The Minimalist Educator Podcast
A podcast about paring down to focus on the purpose and priorities in our roles.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast
Episode 072: Finding Joy Again - A School Leader's Journey Back to the Classroom with Dr. Michele Ogden
Dr. Michele Ogden shares her journey from elementary principal back to the classroom, highlighting the importance of aligning career choices with personal strengths and sources of joy. Her story challenges traditional career progression narratives, demonstrating how finding the right fit can enhance wellbeing and professional satisfaction.
• Former elementary principal who returned to teaching second and third grade
• Experienced burnout during COVID with high blood pressure, insomnia and anxiety from administrative demands
• Found greater purpose and joy working directly with students all day
• Brought valuable leadership skills from administration into classroom teaching
• Creates consistent routines, calm environment and strong community in her classroom
• Emphasizes the importance of joyful connections with both students and colleagues
• Philosophy of making students sad when they miss school - creating positive FOMO
• Wisdom: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should"
• Encourages educators to reflect on what energizes them versus what drains them
This episode is sponsored by Joyful Learning Connections.
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Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a podcast about paring down to refocus on the purpose and priorities in our roles with co-hosts and co-authors of the Minimalist Teacher Book, Tammy Musiewski-Borneman and Christine Arnold.
Speaker 2:Today we are joined by Michelle Ogden. Michelle chats with us about her experiences going from a principal back into a classroom teaching role. Michelle Ogden is a teacher leader in the Irvine Unified School District with experience as an elementary principal, k-12, math and science coordinator and teacher. She's led professional learning at district and site levels and presented nationally on school culture, math, education technology and relationship building. A first generation college graduate, she earned her Ed Doctorate from the University of Southern California. She is an ASCD Emerging Leader from 2014 and has served on the boards of California ASCD and ASCD Emerging Leaders. Passionate about whole child education, ogden is dedicated to fostering joyful, impactful learning experiences for all students.
Speaker 3:Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Today, christine and I are talking to a wonderful educator named Michelle Ogden. She and I go back quite a long time now over a decade and so we're excited to have her on this week to talk about some changes that she's had in her role as an educator. How are you today, michelle?
Speaker 4:I am doing great. I am so happy to be here with both of you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Thank you. How are you, Christine?
Speaker 2:I'm very good. I'm happy to be here and having another chat and meeting Michelle finally. Yay, I've been looking forward to this. I've very good. I'm happy to be here and having another chat and meeting Michelle finally.
Speaker 4:Yay, I've been looking forward to this. I've listened to you guys for quite a while now, so I am so excited to actually get to meet you.
Speaker 3:We're excited that you listen to the podcast. It really motivates us when we see downloads and know that people are listening to so many wise words from people that we've had on the show. So we're really excited to have you here and share with us some of the things that you've gone through as an educator. So can you just give us a quick synopsis of, because you've been in a few different roles over time? So can you just give us like a quick journey of your time as an educator?
Speaker 4:Yes, absolutely so. Currently I am a second and third grade teacher and a math mentor for our district for elementary grades, but before that I've had quite a few different roles. I was an elementary school principal for six years. I was a math and science coordinator for our school district and that was K-12 during the time where Common Core had just started and we were going through a lot of big changes and before that I was a first grade teacher. So I've had varied experiences.
Speaker 3:After staying at home for eight years in between my first couple of years of teaching, that's a lot of role changing in the span of an educator's journey, which I think is like common for a lot of people. You know you want to try out some different roles, and so can we talk a little bit about your principalship and then shifting back into the classroom. So you were an elementary school principal during such a rough time during COVID, pre-covid and during COVID, so can you talk to us a little bit about that experience?
Speaker 4:Yeah, being a principal during COVID was very different than before. I think when I went into being a principal. One of the things I really loved about that was the idea that I could have instructional leadership, a role in a school and impact you know, the greater good of everybody. And I did love being back at a school site. Before that I was at the district office and I missed being around the kids. So I really had to think about, as a principal, what was the impact I was having and that really drew me in. And so being a principal before COVID, you know it was still a lot of different responsibilities. I did have some opportunities for instructional leadership, but COVID really brought on so many different challenges and it really took me more into the managerial role.
Speaker 4:You know monitoring protocols, thinking about the day-to-day, and you know we had different models of instruction going on during that time. We had in-person instruction. Still, we had hybrid instruction, so a number of our kids were coming to school twice a week and doing the rest online. A portion of our population was doing virtual learning. So we were scattered in a lot of different areas and during that time I found that I had to take on more.
Speaker 4:Obviously, everybody was working longer hours. We were checking our emails around the clock, where before that I was able to kind of shut down at a certain point and then really just focus on myself and my family and do those things that I knew were important for me to take care of myself. And when COVID happened, we had to be responsive around the clock because things were changing so fast. We were constantly getting you know emails about something happening, you know, and I was worried about our students, worried about our staff, worried about our community, and I had to be on top of things all the time and I felt like I couldn't let it go during that time, and so it was really, really difficult.
Speaker 2:I think this is such a fascinating conversation to have because you know you often hear about people you know moving up the ladder and just going in one direction in their career. But to hear someone who's tried different roles and been really, really reflective about what's working for them and not working for them and making some different choices, I think it's really fascinating for us to listen to. So now that you're back in that beautiful second, third grade age group, what are you really enjoying and making the most of knowing what those other roles look like?
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, for me, I had to really think about what were the things that charged me, what gave me energy and I've always been a learner by nature and I love learning and I continue to learn every day but where I kind of got stuck was I was learning and then felt like I had to do something with it, and so what was the next action? But as somebody who had a broad range of interests, I kept pursuing different things that were challenging for me, and although I really love challenge and I do think it's an important part of helping us grow I found that I was also not focusing on some of those things where my strengths were, and I was spending less time in the things that I found to be really important to me as a person where the same challenges that existed during COVID for me were very, very difficult, but for others those were still things they could manage just fine. So I had to really look at myself. I had to look at what were the important things for me to consider. I know when I got to the point as a principal when I was counting down to retirement, like how soon can I retire, that was a sign that, okay, I cannot keep doing this forever, and my plan for retirement was to go back to teaching. So I thought at some point why am I doing this? Why am I not doing the thing that I really would be doing for free?
Speaker 4:I love teaching. I have a passion for working with kids. I love that I can have an impact with them every single day, and impact you know even just as little as how is their day, you know when they walk in. That is something that gets shaped as a teacher, and I had that a little bit as a principal. But as a teacher, you're with them for the whole day, and so that's what I really love.
Speaker 4:And for myself, I had to take some of those skills that I learned in other areas to figure out how could I use those as a teacher leader, because I think that's where my big passion and leadership fell. I want to be able to support my colleagues. I want to be able to do what's best for kids and I want to be able to do that myself too. I want to put things into practice, because I do have that passion for learning and I wanted to be able to see the results, try things out and play with it a little bit to see. Is this more effective or does something else work better? What do the kids really respond to?
Speaker 4:And that was where I had to really make a difficult decision because it wasn't easy. Stepping back into the classroom from being a principal is a difficult decision, you know. Personally and professionally, it was really difficult to leave the people that I loved. I loved the staff there, I loved the kids there and we had a wonderful community, very supportive, even in the times of COVID, where I know that wasn't necessarily the case everywhere. But I had to make that decision to go back to something that I knew was going to really like feed my soul, basically Right.
Speaker 3:I love that. You love the teaching so much. I can definitely remember when you were principling and you know like obviously that was such a hard time, but then when you went back, there was definitely a shift in just your joyfulness, I think because you are a very happy person and you do look for the positive. Very happy person and you do look for the positive and it was just. It's just so much fun to watch your you and your students journey on Instagram, like when you're posting photos about them and just the fun ways that you're building and learning for them. So that makes me happy for you, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's something that I've really enjoyed and I feel fortunate because I had the support of my family, the support of my husband, to be able to make these changes, because financially that also had to be considered. But, yeah, finding that joy and you know, I had high blood pressure and insomnia and anxiety because it was just too much for me and who I am Other people, like I said, were just fine, but I needed to find that joy in my work, not just trying to fill in gaps through self-care outside of the workplace.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:We had an episode or a couple of episodes come out about the perception of the teaching profession according to partners, and so the data that we collected from that was super interesting.
Speaker 3:So, you know, hearing from you too just you know how your family very much supported you in that shift back to the classroom because of your well-being is so important. I did want to ask you because I had the privilege of getting to visit you on a teaching day a couple years ago I think it was almost two years ago and so I got to see you in action, which was super fun to be in your classroom with you and your students. And so I noticed things about your classroom where I'm like it kind of made me miss teaching a bit, because I'm like, oh, I used to do that. Or like you know, if I had a classroom and I would probably do that, can you just talk about some of the like simple structures and systems you have in place to just make sure your, your classroom runs smoothly, and maybe some? Sorry I'm terrible for asking a two-pronged question, but like some of those systems, but also like, what did you bring with you from your principalship that you bring, have brought into your classroom or into your teacher leadership role?
Speaker 4:Yeah, Well, I think what I've realized going back to the classroom now after many years of not being there, is just how important the consistency matters for the kids. Welcoming them at the door is one of the high priorities for not only me but for my whole school. So we want to make sure that students feel welcome every single day. My goal is to make sure that they know that it matters that they are with us. I want them to love to come into the classroom each day so we have regular routines where they can take charge of things. They know what to expect. We focus on creating a calm and peaceful environment, which I think matters so much when students are used to high change or high impact or high fast paced things going with like video games or being online. So I want to give them a place where they can breathe and learn and really get to know each other. So I try to build in lots of opportunities for them to talk together as partners or table groups and share out. I want them to build that community to make sure that they feel welcome at school, so that you know, aside from the actual learning part, that's a big focus. I want kids to feel comfortable and happy and know that school is a home for them too.
Speaker 4:The second part is the skills that I learned as a leader in the different roles that I had in my district really helped me to approach things that I did not like in better ways.
Speaker 4:Like, as a person, I'm very conflict avoidant and I don't like having to, you know, debate things or coming up with, you know, different points to sell my perspective.
Speaker 4:And so, luckily, with the district that I'm in, we've had a lot of training on the leadership side where learning to listen, learning how to take on various perspectives, how to really recognize somebody else's thoughts on a topic and how to do that in a way where everybody feels heard and valued, and taking everybody's opinions into consideration when making decisions.
Speaker 4:And so those were some of the big skills that I learned, where I am so grateful for that because I feel like that's helped me in my role now as a teacher. I can have direct conversations. I don't let things simmer, I'm willing to, you know talk directly with parents, pick up the phone and just call people, where I think that can be a little intimidating sometimes when we're just used to working with kids all day. So I think those are some of the skills that I bring now, and it helps me to communicate with parents in a different way too, where they know I'm there to listen and not just talk at them, and that was, I think, probably in my early years, more of my standard. But so I learned a lot of different skills. But I am grateful to my school district because they did provide a lot of that peer coaching and there were a lot of different trainings that we had that supported that learning that I got.
Speaker 2:It was interesting what you were saying about one of the things that drew you to leadership was that instructional nature of being there for your colleagues and helping improving instruction at your school. But I do wonder how much time people actually have for that sort of work. You know, when I look around at school leaders, this seems to be, you know, whether it's budgets or schedules or you know staff concerns. There seems to be, you know, all of these time pools in different directions away from that instructional leadership. Did you find? Obviously COVID was a massive one, but before that did you find that difficult to actually get enough time to do that work that you loved?
Speaker 4:Right? I do think so. I think it was. There were so many different competing priorities, and so you have to kind of focus in on what is the most important one for your staff and your community. And, again, with the support of the district that I'm in, they did value that.
Speaker 4:So I had a little bit more, probably, than I would have had elsewhere, and still, there's never enough time for that. There's always something that we could be working on and improving, and I think that's the nature of a lot of us in education, where we have that mindset of continuing to grow and learn throughout our careers, and so it was a matter of me also needing to listen to the staff to see where they felt those needs were too. It wasn't up to just me to make those decisions. I could share data, I could share information, and they were ultimately the ones that needed to be doing the work, whatever it was, as the teachers working directly with the kids. So I did try to get a lot of input. I tried to get more feedback about their you know, their thoughts on priorities and balance that with what I saw as the leader of the school.
Speaker 3:So many things to think about. So in your classroom, knowing you know you've had years of experience in different roles and you know figuring out what brings you the most joy, how does that? How do you bring that directly to your students?
Speaker 4:And I think this is a fun way, because it's a fun thing Like you have to be open and share the things that you really enjoy with them. And when you share that passion or when you share an interest in something, they listen, because they want to know what their teachers are like. They want to know them beyond just what we're doing in math and what we're going to be doing in reading or writing today. So making those personal connections and sharing the funny and silly things also, like just simple things that get their attention, that make them see, oh, today was different.
Speaker 4:I learned something new before we left school on Friday. Like the most random thing. I have this special talent of being able to bend my pinky all the way back and have it, touch my hand and you know, you never know what's going to connect with the kids. And I think the more I share, the more they smile and they laugh and it makes the learning environment so much better, like you have to enjoy the place that you are, the learning environment so much better, like you have to enjoy the place that you are.
Speaker 4:And so I want them to be a little bit sad when we don't have school. Honestly, I don't want them to be celebrating. Yeah, I look forward to seeing them and I share that with them. After a long weekend, when I come back, I'm like I really missed you. I'm so sorry that we didn't have school yesterday. And so many of them will say, yeah, I wish I could have been here yesterday. They want to be there, I think because we're creating such a fun environment. I want them to have a little bit of FOMO if they're not there.
Speaker 2:And how do we create that joy with the other adults in the building as well? You know it's important that we're having those moments with each other too. Do you have any good tips for us on how to do that?
Speaker 4:Oh, I'm so glad you asked that part of the question because the school that I am in is incredible.
Speaker 4:Like our team, our lunch group, we laugh the hardest anybody could ever laugh, like they can hear us all the way down the hall and in the office when we're laughing.
Speaker 4:But we just have a great time, we don't take anything too seriously and we really spend time getting to know each other on a personal level and you know we ask each other random questions, we get to silly and ridiculous things that really lighten the mood and, honestly, when I'm not at school I have FOMO for missing out on lunchtime too, because the conversations that come up, you know they're sometimes ridiculous but they're hilarious and they bring us together and they lighten the mood. Sometimes when things can get kind of heavy, we're dealing with people and kids and families and there are things that go on that we cannot control and we have to deal with the heavy things and we have to work together to get through it, through that and make it a positive environment for everybody, the whole staff. You know you have to get that feeling when you walk into a school that these people really like each other, they enjoy working together and they can be productive and do great things for kids.
Speaker 3:That is so, just it's. It makes me so happy to hear that there's that kind of joy in your building and it also makes me sad that there's teachers that don't get to experience that in the same way. So hopefully our listeners are grabbing some points from you for, like, just like you know, take, take things with a grain of salt, like laugh at things, make sure you're you're feeling good about where you're at, enjoy each other. Um, because you know things get really hard and you have to find those points of joy. Um, so we're already starting to wrap up our episode. Go so fast, so fast. And we always ask our guests for a pare-down pointer. So it could be something that you've mentioned already. It could be something that you apply personally or professionally. So what would you offer our listeners as your pare-down pointer?
Speaker 4:Well, I was thinking about the decisions I've made in my career and how you know it's not a typical path. So, in that I was thinking about, just because you can doesn't mean you should, and you have to really consider what are the things that bring you energy and what are the things that drain you and how do you align your career to that. So, thinking about those things that you find energizing and where you really want to be spending your time, those are the things. You should say yes to Continue on that path, and it's okay to also say okay, that's not for me, at least not right now. So, making those decisions about where you want to, not just because you can.
Speaker 3:That's powerful. Thank you, Michelle. I'm going to keep that in mind actually right now, at this point in my career. Thank you so much for being with us today. It has been a joy to talk to you, and we'll probably have to have you on for a part two at some point. So just be aware I would love that.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much. I really really do appreciate being here with you both, and you guys are doing incredible work and I look forward to continuing to listen.
Speaker 2:This episode was brought to you by Joyful Learning Connections Practical tips, creative ideas, helpful resources and engaging events to enhance your child's learning journey. Find out more at joyfullearningconnectionscom learning journey.
Speaker 1:Find out more at joyfullearningconnectionscom. Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for more episodes of the Minimalist Educator podcast. They would love to hear about your journey with minimalism. Connect with them at planzpls, on Twitter or Instagram. The music for the podcast has been written and performed by Gaia Moretti.
