“My first job out of college was as a university professor in Shanghai China, I then spent a handful of years working in a warehouse before returning to China as an education consultant. Finally accepting my passion as an educator I returned to Colorado to enroll in a graduate program, start a family, and begin a seven year teaching career at a public school in Boulder, Colorado.” This is my go to introduction at the ever increasing social gatherings brought about by my two children entering grade school and the obligatory small chat during school dropoff and pickup. But everyone’s story is more complex than their 30 second self-introduction. I would like to use this first blog post to better introduce myself and increase efficiency during initial client meetings.
I am a teacher/trainer/coach/instructor depending on your industry. It is hardwired into my sense of being. I take a skill or content and formulate multiple methods to explain said skill or content to another human with their own unique background and learning style. My first paid teaching job was during college when I was asked to tutor a first year student in support of her Chinese class. Tenzin had been raised in a Tibetan immigrant home and had arrived in the United States in 3rd grade. What I quickly realized is that she had no sense of parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.), she had simply never learned the concept during her transitional primary education experience. We began color coding her vocabulary flashcards and her quiz grades improved eventually allowing her to pass her Chinese language classes. I should have realized at this point in my life that I thrived on being a teacher but it would take me three years of living in China and two years working in a warehouse to finally accept my core identity as a professional educator.
My time in China can be divided into two different experiences. The first one year adventure was as a visiting scholar (wai-jiao) English professor. I learned the basics of classroom management and student engagement. My classroom size was right at 50 students per class and I taught 6 different sections. A little known fact about this adventure is that in my free time I also helped open an English school for elementary aged students in a small city (Zhenjiang) about an hour outside of Shanghai. Although I was invited back to teach a second year at East China Normal University, I declined and returned home so that my then girlfriend (now wife) and I could get married. After two years of working at Forney Industries and climbing the corporate ladder from stock picking associate to warehouse floor supervisor, my wife and I decided it was time to have one more international adventure before starting a family. Round two in Shanghai lasted two years. We experienced a wonderful expat lifestyle with new friends and jobs that allowed us to float in society that doesn’t even exist in Colorado. However, all good things must come to an end and our final return to Colorado resulted in enrolling in graduate school, student teaching, child #1, and eventually the beginning of a seven year career in public high school education.
During my time teaching at Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado I experienced the ups and downs of leadership transition and policy changes inherent in public education. The joy experienced in the classroom offset the challenges caused by human factors. The stability of the job allowed our family to grow to a complete family of four with child #2 and allowed me to hone my skills as an educator. Designing curriculum that aligns with ever-changing district and state standards that engages with technology addicted teenagers is no easy task. And before you write off this blog and my services as not being relevant to your business, let me ask you this: who are the young people your company is hiring? Today’s Gen-Z students are tomorrow’s interns and new associates. We all navigated COVID-19 in our own ways. I was tasked by the school district to deliver content remotely and evaluate student progress after the district made it clear that grades would be frozen at their pre-pandemic levels and no student would be allowed to fail a class regardless engagement or participation. Am I bitter? Not really, I thought it was a great challenge and I enjoyed the opportunity to revitalize my admittedly worn out activities and worksheets.
The challenges and changes of COVID-19 eventually led me to the path of forming AEVR Training Solutions LLC. I signed a contract dated February 2020 for a summer gig to help a pharmaceutical startup implement a new document and training management software suite. My role was initially designed to provide one week of in person training during the summer, collect my check, and then return to the classroom. However, the pandemic nixed all chances of in person training and the project morphed into developing SOPs and a user guide for the software suite, virtual training sessions with the entire team from the CEO to the newest associate hires, and an ongoing data entry task to migrate the old records to the new system and maintain the new training records up to FDA inspection standards. Through this 10 month contract I was reminded of efficiencies of industry compared to what I had simultaneously been experiencing in the public education space. While AEVR had been formed I wasn’t ready to let go of my career path yet, while vaccines had been introduced it was not the right time to leave my students and colleagues at the peak of high stress in public education.
The final chapter of my career in public education begins and ends with a passion for supporting English language learners that come from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. While the field is no longer classed ESL (English as a Second Language), the student population is the same. Either recent immigrants or refugees or legacy English language learners, the role of of the English Language Development teacher is one of direct instruction, support for all content areas (math, science, history, etc.), and advocacy on behalf of the student or their families with school leadership. Transitioning to this role at Fairview was to be the breath of fresh air I needed to move past the turmoil of the pandemic. Two events however led me to say goodbye to Fairview and return my focus to building AEVR Training Solutions. The first was that I began helping an Afghan refugee family in their transition to living and working in Northern Colorado. The father spoke no English but the US State Department required him to find work within 6 months otherwise they would lose their refugee benefits. After getting a job at a large national online distribution warehouse, he was let go after less than one week’s work. Unable to understand why he was fired we went together and spoke with HR to investigate. Ultimately he was given his job back and the failure point was that his corporate trainer refused to acknowledge his abilities to successfully work in the warehouse because they did not know how to communicate/train a non-English speaker. The second event was simple public education bureaucracy. I was outranked by a 20 year veteran Elementary teacher who was owed a job, and so I was bumped from my dream job in the district and returned to my previous department of teaching History. The joy of the classroom was still there, but the sour taste of unionized work proved too much to handle. The lightbulb clicked on and I will now endeavor to bring my experience and skill set to the corporate world.
Are your training programs ineffective or inefficient? Do you feel that your increasingly diverse workforces are making unnecessary errors? Allow me to come in and review or help develop a new training program. After over 10 years of delivering training and professional education to companies and high school students alike, we have the skills necessary to help provide training solutions. Already have an outstanding training program but you want to bring in an outside professional educator to deliver your content in an engaging and efficient manner, let me know how we at AEVR Training Solutions can help. Lastly, do you find that your compliance training records are often on the backburner of your operations supervisors? AEVR Training Solutions can provide training database management services, either using your system or helping you design and manage an in-house system. We have the skills and experience to keep your records compliant with industry standards.