A conversation with Axel S.
Transcript from episode six of the Good Folk Podcast.
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Spencer George: Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Good Folk podcast. This is your host, Spencer George. I'm the founder and writer here at Good Folk. I'm also joined by our producer Victoria Landers, who has known today's guest Axel Shaun for quite some time..
Axel graduated with his Bachelor's in English and Secondary Education from UNC Greensboro in 2021 and is currently at UNCG earning his Masters in English and Women's and Gender Studies. He currently works in rural North Carolina and has worked with all high school grades and academic levels in the past two years. He is an advisor of the LGBTQ+ Club on his high school campus and advocates for the creation of diversity and inclusion within a community that may not be so accepting of such ideas.
Much of Axel's current work involves teaching the relearning of emotional wellbeing to teens, both through literature and through general discussion. His classroom is full to the brim of colorful posters that advocate for women in STEM, feeling your feelings, and the fine arts, promoting careers and hobbies many rural students might not have known of. Axel recognizes the positives and negatives that come with being LGBTQ+ in a rural and conservative setting, and aims to get more teens to simply consider other opinions. He also has a cat.
This is a conversation about what it means to be an educator— and not just a person teaching information to a group of students, but someone who really shows up for them as well. True educators take the time to understand their students needs, as well as their students unique backgrounds. It is not an easy job, and it is a job that is incredibly contested in today’s public sphere. There are people on both sides of the so-called education crisis, but one thing is clear: we are in a moment of crisis. And where we choose to go from here will affect all of us.
But there are educators who provide the hope that is so necessary right now. So let this conversation leave you with some of that hope for the future. Because, thanks to the educators showing up in the most difficult of moments, the kids are gonna be alright.
Victoria Landers: Hi, Axel. I'm so excited that you're here. For those of you who don't know, I have known Axel, my gosh, since 2017. Is that when we met? Yeah. Wow. We met on Halloween of 2017, his freshman year, my sophomore year of college, at a mutual friend's dorm room. He came in, he did not speak to me the entire time. He just got dressed in his costume, said, hey, and then left. And I was like, I want to be this man's best friend.
Axel S: I'm so embarrassed every time you tell that story.
VL: So we've known each other forever. We kind of survived college together. We survived being RAs together. We survived our queer identity journey together. We have been through thick and thin, baby. So for those of who don't know, that's how I know Axel. Axel is a fabulous man. Love him. The best. I'm excited that he's here. He just finished his first week of school, second year of teaching. How did that go? Tell us a little about it.
AS: It was rough, to say the least. I think the hardest thing was that my school has switched schedules because we don't have enough bus drivers for the district, so we had to push back the high school start time by thirty minutes. So now we start at 8:45 and end at 3:45, whereas we started at 8:25 and ended at 3:25. So I guess it's only twenty minutes, but that messed with our entire schedule. And on top of that, my particular school is going through construction. Thankfully, my building was redone. But along with all the construction that happened, our bell system and intercom system does not work. So I've had to keep track of class start and end on my phone. It gets to be, like, when first block ends, and then, like, six alarms go off, and then I'm like, oh, it's time. Get out. So that has been the hardest part, readjusting to the schedule.
But it's my second year teaching, so I feel a lot more confident in my abilities to do the thing. And my other best friend, my co-teacher moved schools, so I no longer have my work colleague buddy. This semester I teach all three blocks by myself, which, going from last year, I had six classes total for both semesters, and I taught four of them with my co-teacher. So it's very strange to go from that to this semester, where I'm the only one in the room, the only adult in the room. Which has been really jarring, to say the least.
VL: Yes. It really makes all the difference. When me and Spencer were teaching together, I loved having someone else responsible, who understood what we needed to do and the pain and suffering of it all, but also all the positive things. Then she got switched to a different school, and I was in the room by myself, essentially the only responsible person in the room, the only responsible adult. The kids know, too. They can smell fear. They're like, oh, you're by yourself. Okay, let's test my limits of how far we can get away with things.
AS: Yes. The “we can smell fear” thing is definitely a thing that I didn't really fully acknowledge last year. I came out the gates a-blazin of, I am not afraid of a single thing, I am not afraid of you, I am not taking any shit this year, none of that. So I think that I definitely started this week off way better than I started both semesters last year. Just purely in that range of, I am not afraid. I'm still very new to this, but I am not afraid of you, and you should be afraid of me.
VL: There you go. Setting it early. That's the way to do it. Because if you try to change it halfway through, they don't care.
AS: No, it's impossible.
VL: Truly. So, you went through a lot of trials and tribulations, to put it one way, last year. Do you want to speak as to why? However you're comfortable with.
AS: Sure. I mean, the biggest trial and tribulation both combined is that I am very out and proud as a trans man, and last year I was pre top surgery, and so I did not pass. And I don't know if you would like me to explain, but passing in the sense of, those that were born as the gender that they identify as, or cisgender, can't tell that you are transgender. That's like the most layman terms for me to put it in.
So I did not pass. We call it in the queer community, very clockable. I was very clockable. And the school that I'm at is rural and very conservative, so I deal with a lot of kids who like to hunt on the weekends, kids who still refer to their hunting dogs as coonhounds. I'm going to go out on the farm with my dad this weekend, kind of kids. And I don't vibe with that particular mindset very well. Just because I have, in the past, been in contact with that kind of individual and gotten some form of pushback.
It was really hard last year because it was extremely difficult for kids to call me the right pronouns and because, as I was saying before, I was very afraid to rock the boat and I was very afraid to assert myself as the adult in the room. And one of the things that I did not advocate for myself was my pronouns. I would kind of just swipe it under the rug a lot of the time. And like I said, I came out the gates this semester, especially because over the summer I had top surgery. I came out the gates with my pronouns are he, him, and if you're going to call me anything, you're going to call me sir, and if you're not going to call me either of those things, then the door is over yonder, goodbye.
I had to have a talk with one of my blocks yesterday, and I can speak more on that if you want me to, or later, but it's been a lot better this semester. I think it's because I established myself as an entity in the school. I don't know the best way to say it without making me sound a little bit douchey, but like, everybody knows who I am. Everybody knows who I am because of my identity, you know?
VL: It’s like, as a teacher, you have to assert yourself in the classroom, but then as a queer teacher, you're either clocked by other students who are like you're, ah, a little something, like, you're not like me. Either if that means good or bad. And then you kind of have this star next to your name all the time when you're brought up, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. You kind of become this beacon for all the young queer students who need that representation and do love that representation. But then also, you know, how far can you be safely out in some of the areas that queer people teach in? So it's that balance of trying to be safe, but also be established and still be a person and still live.
AS: Yeah, I think that's a really good way to put it. It's a weird dichotomy, for sure.
VL: Oh, a hundred percent. So do you think that balance is going to be better this year, or so far? Has it been better? Because I know you had, as you were telling me last year, you had a really sweet group of kids who kind of fell in love with you and stayed in your room and loved talking to you. Have you had any pushback from students or staff about anything that you feel comfortable talking about?
AS: It's funny, because students more so than staff. I know that you and I have had this conversation before, but it's strange because before I started teaching, it seems like a lot of the pushback that I was getting was from middle-aged people. But where I'm at now, my staff, the staff that I don't work with every day, like constantly, don't really give me the time of day. And it's a good and a bad thing. Like at trainings and whatnot, when they like to break up our departments and put us in different places and put us with different people that we don't usually see every day, my staff and my colleagues definitely get my pronouns wrong more often than I would like. But again, I don't see them that often, so I usually do the same thing where I kind of just sweep it under the rug and I'm like, whatever, I'm going to participate with you for about an hour for this training and then we will part ways.
But my students were much worse because I would see them every day and we would talk to each other every day and I would be disrespected every day by them. So it wasn't the staff, it was more so my students, especially last year, that I would get the pushback from.
And by pushback, I mean it was just constant. They would call me Ms. instead of Mr. Or they would call me ma'am instead of sir. And I got really good at the end of the semester of real quick clapbacks of, it's sir. Okay, what do you need? You know what I mean? I don't know. I kind of lost my train of thought.
VL: I mean, you shouldn't have to sacrifice your self-worth just to, I don't know… At the end of the day, it's that weird dichotomy of like, okay, how much do I want to you to know> iIt shouldn't be a thing that's brought up, you know, it shouldn't be like a thing like, oh, Queer Guy. All my students would draw bi flags or lesbian flags or whatever flags or little terms and stuff and I hung them all on my desk. So when teachers came in, that was the first thing they saw. And they were like, oh.
I don't want to have to sacrifice this part of myself to make other people feel comfortable when it's who I am. Right? I know Spencer and I have talked about it too. Like, I don't want to explicitly have to come out, but if I'm asked by a certain student, I'm not going to say yes or no, but I also have to make sure I'm keeping myself safe in a way that matters. I don’t know. I’m just curious from your point of view how all of that went.
I don't want to have to sacrifice this part of myself to make other people feel comfortable when it's who I am.
AS: Yeah, I really related to the “having to hide a piece of you” thing that you were talking about. Because for me, it was kind of the exact opposite. I could not hide it last year. There was nothing I could do. Because the way that licensure works is that your birth name has to be on your teaching license, and you cannot change it. It cannot be a preferred name, it cannot be a nickname. And if I want to change it, I have to go through a legal state name change.
VL: Really?
AS: Yeah. All of the kids that came to me on Monday, it's actually quite funny— because the kid wearing all camo and a Bass Pro Shop shirt is like, is this the right room? And I have to be like, yes, the name is not correct. You are indeed in the right spot.
The funny thing is that I am immediately outed by— and to— every single kid that I have as who I am. I am immediately outed as trans. And so it was not something that I could hide. What I do agree with, and is the same way, is that I don't talk about it unless somebody asks me. And even then I'm like, that is personal. All you need to know is my pronouns and my name and that's it. And if you want to have an open conversation about my lived experiences, we can do that at a different time that is not instruction time.
So I related, and then also could feel the exact opposite to everything that you just said.
SG: Axel, I would love if you would talk a little bit about your journey into teaching and why you choose to stay in this. I know that Vic and I have had a lot of conversations about it being so hard both wanting to be representation and also knowing that for your own personal safety, it might just be better sometimes to kind of walk away from things. What is it that keeps you in the classroom and what was the journey to that like?
AS: No, totally. It feels a little long winded to say, let's start from the beginning, but the long and short of it is that I've always wanted to teach. It's the only thing I've ever wanted to do. When I was little, like in elementary school, I wanted to be a firefighter. And then I learned that there is a height requirement and I am too short. So that kind of went down the drain.
SG: What is the height requirement? Do you know?
AS: I don't know what it actually is. I'm pretty sure that I was lied to by my school counselor, and that there's not actually a height limit. But I don’t know. Teaching is just the only thing I've ever wanted to do. Ever since I was in middle school, really. I just had this immense connection to the teachers that I really liked and the subjects that I really liked. I would get to know them and, I don't know, know them personally doesn't sound right, and they weren't my friends, obviously, but they were people that I trusted that weren't my immediate family. And growing up as a queer kid, that is really important to have trusted adults that are not your immediate family.
And when I connected with them, I would think to myself, I want to do this. I want to do something like this. I want to feel the way that they must feel when I come to them and say, you are my favorite person in this building, and you are one of the only people I can trust to tell intimate parts of my life to.
I had multiple English and Social Studies and one Math teacher, if you can imagine, who I just connected with. And when I connected with them, I would think to myself, I want to do this. I want to do something like this. I want to feel the way that they must feel when I come to them and say, you are my favorite person in this building, and you are one of the only people I can trust to tell intimate parts of my life to.
The question of why you stay is rough. The answer to it is rough, and also kind of sad. So sorry it’s gonna get a little sad. But a large part of me feels that if I stop, because I don't want to use the word quit, if I stop, then I've only had one full year of teaching under my belt, and then it feels like my four year degree is a waste. That's kind of how it feels, is that I spent all of this money and I went through all of this effort, and I was so excited to do it, and then I got there, and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be so much to the extent that I don't want to do it anymore that… makes me just so upset that the reaction then is, I have to see if it's going to get better, if that makes sense. I have to see.
That was a talk that I had with myself over the summer, when I was debating going back or not was, do I stop now or do I give it a chance? Do I give this particular school, this career, this county, do I give it another shot and see if it's going to get better from here?
I haven't really faced the reality of, what if it's not? Because if I do, I might cry. And I would like to not cry about my job. I try to cry about my job as little as possible. That's like, the biggest part, is that I feel like a lot of my almost adolescence is wasted because this was all I wanted to do. And now I'm here and I come home and I have to nap after I come home from work because it was so exhausting. And I am microaggressed around every corner.
But you mentioned it a little earlier. I have this group. I call them my gaybies. They're my children who come and sit with me when they have free blocks or come and sit with me during study hall or who work extremely hard on the stuff that I give them and everything else and who either are, or quite honestly, are not, in the LGBT community, but feel some sort of connection with me. And then that goes back to what I just said of, like, this is what I wanted to do. This is the best part of my job, is when I have, like, four or five kids who email me and say, can I come sit with you for thirty minutes during study hall? And I email immediately back, and I say, absolutely, yes, you can, on all capital letters with a smiley face. Because even if that thirty minutes was supposed to be my quiet time, I'm so thankful that they're like, this is my space. This room is meant for me, and this person is meant for me.
When I think about leaving, I think they're going to lose that. You know? They lose that safe space, and they lose that safe person. And a very selfless part of me says, I can't do that to them. You know? That was a long tangent.
VL: No, we're totally fine. With the pandemic I feel like it's always kind of been… Like, teaching wise, especially in North Carolina, we don't have the best conditions for teachers, and I always feel like it was almost at its breaking point, but I think the pandemic really kind of pushed it over its edge. If you do leave, and for some people, when you leave, I feel like there's such immense guilt with that.
When my contract with my nonprofit ended and I was leaving my school, I looked for a position within my school where I could still say, because it felt wrong to leave. Because I knew the environment I'd be leaving, and that part of that safe space that I tried to create for students would be going with me. It's like, okay, who do I put first? I still want to have a space for myself. But you love those kids. They drive you up a wall. They test every inch of your patience, but you would do anything for them. So it's like, do you stay in these certain teaching conditions that are harmful to your psyche, or do you stay for the kids that kind of bring peace to it? I don't know.
SG: Teaching is a very contested field. I saw just this morning that North Carolina ranked the worst state in the country to work, and yet I also saw an article, I believe it was in The Atlantic, came out saying that the education crisis is a myth, and that we don't have a teacher shortage, and it's just data being read wrong. And it was very interesting to me because the way they framed that article was saying, well, there is a teacher shortage in Southern and rural communities, but that's always been there. That's not a new teacher shortage. But there's no teacher shortage in Boston, so we're reading this data wrong.
I went to the comments because it enraged me, as I think you both understand. And the comments were all talking about, well, if this shortage has been going on for so long in Southern and rural communities, as all three of us who've worked in Southern and rural communities in the education realm know, you can't just sweep that under the rug and say, well, that's always been there. But sadly, that is very often the way that things get approached in Southern and rural communities, and especially by mass media, because the media is able to look at it and say, well, in the places that “matter”, there is no teacher shortage. These places don't matter. We're going to brush them under the rug.
I would love to hear your thoughts, Axel. You mentioned in your bio the positives and negatives of working in a Southern rural school environment. What are some of these positives for you? You had such a great answer as to why you stay in education, but why say in rural education? Because that's a whole different game as well.
AS: Well, first of all, my immediate response to the beginning of what you just said, Spencer, is, girl, bye. Absolutely not. My school alone had twenty positions open at the beginning of the school year. I don't understand how— and this is just me being heated— I don't understand how people can say, oh, it's a myth, and this place matters more than this place. Every school needs to be fully staffed. I mean, obviously. We don't have enough bus drivers; therefore, we had to push our time back. And last year, our librarian taught five classes. Mind you, we have four blocks. She taught five classes, as not even a teacher, as a librarian, because we were missing two teachers. I hear things like that, like, oh, the teacher shortage is a myth, and anyone can be a teacher, because there’s a teacher shortage. I just saw something earlier that schools are starting to allow people right out of high school to teach. Like, you can graduate from a high school with a high school degree and then teach at the high school that you graduated at. And that is bananas to me.
It’s happening because we're not paid enough, because we're overworked, because we're viewed as glorified babysitters. I mean, I was just telling somebody the other day that asked me, like, I know what you do as a teacher, but what else? What do you do? And I was like, do you want a list? Because I'm a therapist, I'm a first responder, I'm an educator, I'm a friend, I'm a parent. Sometimes I'm a policeman. It’s all of these titles. And I'm paid baseline. Even with baseline experience. I just wanted to get that out of the way because that just enraged me. It makes me very mad.
SG: Oh, it enraged me, too. Don't worry. That's why I wanted to bring it up, because I knew it would enrage all of us. And anybody who's worked in education is going to be enraged by this. It was fascinating to me, this data, because I feel like very often they don't include teachers in these conversations. So that's why we have to have these conversations, because otherwise they're not being had.
AS: Yeah, that was what I was going to say, is the majority of the time, the people who write the data or collect the data or who write these articles and make these claims are not teachers, and have never stepped foot in a classroom with the intent to be a teacher. Like, congrats on writing an article. But what claims are you making, and how are they affecting the lives of a lot of people?
On a more positive note… The positive things… I mean, I feel like everything that I'm going to say is going to be very cliche stuff. Prepare to have your heart bursting for a moment.
One of the coolest things, and if you've never seen it, if you've only ever been on the other end of it, then you may not understand, but to see the light bulb go off and to know that you are the person that made a kid get something, is one of the most rewarding and coolest experiences ever. I feel like so much of our lives, especially the three of us as younger individuals, we've been in on the other end, we've been on the other end in the sense of, we're the ones who had the light bulb go off, of sitting in chemistry class and figuring out how a neuron works, you're like, oh, that's how it works. You know, you remember teachers being like, thank god you got it. Or like, I'm so proud of you. That's so awesome.
But it's so hard to explain. I'm stumbling and I'm stirring because it's so hard to explain how rewarding it is. I put so much effort into making sure that every single kid can understand every single thing that we do. So watching the light bulb go off and watching them say to themselves, I understand why the color red was the color of the blinds. It was to symbolize and foreshadow murder. And I'm like, yes! Exactly! Screaming at the top of my lungs, I'm so proud of you. Congratulations. You did it.
That's, like, the biggest thing. I don't know. So much of what I do is, like I said, be a therapist, and so much of what I do is emotional wellbeing. But when I actually get to do the instruction part and, like, the literal learning, it's so rewarding to watch it actually make sense or like, for a discussion to go exactly where you plan it to go. It just feels so good. When a lesson plan goes exactly the way you want it to go— nothing feels better. I swear. Nothing feels better. It's just so rewarding. That's the first thing that comes to mind. I'm not sure if you want me to say others, but that's the biggest thing I would say. The light bulb moment is so nice.
VL: Knowing who you are as a person— and I love you for this— you're very much an overachiever. You're either at 0% or 100%. So knowing you and how you handle your lessons and knowing you want your kids to walk away with something, does your school have a curriculum you have to follow or do you have free rein? And if you do have a curriculum, how do you add something interesting besides the basics and how to teach for a test?
AS: I'm really lucky that my principal does not give a hoot about what I teach as long as I hit the standards. I have freshmen and seniors. There are, of course, core texts that I should go through. But it's not like if I veer off the beaten path, I'm going to get yelled at or docked or, like, the kids are not going to learn. I'm also very lucky this year in that I do not have English Two. I don't have sophomores, which is the only EOC, the only state mandated exam. Freshmen, juniors, and seniors are given teacher made exams based off of what we do that year, as opposed to the beautifully horrific guesswork that is guessing what's on the EOC.
I had never taught freshmen or seniors befores. Freshmen does not even have, like, a specificity. So, for example, seniors have American Literature. No, just kidding. British Literature. But freshmen is nothing. Freshmen is literally just, get them prepared for English Two and make sure that they understand what a metaphor is. That's really all that I have to do, is make sure that they are prepared for the next thing. Whereas my seniors, I kind of have to do more textual stuff with them. But again, it's not like I have to do The Canterbury Tales. It's not like I have to do a Shakespeare unit.
So to answer the other question of how do I make things interesting? I sigh because I do this to myself, but I create everything by hand. I love Teachers Pay Teachers, and I take influence from it. But I take nothing from nobody, essentially. Everything that we do in my room comes from my brain, which sounds like a humble brag, but it's true.
I write everything from hand because I know what these kids would like to be doing, and I know what they're interested in because I'm so close to their age and because that was a lot of what my college experience drilled into me, is to find out what they want to do and then do that. Then I just make it as interesting and as engaging and as modernized as possible.
For example, my seniors are going to do 1984 by George Orwell starting on Tuesday. First of all, maybe four of them have read a novel in the last two years, so next week is going to be the start of them reading a novel for the first time in a really long time, and I'm so stoked for that. Yes, we're going to read the book, but I don't plan to do any worksheet assignments for it. or for the majority of the book at least. It's all going to be discussion and debate based, unless they piss me off, and then we'll do reading quizzes and graded worksheets and reading guides and whatnot.
But I know that the majority of them would rather us just talk about it and would rather us go page by page breaking down what happened. And also that way I can make sure that they don't use Spark Notes.
For the kids that are anxious about talking in class, I have kept my Google Chat option open on Google, and they will be reading the book on their laptops, which is a whole other thing that sucks. I wish we didn't do it. But they are going to be required to say one thing every class. Every kid is going to be required to say one thing every class. And if they're nervous about speaking in front of the entire group, they can just Google Chat it to me, and then I can count it as they did it. That’s different from how another senior teacher is going to do 1984, where they're going to have a vocab sheet every day. They have to fill out, and they're going to have chapter tests at the end of every chapter, you know. First of all, I would hate doing that, as a kid, but also I would hate grading all of that, so absolutely not.
But just in a more broad sense, I barely do any tests because I would rather them show me what they know. I would rather have them do, like, a writing activity or a poster where they have to draw or a diorama, where they have to use their hands and make things. For every end of the unit thing, I provide the option to make, like, an instagram reel or a TikTok or a skit. Those are just all summative assessments. They are assessments. They do show me 1s what they've learned, but just in not a paper pencil let’s sit in silence for thirty minutes and do a test kind of way.
I was really lucky with the groups that I had last year that they responded really well to that. So I'm going to have to see if that's the same vibe that I'm going to get from these kids. But I will always provide the option. If you would like me to make you a test, I will make you a test. But if you would rather write four or five paragraphs on a prompt that's not in an essay sense, but it's just write for four or five paragraphs, then I would much rather do that. It gives them more of a voice, you know?
VL: I think that's so important, just learning what they want. Because if you're going to go into guns-blazing with paperwork, day one, you're going to have kids check out. Knowing as the kid, because I have dyslexia. Hated English. Sorry, guys. There are the two English majors. Couldn't stand it. Love to read. But anytime I had to be in a class, I checked out day one when they started throwing reading materials at me. There was only one unit that I remember that I took stuff away from, and it was the horror unit. We read Dracula, Frankenstein, and we had my favorite book of all time, The Picture of Dorian Gray. And those are the only three books I remember from any of my education. Nothing else stuck with me because it was catered to a test or it was catered to what my middle-aged teachers were taught years ago.
That's something that I wanted to do when I taught, like, I want them to leave this classroom with something, even if, you know, they unintentionally learned it. I was talking to a teacher when I was still teaching, and we butt heads sometimes, because she didn't understand why I would take the time to create a lesson around their interests. She goes, you're here to teach. Why do you do all this extra time when you're not getting paid to do the extra time, when half the time they're talking over you? When they don't care about the class? And I was like, well, the reason why I'm changing the way I'm teaching, because they're not listening, so I'm doing something wrong. I take the feedback of them talking over me or them losing interest to be, this isn't clicking. This isn't what they need. This isn't grabbing their attention. So therefore, this isn't giving what it needs to give. Taking that time, it sucks. But like you said earlier, it's rewarding when that light bulb clicks, when you find the groove of those certain classrooms and those certain students where they start receiving that information, and you're like, oh, I get it. It kind of feeds your soul. Like, okay, cool. That's like a gold star next to my name. I figured it out, I did something right. It made me feel better to take that extra time or even just to learn about my students— that's not a bad thing.