The Teacher Roundtable Fall Report Card
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2020
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s episode: Jamilah Lemieux checks in with four of Slate’s Ask a Teacher columnists to see how this very unusual school year is going. Brandon Hersey, Cassy Sarnell, Matthew Dicks, and Amy Scott talk about ways their teaching styles have changed, some unexpected positive outcomes, and ways parents can help teachers help their kids.
Slate Plus members get a bonus segment on MADAF each week, and no ads. Sign up now to listen and support our work.
Catch Jamilah’s Slate Live show The Kids Are Asleep every Thursday at 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET. Stream it on Slate’s Facebook page or YouTube channel.
Join us on Facebook and email us at momanddad@slate.com to ask us new questions, tell us what you thought of today’s show, and give us ideas about what we should talk about in future episodes.
Thank you to Brandon Hersey, Cassy Sarnell, Matthew Dicks, and Amy Scott for their insight.
Podcast produced by Rosemary Belson and June Thomas.
Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to a special episode of Mom and Dad are Fighting for Tuesday, October 20th, |
| 0:07.8 | the Mom and Dad Are Fighting Teacher Roundtable Fall Report Card. |
| 0:12.2 | I'm Jamila Lemieux, a writer, contributor to Slate's Karen Feeding Parenting column, |
| 0:17.0 | host of Slates The Kids Are Sleeps, and of course, a host of Mom and Dad are Frighting, Slate's |
| 0:21.3 | Parenting Podcast. Back in July, my co-host, Dan Kwa, asked for teachers to talk candidly |
| 0:27.8 | about what it's like to be a teacher facing the Great Unknown of Fall 2020. |
| 0:32.6 | Now, we're a few months into the school year. We decided we should check in with them to see |
| 0:36.5 | how they're dealing with this unprecedented semester. I'm excited to catch up with Cassie Sarnel, an early |
| 0:42.5 | childhood special education teacher in Albany, New York. Hi. Hi, Cassie. Brandon Hersey, who |
| 0:49.7 | teaches second grade in federal way Washington and is also on the Seattle School Board. Good morning, Brandon. Good morning. Good morning. How you all doing? We've also got Matthew Dix, a fifth grade teacher in West Hartford, Connecticut. Thanks for having me back. Thank you for joining us again. And last, but certainly not least, Amy Scott, an eighth grade teacher in Durham, North Carolina. Good morning, Amy. Good morning. So glad to be here. |
| 1:11.8 | Good morning, everybody. Thank you all for joining us for this. In July, Dan asked you guys to find |
| 1:16.6 | three words to describe the emotional state of teachers in that moment. I'd like to hear you all |
| 1:21.5 | choose three words to describe your individual emotional state now that we're a little ways into |
| 1:26.8 | the new school year. |
| 1:28.3 | How's everybody feeling right about now? |
| 1:30.9 | We can start with you, Cassie. |
| 1:33.1 | Apprehensive, busy, and surprised. |
| 1:37.3 | What are you apprehensive about? |
| 1:39.2 | Prior to schools reopening, Albany County was doing pretty well. |
| 1:43.4 | We were at about like a 0.4.5% |
| 1:46.6 | positive rate on our tests. And since school's starting, and I'm sure this is going to be a |
| 1:52.1 | theme for everybody that number has gone up. And we're hovering at about 1%, which is, I mean, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.