not really as exchange as an IEP. Um they're not quite doing the exchange as an IEP.

Danny 33:25

So modifications to the classroom environment or other activities, but not necessarily a learning disability.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Exactly. Like maybe um usually they have a tendency, people the kids with a 504 have a tendency to test higher. So they might not be labeled as special education because their test scores are probably a little bit better, and they might not need as many as many modifications.

Danny 33:44

In your career, uh you've it seems like you've often uh served the role as an advocate for the vulnerable, like whether it's students who are uh at risk of falling through the cracks or at risk of being ignored or just labeled as oh he hates school or he doesn't try hard, he's lazy, or she's lazy. Um can you talk a little bit more uh in and also you've been an advocate for uh fellow workers, uh fellow union members here as union president, you've advocated for them and protected them uh and stood up for their rights. Can you talk about maybe where that comes from?

SPEAKER_00 34:21

I all four of my grandparents were um Irish immigrants, and you know, when they came here they had to they started at the bottom of the ladder. My my mother's father worked in the um the beep hacking industry for forty odd years, uh working 12-hour shifts six days a week, limited vacations. She had nine brothers and sisters, and they it was always um whatever they could do to help out their particular community. It was a huge all my families were from huge Irish Catholic neighborhoods, closely affiliated with the church and whatever there was something going on with the church or with the community. We were always there, we were always involved, and we were always there for each other. When we needed help, um we made sure well the neighbor our neighbors made sure that they were there for us. So we wanted to make sure we were there for our neighbors too.

Danny 35:05

Well, that's exactly uh the mindset we need more of. We definitely need more of that. Pat, it's been awesome speaking with you. Thanks for uh having this conversation with me.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Danny, thank you.