I'm Brian Myers. I'm Mike Ratowick. I'm Becky Hiddad. And this is Al Pelletz, a podcast featuring tips for ad teachers.
We are your agricultural education resource across the web, sharing research based tips and tackling the tough questions facing agriculture teachers every day. Hey, Al Pelletz listeners. Brian Becky, Mike here by the Al Pelletz, ready to introduce our series. Sorry, we're not calling it a mini series.
It is a full-on series for season 10. Absolutely. Absolutely phenomenal. Nine letters.
Nine letters to those concerned with teacher retention. And as we think about these letters and kind of where this is going, I think there are a couple of pieces we want to do with this intro episode to the series. And I think there are some questions we want to situate in. We also want to provide a guy that you could come back to with each letter.
I think as we listen through each letter, it's going to stand by itself. There's going to be some discussion, which is a little bit false that you can listen to at once or listen to the letter once and be done. We even found as we were listening, you'll hear us say throughout this mini series, I'm going to go back and listen to this one. I am really sitting with some things from this letter that I'm going to need to process for a little while.
And so as we kind of think about this, I think one of the big questions we're thinking about is we think about this letter series to those concerned with teacher retention is really, what are some of the conversations we're not having? Maybe even what are some of the conversations we're afraid to have? And what new solutions to big issues like teacher retention may emerge if we take out that constraint of vulnerability. So you're going to hear some things you might not like from us in the letters.
And I think we say this at a certain point in the series, but I think one of the things that we kind of want to lean into is the opportunity in that space to think, which is the same way that we're not thinking anyway, but that opportunity to say, huh, I hadn't thought about that before and get to lean into that a little bit. I haven't thought about that before. What if and generally just a cause and thought. And so as you see, as you experience the letters as we unveil those throughout the season, you're going to get to hear the letter first.
And then you'll get the opportunity for us to kind of initially react to some of the letters. And I hope it's just initial reaction and that all of you will join us in the conversation and tell us where we're wrong. No, it's which will be plenty of that. But even just the different angles and different perspectives that you can really unpack a lot of these letters, I think should go a long way in conversations and opening up the discussion because you know, ag education is a noble profession, at least from my perspective.
And I think from a lot of us that are listening to this. And so how can we help individuals feel like they're great teachers and that they can be successful in their roles and responsibilities as an ag teacher, but also home in their personal lives and being successful in knowing how that they can balance that. So it's not as much failure as we like to, you know, some of us are half full versus half empty type thinkers. And so how can we help people to realize in their successes and not shy away from the opportunity to be a great educator.
Well, and in this series, we have nine letters. We still talk about everything that's related to teacher retention. We do talk about some hard things. And the goal here is not to say that everything is hard about this, but it's like hopefully we provide a space to think, have conversation, hopefully model some of the ways to have productive conversation around these hard topics, but also to enjoy the other parts and the good parts of teaching and why we do the kind of because this is a noble profession, at least the three of us have chosen to.
To perpetuate it. To perpetuate it. Yes. I think one of the things kind of to Mike's point about these what if questions is also acknowledging up front that what if questions do not have easy answers.
And so in discussing these letters and asking some questions, we probably ask more questions than we have answers before you will hear a lot of just dangling questions that as we processed our initial reactions are first listen, you know, it wasn't this yeah, I've got an answer to this or I got a solution. It really is I think leaning into the value of a conversation when it comes to that what if question there's some intentional ambiguity I think in asking what if because there's space to imagine a little bit and those letters in a lot of respects are pretty dense. And so if there's a lot to think about and I would take a guess that there isn't a single one of us listening that's not going to see ourselves at least in one if not all of those letters and some of those nuggets and so it might be a little raw. It might catch our breath a little bit, but I think it's an opportunity for us to give some pause and to give some thought to some of these topics and also help us realize that we're not alone in our thoughts.
I think sometimes we as teachers are in a classroom by ourselves on our own island and we're the only ones that's thinking this or experiencing this and the reality is it's probably quite normal what we're living through and experiencing in there are support systems out there to help us be successful. I think also here's a little bit kind of sound like we're talking about sides of our mouths. Every day absolutely. That's probably what we do best.
I think my sense that when we're talking about one of the letters about kind of the social mass that we're working and living in, you know, we talk about this research, we present this thing like there's this very clear cut, cut dry answer, but I think what you're going to hear over this series is our own disagreements with ourselves. It's not as simple as I think this and here's my line and I think what we tend to do when we're thinking about kind of this vulnerable conversation piece of this is we catch ourselves before that disagreement comes out of our mouth and we miss some opportunities when we say oh that contradicts what I said before. That, I think that, I am disagreeing with my own thought and so we miss an opportunity to really actually process that and think about where did that come from and even what's the middle ground that I will tend to think in this binary, it's this thing or it's this thing and these two things don't agree so I have to rectify that but if I don't have that conversation with myself, if I don't have that conversation with somebody else, I'm going to miss all the other things in between those two things that I see as like those don't fit together, I can't hold those in the same space. That's why the answer to every question is it depends.
It depends. I don't have a short answer to this. I think one more that Brian like taking a breath like he's just ready to. I'm breathing.
I'm breathing. Sorry. I'm overspend my car. Yes.
Don't stop breathing. I think we have the benefit of recording this intro after we've gotten to talk through and so we get to preview what we've already discussed. I think one of the things having been involved full transparency with generating and helping put some of the letters together, I think in the right on the writing side thinking how much I might have thought some of these letters talked about the same things in different ways and even just getting this out to three people that weren't in our writing group to say here are these different things that we're seeing based on who's reading it, based on the space they're in right now, based on the reader that's sharing the letter with us. I think also acknowledging that if you have this conversation with us afterwards afterwards, you might say, well you said that.
I'm kind of to that idea of disagreement where it will sound different depending on when you listen to it. I would encourage listeners to go back and process on these again and again. For real, for real. For real.
I really hope everyone enjoys going through this. And again, it's enjoying. It won't be a fun thing. It is uncomfortable.
It's going to be uncomfortable. It is going to be ready for that first and uncomfortable in the sense of just some important things for us to be thinking about and to consider to be really thoughtful about our profession. Hard work mentally taxing. Those are two words that I jotted down.
I was thinking about it. Yeah. Because it is. Yeah.
For us at least, you know, just even thinking about them. I lost it after a couple of conversations. There was second coffee today. There was.
There was. Well, I hope you all are at least excited about the upcoming series on here regarding to those concerned with teacher retention. Really appreciate Becky, you guiding us through this entire series and making this happen for us. We hope you all enjoy this as well.
This will only work if everyone out there, when you listen to you engage in the dialogue, in the conversation, that's what we're hoping to start as this conversation within the profession. As you think about these topics, talk with your colleagues and friends and those other people that are concerned about teacher retention and working in this area. Record those thoughts. The author team that initially wrote the letters and put this whole thing together do have resources to facilitate this as workshops to share that, like, to write your own letter and share that back.
And I think really we end this series talking about kind of this hopeful endeavor. And I think when it comes to putting something like this out there, this hope for engagement and for collective problem solving and to really bring voices that maybe haven't been as amplified before to say, what are we missing? And how does that missing piece really help us help us solve some problems? And it's all about a job, a career that we love.
We enjoy. It's not perfect. There are hard days. There are hard things.
But we are dedicated and excited about agriculture, education, about agriculture teachers, about school-based agate. And we hope that you will engage in that conversation and share your excitement as well. So get out there, get ready for a great conversation. We appreciate you being here.
And really thank you all for being here for being part of this podcast, Alpelitz Tips for Ag Teachers. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Alpelitz. Check out our website for more information on this topic and to learn more about our guests. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay connected.
And be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss an episode. For Mike and Becky, this is Brian here by the Alpelitz. Saying thank you and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of Alpelitz Tips for Ag Teachers.