We recently connected with Benjamin Bray and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Benjamin, thanks for joining us today. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?
Starting last year, my co-teacher and I started using a program called Readable English. We were taking on a new and exciting challenge to help our students improve their reading abilities. We became the first high school in the state of California to make use of the program. Together, with our students, we worked our way through this new tool that would prove to be of exceptional benefit to our students; by the end of the school year we were one point off from quadrupling expectations. Our students were able to chart their own progress and become invested in their own cognitive growth. We had one student in particular who did so well with the program that their reading score reached a level high enough to qualify them for the next level of English instruction. I will never forget how proud and excited they felt when they got to take the good news home to their parents.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I got into teaching for the same reason a lot of teachers get into the profession: I had amazing educators who inspired me with their selflessness and compassion. My baby sister (now fully grown and attending college) had her entry into kindergarten delayed by a cancer diagnosis. Instead of letting her fall behind, a family friend came over and provided my teacher with a free one-on-one education. This amazing teacher will always have a significant impact on how I perceive good teachers as genuine contributors to the overall betterment of the community by working with individuals as individuals. All my best teachers treated me like a unique person with my own strengths, weaknesses, and potential. Whenever I have a student express their comfort in being in our classroom or that they feel genuinely welcome, I feel like I’m living up to the goal I set for myself. It means so much to me to see my students feel proud of the small steps they succeed in on their way to bigger goals. It’s all about having a growth mindset.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn what hard work looks like and how a more balanced approach to accomplishing goals is essential. When I was a student, I was of a fixed mindset with a set of rules and patterns. I would attend every class, every day, on time. I would complete every assignment for every class to the best of my ability. When applicable, I would redo assignments that I got anything less than a perfect score on. When I joined something or started something, I always finished it. I stayed in toxic situations that were detrimental to my health, but I thought that’s what hard work was: do everything authority tells you that you are responsible for and do so every time you are tasked accordingly. I thought that getting no sleep, be constantly stressed out, and assuming that nothing I ever did was going to be good enough since there is always room for improvement, was the norm and the only way to succeed both in the short and long term. As I worked my way through college, I learned to prioritize better, but getting good grades and working towards my future career still took precedent over everything else, including my own well-being. It wasn’t until after I became a teacher and watched my students navigate the demands of their education that it dawned on me: what I did to succeed is not a good example. My story of success became a warning to my students. I explained that while I did succeed in a number of goals, I sacrificed fundamental aspects of my physical, mental, and emotional health in order to meet the goals. Ever since I started working with my brilliant co-teacher, I’ve gained even greater insight and have actively practiced using a growth mindset. I now have a much greater work/life balance.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
Maintaining high morale in the classroom can be difficult, but is absolutely worth it. It is essential to put in the work to be a consistent educator that makes use of appropriately stern, yet compassionate classroom management. Students are people, people at vulnerable, impressionable stages in life. The last thing they need is one more adult holding them down and demanding they fall into some standardized box that keeps them quiet and unseen. My co-teacher and I integrate SEL lessons into our classroom to help students develop the skills they need to navigate the complications of everyday life; and we provide breaks to keep our students from burning out. We celebrate, without patronizing, their successes with the small steps. We build them up with opportunities to try again and with a reminder to maintain a growth mindset. We will never ask them to be perfect and we teach them that there is no such thing as practice making perfect; it can only make better and that is a great thing! Our students feel seen, heard, cherished, and confident.
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