Ep. 95: Zooming In on Teacher Mental Health with Ryan Pelkey
How to reach Ryan:
Instagram and Twitter/X: @mr_pelkey
Transcript:
Melissa Milner 0:09
Welcome to The Teacher As... Podcast. I'm your host Melissa Milner, a teacher who is painfully curious and very easily inspired. This podcast is ever changing. And I hope with each season, you find episodes that speak to you in your work as an educator. This is the fifth season of The Teacher As..., and it's exciting to see the growth in how many educators are listening. Episodes are released every other week. If you enjoy The Teacher As... please rate it on Apple podcasts and leave a review. It helps the podcast reach more educators. Thanks for listening.
Ryan Pelkey 0:41
So good morning, everybody. My name is Ryan Pelkey. I'm a former health and PE teacher. I've been in education for about 25 years. I think this is my 25th year. And currently I serve as an administrative intern, which I'm super happy about at a middle school in Northern Virginia. My heart and my passion right now is teacher mental health. I believe in psychological safety in schools, I believe that if the teachers feel comfortable to teach, the kids are going to feel comfortable to learn, and it's going to have a trickle down effect on our community. So I've really gone out of my way to make sure that the needs of the teachers are met first, because without teachers, the schools don't exist.
Melissa Milner 1:22
Absolutely. So what are your beliefs and philosophy about how to do that... how to get that to happen?
Ryan Pelkey 1:29
Relationships, relationships are vital to this. When I started teaching in the late 90s, I had a principal that said, treat your staff, your custodial staff, your front office staff, treat them like gold. Go out of your way to take them to lunch or bring lunch to them, do special things for them, and make sure they feel valued, loved and appreciated. And I bought into it immediately. And from there, I had allies, I had people that when I needed something, they back they had me 100% backing of me plus I learned how to grow relationships that way as well. I think it was very important to understand that as I got through school, I realized that taking the little things for the teachers this year with I'm in charge of social studies, and I told my social studies teachers, I said, Look, if you guys need a break, you need a mental health break, you have to use the bathroom, call me on the radio, if I'm not doing anything, I'm gonna make sure that I'm down there to cover your class. Or if I am doing anything, I might have to put that on hold. Because I want to make sure that you are first and foremost. I do it for the people I've worked with for you know, for 24 years, I was lucky enough to have team teaching where we leaned on each other. And when everyone works together, it seems to be a whole better cohesive unit. I take it from coaching different sports throughout the years. You treat your players and give them the tools. But also, you know, push them where they need to go. My leadership philosophy is, I'm in front of you, I'm behind you, I'm next to you. Whatever it needs, whatever it has to be done, I'm going to be leading the way or we'll be pushing you from behind. But for the most part, I'm going to be side by side grinding it out with you.
Melissa Milner 3:08
That's awesome. I love that message for administrators. When you were a PE, I'm trying to put this together when you were a PE teacher for all those years. Did you feel supported? And why did you switch to the administration?
Ryan Pelkey 3:21
Well, certain people did support me. But I also felt pigeonholed. I also felt like you're just a PE teacher. What do you know about instructional leadership? You're just this, you're just that. And you know, unfortunately, it took something like the pandemic where we were home, and I got to explore different options like audio-only apps like Clubhouse and talking to other educational leaders throughout the world that I found out that I did have value, I did have a voice. And what I said mattered. Now I don't think I'm the end all do all but the fact that I could be there for other people and they wanted me to be there was important. I don't want to be just pushed aside and I never want to do that to anybody else. Everyone brings something to the table. And I believe in Bill Belichick the football coach, I'm not a big fan of the Patriots. But...
Melissa Milner 4:08
Hey, I'm from Massachusetts.
Ryan Pelkey 4:10
I'm an Eagles fan. You gotta you gotta cut me some slack here. But his mantra of "do your job," and everything will go forward is like, ingrained in me. And I've loved it since day one. And so if I have everyone doing their job, as small as it will be, the machine will work. It's like cogs in a wheel. And I've taught that to my students for years that the wheel will work as long as those spokes on the wheel will all be working at the same time. I think as a PE teacher, I've grown and I had the I had more opportunities. The more that I spoke up, I felt early in my career, I was more of a disrupter. I saw things that needed to be changed. And I was like, I'm going to be bullheaded, I'm going to change it or do an underground railroad style change of things. That's not the right thing to do. You have to go through proper channels, but you have to be able to be consistent with it. And I always like doing things like this because I never know who I'm gonna meet, I never know the challenges that are in front of me and who might be able to help me or how I can help them. So I've taken that servant leadership style and adapted it over the period of time through my teaching career through athletic directing, through coaching. And now, in this administrative role, I'm gonna take it and run with it because I feel like I could do so much more on a larger scale helping 1200 kids instead of 30.
Melissa Milner 5:22
Right. You mentioned on a larger scale. You mentioned something called clubhouse. Could you tell the listeners about that?
Ryan Pelkey 5:28
So clubhouse is an audio only app. It's basically where people come and they talk, you have a stage, you have speakers, moderators of the room. And I started, like during the pandemic, where people were holding educational discussions, and I was like, wow, this is really cool. And I listened for a while and they said, it's at certain point in the room, they said, would anyone have any questions or like to come up and talk and I was I hit the button, I came up and I was on stage with doctors and superintendents and big movers and shakers in the educational community. I felt welcomed, I felt valued. I felt appreciated. And from there, I just kept coming back. And I started my own club. It started out as a club. Now it's a house, it's called the Educator's Closet. And I'm in charge of, there's probably like, 3000 people in there. But the cool thing is, we can come in at any time, like during the evolving shooting. We had like a room after that, just to talk. A lot of times teachers, they don't understand what we go through. And the mental health crisis that teachers there's no one to like Express, and it was a safe place for people to talk. No one judged them. We had discussions I've really kind of liked creating discussions from week to week. Now I think for me, it's kind of slid off a little bit. The more that I've gotten busier with post pandemic, we haven't been home as much. Plus my wife was like, you know, you're on clubhouse way too much you need to get off it. It's can be a little addicting because you but you have a community you find your tribe of people that not only think the way you do but appreciate what you are bringing to the table. I have a room tomorrow night where and it's where we're talking about as an administrator, what do you want? What do you want from your administrators, and the rooms can be totally anonymous, where replays don't happen, where you can just talk. And it's free flowing, which I really appreciate. I've also created like mental health pop up rooms, where I'll just come in and say anybody need someone to talk to you. I'm here. I'm not a therapist, but I'll listen. And the funny thing is a couple times I had someone come in, who had some issues, and then a doctor came in a mental health professional came in, and I made those connections. And that's great. The fact that I've met a couple people in real life off a clubhouse is fantastic. I've given opportunities, they encouraged me to write a book, they encouraged me to do professional speaking. And in turn, I pass it along and help other people.
Melissa Milner 7:43
That's great. So you mentioned tomorrow night, so this is not coming out till mid October. But is there a way for instance on clubhouse to go back and hear...
Ryan Pelkey 7:55
For that particular one? No, because I'm going to keep it. I don't want people to feel like they have to say certain things. Yeah. But usually on Thursday nights of seven or 8pm Eastern Standard Time, I'll be in the Educator's Closet or the Educator's House. And we will have discussions. We do fun rooms. We do rooms like what's your favorite Muppet, and tell me why. And when you come in the room, you can be that avatar of the Muppet. And it's just something fun. We do madlibs every once in a while. But the people that that I've met, they're from all over the United States, some of them are for all over the world. I got to speak with people in Malaysia and Australia and New Zealand. And that is really important to me, because the educational and mental health crisis is not just here. It's everywhere.
Melissa Milner 8:38
Right? Absolutely.
Ryan Pelkey 8:39
And to be able to share with other people, there's a ton of people that do outstanding rooms. There's a gentleman, his name is Gian Carl Broto, that does a room. And he in the morning where he connects people. So if you went in the room at 10 o'clock in the morning, he's in Canada, and he'll say, Oh, this is what you do. Let me connect you with this person. You can't get that anywhere else.
Melissa Milner 9:00
Yeah, that's great.
Ryan Pelkey 9:01
So I appreciate that app.
Melissa Milner 9:03
So how would my listeners that you just put it on an app on your phone? Or...
Ryan Pelkey 9:08
Yeah, it's a you can have it on the Android phone or Apple. And then you would just log in it used to be invite only. They got rid of that. It's blown up. It had like a peak and valley. I think in the wintertime, it'll get busier again, as people are staying home more, but I've used it in the car on long trips. And just you know, you can mute and unmute your mic. I do like catching up with people and seeing you know how I can help. So I'm grateful for the app. And you know, I just had someone named Charlie Peck speak at my school district's opening for the year. And it was super great to see her and make those connections.
Melissa Milner 9:42
That's amazing.
Ryan Pelkey 9:43
It's like we were real, you know, like we've known each other forever.
Melissa Milner 9:47
Yeah. I to go back a little bit about the teacher mental health. What I'm finding morale wise, is it's very helpful to have common planning time and be able to meet like, where I teach fourth grade, it'd be able to meet. And in the elementary, the elementary level, common planning time, at least in our district, or at our school is very valuable. But it's almost like, we never have enough time where there and we're focused, you know, 99.9% but then it's like time to pick up your kids from gym, time to pick up your kids from art, and we want to keep going. But it really helps. So I don't know if you're in charge of scheduling. But are you able to and at high school level that it's not, I don't know, whether it's as importnat for morale.
Ryan Pelkey 10:40
It is you have that horizontal and vertical planning, in middle school in high school, where if you're a social studies teacher, you want to work with grades six, seven, and eight. But also, you want to work with all the sixth grade teachers on your on your level. I am learning the master calendar, you have to be like Obi Wan Kenobi at that point to be able to juggle everything and make sure that all the kids are getting the required hours for your ELL students and your students with disabilities. So there's a lot of moving pieces, my principal is kind of done a deep dive, and she's still doing a deep dive into it. It's a constant moving document. But I think it's important to have that common planning as a PE teacher, we kind of valued it just to kind of we always used to have it in the morning, or you know, in to be able to say, Okay, this is what we're doing, and kind of hammer that out. Our, our planning periods are a lot shorter going, you know, in the past, but I know just that able that ability to say, hey, we need to meet, and we can get this knocked out. We do have CLT meetings after school, which we kind of hammer out a lot of the nuts and bolts with our different pedagogies once a week, and that helps. It's hard. I mean, there's so many moving pieces. We don't want to overload our classes. And you know, we would love to have common planning time, but it's just yeah, I have like 1150 kids at my school. And to be able to meet everyone's needs, we would be going to school till six o'clock at night.
Melissa Milner 12:06
Right? Exactly. It is it's a lot. That... that team feeling, I think, how would help a lot of teachers, especially if they're new teachers to not feel like it's all on them. They have to do with oh, wait a minute, oh, you could do that part. And I could do this part. And then we can just share it on Google Docs. Wait a minute, oh, my gosh, it's already so much more manageable.
Ryan Pelkey 12:30
We had our first meeting for social studies last week, and we don't go back to school for a couple of weeks. Yeah. And then when we had that meeting, I had a couple of new teachers and you're surrounding themselves, I have to experience with a new at each grade level for the most part. So that's a big help. And for the new person to know, they're not alone in this.
Melissa Milner 12:50
Huge.
Ryan Pelkey 12:51
I mean, when I started teaching, I was like, here you go, and have fun, it's important for the new teachers to have the opportunity to, to watch and to observe. I'm encouraging teachers to go into other classrooms. And if they want to take a professional day, go to another school and see how it's run. I have a new athletic director at my school that replaced me because I moved into administration. And he's like, What do I do, I'm like, you have to determine your own path. I can give you the tools, I can give you what to do. But don't don't do it like the person that did it before me do it. Like you want to do it, get what get what you need done. And I've always kind of preached that to my students. There's 100 different ways to skin a cat. I mean, I'm so grateful for the technology we have now where students can turn in things online, they can make videos of a presentation, instead of just writing something down. They can be creative, use your creativity and making yours. But for new teachers not to be overwhelmed, they really need to take the time to observe, absorb and appreciate the fact that there's other people here that'll give you tools that you might need. Just have to ask.
Melissa Milner 14:01
Yeah.
Ryan Pelkey 14:02
I mean, that's the hardest thing is asking.
Melissa Milner 14:03
And then the other hard thing is, you know, when I first started teaching in 91, so we're similar timeline. It was all encompassing, it was 24 sev..., like I was always thinking about work, do it like and that was sort of the culture at the school, you know, and not to lie, listen to some of Angela Watson's stuff and listen to her podcast, I realized, you know, okay, maybe I need a little bit more of a work/life balance. So how do you teach that and how how, if you see that there's a teacher struggling with that or just with like, not like having impostor syndrome about being at it. What do you do to help that person?
Ryan Pelkey 14:45
If I see someone struggling, I'm going to try to take a little bit off their plate, and if I have to absorb it for a while, I'll absorb it and figure it out. I want to make sure that they have if they're really struggling with like that work/life balance, give them some cues give and some things that might work for me might not work for you tell them to take a mental health day. I mean, we don't encourage it. But it's going to have to happen, we have to start taking that I would love to see mental health professionals for teachers and schools, I know we don't have the money in the funds for it. And plus a mental health professionals don't want to come work for peanuts that the school districts are providing. But we do a lot for our students, we give all these services for our students. And when someone's having trouble figuring out how to manage their home life and school, it's a problem. I've taken, I use my 45 minute drive every day from work to school to kind of decompress or get ready for my day. And it's still a struggle, because when I was coaching or whatever, I'd get home at nine o'clock at night, turn around and be in my car at six o'clock in the morning, next day, you have to have an understanding home life, my wife is very understanding and knows this is my path that I have chosen.
Ryan Pelkey 15:55
But I've also learned the word no. And that's been real hard to be able to say no, to be able to say you can't do it all. As much as I want to dive in and help everybody. I can't help everybody. But I can offer. And I think 95% of the time, when you go to someone and say I'm willing to help. That's part of the part of the solution, being able to break that barrier and show you're vulnerable and they're vulnerable. They might not take the help right now. But they might do it later on.
Melissa Milner 16:26
Absolutely.
Ryan Pelkey 16:27
And I know that it's been appreciated to me, I've been very appreciative of people that come in and say, Hey, do you need anything, because you don't see it a lot. I've tried to teach my kids that I've tried to you know, that's that giving mentality that's thinking about your, you know, others before yourself. But at the same time, one of the things that I've learned over the last three or four years is I have to start tooting my own horn, and I sound selfish, but no one else is going to blow your own horn, no one else is going to, if you want to get out there and you want to change, you have to change, you have to make that change, other people will support you. But having that self confidence, that's part of the problem with any kind of balance, whether it's work/life balance, whether it's dealing with just your family, if you have to have self worth and self confidence. And if you don't, then everyone's gonna walk all over you, and you're just gonna think you don't matter. And for me, 20 plus years of it professionally, I felt like I didn't matter. So that really weighed heavy on me until I decided I do matter. I do, I can help. And I'm important to other people. And I'm important. More importantly, I'm important to myself. But if you don't take care of yourself, if you don't value yourself or have that self worth, all that balance stuff is going to stay low, everyone else's priority was going to be way up here. And you're going to be way on low because you don't matter. Everyone's just going to railroad you and that's not right. I mean, it's good to help. But don't be the tire track, you know, don't be under the bus.
Melissa Milner 17:54
Exactly. And it's also having perspective, like we both have perspective of having, you know, been in education all these years, when you're a beginning teacher to have the perspective of, you know, I need to you know, I'm going to work here till four o'clock, and then I'm going whether I'm done with the work or not, I'm leaving, and I'm not touching it till I get to school tomorrow, like having the perspective of saying it's gonna be okay, if I'm not prepared. The kids will, the kids aren't going to know I'll, I'll do this, I'll do this, I'll do this. If I'm not fully prepared. I'll take have them read for a few minutes while I get prepared. Like the kid doesn't hurt the kids to read for a few minutes while you get prepared. If you're not, you know, for picking certain days, like that's what I started doing is okay, on these days, I'm going to leave, you know, at my contractual time. And then on these days, I'm going to stay into a little bit of work. So I have peace of mind. Or what I would do is people thought I was crazy, but I say Friday afternoons, so that when I leave at five o'clock on a Friday, I know the week is set, and I can enjoy my weekends. And I don't work all weekend.
Ryan Pelkey 19:00
Yeah, yeah, Sunday scaries are real. And if you feel like you're overwhelmed and not prepared, you're not going to sleep Sunday. It's going to be a horrible Monday. Everything's going to feel rushed. So planning ahead of time is always important. I like getting to school early. That was the thing over the years that I knew I could get my ducks in a row. I got everything out. Right. I got everything ready. And then I could start my day.
Melissa Milner 19:23
I'm more awake in the morning anyway. I'm a morning person but yeah, and nobody's there. Like if I get there early enough. I've got the copier to myself. I have the room to myself.
Ryan Pelkey 19:34
It's about finding what works for you. It's about finding you know, and it's it takes a while. It absolutely.
Melissa Milner 19:42
But it's also about it's a give yourself a break. You're human, you know and I mean for my first I'd say probably my first 20 years because I've been teaching 30 plus years my first 20 years. I just thought it was all about getting there doing the job. You know best for the kids best for the kids best for The kids. And yes, it's what's best for the kids. But it's also taking care of myself.
Ryan Pelkey 20:06
Sure, if you get sick, I was going to do it. Yeah, that was the hardest thing I was during COVID. I was sick, non COVID related with the injury was in the hospital. And I had that mentality that I had to do my lesson plans, because no one else was going to do it. So I was higher than a kite on pain medication, trying to fill out these lesson plans. And my wife is like, put the laptop down, you're not working. And I'm like, I have to do it, I have to do it. And that's the struggle that so many people have, and they just can't let go. And you're right, you have to let go. So at a certain point, you have to say, It's okay, we got it. And that's something I learned and I can put on other teachers when they have an emergency at home, go, we'll figure it out. You know, and my mentality with stuff that doesn't get done today, the sun's still gonna come up in the morning, no matter what that sun is going to be there. And I used to tell people when we had rain outs for sporting events and stuff like that, okay, we didn't play today. Sun's coming up tomorrow. We'll figure it out tomorrow. And if we don't figure it out, we'll figure it out the next day, or if we don't figure it out at all, we're still living. Um, you know, it's alright.
Melissa Milner 21:10
To go back to Bill Belichek. It is what it is.
Ryan Pelkey 21:13
Yeah! Pretty much. Pretty much.
Melissa Milner 21:17
Yeah, yeah. It all comes back to Bill Belichek.
Ryan Pelkey 21:20
Yeah, I hate saying it.
Melissa Milner 21:22
Although he can be kind of a jerk. But yeah,
Ryan Pelkey 21:24
His mentality is very like cut and dry, very concrete. And...And I understand that. And I appreciated that. At the same time, I know how to treat people and how to figure out some people need a push, some people need a pull. And...
Melissa Milner 21:37
Right. Same with students.
Ryan Pelkey 21:39
Yeah. Same with students across the board. And you know, once you find that magic button, you need to sit high in the balcony to see that you just can't have interact daily interactions and understand people, you need to observe them from a balcony, see how the puzzle pieces fit together, see what works best and see their reactions. Because if you how they act and react, you're not going to see that in front of your face, because it's good, but you're going to see it from a balcony standpoint.
Melissa Milner 22:08
Yeah.
Ryan Pelkey 22:08
So it may be playing Madden in video games that I kind of figured that out.
Melissa Milner 22:15
So you mentioned I don't know if this is a zooming in question, what you're zooming in on right now in education. And in your work? Did you mentioned that you were writing a book or wrote a book?
Ryan Pelkey 22:30
I wrote I've already written one book. It's called The Boy Who Lost His Ears. It's an SEL learning book. It's based on my nephew, or a boy has some learning. It's you know, how we like, don't listen as kids like fourth, fifth sixth graders, okay. You've been around them a long time, my brother in law, and he lived, you know, and Nick lived with us for a long time. And I overheard him one day say, Nick, if you don't listen, your ears are gonna fall off. And then you're not gonna have any, just to scare him just to say, Oh, I better listen, I better listen. So that's what the premise of the book is that he's not paying attention to his dad, he's being a jerk to kids at school, basically, because they're not paying, you know, he's not paying attention to things. And one day he wakes up and his ears are gone. How does he survive. And when he finds out that he can listen without him, he can you know, in a world that's constantly trying to tell you something listening skills are important. So he learns how to listen without him not only sign language, but watching other people watching their reactions, observing, and having empathy for other people, as much as they had empathy for him. It fills out real quick, right back.
Ryan Pelkey 23:32
So I have the opportunity to read it to you like pop up classes, elementary schools, like on Zoom. I've done summer school for last couple years in elementary school. So I've had those audiences. And it's not about making money. I'm, I'm proud that I'm an accomplished author. No one else in my family is no one else in my school, or pretty much my school district has written, you know, books, but it was just something during a pandemic said I'm going to do it. And I also wrote the book through the eyes of a single dad.
Melissa Milner 23:58
That's great.
Ryan Pelkey 23:58
You don't see that very often. My brother in law has really taken him full time and done a great job as a dad. And sometimes as a mom, you see a lot of things geared towards single moms and my wife was a single mom before I met her I love. I love that whole concept and what people do much props to them. But to be able to celebrate those single dads is priceless to me, because sometimes they get lost. I am working on a second book. It's in that frame up phrase where it's the word just a line through it and leaving it that because I don't want to be I don't want people to be pigeonholed. I don't want people to ever think they're just this or they're just a salesman. They're just a father. They're just a brother. They're they're you're so much more than what the labels that people give you. And it took me to break out of that. I'd never thought in a million years I would be doing podcasts and I would be talking to people on a bigger scale.
Ryan Pelkey 24:52
My main goal, probably going forward as well as doing administration is to get out there to talk to school districts to talk to teachers and say, Do you matter? You know, give those big TED Talks. And I never thought in a million years I'd be doing that. But the the book was a like a kick in the butt that I needed. I've always had felt like I had great ideas to help other people, I did a tie drive at my school 2017, where I generated about 2000 ties, and gave them out to anyone that wanted and we had a big assembly, but I invited people from the community to come in, and they tie the ties and put it around the kid's neck. I said, this is why you wear a tie. So people from all walks of life coming in saying I had my first tie when I had a job interview at Wilkins Store, you know, and it put a little bit more spin on professionalism. We do a lot of fun days with our kids, where you pajama day and twin day. I'm introducing professional day where they dress up because especially our girls in middle school, they love dressing up, you know, and you look good, you feel good, you're gonna do well on, you know, and so I don't expect it all the time. But I try to present myself in a way that sets the example.
Melissa Milner 26:01
That's awesome. Yeah.
Ryan Pelkey 26:03
There's so many cool things that we can celebrate with our kids and celebrate with our communities. I'm trying to do more parent nights, teaching about vaping, actually, we're going to be bringing in a senior center that took the idea of the commercial for I think, where they brought a senior center in, and the kids teach them about their technology. I love that I'm stealing it, we're going to do it. Kids know more about their phones than I do, so hey, they can teach their grandparents you know, but bring him in, make those ties create some community. And we live in a wide variety outside of DC here, we have like 15 different languages spoken at my school. So I can incorporate all of that. But in turn that helps our school grow. As our community grows, our school is going to grow, I want the place for people to come and feel welcomed, safe and appreciated. So the only way we're going to rebound from COVID. It's not learning loss. It's not anything, it's a relationship thing. I've really lost a lot of relationships with my students since COVID. Because they were alone for a year, I was alone for a year, we didn't know how to recuperate. We would have zooms and people would be crying out just to talk to other people. Now it's about relationships. So that's what you asked me in the beginning. It based everything's based on relationships.
Melissa Milner 27:18
Fantastic. We came full circle. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about before we finish up?
Ryan Pelkey 27:23
No, I just want people to know if if they need help if they want to talk or whatever. If I don't have the answers, I can try finding them. But I'm more than willing to help other people. And if they're interested in writing a book on Amazon, I don't I'm not the expert on it. But I did it all by myself. I just googled it and and figured stuff out how to do all the formatting and things like that. But more importantly, if you just need someone to talk to you as a teacher, you need someone to vent to. So how can people reach you? I'm on Instagram and I guess X I don't know Twitter/X as @mr_pelkey That's my handle on Clubhouse, ryanpelkey@gmail.com. Any of those places I'd be more than happy to help out.
Melissa Milner 28:09
Well, I know the listeners appreciate that. And so do I.
Ryan Pelkey 28:13
Thank you.
Melissa Milner 28:14
So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.
Ryan Pelkey 28:17
Thank you guys. Have a great day.
Melissa Milner 28:19
For my blog, transcripts of this episode, and links to any resources mentioned. Visit my website at www.the teacher as.com You can reach me on Twitter and Instagram @melissabmilner and I hope you check out The Teacher As... Facebook page for episode updates. Thanks for listening. And that's a wrap