ITP - 135: Reverse Culture Shock, Subbing, and Life Back Home

Greg: Why? Why, huh?

Kent: My name is Kent and you know, we've got this podcast. So hi, welcome back to the midnight hour. We're taking you through—

Greg: We could probably talk about why Kent has been away for so long.

JP: Yeah, why—

Kent: JP is going to give us the traffic report.

JP: Kent has been MIA, but also the fact that you're back in Washington. Isn't that awesome?

Greg: JP just did that to us.

JP: Yeah, I just—I'm in control when I'm hosting.

Kent: I was gonna say, now that you've given her the password, the keys to the palace, you know what? She is the AI. You and I are just the adjacent.

JP: I have the power! All right, bring us in, baby.

Kent: Hey, welcome back to another episode of the International Teacher Podcast. My name is Kent the Cat Guy and it's great to be with you. Appearing with me today in an all-host episode, JP Mint.

JP: Hello from Ottawa, Canada.

Kent: Woo! Welcome Ottawa, Canada! So good to see you. Coming in from still the sands of the desert, Greg the App Guy. Greg, welcome back.

Greg: Hi guys. Hi everybody. Good to see you back and welcome.

Kent: Yeah, it's been like years now. My goodness. I couldn't even figure out how to plug in my headphones this morning. How does this thing work?

Greg: That's a steep learning curve, Kent.

Kent: Everyone's been a little bit busy. Let's get caught up. First of all, JP Mint, how are things in your neck of the woods? How's Canada treating you?

JP: Neck of the woods, turtleneck of the woods, because it is minus five degrees Celsius, which is—I don't know—minus a hundred in Fahrenheit, I think. And I don't do Fahrenheit. And then multiply by 36.2. But I just celebrated my mom's birthday yesterday. We did a little day trip into the Quebec woods.

Kent: I think you've got to divide by something, multiply by 12, take an exponent in a logarithm.

Greg: Yeah, throw a moose in there or something.

Kent: Woohoo!

Greg: Tell her happy 25th.

Kent: Happy birthday, Mama Mint.

JP: Yep, only 28. And I surprised her with a FaceTime with my brother. So we had my brother, we had me, we had my mom, and then she opened her birthday card and in it, it said, surprise, we're going to Paris.

JP: So we surprised her with a Paris trip while we are in the UK, because my mom and I—

Greg: Is your mom going along or is it just you and your brother on the Paris trip?

JP: No, just my mom and me. So we're going to UK for Christmas and New Year's. That was always the plan. But there was an extra week and I had booked a Paris trip in that extra week without telling her.

JP: Now she's going to get to because she had mentioned, I would like to sip a coffee, eat a croissant, and look at the Eiffel Tower. And I said, you know, that's not in the UK.

Greg: And she speaks French too, right? Or no?

JP: A bit, a little bit. But I thought this was a good opportunity to go there. We're going to take the train that goes under the Channel.

JP: So it's just easy because you go from London to Paris, downtown to downtown. You don't have to do all the airport security and flying and everything. So that's exciting. That's the news from over here.

Greg: What a great gift for mom.

Kent: Yeah, you're going to have a great time. I love Paris.

JP: Yeah, I haven't been in about 10, maybe 10–15 years. So it's going to be a nice time to reacquaint myself with some of my favorites. But then also my mom gets to choose, because this is her probably one and only time she's going to get to see Paris.

JP: So what does she want to see? What does she want to do? Does she want to do a heist at the Louvre? I can make that happen.

Kent: Everyone's doing it.

Greg: Oceans 2.

JP: And Greg, what have you been up to over there in the sands? I have a feeling we're going to hear about this app. Tell us more.

Kent: Not just author now, but creator, tech creator. What are you up to?

Greg: Well, everybody's talking about AI all the time. So last year at Thanksgiving, I wrote my second book using AI as a guide, as a writing partner, a thought partner.

Greg: And then, of course, had somebody—who I won't name—JP Mint—who had to go through and edit again, because I did it in three days and posted it.

JP: Was it Sarah? I think Sarah was mentioned like 7,000 times in that book.

Greg: Okay, let's move on. Anyway, that was just an experiment. It's been a year since.

Greg: So this year I decided to use AI and build an app, because out of necessity I have 650 students. I think I mentioned this before. I have 650 students this year as a specialist in a week, and I can't remember their names.

Greg: So I came up with this app about how to remember and learn names for kids.

Greg: So I did that in about a week. I wrote the whole app with the aid of AI, which is like coaching and writing a lot of the code and helping test it out and all that stuff.

Greg: But that's a learning curve in itself, how to use ChatGPT and how to customize it and all that kind of thing. So then I branched off after I posted that.

Greg: And by the way, Kent, you can buy that on the store. It's like three bucks. It's less than a bus ticket.

Kent: Didn't I buy one of your books like five years ago? What do you think, I’m made of money here? But you know what, I will buy that app. I’m very excited for you.

Greg: I tell you what, it works. I use it every day, to tell you the truth. You can have your tech person give you a list of all your students and then put their pictures in.

Greg: But you could also just take a picture of a kid right then and there, put in their name, give them a number if you want, just because it has to have an identifiable number. You can just make one up.

Greg: And you can put the kid right in there on the first day without waiting for your school to give you updated pictures or anything like that.

Greg: Then you can learn the kids’ names, especially new students. Anyway, it’s a lot of fun. I use it every day myself and that’s why I made it. It’s not to make money.

JP: I was going to ask, have you learned a lot of the 650 names?

Greg: I have learned a lot of names, and the app actually keeps track. It gives you a scoreboard and tells you whether you’ve mastered that name and how often you get it right.

Greg: There are like five different games in there. You can match names, do a name sort, or choose a kid’s face out of a group with the correct name.

Greg: Anyway, I don’t need to talk about it anymore, but it is useful and I’m hoping it helps teachers.

Kent: I was going to say, some schools I’ve worked at, I still don’t know all the names of the teachers. So I think I could use it for that as well.

Greg: And funny you should mention that—

JP: School leaders could upload photos and names of staff members, teaching assistants, custodians, support staff.

JP: Some K–12 international schools have hundreds of staff members, so that could be really useful for heads of school.

Greg: And just so you guys know, I’ll put the link in the show, but it’s called “What’s That?” The full name is “What’s That Student’s Name?”

Greg: But I needed something short for the app store. When it’s on your phone, it just says “Student?”

Greg: The icon is a pink elephant with a little hat, because elephants remember things.

Kent: ITP crowd, it’s called What’s That. You can find it wherever you buy your apps.

Greg: Thank you, Kent. I love the way you do commercials. That’s an easy title to remember.

Greg: Give us an update, Kent.

JP: All right, Kent, we need an update.

Kent: Okay, my update is pretty simple. About 15 days a month right now, I’m substitute teaching.

Kent: It sounds like I’ve got 15 days off, but as a substitute teacher, it’s a lot of work. You’ve got to learn new schools constantly.

Kent: I’ve got a big school district here—16 elementary schools, four middle schools, four high schools. It’s not small.

Greg: Wow. That’s like three weeks out of the month.

Kent: Yeah, and you spend a lot of time just figuring things out. I went to a high school the other day and couldn’t even figure out how to get into the building.

Kent: These places have one entrance, you’ve got to ring the doorbell, wait, smile. It’s an adventure just getting inside.

Greg: And then you get in and they put you in a locker.

Kent: Pretty much.

Greg: And you were teaching elementary before. Now high school?

Kent: All of it. I’ve been doing PE, some weightlifting, different subjects.

Kent: I’ve got to tell you, I love it, but it’s a work in progress.

Kent: When you’re a classroom teacher, you don’t feel like every day is an audition. But as a substitute, every single day, you are on. You are constantly auditioning.

Greg: Constant audition.

Kent: Exactly. And I’m sure people listening who have done this know what that’s like.

Greg: So what’s the hardest thing? Give us the best and worst.

Kent: The biggest challenge is relationships. As a teacher, your power comes from relationships with students.

Kent: When you walk into a classroom as a substitute, it’s like the first day of school every single day.

Kent: You don’t know the students, you don’t know their background, and you have to try to build something quickly.

Kent: So recreating a classroom community every day is tough.

Kent: But I do like teaching in the morning. End of the day, maybe not as much.

Greg: That makes one of us.

JP: Ha.

Kent: And outside of that, Miss Cat and I have been doing some improv classes together, which has been fun.

Kent: I’ve also been commuting by e-bike. I’ve probably put about 600 miles on it going to different schools.

JP: Nice.

Kent: We haven’t hit freezing temperatures yet, but that’s coming soon.

Greg: Yeah, that’s coming for you.

JP: That e-bike commute sounds pretty good, though. That’s a nice way to get around.

Kent: It is. It’s been great. It’s one of those things where you actually look forward to the commute, which is not something I’ve said very often in my life.

Greg: Yeah, most people don’t say that.

JP: Especially in international teaching, where sometimes your commute is just like rolling out of bed and walking to the classroom.

Kent: Exactly.

Greg: So we’ve got JP traveling, Kent subbing and biking, and I’m building apps. It sounds like we’re all just kind of doing our own little thing right now.

JP: Yeah, it’s a bit of a different season for all of us.

Greg: But it’s interesting because it kind of ties into what we’ve been talking about with AI and how things are changing.

Greg: I mean, even just the idea that I could build an app in a week—that’s not something I would have even considered a couple of years ago.

Kent: Yeah, that’s wild.

JP: And I think that’s where a lot of teachers are right now. They’re hearing about AI, they’re seeing what it can do, but they’re not quite sure where they fit into it.

Greg: Right. There’s a bit of excitement and a bit of fear.

Kent: A lot of fear, I would say.

JP: Yeah, and I think that’s natural. Anytime there’s a big shift like this, people are going to feel that.

Greg: So maybe that’s something we should talk about more in future episodes—how teachers can actually use AI in practical ways.

Kent: Yeah, not just the theory, but what does it look like in a classroom?

JP: Exactly. Because right now it feels like a lot of people are either ignoring it or panicking about it.

Greg: Or banning it.

Kent: Yeah, that too.

JP: And that’s probably not going to be a long-term solution.

Greg: No, it’s not going away.

Kent: It’s like trying to ban the internet.

Greg: Exactly.

JP: So I think that’s something we can definitely come back to.

Greg: All right, before we wrap up, anything else you guys want to add?

Kent: Just that it’s good to be back. It really is.

JP: Yeah, it’s nice to have the three of us back on together.

Greg: It feels like old times.

Kent: It does.

Greg: All right, well, thanks everyone for tuning in. We appreciate you listening.

Greg: Make sure to check out the show notes for links to Greg’s app and anything else we’ve mentioned.

Greg: And we’ll see you next time.

Kent: I’m Kent the Cat Guy. You can find me in Room 303. We’ll keep the light on for you.

Greg: And I’m Greg the Single Guy. Don’t be angry, but when I leave, I’m going to leave Kent.

JP: And I’m JP Mint. Thanks for listening, everyone.

[End of transcript]