Is it ever okay for students to fail? According to paraprofessional Tracy Dixon, yes. And it might be the key to authentic student growth. In this episode of If Teachers Ruled the World, Tracy shares her perspective on why failure is important in education, realistic expectations for students, alternative pathways to student achievement, and the value of failure as a learning tool. With a background that includes roles as a flight attendant, school nutrition worker, and now paraprofessional, Tracy offers a rare, big-picture perspective on student success. Whether you’re a teacher, parent, or administrator, this episode will challenge the idea that every student must succeed by traditional standards and invite you to redefine what success really looks like in today’s schools.
Why Failure Is Important in Education
Failure is often seen as something to avoid at all costs, but what if it’s actually necessary? Tracy makes the case that failure teaches responsibility, resilience, and independence, especially when students are held accountable for completing work.
Rather than lowering standards, embracing failure as a natural part of learning helps students grow beyond just chasing grades.
A Paraprofessional’s Perspective on Student Success
As a classroom teacher, I’m used to seeing education from my own corner of the world. My students, my subject, my schedule (well, okay…not my schedule). But every now and then, I have a conversation that forces me out of my corner. That’s what happened when I sat down with Tracy Dixon, a paraprofessional who first worked as a flight attendant, and then in school nutrition, and, now, in the classroom.
Support staff often see patterns teachers may miss. Like when a student is constantly redirected across settings. Tracy reminds us that we need realistic expectations that honor each student’s capacity, not just their compliance.
When We Let Go of Perfectionism, Students Thrive
Too often, we equate student success with perfect performance: high test scores, finished homework, and college readiness by age 18. But what if we prioritized student fulfillment, curiosity, and skill-building instead?
Tracy encourages us to let go of arbitrary measures of achievement and instead focus on what each student needs to build a meaningful, capable life. Even if that looks different from the traditional path.
Alternative Pathways: Rethinking How We Define Success
Not every student is headed to a four-year university. And that’s okay. Tracy highlights the importance of career exploration, hands-on learning, and trade programs as legitimate, valuable pathways.
The key is to help students find where their aptitudes and interests align, rather than forcing them into one-size-fits-all academic molds.
Key Takeaway: Setting realistic goals, honoring student differences, and sometimes allowing failure can lead to long-term success that actually matters.
Key Moments:
1:34 – Introducing Tracy Dixon: A paraprofessional’s perspective on student success and why failure is important in education
12:18 – Tracy’s “teacher law” on realistic expectations for students and why it’s okay if not every student excels at everything
14:29 – The “trifecta of failure”: How paraprofessionals recognize when lack of ability, interest, and effort intersect in the classroom
19:59 – The value of failure: Teaching accountability, effort, and alternative student success pathways through consequences and growth
26:02 – Redefining student success beyond test scores: Creating prerequisites and realistic expectations in career-track programs
34:47 – Exploring alternative pathways to student achievement: From aptitude testing to vocational guidance and creative counseling
41:29 – How one charter school model supports student success through dual enrollment and career-aligned programming
50:42 – When is it okay for students to fail? Balancing support, consequences, and real-world preparation in today’s classrooms
Resources and Links
Ken Jeong IMDB: The physician-turned-actor Tracy refers to
Want to prepare students for the future? Let them fail more.: A case for why failure is important in education
Prefer Reading? I’ve Got You…
Show Transcript
Hey everyone, and welcome back to if teachers ruled the world. I’m Leah Cleary, and I just have to tell you, I am so energized after the conversation you’re about to hear. I spoke with Tracy Dixon on a Monday night, and both of us had just finished very long days at work, but talking to Tracy, it was completely recharging. She’s so dedicated to her job and just so much fun to talk to.
Tracy is a paraprofessional at a charter high school, but education isn’t her first career, not even close. She was a flight attendant, then she worked in school nutrition for 11 years before transitioning to classroom support about three years ago. And you know what? I find that some of the most interesting people in education are the ones who’ve taken that kind of circuitous path to get where they are. Where they’ve been gives them such a unique perspective on where they are now.
I also love that Tracy is a parapro because, let’s be honest, support staff doesn’t always get the recognition or voice they deserve. They do so much for our students. And Tracy’s teacher law, which you’re going to hear about, is so beautifully focused on what’s actually best for students, not what makes adults feel better. Here’s what really struck me about Tracy’s perspective as a paraprofessional–she works with individual students, yes, but she’s also in multiple classrooms. She gets to see many different students in many different types of classes. Most of us classroom teachers. We’re in our niche. Every day. I teach math, you teach history, someone else teaches English, and that’s really all we’re exposed to. But Tracy has been exposed to everything–academic classes, vocational programs, self contained special education, and of course, she began her journey in education working in school nutrition, so she’s literally seen it all. That’s a perspective I certainly don’t have as a classroom teacher, and I think you’re going to find her insights as valuable as I did. So here’s my conversation with Tracy Dixon about realistic expectations, the view from staff support, and what happens when we actually focus on what’s best for kids instead of what’s comfortable for adults.
Hi, Tracy, it’s great to have you today.
Hi, thank you for having me.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
So I’ve actually worked in the school system for 14 years. I started off actually in school nutrition, and then moved to the education side of things about four years ago, and was actually in self contained special ed for a couple of years, and have since moved to the general education side of things. So the last couple of years I’ve been general education.
That is a really interesting perspective. When I found that out, I was really excited to interview you, to have you on the show, because you’ve seen a side of education that I’ve never seen. You’ve worked in the school nutrition side, and you’ve been in the classroom side too. Can you tell me a little bit about maybe the difference between how you interact with students in those two settings?
You know, it’s actually very interesting, because when you think of school nutrition, you just think of, you know, like serving food and in and out. And it was so interesting because for whatever reason, the children would open up to me and tell me all kinds of things about their personal lives, you know, home lives and relationships and all this. And that’s kind of how I developed my love for education, was just being able to interact with them on a daily basis, on that level. It just really gives you a window into what kids are dealing with on a daily basis. And I feel like it really gave me a good foundation for how to then, when I moved over into the education side of things, how to really empathize with them and be able to help them.
And that’s really at the heart of it, what education is about, what teaching is about. It’s really about building relationships and being responsive. So coming from the nutrition side of it, do you feel like you had a little more time to talk to students, to, you know, talk to them, and for them to open up? Or do you find that that they open up in the same way in the classroom?
Um, you know, it was interesting, because you would have students who would, you know, make that time. They would seek me out, and my co workers to come over and, you know, talk, or, you know, just have a conversation. And, you know, it was interesting because it was, you know, more students dealing with that side of things than what I deal with now, it’s a little bit more, you know, controlled in that. But same thing. I just, I don’t know, I find it easy to to build relationships with students.
So what is your favorite thing about being in the classroom?
Now, I think it’s what most teachers would would say. It’s, you know, building those relationships with the students. And when you see that spark of understanding, and because it’s, it’s not only you know, for the student, that excitement of they got it, it’s the pride of knowing that you did your job, you did it well, and you’re getting somewhere. So I think that would be my favorite thing, is just those, those moments of discovery with them.
Another thing that I wanted to talk about a little bit is that, well, two things. You’re in a charter school right now. I teach at a traditional school, so a charter school is I’m imagining a little bit of a different experience. I think that you’ve only been in the classroom in a charter school. Were you in nutrition in traditional school settings?
It was the same school, so I just kind of slid over. But it’s interesting to me, because you would think it would be different, but I find that it often is not because you encounter like the same problems. I would say 80% of my friends group is teachers, so we have a lot of conversation as to, you know, what goes on in classrooms and with students and things. So I find that it’s the same kind of issues that you deal with, regardless as to what type of school you’re in.
Before you were in a school setting, you were a flight attendant, weren’t you?
That’s correct. I was.
But what did you learn from being a flight attendant that translates to education that might surprise us?
That’s an excellent question, because the one carry over from that job is the people that I had the most problems with on the plane were controlling people. Because when any person gets in a situation where they feel like they are not in control, is when bad things happen. And I see that a lot with my students as well, because when they feel like they’re not being heard or they’re not being validated, bad things happen.
That is incredibly true. Now you’re a parapro in a classroom, right? And before you were in the general ed classroom, you were in a self contained Special Needs classroom, and that was very difficult, isn’t it?
It can be.
What in particular did you find, I’m going to say difficult about it, and what did you find rewarding? Because that’s a scenario that I’ve I’ve never been in in public education.
Fun fact, I actually started working with special needs children when I was in middle school. Somebody that I worked for, she ran a camp in the summertime for children with special needs, and she asked me if I would come and work with her in the summertime. So that’s what I would do in the summer. Then I actually went to college for education, went a couple years, and was like, I don’t know what I want to do. I’m just going to take a year off, and next thing you know, I’m a flight attendant, and 20 years later, here I am in education again.
So you kind of went full circle.
Yes, absolutely. So it’s funny how things work, but, um, yes, I mean, it’s the same thing for me. It was like, you know, when I worked in self contained. It’s those wonderful moments of when you try so hard to teach a skill, and it doesn’t matter what that skill is, if it’s, you know, how to tie your shoes, or you know, when you go to general education, it’s, you know, how to figure something out. It’s just when they get it, it’s pride in your students. It’s that just wonderful feeling of we figured it out together, and we were able to do that. But I think the hardest thing for me, working when I worked in self contained was it was the repetition from year to year, because the curriculum doesn’t change at all, because, by nature, it really can’t, because you’re learning a different set of skills than you are in the general ed classroom. So I think that was just, yes, I think that was probably just the thing that was difficult in that setting.
And so what classes are you in right now?
I do all kinds of different classes. I ironically, I do aviation, which makes sense, health care
That does make sense–oh, my goodness.
Yeah, it is. Health care, engineering, yeah. And it’s funny, because the flight attendant job encompasses so many things. I was flight attendant for less than six months when I had to do CPR on somebody. So, you know, now in the health care class, and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, there’s a lot of carry over with the job.
Yeah, I was thinking about that when I found out that you had done that because, you know, it’s a job where you’re serving people, and you’re serving people in education, right, and you’re taking care of people, and you’re taking care of people in education, and then, you know, sometimes taking care of them can mean CPR, right? Taking care of a student when they’re having seizures or or what have you.
We have a lot of that these days, you know, anxiety, panic, that sort of thing.
And it’s interesting that you would say that, because I wonder, you know your law that you came up with? I was intrigued by this. When I read your law, and your law was, well, it focuses on realistic expectations about what kids can and can’t do. It focuses on parents. What did you–how did you word it?
Yeah, I don’t remember it, but the gist of it was, you know, it’s, it is all right for children to fail, because we can’t all be good at everything. And parents, you need to know your children. I have two children of my own, and they’re completely different. But, you know, I feel like we just kind of do a disservice to our kids when we try to make them be something that they’re not.
And that can definitely lead to anxiety and maybe,
Yes.
panic attacks and things like that. One thing that I wanted to ask you about this, I don’t know how it is at a charter school, but I know at my school, paraprofessionals don’t interact with parents that much and
Correct.
Yes, okay, and my mom, she was a paraprofessional, and she didn’t, she didn’t interact with with parents at all. And so I found it really interesting that your law would have to do with parent expectations when you’re not on a daily basis, really interacting with the parents. You see the other side of it. You see the kids and how it’s impacting them. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
That’s true, but we’re also we do, you know, interact with the student’s IEP, so you’re seeing the instructions that have been agreed upon by the parents. And, you know, the staff.
Got you, yes.
There is, we don’t have that physical interaction, but we definitely, by all means, follow every IEP to the letter and do exactly what it says. But, you know, once you get to know the students, and you kind of feel all that out, it’s like, sometimes I feel like we’re setting kids up for failure, and we’re setting them up to pick up a tab that they didn’t order, if that makes sense.
Wow, it does. Pick up a tab that they didn’t order. So something that maybe their parents envisioned for them, that they’re pushing them to do, that maybe the child isn’t excited about, maybe isn’t even good at, because we can’t all be good at everything, but it’s just what their parents want for them.
Yes, and that’s what I always say. There’s three things that together, it’s like the trifecta of failure that I cannot overcome–lack of ability, lack of interest and lack of caring, because when you get all three of those things together, it’s almost insurmountable. But if you have like, two out of three, like, you just have one thing, like, you’re able, you’re not interested, you don’t really care, but you’re still able. It’s like, I can, I can work with that. But if you’re able and you don’t care, but you’re really interested. I can work with that. It was like when I was a kid. I tell people all the time I wanted so bad to be an astronaut. I was going to be an astronaut. Leah, I’m bad at math. I was never going to be there. So I’ll be a flight attendant, next best thing. But it’s like you have to know your abilities, because we’re not all going to be nuclear physicists, right?
Oh, definitely not me and, and I’ll tell you, I can definitely speak to that, because I wanted to be a singer and a dancer on the stage, and I can’t carry a tune very well, and I have two left feet and no rhythm, and so yeah, I could go and take the little lessons, and I could prance around the stage, but I was never good. Okay, you know, it was better for me to just find something else.
Yeah. And I mean, we all, every single one of us, has value. We all have a place in this world, but it isn’t the same place,
Hmm…
And now it’s like nobody, I don’t need a physicist when my toilet won’t flush, I could care less if you have a PhD, if my toilet won’t flush.
Heard I’m calling the plumber, right?
Yeah, exactly.
And they’re gonna make a lot of money off of that.
Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, you remember those aptitude tests that we used to take when we were kids?
Yes.
I love those things. I absolutely loved them. I took, you know, I think I took one in college. I know I took one in high school. I took the ASVAB, frankly, because it got me out of two class periods. So I was like, Yeah, I’ll take the test. I had no intention of going to military. I was like, Sure.
I said yes, like I did, because I was never happy with what they said I was good at. Go on.
That’s what’s funny, is because I took the test and it was like, you’d be an excellent farmer. And I’m really…okay. I have family that are farmers, and I’m like, I’m not about getting up before the sun. I would never want to do that. But had I had some guidance, maybe someone to say, Well, have you ever thought about landscape design or horticulture, something like that, I’d be like, Now, wait a minute, what’s that thing? Because now in my adulthood, I’ve always wanted to take, like, Master Gardener classes and like, you know, do that. I love, you know, Horticulture and Landscape Design and all that sort of thing. So it’s like, there’s something to be said for those aptitude tests, because we all have things that we’re good at. And, you know, maybe if there’s something that you’re good at, you can kind of channel that, but it does no good to try to put a child in something that they have no apptitude for, they’re not interested in, you know, because mom’s like, oh, that’s what you should do, right?
Mommy wants you to be a lawyer. So you’re gonna, you’re gonna do this, this and this, when maybe you would be a brilliant landscaper or electrician? Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So can you think of an example, maybe a story, of course, without naming names. But can you think of a time that you’ve seen that impact a student?
Well, I mean, it makes me think of when I was in school. I took four years of German, and we did the German exchange student program and all that. And that’s one thing that is always kind of in the back of my mind. Like in Germany, they have this educational model. Before you get into their equivalent of high school, you’re channeled into either a trade route or a college route. And it’s according to testing. It’s not really what mom and dad wants you to do. It’s what you’re able to do. And I think it does kids a service, because you’re not–I mean, we have so many problems in education because of misplacement of children, and that goes for like, gifted kids too, because if they’re in, like, an a regular setting, but they’re capable of more. They might be a discipline problem because they’re bored.
That’s true, everybody’s different, right?
Yeah.
So maybe we could and should do a better job about finding those different paths and providing those different paths for students. It goes back to No Child Left Behind, really, doing away with the vocational paths and everybody being college prep, and everybody’s not necessarily gonna go to college, or should go to college.
Right. I went two years and, I mean, it turned out to be a good thing, because at the time, you know, I just took my core classes, I ended up getting an Associates, but I had no direction. Where I grew up, that’s what you did, you graduated, you went to college. There was no that’s what you did, you know, socially acceptable and all the things so. And now, looking back as an adult, I’m like, oh, you know, I had never heard of like Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, but that would have been a perfect fit. Drove past it on my way to my alma mater at Valdosta State University, every time I would go to and from but, you know, I didn’t know what that was. So it’s just I don’t know. I just feel like my original point was allowing kids to fail. We learn so much more from our failures than we do our successes. I feel like
I would agree with that.
And it is okay to let a kid fail, because not only do you learn, hey, maybe I’m not good at that, but you also learn consequences and effort equals success. You know, you may not be the smartest kid in the class, but you can still be successful if you put forth enough effort. Cs get degrees. You know?
That’s true. Cs, get degrees. Tell me about a little bit about that. Have you have you ever seen a child? Or can you think of a time that you yourself have learned something really valuable from failing?
Oh, gosh, I think that’s just life. And I feel like when you just put people in places where they don’t fit, again, you’re setting them up for failure, they’re going to pick up the tab for whatever decision that you have made for them. And you know that holds so true for our students, because it’s just–and I mean, that’s the wonderful thing about high school and college. You know, that’s your time to explore and kind of figure out what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, where you belong. But with that comes failure. And I feel like we do kids a disservice by ensuring that everyone is successful in everything by any means possible. And I see, I see that a lot that you know all this, extended deadlines and do overs and retakes and you know, all this, and I’m like, this does not translate into reality, because if I go to my job and I’m never there, they’re not going to keep me, they’re going to fire me, and they don’t care. You know, Georgia’s a right to work state. You can be sick, you’re fired, you’re never here, you know, or I don’t do the job that was asked of me on a consistent basis. They’re going to fire me. They’re not going to give me do overs and second chances. And I don’t understand why it is that way in education today. If you can tell me, please tell me, because I do not understand.
You know, I wish I would. That’s one reason why I started this podcast, because I just wanted to give teachers a voice. Because there’s so many things going on that make zero sense, so many things that go on that just that don’t, that don’t make a lot of sense. And I think you hit something right there about…yet we talk about, and I’ve brought this up before on the show, growth mindset and how important it is, but we’re in a system that has a fixed mindset, if that makes sense. But along with that fixed mindset, we’ve got this idea that we can’t put that F on the report card, because once it’s there, that’s their record, and you’ve ruined it, and now Johnny won’t be a lawyer, or Johnny won’t be a doctor or a professor or astronaut or engineer, or one of the accepted things that a lot of the kids’ parents want them to be, even though maybe that’s not for them. Maybe they want to be landscapers, right? Or electricians.
Well, and it’s so funny, because if you ever watched that show off, I think it’s called Off the Boat.
No, I haven’t.
Well, it’s about a family that, an immigrant family from Asia, and the male lead in the show went to college to be a doctor, like a physician doctor, and he did all the things because that’s what his mom and dad wanted him to do, but what he really wanted to do was act. So what does he now? He is an actor, and he paid all that money to go to doctor school. And it just, it boggles my mind. I and I tell people all the time, maybe it’s it goes to my age, because I was–my generation was certainly allowed to fail, not classes, entire grades, like you’re repeating the grade.
Oh, yeah.
So that’s a teaching moment that if you, you know, effort equals success, and if you don’t put in the effort, you’re not going to be successful. And that’s okay, because maybe things aren’t, you know, for you, maybe you know, there’s something else out there that you need to do. I personally have a friend around the corner who has an eighth grade education. He owns his own business, and he does quite well, you know. And that’s a, you know, the exception to the rule.
That is definitely the exception. But he’s probably thinking, wow, yeah, imagine if somebody had realized when he was in school what his potential was. Then maybe they could have, you know, steered him in that direction.
Exactly. I think that goes back to, you know, the generational thing, where we’re so blessed now to recognize difficulties in students that were not recognized when I was younger, you know, it’s just, you can’t behave, you’re a bad kid, and now it’s like, oh, the child has, you know, is on the autism spectrum, or, you know, is ADHD, or whatever. They didn’t really have a whole lot of that when I was younger. But that’s, I think that’s one of the wonderful things about working in special education as well as general education. It’s like, you see these things, and you can work with them, and you can overcome them. If you have everybody working together, you have some effort. And you know, we can figure this out. And this is why I can’t figure out the state of education today, because there’s every opportunity to be successful. Retakes. There’s, you know, late work accepted. There’s, you know, all this kind, and you do have to consider, to an extent, when students have things going on, either with themselves or, you know, at home, but it’s like, where’s the cut off? Do we say you, just this is beyond your ability, or, you know, whatever. I don’t know, it’s just, it’s frustrating as an educator, because you’re like, what is the point?
And when it translates into just a blanket policy where the school says, oh, you know, everybody can turn in their work late for this much off, right? And then, okay, fine, but what’s the lesson there?
That does not translate into reality. These classes that I’m working in, you know, I’ve discussed with teachers, we often feel like there should be some kind of like prerequisite for some of these classes, like, you know, you have to have an attendance requirement. If you’ve missed X amount of days in the previous year, you can’t take this class because your record shows that you probably won’t show up for class, or you didn’t make whatever grade in this class, well then you don’t need to take this class, because, again, you’re setting that kid up to pick up the tab, because they’re going to end up with that–like you said, you’ve got an F on your record, and now your GPA is blown. It’s like, well, if you had not been put in this position in the first place, then that wouldn’t have happened. So that’s unfair to the student. They’re picking up the tab. Because some adult somewhere’s like, Oh no, it’ll be fine. They can do it. They can do it. Well, maybe they can. But will they?
That’s the important question, right there.
Yeah.
Will they? Do they want to? Should they?
Yeah.
If it’s something that they’re maybe not interested in doing. Should they?
Yeah.
If it’s a health care class, or if it’s aviation or something like that?
Yeah. Yeah, every kid deserves a chance. But at some point, parents, and I guess teachers, I don’t know, probably more parents, though, because they have the, you know, the deciding vote, so to speak, know your child. Because, like I said, I have two children myself. They are completely different. They are night and day, yin and yang, so I did not raise them the same, because that would be ridiculous.
Can you give me an example of that?
So my older son is, he’s in the navy, and he’s very regimented, and we always knew that he would do very well in the military, because he’s the person who–he executes. You give him a direction. He doesn’t ask why you did that. He just, he does what you ask. And we’re like, military is for you. That’s a good one. And my younger one is a lot more free spirited, and he kind of, he’s forging his own path. Both of my children have graduated high school, and they’re in the real world, and it’s like, you know the younger one, he may decide to go in the military, but he’s just more–he’s one who’s gonna question things. And my older one, he doesn’t, and he just executes. So it’s like, would the younger one do well in a military setting? I really don’t think so. But you’re an adult. Make your own choices.
And there you go. It’s up to him.
Yeah, that’s something else too. I think that the education in general, there’s certain things that, and this may be clouded by my own judgment of how I grew up, and, like I said, the environment that I grew up. It was very much like you graduate high school and you go to college. End of. That’s what you do. But that was the community that I grew up in. It’s like, I feel like a lot of schools push, like the AP classes and that sort of thing. I’m a big proponent for dual enrollment, because I feel like that’s a better return on investment, because, like with AP classes, you have to get that certain score, or you don’t get credit for the class. You have to pay for the test and all this kind of stuff. And it’s like, dual enrollment–Cs get degrees. You pass that class, you’re going to get, you know…
And you’re saving some money.
And you’re saving some money. And it’s like, higher education is very important for people that have specific goals in mind, a teacher, you know, a doctor, you know this sort of thing. My sister, for instance, she has a degree in English literature. She’s a paralegal.
Interesting.
And how she got into the field, she interviewed for a job, and the lawyer that she was working for, his mother had a degree in English. So he had a soft spot for English majors. She got into that–I think she’s been doing that for 30 years.
Wow.
So, I mean, that’s how she got into the career. I think that’s true for a lot of us. We just kind of fall into things, but that’s not what she went to school for, but she’s excellent at it, because she’s a type A person, and she is like that Hollywood secretary that knows your thoughts before you think them, and has solved all the problems before they even come up. So, I mean, it’s the perfect job for her.
That is not me.
No, no, not at all. I think you know, again, that goes back to parents. Know your children. You know you need to know yourself, who you are. Like that comes with age, too, and that’s why I think I love those aptitude tests, because it does help you kind of guide kids and like, this is the general area that you need to go into, not specific. I know. Do I want to be a farmer? No, do I have chickens and goats and dogs and cats? Yes, I do, so…
You do?
I do, but I don’t have, like, a dairy farm. I’m not getting up at 4:30.
But you have your chickens and you have your eggs, you have kitty cats and goats. You have goats?
Yes, and isn’t that, all those aptitude tests were like, You should be a farmer. I was like, You’re crazy. And here I am with my little mini farm. So.
That’s funny. I don’t think we even give those in school outside of the ASVAB.
So they don’t do those anymore?
I don’t think they do. Yeah, we definitely don’t at my school, you know, my school district, really pushes AP and and all of that that you were just talking about. And to my knowledge, we don’t give aptitude tests.
Well, and I don’t see the importance of the AP classes necessarily, like I said, unless you’re like, I’m going to be a lawyer. I’m going to be, you know, whatever, and that those classes are very important, and to get in school that you need to but, you know, I have family members that went to whatever school for like their core and then they transferred into these larger schools you need have a lower requirement for your GPA as a transfer in and less because you’re not spending the money for your core classes. I have a nephew that he went to Australia to get his masters, and did that for a couple of years. He has his bachelor’s from University of West Georgia, and he did dual enrollments and, you know, but, yeah, he ended up going living in Australia for two years to get his masters in geology.
That’s amazing. Rocks?
Yeah, rocks.
Rocks. What’s he going to do with rocks?
Well, I mean, hey, there’s always the government jobs. He, I don’t know what company he’s working for, but he’s working for some company. I mean, he was doing all kinds of, like, big experiments in Australia. He, when he came back to the States, he had some rocks that got stuck in customs. They were, like, moon rocks or something that he was trying to get back in the states–had Australian dirt on it, so they didn’t want it to come.
Yeah, can’t do that.
It was crazy. But, you know, this kid went to University of West Georgia, and he did dual enrollment, and he’s done big things. And I just, it’s hard for me to understand this pushing of like, you know, these AP classes, and you got to do this. It’s a lot of stress on kids.
It is. And you know, you think about how much time students who are taking multiple classes like that are spending studying, and do you pause and ask them the question, what is it that you want to do? What are you interested in?
And I think I mentioned that when you were asking me earlier about things is I really feel like parents, it’s almost needs to be like an exit interview at the end of high schools, like, where do you see or even in the beginning of high school, where do you see your kid in five to 10 years? Realistically. Because I think about my graduating high school class of 450, kids. We have like a judge. We have one who was like an International Christian singer. You know, all that the rest of us are regular people. You know, we’re not setting the world on fire, but you know, we’re doing things that we love and that are important and matter to us, and we’re happy.
Yeah, you’re loving your lives.
Yeah.
But, and we also have to think if we had, if we had these aptitude tests, and could help kids decide earlier, maybe what things they’re truly interested in, and then could craft a path for that, like they do in Germany. If we could do something like that, imagine how much time we could save for these kids who are, you know, going and getting their medical degrees and then deciding they want to act or, you know…
And frustration part of the student, the teacher, you know, parents–on everybody. But again, you know, like I said, I took two aptitude tests and an ASVAB that were like, You should be a farmer. I’m like, You’re crazy. Yeah, well, here we are.
We need to be creative with how we–sorry. We need to be creative with how we steer kids to interpret these tests.
Well, and my counselor in high school, because my high school is very college driven, it was like, we don’t need to worry about that. I don’t even know if he knew anything about, like, landscape design or horticulture, or, you know, anything? But now that I’m an adult, I realized, like, University of Georgia has a fabulous agricultural program, and you can be learning about how to better seeds or disease resistant plants, like all these things that could be learning about that encompass that kind of like farmer thing. But it’s like, even when I took the ASVAB, what I tested out highest it was like, mechanical and electrical, which having family, that’s in farming. So much of that is in farming, because you got to fix your own problems, right? You know, you can’t call people. You can’t afford to call people, so you just got to kind of figure it out. But it’s like, all those things together. Now it’s like, oh, okay, yeah, that would have worked, but here we are.
We’re so uncreative with future paths for our kids. We’re so uncreative. I don’t know, graduate high school, go to college, major in I don’t know English or math or engineering. Go to grad school. What are you going to do with that? Right?
Yeah.
Well, you could be a doctor, you could be a lawyer, you could be a teacher, you could be a nurse, but there’s so much more than that, right?
That’s so limited because, like, I have kids at Aviation that, I mean, honestly, they’re, they’re probably not going to be pilots, but, you know, they could be creating video games that are aviation based. You know, if you have, like, simulators. My father, he was in the aviation industry, and he gets on his simulator and flies here and flies there, if he’s on the computer for two hours, because that’s how long that flight takes to get to St Louis or Chicago or something. So you just like puttering around. So these kids that are doing these classes, it’s like, it’s good, because I think, like I said, Every kid deserves a chance. And it’s like, Yes, take the classes, see what you think. But just because you’re not going into that field, or you think you might want to go into that field, well, let’s explore that further. Okay, you’re probably not, you probably don’t have the aptitude to do whatever that job is, but maybe you could do something over here kind of related to that. And I think you’re right. I think that’s exactly what is. We just need to get creative at how we guide these kids.
And to tell someone that they don’t have aptitude for a specific thing is not saying that they’re not smart or they’re not valuable. There’s a lot that I don’t have aptitude for. I mean, nobody can have aptitude for everything. Well, we try to fit everybody into the same box in our high schools.
Yeah, for sure. That’s why I like my charter school, because I do feel like it definitely gives so many more opportunities to kind of explore things. And like I said, high school and college, that’s what that’s for, that’s to kind of figure it out–of what are you good at? What do you enjoy? What’s out there? Because that was something else when I one of my majors in college was nursing, and I wanted to be a labor and delivery nurse. And my first semester–It’s funny because a flight attendant, that’s one of the things you learn how to do, is deliver a baby in flight, but…
Really? I guess you would have to, yeah?
You do all the things as a flight attendant–put fires out, you evacuate planes, you do CPR, birth babies.
So flight attendant, you’re on the medical field. You’re fire fighting. You’re public relations. Goodness gracious, I don’t think, that’s too much for me. I don’t think I can do that.
Yeah, so when I was in, when I was a nursing major, it was my first semester at college, and I ended up on academic probation, because first semester, you take way too many difficult classes as you’re transitioning. And so the Dean of the School of Nursing, I had to go meet with the dean, and I told her, I said, Well, next semester, I’m going to have a 4.0 and she said, Well, my dear, the proof is in the pudding, and I will never forget that. I did have a 4.0 the next semester, but I’ll see, like, maybe I should rethink this. Maybe this woman knows what she’s talking about. Because I was like, Do I really have, like, the the chutzpah and the drive to, like, see this through? And I was like, nah. And then I got older, and when I was a flight attendant, I flew with somebody who’s from out west, and she told me about something I had never heard of, which was a midwife and a doula. And I was like, What is this? So because, you know, we live in the southeast, so it takes a lot. It takes time for these kind of progressive ideas that are kind of West Coast to find its way to the southeast. So I’d never heard of a midwife or doula, but then at that point, when I was already in my career, you know, as a flight attendant, I was like, man, that would have been the thing instead of doing, like the whole nursing school. Because to be a labor and delivery nurse, you have to do like, geriatrics, burns, you know, all of the nursing things before you get specialized into whatever you want to do, if it’s cardiac or whatever. So I was like, oh, man, that would have been something that I would have definitely like a midwife or doula specialized. But again, and that goes back, getting creative about what kids are interested in. I mean, like, oh, have you ever heard of but then we have to know those things before we can suggest them to a kid.
We do. And I’m sitting here while you’re talking about the midwife doula thing, I’m thinking, trying to think of other creative jobs like that, and my mind is blank,
Yeah.
And I guess I’m guilty. I know you could be a teacher, go to go to college.
It’s a big world, and there’s so many things out there that you really have never heard of until you get out in the world and see some things and talk to people. You’re not going to know what it is. And that’s one of the things in the healthcare classes, I talk to kids a lot about things like that. Well, have you ever heard of this? Have you ever thought of that? Oh, well, you’re really friendly, and you know, you like the medical field, so you know, you ever thought of doing something like a doula or midwife or something like that, where you don’t necessarily have to have the qualifications of a registered nurse, but it was something. So. Because everything ain’t for everybody.
No, it’s not, and that’s okay. Can you tell us a little bit about the charter school where you work? Because I think that it is kind of interesting in that it does offer students alternate paths, whereas the public schools don’t really do that. But I know that your charter school doesn’t work against the public schools in the county. It works with them, so students have their base high school and they are enrolled there, but then they’ll come to your school during the day for specific classes. Can you tell me a little bit about that model?
Well, I mean, and it’s interesting, because they can do that, or they go to their base school part of the day, and they come to our school for part of the day. But both of my kids, by the end of their careers, they were at my school all day. They were taking all their classes there because they did the dual enrollment, and they got college credit along with high school credit. And I love that model. I love that that opportunity is available because–and now they have something that is, oh, I can’t remember the name of–accelerated career–which meaning, if you say you want to be you want to do like cosmetology, or you want to do automotive or something like that, they will put you on a path where your classes are very specific to that job. So you, like my youngest child, he got, he did accelerated career for automotive. He was given the opportunity to graduate at 17 as a junior because he had those classes completed. And a lot of it’s like, slotted in, because, I mean, there’s no point in taking calculus or something like that if you’re wanting to do something that has nothing to do with calculus. So I’m not sure how they do it, how they like slot the classes in, or the credits or whatever. But we’re actually graduating a lot of kids early because they’re taking these accelerated career path. And, I mean, they get a high school diploma, same as Susie, who went and took her AP classes. Now, of course, she’s going to get that high honors diploma, but, you know, they’re all going to get same diploma and they’re going to walk.
Susie might be valedictorian, but probably won’t graduate as a junior, ready to go and make money as a mechanic or a welder, either.
Exactly, exactly my school is kind of closer to that European model of doing things. It’s a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for kids who maybe aren’t traditional students, and to say they’re not traditional students, that also means maybe they’re more focused than I ever was, and are like, this is what I want to do. I’ve always wanted to do this, and it’s what I’m going to do–be on that path and be successful. And like you said, you know, 17 years old, start making that money and no student debt because you’re dual enrolled and getting college credit while you’re going to high school and stuff.
That’s a great opportunity. It really is. I’m curious, what’s your favorite moment in the classroom so far.
Gosh, my favorite moment, I mean, for me, it’s just the–it’s kind of funny–because my favorite moment is when it’s downtime and I just get to talk to the kids and really kind of hear their thoughts on things and when they will talk to me, because I’m in so many different fields in I mean, I do film and audio, video and flying and medical and all this kind of stuff. And because I have lived a little bit before I got into education, I generally have, like, some kind of story that’ll, like, reel them in, like, when I was a flight attendant and I got to meet famous movie stars or politicians or whatever. And could talk to them about, you know, things like that, and chartering, you know, football teams or baseball teams and meet, you know, meeting all this stuff, and it like gets them to open up, and I get to hear what they want to do or what they have done so far. It’s just that’s the part that I really love, is when they just kind of relax a little bit, and you can just chat and not necessarily talk about school, but you can always bring it back around to well, you could maybe think about doing this, and maybe you should think about doing that, if that’s what you’re interested in. And it’s just my school is so unique because of the opportunities that it gives kids that you don’t get at the base schools. But I do, having said that, I really wish in education a lot that we could kind of, like, dial it back a little bit, because I feel like we have lost so much of the so important basics of like how to write legibly, like penmanship and like basic things like consumer math, like how to, you know, keep up with your checking account, how to apply for a loan, how to do your taxes. Years ago, we had a teacher at my school that that was his final. He would go around with a hat, and you had to pull out a job with a salary out of the hat, and that’s what you were going to do with your life. And then you had to build a budget for your life. And that was your final exam for his class. He taught economics.
Okay, I was gonna ask. That sounds like economics. That sounds like a great project.
And it was fabulous. And it’s like, these are the skills that kind of carry over into life. And while those other things are important if you want to be a doctor or a plumber or, you know, whatever you want to be, yes, you know, we need to get you in that direction. But there’s certain things that, frankly, parents aren’t necessarily good at. So it’s like, you can’t teach people things that you don’t know about. That was like, I feel like we unleash these kids out of like, you know, general, you know, high school with no life coping skills. And a lot of that comes from that background of self contained Special Ed when you’re teaching children life skills. Like, this is how you run a washer and a dryer, and this is how you use the stove safely, and this is how you do things. It’s like, I feel like we just unleashed these children. I mean, my youngest child, he had a moment after he graduated where he was kind of freaked out, because he did do that accelerated career. He wasn’t going on to college. He’s like, now, what? And I kind of chuckled, and I said, Sweetheart, you did at 18 what a lot of people do at 22, 23, 24 when they graduate college, and they’re like, now what?
Exactly? Because everybody goes through that. He just went through it sooner.
It’s such a shock. It’s like, you know, you don’t–and when we went through covid–I had mom’s life skills class because we were all like, locked in at home. So, you know, I was teaching my kids how to sew a button on a shirt and how to balance a checkbook and how to make cookies and like, all these basic things. So like, I can’t teach you trigonometry, but I can teach you how to make a meal, and I can teach you how to be somewhat self sufficient so you can survive in life.
We really should have life skills classes for our regular education students, because we just don’t, and they don’t know how to sew buttons or balance checkbooks or…
You know, STEM, science, technology, engineering, yeah, these little life skills lessons–they–you can incorporate those into the science, technology…
Sure.
All those kind of things. And you can, I don’t know, I mean, you make it fun. And I remember when I was in middle school, we did a field trip to Six Flags, and it was a science field trip, and we talked about, like, just the science of roller coasters and all this stuff. And we had worksheets that we had to fill out on the on the roller coasters at Six Flags. And that was a lesson that stuck because I was like, Oh my gosh, we’re at Six Flags. This is so fun. Does it take more effort? Absolutely. It absolutely does. But if, if you can teach something to a kid that they remember forever, it’s like that. That’s something I cannot tell you how to proof a circle in geometry anymore. I know I learned it, but I can’t tell you how to do it anymore, because it doesn’t translate into my life. There’s certain things that I just feel like, and I feel like my school does a good job of that, but in general, I feel like education in America, it’s just like, we’re so concerned with hitting these points. It’s like, okay, we got to do this, we got to do that. We got to do we have the state test coming up, and we got to learn all this. And it’s like, we’re not (teaching) a love of learning.
Yeah. It’s like, almost like, we want to put these little acorns of knowledge into the student’s head and at the end of the day, what do they really mean?
Yeah, yeah. And I remember my 10th grade literature teacher had us read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. That was the book that got me into classic literature, because I had never read any classic literature before then, but that developed this love of classic literature. And it’s like, I just feel like if we would dial it back to kind of the basics so we can really–because to me, the most important thing is if you can get a kid to love learning, not necessarily the subject, but just the act of learning, like wanting to know and all this kind of stuff. And it’s so hard these days because technology, you just ask Chat GPT, you don’t have to learn anything. You just ask your phone. Feel like we are in this hair on fire race to this imaginary finish line of like, state tests and milestones and all this kind of stuff. And it’s like the love of learning gets lost in it, because kids are freaked out, because they’re like, you gotta take this test. You gotta do well, and nobody speaks, and if you speak, the test is ruined. And it’s like, what are we doing?
Right. If you. Don’t take this test. It’s the end of the world. But,
Oh yeah.
Is it? Because what I think might really be the end of the world is not them not taking the standardized test, but them never developing that love of learning. That seems tragic to me.
Exactly, because what happens if you’re not learning? You’re just taking everything that you see on the internet or the news at face value? A little scary.
Very scary, especially now you could ask chat GPT, and it starts hallucinating a bunch of things, and you’re like, Oh yeah, the sky is green and the grass is purple, and we live on the planet Blurg. Yeah. Chat GPT said.
Yeah, exactly.
So one last thing. What’s something about your job that people outside of education just wouldn’t understand?
The–just the workload. I mean, the amount of kids that you have to see in any given day, in different subjects. One of my coworkers, we at the beginning of the year, you know, you get your schedule together. We were talking about class loads and everything. And she was like, Oh, girl, that’s nothing. One year, I had eight classes to get to every day. But that math ain’t mathin’.
No.
So I’m like, how do you how you do that?
I don’t know.
I mean, there’s five days in a week, and you’ve got kids that get a certain amount of time in every class period or block or whatever. I’m like, How do you do that? You’re only one person. I’m just praying I never have to figure that algebra equation out for myself. I love spending time with these kids and just getting get a class period where you can, like, spend an extra, you know, 30 minutes in there. Not only is it good for you because you’re learning the material, that much better to be able to help them, but just to learn the kids, their personalities. You know, like, what’s going on in their world. And that’s the great thing about being a parapro, because you might have a class where you’ve got one or two kids in that class–you get to know all those kids. And it’s so great because working in higher grades, high school, you might get to see those kids for four years, to get to know them, their family. You know what’s going on. It’s just, it’s a gift, and I love it so much. And people talk about retiring, I’m like, I’ll never retire as long as it’s on the way it is. I love my job and I love these kids. I would not, I don’t do the job for the money.
No, you don’t do the job for the money. None of us do, but I swear, parapros are so underpaid. Parapros, school nurses, don’t get me started.
Oh yeah, yeah.
It’s crazy.
When you’re a parapro and you’re dealing with IEPs and kids that struggle a little bit, it’s like you have to find that thing. You have to find their currency. What? What’s it going to take to get them to do the work? And I mean, that takes time, and then you’re kind of behind the eight ball, because you’ve had to spend, like, the first month figuring this kid out. What makes them tick? How am I going to be able to help them? And then you can go from there, but it’s it’s tough. It’s tough.
Thank thank you for for doing it. We need parapros like you. I really appreciate everything that you do. You know Tracy, I have really enjoyed this conversation
Same. I’m so glad to finally get to meet you. It’s been a pleasure.
I know, right? It’s been a great pleasure, right? Well, Tracy, thank you again for coming, and I’ve really enjoyed our conversation, and thank you for all you do.
Oh gosh, likewise, I can’t believe an hour has already passed by. It’s been a joy. I’ve enjoyed it very much. I was so nervous, but now, wow, it just flew by.
Yeah, no, it’s just a conversation, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Tracy’s teacher law that if your child can’t or won’t do the work, they will fail, and that’s okay, because everyone isn’t able to do everything really cuts to the heart of something we talked about throughout our conversation. Too many adults working in education, and especially those making education policy, are woefully uncreative about our students’ future prospects. We keep trying to fit square pegs into round holes, instead of thinking in terms of what’s actually best for each student, what’s going to give them the most fulfilling life, what’s going to be best for their future–not state test scores, not standardized test results, not CCRPI ratings or any of that stuff. What’s going to be best for this child’s future? And I love that’s exactly the focus of Tracy’s law. Not what their parents want for them, not what their teachers want for them, but what will actually fulfill the student. If Tracy’s perspective resonated with you and you’d like to share your own teacher law in a future episode, I would love to hear from you. Head on over to leahcleary.com/guest-form to fill out the form for the If Teachers Ruled the World segment of the show. I would absolutely love to hear from you. And make sure you follow the show on your favorite platform and leave a review if you liked this episode so other teachers can hear about it too. Thanks for listening, and I’ll talk to you next time.