Hello friends! I’m so excited to share a new podcast episode! Meet Dylan Mulroney, a 2nd-grade teacher in Pennsylvania in York City School District. Dylan is my cousin, so it was easy to find out about his work in the classroom and his journey teaching young students. Dylan is from Lancaster, PA, and graduated from Millersville University. Soon, he’ll start his master’s degree. It was a pleasure speaking with him and asking him about his experience teaching (he’s loved it!) and how he confronts the challenges that such a diverse classroom faces.
Have an awesome time listening and reading the transcript below! You can listen to this episode on all podcast streaming platforms, including Apple, Spotify, and Anchor. Feel free to drop a comment or email me at victoria@talkbyvictoria.com about how you enjoyed this talk!
Victoria Foley
Yo, what’s up, Dylan. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I’m really excited to have you here.
Dylan Mulroney
Yeah. Thank you for having me. I’m excited.
Victoria Foley
Yeah, of course. So Dylan, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dylan Mulroney
Well, my name is Dylan Mulroney. I’m from Lancaster, PA where all the Amish are. I just graduated college not too long ago at Millersville University, where I obtained a degree in elementary education. before I graduated, I actually accepted a second-grade teaching position in York City School District, which is really close to where I live.
Victoria Foley
That’s nice. You’re also my cousin. But people will learn about that in the very intro of this. Anyway, we saw each other at Christmas, right? And you were telling me all about your job as the second-grade teacher teaching different children of like different backgrounds and more. First, I wanted to know, when did you want to do education?
Dylan Mulroney
I actually came late to the game on that one. Originally in high school, I wanted to be a lawyer. And all four years of high school, I wanted to be a lawyer. I don’t know, I was just kind of like, dead set on it. So I went to Pitt, for a year. Took a few law classes and didn’t really like them. It was just kind of too boring, I guess. It’s just not my personality. I like talking though. So after a year, it wasn’t like really what I wanted. I remembered that I had an internship in high school, where I was a preschool teacher for about half a year. I remember liking it a lot. So I was like, you know what? That internship didn’t really feel like work. It was more fun. So I might as well try teaching and doing that as a career. And here I am.
Victoria Foley
Yeah, I didn’t know you wanted to be a lawyer. That’s funny.
Dylan Mulroney
Yeah, I’m glad I’m not.
Victoria Foley
I’m hoping to be a lawyer. So hopefully, it’s not too boring for me. Hopefully, I don’t go into law school and then realize that it’s not for me.
Dylan Mulroney
It’s just not my personality, that’s all.
Victoria Foley
No, you’re all good. So ever since you started working with kids, in your internships, and teaching schools, you work with kids from many different backgrounds, such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, family background, etc. You’ve told me that sometimes it’s like, complicates the environment. I was wondering if you could share a little bit about what is your classroom look like today?
Dylan Mulroney
For sure. I’ve been in education, for, I’d say, six years now. Most of my experiences in urban school districts in city schools with low economic status. I’m kind of used to it. I’m really lucky. I only have 16 kids in my class, which is very out of the ordinary. I’m very lucky because we have an extra teacher in second grade [at school]. So the numbers are very low. Out of my 16 students, only one of them is white. Three of them are homeless, which does complicate things because they oftentimes don’t have transportation to get to school. And they also aren’t really able to do their homework, which, of course, I don’t really hold them to that, because they’re not able to. I try my best to get all our learning done in the school building. I have very little homework for all my students, just because I know it’s tough at home. I believe over half of my families are below the poverty line. I’m super lucky because all my kids are so happy to be at school, they enjoy learning. They enjoy being there, they want to please their teacher, which is good because you don’t often see that in urban districts. There are a lot of students with negative attitudes towards school towards white adults and towards men so I just got I’m very lucky to be where I am.
Victoria Foley
Yeah, that’s really awesome. I remember you telling me a little bit about giving out homework and how hard it is to get the students [to do it] knowing that they have so much at home. You said you’re lucky to have 16 kids. What’s the normal average classroom?
Dylan Mulroney
For urban districts, in the lower grades, it’s about 25 to 28. When you get into the higher grades, it goes to about 30 kids in class, from 30 to 34. So I have half of what I should have. So it’s nice. Learning is a lot easier.
Victoria Foley
Wow. What have been some of the most rewarding parts of your job?
Dylan Mulroney
Just being able to impact my students’ lives positively. Whether that’s academically or not, I’m, obviously in my contract, it states that I need to be teaching my kids, they need to be showing progress. But life happens. I understand that not all my students are going to show growth, but they might not be measured growth, all of them are going to show growth though. Whether that be social-emotional awareness, intelligence, or being able to express their feelings. As long as I see progress in any of those areas, I’ll be very happy. I love watching my students enjoy learning. So actually, yesterday, one of my students there, they have like this app, it’s called Extra Math, and they just have to do their addition facts really fast. It’s hard because they’re in second grade, they’re just starting to get fluency in this addition. So nine plus three, four plus five… they have to do all that stuff as fast as they can. And one of my students who’s been struggling a lot with that, he was on a roll, and every single time he would get one right, he goes, “yes!” Everyone in the class would hear him and it was just really cool.
I understand that not all my students are going to show growth, but they might not be measured growth, all of them are going to show growth though. Whether that be social-emotional awareness, intelligence, or being able to express their feelings.
DYlan mulroney
Victoria Foley
That’s really nice. Wow. Do you play that game on the iPad? Do students have devices?
Dylan Mulroney
All my students do have an iPad. Everyone in the school because of COVID got an iPad or a laptop. I believe all the younger grades have iPads. And then the older ones have laptops.
Victoria Foley
Okay, cool. And did the school provide that?
Dylan Mulroney
[The school] got money from the state because of COVID they were able to provide every student with a device for online learning.
Victoria Foley
That’s really awesome. And I’m sure that makes like grading essays– Oh, well, no, you don’t great essays about like grading quizzes or whatnot, like really easy or something? I don’t know. I’m thinking of like Google Forms. How easy it is?
Dylan Mulroney
No, it definitely is. We have math assessments, where it’s kind of similar to like a standardized test where you fill in a bubble sheet. And then I can actually just scan the bubble sheet that they fill in with my iPad. And it makes it easy for me.
Victoria Foley
Dang. Yeah, that’s nice. That’s so nice. Wow, I remember using Scantron. But anyway, so what’s an unexpected challenge that you’ve had in the classroom that typically people like, don’t warn you about?
Dylan Mulroney
I’d say two things that they don’t teach you in college about teaching… The first one is being able to navigate student home life. For example, homelessness, death, and money. And I will say, like, when I first like got into these situations, especially with death, I, I was a little uncomfortable with talking about that. So that was kind of a learning curve for me. But I was able to reach out to other teachers who have been teaching for a while and ask them how they navigate when a student’s parent dies the day before. And just being able to know how to help them because I had no idea what I could do to help them because I can’t bring their parent back to life. So just being there for them. And then the other thing they don’t teach you in school is how to show empathy, just in general, as a teacher, as a human, on being able to see a person’s situation and understanding that they might not be able to meet all of your expectations and that’s okay, because of their situation. But you also have to understand how to accommodate your students’ needs without lowering their expectations, because you do want them to learn, you don’t want them to just sit and not learn, or do any other work.
Victoria Foley
For sure. And that’s really a tough topic to talk about: death. And then you were telling me that in your experience, you normally like to lean on maybe like other teachers or people that have had this experience. Being a teacher you work in this really big, larger environment with other people and I remember you telling me that you’re kind of like, all of a sudden, thrown into this environment where all the people kind of already know each other. It’s up to you to figure out how you’re going to fit in, etc. What’s your advice for someone kind of like you, I guess it’s just been thrown [in a place and has] to navigate this space?
Dylan Mulroney
I’ll say it’s definitely a struggle. When you’re a teacher, you have your own room. Well, if you’re lucky, you have your own room. There are some that don’t, but you have your own room, so you don’t really see the other teachers very much unless you leave your room to go and actually talk to them, ask them a question. The biggest thing that you can do to make friends in a new school would be just being flexible. If you’re able to help them in any way, whether it be like a principal or another teacher by covering a class, or helping them out with a lesson that they might not know how to teach, per se, um, it’ll be easier for you to fit in with your co-workers by being able to help them. Also just try to have positive interactions with everyone that you see. So when I walk into the building every single day, every single person I see I say good morning to them. If I don’t know their name, and, it looks like they have time to actually talk, I’ll ask them their name and ask them what they do in the building since I’m still trying to remember everybody since there are so many people. I just do my best to have positive interactions with everybody.
Victoria Foley
Yeah, and you teach at an elementary school, right? Like Kindergarten through sixth?
Dylan Mulroney
It’s actually K through eighth grade. It has its own challenges because there are eighth-graders with kindergarteners but they are separated by two floors. So it’s okay.
Victoria Foley
Okay, wow. Yeah, no, that must also be a really, really big school.
Dylan Mulroney
Yeah, there are three floors. It’s actually a super cool school. There are like three floors and then there’s like a whole catwalk thing. Yeah, it’s very new. I got lucky. And I got into the newest building as well.
Victoria Foley
Wow. So out of curiosity, this is like really random, but I remember in elementary school, recess was my favorite part of the day. How do you all do recess? Right now, if any?
Dylan Mulroney
I will say recess is also my favorite part of the day as a teacher, but so we’re only supposed to give 15 minutes of recess to second graders, which I think is a little silly, because play and social interaction are so important, especially with COVID. Because these kids, they don’t know how to play with each other, they don’t know how to play with people, other than like them playing alone by themselves, because that’s what they’re used to. So my second-grade team has four teachers. We decided that we wanted to do 30 minutes of the recess so that we didn’t get in trouble. We wanted to push it a little bit, but we didn’t want to get yelled at by our principal. But we wanted to do 30 minutes of recess after lunch every single day. So we do that. They go out into the playground, and they play like normal, and we do our best to keep their masks up. But they’re in second grade. It’s hard to police that. Since it’s been so cold, at least where I am, we have not been able to go outside. So we have indoor recess, and all the toys and board games and play-doh. That was provided by me that like that. The school doesn’t give us anything for recess. So the teachers have to bring stuff in on their own dime. It’s fun, though. They enjoy it.
Victoria Foley
Yeah. Wow, that was that must be a lot, especially on new teachers like you that you have to basically just create your own classroom. Wow.
Dylan Mulroney
I know I’ve said this many times, but I got lucky. The teacher that was there before me left me a bunch of stuff. I didn’t have to bring too much in I brought extra playdough in because I got some for Christmas. Thank you for that [all of the grandkids donated play dough that was received as a gift]. And I’m going to be bringing in some Legos and like Matchbox cars, actually on Monday for them to be able to play with two. So nice.
Victoria Foley
Legos, those are really popular.
Dylan Mulroney
Oh, yeah. No, they’ve been asking for it. And I was like, Okay, guys, I’ll, I’ll look at my basement, see if I have any. And I found a whole box of them. So they should be pretty happy on Monday.
Victoria Foley
That’s so sweet. That’s happy to hear. Wow. So I was wondering that you now also have to work virtually, I would imagine, like every now and then you have like virtual class sessions. And like, even just like for college students, since we did like, you know, Zoom University. It’s so easy to zone out. I was wondering, how do you keep all your kids engaged?
Dylan Mulroney
It’s tough. There’s no right answer. It’s You’re right. It’s very hard to keep students engaged. It’s exhausting for the presenter. I’m especially when some of my students aren’t able to access the internet. Out of my 16 I have five that don’t have internet at home. So I can normally expect them to not be there for a virtual day. If we have a snow day, instead of not having school, we’ll do a virtual. I’ll hold a zoom from nine to 11. I can expect at least a third of my class isn’t going to be there, and the ones that do, a lot of times they’re their home is, there’s a lot of stuff going on in their home. So they aren’t really able to pay attention to well. So I will say, online learning, it just, it doesn’t really happen too well. Which is unfortunate. The one piece of advice that was drilled into me to one piece of advice that was drilled into me by other teachers, just to like, help me through zoom, was to keep it short and sweet. Because the attention span is not there. And, to always have a visual, so don’t just be talking on a screen have something showing like a PowerPoint or anything fun. Yeah, those are the two big things.
The biggest thing that you can do to make friends, as a teacher, in a new school would be just being flexible. If you’re able to help them in any way, whether it be like a principal or another teacher by covering a class, or helping them out with a lesson that they might not know how to teach, per se, um, it’ll be easier for you to fit in with your co-workers by being able to help them.
Dylan mulroney
Victoria Foley
Yeah. And for those six kids that are unable to come, how do you make up the work, or is that your zoom session?
Dylan Mulroney
So right now we only do zooms sporadically. In the future, we might be completely online, but for the sporadic zoom meetings, it’s almost always review. I try my best not to teach new information on those days. But if I know ahead of time that we’re going to have a virtual day, I will prepare packets for everyone. I’m not going to require my students to do them, but I will ask them very nicely to.
Victoria Foley
Yeah, I got you. I can really tell you love working with kids, you love all of your kids. I imagine that from time to time, it must be challenging, maybe even discouraging from time to time. So how do you keep from losing faith? Or how do you keep from getting burned out?
Dylan Mulroney
It is exhausting emotionally and physically exhausting being a teacher. But you just have to have a positive attitude, you have to remember why you’re there. You have to have confidence in yourself to say that I am the best person to be teaching these students right now. And every day you have to strive to be that good, that best person. Basically, I try my best to start every day with a positive attitude positive interaction. I say good morning to all my students. You just got to keep going. And see what we’re doing is super important. They’re the next generation. And I love what I do.
You have to have confidence in yourself to say that I am the best person to be teaching these students right now.
Dylan mulroney
Victoria Foley
I can really tell that you love it. And it’s really awesome to see. I really admire that. Wow. So for our last question, and this is a question that every guest on the show gets asked, that question is: what is one act of kindness or service that everyone can do every day?
Dylan Mulroney
This might not be an act that everybody can do but I would say to listen, and keep your ears open. If you listen, I feel like if everyone is able to listen to one another, there’ll be a lot less conflict and a lot less misunderstanding and a lot less and a lot more love in the world. You know, so I feel like listening is very important and not a lot of people are able to do that in this age.
Victoria Foley
Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom in your experiences and, and everything with us today.
Dylan Mulroney
Of course. Thanks for having me.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai. Edited by Victoria Foley.
I hope you all enjoyed that interview with Dylan! It’s filled with awesome quotes and inspiration that I’m sure you’ll remember as you walk along your day and through your own similar journeys. As I edited the transcript, I was able to see the profundity in his messages and also see the incredible labor that teachers do for their students.
Have an awesome week, thank you for tuning in, and I look forward to talking soon!
‘Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions.’
—Unknown
Victoria, that was awesome! Dylan is just the kind of teacher that we need in this world. I didn’t get a chance to talk with him a whole lot when we were together recently so it was wonderful to hear this interview. I so admire you both for doing it.