Shane T. Watson: Welcome to project teacher's lounge, where we talk to educators about their time working during the COVID-19 pandemic. My name is Shane T. Watson, and I'll be your host to. The K through 12 educators out there, I want to say, thank you. Thank you for your service as a teacher. Y'all do a lot during a regular school year and to be doing it during a pandemic just, wow.
Y'all have the utmost appreciation. Admiration and respect from me. You are a true superhero for putting in the extra work to help students become the leaders they will be in the future or whatever they decide to become. Thank you.
Trina Trosclair: Thank you. Thank you.
Trina Trosclair is a seventh grade English language arts teacher in Louisiana. She has the graciously decided to sit down and answer some questions today and tell us about her time teaching during the pandemic. So how have you been?
I've been very well, my husband, I've been pretty lucky in the fact that we haven't been affected by COVID very much. We’ve managed to stay healthy throughout all of it, but it has thrown some challenges our way in terms of work for both of us and just how we go about our day-to-day lives. So it definitely has been a challenge.
[00:01:17]
And let's start with how you got into teaching. Did you always want to be a teacher or what influenced you to become a teacher? How long have you been teaching?
I'm currently on my seventh year of teaching and the earliest I can remember wanting to be a teacher– My parents used to always say at elementary school, when you used to fill out the little forms “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I used to always say a teacher, but I would say probably when I was in high school, I had an English and a composition teacher that really inspired me to pursue English. She just made reading and writing fun. She’d bring in novels that most teachers wouldn't bring in. She'd give us writing prompts that were just thrown at us from left field. And it just really made you think. And she's my inspiration. I wanted to be just like her.
[00:02:04]
Nice. As we said, teachers have a huge impact on the leaders that students become and your English teacher had a huge impact on you.
And so how are you teaching this year? Is it virtual? Is it hybrid? Is it in person? Has it switched up? How's that going?
It is a mix. We have some students who are with us in the classroom, but at the same time, we have students who are virtual and we have to teach both of them at the same time.
So I'm looking at kids in the classroom while also looking at kids on the computer at the same time.
That just sounds like a lot.
That is the biggest challenge of all, because I feel like sometimes, there’s not enough of me to go around. I'm trying to help kids in the room, but then I feel like while I'm helping those kids, there's the kids on the computer that I might, I'm not addressing. So it's like I'm being pulled in two different directions.
Going off that a little bit. Can you take us through a day in your life as a teacher? When you get to the school, you're at the parking lot, you open the door to your car. What comes next?
[00:03:04]
So open the door of my car. I walk in, I've got my mask on. I've got the rest of my gear on. I come into my classroom, just get my technology, my smart board, my computer, all that set up. When the bell rings for the kids to come in, we stand by our doors. We have to take our advisory students’ temperatures before they walk into the room. We have to record what their temperatures are.
They're all wearing masks. The only time they're allowed to take it off is to eat. Once school starts, we're teaching. We jump right into teaching. So there are some kids in the room. There are some kids on the computer and then I have three classes for 90 minutes. So it's a mixture of me teaching and helping and troubleshooting technology.
We do get one 90 minute block off. So in that block, we could be PLCing, eating lunch, attending virtual parent meetings, conference meetings, team meetings. So we really, from 7am - 2:30pm, we don't really stop.
[00:04:04]
Wow. And you said PLCing. And what exactly is that?
[00:04:08]
That’s a professional learning community. So it's myself and two other seventh grade English teachers. And two times a week we get together and we either talk about planning. We talk about student data. We look at student work and we pick out trends and we figure out what interventions need to be done, just to keep us all on the same track and on the same pace.
Got it. And so you're a teacher of English Language Arts, which includes writing, I imagine. How is it going teaching students how to write in seventh grade on laptops, I imagine? Do they know how to type? Is typing a part of that? Do you think it's easier to teach on a computer or for them to be writing it out by hand?
So lucky for us our school is a one-to-one school, so every child has had a Chromebook since, I want to say we start them off in third grade. So they're pretty used to typing. Because of this year we really haven't been able to do much handwriting stuff because of paper and all that. So the typing is not really an issue.
[00:05:05]
It's more of us showing them what good writing looks like. So we do a lot of strong models. We show them weak models. We do a lot of samples together. We'll create a class sample together. And it's that one-on-one time just with that student, looking at what they have, looking at criteria of what's the expectation, and having them make adjustments from feedback and things like that.
Gotcha. So you said at 2:30 you're done for the day. Are you really done or that the kids are gone and you get to do more work?
So the kids leave at 2:30. I have tried to make it a habit, especially this year, not to bring so much home with me, but obviously that doesn't always work. So sometimes I will spend maybe 30 minutes to an hour either grading, finishing up my plans for the next day.
[00:05:56]
Sometimes, possibly making phone calls to parents, making parent contact or every now and then I'll have meetings after school that could last anywhere from hour to an hour and a half. So it’s not always [that] I’m completely done. you say sometimes to may cause the parents,
[00:06:11]
You say sometimes you make calls to parents. How has parent involvement been since you do have students at home and in the classroom? What does that parent involvement been? Is it better than before? Or is it worse than before? Is it just all over the place?
I would say it's a lot better than previous years because parents– they know that they cannot just as easily come to the school and meet with us face to face as they could before.
We rely a lot on phone calls. We rely a lot on emails and some parents have access to computers where we could do Google meets, zooms, things like that. So I would say it's definitely a lot better. And parents for the most part are really good about if they can't come to the phone. If you leave a voicemail, they've usually call back within a reasonable time. I really haven't had any parents this year who just blatantly haven't heard from or communicated with.
[00:06:59]
Gotcha. And thinking about just the families, I know it's a pandemic, people have lost jobs. Have you experienced students who have gone through hardships during this time? And if so, how has your school provided resources to help those families?
No student has told me directly of any hardships, but you always see students who have hardships even without the pandemic. Like I know during the winter months, we're always on the lookout for kids who don't come to school with like warm winter coats or things like that. So we're really good about keeping an eye out for those types of kids and letting the administration know, and we give them jackets or we give them access to jackets.
We also provide food and snacks for those kids to take home that may not have access to healthy meals at home. So we're generally trying to keep a good eye out for any kids that we feel are in need of anything.
Are there any cases where students, teachers, faculty, staff have– I know HIPAA, like they can't tell you if you have tested positive for COVID but have there been situations where people have been removed from the classroom because of COVID.
[00:08:06]
Yes. Yeah. You're right. So we can't tell anybody this person has tested positive, but we have had people go on quarantine where they're out for 8-10 days. And it used to be sometimes 14. In those cases, they have an option. If they're really really sick, they can take their normal COVID sick days.
Some teachers who were just quarantining and not necessarily sick, had the option to what we call tele teach so they could teach virtually from home while a couple of other teachers would just rotate in and out of their room, just watching the kids. while they're teaching virtually from home. So there are options there for teachers to still be able to teach while on quarantine.
Do you think enough is being done when there's a positive test? You think there should be more quarantining for everybody? The school should shut down? Has it gotten to a point that you think, okay, we might need to take another look at how
[00:09:00]
There was one point where I want to say, we had maybe five teachers out. And that could have been between quarantining and just being out in general. But we had to cover all of those classes. So we were stretched extremely thin and that's during our planning periods where we had to give up 30 to 45 minutes of our time going sit in someone else's room and watching their kids.
So at some points we were like, how much longer can we do this before we say, we just don't have enough faculty to monitor these children. But luckily enough, it never got to the point where we didn't have enough. But it was close some days we were all, we were waiting for them to be like, we just don't have enough. We have to go virtual. It was close.
And do you feel safe in the school?
I do. Our janitors are really really good at cleaning every day. If we tell there's a kid that's showing just sickness in general, maybe not even necessarily COVID really. They’re really good about coming in, cleaning their areas, providing us with masks, providing us with protective equipment. Our transitions and how that's been different with lunch and things like that.
[00:10:12]
So I think that we're all doing the best that we can. With the circumstances that are around us.
Janitors. The unsung heroes of keeping the school really clean.
Always. Always.
So important in this time. And how many students do you have per class?
In my first block, I have 29, my second and fourth blocks, I have about 25.
These are 29 in the room or a 29 combined virtual and in the room.
I have 28 in the room in my first block. And I would say probably about 22 or 23 in class in my second and fourth block.
How are you handling this to have that many students in person, at least one virtual, and then keep your mask up. Don't take your mass down. How's that working for you?
It's difficult. I'm not going to lie because especially my first block, because it's so big 28 kids in the room, you're constantly worried about.
[00:11:04]
Are you socially distanced enough? Is that kid coughing too much? Is that kid not feeling well? Am I giving enough attention to this one kid that's on the computer or am I giving too much attention to them? It is really been like a tag back and forth. It's a lot. it's a lot of kids to look at their work. It's a lot to give feedback to all in the span of one day.
And just thinking of like helping students, you're like at the front of the classroom, you're probably supposed to be social distancing yourself. Are you able to walk around and help students? Or are you, from the back, looking at the back of computer screens, asking how can I help you? How does that work for you?
We mostly stay in the front of the room. We are allowed to walk and monitor a little bit, but we can't stay too close to kids for an extended period of time. So luckily our district has provided us GoGuardian where it allows us to see what's on our kids' screens while they're in the room or while they're in our class.
[00:12:04]
So if they're working on a writing, I can look at the computer screen. I can see what they're doing and I can be messaging them feedback at the same time. Or in some instances, like if they decide to be a little sneaky and try to do something else, that's not in like related to my class, I can exit out of the tab that they're on and get them back to what they're supposed to be doing.
Just going back to managing all these students. Do you get any help in your classroom or somebody to help with the online student every once in a while, or it's just always just you?
So in my first, in my fourth block, it's just me. In my second block, I have a paraprofessional that is with me full-time because I have some SpEd students in that class.
And then I also have a full SpEd teacher who comes in half of the time to help me in that class as well. But there is no one full-time helping me juggle online and in class for all the classes.
[00:12:58]
Got it. And just for those who are not aware of SpEd is special education.
So you are in junior high, so we know junior high kids are in their tweens slash early teens. That can be difficult sometimes. They're learning about themselves in the world. Have you had issues with students being not as responsible with their masks and what do you do to encourage them to keep their masks up?
Because like you said, it's junior high and they are trying to figure out who they are, but at the same time, you still have some of that playful immaturity there that hasn't quite gotten out of their systems yet.
So sometimes you'll see kids try to pull the masks down and try and talk to their friends. You'll see them try to take any excuse to pull it down and, do something. But I always try to bring it back to, it's not so much about you have to do because of you. Think about the people around you.
You never know if your friends sitting on side of you has an 80 year old grandparents living with them. You never know if your teacher. Has some kind of pre-existing condition that they're dealing with. So you just never know what's going on around you. So that kind of helped bring it back into perspective for them like, Oh, it's not just me.
[00:14:08]
It's those around me that I have to worry about too. And that's a lot for a middle schooler to think about too. It's a lot to put on their shoulders and remind them that they're responsible as well.
And do you think they're receptive of this?
I think for the most part, they are. I think that there are still some who feel like maybe, and they might hear this from home, or they just might think that this themselves, but they think that maybe we're going overboard or maybe that we're just being too cautious, but I always tell them, I feel like I'd rather be more cautious than not cautious enough when you're dealing with life or death situations like a pandemic.
So I want to talk about some bright moments. What has been a high point for you or highlight of your semester?
So this year I've really made it a point to worry about my students' mental health, just as much as their education, because I can't teach them if they're not in the right mindset to receive what I'm teaching.
[00:15:04]
So we do a warm up every day in class. So we've tried to make it into this game show type of thing where I'll spin a wheel on my computer and it'll land on a random student's name and they have to answer the question and we've played it sometimes to where, if they get three incorrect answers, they might have a quiz the next day.
Or if they get six incorrect answers, they might have a quiz. So it motivates them like, okay, we really need to do well on this because we don't want to take a graded assessment. And they get it. They really get into it, especially when they start ticking down them strikes and it lands on someone's name.
They're all like you got to get this right. You gotta get this right. So it's really helped motivate them and it's really helped engage them. So I would say that's probably been my biggest highlight this year.
Sounds like an interesting game to play, to keep them all rooting for each other. Cause we don't, you don't want to be that person who makes the class out the quiz the next day.
And I always look at the assessment and I look at what they're doing. So that's why if it's a really easy assessment, I'll say three strikes. If it's something that's a little bit more in depth, I'll say six or seven strikes, just to make sure that we give them enough leeway there.
[00:16:14]
And then on the flip side of a bright moment, what's been a low point for you this semester?
I would probably say not being able to give every single child the attention that they need when they need it. Because like we talked about, I feel like a lot of times I'm being pulled in 20 different directions between the kids in class, the kids at home, meetings, and different things like that.
So by the time I get home, I'm just completely and mentally exhausted. I don't always have time to give each individual kid feedback, or I don't have time to mini conference with each individual kid like I may normally have been able to do if I were able to go sit by and by their desks, which I can't do anymore. So that I think has been the most lowest point for me is sometimes I feel like there's just not enough of me.
[00:17:07]
I would argue that even during regular time with 20 students, there's probably not enough of you to go around. So I feel like you're probably doing so much more than you think you are. In your opinion, what is something that could help you? What could make things easier for you as a teacher?
I definitely would say if I, if we had a little bit more of a help with balancing the online versus in class. I knew the idea was thrown around at the very beginning of the semester, where maybe one teacher was in charge of the online classes.
Whereas a couple of others would just do the in class students. We thought maybe that would make it a little bit more streamlined and easier, but ultimately the decision wasn't ours. And then also integrating how can we get the kids that are in the class and the kids that are at home to be able to interact with one another?
[00:18:02] Because it sounds super easy on paper. When you say, Oh, you can use this website, you can use this app, but actually implementing it. It's difficult.
So basically be heard. Listen to the teachers and let's use the input, direct where the solutions are going, and students interacting with each other. In seventh grade I'm trying to think what I was doing in seventh grade.
Running around on a playground, which probably isn't a thing right now. And just interacting, especially that student in your first block, I think it was, that's the only one that's not in a classroom. What is their emotional state since they're not interacting with their classmates? So I definitely see that could be a benefit.
Do you think you've been given the necessary resources to teach your class effectively?
I think our district has done the best that they can, especially being a very technology heavy district. I think that they have provided us with the tools, as you say, like we have the computers, we have the apps, we have licenses to a lot of different software.
[00:18:59]
I do feel that maybe we can't do sit down classes in PD like we normally do, but maybe just a little bit more training with some of those things would have been a little bit more helpful because it's easy to say Hey, we have some license for this, or, Hey, we have software you can use for this, but we don't have a whole lot of time to learn it before we can turn around and use it.
So we could just have maybe a little bit more virtual PD and seeing what it looks like. Cause it's very daunting when you say, okay, you can throw all of these kids into this virtual chat and they can communicate together using this. I don't want to unleash 29 seventh grade students into one app and I have no idea how to use it. So to see what it looks like from someone who's used it before, that might be helpful.
Like having somebody from the company who builds software, be an implementation specialist and give you, provide you guys training for software. I know when my organization switched to Zoom– we all know the basics of Zoom, but what are Zoom bombers and how do you keep people out of Zoom?
[00:20:06]
And so having those type of trainings would definitely help you because I can’t imagine letting 29 students into a chat box that are in seventh grade. Cause Lord knows what they're talking about, that we don't even know. So I definitely get that.
What apps are you using? What are those technologies that are making things easier for you?
For everyday we use Google meet. Our school district has a license with Google where we use Google classroom. Google meets. GoGuardian. We use Google docs, Google slides. The wheel of names. That's the little app I use to call out randomly. Nearpod, Pear Deck. Those are like old school PowerPoint. Nearpod and Pear Deck allow you to add like interactive slides in there where you can question them and things like that. Those are the main ones that I use. I know that there's others out there like edpuzzle and things like that, but those are the ones I mainly use.
[00:20:59]
So you're basically like an EdTech specialist now.
Yeah. I’m gonna have to tack that onto my license there.
Yeah, definitely. And so teachers, you're in school together, but not in close contact. How are you guys all staying connected and collaborative to help teach the students?
So in our rooms, if it’s just the three of us– the three English teachers–we can spread out in the room. I’ll be by my desk. One will be on the other end of the room and then one will be on the end of this room. But if it's more, I would say than five, we have to meet virtually. So I'll be in my room. They'll be in their rooms and we'll hop on a Google meet and we can talk back and forth through a meet.
Let's talk about the future. What are your hopes for next semester? You're still in person. I imagine you'll still be in person next semester. What are your hopes?
So my hopes is now that the vaccines coming out and that starting to be rolling out, that hopefully we will start to see some semblance of normalcy at some point. For instance, last year, when we all went home and we all went virtual, the kids missed field day.
[00:22:10]
They missed being able to go outside and have that day of just play. They missed their awards, being able to go into a gym and having eighth grade awards. Graduations were different. So I hope that at least by May, they can have some of that normalcy back, even if they still have to have a mask on, they can still get together and have fun.
You said a biggest challenge has been you and your husband, dealing with work and the COVID. What are some challenges that you guys have had to work through for this semester?
This semester and then back in March, we were both working home virtually. He works at a local plant. So he was on one computer in one room working, and then I'm in the living room, trying to teach.
[00:22:54]
And then on top of that, we have a 70 pound German shepherd, who's going back and forth between both of us. So it was a strain on our internet. Our connections were going out. The barking, the having to get up and pause. It was just a lot of chaos for a little while, till we were able to figure out our groove and how to work through those things.
Gotcha. That the 70 pound German shepherd could, I can imagine the loudness of those barks.
I was teaching one day and she was barking and the kids started laughing at me and they started typing in the comments that they wanted to see my German shepherd.
So at the very end of class, I called in my dog whose name's Jess and I allowed them to see her. And she's just a big baby and they love it. So anytime we go virtual that class in particular asks before they all sign off, they all asked to see her. So I make her come in the room and tell him, bye.
And so you mentioned you're exhausted this semester. How are you feeling to be on prep? Like, how is. This too. I imagine to like break on or Louisiana sends out the longer breaks. How's this holiday break going.
[00:24:02]
This break has been very much needed. It has been a mental break and emotional break physically as well.
It just helps you get back into that mindset of now I'm refreshed. I'm ready to go. Let's jump back into this and let's keep going.
So your mental health, Howard, what are you doing to support your mental health and keep yourself going?
I run a 5k three times a week. I do some strength training with weights.
I read a lot. I love to read mystery books. I do amateur book reviews, my husband and I love to play video games together. We watch wrestling together every Wednesday. So we try to do a lot of family stuff.
What has been the sentiment around COVID-19 in your community?
So it's been split. You have those on one end who take it very seriously. Take our mass mandate very seriously, the social distancing guidelines. But then of course you have some who say you know, masks, aren't working and we need her immunity. So we just need to all be together and have parties. And it's Louisiana.
[00:25:08]
So we all, we're very social. We love to get together and I get that, but I always go back to our elderly. And are immunocompromised. I don't want a bad decision on my part to cause the death of someone else. So I always just think, you know, wearing a mask may not be the thing everybody wants to do, but if it helps save someone's life, I'll do it.
Even if it inconveniences me, I don't mind being inconvenienced. If it saves a life.
Yeah, I think that's a mindset of a lot of people. And just thinking about, so you're in your seventh year of teaching, you were there and March, April, may when things just got shot virtual. And then we also had a lot of situations of social justice.
So you had a lot of black lives matters protests, and then we had the election at any point, have you had to have conversations with your students about the protests or about what's happening in the world today?
[00:26:03]
So at this stage, the kids in seventh grade, at least the ones I teach, they don't really bring it up in front of us, but anytime we've ever seen, like anything happen on campus, like even at something like bullying, teasing, any kind of prejudice, anything like that, we always nip it in the bud right there.
And we always just try to keep it to where We're all equal. We're all in this together. We all have the same rights, so we always talk about that stuff. So that was conversations we were having, even before all of this was jump-started.
I think I might to run through all my questions that I created, but I do have some Instagram, some other questions and another list of shorter questions I want to ask you.
So I was going to go right to the instagram questions. The first one is, are you okay?
Yes, I am. Okay. I'm doing good.
Do you think the pandemic has widened the opportunity gap for your students?
Yes, I would say probably. Because especially when we were all virtual. The kids would be on virtual, right?
[00:27:08]
Like they don't necessarily have to turn their cameras on for me to see them. So it shows up that they're in class. But they don't have some kids out email me and say Mrs. Trosclair, I completely missed what you said. Cause I was busy helping my three-year-old sibling, like making them lunch or, helping them with schoolwork.
So I feel like those who have to take a role as a caregiver when their parents aren't home. It definitely has widened that gap that, okay. Now I need to make a mental note that I have to help this kid a little bit more because they have other responsibilities that other kids.
So it was kind of being in school actually really helps for those particular student cause they need that distance from home life.
Absolutely.
How can individual people help say myself or Sandra down the street? How can they help education?
[00:28:00]
Honestly, just by giving educators and students and administrators, positive support, you would not believe the amount of people that are so critical of us, especially on social media.
Everybody has an opinion on how things should be run. And I get that. But you voicing the fact that you feel like we're not doing enough or you feel like things should be run a certain way. When you just have no idea what goes on behind the scenes and that we are trying to do the best that we can, but we have a lot of limitations. So that can be discouraging sometimes to see all that, not niceness that we get in here. Yeah.
I think it was to me, very amazing to see. March, April may, like teachers are amazing. They're doing so much to okay, get back in the classroom. What are you doing that? And I was like, w what happened in those three months where people just had some, a break and came back and yeah, our teachers aren't doing enough.
The coma didn't go away. It actually got a lot worse when August came. So yeah, that has always been like the influence of why I really want to give you guys a chance to speak, because I was like, I just feel like their stories need to come from them. Not from me, somebody who's not in the classroom.
[00:29:14]
So I would say probably. The comment that hurts a little bit. The most is when parents complain, like they have to go to work. So they need to have their kid in school to be able to work. And I, 100% understand that I a hundred percent understand that you, that people need to work and provide for their families.
But on the flip side, educators lives matter as well. We have to take the same precautions as everybody else. And sometimes that means if it's not safe to go to school, We have to work from home. So just having that, understanding that everybody's in the same predicament is helpful.
I would argue that you guys have to take more precaution because now you have to deal with, I want to say deal. You have to teach their kids. And if you're not doing just as you're doing, your kids are now receiving of the input that you're giving them. And if you're not quarantining, you're out with your friends and they can bring that into school. I feel like you guys have to take a little more precaution, even they do.
[00:30:16]
Has your school help provide resources for anti-racism courses or curriculum?
I don't know the answer to that question specifically, because I feel like that might be geared more like in our social studies classes, we do have. I know we had in the past, we haven't been able to do that this year, but we used to have days where we would have small groups of students and we would talk about emotional issues.
So it could have been like things that were happening in society at the time. Like we talk about their feelings, we talk about drugs. We talk about alcohol. We talk about those mainstream issues, but we used to do that face to face. But because of all this, we have been able to do that this year. So I know that our our counselors have tried to do things more on a virtual platform.
[00:31:00]
They've tried to take the load a little bit off of us and gear it that way. But to say that I've implemented anything this year, not at this time. But I know it has been happening on different platforms from other people.
And at any point, do you feel that your health was disregarded?
I feel like, especially with my administration, anytime, I felt like I was going through something or that I was in a predicament where I felt unsafe, they completely understood.
And we talked about ways that would be beneficial to me and then also beneficial to the kids. So I never felt like I was less than.
And so those are all the instagram questions that apply to you since you are in person. But I have a few fun questions to get to. These can all be one word, a few word answers.
What was your favorite subject in school?
English. By far
Favorite dish to cook or eat?
Ooh, I'm going to Italian girl. So anything car, give me all the carbs. All the spaghetti.
If you weren't a teacher, what would you be doing professionally?
[00:32:02]
That is a great question. If I wasn't a teacher, I think I would work in a zoo.
Honestly. I love animals. I love going to the zoo. I love seeing animals. I'd probably be like some type of zoologists or vet tech.
What is your favorite animal?
I love dogs, but I would say probably my favorite exotic animals. There's the cheetah. I love cheetah.
Best gift you've ever given or received?
My husband's given me some very sentimental pieces of jewelry. So I would say that those are my favorite gifts that I've received. And I would say the best gift that I've given was the same to him. A sentimental piece of jewelry that I gave to him.
If you could only eat one vegetable for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Brussels sprouts.
That is an interesting response. I've not had that one yet.
We love cooking Brussels sprouts in so many different ways. Okay.
What is your favorite way to cook Brussels sprouts, asking for myself.
Roasted in the oven with bacon and Parmesan cheese.
[00:33:02]
Okay. I will need to do that.
Is a potato a vegetable? Yes or no?
Yes.
Pineapple on pizza. Yes or no?
Yes. Hawaiian pizza all day. Every day. Yeah.
Thank you. What is the most extreme thing you've ever done?
The most extreme thing I've ever done, probably one on some risky hikes. A couple of times we love to go hiking and there were some where we were looking at Oh, I don't know if we should walk on these rocks, or I don't know if we should walk over these planks. And that was a little risky, but I tend to try to keep my feet on the critical.
What is something you think you spend too much money on?
Clothes I buy a lot of clothes.
Are there any mantras you live by? And if so, what is your favorite?
I would say live life to the fullest every day that I wake up, I try to just do everything I want to do that day. And I try not to stop myself from doing anything because you never know if you're going to wake up to see the next day.
[00:34:02]
How would your best friends describe you in one word?
Loyal
If you could recommend a book, podcasts, TV series, or a movie, what would it be?
For book, I'm very much into mystery. So I would say any Agatha Christie novel, especially her Hercule Poirot series. Definitely pick up one of those.
I am a reality TV junkie, so I am anything real Housewives. That's my go-to movies, Christmas just past them. One of my favorite movies is the, how the Grinch stole Christmas. The Jim Carrey edition. Love that movie.
What is your favorite movie?
Favorite movie? Probably. This is so corny, but the Twilight saga,.
I've never seen them, but I'll take your word for it.
I loved them in high school and I just never stopped loving them, but yeah, that's my favorite.
[00:35:01]
Gotcha. What is the best vacation you've ever taken?
Probably our vacation that we just took a couple of weeks ago to Asheville to go hiking. That was extremely fun. Just being in nature and not being around people, especially during these times. That was super, super nice.
What is important for those who do not know you personally to know about you?
Just to know that. I try to treat everyone the way that I would want to be treated. I am super quiet when you first meet me, but as you start to get to know me, I warm up right away and you probably can't get me to stop talking, but I try to love everyone. I may not always like everyone, but I always try to remember that God loves us all. So we should always love others as well.
Good words to live by. And is there anything else you want to add to this interview before we conclude.
I just wanted to say thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of the teacher's lounge. I think it's a great thing what you're doing here and getting our voices out there and letting us be heard, especially in letting us clarify some of the things that people may not know that's going on behind the scenes or that we're actually doing to help kids during these times.
[00:36:14]
Is there anything else that you want to clear up from your side that you've been hearing that is a misconception?
No, I think we've pretty much covered. A lot of the basis that I feel like, especially around our area, that we're the biggest misconception. So I think we're good with that.
Okay. If people want to follow you on social media, is there a social media platform or name that they can follow you at?
Yes, I do have a Facebook.
It's a Trina Tramonte Trosclair. It's my first maiden and last name. And then on Instagram, I do have a, it's a it's a Bookstagram. I use it for and it's @Bookshelf_Chronicles_. If anybody's interested in following, along with what I'm reading in any recommendations, they can always follow me on it's great.
[00:36:57]
And so I want to end this interview by saying thank you again for everything you're doing as a teacher. Thank you for doing this interview to dispel some misconceptions that have been put out in the world by who knows who and talking to us about your experience during the pandemics. I think it's super important that you are able to tell your own story.
You are a superhero as somebody who is helping our students continually grow and learn and become the people that will be In the future. One thing I learned in my one year semi in a classroom is that it's one of the very few positions where you don't get to see the results of your work until later on.
So you're just like hoping the amount of greatness that you give to students pays off for them in the end and it sticks with them. So once again, thank you so much for what you're doing as a teacher in Louisiana, because I know how that can be and help you have a great day and a great next semester and that all your hopes come true.
Thank you. And thank you again for having me. It has been a pleasure.
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