“I can lesson plan all day but if I get to the classroom and it’s not working with the students, I have to be flexible and adjust.”
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Why Listen:
Often on interviews my guests talk about how - after they leave the military - they struggle to find a purpose, mission, or calling like they had in the military. One of the things i love about my guest today, Daris, is that his time since the military has been spent addressing a new purpose. I haven’t had anyone on the show before to talk about the education space. Daris has spent time as a teacher, leading a classroom of four year olds. He talks about how this is one of the best and most challenging job he ever had, and how it taught him resilience, leadership, and perseverance. He has continued in education, now as a full time doctoral student at Penn’s Graduate School of Education. He talks about meeting two different US Presidents, all in one crazy day, and more.
About Daris:
Daris McInnis is full time doctoral student at Penn GSE (Graduate School of Education) and a summer learning curriculum specialist at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Prior to Penn, Daris served as an early childhood teacher in Washington, D.C., an Education Pioneer in New Orleans, LA, and five years on active duty as an Ordnance Logistics Officer in the United States Army.
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Selected Resources:
Info about Daris
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Transcript & Time Stamps:
1:57
Joining me today from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is Daris McInnis. Is there anything else about you not covered in your biography that you’d like us to know?
2:54
I grew up in Flint, Michigan, originally, and then my father joined the Army. And so I ended up moving around the country and kind of growing up everywhere before settling in Texas, and then joining the military myself.
3:15
What was your transition out of the Army like?
3:34
Originally the plan was to do what so many of us do as junior officers to go into middle management. I had a few prospects with some jobs around the DC area. I had visited DC a few times and I said ‘Wow this is where I want to be’. But at the time, I was volunteering with some schools in Virginia with my unit and seeing some of the issues happening in those schools. The schools were losing accreditation and their attendance rates were really really low.
It was coming to the end of my contract. I started to think I had a different calling. I looked up Troops to Teachers and I was browsing through some of the things that they offered and the assistance that they provided for veterans. That’s when I decided to pursue teaching.
I was nervous about telling my Commanding Officer. At the same time I was getting out, there was a really big wave of us junior officers who left from the unit and went to work for Honeywell. When I told my CO that I wanted to get out and I wanted to transition, he assumed that I wanted to go into middle management too. And then I told him that I actually wanted to become a teacher. I didn't know that it would be teaching but I knew that I wanted to work in education. My CO was very supportive of me. He encouraged me to read as much as I could on teaching and education in general. Soon after that, I found the Pioneers Program.
7:00
What would you say to people who might think that military veterans wouldn’t make very good teachers?
7:18
There was a steep learning curve for me. I entered the Pioneers Program before going to teaching. And I think that really made the transition easier for me.
I do think that veterans we get a bad rap for not being people who are nurturing, empathetic, and understanding. Teaching absolutely requires those things. I believe that you can be successful in this transition by being understanding, thinking about why you're doing it, making sure you really want to be in education. Regardless of what field you choose to go into after the military, really knowing your “why” for wanting to pursue that field is important.
Many skills you learned in the military are highly adaptable to the classroom. Teachers need to be gritty, adaptable, and selfless. We all gained those skills while serving in the military.
9:27
Can you talk more about the Education Pioneers program?
The Education Pioneers program is for people that want to transition into the teaching field.
The training was very much so thinking about how to take your skill that you already have and put those to use in education. So whether that's in curriculum support, or if you're designing professional development for teachers, or if you're working in operations in schools. There are many different jobs in the education field.
11:10
When did you first think about teaching as a career?
I volunteered at Paul Habans Charter School, which is under the Crescent City School Network in New Orleans. During the summer, parents came to register their kids for school. I would sit and read with the kids while their parents were in the office. One of the staff members approached me and asked if I had ever thought about teaching.
After I got out of the Army and completed the Education Pioneers program, I had the impression I was going to work with high schoolers. But my very first class I taught was with four year olds. I was scared to go to basic training but I was even more scared to stand up in front of four-year olds and teach them. I was terrified. But I spent a full year there, assisting the resident teacher. I learned so much in the classroom with her. I was teaching with her and helping her plan classes. It was a learning curve for sure. I felt like I failed at everything. But that's really what I think good teaching boils down to - just understanding that it is a craft that takes a very, very long time to master. It's really intimidating honestly but it helped to have mentors helping me learn along the way.
15:54
My wife started her career in education and I'm really intimidated by the thought of managing a diverse classroom of kids with different personalities and needs. How do you sane during difficult moments in the classroom?
I think that's such a good question. I think the most important thing is that I love working with kids. Another piece is understanding that we all share dual roles. So not only are you a teacher in the classroom but you're also a learner - you're learning from your kids, from their experiences and their context. So, the diversity piece that you mentioned is really important because every child brings something new to the classroom. And I think that the most important lesson that I learned as a teacher is how to use all the different experiences into our lessons. It’s important to know all of their personalities so that you can create lessons that they will interact with.
I think what the military gave me was the ability to be adaptable. I’m also a big kid at heart - I think that that really gave me some buy in with my kids. If they're rolling around on the carpet pretending to be a farm animal or using paint and you’re doing it right along with them - they really like that.
20:18
What resources would you recommend for other veterans that might be interested in teaching?
As you know there’s the traditional way to become a teacher. That’s enrolling at a university where you're spending time learning how to be a teacher, you're learning pedagogy, you're doing your student teaching.
If you have the GI Bill, you can use that to go through teacher training at a university. There are also some alternative programs, particularly for people who already have a Bachelor's degree. Troops to Teachers has a great transition program.
Every state has different certification requirements. Some states will require a teacher to have a general certification prior to getting what they call an endorsement for special ed or to become a reading specialist. When I started down this road in 2013, I needed a minimum of seven years of active duty to qualify for the stipend offered by Troops to Teachers so that's something to keep in mind.
Another great program is the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. They have certification programs in 11 states. And then there's Teach for America which I believe they're in 25 or 26 states. Theres’s also the New Teacher Project which I believe is now just called TCP. Some of these programs offer specific programs for veterans looking to transition into teaching.
These programs can be a great resource for you. In my case, I really enjoyed the support network that I got through Education Pioneers. The certification programs do a really good job of helping people from different backgrounds think about why it is they want to become a teacher, and how to use the skills that they already have in the classroom.
26:21
What are challenges for veterans that want to enter teaching?
Some teaching certification programs aren’t as well-versed as others in veterans services like using the GI Bill. At first, I really wasn’t sure how to get access to my GI Bill. That was a bit of a struggle.
I also don’t think that the DoD does a good enough job of teaching veterans about the possibility of becoming a teacher post-military.
27:49
You’ve met both President Obama and President Clinton. What was that like?
27:59
I entered the Inspired Teaching program in 2014. We were sworn in as AmeriCorps members, because the work that we were doing in DC satisfies the requirements for us to be AmeriCorps members.
They were looking for people to come do the swearing in in person so they asked people to submit a very small blurb about what America or service means to them. So I wrote, probably a sentence or two about the uncertainty that I had with transitioning from being a soldier to now a teacher. I got an email from a White House staff member asking if I wanted to come in and meeting with President Obama.
I was shocked. The White House staff gave me the location and what time I needed to be there. I couldn't tell my mom. I couldn't tell my friends. I couldn't say a word to anyone.
I showed up at the White House, and I was pinching myself all morning. I didn't sleep the night before I was, I was just excited and nervous.
So I went to the White House and I was standing in the room waiting. President Obama and President Clinton came in and I just remember my feet were so firmly planted into the ground. My hands were shaking my mouth was dry. And he was the first thing I noticed was how tall both of them were. I'm only 5’5” and I'm looking up at the Presidents.
President Obama just lights up a room, he's just this very charismatic, nice, genuine person. I told him that was a really big fan of his. And I told him how excited I was to transition from the Army into teaching, and then President Clinton came in right behind him. President Clinton is really big and he's really super chatty and very friendly.
It was an experience that I can't wait to tell my kids about one day. It was an experience that I just thank God for. I'm so grateful for it. It really sort of solidified for me that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. It was very affirming for me.
38:30
You mentioned that selflessness is a value teachers must possess. Do you have any advice about how we can be more selfless in our every day lives?
40:00
I think the most important thing is to pay attention to the things happening around you. I try to pay attention to what all of my kids tell me. And what their families tell me as well.
The second thing is to get involved in your community. I was a volunteer with the Homeless Children's Playtime Project in DC. When I started teaching, I found out about so many of the difficult issues some of my students were facing. I think that volunteering makes you more aware of issues that people in your community are facing.
Also make sure you’re taking care of yourself. You won’t be useful to anybody else if you’re not taking care of yourself first.
42:00
Where are you at today in your teaching journey?
I’m in graduate school now, completing my Doctorate in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. I’m learning about how to give more agency to students in the classroom.
I do miss being away from my kids and not being in the classroom everyday. I'm still in contact with their families.
I'm also working at the Free Library of Philadelphia as a summer learning curriculum specialist because I was really interested in children and how they learn outside of school, particularly during the summertime when school is not in session. I'm just really interested in studying how children's literacies can be affected or how they inform that concept.That’s what I’m researching in school now.
I love the people I’m working with at Penn and the people in different departments and different areas around the school. I'm studying under Dr. Whitney Gadsden and she's really pushing my thinking about what it is that I'm trying to investigate, thinking about how I define what literacy is and thinking about what measures literacy.
44:00
Are there any other resources you would recommend to listeners?
Two books I recommend are Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children. That book completely completely changed my way of thinking about what it means to educate young children. The other is Pedagogy of the Opressed. That book really challenged the ways in which I think about poverty and oppression, in relation to education.
