Teachers in Transition - Episode 226: An Interview with Michaela Riggs

In this episode, Vanessa interviews her daughter, Michaela Riggs, about life growing up as a teacher.  Got questions for Michaela?  Send those to TeachersinTransitionCoaching@gmail.com 

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The transcript of this podcast can be found on the podcasts’ homepage at Buzzsprout. 

Transcript

Are you a teacher who is feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout - or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing something different or a new job or perhaps pursuing an entirely different career - but you don't know what else you're qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search and you just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you are not alone. my name is Vanessa Jackson; and I am a career transition and job search coach and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal with the overwhelmingly stressful nature of your day-to-day job and to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. You might ask yourself, What tools do I need to find a new career?  Are my skills valuable outside the classroom?  How and where do I even get started?  These are all questions you deserve answers to, and I can help you find them.  I’m Vanessa Jackson. Come and join me for Teachers in Transition.  

VJ
 Back to teachers in transition. I am Vanessa Jackson. I am a career transition coach. Here on the podcast today, we have a special guest. We are interviewing Michaela Riggs, hi, Michaela,

MR
 Hi. How's it going? 

VJ
 It's going really well. Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about yourself.

MR
 Well, for those of you thatdon't know the obvious relationship, I'm here with my mother. Normally runs this podcast. I am a civil engineer in the Austin area, Hook 'em Horns, and I live with my husband, our lovely cat, Lola, who can be quite the menace sometimes. And I enjoy reading weightlifting and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

VJ
 That sounds amazing. So you spent most of your life being the child of a teacher, 
 
 MR
 yes, and I think it's very important to also point out that it was the child of a music educator. Yes, is a little bit more involved with folks that run the extracurricular activities. I feel like

That is true. I asked you if you would consent to be on the podcast. I had really been struck by - there was a moment when we were taking a walk together, when I had commented that I had been an educator because it was a family friendly sort of job, and you turned and looked at me with this expression on your face, and you just very silently shook your head, no. That kind of hit me as if maybe it wasn't as family-friendly as I had thought it was. Can you speak a little more to what thoughts were swirling in your brain when I utter, “hey, teaching is a family friendly job”. 
 
 MR
 Of course, apparently young Michaela did not pull her punches

VJ
 (Laughs) that was in the last five years.

MR
 Well, I think, again, with the caveat that you were a music educator while you were teaching—just so your listeners have that in mind—I think part of it is that there’s a significant time commitment. There were times when your obligations would, unfortunately, trump whatever I was doing at the time. Especially during those last couple of years of high school, there were concerts that overlapped, so you weren’t able to attend.

I think it’s also important for your listeners to know that while you were a music educator, we were never at the same school, which made things a bit trickier. Even though I was in middle school and you were teaching middle school band, we weren’t at the same school. So I would ride the bus, and if I had an event that I wanted you to attend, I had to submit written notice at least five business days in advance. That definitely enabled—or, really, disabled—the chance for you to be there for a lot of things, simply because it would require a lot of advance planning. You didn’t have the opportunity to just reschedule your students because, one, that’s your job, and two, that’s way too many schedules to manage at once

VJ
 True, you came to me shortly before your senior year started. You asked me very, - you were very nice about it, but you asked me rather pointedly that you wanted me to be more present your senior year. And again, that was one of those moments where my thought was my best was not good enough because I clearly wasn't present enough, and so I needed to rethink and rework some things and how I was handling parenting there. First off, I would like to commend you, because you felt that you could come and tell me that there's one small part of my parenting that went well, talk to me about why you asked that question, 
 
 MR
 Of course, so part of the reason I asked that is I didn't want to feel like I was in competition for your time. You know, this was the first of the lasts for me, if you will—you know, last spring concert, last fall concert, whatever awards ceremonies fell in between. And I didn't want to feel like asking you meant that other obligations had to be sacrificed. I wanted to know I was at the forefront. Your oldest daughter is growing up. This was it. Yeah. I didn't want you to miss any of it.

Looking around, you know, other folks in my class had parents that did have jobs that were more easily flexible. You know, they could take time off, or they could sneak away on their lunch hour, just transition their lunch hour so they could go to these award ceremonies. And so it was definitely enviable, and it also was a little more difficult, you know, given that we were a military family—we moved around a lot—so we didn’t have the familial support that some of the folks who lived in the same town for the rest of their lives had. You know, they had grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Speaking of my husband, who also was a child of a teacher…

VJ
 yes, was. Well, he is, was, is?

MR 
 Yes his dad's currently still teaching?

VJ
 So how did I do? Was I, in fact, more present? Was I able to do

MR
 absolutely the one of the real moments that I definitely would have floundered without you. There was our All-Northwest trip where the music educators that were organizing it for our school went a couple days before us, and so when the students were traveling. We got there. We got there early in the morning before any of the rental vehicle places were open or or any of the taxi services were available. And this was not a small group of kids. There was probably at least eight of us, and all of us had various forms of payment, we were at least one city away from where we needed to be landing in. I believe it was Seattle going to Bellevue. So if you being present on that trip was not only I feel like avoiding any potential angry parents from the other students, but it also like it allowed us to focus more on enjoying the trip. And you know, we had an adult that was capable of being in charge, right?

VJ
 And to be fair, the district didn't claim any responsibility for you guys heading to this All-Northwest event, which was not as clearly spelled out as a parent might want it to be, but it all worked out in the long run, we had an excellent adventure on the way back, because I was determined to experiment and see if one could get back inexpensively, without having to rent a car. And we proved that it was possible. It just took, like over an hour to do it, to take busses and trains and whatnot.

I love our adventures. We've had adventures together before, haven't we? 
 
 

MR
 We certainly have,

VJ
 but certainly being the child of a teacher is not all bad. We don't want to paint that picture. What are some perks?

MR
 Definitely the summers. It was great having summers with the ability to go see family, to go on trips, to go have our movie Mondays,

VJ
 that's right. Movie Mondays with mommy and Michaela the dollar mat day.

MR
 Hopefully they were still that cheap,

VJ
 right? Okay, what other things I mean was it just summers,

MR
 no, definitely not just summers. Granted. The breaks in the school schedule, since we were on the same schedule, made things a lot easier. It also made it easier to approach other teachers, because I felt like I had a firm understanding of what you expected as a teacher, and I kind of translated that to that's kind of what every teacher expects. And that definitely made it easier to approach things when I had an issue, either with people in my class or people that were that I saw, that were struggling, that needed extra help. Because sometimes, you know you've got, you've got 20- 30+ students in a classroom, and it's hard to see all that that's going on. And you know, a little input from your students can ever hurt. That's true. So what kind of student were you? Kiddo?

I like to believe I was quite the studious student. I know there were many late nights doing AP homework all throughout high school, I will say, looking back on it, as an adult, I probably studied a little bit too hard. This part of me wishes I had taken a little bit more time to just enjoy the atmosphere and but, I mean, these are things that you do don't quite grasp when you're 14, but oh my gosh, I don't have to get straight A's, I can get into college and it'll be fine.

VJ
 I feel like one of the few times I put my foot down was when I insisted that you have at least one class that fed your soul, not just your brain. 
 
 MR
 Yes, granted, it was a music class that you felt would feed my soul, but

too 
 
 VJ 
 I feel you really enjoyed with. Theater class you were in,

MR
 yeah, but it was good. I felt like, yeah. Just as a student, there's just so much going on, so many extracurricular activities, just everything gets so full so fast. 

VJ
 So interestingly enough, I never ever got to teach you. As your teacher, I've taught your brother, but I never got to teach you was that by accident or design?
 
 MR
 a little bit of both.

There were a couple of times when I felt like the school I was at was a little overwhelming, and I was ready to just throw it out the window and go be the, literally, the teacher's kid at your school. But thankfully, you did not allow mid-year transitions. I know it was easy, so I persevered where I was at then, you know, there was a brief stint where you're teaching orchestra, and I needed to get away.

VJ
 We were in completely different districts.

Do you have any tips for the teachers who listen to this podcast, who are also parents? What are some ways that they can maybe avoid some of my pitfalls?

MR
 That's a great question. Might take me a little bit to work my way to the answer fully, but Well, I

will. I will let you think for a moment while. 
 
 VJ 
 I’ll  just interject that, as anyone is going through parenting and teaching, you do the best that you can, when you look back, you can see I could have done this better. I could have done that better. Certainly in my position, I didn't have the benefit of asking anyone who had been through this, what are some some pitfalls that parents can possibly avoid to mitigate some of the effects of being a teacher's kid. 
 
 MR
 I feel like the primary tip that I can provide is just being present. You know, you hear constantly, you know, the ballerina recital, and everybody's looking out, and one girl just her parents aren't there, and it affects performance. And likewise, as you're growing up, if your teaching obligations get overwhelming, and I'm sure, overwhelming for the teacher themselves, but your kid will notice it shows you know in either in their inability to be present for before, after school functions. Or, I know, during school functions got to be even harder than before or after, but I think the big thing is presence, and you know, that'll different from person to person, teacher and teacher, given the resources that they have available. You know, us being a military family and being away from family at various duty stations that definitely made it trickier for both, both my parents, both you and dad, to be able to be present in those moments that I felt were worth being there for basically while your

dad was often deployed and our school hours did not align perfectly, 
 
 VJ
 I might Say that you almost grew up in a band hall that first duty station. 
 
 MR
 Absolutely, definitely grew up in that band hall. 
 
 VJ
 What are some of your impressions with that?

MR
 How so impressions of what? 

VJ
 Well, I felt like the band kids sort of adopted you and looked out for you. But it occurs to me now that you might not have felt the same way,

MR
 I definitely got along with a majority of your band kids. But hey, you can't like everyone. There's a handful of students that I definitely felt very close to and had kept in contact for years after we had moved as well. I mean, overall, it was, it was a good experience. It was definitely a unique one. I don't remember. I feel like it gave me a perspective and into what was to come, almost okay.

VJ
 Did you have any final thoughts or anything you might want to share with the world out there.

MR
 I know being a teacher isn't the easiest, and depending on location, district and everything that just adds to the variables that either make it more challenging or make it easier on books, but being the kid of a teacher, it definitely opens up your perspective on a lot of things. You get to see how your parent as not only somebody who's raising you and shaping you to be the human that you are, is also shaping humans of other parents, and kind of how their parenting influences their teaching, and vice versa. I know after you left teaching, you still have that teacher voice that would come on pretty frequently. Detail. I think you're slowly leaving it in the past, but you definitely crops up here and there. Sure I wouldn't change it. I think having a teacher as a parent definitely it was a it was a good experience.

VJ
 Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your time on on this lovely weekend day. Well, I want to thank you for your time this afternoon. Michaela, I really appreciate your insights. I appreciate that you can be honest, and I appreciate so much that you have given this little window of insight to my listeners as a grown child of an educator, 

MR
 sure, and I don't know if you accept questions from your listeners, but if there's any questions that they specifically have that they want more insight on or enlightenment, if I may, I'm happy to answer them 

VJ
 Absolutely, and they can send those questions to me through the email address at teachers in transition coaching@gmail.com and I will funnel those over to Michaela, and we will get you those responses. Thank you so much. 
 
 That’s the podcast for today! If you liked this podcast, tell a friend, and don’t forget to rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tune in weekly to Teachers in Transition where we discuss Job Search strategies as well as stress management techniques.  And I want to hear from you!  Please reach out and leave me a message at Teacher in transition coaching at Gmail dot com.  You can also leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099. 

I’ll see you here again next week and remember – YOU are amazing!