Today’s, teacher spotlight is Maire Roberson. Maire is a teen living teacher out in Virginia, where she teaches at the middle school level, six, seventh, eighth graders, but she took the alternative route to teaching, she has a background in home economics, focused on clothing, textiles and design.
Her journey started in New York, which then took her all the way to San Francisco to San Diego, where she worked with an outdoor industry company, where she sourced fabrics and components for product developers. She has traveled all over the US, analyzing best fabrics for outdoor industries, as well as having internships with simplicity patterns and boutique fashion of Steven Sprouse.
On today’s episode Maire talks about schedules and going from part time teaching to full time and filling the shoes of a 40 year FCS teacher and her legacy.
Listen in…
• So she knew that I had a textile background, so she had me join her on the sales calls for the fabric vendors, and I just took that to heart and I just soaked in everything that she was teaching me about the sales side. And taking in what I had learned about in school, all those silly organic chem classes about what the polyester was doing and the nylon was doing, and you want this for your liner and the cortex and so, that’s what I love about it the most. (7:44)
• So the 30 student per class, five classes, and grading is a huge learning curve, and it was a brand new learning platform. We were a Google classroom up in Stafford, and then I had to learn Schoology. It was just a rude awakening as to what I was dealing with as a full-time, brand new full-time teacher. Then you have to be on a committee and you have to attend these meetings. It’s a crazy amount of things. Teachers have two full-time jobs. Teachers have to do way above and beyond just the academics of it. (12:32)
• I spoke with my CTE coordinator, she’s our art teacher on special assignment, and we were having kind of the same conversation, just talking about how the evolution of hybrid choice boards, for all of my classes, because I don’t know about you, which I’m sure we’re very, listeners included, we’re all along the same lines, our curriculum was never designed for a digital age, we have to create everything digital-wise in every single district, every single school does something different. (17:13)
• They get this little kit, they pick them up at the school, but I can’t do food labs. I see these family consumer science teachers all over the country, they put together food kits and the kids, come pick them up at the schools, and I’m like, No, I can’t do any of that. I don’t know that my students have a working oven, I don’t know that they have parental vision or supervision to do that. We got approval for doing microwave, so we can do microwave cooking labs at home. (20:57)
• I want to set up an online tax-free account with Walmart, so I don’t have to go to Walmart at 7 o’clock in the morning, with the car that I’ve got the night before. How do I do that? So the money that you need, that person, your bookkeeper will help you alleviate a lot of headaches and a lot of unknowns. And your mentor at other schools or maybe in your school, if you’re not a Singleton, she will help you navigate the district. So that’s what I say, that would be my advice; is to find your mentor, join a Facebook group and just listen to as many people as possible in the industry. (27:44)
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT DISCUSSED…
• FCS Podcast: https://fcspodcast.com
• FCS Tips: https://www.fcstips.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ConnectFCSed
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Scully6Files
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/connectfcsed
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/connectfcsed
WHEN DOES IT AIR…
March 24, 2021