Latest / The Recess-An Inside Look at the Auburn School District / Episode #43-Chris Zawislak, CTE Teacher

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Episode #43-Chris Zawislak, CTE Teacher · The Recess-An Inside Look at the Auburn School District

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to the Recess Podcast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Alan Spacotti, the proud superintendent of the Auburn School District.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Recess gives me a chance to share some of the great stories of the people and programs in the district that have really made Auburn School District a special place for students in the past, present, and I think into the future.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Gives me a chance to take you behind the scenes and to share some really great work happening by staff, by students all across Auburn, uh in areas you may or may not be familiar with.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Today is going to be a great episode.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have a teacher with us who has a lot of energy, who's very well known in his school, and I think outside of his school and even outside of Auburn for some things you learn about.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh if you are a techie, you're gonna be way into this.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're just somebody who uh wants to hear about a teacher making a difference in the lives of kids uh and really bringing a lot of passion to the work, I think you'll also enjoy this episode.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So this time uh it's my great pleasure to welcome my guest for this episode of the Recess Podcast, Auburn High School current technical education teacher, Chris Zowislock.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Chris is uh, in addition to being a teacher, he's the head coach and mentor for Auburn's first robotics club, Mr.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Zalislak.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Chris, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Dr.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Spratdy.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Pleasure to be here.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited to hear about all the cool stuff you're doing.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, for you to have a chance to explain uh your academic program, your robotics program.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna really have fun with this episode, but we're gonna start with a question I ask all of my guests.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us who was your favorite teacher and why.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I had two that were really impactful for me.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one of them was his name was Doug Meerdink, uh, and he was my sixth grade teacher.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he set up a classroom economy where we earned uh money.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: He had coin stamps, and so we had a wallet, and we got stamps for doing good things, uh, for doing well on assignments and and other types of stuff.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we could then uh set up our own stores and we could trade and stuff, and so it was a really cool thing.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and he even uh had some prizes at the end that you could go for, and one of them was a trip up to Mount Rainier, and he took my class up to Mount Rainier sledding one time, so that was pretty cool.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so he was a big influence on me.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then the other one would be my high school Japanese teacher, uh, Mrs.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Clark Hahn.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: She was the first-time teacher as I entered uh my first year of foreign language, and uh it was just amazing to go through her journey as a teacher as well as my journey in Japanese.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't really remember much Japanese now, uh, but I remember that class and the impact she had as she kind of took us through and uh and we grew with her as a class.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and my favorite thing that she did, we we learned our directions.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: She brought her English bulldog, Murphy, to school, and we walked around the school with Murphy, and Murphy knew the lect directions in Japanese, and so we learned Miji and Hidari right and left uh while we walked the dog around and sit and stay and go and stuff all with the dog.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that was pretty fun too.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: She taught her dog left and right?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, her dog knew Japanese, yeah, because they lived in Japan.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I guess that was a pretty smart bulldog, yeah.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try Japanese with my dog because uh she can't do it in English.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: My dogs aren't very bright either right now.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us uh where did you attend school?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up in the uh South Hill area of Puyalp.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: I went to Sunrise Elementary, Ferrucci Junior High, and Rogers High School.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, we're thrilled you're in Auburn now.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so tell us what was your path into the Auburn School District?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: I have taken a circuitous path all through my life.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: I've bounced around from lots of different things.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I actually went to school to be an electrical engineer.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my goal when I left high school was I wanted to learn how to design and build digital cameras.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that was my goal.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I took Japanese, is because I figured that's what all the uh instruction manuals would be in Japanese, is all the electronics were coming from there in the 90s.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I got a degree uh in electrical engineering with a physics minor.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: But as I was ending my uh academic career, I decided that I liked the hands-on stuff more than the engineering.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I liked getting my hands dirty and messing with stuff, and so my actual first job uh as a professional was doing electronics repair in a consumer electronics uh repair facility.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I serviced consumer electronics from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Southern Canada.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh worked for a company called the Good Guys, uh, but it was their service center for the Northwest.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that company.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: They uh they're not around anymore, I don't think.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: But we uh I did that until they uh kind of went out of business.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so as I was leaving that field, uh it was around the time of the dot-com crash.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: You may have heard of that thing.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so there was a lot of tech workers and not so much places to go.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I ended up uh staying at home and being a stay-at-home dad with my son.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was just born at the time, so my wife became the breadwinner, and I was Mr.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Mom for about uh the first eight months of his life, I think it was.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then we realized that that doesn't pay as well as having a job, so I had to go back.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and like I said, it was really competitive in the tech industry.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I ended up finding a job in construction as an electrician.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I worked as a residential electrician apprentice for a year uh at a company called Meridian Center Electric.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're like, okay, how does this get you there, right?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, as I'm working as an electrician, it's a great trade.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you're learning lots of fun stuff, and I try and bring both of those things to my classes, my experience as an electronics technician, my electrical engineering experience from my degree, and my electrician stuff.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: But um, as I was sitting there, I'm like, do I really want to be digging holes and crawling in crawl spaces and attics when I'm 50 years old?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I don't know if I want to do this, so I started looking for other jobs, and it turns out that there was a position open at Bates Technical College for an electronics instructor in the evening, which allowed me to stay home with my son during the day while my wife worked, and then she stayed home with my son while I worked in the evening.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was my first teaching gig.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was actually the youngest person in class, and I was teaching a bunch of dislocated workers what to do uh for a job that I got laid off from doing.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a very ironic thing.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how I got into education.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um I went and got my CTE credentials through Bates uh and um their program to get my CTE license and uh taught there for a year, and it was grant funded uh through work source, and the grant dried up, and so I was gonna be unemployed again.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm slapping my head, feeling like the unwanted stepchild in life.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um but they're like, no, we like you, we want to keep you on.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: We have this off-site program at Spanaway Lake High School where you can work for Bates but work at the high school and teach high schoolers.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so I ended up back in high school uh 10 years after I'd left.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how I got into high school and and I worked there for three years until I found the job at Auburn, and I've been here since 2006.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how I got here.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love that we have quite a number of teachers who had a a previous career um and moved into current technical or other areas, partly because of the real world relevance and and career expertise that teachers such as yourself bring.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: But uh even we have a number of teachers who came through a military path or or other career paths, uh, just to help bring uh again a real world experience to our faculty.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um most educators have a background more similar to myself.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I went four years of high school, I went to four years of undergraduate school, and I became a teacher.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then I got, you know, I I got advanced degrees in education and I've always worked in schools and it's a great path.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it's the backbone probably of of most of our instructional staff, but to have folks who have gone out and done it, made a living in various fields and understand the application uh can give a whole different perspective to our students.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I'd I'd encourage people out there listening.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was also hearing you talk about the tech industry, and uh it's it's hard to find work right now, and uh teaching is not for everybody, it is not easy.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but for the right person, uh this could be a really good transition.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll just plant that out there.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh feel free to pass this podcast on if you're listening and you think, hey, so-and-so will be a great teacher.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they might might might want to make a switch like uh Mr.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Zal Slack has.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um take us now into uh your classroom and maybe just I'm gonna start with like a philosophical softball.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then we're gonna run down the classes you teach.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Start out with this.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about the importance of career and technical education.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: We call it CTE uh as an option for students.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a big important part.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, a lot of education is talking about, you know, the the study of things, and a lot of our education is to help train our brains so we can be critical thinkers, so we have the basic skills to interact in society.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um what career in tech ed brings is it brings those workplace skills into our students' lives, right?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it teaches them uh the importance of other things besides just doing your grades.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Are you, you know, what are your communication skills, your problem solving?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: It really brings in those other types of aspects that you use in uh a job outside of education.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's a big, big thing to have career in tech ed.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it also gives a path to success for students that may not be looking at that four-year college thing as they're they're out.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: They might be looking for some way to get into a job or a trade, and it gives them uh uh a path to see that and uh skills to get them started on that road.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And since you mentioned skills, I was gonna ask you about that, but I'm gonna jump ahead.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things I like to point out is we don't have five sections of auto tech or jewelry making or other CTE programs expecting those hundred and fifty students or you know, close to that to go into that field.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there may be some who do, um and that's wonderful.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: But it a lot of it's about the transferable skills that might set you up in another hands-on field in a in apprenticeship pathway or whatever it is.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So can you just talk about the skills that students get from CTE classes?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in like in my classes, so one of my classes that I teach is an electronics class.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we're uh a preparatory class, so it's getting them designed for an industry certification test uh called the International Society of Certified Electronics Technicians, uh, electronics service associate level one.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's a big mouthful.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh uh that certification is designed for someone that would be doing what my job was, the electronics technician uh working on electronics.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I understand that, like you said, in my class, I have 120 students in this class, uh, or in all of the classes, not just the one, but uh, it's not going to be all of them going into that career.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I understand that a lot of them will probably be working with electronics.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: As a parent, I know how many toys I've broke uh and fixed for my kids over the years.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, in the Wait, they they're supposed to break them and then you fix them.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, have you ever had those ones that make noise a lot, Mr.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Swichati?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you know about electronics, you can disable the speakers pretty easy and it makes your life so much better.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I I I love my sister-in-law to death.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: She when our son was, you know, maybe nine months, bought him one of those telephones that makes all those noises.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I know exactly what you're talking about.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh it it's helpful.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and so I try and bring that into my my classes.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um the the kids are learning soldering, they're learning some basic troubleshooting skills and stuff.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we just did a unit on voltage uh where we talked about thermocouples, and I shared an experience I had with the the cold weather that we're getting into now uh where my furnace was not working one day.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went out to the furnace and used my uh troubleshooting skills, looked at the manual and read the error codes, and it said that my thermocouples were bad and I had to find some new ones.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I called up the guy and called around and found someplace that had them.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: They were gonna be 250 bucks each, and I needed two of them.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the guy's like, Before you do that, do this for me.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: He said, just sand them lightly and see if that works.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I sanded them off lightly.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: The thing worked, and it worked for the rest of the time.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: We lived in that house, and so I share that with him.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you need to know some of this stuff because it can save you a lot of money.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, other than you know, that would have been an emergency call.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: So where it was just a phone call uh and and a little bit of time, it would have been like an emergency call and uh cost me a lot of money.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: So a little bit of knowledge helps them out.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh knowing that they can do that stuff and how to use test equipment stuff can help them do that.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Very handy, uh great knowledge, great practical knowledge uh for our students to have, and again, they take that forward to other careers, home life, uh just being really functional adults in our society.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I know all of the uh parents, guardians, family members are are looking for that.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so let's get into your uh your I'm gonna call your day job, your uh teaching assignment.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: How many periods do you teach a day?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: I do five five classes a day.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what classes do you teach?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I start off my day with uh computer systems engineering, which is like an introduction to IT.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we get them uh right now first semester we go through the basics of computer hardware, uh all the different components that go into building a computer, how you evaluate them to make sure that they work together and have compatibility, and also um kind of uh how you basically build a computer for yourself.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Then second semester we get into software and networking, uh, so they learn how to uh install an operating system, set up a basic home network, and and go from there.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so that's my computer systems class.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like I said, I have an electronics class where we go for that industry certification.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's basically the same class that I was teaching as a Bates uh teacher uh for that evening program.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're doing college level work here, they get tech prep credit for that, so they can get college uh credit as well as the high school if they get a B or better.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh so that covers the basics of electricity.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like I said, I worked as an electrician, so it not only works for working with electronics, but it's the same stuff that they cover uh for circuit theory as an electrician.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we try and get crossover for both of those uh career fields in my class.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then my last class that I teach is actually an AP class.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a computer science principles where we learn JavaScript, and so they learn how to code uh and learn about how the internet works, how we encode and decode data, talk about encryption and security, uh, and all kind of the fundamentals that get into computer science and programming.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it sounds like your classes fill a lot of needs, and you could just kind of, as you were talking, I was I was trying to picture like, oh, maybe a student could go into the cybersecurity program at Green River or uh computer science or Mechatronics up there, they've got a lot of people.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Engineering programs and for your column.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of different pathways that are available to you and you have that that great solid foundation.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your teaching assignment is why you're here, but then you have blossomed into having a very uh respected and uh I think accomplished robotics program.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of the things I love we host a lot of events over at Auburn High School, and I'll find myself, you know, walking the hall at six o'clock, going down to the commons for whatever event I'm headed to, and there's you know, students working in Mr.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Zellislack's classroom getting ready for a competition or uh that so um I think most people are aware that high schools nowadays have robotics programs, but unless you're really a part of it, it's it's a little bit of a black box.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So uh help us kind of pull the curtain away.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: What is a high school robotics program?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what are some of the roles, the adults in the room, the students, what's the schedule?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, just tell us about it.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh um, so uh I coach uh for a first robotics competition team.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: So uh the first robotics program uh has been around since I think 98.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh started as a kind of a collaboration between Dean Kamen and uh Woody Flowers, Dr.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Woody Flowers, who is a professor of robotics at MIT.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and they created this program to get engineering students and to bolster the engineering field in the United States.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: They wanted more engineers, more production happening in the US.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so they started this thing.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: They looked at the world and they said, why is it that people can name off sports stars and sports statistics, but nobody can name off a famous scientist or a discovery that they made or something like that.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they wanted to transform our culture to one where science and and technology was uh at the same level as those sports teams, right?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so they built the first robotics competition as a sports model, so it's supposed to be like sports, but they want to bring in that science.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what they built it around.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it has since bloomed into something bigger than they ever imagined.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh it's worldwide now, and there's over 40 different countries, I think 43 or 44 different countries that are participating and have teams that participate.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh at the end of the year, there's a world competition where over 800 teams get together in Houston and compete.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's amazing, that's an amazing program.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what we do at Auburn uh is we have the core robot uh kind of competition.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: That would be kickoff in January.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: We find out what a game is.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the game's different every year.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: We have different game pieces, different things that we play with, so it changes every year.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: You don't get a lot of carryover expertise because the next year it's a totally different game.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: So every year a robot's new and different and exciting, and it's a challenge nobody's ever done before because the game didn't exist before that year.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and we have about six weeks to design and build the robot from scratch to play that game.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we are meeting constantly in there doing everything.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: We uh we have a a lot of industry mentors that come in and help us.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have some former Boeing workers, some Microsoft workers that come in and help us with programming, uh with robotics, with machining, uh, with fabrication.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we've had some folks from Blue Origin come in, uh, from uh SpaceX.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we have uh oh shoot, what other ones?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so there's a lot of different professions.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'm missing somebody, sorry, I'm on mentors.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but uh we have a bunch of different professions that come in, and these adults volunteer their time uh because they see the impact that FIRST has.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: The the thing that's different about FIRST from other after-school programs and anything like that is it's tied to real world skills, those communication and problem-solving skills that people use in a daily life existence, um, it really ties in.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: I actually had a student, uh, I always ask mine when I run into them in the real world outside, you know, and like, what was the biggest thing, you know, now that you're an adult and you've been doing stuff for a while?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because we've been doing this since 2009.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what is it that was the most important?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And pretty much all of them talk about the uh ability to problem solve together as a group and communicate effectively to solve problems more than any of the technical skills that they get.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: So uh first is is more than robots, is one of the catchphrases that we use a lot.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that robot competition, that's that six-week build from January to February, and then we're competing uh just like any other sports team would in a competitions in March and April.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we go to two district events where we compete against up to like 40 other different teams, uh, and we get points ranked.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and from there we get a if we earn enough, we advance to a district championship, which would be like a state level.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Our Pacific Northwest area covers Washington and Oregon, trying to get a little bit of Idaho in there now too, but uh mostly just Washington and Oregon right now.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there they go to that world competition in Houston.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Tread, my team, the Trojan Robotics Engineering, Art and Design.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we made it to uh worlds in 2017, and that was probably one of the coolest things I ever got to do.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's fantastic.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm thinking people who are listening to this podcast might have two questions.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: One is are these competitions open to the public?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Could somebody come in and just check it out, see what this is all about?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, they are.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um we actually will host a district event at Auburn High School uh the last weekend in March this year.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and so people are welcome to just pop in on Saturday and Sunday, and you'll see probably about 3,000 people filling up Auburn High School.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're slated to have, I think, 38 teams right now.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: It may go up a little bit, but I think 38 was our last count uh come in, and so you'll be able to walk walk in and watch the competition.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like I said, they try and make it a sports model, so it is trying to be viewer-friendly.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you don't know what the game is, they'll have videos and animations and uh they'll show you there's a game announcer, there's play-by-play folks that do the calls of the game as you're going through.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you can even wander down to the pit.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: So just like NASCAR, where they come in and do pit stops and work on their cars.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in robotics, we have robot pits where we go in and work on our robots between matches to keep them at the top and improve them as we go through the event.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the second question is how how do you uh become connected with your volunteers?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if somebody who's listening uh says, Oh my gosh, that would be the perfect thing for me and my background and expertise, what do they do?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we are open for anybody to come in and help.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes our volunteers have some connection either with FIRST or with students on the team.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we've had some parents that have come on board and stayed even after their students have left.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: We've got uh some industry people that come from Boeing where we've where they Boeing promotes FIRST in there.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're one of the key sponsors of FIRST, and so they'll they encourage their people.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing with the Blue Origin, uh promotes FIRST for their employees to go and volunteer and give back to the community as uh community service opportunities.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um we'll have a couple come in from those things, and then other people we just meet and come in.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, if you're interested, come on down, uh ask to talk to Mr.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Z and uh we'll we'll get you on as a mentor in here.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like I said, it's more than robots, so it's not just a technical expertise.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh actually, one of our biggest awards that we've won, or our most prolific award that we win, is an imagery award for our art team.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: So our art and imagery team work on integrating the image of our Trojan robotics through our robot, our pit design, our our uniforms, our buttons, our swag that we give, uh, creating an image that is recognized in our community.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you may see our robotics team on the like the Santa Parade out at uh Kids Day.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we do a bunch of different outreach.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: We do workshops with Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we've gone over to some elementaries and done STEM nights and trunk retreats and things.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we try and get involved and promote STEM everywhere we go, and that's part of our image and uh what we're pushing.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, your team is very visible.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: I see them at lots of different events, uh, and I think that's super cool.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: All right, thanks for telling me about the robotics.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: That just sounds amazing.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have had a chance to be at the competitions, and uh they're just so exciting, uh, and it's so great to see like, you know, a mix of students who do things that that could be quite behind the scenes or introverted, but in this very engaged, team-oriented, public, extroverted uh event event in the gym where that can be as loud as a wrestling match at times.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's really cool.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh all right, we're gonna shift gears here.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh back to your classroom experience.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: What is your favorite aspect of teaching?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: I love those aha moments.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh every teacher says that, um, and it's just it's great to see kids um when they struggle soon something that they don't know and they're having a hard time with, and then it finally clicks, just that look on their face is the thing that keeps me coming back.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Building the relationships with the kids to get them to that point where they trust you enough to let you help them work through their failures and help them to build their knowledge because learning is not comfortable, right?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh anytime you're learning it's outside your comfort zone, you're doing something that's not really what you're used to.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and a lot of times kids just like want to turn it off.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm not good at this, and they walk away.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but if you can kind of build those relationships with them and say, no, you can do this, you're just not yet, and let's keep working at it and reframe things and and try and uh bring in analogies and stuff that are related to their interests to to make it uh meaningful to them.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the the coolest thing when they like finally get it and figure it out.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect uh answer, and you know, this gives you a sense of Chris and um so many of our CTE teachers, you know, yes, they have that industry route into education, but they're educators and teachers, and I could have heard a very similar answer from an English teacher, a third grade teacher, so uh that's that's music to my ears.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um we like to illustrate a lot of these programs by asking this question what is one of your best student success stories?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: So many good good success stories.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, um I had a student that struggled in math, um, and she was on uh individual education plan for struggles in math, and electronics is very math heavy.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're doing a lot of uh algebra, uh calculator math is what I try and say.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: But by the end of the year we had her doing basic algebra and she was able to do the circuit analysis stuff um through that.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I just actually found out another kid that was uh student of mine, the iPhone 17.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: He was one of the lead engineers in manufacturing the case for the iPhone 17 Pro, the aluminum case, the manufacturing of that.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty cool.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've got a student that's uh uh at a at the Renton Airport right now as the airport manager and uh doing planes and stuff and routing air traffic and managing the airport.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've got a student that's in Japan now as a programmer.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: One of one of my students started his high school career thinking that he was gonna be a mortician and ended up going to civil engineering school.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um so just uh a cool, uh lots of cool different uh just stories that make it fun for teaching to see where things are.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: One of the one of the craziest stories, I'm sitting here on social media one night and I get a message from a student from when I first taught high school at Spanaway Lake, like you know, in 2004 or something.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, hey, Mr.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Z, I know I didn't do too well.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't do too well, he was like a D student in my class, barely scraped by.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, but I really had fun in your class, and I haven't really figured out what I want to do with my life yet, and I think I want to get back into electronics.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything you'd recommend?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I told him, Oh, find some of these STEM kits on Amazon and see if you like it and tinker around.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he ended up going back to school and now he's working uh with electronics uh and he's supporting his family, his wife, and his two little girls, and now we're friends on social media and stuff, and so just like some of those connections that you never know when it's gonna click, and sometimes it's 20 years later the kid just figures it out and says, Hey, this is what I want to do.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: So uh all of those are just you know some of the stories that I that I've I've had that just make it worth coming back every year.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: I love how you rattled off six different success stories, uh, and they're all a little different, you know.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it just underscores that you can get so much out of CTE programs, uh, and and especially the technical programs that Chris specializes in.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right, thank you for taking us through uh all of your CTE classes, your robotics.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um we are gonna head to the end of this podcast.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we could talk for an hour, but um we are going to wrap up with the question we asked all guests at the end.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: What was your favorite thing to do at recess?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Man, that's a tough one.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was not a very sporty person.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's a reason why I coach robotics, I guess.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I didn't do a lot of the running around or the playing and stuff.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mostly kind of walked around with my friends, but I do remember that we had these giant tires that were in the uh playground that you could kind of climb on or climb in.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: There was an interesting smell that went along with that, the smell of rubber and weird kid smell.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I just remember climbing on those and hanging out with my friends and and talking around those tires.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess that would have been my favorite thing to do, yeah.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is a first.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's funny what you remember.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's the great thing about youth, right?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can you can make anything into a game uh that's really a cool and honest recollection.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, thank you.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: My guest has been Chris Sauzleck.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's a CTE teacher, all things electronics, computers, robotics at Auburn High School, has a whole bunch of students who are thriving.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we're really proud that he made the switch into education and is on the faculty at Auburn High.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Chris.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Dr.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Soshadi.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this has been the Recess Podcast, a production of the Auburn School District.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to thank Vicki Alonzo who uh makes the magic happen so that these uh sound good on the air on your podcast player.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I look forward to being back with you for the next episode of the Recess Podcast.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.