Game On! Podcast featuring guest Jennifer Gonzalez
In this episode of GAME ON, Host Adam Bellow interviews Jennifer Gonzalez, the brilliant mind behind Cult of Pedagogy. Jennifer, a former middle school English teacher, has transformed the educational landscape with her influential online platform. She shares her remarkable journey from the classroom to creating a vital resource for educators, highlighting the importance of building a supportive, growth-minded teaching community. Tune in to hear her inspiring story and practical advice for teachers!
Jennifer Gonzalez, Cult of Pedagogy
About Jennifer Gonzalez
For seven years, I taught middle school language arts. Half that time was spent in the greater D.C. area, the other half in southern Kentucky. I earned my National Board Certification in 2004. Then, after having my first child, I left teaching to be a stay-at-home mom.
In 2008, I was hired by a local university to teach pre-service teachers. This work gave me new passion for preparing and supporting educators. When I was in the classroom, I felt alone in my nerdiness. The teachers’ lounge was never a safe place for me emotionally or intellectually, and finding others to share my real thoughts and feelings with took a lot of work. I learned to stifle the urge to gush about some new strategy I was planning to try or to open up about a struggle I was having with my students. I came to expect that my genuine questions would be met with sarcasm.
With Cult of Pedagogy, I hope to create what I did not have myself: a vibrant, encouraging, stimulating community of teachers, supporting each other toward excellence. I believe if we can reach across the limits of geography and find each other, there’s no limit to the amazing things we can accomplish.
Game On! – Guest Jennifer Gonzalez - Transcript
Adam (00:01.339)
Hi, and welcome to the Game On Podcast. I'm your host Adam Bello, and I am so excited to be here with an awesome guest, a new face to the Game On Podcast, Jennifer Gonzalez. So Jennifer, welcome.
Jennifer Gonzalez (00:12.23)
Thank you so much, Adam. I'm glad to be here
Adam (00:14.267)
Well, it is great to have you here. We were just talking about the last time we saw each other in person was in Austin, I think pre pandemic. Yeah.
Jennifer Gonzalez (00:20.466)
2019. It was, was March of 2019 at South by Southwest. Yes, it was right before I was going to go on stage. Yes, yes it was.
Adam (00:25.338)
It was a different world.
a different world. You went on stage to do a keynote, which is something you do quite a bit and you do very well. The audience may know you from your site, Cult of Pedagogy, which is an amazing resource. But, you I know you started as a high school or a middle school English teacher, if I'm not mistaken. So similar, similar origin story. But tell us a little about yourself
Jennifer Gonzalez (00:50.138)
Well, so yeah, I started off as a, I thought I was gonna be a high school English teacher. There were no jobs in high school when I started, so I got a middle school job. I think a lot of middle school teachers have a similar story, and then I loved it. I fell in love with that age, and so this was in the DC area. I taught there a couple years, then I moved here to Kentucky and continued to teach in a middle school for a while. Took a short break to have babies.
and thought I would go back to the classroom. But then I got a job at a local university teaching pre -service teachers for a while. And that was just on the basis of my national board certification. I don't have a doctorate or anything like that. And I really love that. And I thought, I think this is what I want to do. So when it would have been maybe time to go back to the classroom, I thought I want to keep doing this online. I had taken just some extra credits to kind of keep my certification and they were in EdTech and we had to submit our work on a blog.
and I was super extra about it. I did the most all the time with every one of my assignments and I thought, think I really like to do this. So I started culture pedagogy in 2013 and it's always been meant to be the place I wish I had when I was a teacher because I did teach with some really wonderful people but I taught with a lot of people that were kind of burned out and just not into the job. And I just always wished I had more people that I could talk to about just cool ideas with teaching and how do I solve this problem and.
So I wanted to just build that community there. yeah, and then from there I learned how to make a podcast and I've got a YouTube channel now and I have online courses and it's just grown from there. And now that's just what I do full time.
Adam (02:25.127)
that. I love that it started from this thing that you were proud of and just poured so much of yourself into and then just kind of took off. I can both relate to that and I just love that story so much from a teacher's side of things. It's just awesome. that's so cool. So 2013, you've just hit 11 years. Gosh,
Jennifer Gonzalez (02:30.681)
Yeah.
Jennifer Gonzalez (02:38.862)
Yeah.
Jennifer Gonzalez (02:43.698)
Yes, this month, actually, it must probably just a few days ago, it July of 2013 that I started. So it's 11 years now. Yeah, it's crazy.
Adam (02:47.931)
Wow, that's awesome. That is really, really cool. Well, for those of you who have not been to the site, please definitely check it out. It will be in the show notes. But Cult of Pedagogy is an amazing resource that I know many, many, many thousands of educators find and use regularly. So, you know, a great, great site. But yeah, well, I mean, hey, that's one of the reasons why I wanted you to come on and share some goodness with us. So we'll jump right in. Basically...
Jennifer Gonzalez (03:07.442)
Thank
Adam (03:17.209)
know, the Game On podcast, we're Breakout EDU to . We like games. It's part of our thing here. So I always like to ask a question about games. What games did you play growing up? And what games do you play now, if you're still playing?
Jennifer Gonzalez (03:30.194)
The first thing that came to mind when I asked that was my favorite Atari game was Breakout. I don't know if you remember Atari or if you remember Breakout. don't know if you're... Okay, that was my favorite. That one and Frogger were my favorite ones. I did like board games. I liked Clue. I liked card games. I remember playing Speed, I think it was, where it's the four piles. I loved that. Anything that was kind of fast moving and competitive.
Adam (03:40.739)
I have the game on my shelf right back there.
Adam (03:54.182)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Gonzalez (03:59.194)
So I liked all of those and I'll still play some of those with my kids now. We don't have an Atari, but man, I could still probably do some damage with Breakout. But no, a game that I really love now, even though I barely ever have any time to do it, it's an online game called GeoGuessr. I don't know if you've ever seen it. That is addictive. gosh, the first time I stumbled on that, I said, this is the greatest thing ever.
Adam (04:18.851)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yup. It's awesome.
Jennifer Gonzalez (04:26.79)
That's a really fun game. And if people listening don't know what that is, just basically Google Maps plops you down somewhere in the world and does not tell you where you are. And you're just, it's the ground view and you just have to figure out, you can move forward and move backward and go as far as you want to. And then you have to just guess on a map, where am I? And I cheat like crazy. I will open up a bunch of other tabs. won't cheat. I won't cheat, cheat like I just want to find the answer, but I try to figure it out with other clues.
Adam (04:47.546)
okay.
Jennifer Gonzalez (04:54.8)
Like if I see a language or something on a sign, then I'll try to, you know, look that up somewhere else and see if I can. So I'm still trying to like find it. Anyway, I love that game.
Adam (04:54.961)
That's awesome.
Adam (05:03.067)
No, that's awesome. I think there's actually a TikToker who does that. Like people send him just one image from it. And then his task is to figure out where, yeah, they challenge him on that stuff.
Jennifer Gonzalez (05:11.964)
Well, apparently there's whole leagues. Like I looked up GeoGuessr on YouTube and all I was finding was like streaming people doing it. And I thought, okay, no, that's not the level that I want to play. I just want to get on and kill time. anyway, I love that
Adam (05:24.059)
That's awesome. Yeah, well, you know, it's funny. I haven't really played it other than watching this guy be stumped on TikTok, but very cool. Well, we kind of dug a little bit into your origin story, but kind of like going back a little bit further, I guess, kind of our level two question is, what made you want to get into education to begin
Jennifer Gonzalez (05:28.612)
It's funny.
Jennifer Gonzalez (05:45.254)
You know, I was a kid that liked school. I was good at it. I was a good student. I liked my teachers. And so I think I always looked at the job of a teacher as something that seemed fun. had the kind of teachers who, my third grade teacher, I remember, got me out of school one day and took me to like a Renaissance fair with, you know, and so, and I had a principal one year who had his own garden. He had snakes that he used to keep and he built his own house. And
Adam (06:03.655)
That's awesome.
Jennifer Gonzalez (06:13.186)
Some of the teachers in my life were these very creative people. And also, I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that both of my parents, my dad was a doctor, but he was trained as an engineer and he was in the Air Force. My mom was a teacher for a while, but they were both very, very good my whole life at explaining things to me in different ways. They were both very curious. And anytime I had a question as a kid, they just always
were willing to answer it and they were just both naturally good at explaining stuff that was complicated and breaking it down very simply. And so that sort of, I feel like that was kind of one of my talents as a teacher also was understanding when the people in front of me were kind of confused and drilling down to a way that would help them to understand it. So I think there were just a lot of things about it. And was originally going to be a math teacher.
because I was good at math in high school. But then when I got into college and looked at the next four years, I thought, I don't really want to do math for four years. I want to do more of like the dead poet society kind of stuff. So I shifted over to English because it just seemed like it was going to be more interesting. But yeah, I just think I always really was attracted to the work of a teacher. And then once I started, you know, it was hard.
because it's hard. It's just not what you think it's going to be when you are on the outside. And I was aware of things like educational research out there in the world, but there always seemed to be a huge disconnect between what was happening at the university level with people who studied things like cognitive science and those of us who were practicing in the classroom. And it felt like a place for somebody to come in who knew how to explain complicated things for people who don't necessarily have.
the bandwidth for the complicated things, but need the information. And so that was also a part of what I wanted to do at Cult of Pedagogy was to create those bridges between those two worlds.
Adam (08:17.253)
I love that. I love that. going back just a personal intelligence, English teacher to English teacher, what was your favorite book to teach?
Jennifer Gonzalez (08:21.906)
This is going to date me so bad because I mean, left the classroom. The outsiders, I think it's fading. Yeah. I mean, that's a pretty standard.
Adam (08:26.887)
It's okay They still teach it. I guarantee you they still teach it. That's the scary part. Of course No, it's a it's a new Broadway show. It's it's evergreen.
Jennifer Gonzalez (08:36.914)
That's right. that's going to have a resurgence then. just, I mean, not only because I loved the book, but to be honest, I mean, whenever the movie came out, which was probably 1982, 83, I mean, I was like 13 years old. I was right in there. I worshiped Matt Dillon, all of those guys, but especially Matt Dillon. So that whole world was just huge. And so to kids, you know, in the DC area, 10, 15 years after all of that,
Adam (08:52.891)
Yep.
Jennifer Gonzalez (09:06.556)
They didn't quite get the charm that I felt, but I think I sold it to them pretty well and they definitely understood. So the Outsiders was definitely one. Bridge to Terabithia we did. These are going to be some kind of old standards that...
Adam (09:17.627)
Yeah.
Adam (09:21.401)
Well, if it makes you feel better, my son who just finished seventh grade, the last book he read literally last month was The Outsiders, and he loved it. still out there. know, English teachers, we just got the same thing. Catcher on the Rye is still doing all of it.
Jennifer Gonzalez (09:24.615)
Mm.
Jennifer Gonzalez (09:30.034)
That's fantastic. I love
Jennifer Gonzalez (09:35.378)
Yes, they're still doing Catcher in the I just feel like there have been so many amazing books that have come out more recently. And on my podcast, I'm actually getting ready to do an interview with three librarians and their whole platform is diversifying classroom libraries. And we are going to talk a ton about just like some great titles that they think should be in a lot of people's classrooms. And I'm so excited because when I hear about these, I just feel like I'm so far behind on like YA literature.
Adam (09:54.087)
Love
Jennifer Gonzalez (10:04.912)
and what's out there. So yeah, that's why I was a little embarrassed by bringing these up just because they're just kind of old classics. Yeah.
Adam (10:11.591)
They're old classics, tried and true, but yeah, now I totally get it. And when we were teaching, I remember bringing in books like Speak and other more modern YA stuff. Although that dates me, because this was now 15, 20 years ago. Yeah. It's like, no, no, that's an oldie. As my kids would say, you're so old, Dad Awesome. Well, I I love the trajectory of your career. And I think, again, I think back of it comes from such
Jennifer Gonzalez (10:18.83)
Mm. Yeah. I know, I still think of Speak is kind of a new book too, but it's not anymore, is it? Yeah. Yeah.
Adam (10:38.201)
a genuine place. And I think that that's really where the best things in education do start. And I'm sure, you if you look at it on paper, you look at Cult of Pedagogy and what you've been able to accomplish and all the things that are great. What were some of the challenges that you had to overcome in this obstacle, you know, on the journey to where you are now?
Jennifer Gonzalez (10:56.562)
So two main, well, three main things. One is because I'm in charge of the whole thing, I don't have a boss. It's just been driving myself to keep doing the work. you know, when you work for yourself, the people in your regular life who are not part of that are always just like, you're free. You have free time. Take more time. And it's like, no, I have to keep making stuff or I won't be able to pay for the mortgage. So that management of time and self -discipline and pushing myself to do things.
a little bit of dealing with, especially year after year of the criticism that comes from my audience of how long has it been since you've been in the classroom, you're out of touch, you don't know what you're talking about. So to combat that, because it's a legitimate criticism, but what I try to do is just keep bringing in people who are full -time classroom teachers or who work full -time with classroom teachers and having them share things that they're doing in their experiences and not really having it come from me as much.
I, when I first started it, I wanted to be the Oprah of education. So not really a whole lot of my own stuff, but just wheeling people out in front of an audience and saying, everyone should know this person. And then moving on to the next one. So that, and then also just, you probably are familiar with this too, just having an online platform.
you have to get a thick skin, not from the legitimate criticism because that's worthwhile, but then there's just a lot of people out there who kind of their hobby is to just make people feel bad on the internet. And I kind of got past that pretty early on. One of my very first viral posts ever really had nothing at all to do with education. It was about the putting two spaces after a period when you type and how we don't need to do that anymore.
Adam (12:33.681)
Yep, you need a thick skin.
Jennifer Gonzalez (12:46.098)
But the title of it is Nothing Says Over 40 Like Two Spaces After a Period. And that hurt people's feelings. And they said it was ageist. And some people feel very strongly about that practice. And they were abusive. And I think that post was like 2014. But I will tell you, it drove a lot of traffic to my site early on. And it was sort of like, hey, this isn't actually about punctuation. This is an education site. So I think I got a lot of eyes on my side because of it.
Adam (12:59.665)
Wow.
Adam (13:13.787)
That's awesome.
Jennifer Gonzalez (13:14.524)
but I got some really nasty comments. And now when I get them, they really barely even get in. I mean, what I'm looking for always is, is there something legitimate? Because I don't ever want to be someone who doesn't hear legitimate criticism. And I just actually got a comment on my old Marigold post yesterday, somebody telling me, she said, shame on you. Because I was, one of the parts I was talking about was a teacher who is constantly protecting her time and only working her contract hours.
And she's like, that person is not a bad role model. And I looked at it again, I'm like, wow, yeah, my stance on this has definitely changed. Like we do need to be protecting our time. So that's probably an old thing, but like, anyway, I wanna always be open to the legitimate criticism, but the people who are just nasty on the internet for no reason, it's just gotten a lot easier to just, yeah,
Adam (14:07.505)
Yeah. I mean, it's a tough thing to overcome. And I think a lot of people wouldn't, you I think that there are a of people that are either starting blogs of their own or starting creating anything. TikTok doesn't matter. Like whatever your medium is, you get the trolls, you get the first comments and you're just like, no, that's not worth
Jennifer Gonzalez (14:24.358)
You do. you know, Adam, one thing that I did learn early on, I don't remember where I got this advice, but I heard it from somewhere. They said the way that you respond to negative comments is not for the negative commenter. It's for everybody else who's watching. So, and I remember having a couple people say, I found your site and I stayed because I saw the way that you responded to some of the nasty comments just with like respectful, you know, responses. And they said that, you
Adam (14:38.225)
I love that.
Jennifer Gonzalez (14:54.458)
it was comforting to know that we were in the hands of somebody who wasn't gonna just like be nasty back right away. Well, yeah, yeah. And I sweat, there's a moment that I always have to take it first because I had somebody one time who said they were unsubscribing, this was on Facebook, said, I'm unfollowing. And I wrote back, bye Felicia. immediately I had like a few people.
Adam (14:59.793)
love that. Yeah, elevate the discourse. It's like that's not why you're
Jennifer Gonzalez (15:19.034)
say, I'm disappointed in you. Like you don't normally stoop that low. And I deleted it, but it felt really good for a second to do that. But I got rid of it because, you know, I want to keep it classy, but it's not that the thoughts don't happen in my head. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Adam (15:25.713)
Yep, I'm sure.
Adam (15:33.063)
No, I mean, and I think it's so important for people to know that too, right? Where it's like, you see, hey, you've published work now for 11 years. There are people that, just, good friend of mine, Kathy Schrock, is just closing her blog after 30 years. 30 years, yeah.
Jennifer Gonzalez (15:44.004)
Is she? That's it. That's she. Yes, I was going to say what I remember when I first started. That was one of the like big names.
Adam (15:50.405)
And just to think of all of the learning you go through personally with dealing with other people, you know, people are tough. I think if you're, I always feel like the biggest critic is myself. So if it's like, if it fits that standard, then we're okay. taking criticism and contribution from other folks is always important, but if it's just there to be nasty, like it's a tough, tough gig. Well, moving on from that, like the next level question, I'd love to dig into kind of what you're passionate about right now.
Jennifer Gonzalez (15:58.662)
Yes.
Jennifer Gonzalez (16:11.164)
Yeah.
Adam (16:20.261)
Right? So there's so much stuff going on in education. You know, we have all these new buzzwords going on or old is new again. I literally read an email. Let me get the title here right now, because I might feel like I came out of a time machine. I got an email this afternoon where the email title was, how educators can safely unban YouTube in schools. And I'm like, is this from a time trap? Like I had another one the other day about banning cell phones. I'm like, where am I?
Jennifer Gonzalez (16:25.244)
Mm -hmm.
Jennifer Gonzalez (16:29.607)
Mmm.
Adam (16:49.133)
old arguments, new arguments, but there's also really cool stuff and really great stuff. So what are you passionate about right now? What's a couple of topics that you're into in education?
Jennifer Gonzalez (16:50.448)
Yes.
Jennifer Gonzalez (16:57.398)
I you know, because I feel like the standard answer to this right now will always have something to do with AI, which I'm not as excited. I tend to be a little bit of a late adopter on almost anything. Like even when the pandemic hit, I was like, I don't need to write anything about distance learning for a while. I'm sure this will pass. And eventually I had to. So I think the thing that's been the most interesting to me is that when I go into schools and I meet teachers,
Adam (17:04.583)
Sure.
Jennifer Gonzalez (17:25.712)
I feel like there are more and more people, school leaders, practicing classroom teachers, who are, I feel like all of these things are starting to coalesce. Diversity and equity topics are becoming more of a standard practice. I was in a school yesterday, or two days ago, that had a gender inclusive bathroom. It was just in the school, and nobody was making a big deal about it. I feel like all the
SEL stuff isn't new anymore. The tech integration stuff isn't new anymore. I hear teachers using much more sort of up -to -date language to describe student populations. And no one's saying it with any kind of like fanfare. It's just like it's becoming standard in the school. And that as somebody who's part of the people who are trying to push a lot of that out there and educate the masses on things, it's so great to see, you know,
Adam (18:10.759)
That's awesome.
Jennifer Gonzalez (18:23.154)
presenter was talking, an instructional coach was talking about, well, I got this from Zaretta Hammond. And I'm like, okay, I had her on my podcast. Yes, like culturally responsive teaching. I'm hearing all kinds of things just flying around together. And so I think that's the thing that I'm the most excited about. And so it's not really a trend by itself. It's that, I don't know, I feel like the people that are in classrooms,
You know, there's a lot of talk about how many teachers have left. And I do think a lot of teachers have left and all probably for very good reasons. But I feel like a lot of the people that have stayed have really bought into some of the practices that we've been trying to say, like, this is what you need to be trying to do to make this work better. And also, you know, teachers have such a bad reputation for just being like burned out and they're not caring.
everybody, every teacher that I meet when I go out on PDs, they're fantastic. These are bright, energetic people. They're smart. They really care about their kids. And so I don't know. mean, I know that I hear a lot of negativity about what's happening in schools and I see just the opposite, you know? And so I think
That's the thing I'm the most excited about. think there's just, there's great people out there that are ready to go and they're trying and they're still teaching under really difficult circumstances and yet they're still showing up and giving it a shot. Yeah.
Adam (19:54.375)
Absolutely. mean, often a very thankless position in many ways, but I think that that is, yeah, that there's the people that are there are there for a reason. so I think that there's teaching, teaching has always had a rough PR problem, but, you know, it's definitely one of those things where it's like, yeah, it's good to hear. And I love the fact that you're seeing kind of the bigger topics that are, that we all talked about, you know,
Jennifer Gonzalez (19:58.94)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Jennifer Gonzalez (20:10.79)
Yes.
Adam (20:23.287)
inclusion, like all these different things start to become part of the norm. And it just took so long to get, and there's still tons of work to do. I'm sure there's still miles to go, but it's nice to see that that's getting woven into the fabric of what's there as opposed to just like, let's have a seminar on it for an hour and then don't do anything about it.
Jennifer Gonzalez (20:27.174)
Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, that's a good word. -hmm. Exactly. It's almost just like a given now. It's part of the baseline of like, this is obviously what we're gonna be doing and let's, yeah, weave it all together.
Adam (20:50.607)
I love that. I love that. let's move up to our level five question, which I want to ask you about two questions. The first one's about advice that you've gotten. So it sounds like your parents were incredible teachers to you, right? Like they were able to explain things to you, but maybe it's from them, maybe it's from someone else. Like what's been the best advice that you've gotten in your journey?
Jennifer Gonzalez (21:03.986)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Jennifer Gonzalez (21:13.746)
Well, and this is the advice I always give to people too on teaching. which is just, it's the same really. It's just watch who you spend your time with because everything else falls from there. And so that's the teachers that the other teachers that you spend your off hours with, whether it's in the staff lounge or you talk to after school or whatever.
Adam (21:17.381)
Well, that was my next part of the question, but if you want to do that, we can just dovetail there.
Jennifer Gonzalez (21:38.352)
because there's so much to learn about this job that any one small individual piece of advice is only gonna lead you down that one path. But if you're with people who are still excited about the job, they have a growth mindset about themselves, they're still curious, they're still trying to grow, then that's what you need. You need that community of other educators around you because those people are gonna continue to feed you, they're gonna ask you questions
They're going to be the people you can bounce ideas off of. I've seen that go in both directions. I've seen new teachers who show up who are enthusiastic and they get paired with somebody who is just tired and probably should leave teaching because they've had enough and they've stopped growing. And you can see that kind of toxicity bleed onto that new person and that new person starts to get cynical and they're like 23 years old. Like you shouldn't be that cynical yet.
I really think that's the key. I mean, that's so key in life, really. They say you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. you know, and I think that also, especially now includes who you are interacting with online, not even interacting, but who you're consuming online, whatever voices you're listening to the most online. That's one of the reasons why on my podcast,
Adam (22:43.974)
Yeah.
Adam (22:54.811)
Yes.
Jennifer Gonzalez (23:00.678)
I think the topics that I try to cover are interesting, but sometimes I will have people on just because I love their attitude about their work. And I just want to continue to have those voices be platformed in some way so that these teachers who were in schools, maybe they don't have enough teachers like that. They can hear those people as role models and take that on.
Adam (23:20.903)
love that. I mean, you have to be able to amplify all the voices. And I think you're 100 % right. If the diet that you're eating is only the things that you believe, know, A, it will taint who you are and B, you won't get to hear anything else. I mean, that's what I think that's so dangerous about like just the algorithms out there where you're just getting your own stuff echoed back to you. It's like, that's not going to help you grow. That's so I guess you gave good advice for a teacher. I guess digging one half a nugget deeper.
Jennifer Gonzalez (23:35.931)
Yes.
Jennifer Gonzalez (23:41.36)
Right, right, absolutely.
Adam (23:49.841)
for those new teachers, for those building community, obviously this is your site, but where else would you recommend for them to get started to try to find good folks to kind of just interact with or surround themselves
Jennifer Gonzalez (24:00.69)
Isn't it funny? The answer used to be Twitter, didn't it? I haven't even touched blue sky, so I don't even know about that. That's a really good question. There are a lot of great sites out there and a lot of really good podcasts. My best friend in the world is Angela Watson. I think she has a fantastic podcast, Truth For Teachers. She and I talk every day and I think she puts out really, really good
Adam (24:04.111)
It used to be. It used to be.
Jennifer Gonzalez (24:26.962)
I think Edutopia as an umbrella organization has good quality articles all the time. I think ISTE and ASCD are both working really hard at putting out content and professional development that are really, really good quality. And there's so many books out there. And I mean, it really is trying to drink from a fire hose, honestly. So, I mean, there are now people that I follow on TikTok who are fantastic. Now there's a lady in Australia named Claire.
Adam (24:30.503)
I'm gonna to stop here.
Jennifer Gonzalez (24:57.132)
thing called the unteachables and her stuff is fantastic. It's about, you know, and I'm like, where'd this person come from? You know, she's young and energy and she knows how to do social media and I'm like, I need to learn from this girl. yeah, it's tough, but I think, I feel this is the same way about people that you hang out with that a way to gauge whether a resource or
Podcast or a website or whatever is going to be good for you as a teacher is to pay really close attention to how you feel after you have consumed some of it So if you think about like, you know, if I go to five guys, I really enjoy it while I'm eating it I feel really bad afterwards. I just feel kind of sick And I know that sometimes there are people I spend time with who are really entertaining But then once I'm done something feels off in me and I think that can be the same way with sort of teaching advice I know that when I was younger and maybe more impressionable I
Adam (25:32.505)
I like that.
Jennifer Gonzalez (25:53.126)
I remember teaching with a lady who was very proud about the number of kids that she failed because she thought that it made her a tough teacher. And people were like, you're the only teacher I ever learned from. And I remember having those conversations with her and I would feel self doubt when she would say those things because I'd be like, maybe I should be, maybe I'm too easy of a teacher, but it didn't land right with me. And so I think if you're, if you feel strong and empowered and motivated after
Adam (26:00.763)
yeah, that sounds great.
Jennifer Gonzalez (26:20.402)
talking to somebody or reading something or listening to something, that's probably a sign that it's gonna be good for you as a teacher. But if you feel bad about yourself and you feel doubtful and uncertain, that probably isn't a good sign. But I would also ask the people, again, ask those people in your life who you think are already great teachers, they will probably have really great recommendations too. Yeah.
Adam (26:39.751)
Yeah, I love that. I love that. And you listed some great ones. mean, Angela's amazing. personally, I love Edutopia. I've loved it for now 30, 40, 30 something years. Like, it's just an incredible, incredible resource. So with actionable and positive advice.
Jennifer Gonzalez (26:49.915)
Mm -hmm.
Jennifer Gonzalez (26:57.83)
Yeah, and I like that they keep working. They seem to keep working on reinventing themselves and making it like really good quality all the time. So
Adam (27:05.795)
That's incredible. Well, definitely everyone should go and check out your site for sure. Cult of Pedagogy. Is there any other thing coming up? Is there any other things you want to have people check out or keep an eye
Jennifer Gonzalez (27:17.746)
Yes, depending on when they listen to this. My big project right now is a suite of courses under the umbrella of what I'm calling Teaching 101. And if they go to cultopedicogy .com slash teaching 101, they will learn all about them. The very first one of the courses is called Mastering the Lesson Plan. And it is really drilling down on the basics of setting clear objectives, designing assessments, planning out learning sequences that are going to work really well for the kids. I think we've got a lot of teachers out there who maybe have reviewed the basics, but haven't had
you know, enough to lean on. And so I think it's going to be really good for some of our newer teachers. And even I think if I was a veteran teacher, I would have liked it too, just to go back to check and make sure I was doing what I was supposed to do.
Adam (27:58.169)
I love that. mean, again, building from need, building for need, I think that that's super great. So definitely make sure for those of you listening, definitely check that out. Jennifer, I can't thank you enough for taking some time and sharing your story and your great advice. It's always incredible to chat with you. I just thank you so much for connecting.
Jennifer Gonzalez (28:15.996)
Thank you so much, Adam. I appreciate it. I'm just glad to be on.
Adam (28:18.567)
Of course, everyone else until the next time, game on!