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>> Hey, everyone. Sarah Brown Wessling here from the Council of Chief State School Officers National Teacher of the Year Program and I'm excited to introduce Voices from the Classroom: The State Teacher of the Year Podcast. CCSSO's National Teacher of the Year Program provides a platform for exceptional educators to elevate issues that affect teachers and their students, expand their leadership roles, and inform policy and practice. I was named National Teacher of the Year in 2010 and since then, I've been committed to sharing the stories and elevating the voices of the State Teachers of the Year. It is my hope that this podcast will give you insight into the incredible work they do. The 2021-2022 school year has commenced and many educators have used their experiences over the last two years to reflect on how they can better serve students to ensure their overall success. In these new episodes, the 2021 State Teachers of the Year will share how they used the shift in learning environments as an opportunity to refine their approach to teaching so they can better support students and their varying needs. You can join the conversation on social media by using the hasthtag #NTOY21 or by visiting us online at ntoy.org. That's N-T-O-Y dot org.

>> This is Carolyn Phenicie, press secretary at CCSSO. Welcome, Sabrina and thank you so much for joining us through this conversation today. To start, could you please introduce yourself.

>> Hello, my name is Sabrina Suluai-Mahuka and I'm the Territorial Teacher of the Year from American Samoa.

>> So, we know that so much about education has had a change in the past couple of years with the pandemic, but is there one practice, strategy, concept, or ideology that you're definitely keeping going into this year?

>> An ideology that I want focus on is building identity and illuminating that personal background and ethnicities are what make us unique. A lot of the times, our students don't really value themselves or their backgrounds and it's so disheartening to see. And so I want my students to know how special they are, how their upbringings, how their culture, how their traditions are so meaningful and how they can use that to propel themselves forward in college and career spaces. So, with that in mind, I want to bring that [inaudible] forward so they not only acknowledge their roots but use it as affirmation that they are uniquely special in their own way.

>> Are there specific projects or other ways that you're helping them do that?

>> Absolutely. So we actually work on Common App together and one of the problems is talking about identity and their background and we are doing that -- actually we started that this week, to write essays. And so their trying to brainstorm how their backgrounds, even if it's just seeing [inaudible] not so much as a princess of the village but almost the maiden of the village. And so some things like that we bring forward so they can explore how they are special and then that their culture is something to definitely value and praise.

>> And do you find that's a new experience for your students, bringing this to the forefront and highlighting it as an asset?

>> Most of the time, yes, because at the same time while we do appreciate our culture, we see it sometimes as something that is just something to have but we don't see it as a strength and that's what I want to share. That, you know, when you go to college and when you go to your career spaces, you bring that with you because it's something, you know, that we can use as our skills. But also in terms of communicating, in terms of showcasing our professionalism, that can be embedded into how we actually interact on a daily basis.

>> So even as you're, you know, encouraging them to lift up their identities and all of this, is there something that you are getting rid of for this school year that you're just like, this isn't working?

>> Absolutely. So one thing for this school year I'm going to let go of is the idea of learning loss. Before, I used to be very particular with sticking to a schedule and the goals for the curriculum and I was just trying to tell my students all year, you're falling behind, you need to do this, you need to be at this lesson at this specific time. But I've come to understand that of course, you know, our students learn at different learning phases especially now with everything that's going on, sometimes we had to do hybrid learning or blended learning. And, you know, for example, these students are tuning in through Zoom and they're learning how to be digital citizens. They're learning how to participate in virtual meetings. And for myself, like I didn't learn how to do that until I was in graduate school. And so these students, they're elementary, they're high school students and they're doing it so easily. And so those are things that I just want to recognize that there is no learning loss. It's just a different type of learning and I'm definitely going to let go of that mindset.

>> Right. Not looking at it as sort of a glass half empty thing but a, you know, well, we had to make these changes and some things are maybe slowed down versus where they would have been before. There's all these other skills that they learned.

>> Absolutely.

>> Yeah. All right. Any other super fun stories from coming back you'd like add?

>> I think the funniest one is that when my students understand that I get to be in a space with other teachers of the year and opportunities like Space Camp and the upcoming Washington Week. Every time they're kind of in shock because they didn't understand that that's what happens when you become Teacher of the Year. And so right now I said -- I told them, hey, you know, if everything goes well I'm going to meet the president. And one student looked at me, of the US? And I said, yes, absolutely, of the US, of the United States of America. And so I'm just looking forward to being an ambassador for my territory and then bringing these stories back to my own students to share with them.

>> That's wonderful. I think that is a great note to leave it on. Thank you so much for joining us.

>> Thank you.

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>> Thank you for listening to the latest series of Voices from the Classroom: The State Teacher of the Year Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the Council of Chief State School Officers National Teacher of the Year Program. It's our honor to elevate the voices of educators across the country and provide them with a national platform to amplify their message and advocate on behalf of their students and colleagues. Please, share these lessons on social media with the hashtag #NTOY21. That's hashtag N-T-O-Y-2-1. Let's keep the conversation going.