#237, How to Build All-Star Teachers ft. Kori Hockett

You know, I think one of the privileges as a chief academic officer that I have is to really get to work on the academic experience, the educational experience that students have when they come to Wheaton Academy.

And so that is holistic in that.

at a Christian school, we believe that, you know, that plays out in so many different areas, but specifically the privilege, get the privilege of working with our teachers, helping our teachers grow and develop, spend a lot of time in classrooms and all that goes to having an incredible faculty and staff and then curriculum.

you know, professional development, all of the things that when you think of or talk about school should really be the foundational elements, you know, the bedrock of what a student experience is, that hopefully is the mechanism for them to grow and change and discover their gifts and become people who love learning and see the way that learning really reveals so much more of who God is, that we want to have kids be people who are pursuing truth and who are pursuing goodness and that become agents to do that in the world.

And so I get to shape the environment where they train to do that.

I love this.

And so when we talk about this, we're talking about specifically when your chief academic officer working with the staffing, this is not student, it's not student focused student, like one-on-one with student.

It's talking about with the actual teachers themselves.

Exactly.

And I get to hang out with students in the classroom and still obviously participate in and part of our student life.

But really the focus is what are, what are we delivering? What's the mechanism we're going to use to, to achieve what we want to see happen in kids and for us we want to see kids grow as followers of christ and that we would fall short if the only place that was happening was in bible class or chapel that should be happening everywhere right we want kids to think about the world from a biblical perspective that should be in every single one of their classes because While we certainly want pastors and people in ministry to leave from here, we want people to go out from here and be scientists, be doctors, be astronauts, be engineers, be senators, be teachers.

And so all of those things to do them well means that you are excellent not only in what you've studied, but the way you look at it would be distinctively biblical and distinctively focused on who Jesus Christ is.

And then, you know, as we think about kids discovering their gifts, everybody automatically goes to after school activities.

And it's like, sure, some of those, but a lot of where kids are gifted is what they're learning about in the classroom and crafting a curriculum that isn't just rote or isn't just basic, but giving them the opportunity to study business during the school day or to study music or to study theater or to study robotics and engineering or to study math.

video production or to study podcasting, right? And so those curricular elements open the door for them to discover who God's created them to be.

And then also for us to equip them with the skills and things that they need to know to go beyond high school and to be people that contribute to our society and our culture, but more importantly, build God's kingdom in it.

I love this.

So with all of that, cause it touches a lot.

We're talking about teacher growth and you're trying to help them achieve that.

Obviously there could, we could go in so many different angles with this when it comes to the teacher.

If you're looking at a teacher going, I mean, how do we grow them? Like, Hey, let's make sure their health is good.

You know, let's make sure that they are, they're knowing what to, how to teach history properly or that they can relate that to the Bible.

Like, how do you figure out which one to even focus on? Cause you're talking about, I mean, I'd love to share too, like how many staff you guys have to like, how focused can you, how deep and how specific can you really get and how do you pick which one to focus on? So what does that kind of look like for you and how you're helping the staff?

Yeah, that's a great question.

And I think it starts with a premise that teachers are your most valuable asset.