Citation:
Interview with Paul Emler, History 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Spencer Emler, March 24, 2024.
Overview:
Teaching and the methods they use in education are ever changing. In the past 30 years alone, many events have changed the course of teaching forever. These events include the introduction of technology into the classroom, teacher shortages, and the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the biggest changes is the change of technology used by students and teachers. Starting in the last 20th to early 21st century, computers started to be a common item found in classrooms which allowed for new methods of teaching. This was all due to computers becoming more advanced and smaller so that they were better equipped for personal use. As you move more towards today, technology like 3D printers, smartphones, and 1:1 laptop for students are being seen in more and more schools. As technology rapidly advances in society, only the same will happen within schools.
A major obstacle within the teaching profession is time management. Many things are expected of teachers, and this includes writing new lesson plans, grading quickly, and being available to help students at all hours of the day. Many teachers even do more than that. Coaching, chaperoning trips, and running clubs are all things teachers manage to do on top of their long hours. In recent years, the lockdowns from the Covid-19 pandemic were another huge obstacle for teachers. The quick switch to online teaching was a huge change that many teachers had to quickly adjust to with no previous experience. In learning about education, it is important to understand everything that teachers have to go through, the good and the bad.
Biography:
This is an interview of Paul Emler conducted by his son, Spencer Emler. Paul is a male teacher who has been in education for 29 years. His entire educational career has been within Virginia. He received a Bachelor of Science in Education with an endorsement in Technology Education from Virginia Tech. Paul did his student teaching at Pulaski High School. He then went to teach at Nansemond River Highschool, Lakeland High School, Western Branch Middle School, and Grassfield High School throughout his career.
Research:
Technology in schools has changed a lot since the beginning of the 21st century. Computers didn’t start getting accepted in the world of education until 1983 when the Apple II computer was released. But it wasn’t until the late 1990’s where schools started to started to rewire their buildings to have better access to the Internet (History of Computer in Education). Since then technology has exploded in growth and acceptance within the classroom. By 2009, around 97% of classrooms in the United States has access to at least one computer (Purdue Online). Each year new technologies are introduced that can aid in education. Now in 2024, touch screen devices such as phones, tablets, and touch screen laptops are used by a large number of student.
A major global event that impacted education was the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time many decisions and changed to try and ensure the safety of students and teachers were made quickly. Some of these changes include keeping student home and out of school, having online assignments, and moving lectures onto an online setting like zoom calls (Scott). These quick changes affected the lives of many and forced everyone to learn a new way of education.
Bibliography:
“History of Computers in Education.” Www.cs.odu.edu, www.cs.odu.edu/~tkennedy/cs300/development/Public/M06-HistoryOfComputersinEducation/index.html.
Purdue Online. “The Evolution of Technology in the Classroom.” Purdue University Online, 2021, online.purdue.edu/blog/education/evolution-technology-classroom.
Scott, Ian. “Education during COVID ‐19: Pivots and Consequences.” The Clinical Teacher, vol. 17, no. 4, 27 July 2020, pp. 443–444, https://doi.org/10.1111/tct.13225. Peer-reviewed.
Transcript:
Q: 0:00
So thank you for agreeing to be interviewed today. Today, I’ll be interviewing you about your time in education. Could you just introduce yourself and tell me how long you have been a teacher?
Paul Emler 0:12
Sure. My name is Paul Emler. My friends call me chip. And this is my 29th year of teaching.
Q: 0:20
Why did you decide to pursue your career in education?
Paul Emler 0:24
I’ve always enjoyed working with young people. When I was in high school, I worked in Parks and Rec. I loved architecture and started college in architecture and realize that I wanted to teach it more than do it. And so I found out that Virginia Tech had a phenomenal technology education program, and I switched over.
Q: 0:44
Thats cool. So starting at the beginning of your career with your student teaching, where have you taught and thought about how long for each school?
Paul Emler 0:52
I did my student teaching at Pulaski high school, I was just for a semester. When I graduated from Virginia Tech, I was hired in Suffolk. And my first two years I taught at both Nansemond River and Lakeland High School. I switched over to full time at Lakeland and I stayed in Suffolk for eight years. I then moved to Chesapeake, Virginia, and I started teaching at Western Branch Middle School, where I taught for 15 years. And then I moved back to high school, at Grassfield high school where I currently am teaching
Q: 1:27
For when you switched locations of schools is there like a specific reason for why you switched?
Paul Emler 1:35
each time at Suffolk, I was just looking for something new and I found that in Chesapeake, and Chesapeake had a really good reputation for being state of the art technology. So I was excited to do that. It’s also an exciting challenge to go from high school to middle school. At the end of my middle school career, there was just some issues at the school with a lot of teachers were kind of getting burnt out. We loved our students. We love teaching, we just want to move on to a new school. And I went to Grassfield high school, which is the STEM Academy, which for technology teacher, that’s kind of a promotion, because what we teach. Some of the classes I teach are college level classes.
Q: 2:20
It’s nice. So can you explain how the use of technology within the classroom has changed while you’ve been teaching?
Paul Emler 2:29
Sure. When I first started teaching in Suffolk, I didn’t have any computers. And I was teaching classes that kind of required it, but we’re still kind of in that new phase of schools getting computers. When I moved to Chesapeake, I stayed on top of technology. In my classroom, we had computers, I was the first school in Chesapeake to get a 3d printer, I was the first middle school in Chesapeake to get robotic Legos. So I always try and stay on top of what technology is. When I moved to Grassfield High School. Again, being a STEM Academy, we have some of the most cutting edge equipment available. We struggle with computers a little bit. But the equipment itself we have resin printers and 3d printers and CNC routers and all kinds of really neat stuff.
Q: 3:18
So, another thing of comparison, when you first began teaching, has student behavior significantly changed within the classroom?
Paul Emler 3:26
I don’t think it really has I mean, I think that, you know, times change and what students how they behave changes a little bit. But overall, I’ve never had real behavior problems in my classroom. I think that coming back from COVID, that we struggled a little bit with students behavior because they’re kind of used to being at home. But all in all, that’s one thing that hasn’t really changed much over twenty nine years.
Q: 3:53
Okay, now switching to parents, um, have there been a greater number of difficult parents in more recent years or is it also been around the same?
Paul Emler 4:04
Um, it’s been about the same. I will say that again, I keep going back to COVID because that was a huge obviously hit to education. I think the parents still want us to be very gracious and understanding the way we were during COVID. But now that we’re back in the classroom, we were expecting students to kind of strive for a higher goal. I think some parents still want us to kind of go back to the way it was with COVID. And you know, it’s not good for the students to to do that. So all in all the parents are pretty good.
Q: 4:35
So has being a teacher like in your career has it worked well with raising a family?
Paul Emler 4:42
It’s been good. Definitely had to balance some things. When my first son was born, I was coaching volleyball at Lakeland High School. And for the first couple of weeks, I literally brought him to practice in the summertime. And my girls took turns babysitting while we had practice, but throughout the years being a teacher has allowed me to spend a lot of time with with my family, especially my three boys, because I would have the same holidays as they did. So it’s kind of nice.
Q: 5:09
So did any like obstacle, switching to COVID, did any obstacles arise when you switched to online teaching?
Paul Emler 5:18
Oh 100%. I hope I never go back. The biggest thing for me was in Chesapeake, we were asked to teach from our classroom, virtually. So I would go into work every day, sit in my classroom, and turn my computer on. And the students would log into class, they would never turn their cameras on. So it would just be a bunch of dots on my screen. And I realized that a lot of students weren’t necessarily doing the work. They’re just kind of copying what I was doing. There was definitely a lot more, I wouldn’t say cheating, but I guess it’s the word for it where students were not necessarily doing their own work. And you couldn’t prove it because you weren’t there with them. So yeah, COVID definitely provided a lot of challenges.
Q: 6:04
So like going off of like you said that more people would like cheat and all that. Do you think the changes in COVID has changed education permanently? If so, how?
Paul Emler 6:16
I definitely think it’s changed. I mean, we’ve had to go back. And well, first of all, I hope it’s not permanent. But we’ve had to go back a lot. You know, we had students that really lost almost two years worth of traditional classrooms. So it kind of kind of get that back a little bit. And we had students that were coming in to ninth grade, that hadn’t been in school since probably seventh grade. And they still kinda had that seventh grade mentality in terms of how do you act when you’re in school. Also, just the the tools, whether it be you know, ways to solve math problems by using internet sites or, you know, things like that, you know, as a school we had to get things like Lightspeed, which allows us to lock computers when students are taking the test, so that they cannot access the internet. So we’ve had to do some changes as well. Some of those changes were needed, but some of them hopefully, we can phase out as we kind of get back into what a normal school is like.
Q: 7:18
Can you describe how you balance your time with teaching, creating lesson plans, grading and other responsibilities you have within the school?
Paul Emler 7:27
It’s definitely a challenge these days where I come home very tired. Along with teaching seven classes this year, I also coach volleyball, I’m also the sponsor of the technology Student Association, as well as the one of the senior class sponsors. So I definitely have to keep a good calendar and make sure I balance my time well. And again, kind of going back to that question earlier, and storing time for family because it’s not fair for me to bring my work home, and not have time for them as well.
Q: 8:00
So I heard you mentioned like some of extracurricular activities that you’re involved with, why do you involve yourself with these activities?
Paul Emler 8:09
Kind of goes back to one of the first questions you asked me, why get an education? It’s for the students. I absolutely love working with students, I love in the classroom, when I joke about seeing the light bulb go off over somebody’s head, when they get that aha moment when they understand something that you’re doing. I found early on that the more that you get involved in the students life, not just in the classroom, that the more they will work hard for you in the classroom. I enjoy coaching volleyball, I’ve been doing for a long time, I get the joy of actually coaching one of my sons last year, which was awesome. And then with this technology Student Association, I get to kind of take what we do in class, and watch students compete against other students around the state and around the country. And again, just kind of see that love of technology that I have kind of shown to the students.
Q: 9:07
What would you say is the biggest difference between teaching middle school and high school students?
Paul Emler 9:12
The maturity level, you know, when I taught high school, and then the middle school, my high school friends said, “Oh, you’re gonna hate Middle School. They’re so immature. They’re so bad.” And I didn’t, I loved them. They’re, yes, they’re completely different. They’re in middle school, especially your sixth graders, they still have that kind of, I love school mentality. And then when I went to middle school back to high school, my high school friends said, “Oh my gosh, you’re not gonna like high school.” Which of course, I taught high school before, but I really enjoy high school as well because you can have more mature conversations with students. You get to kind of see what happens to them beyond high school. Especially being a senior class sponsor, I get to see what colleges they are going to. I get to keep in touch with them. So really, again, the maturity level between the two is probably the biggest thing. But I’ve enjoyed both.
Q: 10:07
Can you explain a time where, an experience that you’ve had, where you were reminded why you chose to be a teacher?
Paul Emler 10:15
I think it happens every once a while, you know. And I think it’s, you know, I joke with people that I think it happens, you know, at times that I need it the most. When I taught in Suffolk, there was a time that I had to get my car’s tires changed. And I was at a mechanic shop, one of my former students walked up to me, and thanked me because the job that he had gotten, he was able to use the skills that he learned in my class to talk about what he knew he got a better paying job then what he would have gotten otherwise. I’ve had other students do the same thing. I had a student who I became a really big part of his family. He had back surgery, I became his homebound teacher. And he went into become a draftsperson, because of the courses that he took with me in high school. so I think those are the kind of elements I have every once awhile, that just mean the most to me.
Q: 11:07
And finally, would you recommend others to pursue a career in education?
Paul Emler 11:11
You know, that’s a tough question. You know, I would love to say absolutely I will. But my biggest thing with recommending teaching to anybody is it has to be your passion. I have not stayed in education for 29 years because it pays awesome. I’ve not stayed in education for 29 years because I get my summers off, which is a misconception. I stayed in education for 29 years because I love the students and I love what I teach. And if you don’t have that passion, then I would not suggest getting into education. But for those that do I think it is such a rewarding profession.
Q: 11:47
Thank you so much for your time.
Process:
The interview was conducted over a phone call and the audio was recorded on a mobile app, voice memos. To set this interview up, I set up my iPad to record the audio of the interview and then called the interviewee using my phone. I then set up my phone next to the iPad so that it could pick up the voice from the phone call.
Transcription Overview:
After transcribing my interview using otter.ai, I edited it using some tips provided by the Columbia style guide. In this guide it mentions that the interviewer name should be seen as “Q:” and that there shouldn’t be any indentations at the start of the paragraph. I also made sure that all the words in the transcription match what was actually said in the interview.