We’re on the line with Jere Chang, a Gifted Educational Teacher with over 25 years of experience, and we dive into what makes SPED so special, including:
Jere
I made the mistake of asking my second graders, what do you know about the solar system? And this girl, I was thinking, oh, God, she’s gonna totally be bored. And she basically just taught more, like I was on Google… What is Ganymede? You know, looking up all this stuff. And she’s only six years old and a lot of General Ed teachers or other students don’t necessarily celebrate their exceptionalities.
Chelsea
Today we’re chatting with Jere Chang on this episode of Teacher Teacher
Marcus
Hey, friends, and welcome to Teacher Teacher, a podcast for teachers by teachers. I’m Marcus Stein. And I used to teach.
Chelsea
And I’m Chelsea Metreyeon and I also used to teach. Every episode will be bringing new insights and info from educators and experts all around the world.
Marcus
Helping you unwind, unpack or simply understand what’s going on out there.
Chelsea
Well, I don’t know about you, Marcus, but I’m excited.
Marcus
Yeah, I’m excited, too. Let’s do it.
Marcus
Chelsea, I’ll tell you one thing that I know for sure made me a better teacher. And that’s my SPED students. You know, they always push me to try the lesson a different way. Try teaching it in a different pattern. And it benefited not only them, but the rest of the class, too. So kudos to the SPED kids for reminding me to step it up. Did your SPED kids ever help you or help you become stronger teaching the rest of the class?
Chelsea
Yeah, definitely. They always kind of shifted the lesson in a way that I didn’t think it would lead, and it kind of led to all of us learning something new on the good old Google machine. We’d look something up, and there you go. We all learned something new for the day, so. Yes, definitely.
Marcus
Yeah. And I think that’s what makes special education so special is because it does challenge what would be normally a just average day. So, yeah, today we’re chatting about the special of special education
Marcus
Before we jump in, I just want to shout out to Kami for producing this podcast, just like you. Kami wants to empower students to love learning in or out of the classroom. Kami can level up the way you teach. Give feedback and assess. Head to kamiapp.com to find out more. All right. Now let’s start the show.
Chelsea
Today we’re chatting with the fabulous Jere Chang. Jere is a gifted education teacher from Atlanta, Georgia. With over 25 years of experience, she has gained a huge following of educators on TikTok, where she shares her fun loving approach to teaching and life. We are so excited to have you here today, Jere. We are huge fans of yours here at Kami. And for any of the listeners out there who may know you, who you are and maybe those that don’t know who you are. Could you tell us a bit about yourself and what you’re all about?
Jere
Yeah, my name is Jere Chang, I teach gifted education at a public charter school in Atlanta, Georgia. I’ve been in education for a lot of years. I started out in university… I started out in university administration, so I’ve worked at the collegiate level. I’ve taught kindergarten through fifth grade, and I’ve taught high school just haven’t done middle school and dodge continuing to dodge that for a bit. And I’ve been doing gifted education solely for about seven or eight years.
Marcus
Awesome. Awesome. Well thanks!
Jere
Wow you’ve just been all the grade levels, and I love that you said dodging middle school, because last episode we talked to Likia Smith and she just got placed in a middle school class and she was like, Is this how it is always? So I love that you’ve dodged it.
Marcus
Yeah. What about most of my teaching career is middle school. So what does that say about me? Oh,
Jere
I… My mom was a middle schoolteacher. It takes a special [someone].
Marcus
They say it takes a special human to teach middle school, and I tend to think I’m a special human. So speaking of special, special education is the theme, the vibe, the energy, the topic of conversation today and for teachers who aren’t sure. You’re a gifted teacher. Yes.
Jere
Yes.
Marcus
And can you sort of share how gifted is and where it sits on the spectrum of special education?
Jere
Absolutely. And this varies by state. So for example, in Georgia, gifted education is under the umbrella of special education. A lot of people say gifted means smart and they give it the star. And the word can be problematic. We don’t even call it gifted at my school just because the word sometimes implies that other folks aren’t gifted. We know that’s not true, but gifted basically are students who excel in one or more areas and or the visual or performing arts. And that’s a key component because a lot of educators, parents, students, when they hear the word gifted, they’re like, oh, this person is so smart and everything and so motivated. And that’s not the case. It’s not uncommon for me to have a student who’s like super accelerated in math, but maybe, you know, has a learning disability in reading dyslexia or something like that. It’s not uncommon to have a twice-exceptional student. But my job, where I… in my district, they come to me one day a week. So for example, tomorrow I will have fifth graders and I’ll pull them out of different classes and they’ll spend the whole day with me. And then the next day I’ll have third graders. Now, this is different in different states, different districts. Some gifted teachers go into the classroom and co-teach with a teacher, but I’ll pull them out so they spend a day with me. That’s how it works, where I teach.
Marcus
I think what is common across gifted and all SPED is that accommodation. That you have to do something different, just like you would any other student with the SPED category and in your case, what you do different is pull them from their classes one day a week. Now, where you pull them one day a week, what else is different or special about that? One day a week?
Jere
If you ask my colleagues they’ll say “all she does is play chess all day.”
Marcus
I mean… Is it?
Jere
No, I have lesson plans. Okay. So basically, okay, if I’m in an interview, my standards are creativity, higher-level thinking skills problem-solving skills, logical thinking skills, research, communication, leadership. So what do we do? Now, my school is unique. We’re a STEAM school, meaning we put the arts back into STEM. But we’re also a project-based learning school, PBL, from here on out. And so we were also staunchly progressive: social justice, environmental issues. So we’ll take a look at real-world problems and either create projects and design. And so what I do in the gifted classroom is let’s say they’re learning about the moon, for example, in second grade, I’ll take them to the whole solar system we’ll study people… how do we increase diversity in the race to space? And study all kinds of folks that aren’t in the textbooks necessarily. And so I get to just. And that’s why I love it because I can create my own unit centered on a standard called creativity as opposed to standards that are what you’re going to teach multiplication facts. You’re going to teach, you know, about this person. I can choose all that and that’s… That’s why it’s a good fit for me and the kids as well.
Jere
Yeah. I was just going to say that opens the creativity for your students, but also for you as a teacher. You get to expand and learn with them and do different things. That’s really great. And what motivated you to get into gifted education originally? Because it kind of sounds like that’s what’s keeping you here because you get to be creative and do that with your students. But what originally led you there?
Jere
Exactly what you just said I’ve when I started out in university administration, did that for eight years. I got bored. So I got a master’s in applied linguistics because why not? And started teaching ESOL in high school, got bored. And you can see a theme here, started teaching kindergarten, got bored… changes to first grade and just kept getting bored because the standards are the same. The kids… It’s like, teach this… The curriculum would change. Little things would change but at the end of the day. It just kind of wash, rinse, repeat. And so gifted education I think I was like maybe 39, 40 years old, a position opened at my school, and I was like I want to do that. I had to spend a year to get certified and that’s why it just I love it because I can if I do get bored, I can change the projects, I can rewrite the units and just I don’t know, this kind of fits me if that makes sense and that kind of thinker and I just get it and yeah, it’s a good fit.
Marcus
I have to. So I have a question prepared. I’m just going to show you my hand right now I had a question prepared where I was going to ask you about what makes it so special. You know, to be a SPED teacher. Like, what’s that… that spark, that difference that drew you to it? And, you know, the same value that you just pointed out is what I loved about my SPED students is that they woke me up in a lesson that was once scripted a certain way. You know, like when I’ve coming to school and I’m like, here we go. So that’s a read these stories again. Do we want to do these graphic organizers? But like, the SPED students will wake you up because you have to accommodate. There’s something you have to change or remix. And the same vibe came to me regardless of what the accommodation was. I just it’s funny that I really had that question written and you beat me to it because like, that was my thing. It woke me up you just so happened to really lean into it. You was like, I want this all day. I want this all.
Jere
I mean, these kids are amazing. I mean, here’s an example. I’m trying to figure how to make a video out of this. This is the girl in fifth grade. She is in fifth grade. When she was in second grade, I mentioned the solar system earlier. You know how you do the [inaudible] charts. Well, what do you know? What do you want to know? What is Okay… blah blah we all do it. You know, so I made the mistake of asking my second graders, what do you know about the solar system? And this girl like taught for a good 15 minutes. And and so I was thinking, oh gosh, she’s going to tell the bored I was like, you’re going to be bored today, but give me next week, I’ll be better. And she basically just taught more. I was on Google, like, what is Ganymede? You know, looking at all this stuff, she’s six years old. And they’re just there. And not only that, they get to be in a space. And parents come to me all the time. They’re all, Ms Chang… They love you. It’s their favorite day of the week. It’s not all me. They get to be together in that space. And a lot of General Ed teachers or other students don’t necessarily celebrate their exceptionalities. In our classroom we do. I mean, we’re learning about indigenous folks. It’s Indigenous Peoples Month in the US and we’re going to watch a video. And in the video they said Native American. One of my third grade boys says: No no no Ms Chang, stop the video. We’re not supposed to say Native American anymore. We’re supposed to say indigenous and I was like, Yes, boom, stop the video. Let’s talk about it. And the kids are how are we supposed to know? What do we do? Do we just go ask everybody? I was like, no, don’t run up to everybody who you think might be indigenous and say what do I call you. But we had this conversation and these kids are eight years old having these conversations and it’s like, Wow, I can’t have these conversations at this level with adults
Marcus
This is all very triggering for me. So fun fact, I’m a gifted kid and everything you’re mentioning is like a trigger to this lesson that we did on rocks. You know, in science, you know, you do the rocks and the igneous, the metal. Everybody does a little lesson in elementary school. Well, my gifted teacher let me dove down the rabbit hole, just like you did on the space girl. And by the end of it, we did a rock concert where I decorated rocks… I decorated rocks, and I made it so terrarium with a disco ball out of aluminum foil and my rocks performed metamorphic. It was a remix to the song Venus. ♪ I’m Your Venus… I’m Your Fire… Metamorphic. ♪ Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm.
Jere
What you’re saying right now? When you said, why do I do? What grade was that for you?
Marcus
Oh, wow. That had to be like second grade… third grade.
Jere
Second grade. And you’re talking about it as a grown man. You’re not sitting there saying, Gah, you know, but that teacher had really good lesson plans, or he didn’t really and that observation was really awesome. You started talking about that… And again, that teacher probably didn’t plan on you writing a rock concert with rocks but celebrate when you wanted to do that? That’s… I love gifted kids now. Now I’m gonna have all my students do a rock concert.
Marcus
We can keep it going. We can also talk about the puppet show we did one time about shadow puppets because we started noticing our shadows and so then the teacher gave us books on how to make shadow puppets. And so we learned how to make like 25 different shadow puppets. And we hung up a sheet and invited our parents and did a puppet show with Shadow Puppets
Jere
That’s cute.
Marcus
I’ll tell you to give the teachers, they’ll let you dive down the rabbit hole. Maybe that’s… Is that the accommodation is that is that on their… in their folder? Just let them run.
Jere
I mean, sometimes it is, you know, let them do that genius hour. That independent learning. When teachers come to me all the time and they say, What can I do? How can I challenge I’m let ’em run. Yeah, especially now with access to technology. It’s so easy. The hardest part for me now with easy access to technology is showing my students, you know, we’re studying different. You know, things. I’ll say Nashville, Tennessee, I just made that up. I would learn about Nashville, and we’d Google, Nashville, and like 1.8 billion hits will come up. How do you decide what website to read, how to navigate all that access to information? So it’s kind of training them how to… You have this big brain, you want to learn about the history of rocks, which you put that in Google and it’s just daunting. So how can you navigate all that?
Jere
And it’s awesome for them to start that at a young age too, to kind of take I guess Marcus loved rocks, so he took that idea and learned more about rocks along the way. And teachers like you that are teaching them how to go through all that information is really awesome. What would you say is one of the biggest things you’ve learned along the way as a gifted teacher over the years?
Jere
Uh, this answer is going to sound so cliche, but it’s building relationships. People ask me time and time again, like what’s the number one thing you can do? And this is like any teacher, in my opinion, is just building those relationships before you have any kind of like classroom management, anything learning getting to know their stu- getting to know your students. And I’ll take class time to share. I’m really careful to say you don’t have to share about your weekend because some students become like a one upper. Yeah, I went to Disneyland.
Marcus
Oh girl. There they go,
Jere
Yeah, and I get it. They want to celebrate their successes with me, but all those, our kids are pretty diverse economically, culturally, socially, everything that all kids don’t have those privileges, if you will. To go to, you know, these different places. So I said, Tell me about a book you’re reading. Tell me, you know, a show. You’re watching anything. You know, let’s talk about those things. And just build those relationships. And that’s the stuff the kids are going to remember that you’re into space and it… so much so take ten, 15 minutes of your day just like chatting and then the learning is so much easier in my opinion. Their guards come down, your guard comes down. So if there is a situation that’s problematic, it’s easy to… not always easy, it’s easier to navigate.
Jere
And if I think back in my years of being a student, the teachers that do stand out are those ones that created that more personable relationship. It’s not the fact that I remember my fifth grade teacher because of what we learned in fifth grade. It’s just how she was she. She treated us like humans.
Marcus
Relationships are so pivotal because to me personally, they even the playing field, you know, if you as a teacher are seeking to know each kid, you know, that’s the one thing they all will have in common. I don’t care if you’re SPED or not. I know you like I know you. I’m trying to know you. I’m trying to know more about you. I’m trying to build a relationship with you so that, you know, when the moments come up where it’s it’s obvious that your learning is a little different from everybody else’s is fine. I know you. That’s fine.
Jere
Right.
Marcus
I know you. I like that universal advice. It also is just a fun reminder to teachers, especially a lot of teachers who teach in inclusion. You know, when you’re SPED, students are included in the general population, like, just keep it: Even Steven. Know everybody, seek to know everybody. And I like your advice again about, like, not asking necessarily how’s your day and how you’re… how you’re feeling, but giving them something to discuss that’s like an even playing field. Let’s all share. Let’s all talk about a movie. Let’s all talk about Squid Game… not Squid Game, but hopefully those lil’ kids don’t…
Jere
No! Listen… I was in fourth grade and we were sharing this girl’s like… I’ve been watching Squid Game and I was just kind of like… And of course, half the kids like clutch the pearls and I was like, Whoa, wait a minute, y’all. We’re not going to judge anybody for what their family will or will not allow them to watch however we can’t discuss Squid Game in a fourth-grade class.
Jere
No, it’s a no y’all. It’s…
Jere
Yeah, because it’s not my place to tell your family what they censor and what they don’t. however. I can’t have all these kids going home. Ms Chang told us all about Squid Game,
Marcus
And now we play red light, green light every day at recess! No.
Jere
Actually, I follow a teacher um… PE with Ms Ali. She’s a PE teacher in Chicago, and she actually made it Tiktok like, have you ever noticed the uptick in the interest of Red Light, Green Light in Elementary School? They all want to play it now.
Marcus
Good, good move. Diverting that conversation. That is one rabbit hole you don’t want to dive down is a Squid Game with a fourth grader. Good move. All right, Jerry, I got this next one. I got this next one. So we all know that basically every teacher is a superhero. We work magic every day, but SPED teachers require, you know, some kind of je ne sais quoi, some extra super power. So what is it that you think a SPED teacher requires? That’s maybe that little extra that’s a general ed teacher may not require?
Jere
Patience.
Marcus
Ooh!
Jere
That was the first word that came into my head.
Marcus
S.. Say it again!
Jere
I mean, I tell the whole time you were talking, I was like patience, patience, patience that I just had to deliver it. For real patience is number one. And two, for… And this doesn’t come naturally for all teachers. And I get that. But a sense of humor for me goes a long way. And then a third thing is… Understanding that my students are smarter than me and being okay with that. A lot of teachers get really offended when students correct them. And I tell my students all the time, look, y’all, a lot of y’all have higher IQs in me, but I have 40 years if we’re running a race, I’ve been running this for like 40 more years than you. So I have a huge head start to acquire information when you come back to me and you’re in college or whatever you’re doing, you’ll be running circles… No, not all. But some of them will be running circles around me and I’ll be teaching sometimes with my fifth graders and say Ms Chang, I did the math problem like this, then I’m kind of like confused. And I said, Well, why did you come to the board and share with the class? Because I don’t know what you’re talking about. Or I’ll text my wife, who’s highly gifted in math. And I’ll say hey, help me understand what’s going on here? I’m trying to look good in class. So this is those things, patience, having a good sense of humor and totally being okay with students just being smarter and letting you know that sometimes their delivery, they don’t intend to be like, you’re an idiot, you know, but they’ll deliver in a way like Ms Chang… That’s, you know, that’s wrong. And the first couple of times like excuse me. But then you realize this is to them, like, again, the space girl. I’ll refer to her. She and I used to role-play after the kids would go to recess and I’d keep her in for like one minute and her mom per her mom’s request. And we would just role play. And I would say things that were seemingly like, you know, two plus two is five. And she would practice and she would go, well, actually Ms Chang two plus two is four. Because she would start talking to the other students. Like, really? You think that? And sometimes they’ll need practice. That was a long answer to a simple question.
Jere
Patience. I think you would just like teaching the lesson back for us, for us to be patient while you look out that long drawn out answer.
Jere
Oh my god, I was just rambling Oh, my goodness.
Jere
No, I actually love your three like tips. Like I love how you synthesize that and that that to me does give every spare teacher. I know that extra edge, like I’ve always noticed the bad teachers, they be chillin like… School alarm going off kids running off fire drill might be a fight down the hall… SPED teacher walkin. they are walkin’… snakin’ and the kids like all with them too so it’s not like the kids are not the ones wild ‘n out like they’re just literally like this is happening. Hello. Hi everyone. Mhm. Yep.
Jere
I took my kids on a field trip. We had a place called Stone Mountain. It’s not a mountain. It’s a big stone, but it’s mountain. It’s like a mile high, this big attraction here near Atlanta, and each teacher had about six or seven kids we were chaperoning and we had paid for a package. Like to see the site, to see the site, to see the site… Well, so I take my group into this huge playground. I mean, all kinds of cool stuff and nobody’s in there except for the woman workin. [I say] Hey, what’s going on here? She sees our wristbands. She says Oh, no, ya’ll didn’t pay for this. It’s not part of your package. I talked to that lady into letting me and our kids in there and we and we go over there and we have a blast we get back on the bus. And you would have thought those kids won the Super Bowl. Ms Chang talked her way in there. She got us in there for free. And the other teachers were mad. [They were saying] it’s not fair. This kid said ya’ll could have done it too.
Jere
I mean, they were with me. We were with them. We were vibing. It was great.
Jere
I mean, I’m just I’m just a quirky, different kind of teacher, too. For example, today was dressed to impress day in my school, it’s Homecoming Week, dressed to impress. Well, that to me can be problematic for a lot of families, for a lot of students, not just economically, but students with sensory issues, students who maybe don’t want… introverted students so I’m sort of thinking… actually I made a TikTok about it. So the night before, I’m holding up like all these dresses. Do I wear this dress? Do I wear this dress I want to impress, you know, what I wore today to school, an inflatable unicorn.
Jere
That’s impressive.
Jere
That is impressive.
Jere
The thing is eight feet tall, and so I stood at the front of the school so all those kids can see why it’s okay to be weird. It’s okay to be different. You don’t… If you’re not fitting in today and you don’t have the perfect suit. If you’re a boy in the perfect dress. If you’re a girl, look at Ms Chang because she just had his own and all the weirdness, and that’s okay. And the kids loved it.
Jere
I would I would just look at that. I would be like, why didn’t I think of that? Why didn’t I think to wear my inflatable unicorn costume? That is impressive. Ms Chang Does it every time. Every time,
Jere
and tomorrow’s Tacky Day. So I got to…
Jere
First of all, I hate Tacky Day because I don’t think anything’s tacky. It’s just fashion. I don’t really believe in tacky. Like, I like
Jere
I agree.
Jere
I like everything. Put it all on!
Jere
I will. It’ll all be there.
Jere
We will be looking for it on all of your social. Speaking of socials. If ya’ll do not follow Jere Chang. You are late to the game. Like you know what… Now’s a good time to look up Jere Chang on Insta, but especially TikTok because I be laughing at my favorite, my favorite is the Googly Eyes. The Googly Eyes Saga. It just goes on and on and on. So my question is about the googly eyes what is the deal with them? Why are there googly eyes everywhere on your social media? Tell us the story.
Jere
Oh, okay. So and I got to tell this carefully without telling too much information about a child, but he identifies as SPED, not in my class. Kindergartner. So I had a couple of googly eyes on my door. Nothing, nothing big at all. And he, having some sensory developmental concerns, took a liking to my door, and he started stealing them. If you will. And instead of getting mad, instead of getting upset with him, his teacher comes to me and she’s all kind of nervous. She’s like, hey, he’s and she tells me what he’s dealing with, which I can’t repeat because, you know, he’s a child. I don’t want to share too much information. She tells me about the child was stealing and I was like, Oh, I got this. So instead of getting upset with him, I covered my door in googly eyes and I said, bring him. He can rip them off. He can steal them, I even gave him one, but he started to eat it. That didn’t work out well. And so. Right. And so then he came into my classroom one day and he and I have a disco ball and LED lights, and he was super, super excited. And I was right in the middle of class and the teacher. He has a one on one and she’s chasing him and is sayin’ I’m so sorry and I’m like come on, come in, let him in. And so my students, I had fourth graders at a time. They’re kinda like what’s going on? What’s going on? So they are they laugh funnily And I had an opportunity to tell my class and said, okay, you know how you are in here and you’ll learn differently? And I kind of explain him and how he learns. And I say so he may come in here and it became this beautiful thing. He would come in and have different classes every day. So we all learned about him and they would talk to him. One time one of my students had the same pair of shoes and he’s like look we had the same shoes. It was just beautiful, organically this all. And TikTok fans started sending me googly eyes because I became known as a googly eyes, I mean, glasses as I put googly eyes over the classroom because this kid… People really love the fact that instead of say, getting mad and then some of the hate comments people you need to spank him you need and I’m like, no, I don’t.
Jere
…He’s five for one thing and he’s a pandemic kid. I can say that. So these pandemic kids, you know, they hit a little different. So let’s work with him. And like being mean to him and doing that… None of it’s going to work. And he hasn’t stolen one now in about a month and almost upset with him. And I’m like, dude you need to steal some more eyes I’ve got some more TikToks to make.
Jere
Did you get bored? We need to change the color of the eyes? And do we?
Jere
Yeah. And what people don’t realize is if I had challenged him, if I had gotten upset with him and made it this heated thing, then he probably would have been more enticed. But since we embraced it, you know, he’s like… he had some fun with it and you know, so that’s kind of how it happened. And that’s why people really took a liking to us, because people’s expectations were that I would get upset as opposed to trying to help the kid grow and develop. You know.
Jere
That all goes back to your advice. Just be patient and have a sense of humor. Like relax, relax. I mean, it’s… it’s a googly eye girl. Now we go call the cops on a five year old because he’s stealin’ googly eyes.
Jere
Right. And people are he’s still in? It’s like not really stealing. I mean, really, if at the end of the day, the worst thing this kid does is take a plastic eye off my door? And the door is so jacked up now, it’s like now I think of first graders after my eyes. So that’s how it happened.
Jere
What a great story. Thank you. Thank you. I’ve been dying to know what’s the deal with the googly eyes. And I love that. Like, it all goes back to you just being a really good educator. If you’re just in tune, you’re with it and you build those relationships with these kids like you really do put that first. And I think that’s something all of us could could do a little better, especially with these COVID kids they are a little different.
Jere
And I, I need to go back and see the googly I think is I saw your most recent ones about your school lunches with your wife and how she forgot to give you a fork. So then she gave you chopsticks and you were like, well, look at me now. So that made me laugh really hard. So I need to go back and look at the googly eye one. And Jerry, it’s been so amazing chatting with you today. We do have one last question before you go. And that is, what advice would you give any teachers thinking about getting into SPED or gifted education?
Jere
Huh, some of the stuff we hit on just that patience, building relationships goes a long way and then just celebrating… just the kids how they think differently, how they operate differently and knowing that’s okay and just jumping right in there with them. But it all to me centers on building relationships with your students and just celebrating their exceptionalities. Just, I think was basically it.
Jere
So I been staring at this hoodies. It’s one of my favorite colors. I think it’s kind of close to my office color. I have no idea what a Gufish is. But I would love you to tell me. Spill.
Jere
Okay. I’m glad you asked this. This is actually my merch. So the way this again happened organically, I had ordered some inspirational quotes from my class and like a lot of teachers do and I found one from years ago. And when I opened it, it was four separate packages. The first one said Awesome. And each letter was a different ‘A’, ‘W’, ‘E’, like that. And then it said ‘Start’. That was another word, and ‘Here’ was another word. And I could not figure out what that second word was supposed to be. I mean, I was literally drum up planning on the floor. Awesome Blank Start Here. I’m rearranging all the letters and I have it arranged as Gufish and I’m on the floor and I go to my neighbor teacher: Paxton get over here! Like, can you help me figure out what this is supposed to say? No Chang, I can’t help you So this third grade teacher walks on by… Like, Hey, get in here. Can you help us figure out what this word is supposed to say? I know it’s not Gufish. It’s not even a word. And she says, Chang, it’s supposed to say ‘Things’. Awesome Things Start Here. So this ‘F’ is really upside down ‘T’ and the ‘U’ is really an ‘N’, so it’s T H I N G S. Awesome Things Start Here, so I’m made a TikTok about it. Tiktok blew up and of course, somebody said, you need to keep it Gufish so I did. I made a poster in my classroom. It’s huge. Awesome Gufish Start Here. And then I did that same activity with my students. I had them try to figure it out. It was amazing. I actually had a video go viral. A fifth grader solved it, and then the second week of school, I had my students define if Awesome Gufish Starts in this classroom. What does that mean to you? Is it something funny? Is it something you know, I didn’t say positive because I’m not you know, I don’t want to force, like, positive thoughts, you know, toxic positivity on everybody. But I said it has to build you up. So, like, if you wanted to be funny, if you wanted to be inspirational or whatever that means, and they defined it and illustrated it and I made a whole big wall of that. So I made merch and now we call it the Gufish Chang.
Jere
I’m just Googlin’ it right now. I’m trying to find my right now where can I get mine? Where?
Jere
Ok, I mean, again, you know, we’re not there yet. I’m hoping to be one day. Right now, it’s just linked my bios on my Insta and TikTok.
Jere
Ooh! OMG! I am freaking out on the merch. Oh, and it’s cold. It’s cold. That’s what I don’t know. The temperatures drop in. Not in New Zealand, but here.
Jere
I made a TikTok about being a gay educator, meaning that I have a wife. And that was problematic for some people and I just put the little flag I said, I’m a little rainbow flag teacher, meaning that I have a wife. And so many people obviously got on a bad side of so many people thought that I was teaching like gayness to elementary school. And so I had to do a response. And I’m always kind in my responses. You know, they’re coming at me hatefully and I was like, I think some of y’all took this as I am gifted at being gay. But in fact, I am a gay teacher who teaches gifted education. So somebody sent me the idea. She actually sent me the logo. She’s like, You got to make sure it’s says gifted at being gay, so I did.
Jere
Oh, what an awesome time. What an awesome time having you here, Jerry. And awesome of you reminding us just how special SPED really is. Thank you. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.
Jere
And I really appreciated you reminding us to not be afraid to show up weird you showed up today in a unicorn costume and don’t be afraid to do that. So I love that so much. So thank you.
Jere
Thanks for having me. I really appreciate you letting me share my story. And my experiences with you. Thanks!
Jere
You know, friends, it is no wonder she’s so popular that Jere Chang, in fact, if you’re not following her yet. I am. We are. Check her out on TikTok and Instagram. She is @mschanggifted. I promise you, the things you learned today are just the tip of the iceberg about Jere Chang. So make sure you go check out friends. It’s time for us to go. Womp, womp. But we’ll be back. Thanks to our fabulous guest it’s been awesome chatting with you today.
Marcus
Friends, it’s time for us to go. Oh, womp, womp. But we’ll be back.
Chelsea
Thanks to our fabulous guest. It’s been awesome chatting with you today.
Marcus
Everybody out there. Listen, we want to hear your thoughts on this episode. You can catch us on the social medias as @kamiapp
Chelsea
and make sure you use #teacherteacher.
Marcus
And if you need the show notes, the transcript or other resources, we got you head over to our website kamiapp.com/podcast for all of the podcast Goodness.
Chelsea
Teacher Teacher was brought to you by Kami, an Interactive Learning Platform with intuitive tools to not only help you reimagine lessons, assignments and feedback, but to help your students love learning.
Marcus
This episode was hosted by my girl, Chelsea, Metreyeon and yours truly. Marcus Stein.
Chelsea
Catch you next time.
Marcus
See ya friends!
