Spotlight 4 Success
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Spotlight 4 Success
North Carolina's AFT Movement
What drives teachers to become advocates? In this revealing conversation from the North Carolina Mid-Level Educators Conference, host Devin Pintozzi speaks with Elizabeth Nelson and Pablo Dela Canal about their transformative journeys from dedicated classroom educators to passionate advocates with the American Federation of Teachers.
Spotlight 4 Success: Spotlight 4 Success
Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company. I am Devin Pintosi, your host. We are here at the North Carolina Mid-Level Educators Conference, the NCMLE, in Charlotte, North Carolina. We are joined here by Elizabeth Nelson with the AFT, as well as Pablo de la Canal of the AFT. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wonderful. So, elizabeth, tell us a bit about your journey that brought you here to this point. Here you are as a representative of the North Carolina AFT, and what brings you here to NCMLE.
Speaker 2:So originally I was an elementary educator. I taught for 13 years in the classroom, taught fifth grade for eight and then second grade for five years, and I noticed that there were a lot of struggles in our schools for funding, for better pay for teachers, and so I decided to start working for NCAFT to fight for those things for our educators in North Carolina.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. And, pablo, what brought you to NCMLE?
Speaker 3:Well, very similarly, I actually am a teacher right now here in Charlotte, north Carolina, and I teach middle school, cte. And, similar to Elizabeth, actually, I came in through the lateral entry program and I used to work in business, in a bank, and I was just shocked to see some of the things that teachers were going through and I was looking for a way to make a change, a positive change for teachers, and I was able to hook up with AFT and we're just trying to basically start a chapter here in North Carolina. They're big national and this is something that I'm just very passionate because we need to do better for our teachers, for our schools, for our children.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, that's great. It's great to be a part of positive change for the education community so that's wonderful. So tell us a little bit, elizabeth, about your journey previous as an educator. What are some of the moments that you're like, wow, this was so great, this is why I got into teaching.
Speaker 2:That's a great question because there's so many moments that I could that come to mind immediately, but the biggest moments, I think, relate to student relationships. So all of those memories that I have with my students in the classroom not necessarily during the learning process, but in those times where we built those relationships to really make meaningful relationships in the classroom and help inspire them to be their best selves and also inspire me to be my best self as well. So I think some of my favorite memories are just doing things that students love to help inspire their learning, but then also keeping those connections for years later. I have kids that are now graduated from college that I taught that still keep up with me.
Speaker 2:I went to high school graduations, college graduations, so it's just nice to be able to maintain those relationships through the years.
Speaker 1:That is wonderful. And how about for you, Pablo?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean same. I think the relationships are key. I actually, before I became a teacher, as I said, I worked in banking, but my end is soccer. I've been coaching soccer for many, many years and people would tell me like you would be a great teacher, and so finally I got the, the opportunity, and so that's how I started doing. But to me is the relationships and just seeing when you are able to help a student and I have several cases where students have come to me afterwards and just kind of said it's like you know, now I get it what you were trying to do for me and it's just kind of changing lives basically to me.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. That's great. The passion of being a teacher reflected here. That's wonderful. Elizabeth, can you tell us a little bit about your journey from being an educator to deciding to go into advocacy here with the AFT North Carolina?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So. I really started this journey voluntarily 10 years ago. I've been volunteering to work for different organizations doing education advocacy on a local level, and then that moved to a state level and then eventually I got connected with Dr Jen Mangrum. She ran for state superintendent of public education in 2020. She did not win that race, but had a huge following of teachers that were like we need you and we're asking her for help. So Jen and I became friends and continued the advocacy work on the side voluntarily. And then AFT National noticed the work we were doing and they said we love what you're doing, we'd love to support it. And they have supported us. And so we're very new to North Carolina. Officially, we are grassroots, we are making this what we want it to be, but the big push is to support funding for your classrooms, better pay for you all and more respect for our profession.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's wonderful. Wonderful Elizabeth and Pablo. What brought you into the AFT North Carolina? And Pablo, what brought you into the AFT North Carolina?
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Speaker 3:But again. So I was looking for a way to help out teachers and to basically advocate for them, because I saw the necessity and, just like Elizabeth, I started reading about what Jen Mancrum was doing and just kind of looked her up and kind of sent her an email and I said, hey, I love what I hear from you. It's like how can I help? And they immediately invited me to be part of the working group. And last year it was only a few of us that kind of got together and decided to create this. It was a digital protest, but we got a lot of people involved. We had Mo Green, who is now our superintendent of public education, and we were just advocating. And then since then it's just like all the different things that we can do and it's just like the future has a lot of potential, but we need teachers to join us. That's kind of what we're looking for.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so let's talk about that a bit. So how can people get involved with what the AFT is doing in North Carolina?
Speaker 2:So the number one way to get involved is to join. When you join as a member, it's less than $6 a month to be a part of this and you get that union protection at your back. You also get liability insurance for on-the-job legal services if you ever need them for any reason. Over 50 free professional developments for educators that are nationally accredited, and it goes from things like not just math and science, but we have ESL professional developments, ec focus, we have community driven focus ones, and then we offer things like student loan forgiveness programs and then a ton of fun things like Disney World discounts and car rental discounts and things like that.
Speaker 2:So the number one way to get involved is to join, and then we're doing a lot of amazing things. I'll let Pablo tell you a little bit about what he started for AFT, but we're doing a lot of local support and organizing in areas like Durham, the media specialists there are cuts coming their way and we're supporting the work that they're doing to fight against those cuts. There are cuts coming their way and we're supporting the work that they're doing to fight against those cuts. In New Hanover, we're working towards freedom of expression in the classroom with the local school board. So all over the state we're working, but Pablo can tell you about that.
Speaker 3:Well, one of the things that we are really excited about we had our governor basically come up with their state-of-the-state address and he definitely proposed some very bold initiatives for education and we wanted to basically support him. So we decided to create this letter writing campaign. So right now we have it running. We've only started a couple days ago. We already have over 100 signatures and we're asking people to come in and sign. Super easy If you go to our website, there's a link right there. It takes you to the letter that we drafted. You can change it if you need to. If you want to add your special thing that you are looking for, you can put it there and the nice thing is that you don't have to even think about it. You put in your address, it automatically gets sent to your representative at the general, at the general assembly. Easy and it's a great way to advocate for teachers and also to just learn more about what we're trying to do for you guys.
Speaker 2:And you can find that at our website it's ncaftweeblycom.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's wonderful. Well, thank you so much, elizabeth Nelson and Pablo de la Canal. It's been a pleasure speaking with both of you. I wish you much success and I hope you have a great conference.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to reach you now. Thank you, thank you.