The Extraordinary Educators Podcast
Best practices, tips, and stories to help you be extraordinary in your classroom and beyond, featuring Curriculum Associates' Director of the Educator Community Sari Laberis.
The Extraordinary Educators Podcast
Transforming Literacy and Empowering Educators with Renea Arias
Renea Arias transformed her daughter's literacy struggles into a groundbreaking educational journey, and you won't want to miss the insights she shares with us. From her successful career as a research scientist to becoming a passionate advocate for literacy, Renae's story is nothing short of inspiring. She unveils her systematic approach to literacy that not only changed her daughter's academic fate, leading her to thrive in college, but also supported her son's success. Through Renea's lens, literacy emerges as a powerful tool for unlocking children's potential, and her journey emphasizes it as one of the greatest gifts a parent can offer.
In this episode, Renea also shares heartfelt and practical advice for new teachers, whether they're fresh out of college or transitioning from other careers. She stresses the importance of focusing on student happiness and well-being, essential elements for creating a positive and nurturing educational environment. By staying true to yourself and striving for excellence, you can enjoy a fulfilling teaching journey that benefits both you and your students.
Read Renea's blog: CurriculumAssociates.com/blog/teaching-second-career
Follow us on Twitter: @CurriculumAssoc
Follow us on Instagram: @MyiReady
Have feedback, questions, or want to be a guest? Email ExtraordinaryEducators@cainc.com to connect with us!
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Extraordinary Educators podcast. I'm Sari and this week I am joined by one of our incredible Extraordinary Educators, renee Arias. And Renee has a really fascinating story about how she got into teaching. You will hear from her about what she saw in her own children, how this inspired her to get into the field and what she's learned along the way. I hope you feel as re-energized and reinvigorated as I did after I spoke with her or her. Enthusiasm and passion is just contagious in her voice and everything she talks about. So here's my conversation with Renee. Welcome, renee. It is so great to have you on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Sari. It's so awesome to be here with you. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Of course, it's our pleasure, so let's dive right in. You have a really fascinating story about how you got into teaching and, for those listening, renee wrote a blog about this that we'll link in the show notes. But I would love for you to tell our listeners about your previous career and kind of what sparked the change for you to enter education.
Speaker 2:Yes, so previously I worked as a research scientist for a university in North Carolina and then transitioned into the private sector as a lead laboratory analyst for a major pharma company. So very different from education. I truly enjoyed it. It was very impactful being a research scientist. There's a lot of newness and you're able to view long-term right how this will impact. I specifically worked on cancerous cells and so that was very impactful.
Speaker 2:But I had some major family needs. I had some major major family needs and those needs centered around my children, specifically my daughter. She enjoyed school. She her struggle continued, she had greater deficit and, although we were trying numerous things, we got her tested for different things. We spoke to her teachers continually, who were fabulous, by the way. She attended a wonderful school. The educators were veterans, they were fabulous, they were very caring, very methodical, but they weren't overly concerned because they said, well, children develop at different rates, give it time, but we're a little worried. So we decided that maybe we need to take a more active role as a parent. And it became very interesting to me because what I noticed while I was working in the lab that there's specific things that my cells need in order to live, in order to grow and I thought about oh, there must be very specific things that a child needs to grow in literacy, to learn. And so I took that how I performed and worked in my previous career and applied it to my daughter and very fortunately it worked.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing all that. It's incredible that you know you were in a completely different field, noticed the need for your daughter, did the research and then somehow made this really insightful connection between work in the lab and what those things need to grow and what your daughter needed to grow. What were some of the things that you learned that were either eye-opening or things you didn't expect when you were figuring out how to support your daughter through her literacy journey?
Speaker 2:It was extremely eye-opening.
Speaker 2:There was, I guess for lack of a better word a formula that you needed to follow that would allow children to be independent, strong readers, that there are steps, there is a process.
Speaker 2:I went back to school to gain my master's in education, specifically elementary, because I really needed to know about the little's mind right, because she was still very young at this point. She was ending her first grade year and it was becoming very apparent that our deficits were getting greater and greater, and so I did not have the skill set on my own. So what I learned in going back to school is the mind functions in a very specific and predictable way for the vast majority of people 95% of people and as my child did not have any indicators of learning disabilities, through the testing that she engaged in, it told me that she in fact, was among the 95% that could read if I followed a specific pattern, if I followed the process. So for me, learning the process just as I had to learn the process to take care of myself in lab that was key, and what I found is that it was universal. So these tools not only helped my daughter, but they're the exact same tools that I use in my everyday teaching. It just works. It just works.
Speaker 1:Yes, it does. How is your daughter doing now?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm so proud of her. She's doing amazing. She's in her first year of college. She graduated from high school magna cum laude. I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled for her. Becoming literate really just changed her whole trajectory. Really just changed her whole trajectory and I never imagined that we would go from crying at the thought of sight words and bawling when you open a picture book in elementary school to her thriving, enjoying education. Her major is business education and she is loving it. She is so confident and it's been a blessing Of all the things that you give your children, helping them to become literate. Your children, helping them to become literate, helping them to become academically successful, is the greatest gift that you can give or help your children to receive. It has lifelong implications that are just phenomenal.
Speaker 1:So so true, and congratulations to you and your daughter. That's incredible to hear about how far she's come and that she's really thriving and, most importantly, confident and happy in a school environment, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. It's been, it's been a real blessing. It changed my life. It changed, I mean really and truly. It changed my entire family's life. I pulled my son out of pre-K and I started teaching him using the same knowledge that I learned, and he never experienced any struggles. He is currently in 10th grade. He is gifted, he's doing dual enrollment dual enrollment and so I've really learned that there is no sacrifice too great to give your children the best shot at life. And, being proficient, strong readers, give them the best shot at life because they apply it to everything to math to science, to their out, and about driving that it's, it's vital, it's vital.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing that and your story, and I hope you are so proud of yourself, along with your children, of course but it really takes a lot to decide that you want to switch paths and start something new and then actually do the work to learn it and then teach it to other people. So that's it's. It's incredibly inspirational.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate, I appreciate that commendation and I would do it over and over again, a thousand times, a thousand times. It's been wonderful to see them blossom. It's been wonderful to see all the children that I've helped to teach blossom and grow and just love, love reading, love the confidence that they gain and just change their lives, change their life.
Speaker 1:Do you have any advice, before we close out, for folks that are newer to teaching? Maybe they just graduated or maybe they, like you, are switching careers.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, definitely, the best thing that you can do is embrace it. Embrace that there are specific things that you need to do to make sure that your children are happy, that they are academically successful, that they are cared for, and when you have those things in your forefront ahead of you, you will not only love being a teacher, but your students, your learning right there are new things always coming out to help us grow professionally and to be able to weigh in and measure those against solid things that you know work, ah, you will just. You will just glow and grow, and all those affiliated with you will do the same grow and all those affiliated with you will do the same.
Speaker 1:It is so true. Thank you so much for that hearting advice, renee, thank you so much for being here and sharing your personal story with us, along with your expertise and everything else. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Get inspired by following us on social media and please tag us in your posts on X at Curriculum Asoche and on Instagram at my Eye, ready. If you have feedback about the podcast, a topic of interest or if you want to be a guest email extraordinaryeducators at cainccom. Please subscribe where you listen to podcasts and if you'd like to help more educators, just like you, join the conversation and please leave a review. Remember, be you, be true, be extraordinary. The Extraordinary Educators podcast is produced by Curriculum Associates, editing by Shane Lowe, social media by Atsiti Hanan, guest booking by Sari LaBarris and production by Haley Browning. This podcast is copyrighted materials and intellectual property of Curriculum Associates.