Changing Your Classroom Calling - a Conversation with Early Literacy Coach, Amaris
Have you ever felt like your heart belongs in the classroom but you’re itching to try something new? Baltimore ESOL teacher -> early literacy coach, Amaris, took a chance in a new role and shares her motivation to stay in education (and why she doesn’t want to just be “the lady from the district”). With over a decade of experience in the classroom, Amaris shares her 2 passions, early literacy and ESOL, and how these overlap in meaningful ways.
In addition to shifting into a coaching role and starting her own business, Amaris also has traveled all over the world teaching English! A semester abroad turned into a lifestyle where she met her husband & had 2 children in Egypt, and since relocated back to the US. Amaris’ easy-breezy attitude about teaching English to students in another country will make you want to pack your bag and book the next flight out!
This episode covers shifting your role in education, teaching abroad, and ESOL in the classroom, and an important reminder that it’s always okay to change your mind. Amaris reminds you that everyone has something that is “their thing”, and using social media to monetize those skills is the next big thing for educators.
Find Amaris on Instagram & TikTok @themerge_consulting
Christine
Welcome to Making the Grade An Education podcast for current and former teachers to share notes, define success, and assess their own happiness in the classroom and beyond where your hosts, Christine, in Georgia.
Georgia
The problems in education may seem endless, but so are the possibilities. Listen, laugh, and leave our episodes empowered to define your own success as an educator and an individual.
Georgia
Hello fellow educators and welcome to Making the Grade podcast. We are your host, Christine in Georgia, and we're so excited you're tuning in to share your teacher voice. Today we'll be talking with our guest Amris about shifting your position in education, monetizing your knowledge, and how to leave a legacy in the education world. Stick around to learn about how Amris went from teaching to coaching. What inspired her to start her own consulting business, supporting multilingual learners and the time a parent came to her school to fight the principal
Christine
Teachers, whether it's in the classroom or making decisions about our personal lives, it can feel so scary to say, I don't know, but there's definitely power in saying I don't know what to do next and leaning on others for guidance. Our guest today is going to speak to this process and so much more about what she's currently doing in the fields. We can't wait to get started.
Georgia
Thank you so much for being here today, Amris. We're so excited to talk with you. Yeah,
Amaris
Thank you for having me. Absolutely.
Georgia
Yeah, it's been great. So we just met for the first time via Zoom and we already learned a little bit about each other. We're gonna get into some fun stuff and we always like to start our show before we, you know, talk about this amazing business you've started and your experience in education. We love to start with a little bit of fun and we like to play. Would you Rather, so Christine's got a good one for you that she cooked up related to education. Yes. And
Amaris
Right up Dale. Let
Georgia
Her take it away. Yeah. Alright.
Christine
Before we get started, actually though, I was thinking this the house time that we recorded Georgia, we should always say where we're from because even though typically you're always here Sure. We're all in different states right now and I think that's pretty cool. So yeah, Christine is from Boston right now and then Yeah. Everyone else wanna say where you're
Georgia
Yeah, I'm from, sure. I, well I'm from Boston, but currently in California on a little road trip and in northern California right now.
Amaris
And I am in Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore is what we like to call it because it's huge, but everybody knows everybody some kind of way.
Georgia
That's so fun. I've never heard that before. Yeah,
Christine
Yeah. No, the so funny Baltimore connection, the only connection Georgia and I have to Baltimore, I think. Have you ever been there aside from that?
Georgia
No, that was it. I
Christine
Think. Alright, so we, we went on this awesome, awesome New Year's Eve trip, probably going on 10 years ago. We were going to Jamaica and it was with all of our best friends from college 3 0 8. And we were coming back and we had a really grueling flight day. It was, it was January 2nd, like no one wanted to be there and we had a lot of layovers, but Baltimore was one of them. And it was the most terrifying flight of our life. We were basically supposed to go from Baltimore to Boston, which is like hop, skip and a jump and it was anything but Georgia. What do you remember about it? Like everything went wrong that could have gone wrong.
Georgia
Yeah, I just remember, I mean, the one thing that sticks out is we were like about to leave Baltimore and we were taking off and like the plane just like abruptly, like slammed back down the ground
Amaris
No.
Christine
And was going so fast. And all I could think of was in, in Boston, if you've ever flown into Boston, surrounded by water, like a lot of airports. And I was just like, oh God, we're in the water. We're going in the water. Like we're all in the water. Oh my
Amaris
God.
Christine
It was terrifying.
Georgia
Yeah. So then I think they were like, we're going back to the gate and we all had to, we got out, I think went back in the airport and I, I'm not sure if I'm remembering it completely accurately. We got
Christine
A new plane and they flight, got a flights
Georgia
Plane flight. Yeah. And we got free flights, which,
Christine
Because it was so traumatizing,
Amaris
I can imagine what was going on. Did they ever tell you guys like why did the plane do what it did or,
Georgia
I don't think they told us
Christine
That. That was like the little that I heard, but Oh, okay. I was like, there's no way we're getting on this plane.
Amaris
No.
Christine
Even if they fix it, we're, we're getting, we're sleeping on the
Amaris
New plane period. Yeah.
Georgia
Not to get super off track, but did you guys hear about the guy recently who opened the, the window or the door or the window of the plane? He was sitting next to the emergency door and he opened it mid-flight.
Christine
No.
Amaris
Why? Terrifying.
Georgia
He said he was real. They, so I guess they were like descending and his reasoning, I haven't like revisited the story since it first came out, but his reasoning at that time was that he wanted to get off the plane
Christine
Fast.
Amaris
Oh, okay. So the best way to do that is, is to open the emergency door.
Christine
Yeah. You think you hear everything and then you do Wow. Question humanity. I know, I know. Wow. But anyway, so we definitely wanna spend more time in Baltimore the next time we're there instead of the
Georgia
A better experience.
Amaris
Yeah, right. Maybe take a train or like a, a bus, you know?
Christine
Yep. Definitely different mode of transfer. Yeah,
Amaris
Absolutely.
Christine
But, all right, so just with your, with your language background, and I'm excited to talk more about that and what you've been doing. Would you rather teach a group of students that were all speaking different languages, but at a conversationally proficient level? Or would you rather teach a group of students that spoke maybe two different languages, but they needed a ton of support? They were like emergent speakers and I don't know if I have those adjectives correct, so please correct me with
Amaris
Yeah, no, no, no, no. You're, you're using the right terms. I think I would choose students who were emerging bilingual, so like that beginner level proficiency, just because it's like when they start there and you take them even like one half of a step further as far as like speaking, listening, reading, or writing is so impactful, you know what I mean? Like it's not just, oh, they are speaking now. It's like they can access the curriculum like when they go back to their general ed classroom. So yeah, I would definitely take a bunch of lower proficiency level babies any day. I love that. Yeah.
Christine
It's so funny, whenever we ask these questions, I always think of the perspective. I'm like, oh, I think I would choose this. And I was thinking, oh, I'm gonna go with the students that are proficient. 'cause I feel like I've had a lot of classes that are similar to that in the past, but you're explaining that totally changes my mind.
Amaris
Oh yeah.
Christine
I love that. And you can probably group them more easily too, with
Amaris
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. 'cause we're all learning that, like survival English, so Yeah, absolutely.
Christine
Awesome.
Georgia
That was a, that was a good question and a good answer. All right. This one before we really dive into your, your wonderful background and business. This is just kind of a simple fun one because summer is here almost just about for the summer for you to relax, would you rather go to the beach or a lake or a pool? What's, what's your mode of cooling off and relaxing?
Amaris
My family always does the beach, so that's kind of like my go-to my happy place. My kids love the beach. My husband would not do anything but the beach. I feel like if I said we're going to a lake, he'd be like, no, we're gonna the beach actually, we're gonna the, yeah. So the beach is my, my place, my destination of choice.
Georgia
Oh, I, I get it. I love the beach. My, we, you know, we grew up in Boston. You're actually pretty close to a lot of beaches in Boston and Yeah, I would, I love the beach. I will say we were traveling and we were just in Lake Tahoe and I don't know if you guys have ever been there, but you know, it's a massive lake when you're looking at it. It could be the ocean. It's huge. And it was really beautiful in its own way. And I used to think I would never wanna go to the lake for my vacations. It would only be the beach. But Lake Tahoe might have changed my mind a little bit.
Amaris
I think lakes are so beautiful. I just feel like my, like, because it's so still, like there's no waves. It's just like water. Like here is somebody with water. You know what I mean? Like, I wouldn't mind doing it. It would be like my family that would be like, I need a wave. Like something needs to knock me down. Like that's what they
Christine
Like. Action.
Amaris
Yeah. I know there was some action, the
Christine
Drama of the shore going in and out.
Amaris
For sure. For sure.
Christine
No, I I, we grew up in yeah, like around, surrounded by amazing beaches. But I and my mom grew up like down the cape, if you're familiar with mass, like Cape Cod. But I, I, I grew up like the beach, I could take it or leave it growing up, but now my, my son is so into it that I've become huge beach person. So Totally get it. Kids getting you into it. Yes. Awesome. All right, well thanks for playing along and I'm glad we cleared that up about our experiences in the same city. But yeah, tell us a little bit about your education journey, how it started, what you're doing now, and the in-between to get you there.
Amaris
Okay. Yeah, so I didn't want to be an educator. Crazy enough. I went to school for physical therapy and so that was my path. But then I took that first chemistry class and I was like, listen honey, we can't do this. This is not, we're gonna change our life goals right now. So I ended up, I went to, what did I switch to? I think I switched to like general, like a general major or a general ed or whatever. And then eventually I landed in on early childhood. And then I think, yeah, it was the towards the end and I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know what I was gonna do. The school I was student teaching at was like, we don't have any open openings. We would love to like bring you on, but like, we don't have anything available. Nobody's leaving.
Amaris
So my sorority sister actually was like, look, I just tried to do like go through a company and get to Korea, South Korea and start teaching over there. 'cause they were taking, I don't know what they do now, but back when I, I, it sounds like the dark ages like so long ago. Back in the day. Yeah, back in the day. Back then in the olden times, they were literally taking like anybody who was a native English speaker with a bachelor's in any literally anything. So she was like, she tried, but whatever. She didn't go through. And then she just gave us all the information. So I was like, should I try to do this or not? So I ended up, you know, just applying, thinking like they're not gonna, if they didn't accept her, they're not gonna accept me. But lo and behold they accepted me.
Amaris
And then I moved to Korea and then I bounced around. I was like a general educator in my mind, but obviously I was an ESOL teacher. Right. I was, but I was like the classroom teacher for like pre-K or kindergarten or whatever. But obviously I had students who spoke another language in my classroom. I came back to North Carolina one year. I taught there and then I landed in Baltimore. 'cause I met my husband in Egypt. I was living in Egypt also. Had my two babies over there with my husband. And then we were like, we wanna plant roots somewhere. So he's from Baltimore. And so we came back, I taught in the district that I'm in now originally just as a first grade teacher. And I was like, I should like get my ESOL certification. Like I've been doing ESOL teaching, right? Like I've been an ESOL teacher for all of these years.
Amaris
Why? You know, every time I would come back to the states and teach, I would just be like a general educator. 'cause again, in my mind I was a general educator, but I got my certification for ESOL and then I started teaching ESOL and I loved it. Like I loved teaching ESOL and I did pretty well at it to the point where they, they let me be a coach in the district. So I've been doing that for the past three years. ESOL instructional coaching. And then now I just actually accepted a position as a literacy co, an early literacy coach. Because you know, my original degree was in early childhood education and I've been doing a lot of work around literacy, foundational literacy. So now I'm moving into that role next year. I
Georgia
Love that. I was in early childhood too, and if I ever went back to a school, I think I'd wanna be some sort of early childhood coach.
Amaris
Yeah, absolutely.
Christine
When you say esol, can you clarify that acronym please? Acronym for the listeners?
Amaris
Yes. ESOL stands for English for speakers of other languages. And essentially what you're doing as an ESOL or a lot, some people call it E S L teacher, is working with students who are, you know, trying to acquire English as their second language. A lot of times I had a lot of Spanish speakers, but you know, it could be Arabic speakers, you could have speakers of other languages, Urdu, Swahili, and you're sometimes pulling them in small groups, sometimes going into the classroom and working with them in small groups or one-on-one. So yeah, that's ol in a nutshell.
Georgia
I like that acronym. Like you said, there's kind of different acronyms to use and they're still changing all the time. And it's hard. You wanna make sure you're using the most accurate one.
Amaris
I know. And even me, there's so many like, and people, you use them interchangeably. And so, and I could be saying, like you said, like, I'm glad you said, could you clarify, because I could be saying esol. And I remember I said that to somebody and they were like, oh, you mean like, like S e l? And I was like, no, I mean,
Christine
No, I was gonna say es when I asked, I said for our listeners, but I meant for us too.
Amaris
There's so many acronyms
Christine
We know in mass. Yeah. Like the, the test is for, i, I work with teachers and teacher training tests and it's E S L in Massachusetts. So it probably varies state to state too, is what I was wondering. 100%. But yeah, I think s saw sounds cooler because I can't say it as a word.
Amaris
Yeah.
Christine
Wow, that's incredible. So you, you, how long were you abroad? How many years was that?
Amaris
So a total of five years of being abroad did in five years Korea and Egypt. I know I wanna go back like I am so ready to get these kids grown up so I can be like, all right, we're traveling again, we're traveling the world again. And teaching, doing what I love.
Georgia
I love how you just kind of, before when you were talking you just threw it in like oh, and I was in Egypt and that's where I met my husband. Yeah,
Amaris
Yeah. You know, that other place, I don't know, it just was like, I got bit by the bug and I didn't even know. I liked to like travel and like see different places of the world, you know? 'cause that's not how I grew up. I grew up like I was poor, you know, like we didn't do much outside of our little, I mean I grew up in New York, so there was lots to do, but we didn't do much outside of New York. So, you know, once I, like my mother was like, you will never get this opportunity again. Like, you need to go, your friends will be here, or whoever else you're worried about, boyfriend, whatever, they will be here. Yeah. Just go, somebody's paying for you to like live abroad and you get to like, earn money at the same time doing what you love. Like go do it. So
Georgia
Yeah, it's funny how you're probably looking back on the opportunity and being like, why did I even question it at all? But I feel like that happens so often. We're given these like incredible chances and we need someone else to be like, hello. Yeah. You like whatcha all thinking about,
Amaris
Right? Like your perspective at like 20 something is completely d Well, for me it changed anyway. It was completely different when I was 20 something to now I'm in my late thirties and I'm looking back and I'm like, oh, I have some experiences that are not necessarily common, but while you're going through it, you're like, oh yeah, everybody, anybody can do this. Everybody's getting offers to go to like Egypt. I mean, but honestly you could, like even to this day, I send people things like, look, they're like hiring in China or like hiring in wherever New Zealand or wherever because they're, look, they're still looking for those teachers to teach English in different parts of the world.
Christine
Yeah, no, we, we do. And we, we connected with another education podcast who, who specializes in, in international travel. So we'll, we'll definitely have to connect you with the I t P guys to them. Yeah, no, they're really cool. But they taught, talk to us all about teaching abroad as, as like a lifestyle basically. And it's just their, their true passion and it's really cool. So, we'll definitely
Amaris
No 100% I have friends who still are doing it. Like people who I've met while I was in different countries who are now like living in Spain or like, like legit just living a life like that is what they do. I have a friend in Qatar who's been there forever, literally forever. And I think that's the most beautiful, I I passed up an opportunity to teach in Abu Dhabi because I met my husband, but I would've been there like probably to this day.
Georgia
Well I I, I never, you know, in college I think I got an opportunity to like even just study abroad and I didn't take it for what, I don't wanna miss what's happening here. And I thought about overseas teaching but never, never took the leap. And the, the person, Christine was just talking about Greg, who we had on our show. He was like, Georgia, I think it's gonna happen for you one day. You're traveling the US now, but you're gonna be teaching overseas one day.
Amaris
100%. I think you should. I are you, are you interested? I have some look, I'm like I could send you some material.
Georgia
I dunno, maybe. We'll see. I mean, I'm trying to be open to anything, but we'll see. Let's see, we'll talk, we'll talk a great,
Amaris
Yes, we'll talk. It's a great experience.
Georgia
Cool. Well it sounds like you had so many amazing unique experiences teaching. Do you wanna talk a little bit about how you took that leap from teaching to coaching and kind of what the difference is for you? Like how, how have you experienced coaching to be versus teaching? Maybe like pros and cons of both, that kind of thing.
Amaris
Yeah, so I always knew going into education, once I finally decided to go in, I said, I want to work with adults. I wanna be the person who's creating professional developments and I wanna like, like cultivate like learning, you know, for, for grown people. If I can do be good at it, then I want to teach somebody else how to also be great at it. So that was always my goal. And so when this opportunity presented itself, it literally, like as an Esau office, they would send out weekly newsletters and be like, Hey, this is what's going on at the ESOL office. And then like one year they just were like, Hey, we have an opening for this district office coaching position or whatever. So again, similar to my story about going to Korea, I kind of just was like, okay, whatever. Like I'm just gonna apply.
Amaris
I'm not gonna put anything on it. If they reach out, then they reach out. If they don't, then I will keep being an ESOL teacher. Like whatever. But they ended up reaching out, I got the job and I literally went in, I, I was thinking that I was gonna be nervous because I was gonna have to know everything, right? Like in my mind it's like, I don't know, things ESOL like, like I just know my little bubble. Like I was an early childhood ESOL teacher, so like going in, then you have to sort of be the go-to person about like sixth grade and like all the way up pre-K through eight. So that was scary. But when I got in the role, I realized it was less of like being the expert of everything and more of like, how can I help you? Like you have to come in or for me, I had to come in more as like a, a servant leader.
Amaris
Like let me learn what you're doing 'cause I'm sure you're doing something really, really well. And then we'll find the gaps. Like whatever those are, we'll try to fill them in with some sort of like resource or maybe I'll come in and I can model for you and if I know where you're going as far as pacing, then I can maybe lesson plan with you. So that's the difference. But it is sort of like a very ambiguous role. And that's, I had this conversation with my husband the other day, like he knows now 'cause obviously he's been a part of education 'cause he is been married to me for 10 years. But I said like if somebody told you they're a principal, you kind of have a general idea of like what they do, right? He was like, yeah. I said, if somebody told you they were a teacher, you would know what they do, right? He was like, yeah. I said, if somebody told you they were an instructional coach,
Amaris
What does that mean to you? He was like, I would have no clue. And I was like, yes, because the position is so ambiguous. Like even when people ask me, so you're a teacher, right? I'm just like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Because I don't wanna explain to them like what I actually do.
Christine
I do the same thing because I different things. I'm just like, yeah, I, I teach adults.
Amaris
Right, right. Yeah. So it's, yeah, I mean it's a, it's a great role because your impact expands, right? You go from like just having your class and your kids and your bubble to, for me, this ESOL position was from the district. So I was bouncing around from like, at one point I had like 25 schools on my caseload. Now it's down to 12. But you get to touch all of those minds, right? Like all of those teachers, your impacting hopefully. And then you also get to impact their students as a result. So
yeah, it's been, it's been good. Good and ambiguous both
Georgia
In, in the district I worked in the coaches, you almost like signed up as a teacher to work with the coaches. Like you would say, Hey, like I need some help with literacy or this or that, so I'm gonna join a cycle with the literacy coach or whatnot. Is that how it works in your district too?
Amaris
No. So again, I think because it's like so new, I guess in my district as a coach, and I wish they would call it something else, like maybe a mentor or something. You have your schools that are on your case. So ESOL specifically, you have schools that are on your caseload. Then you go out to the schools, you're really just there again to sort of like monitor. So you're coming in every three weeks. You have to get around to all of your schools. You're going in to do informal observations. You give your feedback. But, and then, so the reason why I'm moving out of this role and going into back into a school building to be a coach in that capacity is because I, I feel like you bouncing around to all of these different schools, how deep can you really go? Right? Like how, so you're super wide, like you're spread really wide and you're reaching a lot of people reaching, I'm doing air quotes, but you're not really impacting anybody necessarily because you're not there all the time.
Amaris
So they sort of start to look at you as like a compliance manager, right? So like, oh, Amherst is here today, let me get on my P's and Q's. Whereas a real coach, I feel like you wanna see them like in their true element so that you can give them authentic feedback so that they actually implement it and it, it actually has a, an impact. And so I feel like going into this school-based position, I'll have more of that sort of like that leverage that I'll be there every single day, you know? So I can actually like know and, and I don't like when people come, like when I come and people are like, oh, okay, get it all together. You know, make it look pretty. Let's put the picture, you know, the, the face on, right? I would prefer you be messy or whatever. Because again, I wanna see what really is, what's happening, what is your grow, right?
Georgia
Yeah, that makes no sense. I mean it reminds me of just teaching kids. Like when when teachers get a group of kids and they have way too many kids in their classroom, it's harder to make real impact with each and every one of them. You're more so just like keeping peace with everybody and trying to make sure everyone's doing okay, but not really able to go super deep with any one student
Amaris
And that. Yeah, and that's 100 like I need to make an impact. I can't be in this role, like stay in education and just like be the, the lady from the district. Like that's not enough for me. I would prefer to really impact people. You know,
Christine
I love your perspective of working with adults and how that pays forward in the sense to the students and affecting change in that way. I've, I haven't really thought about it from that perspective of working with teachers and I, I really love that perspective. Alright, so, so you're working as a coach and you have also started your own business. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that?
Amaris
Yeah. So this is crazy because I saw you guys with lotion, right? And I initially was like, let me reach out to like, this was year, maybe a year before I saw you guys. I was like, let me reach out to her. Like I wanna be a part, you know, she's a consultant and she like gets other people to be consultants, whatever. So I reached out to her and then I was like, no, I'm not gonna be a consultant. I'm gonna like, I was like, I'm gonna try to work for her. So then I like, and I was like, I'm gonna work for her and I'm gonna pick her brain and like I'll learn from like some of her excellence will fall off on me and then I'll be like a great consultant too. But it didn't work out that way just 'cause I was like doing a million different things.
Amaris
Like I was trying to work for her and then like it would go lot, whatever. So I just sort of cut ties. I was like, okay, you know, no hard feelings just not doable right now. But that stayed with me, right? Like I still, like in the back of my mind I was like, I still wanna be a consultant. Like I still wanna start this business and I know I can do it. So maybe like a year later I went ahead, I got my L L C, I did reach out to some friends and I found like another, like a mentor, whatever. She also like is a consultant and she's been doing it and doing really well at it. And so I said, let me, let me do what I do every day anyway. Which is coach teachers around best practices for English learners, multilingual learners.
Amaris
And so, yeah, that's what my business is all about. I have worked with a couple of schools just literally based from like social media, like me posting on social media and like saying what I do and telling people, like giving them some strategies has people or has had people reach out and you know, they wanna know more what I can do. So yeah, it's, I mean it's fun. It's, it was, I mean it won't be next year, but it was very much aligned to what I was doing anyway. So it was just like, okay, I'm coaching these teachers, I'm making this professional development. I'm just gonna take it and like literally like recycle it and make it like, you know, applicable to that school that I'm talking to. Yeah, it's been good.
Georgia
Yeah, that's great. The power of social media.
Amaris
Oh my god, people underestimate it so much or they like brush it. I feel like my, oh my god, again, I'm sounding old. I was gonna say my generation, but whatever. I'm an old millennial. I feel like we're sometimes like, oh, social media, whatever, like that's for the kid. I mean like, no, like social media can really help you. Like if you're wanting to sell something or like create something or offer services, help people, how else will you get the word out to Sally in Minnesota? Who, you know what I mean? Like what other free way? I mean I'm sure there are other ways, but this is like the easiest, most logical way to do it.
Georgia
You're on Instagram and TikTok, right? Is that correct?
Amaris
Yes, both. Yep. Do you like
Georgia
TikTok? TikTok is the one that I feel like it's hard for me to navigate or something, do anything with, I can scroll easily but to actually like make it work.
Amaris
Yeah, no, TikTok is cool. I mean I guess with TikTok in my mind I was thinking like, I'm gonna get on here and I'm gonna have to be like doing dances and stuff, which is why it took me so long. When I think about TikTok. Yeah, like we're not doing TikTok Georgia. But the thing, I mean the thing is it could be like you could put the music on the back, right? You can do a TikTok with the whatever viral music, but you could like make it applicable to what it is that you're talking about. You just have to, you know, you guys are creative. I'm sure it's the same kind of things we do with Instagram, but just you gotta make it a little bit, I don't know, younger. Yeah, yeah. Does that make sense is what I'm saying? No, it
Georgia
Totally does.
Amaris
Yeah.
Georgia
I love what you said though about, you know, you're, you're like, I'm doing this stuff anyways. How can I kind of like reword it, change it a bit to work on Instagram, to work for other districts to work for different situations? 'cause as teachers we have so much knowledge that we use with the kids or with the other teachers and put ourselves in a box of, you know, this is what I do and reminding us that we can use these skills and ideas in so many different ways. We should put them out there and you know,
Amaris
100%
Georgia
Put others with them.
Amaris
Yeah, no, the lady who I ended up working with, like my mentor, she was saying like, what do people come to you for anyway? Like, and you give it to them for free because there is something that you do probably on a day-to-day basis and people are like, oh da. Like how did you, I remember people would come to me and be like, how this was general ed days. How do you get kids to like be in centers and like be quiet and leave you alone while you're doing small groups. Like those little things are like people that come to me, how do you get these kids to like really ingest this vocabulary and like use it, you know what I mean? Like during like productive language activities, speaking and writing. And so those things sort of key me into like, oh this is probably what I should be offering as like a part of my package as a part of like what I'm giving people from my business. So yeah, it's whatever you do really well and people are already asking you to do it and you doing it for free, girl, you better get them coins honey. I love it.
Georgia
Do you, do you think that you'll adapt your consulting to have more to do with early childhood literacy or do you think you're gonna keep it more with the English language learner, keep it down that lane?
Amaris
Yeah, so I mean I called it the merge because I knew at some point I was gonna go like this. Like I was going to branch off to early literacy and also like stay with the language acquisition piece. And so yeah, on my YouTube channel actually I have a YouTube channel as well. I go sort of into detail. Like I have some stuff that's catered towards people who are looking for like how do I get my child to read? And then I have some other things on my YouTube channel that's more about like listening and speaking practice and getting your language learners to start, you know, foundational literacy. Again, like my whole thing is again the merging of foundational literacy and language acquisition. I try to stay in my lane. I'm not trying to go up there with the big kids. Sometimes people ask me about like high school and language acquisition and it's pretty, it's similar if we're talking about newcomers 'cause they need that foundational literacy piece as well. It just looks a little bit different in terms of like, you know, being developmentally appropriate. But yeah, that's what it's all about. That's what my company is all about. The merging of those two, my two passions.
Georgia
Awesome. That's great. They go hand in hand, so it's
Christine
That you're Yeah, I was just gonna say that, that's what I was thinking the whole time you were talking. It's just, yeah, acquisition of language has to do with when you're first learning it all, which also has to do with early childhood. Very cool.
Georgia
I can't believe you have YouTube also. Oh my gosh, we have a lot
Christine
More. I was just thinking my head around. Yeah,
Georgia
How do you do it all? Oh my gosh.
Amaris
Look, I double use my content, my my, a lot of my TikTok stuff, you know, you can take TikTok, it downloads onto your phone, you take it and just put it in other places.
Christine
There you go. So we're gonna start on the TikTok. Yes. We're just gonna put it out there and see
Amaris
What happens. Do it, do it, do it. Look, I'm gonna be a
Christine
Or one follower.
Georgia
You should do. And your next company will be the merge consulting for TikTok and Instagram. And,
Amaris
And that is how you merge your social media, all
Christine
Your platforms. Yes.
Georgia
Awesome. Well thanks for sharing a bit more about your business. That's
Christine
Absolutely
Georgia
Really cool to hear about it. We'll definitely drop all the links too for anyone who's listening the links in our show notes for all of your awesome platforms that you're putting out all this great content on. Okay,
Amaris
Great, great, great.
Georgia
Well we have a question that we ask like all of our guests, which is kind of a loaded question and you know, you can choose to answer it more broadly or more focused on what you're doing. But what do you think would make education better right now?
Amaris
So I think I, I actually, yeah, I did a short on YouTube about this and it was very short. It was make class is smaller and pay all teachers six figures or more regardless of what state you're in. 'cause I know you know Cali and like in this area, PE that's pretty standard. But regardless of where you are, you should get six figures or more. Like that should be the base salary and you shouldn't have more than 15 kids in your classroom. Because at that point, like after we pass that it's, we can do it, but like is it really manageable? And that thing that we just talked about, like impact, like are we really impacting kids if we have 30? I've heard of kindergarten teachers having 50 kids in their classroom. Like that doesn't, how, how does that make sense? You know? So yeah, smaller class sizes and more money.
Christine
Yeah, two very good answers.
Georgia
Totally. I mean, yeah, I agree. I remember when I was teaching and I think it was an older teacher, it was maybe about to retire. She's like, you know, when I first started I taught pre-K and we had 50 kids in the morning session and 50 in the evening and they all behaved. And I'm just like, yeah, but like what was really happening was any fun happening? Were they actually, were they terrified?
Amaris
Were you beating them with, these are real questions
Georgia
Up here.
Christine
That's insane.
Amaris
That is craziness. Because at that point you literally are just hurting them. Like, okay, everybody go over here. Everybody go over there. Like you're, you're reaching those kids who already like get it anyway. Like the babies who are not getting anything are still not getting anything. You're teaching to the middle and the high.
Georgia
Right. Totally.
Amaris
So craziness,
Christine
I feel like too, just we can probably all speak to like, our generation has seen a huge change in education from when we were students to how we are as teachers. Like I know when we were in school it was like expected to sit at your desk silently and the teachers in the front, there was no group work, there was no, you know, there were no centers, right? Everything was worksheet based and memorizing and there was, you know, it, I had wonderful, wonderful teachers, but that was just kind of the way it's so, it's so different now. It's evolved so much and I think to only benefit the students. So yeah,
Amaris
I remember my sixth grade class had 30 kids in it, but we were definitely afraid of my sixth grade teacher. Like she would come and we'd be like, oh my God, she's come like in sixth grade. Which is crazy 'cause you look at sixth graders now and you're like, oh, they're grown people. But yeah, yeah, she had us terrified and, and her relationship with our parents was really good. All of our parents was really good. She, I'm sure that was intentional. So yeah, times have changed.
Christine
Speaking of changing times, what does success mean to you now with what you're doing? You know, coaching and starting your own business versus when you started teaching in Korea?
Amaris
Yeah, so when I started teaching, success for me was like, I want to be the youngest to do something in education or the only to do something in education. And I wanted to go straight to district office, like whatever, by any means necessary. So that was success to me initially, but now I feel like it's more about impact. Like I cannot, I think I already said this, but I cannot do something if there is no impact on kids. And I think having kids really changed my perspective on that. Like, I can't be in the field of education and not impact kids. Like what is that? How, how, how can I rationalize that with myself? You know? So that's what it's,
Georgia
Yeah, I like that. Well it sounds like you're, you know, making a lot of impact, especially like, I feel like every decision you're making is with that in mind. Like, okay, this is working out for a little bit, but I need to make more impact. So like, let's shift to here. Shift there.
Amaris
Yeah. 100%. Yes.
Georgia
Cool. Well we'd love to hear some of your most memorable moments from your classroom days. And it sounds like there's probably a lot to choose from different countries to choose from, different jobs to choose from. But if you wanna share a couple favorites, funny, crazy, whatever.
Amaris
Yeah, this was not funny. I mean, I guess we can laugh at it now 'cause like looking back, whatever, looking, but in the moment it was crazy. But the district that I work in is sort of notorious for like adults fighting. I don't know why, but you know, that's just sort of like what happens. I don't know why that's crazy. I know. Like I'm, I'm starting off right? Like you already know it's gonna go somewhere, somewhere left. So yeah, the, I don't know what was going on, but all I heard was a whole bunch of ruckus from my classroom. Just like a whole bunch of commotion. The police were there, other like veteran teachers had stepped outside of their classrooms to like, stop. So what was happening was a parent had come up to the school to try to fight the principal and apparently, I don't know, the principal must have enforced some rule that was like standard across the board, but the parent was not happy with the ruby enforced with their child.
Amaris
And so she came up, she was like on the phone, like calling other people to come up. It was a lot going on and I just had to go back in my class and be like, okay, so what we're gonna do now is start center time, you know, like just be regular for the kids when like, and they could hear it too. Like they knew there was something, you know, happening, right. But I, I just had to play it off like, everything's normal, let's just go on with our regular day. But, but she legit, what ended up happening, they got the school police there and they escorted her out and nothing like went further than just the parent coming up and like cursing out the principal. But like the, the next, you know, the rest of the week everybody's sort of on lookout. Like, is she coming back up here?
Amaris
I know she was calling her sisters and whoever else, like, will they be up here? And then what happens at pick up time? It was a lot. So they had to let the student like not come to school for a little while. I think they suspended the baby or some something happened where the student wasn't coming to school, you know, to cool the convers the conversation and the like what had happened down cool, everything and everybody in the situation down, so oh man. Yeah. But that unfortunately, that is not uncommon. Like if people knew what district I worked in, they would be like, oh yeah, that makes sense. That sounds correct. So, but I haven't been in a school that's been that to that extreme recently,
Christine
So I don't think I've ever seen that. Have you ever seen that Georgia? I've seen mad parents, but I
Georgia
Don't think so. I mean,
Christine
Not like taking it outside mad
Amaris
She was ready to go. Yeah.
Georgia
Right. I know that
Christine
Only hurts the child.
Amaris
That too. Like you always think about like, well what is, how is this gonna impact the child? Them seeing this? Yeah, just even this like in their li like how does that impact their trajectory overall? Like, right. And you know,
Georgia
If their parents doing that with the principal, it's not the only situation where they're overreacting or using violence in that way. It's clearly across the board most likely not to, you know, assume anything. But
Amaris
Yeah,
Georgia
A certain person to get that angry to go totally
Christine
Try the principal
Amaris
School.
Christine
I gotta say a mom, I could like resonate with the energy of that, but I would just keep it in my home and like tell my husband, like when everyone, like what they said that to my kid, no, but I would never say that and go to the school.
Amaris
Right? No 100%
Christine
That level. But not in reality.
Amaris
Yeah, no, I've sent some emails that were a little, you know, spicy, but not, not to the like, I'm not gonna be like, and also I'm gonna fight you and I'm bringing my, my siblings up. No, that's not gonna happen. But again, like you said as a mom, you can see like you love your baby so much. Like you would literally do anything for this other human being. So I could see how if you didn't sort of have that, you know, I don't know the boundary of like, I'm not gonna go off on a principal. I could see how that would happen, you know?
Christine
Oh, that's so funny. Great. All right, well, do you have, yeah. One last question. Do you have any advice for teachers in the field right now?
Amaris
Yes. Do what you wanna do. And honestly, by that, by that I mean don't let anybody keep you in education out of guilt or fear. If you want to be free and leave education and you feel like there is a better path for you, go and pursue that path. If, this is what I always tell younger teachers too, like if you feel like you love education, but you don't love what you're doing right now, find your niche. Like if special ed is what you like wanna be doing, try that out. If you wanna be an ESOL teacher, try that out and you wanna be whatever else, like make a lateral move that's not necessarily taking you completely away from the kids, but at the same time you get to experience something else or maybe a different population. And then if you still don't like education, like just leave, don't feel guilty about it. Like it's your life living.
Georgia
I really like that. We've talked with a few educators who have transitioned out of education mostly and are doing other things and they have similar advice for teachers where like, you know, just try, try out some other stuff while you're in the classroom. You don't have to quit your job, but like, if you really like cooking, like try to just do more of that while you're still teaching. And I, I love your perspective of you can use that in an education avenue as well. Like you're, you think you wanna stay, but you're not sure, like what can you try out, like you said, it might be a lateral move, but who cares? You're, you're in your little safe space still, but you're exploring and you're just getting more information of like, Hmm, do I like this? Do I not like this? What direction do I wanna go? Is it become, you know, an early childhood coach or is it go become a chef? I don't know. Right. Literally your one life.
Amaris
Yeah. That's it.
Georgia
That wraps up our show for today. Remember to always listen to your teacher voice and measure success with your own ruler. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. If you like what you heard today, share with a teacher who needs this in their life and don't forget to like, comment and subscribe to our show. If you like what you heard.