Joan Raabe

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Hi and welcome to All Girls Considered. My name is Izzy and we're here today with Ms. Rabe, a statistics and algebra teacher here at Vandergrift. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. So why did you decide to become a statistics and math teacher? Because I know that you had a degree in music. Yes, so I actually taught music theory at UT for two years. And I really realized that I loved classroom teaching and I loved teaching analytical subjects.

However, I realized that there was a very small chance of getting to teach music theory long term at the college level. And so the way that I could get to teach analytical subjects in a classroom setting is teaching high school math. And I always loved math anyways, and so it was kind of nice to get to continue that. I didn't really know that you could connect music and math so easily.

Yes. It's really funny because actually my 20th century class, which is one of the last classes I took in my master's, was actually used Algebra 1 and used statistics in it. And so I had those units right before coming here.

of like that's so cool start them over yeah um so what do you like so far about VHS I've really loved the community all the teachers here very much wanting to like help each other and work towards a goal of working with the students and trying to get the students to succeed and also the administration and just the entire school is built around helping all the students succeed and giving the teachers what they need to be able to do that.

Yeah, I remember when I first came here a few years ago, I was kind of overwhelmed by how friendly all the students are, especially. Because they're all so welcoming and so open. Even the teachers, you can tell they love their job. I can tell you like to teach. Even though I've only known you for a few weeks. Yeah. Everyone here seems to really love teaching and wants to be here. And a lot of the students, it feels like they enjoy the school and they like the campus.

They seem very comfortable here and very talkative in class, but that's okay. Yeah, and you'd know that based on our class. Yeah.

So since you're a new teacher here, what are the challenges you found in your first year of teaching at like a high school? So I had a lot of issues with, I had some students with, that were very like coming in very low in math. I had some students with a lot of learning disabilities, which I had actually been working towards a long time teaching kids with dyslexia. And so I developed a program for teaching kids how to read.

music more effectively and efficiently with dyslexia and so it was kind of like transitioning all the stuff that I had worked on with that. to teaching it in math and working on different learning. And since I was working with dyslexia, I was working with a lot of other disabilities like dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and others. I have a memory disorder, so I also dealt with that myself. But it was...

But I got to practice a lot teaching with math and teaching music that. And so it was kind of nice to teach students with math and the same kind of struggles and really look at that. I also had some issues with some students that...

did not know the same language I spoke. And so like working on that and trying to find students who could work with them and be able to help them, we developed the... six period pit where students that are in upper level Spanish classes or speak Spanish at home can help tutor some of our ELL students who are coming in here and maybe are having a language barrier problem in their math.

classes. It's actually really cool because I've never I've been in school a long time. I've been in that school for pretty much my whole life and I've never met a teacher who was so intent on like helping students who aren't really in the norm. students with disabilities and stuff. Because I have one of my friends with dyslexia, nobody really helps her with that.

Well, I actually have dyslexia and dysgraphia, and I have my laundry list of learning disabilities, so I had to figure out how to accommodate myself, because it was especially... Back when I was in high school, there were very little programs. Now you can find a dyslexia center just about anywhere, but back then that wasn't the case, and so there was a lot less knowledge on it, and the teachers were informed a lot less.

So now there's a lot more education that the teachers are getting on those disabilities, and so they're able to help those students better. But it does take that extra go to really make sure that all of those students are understanding as well. Yeah, because...

You said you taught at a university, right? You mentioned this a while back. But it's like at a university, you're encouraged to weed out the students who can't really make it. But here, it's like no student left behind. Exactly. And like my class in particular, though, I speak. teaching was very much the weed out course and so it was expected that I would fail the students that wouldn't do well and teachers

the next year would get upset with me if I didn't fail certain students because they felt like they didn't need to go on. And so here it's very much more like How do we get these students to succeed? Not just pass, but actually understand the material so then they can use it later. Because Algebra 1 is going to be used forever. Yeah, you use it like all day. Yeah.

Even when you're going out to get groceries. I know. That's why I have my board of how to use math today. And so I've been encouraging my seniors to put stuff up there because you guys will recognize Algebra 1 before my Algebra 1 kids will recognize they're using it. I still need to add to that.

So you mentioned this a few times, I think, but you've had a music theory degree. Yeah. What were the connections between math and music? I'm kind of curious.

It has the same analytical thinking. So music as a whole, there's typically two different ways of analyzing or looking at music. And there's the musicology route that is more looking at... kind of like the history behind the piece and so it's more based on like a history or an english paper and then the music theory route is more analytical and looking at why the composer put this here how that should affect the playing

like because there's a certain chord here should be playing this louder should be playing softer should you use different types of performance for it and things like that so we're the ones that pretty much tell performers how to perform those pieces and so but we're using analytical strategies for that and so especially for a lot of 20th century music there's

pieces that are like probability pieces, where quite literally the composer just rolled dice. And whatever the dice landed on told them what the pitch was, what the instrument was, how long the note lasted. And so the only way to look at that...

What's your statistics? I think I've heard of that actually. This weekend I watched a video about making a kind of folklore-ish song. And the guy who was talking through the video said that they used kind of math and like... equations to see how how to make a song sound good in a person's head yeah actually i had a friend that did his thesis on

Oh my gosh, what was it? It was on like, what is the perfect song? And he like analyzed music to find the most tonal and cognitive song that people would want to listen to through math equations, essentially. And looking at the frequencies. of each note and how this frequency would go on top of each other. And so he wrote a piece that was supposedly the perfect piece. Wow. Which I think had a lot of pride to it too.

i mean he worked hard at it so yeah and it was really impressive a lot of math and so and considering he was getting a music degree which a lot of musicians when they go in for like music performance they're not required to take a lot of math classes but if they go into music theory typically that's for a master's. They have to take a lot of classes that use a lot of math, so it's kind of problematic if they didn't get those math classes.

Yeah, you'd never expect the arts and math to be so closely intertwined. It's extremely close, and it's really fun. It's really cool to look at, like, a lot of the stuff that we're doing in our statistics class right now and seeing that I just did it. a few months ago in a music class, and I was doing a lot of, even with Algebra 1, there's this whole, there's a specific type of system that they use where coming up with notes is all through an equation.

And so that's all using algebra one. Wow. So this is a bit on a different topic, but what was it like where you grew up? So, like, school or home or city? I guess home. Like, what was your neighborhood like? What did you like most about it? So, I didn't grow up in the best situation, and I was...

One of the stereotypes where I did not... adapt to it well and so I was pretty much a really bad kid it's funny anytime my students are bad in my classes I like think of it as karma because I did the same thing to my teachers and it's also fun because like A lot of you guys will assume that, like, your teachers were perfect students and that we have no idea of the things that y'all do, but I did the same things. And so it's kind of like...

It's also kind of nice because I want to be here to be able to recognize anybody that is in a similar kind of situation to what I was in or is maybe like adapting to their situation wrong like what I did. But I... Yeah, I was a very different person growing up. Everything around me was very different. But I'm very happy that I went through it because now I know who I am.

I like who I am and I like where I am, so it worked out. Yeah. My dad is actually pretty similar. He taught a few classes at the company he worked for a while back. He was a wild kid. But he's the nicest guy now. He's so calm. And I guess that's what time does for you. You learn, you grow. And you adapt to it. I have some friends that are like me.

They went one route. We all kind of like take it and realize like, oh, this is not the way I want to live or this is. And so a lot of people like you have the option of going one or the other. It's never too late to turn back. Yeah.

You always have a chance to improve yourself. Exactly. No matter how old you are. So how would you compare VHS with your previous job at a university? So teaching, it was... very different like what we talked about with how we treated students it was very much we wanted we expected a certain amount from students and if they didn't give it to us

You just kicked him out. There wasn't, like, any question. If a student brought out a cell phone, you just kicked him out of the room. There wasn't any, like, discussion about it, even if it was for a...

real reason it was an automatic thing if the student fails there is no retake we just tell them they failed and they move on you have to pay for it again and so here it's very different in that aspect but also my The fellow teachers that I was working with on the same subject were very much not... a community and did not work with one another and so we had a lot of issues with ourselves and so here it's been so refreshing to see like our PLCs all work together and everyone gets to contribute.

Yeah, like I remember talking to some of my English teachers and they're always talking about what the other English teachers are doing, how they're like working together on certain subjects and like on tests they collaborate on the questions to see if they're good for the students.

Like, I really like that because it was pretty similar to in my last school. Like, teachers didn't really talk that much. They were a bit unfriendly. Yeah, no, it's great here. Everyone talks to each other. We work with each other. Like, every time before there's a test, we...

all sit together in one room and put the test on the overhead and like look at each individual question and say do we want that yes or no and like then go through how much we want to weight each question partial credit Everything is discussed and talked about. If a teacher finds a fun activity, like my freshmen love Kahoot, and I learned that. And so every time I create a Kahoot for a day, I would send it out to the other teachers so that they could use it.

One of the teachers sent me a Jeopardy game that she had made for a review. Everyone works with each other, and if you create something, there's this encouragement to share it. That's really good. Teaching high school more difficult than teaching at a college.

Well, it's different. But teaching college, I taught a lot less students. And there was a lot less like classroom. The classroom management was quite different because it was just like if I had a problem with a student, I just kicked them out.

And failing them, there was no question. If a parent emailed me or tried to contact me, I wasn't even legally allowed to say that the student went to that school. And so, yeah. And so, unless there's... things your parents can go around but I can't tell a parent that a student is at that school and so it's very different we're here

You work with the parents and you work with administration to work with. And so then, like, I can't kick out a student for pulling out a cell phone. And I have to come up with, like, new creative ways to keep kids from pulling out their cell phones and trying to, like, different classroom management.

I would say, like, classroom management-wise, high school is much harder. Yeah. But it's also, like, more rewarding and more fun because I get to watch kids that I would have, like, at the college level just failed and moved on. Actually, I get to. take the time with them to succeed. Yeah, that's really nice because like I've heard from my sister that college has been unforgiving.

and like here it's a lot more friendly even if the students aren't super focused on a subject they're still willing to help each other out and stuff like that yeah I know it's been really great being able to like pairing up a lot of my students with students that are needing a little bit more help and ones that are doing really well and they normally will work with each other and help each other which saves me as i'm like running around the room trying to answer questions yeah um

I was, as a kid, I was really shy and I still kind of am. So doing this podcast is kind of helping me to open up. And on that topic, what were you like as a kid? Well, as I said earlier, I was a pretty bad kid. I was a very bad kid. I did all the things that everyone does that they shouldn't do, which is a sign that, like... you can turn your life around and you can choose to do, like, address situations in a better and more productive way. And so it's, like, yeah. And so I was not...

You wouldn't have liked me when I was a high schooler, but I feel like I'm very different now, which is nice. Yeah. Are there more women teaching at VHS than at your previous job? Yes. So for my bachelor's, I was doing classical guitar, and that is an all-male dominated field. And then for my master's, I was doing music theory, which is primarily male dominant.

But those are the only conferences you can go to where there is a line to the guy's bathroom and there are free open stalls to one of the bathroom. And it's great. It's a lot of fun to make fun of them and give them a hard time at those conferences. But yeah, it's very male-dominated fields. But I was really lucky. I had a guitar teacher growing up who kind of like...

She was pretty much my mom and adopted me in a way. But she kind of introduced and showed me how to be a woman in a male-dominated field. And she would go up and introduce me to people and explain. explain like I wasn't allowed to date any other guys because that creates other issues but like she would she'd like push me to speak more assertively and to kind of like

assert my place in the field and everything. It was really, really good having her kind of help me with that. Yeah, that's actually really cool that you had a mentor, like even though you were in a male-dominated field. You mentioned a few tips that she taught you. Do you have any more that you could tell us about?

So the three ones I remember that she told me to assert myself and kind of not just be pushed off to the room, not be off to the wall, like make sure that I'm within the conversation and that I'm being heard.

Another thing she told me is like, don't let myself be treated like an object. Like the guys should not be commenting on what I look like. The guys should not be commenting on... things that they wouldn't comment on with another guy essentially and so like anything that made me uncomfortable or was not appropriate made sure to address that immediately and not just assume it'll go away And then the other thing was her one and done rule.

which was you could date one guy in the field, and that was it. Because as soon as you date a second, you'd get moved around. I have a feeling she had some experience with this since she ended up marrying a guitarist herself. Wow.

Well, now that I know a little bit more about you, you want to play two truths and a lie? Yeah. Yeah, okay. So, what do you got? Okay, I am getting married on a Monday. I played banjo with an orchestra, or I grew up in Houston. I don't think you grew up in Houston, so that's probably going to be... I didn't. I knew it, because I know you're getting married soon. Yes. Yes, that's really cool. I didn't expect the banjo one, though. That was... Yeah, it was an interesting...

Pretty much, I was playing in an orchestra, in the orchestra. I played cello as well. And they needed a banjo for something, for some song some composer wrote.

I happen to play, and so it worked. It just worked out. I know, so now I've got that on the resume. At least it looks good. It's unique. Yeah, it's definitely different. It's fun for games like this. Yeah. Well... i think that's all for today yeah yeah thank you so much for coming i had a lot of fun and i've learned a lot and a lot about you yeah this was a lot of fun thank you for having me no problem

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