Latest / The Recess-An Inside Look at the Auburn School District / Episode #24- Abe VanDerPuy, Auburn High School Teacher

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Episode #24- Abe VanDerPuy, Auburn High School Teacher · The Recess-An Inside Look at the Auburn School District

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to the Recess Podcast.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Alan Spicciotti, the proud superintendent of the Auburn School District.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: The Recess is one of our communications tools to tell the stories of the district.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: It gives me a chance to share some of the really cool things that are going on that I have the privilege of seeing because I'm in schools and I'm uh working behind the scenes with some of the support staff.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh every two weeks or so we bring them to you through this podcast.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you're gonna like today's episode.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Today we're joined by Abe Vanderpoo, who is a social studies teacher at Auburn High School.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're gonna hear about his class where he's teaching uh AP African American Studies.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Abe is also a longtime coach at Auburn High.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Abe, welcome.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's great to have you on.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think we we have so many great things going on in the district, and and you have some really good stories to tell.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I love like it's it's about the whole kid because it's deeply academic.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna find out that this is uh he teaches a course that really resonates with students personally, and then he's got the whole other, you know, extracurricular coaching contact with kids that's a really powerful part of what we do in public schools.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna get into all that stuff.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but we're gonna start where we always start, and I'm gonna ask you, Abe, who was your favorite teacher and why?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I went to Curtis High School down in Tacoma, and uh I had a teacher my senior year, uh, actually, who co-taught uh a class called Historical Perspectives Through Literature, HPCL.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was kind of a new course at the time.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: They were co-teaching, and uh his name was David Leip, and uh he taught with a woman named Connie Silvernail, and David uh was just a fantastic uh social studies teacher, uh, challenged us all the time in class.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we read uh Les Miserables and talked about the French Revolution.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: We read Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky and talked about the Russian Revolution.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a very free-flowing class.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh again, he challenged us to think, and that was uh what I remember about him.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember feeling like I ever wanted to be a teacher at that point, but I knew that if I did, I wanted to be somebody like like Dave Leip.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, funny story, uh, back before the new high school was built, Auburn High School was like, I think we were going through an accreditation program, and we knew that there were teachers that were going to be in the building, administrators that were gonna be in the building, and they might come into our classes.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: We've been told that over email.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh all of a sudden I'm teaching a class, and in walks David Lype to my like third or fourth period class, and I'm like instantly nervous.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh bet.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and like my favorite teacher of all time, and I don't think I had had really any contact with him up until that point.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so he comes in, he sits down in the back.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to introduce him and he kind of wouldn't let me.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, nope, just go on teaching.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was so real serious about it.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my goodness, like this is I can't believe my favorite teacher is like gonna sit and watch me teach for a period and totally taken aback.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we get done with the class period, I kind of reintroduce him again, and he comes up and just gives me a big old hug and just is so happy that I was in education, and I just got to, it was one of those weird moments where I just got to like tell the person that had kind of inspired me.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't at the time, but ever since I had gone into teaching, I just kind of remembered the the example he set and how great he was for so many different kids in our class and so many different types of kids that I I was just he was always one of those teachers that made me want to go back and say hi.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's you know, one of the reasons I I liked thinking about being a teacher, is I always wanted to be that teacher whose kids, students, came back to him after they had gone to college and and said hi and and and did all those things, and he was definitely that guy for me.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, David Light from Curtis High School, never forget him.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: What an awesome story and and a magical moment.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I can only imagine what that was like uh for you, like uh you know, one of those TV setups almost.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it it definitely felt surreal at the time and and was just a really cool um opportunity to just kind of say thank you to somebody who had kind of inspired me uh in my early part of my career.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh most of my guests have shared somebody who is a role model, uh in in a way that was related to what they do, but this is like probably the most direct influence, and I'm sure he's very proud of you.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I just love the story.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Abe.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you've been teaching at Auburn High or ac actually, have you been at the high school for 22 years ago?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've been at the high school district.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've been at the Auburn High School since 08.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I started at Cascade.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh okay, great.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh it's a little bit of a leading question, sorry, but what do you love about Auburn High School?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh actually I really love the question.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um first of all, you know, my my kids both graduated from Auburn High School.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um Owen graduated in 21 and my daughter Lauren graduated in 23.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I got to have them in in class.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think the best thing for me is that Auburn's always been a family.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's all there's always been a family atmosphere wherever I was, whether it was at Cascade or whether I was coaching or uh and definitely at Auburn High School, my best friends in my life right now are all people I teach with.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I got to um put my kids in my not only my colleagues' classes that I knew would be great for them, um, but they're my friends' classes, and that my kids got to um go through life in at a high school that was super diverse, um, that that showed um you know all the possibilities that life could bring you, um, but at the same time, um, they were well cared for.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, every class they went into, I knew that they were having a either another parent or they were having another adult friend who they could rely on and who they can come back to at any time, and they don't need me to talk to them about academics.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: They have a bunch, bunches of other teachers that they can come back to and and say that they were influenced by, and it's not just me, the teacher, the dad teacher.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's these other teachers who I'm just so proud to be colleagues with, and I'm proud to call them friends of mine, and they're just fantastic educators as well.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's reason number one, and then reason number two is you know kind of what we'll get into a little bit later, but I just love that our district is on the forefront of pushing forward into curriculum that matters for kids.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I have seen such a uh response to the AP African American Studies course with my students that it's just so so great to be on and and watching them react to the course that's for them and for their their peers, um, and just seeing the the leadership in our district um that's pushed that forward, both at the curriculum level and at our school level, and then at our teacher level with my the the group of teachers that um that I teach the course with um at Riverside and Mountain View.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's just been you know that that's been fantastic for me as well.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you've been in Auburn as a teacher for 22 years.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh tell us about your path to becoming a teacher.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh again, I started at Curtis High School, went and played football and went to college at Western uh Washington up in Bellingham, did a poly sci degree there, uh, did kind of things a little bit backwards.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um I went and got my master's first, thought I was gonna be a uh college professor.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I went to a small college in Illinois called Wheaton College and did my uh master's degree in religion and American life.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then came back, got married, realized that the uh that the professor thing wasn't gonna happen.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um my wife was student teaching in kindergarten at that point, and so we got married and uh I needed a job and I got a job at Ferndale High School.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I answered an ad in the paper.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh might be the last generation uh of people that answered an ad in the paper.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um got a job doing uh school security and in school suspension, which allowed me to go back to school at night to get my certification for teaching.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I got to sit in a class for half the day dealing with kids who were in school suspended, and I got to do my homework, so I got to like help them do their homework at the same time and got into coaching, couldn't believe that I got a paycheck back then for playing basketball with kids or being out on the football with kids.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I remember coming home with my first paycheck going, What the heck is this all about?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um so great that I get paid to do this.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's when I kind of knew I had found like my vocation essentially.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, job competition up there in Bellingham, really, really tough because of the university and all the student teachers up there.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so my wife and I were looking around for places to uh to get a job, and and I applied down here for for the middle school job at Cascade, and uh we were in our second interview.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I was in my second interview back in those days, was second interview kind of meant you like you kind of had the job.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going through my interview, and we were on about to leave on vacation.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we'd come down from Bellingham, we were on our way to Oregon, and my wife's in the car and her vacation clothes, and I'm about halfway through my interview, and they asked me a question about special ed, and I didn't have my special ed endorsement, but I said that my wife halftime taught special ed, and I every once in a while went into her to her class and kind of helped her out, and the immediately the mood shifted in our interview.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Two for one.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so they were like, uh, does your wife have a job?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Is my interview over?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so they they literally gave her an application that day, and she was like, uh, I what do I they gave us, I think, a little gift certificate to Trotters.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: We went to Trotters, got some ice cream, filled out the filled out the uh application, turned her application in, and by the time we got back from vacation, we both had we both had jobs.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it was a pretty uh interesting way that we both got jobs down here, but it was uh fortuitous, and it was one of those things that just I think it was meant to be in the long run for both of us to be down here.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you got a signing bonus from Trotters.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's wonderful.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: We might have to bring that back.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, what a great story.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I mean I think the family theme is is real, and uh that's a great illustration of it, uh, as well as your your new Auburn High family.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um you you've taught, I assume, several of the disciplines in the social studies.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them, yeah.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just kind of touched that base and then we'll get into the course you're teaching now.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I uh at Cascade I started off teaching uh the all this you know social studies, language arts kind of combo.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when I moved up to the high school, I was teaching uh mostly world studies.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um freshman world studies was kind of the thing that they gave me, so I kind of took it and ran with it and um did a bunch of the curriculum around that.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then I'm one of those people who kind of needs a new challenge every about five years, it feels like.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so when we got the opportunity a while back to start our freshman academy program, uh, we call it Spear at Auburn High School, um I took that and worked with one of our math teachers and our uh language arts teachers at the time and jumped into that with both feet and uh then realized my student, my own kids were gonna be coming to Auburn High School, and so I wanted to get into a into a spot where I at at some point would maybe want to teach them.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got into AP teaching AP government and I'd been doing that for six or seven years.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh last year, um the year before last, got the email about uh maybe wanting to teach AP African American studies and kind of looked around the room and uh you know one of the things that I think you know you would probably say right along with me is that we need more um, you know, teachers of color, we need more teachers that look like our kids.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've done a lot with my classes on, you know, uh Brown versus Board of Education and talking to him about, you know, we might there's a great podcast out there that said, you know, has the hypothesis that we shouldn't have integrated with students, we should have integrated with teachers first, and it was an interesting way to look at things.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when I uh when I got that email uh about maybe someone in our department teaching the course, I kind of looked around and very waited for a little bit, and uh then I kind of took the idea of like, if not me, then who?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if yeah, I wanted our students to experience the course, and I knew that the college board was gonna put together something that was pretty fantastic when it came to curriculum, and I hadn't seen all of it yet at that point, but I was I I knew it was gonna be pretty fantastic, and so if not me, then who?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted our kids to experience um that course, and so I said I'd do it, and then that that we were on we were on our way at that point.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: So let's uh take a moment to explain to the audience what the AP African American Studies course is, and just kind of take a few minutes to talk about you know what it covers, how it's taught, uh, who takes it.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so there's a there's a bunch of AP social studies out uh courses out there um prescribed by the college board, uh, which runs the AP program.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um so high-level college level courses, if you pass the uh national exam uh with a three, four, or a five, uh those are the highest scores, then you can get college credit.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we have a bunch of different uh social studies courses at Auburn uh that fit the AP category.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, I think it was three years ago, two, three years ago, um the college board said that they were gonna pilot a course.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so they had the original course was gonna be piloted with 70 teachers uh around the United States.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they very cautiously put those into those 70 schools.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there was a lot of firestorm around the content of the course.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was kept secret for a little bit, and then it was released, and there was a whole fear over that, and and you know, that died down after a while.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then last year um was the was pilot two.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so they invited about 700, and Auburn School Districts was one of the, I think, three um in Washington State, three districts in Washington State to apply to to teach the course.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so all three of our high schools jumped on for uh pilot two.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um we have two teachers at at Riverside uh teaching the course and one at Mountain View, and then me at Auburn High School.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So all four of us kind of came on board with that at the same time.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were part of a a group of people who were teaching the course that wasn't fully fully developed.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: We were in the midst, it it it you know, the the three other teachers in high, we just constant constantly making jokes about you know when is the next the next iteration of this going to come around and we're gonna have to kind of change midstream like we did last year.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then this year they came up with like a final curriculum.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is the the set curriculum, and then anybody um who teaches College Board AP classes can teach it this year.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so there's just bunch bunches more of teachers.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: We were at, I believe, 700 around the nation during pilot two, 700 schools, and we were one of we had three of the six in Washington State, so I'm pretty proud of the fact that we were we we jumped on first, um, and that was really cool for our for our kids.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of the AP uh African American Studies.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: It covers um Africa uh from about uh the period of the mid-1000s to um kind of the the slave trade.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it goes into there's a whole unit on slavery in the slave trade, and then it gets into kind of more modern history in units three and four, um getting through the Jim Crow laws and the Jim Crow era, and then on into kind of modern society, all covering kind of African Americans, uh African American studies, uh, U.S.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: history from an African American perspective.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's pretty uh wide-ranging.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there are a mass number of sources involved in the course.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am the the amount of work that went in and the amount of care that was taken with um putting in sources and putting in the curriculum and and those types of things is just phenomenal.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's really amazing to see and amazing to work with every day that I I I never needed to find anything on my own.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it was all there right there for me.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So and it's more than just a history course, it really gets into culture and other aspects, right?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the the the college board really calls it a studies course.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so by studies, we're we're delving into artwork.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had my kids, my students the other day, we were uh modeling clay after a uh an enslaved potter named David Drake, uh, who signed and wrote poetry on his own pottery when he was an enslaved man, uh, which was super rare.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um we look at artwork from the the Black is Beautiful movement.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: We look at uh poetry.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um we we hit um a bunch of different poetry along the way.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're reading primary sources, we're watching uh short documentaries, we're listening to music.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's a whole whole section of music, which is just fantastic for me as a music lover.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so yeah, it's really interdisciplinary.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I know of lots of other teachers uh around the nation who are not social studies teachers but are teaching this art teachers, language arts teachers, um, sociology teachers.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I even know a couple uh administrators who are teaching the course for one period of day because they want it to be taught in their schools and they didn't have anybody who was ready to teach it.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's it's it's a pretty amazing course.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, I didn't know that.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what has the impact been on your students?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I uh, you know, I I think the impact has been a hundred percent positive with my kit with my students and with our students.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um the parent feedback has been fantastic.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: We just had parent-teacher conferences and I had multiple parents come into me and just were so pleased that that we're offering the course.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I think the best thing I can do is just give you a little bit of student voice from a survey that I did at the end of last year.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I had uh just a variety of students, a wide diversity of students, but uh if you'll permit me for a moment, I I'm so proud of the way uh some of our students wrote about the course.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so here are a couple.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um one one uh African-American female wrote, The most valuable thing I learned this year was to allow people to learn.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly speaking, I was very cautious when I first saw the demographics of the students in the class, as I was under the preconceived notion that no non-black students would take the class and its contents seriously.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was very wrong, as I have seen a lot of growth and a higher level understanding within my peers.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: AP African American Studies is for everyone who's willing to learn.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And like that, the just that is a testament to the.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I might not need to read anything else, but um one one student wrote, I will also remember being the feel remember the feeling of being a part of something so monumental.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this course is the first like it in 20 years from now and for the rest of my life, I'll be able to say that I was one of the first students to take APFM.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this course does not die or vanish in the American curriculum.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Something like this is long overdue and should be treated for what it is, progress.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, I I think that there's just, you know, reading those words for my students just fills me, and I know it fills my my co-teachers um at Riverside and Mountain View uh with a huge sense of pride because I know their students felt the same way about it.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it really just hammers home the fact that you know the Auburn School District and and our high schools um we're doing a lot and we can do more to make sure that our students are are seen in the curriculum.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that's so so important.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I never had to worry about that as a kid.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I never even I never even thought about that question as a as a white kid sitting at a suburban high school in Tacoma.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the amount of pleasure I see in the kids' faces when we read something that just resonates with them uh is just is fantastic.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so I'm I'm just as you can tell, I'm kind of overflowing.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be an evangelist for this course for kind of as long as I'm a teacher, I think.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you went back to the student voice uh in the survey responses because some of my strongest impressions of the program have come from being in your class, being in Leda Johnson's class at Over Mountain View.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and last year we had other districts who were interested in putting this class on.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, who came and we had a panel of our teachers and some of our students and the two two anecdotes that I heard from students, um one was a girl whose mother was so excited that her daughter was taking this class that she enrolled in in a similar course at the community college so that they could take the course together and have that experience together.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And like I'm getting chills right now just describing that.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I would share the same thing, right?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I took took the courses and I d I just didn't have that personal emotional connection and I think that's so powerful and uh and I'm so glad we're doing it.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then I don't know if you recall, um we had uh uh an older sister who maybe was the the driver for uh one of our students and she said that they were basically taking the course as a family uh along with with the daughter who's in high school.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the is a younger sister who has taken the course and those kind of things really matter and it's just it just shows like the power of something that I wouldn't automatically recognize uh as a person who you know frankly my my history has been taught and uh we haven't always done that so uh I'm I'm proud of the work that you're doing Abe and all of our teachers and Adam Ladiggy and curriculum and and so forth is just pretty exciting.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's really been and I and I want to reiterate this too and I I came in today with with the the mentality that like this has really been a team effort.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is not it's not me right I'm I might be here on the podcast kind of representing a little bit of the course um but it's really been a you know kilp and uh sam down at down at Riverside and Leda up at up at Mountain View and then the people who have kind of stood by me uh in the course at at Auburn High School who I've who have been willing to be a sounding board for me uh when I have had questions when I have had um insights that I want to that I want to explore is this something that we should be you know taking to our kids is this something that we and and inviting those teachers in and inviting those people in to watch you know a class discussion has just been it's been an awesome thing to be a part of a team and I I you know I I've I will tell anybody who will listen like this has really reinvigorated me as a teacher.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I can teach for the next 20 years and just feel really fulfilled even if my only year teaching it was net last year and this year.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's changed who I am as a teacher and what I what I find important and and how much I want to interact with my colleagues and that's just been it's it's been a real testament to the course and the people who have supported us in that work.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and I've really enjoyed seeing that dynamic and and seeing the four of you bond and be very real and you know you kind of got thrown into the deep end where AP didn't have the resources that established courses have.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so you know you were just pooling all of your expertise and uh and and collaborating to get through it for the students.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: I could talk about this course for a long time.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um I d I want to move on but before we do I if I've heard you be very vulnerable and and share something and if if you're not we can take this out if you're not comfortable with it.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: But uh you've talked about what it's like to teach this course as a white man.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh do you want to just share and I think you you know that was very kind of that dynamic was present in the beginning in your class.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah that was a real a real trepidation of mine at the beginning was you know I I looked at myself and I I still do um look at myself as a caretaker of the course, right?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: A way in which we can move the course forward.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I really do think that the there is a a power uh in having students especially African American students seeing African American teachers teaching all courses but especially this course um and so I I would love that to happen at Auburn High School.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to be a part of ushering that in um I had a little trepidation about being the white guy who was teaching the course and I will tell you that the the students that I had around me and and there is there is no chance no chance that I get through last year without the students giving me the amount of grace that they did to be in front of them and and part of it was you know I I approached that that responsibility really is is kind of how I look at it.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: I approached it with the idea that I was co-learning with my students and I got more comments I didn't bring them with me today but I got more comments about that on my my end of year reflection than I did on anything else.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: They students students know when you're being real and and vulnerable and I from moment one basically said I'm I'm co-learning with you I'm I might be three weeks ahead of you but I'm I'm learning as much as I can about this course right along with you.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they really respected that it's weird to say but I felt supported by my students every day I walked in the door that they were wanting me to be there with them and learn with they were just so happy that I was willing to learn alongside them.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of how I approached it and I think how our other teachers are approaching it too because not everybody you know we none of us know everything.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so as long as we're willing to kind of learn along the way um I think our t our kids you know will will learn right along with us.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: The whole story is so powerful and I'll just kind of editorialize as a postscript that we're seeing incredible things in our AP data uh which you know who cares about the data but the kids who are having these experiences we have literally hundreds of students taking AP now who a few years ago would not have been um and they represent our diversity and they're having success and we're having more students earning college credit than ever before.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's just and it's a really good thing.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: And right in this class I mean we you look at the the scores of the four of us and the and the number of kids students that we had get fours on and and fives on the exam was just way more than we expected and just so cool to see as a kind of fruit of the four of our uh the fruit of our labor uh for la last year and so it was really cool to see those those students those some of them non-traditional AP students um getting really high scores so that was good yeah that's fantastic okay we're gonna shift gears uh we could talk about that all episode but we actually uh have a great chance i don't I don't know that I've explicitly talked to a coach uh while doing the podcast sports are such a big part of the school experience uh they are a big part of Auburn High School and as you've described it's a passion of yours and a joy uh so I know I've seen you uh out on the football field many times uh I remember I think you coached against my son in C team basketball that's right uh so that was fun to see uh tell us about your coaching and and what's been your favorite sport to coach uh I think as I said earlier you know I was just so excited early on in my career that I got to you know get paid to to play sports with kids I've I've had a a long history playing sports and being coached by some really excellent coaches and I think most most coaches out there that are still still doing this are would would tell you the same thing.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the coaches in their life that have really driven them to to want to be a coach.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: For me it's you know football has always been the one that that kind of keeps coming back.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've coached basketball I've coached track um I've coached soccer um and football was the one that kind of kept me coming back and kept me uh involved um it's the ultimate team sport uh you can have so many kids of so many different levels of ability of different you know body types and shapes and speed and strength um who get out on the field and they become you know 11 kids become one group who wants to go do this great thing uh every time that the ball is in their hands or every time that they're playing defense and that idea that you're it you're not just an individual out there um that you are part of a group who is trying to strive for something greater um always intrigued me and it always made me like the idea that I could fit in a role like I could be part of a team I and I didn't have to be the best I had to I had to do my job and that's why we have so many students and so many student athletes who can play you know who can play football and be successful and you never hear their name then they never broke the records but they were playing offensive guard and they were you know pulling 35 times to the left end and kicking out the left end so that our running back could get three or four yards and that that kid is needed.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: That kid is needed just as much as the wide receiver catching the touchdown passes as much as the the um the wide receiver uh catching the touchdown passes as much as the quarterback throwing them um and that I I loved that aspect of football um it allowed uh it it it's been uh a thing that has been a family thing my co my wife has been just a massive support in my life and been a coach's wife uh for for so long she sat on the sidelines of our C team basketball game doing the book while holding my infant son when we when I first started here in Auburn as she took the book and and wrote down scores um it's allowed me to coach my son um my daughter was our manager for three years uh on the line on the sideline at at Auburn and now she's going into athletic training at Wazoo simply because of her experience with all of the coaches not just me but the coaches that she came in and we're encountering here at Auburn High School who were so gracious to her and you know my son the same thing so gracious to him and and just they'll always just be such a great part of my kids' lives and and that really truly you know the the theme of family is coming back again but uh it's been very important to me and and our our football family has been one that has been just a huge a huge support system for us and um for my kids um and for our student athletes you know the the amount of students that we still see on a daily basis I saw one the other day as I was walking past uh in a restaurant and and he immediately the moment we started talking he was i instantly thinking back to a time that he and I got to go to an all-area luncheon and oh do you remember that time we were there with this group of people and it was just it was like he and I were instantly back there and that that bond that we had because I got to coach him and he got to be coached by me was was still there um and I hadn't seen him in ten years and and that that's a really cool um a really cool bond to have beyond just the teaching world.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: And full circle with with your first story about your social studies teacher.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly exactly love it love it.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay well thank you for coaching uh it it you do get paid for it but I I I know a lot of coaches and they do it for the passion and the connections with the kids uh and the money is just uh an extra bonus but uh I think it's just that commitment to the sport and to the uh young athletes that's awesome.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: So on again uh I think you're representing many people I'll just say thanks to all of you uh because we have some amazing coaches at across all of our high schools all of our middle schools um I don't know if you spent much time with fifth grade basketball but they're into it too I've learned that so uh up and down the roster they're they're doing fantastic things shout out to our sports coaches all right uh we're gonna stay maybe close to athletics I suspect uh and ask uh as we wrap up here the question I end with with every guest what was your favorite thing to do at recess?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think early on in my uh elementary career it was you know jumping off the swings.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh I think later on you know toward fourth fifth and sixth grade it was uh anything down on the field where there was a a a ball involved usually a football but I remember distinctly that that got taken away from us at some point because we started playing tackle football uh and then we'd take any ball we could get our hands on whether that was uh I think one time it was a soccer ball and we played soccer for a little while and then one of my buddies probably picked it up and started running with it and then it was tackle football again more like rugby uh and I think one time we even grabbed uh one of those mushy softballs and we took that out and we just started throwing that around like that was the football.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so yeah anything that that really for me and and my buddies back in fourth fifth and sixth grade morphed into uh like tackle football out on the out on the field was was usually what we got in trouble with.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic story uh uh Abe you've been really uh a a joy to talk to and and uh to share your story and uh I just I appreciate what you and and and your colleagues and your team are doing with AP African American Studies and uh just uh I feel really good about Auburn High the culture that is there um and I think the word that has become the theme of this episode is family so uh thank you for sharing the the many dimensions of family that are a part of your school and uh your life as an educator.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh it's been a pleasure thank you I appreciate it thanks my guest has been Abe Vanderpoo and again he's a teacher at Auburn High School and a coach of many sports and uh really appreciate him being on the show.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh listen Trojans I know you have a lot of pride I hear all about Troy Field and everything.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Please help this episode blow up uh share it with your friends and and your fellow Trojans and let's see if we can get the word out about some great work that's being done uh by a great member of the Auburn High School community.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: This has been the Recess Podcast it's a production of the Auburn School District thanks to Vicky Alonzo who uh does the editing and gets us ready for publication.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for listening this has been the Recess Podcast.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you next time