Civics in the Classroom: Patience LeBlanc

This is Civics in the Classroom, a podcast series from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Civics in the Classroom is part of the A250 Summer Teacher Seminar, America's First Principles. This program to promote innovative K-12 instruction in U.S. history and civics was designed by the Center for Presidential History with support from the U.S. Department of Education and in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. In the first year of this three-year project, our workshops and lectures will focus on the causes and context of the movement for U.S. independence and the production and legacy of its most famous document, the Declaration of Independence.  

This episode features a conversation with Patience LeBlanc, who will be joining us as master teacher this June for our summer teacher seminar. Patience earned her BA in history from Texas A&M and her MA in history from Texas Women's University, and has over 27 years of experience in teaching social studies. She’s taught at both the middle school and high school level, and has served as a consultant for many educational programs, including the Gilder Lerman Institute, where she's written curriculum and presented across the state and nation. We talked about her career as an educator and about the importance of teaching civics to K through 12 students. 

The music for this series comes from the album K2 by Blue Dot Sessions under an Attribution-NonCommercial License. 

Transcript

PATIENCE LEBLANC: When we think about the first public education in our country, the idea is to create good citizens. It was actually to teach civics.

SUSIE PENMAN: This is Civics in the Classroom, a podcast series from the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. I’m Susie Penman, assistant director at SMU Center for Presidential History. In this episode, I speak with Patience LeBlanc, who will be joining us as master teacher this June for our summer teacher seminar. Patience earned her BA in history from Texas A&M and her MA in history from Texas Women's University, and has over 27 years of experience in teaching social studies. She’s taught at both the middle school and high school level, and has served as a consultant for many educational programs, including the Gilder Lerman Institute, where she's written curriculum and presented across the state and nation. We talked about her career as an educator and about the importance of teaching civics to K through 12 students. Thanks for listening to our third episode of civics in the classroom, and stay tuned for more as our summer teacher seminar approaches.

So Patience, thank you so much for joining me today.

LEBLANC: Thank you for having me. 

PENMAN: So to start us off, I would like to ask you to very generally talk about how your career as an educator began. I mean, I know that you have these two degrees in history. How did you end up getting into teaching? 

LEBLANC: Well, I came to teaching pretty early. I knew right away when I was a sophomore in high school. My first job was teaching swimming, and I loved working with kids, and I knew right away I wanted to teach, but I didn't know exactly what I wanted to teach. My dad served 21 years in the military, and so I moved around a lot. I spent most of my growing up years overseas and I think I got to see a lot of history and that really got me interested in social studies. And so that was the direction that I went. So I got a degree in history, but with a minor in English. But I really knew at an early age I wanted to teach.

PENMAN: And what were some of your early teaching experiences post swimming teaching?

LEBLANC: I have two sisters and I remember teaching them – I used to play school and I was always the teacher and I would give them homework. And that was just, it was just a passion. And people talk about teaching being a calling and for me it really was. I knew that it didn't have a lot of money to go with it. But that’s what I wanted to do. And after 27 years in education, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I enjoy watching students have that a-ha moment. I enjoy watching students make connections. And teaching social studies, I also have had a passion for civics and creating good citizens. And I really feel like as teachers, that's part of our job, is to create good citizens.

PENMAN: You mentioned civics, and on that topic, I wanted to ask you to talk a little bit about the importance of civics in education, when it comes, especially to K through 12 education.

LEBLANC: Yeah, teaching civics is one of the most important subjects to teachers K through 12. I always think about it this way – when we, one of the subjects that I enjoy learning and teaching about is the American Revolution, and you think about back to the founders and the framers of the Constitution, when they broke away from Great Britain and they created this new country, it was something new. And in order to make this representative democracy work, they were going to need a new type of citizen, and a citizen that would know how a representative democracy was going to work. Even in the beginning, when you look at people like Horace Mann, who was pushing for public education and really it’s to create a new citizenry. And when we think about the first public education in our country, the idea is to create good citizens. Not necessarily – public education is, I always tease my teachers about this. It's not about math or science. Not in the very beginning. It was actually to teach civics. So that's really why it's so important, even today. We look at other states, and not all states are required to teach civics in their states, but in our state, in Texas, we actually do have a civic requirement. And that's why it's really important. We are here to grow citizens, whether it's a large C or a small c, we have to create the next generation that's going to participate and know how it works.

PENMAN: We have this podcasting segment to the summer seminar and I know you had mentioned earlier that podcasting is not something you particularly have a lot of experience in, but thinking about innovative creative tools in the classroom, how do you think that introducing these sort of new pedagogical approaches can benefit students and teachers alike? Especially when it comes to civics, history, that sort of thing. 

LEBLANC: Right. I think the new student is different. Again 27 years, 21 years in the classroom, post COVID, students receive information differently. Teachers teach differently. We used to not have all this technology and now that we do, there really is a big push to have more of a blended approach. And this blended approach to pedagogy in the classroom really requires a mixture of some technology, but some hands-on learning for students to engage. And they need to engage deeper. I think the days of them sitting and getting are long gone. Kids need to have hands on, on the materials, and I think podcasting and other ways for them, creating videos and presentations, help them to fully engage in the learning. And so when we talk to teachers today, it really is this blended approach. We can't all be on the technology and we can't all be off the technology. We're going to need a little bit of both. And having unique ways to help kids assess kids and produce different types of learning is going to be very beneficial for them. And even though I've not ever done a podcast for myself, I've used AI materials to create podcasts. And I've also assigned podcasts to my students, which eat it up. They don't have to make a poster or if they don't have to make a slide deck or anything, when they can have a different way of showing their learning then a lot of times they will get into it. 

PENMAN: And can you talk a little bit about what you will – your participation this summer? What you'll be covering as master teacher for our summer seminar?

LEBLANC: Yeah, absolutely. Part of the Gilder Lehrman institute, we have some units that have already been produced for teachers. So one of the things that I have the privilege of doing at the summer institute is – I get to play. The scholars get to teach, but I'm the one that gets to actually play with the teachers and show them how to do some of the learning in their classrooms. So I get the pedagogy session, right? And so I'm going to be taking the units from Gilder Lehrman and really making them more hands-on so that when we are together at SMU, we're going to get to play around with those, with those lessons. Dig deep into the primary sources. Obviously our theme is 250. We're celebrating the America 250 and really diving into the document of the Declaration of Independence, where it started it all. And so we're going to be diving into tons of primary source documents and really looking at some different reading strategies, thinking strategies, just ways that teachers can bring it back to their classrooms.

PENMAN: You have over 27 years of experience as an educator. Can you talk about some of the biggest changes you've seen in nearly three decades of being in the classroom? Things have changed so much, I know. But some of the things that stand out to you.

LEBLANC: Well, you're reminding me how old I am. It's so funny. Today I actually get to work with teachers in my district, I have about 400 teachers that I work with, and I always tell them jokingly, I have shoes that are older than you, as they're coming in. But I guess the things that I've seen change in just the time that I've had the privilege of teaching is that, you know, systems change. When I started, I started with a chalkboard. And I, there wasn't a computer in my room, and if the principal wanted to talk to me, he actually had to put a memo in my box. So it was, the communication was much, much slower. But obviously email popped up and they got me computers and now, especially after COVID, each student in our district has a Chromebook. And so toward the end of my career, technology was more prevalent and we were doing a lot more online using those tools. I've always been an innovator. I've always welcomed change and technology, and that's the one thing I think teachers need to understand is they have to be, they have to have a growth mindset. We talk about a growth mindset and the idea that they have to embrace change. And sometimes that's hard. Change is hard for folks, even teachers. But the students are changing. Technology changes. The students are changing. The way they receive information changes. I used to be, and we laugh about this, I taught high school and I could hold their attention in the palm of my hand for 90 minutes just with my awesome lecture. But today that's not necessarily possible. And to be honest with you, at the end of the day, for 90 minutes, I was exhausted. And I was the one doing all the learning. 

Today, the students should be exhausted at the end of the day. Today, they should be the one doing the thinking and the discovering. And what's really big in that we've seen the shift too is this need to teach them inquiry. They're not asking the questions they used to, where they're not as curious as they used to. And one of the jobs that educators need to do is to help that curiosity, train them on how to ask good questions, how to be curious and really approach it in an inquiry way. And so we do a lot of projects and a lot of diving deep and really connecting it to real world. That's something else I don't really feel like we were doing at the very beginning, was really how do we connect what we're learning to real world today and how do we fix the problems we have today? When kids get heavily involved in that, then it goes into their deeper learning. And so I think that's probably been the changes that I've seen. 

PENMAN: I love that answer because you touched on the fact that I think there's a lot of anxiety over kids' ability to learn now. And maybe this is sort of an evergreen thing. People are always worried about, you know, kids these days. But you sound to me to be pretty positive and hopeful about what's going on in the classroom. What keeps you going as a teacher? 

LEBLANC: Yeah. Kids are resilient. I'll just be honest with you. And again, over the years you just, especially when you work one-on-one with students, you get to understand how resilient they are. And like anybody, students, if you create and set high expectations, students will follow. Now, will there be a handful of kids that you're going to have to do some extra extra of everything right, holding their hands? Absolutely. But every kid is unique and different in their own way, and it's important to build relationships with kids. It's important to understand how they learn. And every student learns differently. And that's one of the things that good teachers do is we study the learning process and the cognitive learning of students and then what we do is we try to meet them where they are and we try to grow them. Not only do teachers have to have a growth mindset, but students, you have to help them create a growth mindset as well. 

And honestly, sometimes it's being the cheerleader. Teachers are our cheerleaders. If we believe that they can, then they can. And sometimes that's all it takes is just having confidence in them and supporting them and growing them. And are you going to reach all kids? No. There's a lot of kids that have slipped through the crack, as when I was a teacher. But they may not get it now but who knows, years from later when they've left my classroom, a lot of times I get those emails or those letters back and go, you know what? I didn't get it before, but I get it now. They might be sitting in a college class and go, oh my gosh, you won't believe what we talked about. And you talked – and those are, teachers don't always get that. It’s kind of a thankless job. But you deep down, you know that the future is going to be okay because you're a teacher. 

PENMAN: I love that. And I love that you've gotten some of those emails and letters that, I'm sure that means so much to you. 

LEBLANC: You hang them up, I swear. You print them off, you have them in a little folder and on those bad days you just pull them out. And I think teachers who are listening to this podcast will know what I'm talking about. You’ve got to hold on to whatever you can hold on. Because it's a hard job. It's definitely a hard job. 

PENMAN: Oh yeah. I know everyone is so grateful for the teachers in their life like youwho have made a difference. Whether that's in the moment in the classroom, or as you said years later when you're thinking, oh, wait a second, I remember talking about that when I was in grade school. Well, thanks again so much for talking to me today and for being here this summer. Thanks in advance.

LEBLANC: I'm looking forward to this summer and working with the teachers that are going to come from across the country. SMU is a great place to be and a great place to learn, and I can't wait to sit in all the lectures and to work with the teachers. We were talking about it the other day. Sometimes the best learning actually comes when we are having those conversations over dinner. I can't tell you how many lesson plans I’ve made on the back of a napkin. Because the ideas will just flow. And the institute is going to be wonderful but honestly, the learning happens when teachers get together and they bounce ideas off of each other and they create. I'm just so excited to be part of this.

PENMAN: We really look forward to it. 

LEBLANC: We'll see you soon.