She’s a marine and coastal geologist with an M.S. and a Ph.D. in geology. To top that off, she is also a ski racing coach. Her full time job? Science teacher, Advisor, and Program Coordinator at Elisabeth Morrow School in Englewood, New Jersey.
Join us as Winston, gcLi Director of Marketing/Social Media Strategy, interviews Stephanie Nebel, this year’s recipient of the gcLi scholarship for The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education [PennGSE].
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Winston: First, let me begin by saying, WOW. I read your scholarship application piece, your teaching, and your studies, just fantastic. You are the scholarship recipient of the gcLi scholarship award for PennGSE, and it falls on the 15th year of the Institute’s Leadership Lab which makes this award all the more special on our end to have you part of our 15th year in this way.
Stephanie: Thank you. I’m thrilled, honestly.
W: So, in reading your application…You write about a student asking you, “Are you still learning?” and that just struck me as such an incredible question. It’s a question that you don’t even hear from your peers, and I wondered if you feel that was the moment that sparked the inspiration that eventually led you to PennGSE?
S: It’s funny because I had actually already applied to the program. I looked into it and thought, “this sounds perfect!” The structure is amazing. The content sounds amazing. Mentorship is such a huge part of the program. The rest is all history. This brings it back to your question from my student and applying for the scholarship. His question was just so interesting, not necessarily something that you hear from a fifth grader, or as you said, even your peers. I was just so ecstatic to get the question because I think it’s so important that the kids hear that even as a teacher I am still learning every single day. So, in a way, yes, but I had also learned of the program a little bit earlier in the game as well.
W: It was a wonderful and amazing question. I can imagine how encouraging that is, just their making that link between their learning, your learning; it’s an ongoing process. It’s fantastic.
S: I start off my year telling my students three things about me and I think this year it happened to be, “I love to bake, and I love to ski, and if I went to Hogwarts I’d be in Ravenclaw.” And then I said, “Are there any questions that you have for me?” And this happened to be one of them. So it was a unique moment as an educator. When I was thinking about the essay that I was writing for the scholarship application, I was trying to piece learning into it. I realized it was the perfect story to tell because I think that teaching is all about storytelling and how you tell stories in a compelling way.
W: I think you’re spot on. You had mentioned that the gcLi Leadership Lab was a transformative experience. Can you tell me about that transformation?
S: Attending the gcLi Leadership Lab was such an intellectually stimulating and challenging week for myself. And I thrive on that sort of stimulation. Meeting all sorts of fantastic people was also such a thrill. It was transformative for so many reasons but I think the first one, that aha moment, was, “Okay, I actually can be a leader. I am a leader. I have the qualities of being a leader,” and I can bring that back to the classroom. I think that was the biggest take home for me.
W: So, you had these ideas about leadership that were formulated, and the gcLi Lab experience refocused your own personal ideas about leadership?
S: Absolutely. One of my colleagues attended the Leadership Lab the year before I did and he came back and said, “This is an amazing experience.” He then pitched this idea of having an Eighth Grade Leadership Symposium. When I came back from the Lab, I ended up also teaching that Symposium, which I continue to do today. As an introvert, I love that our eighth graders ask what it means to be a quiet leader, and they’re also learning that people who are quiet definitely have the capacity to lead as well.
W: I love that. I think that’s something that so many have to be reminded of. It sounds as though every moment seems to be a learning moment for you. How do you stay so present?
S: The Leadership Lab was really eye opening for me in terms of being present. Technology is such a huge piece of the world today. Catherine Steiner-Adair was the keynote speaker and spoke about technology. I woke up the next morning and decided, because Fountain Valley’s a beautiful space and you have the ability for such inspiration, “Okay, I’m going to take a walk.” I was about to plug in my headphones to play music as I was walking.
Instead, I thought, “Let’s pause. Based on everything that I heard yesterday, how can I be present in this moment?” Having that ability to just walk for an hour and take in the sounds, the sights, and even the smell of skunks, was a really important wake up call for me. Having that moment, “Okay, let me think about my own technology use.” It’s been a constant circle; there are days when I find that I’m using my phone entirely too much and I’m trying to stimulate my own boredom by basically doing nothing. How can I learn from that on a daily basis? What can I do in those moments of boredom instead that stimulate learning? So that was a big learning piece for me as well. It’s a constant … I’m now tracking my screen time to see how much I’m on my phone.
I think it is so important, because as human beings we are social creatures, we are meant to be social. Our brains are wired to be social. It’s important for my students to see that I am present with them. It’s also important for family and friends to see that I’m also present with them. So it’s very much been a learning experience for me trying to be more mindful of how I’m interacting with the world on a daily basis.
W: You’re constantly creating ways in which you are sparked in that moment to say, “Am I being present?” How do you create these moments to push your own boundaries?
S: I always like to learn … I think it’s important as an educator to be learning something. I started taking a pottery class, and it’s really hard to actually make something with my hands. Having that learning experience helps me to better understand what my students might be going through as they are learning. It’s hard to remember how I felt when I was learning science content for the first time. It’s that piece of always trying new things and sticking with it.
Also finding enjoyment in those things. I tend to think of myself as a recovering perfectionist. I grew up thinking that everything had to be perfect. And going through this experience of the pottery class made me realize that it’s okay if I mess up. It’s a constant reminder to myself that sometimes you just have to be in the moment and let your experiences guide you. Even if it’s not great today, tomorrow is a brand new day. I think that that’s been really, really helpful. And the ceramics piece is only one story. It’s a constant – having the moments where you think, “today didn’t go as planned.” How do I make it better? And how do I learn from this?” I’ve given myself the opportunity, the latitude, to make and learn from those mess ups and that has been really, really important for me.
I try to tell my students that life is about making mistakes. I’ve shared, “I try and make at least 10 mistakes every day.” They look at me and say, “You do? Why? Why would you want to make those mistakes?” And I say, “Because oftentimes making mistakes is a much better learning experience than just waking up and being able to do everything well.”
W: You don’t create this big barrier between you and your student body and the other people around you. You have this very easy membrane that gives and takes. There’s an evolution that you mentioned that was born from sleepless nights, frustration, hope, and a desire to never give up. What was that evolution?
S: It was a series of multiple events with a class where I just felt like I couldn’t get it right. Every day I would try something different to reach the kids, and inevitably I would mess up. The sleepless nights that I refer to were really sleepless nights. I would go to bed and I would find myself awake in the middle of the night thinking, “How do I get past this? How do I figure out a way to make this experience for these kids a good experience, a meaningful experience?”
And then inevitably I would wake up, and I would try something new. Sometimes it hit, sometimes it would work a little bit, but then sometimes it wouldn’t work at all and that was more frustrating. I thought, “I’m not going to give up. I’m just going to keep trying things and something has to work. At some point I am going to figure this out.” I had conversations with the head of the division. I had conversations with my colleagues. I observed multiple teachers and asked, “What are they doing? How could I do things differently?” I think that the perseverance piece eventually paid off.
W: It was a pause.
S: It was a really, really important learning experience as a teacher. You can have this series of mess ups and continue to just keep trying and trying and trying. The feedback that I was getting from all avenues of my life – from seasoned and new teachers, friends and administrators – was also really helpful as well.
W: This speaks to an incredible dedication to the process of learning and dedication to the students in your classroom. On the other side of it, how do you find balance in your life?
S: That’s a great question. I realized a couple years ago that I was an important person to invest in. I know that teachers are probably the most giving people on the planet. They will give every last inch of themselves for their students. So doing things like exercising, giving myself that hour, that’s been a really, really important piece for myself.
I also sometimes have these realizations where I just need to stop and try again tomorrow. I think that sleep is really important. When I was in college, I would get four hours of sleep a night and thought “Okay, this is not working for me. I need to invest in an eight hour night of sleep so I can be my best person in the morning,” and usually that works.
Thinking about the technology use as well: how much time was I mindlessly spending on apps like Twitter and Facebook? And I was not getting much out of that. How much time am I wasting doing those sorts of things where I could be doing something like napping or reading or baking? So that’s also a place where I find balance too. I make some cookies and bring them in to school. That process of creating is really important for me. I think if I give myself some of that time every single day, I am able to renew myself.
W: It sounds as though you definitely are very good at taking care of yourself, which is probably what allows you to give so much in all the other areas.
S: But that was a process too. Coming to that realization, I have to give myself some time to do the things I enjoy or just completely not worry about all the piles of papers that need to be graded. It’s not necessarily an attitude that I’ve had all my life.
W: I think everyone needs that.
S: I think it’s important for the students to know that as well; they also need to spend time doing things that speak to them.
W: There’s a concept of strong back, soft front, which you seem to embody. This obviously ties into feedback, which you know is a tenet in the pedagogy and leadership taught at gcLi. You seem to have mastered this concept of feedback as you mentioned that you seek it out from students and parents, peers, administrators, friends. I would love to know what feedback you are getting from your fifth and eighth graders? That’s a wonderful vulnerability to show to them.
S: Last week was the perfect example where I just happened to be having a really energetic morning. I had the eighth grade for a long block, it was first period, and the energy in the room was just really low. I got feedback from them that they were not quite fully awake yet and maybe not in the state to learn…
I think I did some goofy stuff at the front of the classroom and that brought the energy up. So that type of feedback I think is really important – being mindful of where the kids are. They’re not necessarily going to verbalize how they’re feeling. That’s definitely been a learning experience for me as well, being mindful of where the kids are is really important.
W: So it becomes experiential feedback with your students whereas with parents, peers, administrators, friends, there’s more verbal feedback, no?
S: It’s definitely more direct. It can be verbal with the kids as well, but there’s a lot of experience that goes into it, with the kids specifically.
W: You’ve shared with me that you had applied to PennGSE and that it had been full. Did the availability of the scholarship push you at all to apply again? Did you know about the scholarship the first time around?
S: I had actually known about the [gcLi PennGSE] scholarship. Learning about the program specifically at UPenn, learning about the structure of it, was super exciting to me. It just felt right. I do a lot of stuff sometimes by intuition, so it felt like the right program for me.
It’s a program specifically geared towards independent school leadership, and yet you get to interact with people who work at charter schools and public schools. I think that provides a unique perspective as well. So many things about the program just felt right, but the scholarship was definitely a motivating factor.
W: You’ve mentioned a couple of interesting points about the PennGSE program. Is there anything specific, aside from just the whole opportunity for learning that you’re excited about as you look forward to the program?
S: In terms of teaching, I’m definitely still a classroom teacher. That’s who I am. I still feel really, really comfortable being in a classroom setting and I still feel like I have a lot to learn. I’m really content where I am right now, but I know that at some point in my future I would like to take on a bigger leadership role, obviously still maintaining that classroom connection. I think that that connection with students is always going to be really important to me. So I’m excited about that. I’m thinking maybe curriculum development, creating more opportunities for learning. I’ve been really, really lucky having my department chair. We started at the same time at Elisabeth Morrow and she’s an incredibly seasoned and knowledgeable educator. Learning from her was really important.
W: Ok. Final question: If you could spend an afternoon with anyone that you consider a leader, dead or alive, who would it be?
S: Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers definitely! I think that there are so many people but when I think of what he did for children’s programming … I tend to admire him because he’s definitely somebody who I would consider a quiet leader. He did such amazing things. I just read a biography on Fred Rogers and to hear about his life! He was adamant that children not be advertised to in any type of programming that he did. “The adults are fine, but we’re not going to sell stuff to children.“ It was so important that he had that conviction and he said, “I’m not straying from this conviction.” He did a lot for public television. He had to go speak in front of a Senate hearing, and he convinced the people to fund public television, if I’m remembering that piece correctly. I think he was so influential in my life as well because I grew up watching Mr. Rogers on television. Now, on Saturday and Sunday mornings, I sometimes find it on TV and it brings up so many good memories. I think he was really committed to equity and justice and just being a good person. There was a quote at the beginning of the book that I was reading from Fred Rogers:
There are three ways to ultimate success:
The first way is to be kind.
The second way is to be kind.
The third way is to be kind.
So I think that I would definitely want to spend some time with him.
W: Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for spending time with us!
Editor’s Note: To learn more about Stephanie, check out her The Pedagogy of Leadership® Questionnaire.