Episode 102: Becoming the Teacher You Wish You Had with Renes Lophanor

Renes Lophanor, a language teacher with over 23 years of experience, discusses his journey in education, emphasizing the importance of building strong relationships with students and treating them with respect. Renes advocates for a teaching approach that values creativity, flexibility, and genuine care for students. Renes's book, I Still Love Teaching Despite Having all the Reasons in the World to Quit: Observations of the Education System, aims to share his insights and methods to help other teachers. He advises teachers to prioritize their well-being and encourages those leaving the classroom to leverage their skills in other educational roles.

In this episode, he shares his experiences as a substitute teacher, highlighting the challenges and benefits of this role. He also criticizes the education system while acknowledging its potential benefits.

 

Topics Discussed:

  • How Renes loves teaching but despises the education system 

  • Why it’s important to love and support all students to be themselves 

  • How Renes uses reflections from his experience as a student to guide his work as a teacher

Resources mentioned:

Related episodes and blog posts:

 
 
 
 

Read the transcript for this episode:

Welcome to Educator Forever, where we empower teachers to innovate education. Join us each week to hear stories of teachers expanding their impacts beyond the classroom and explore ways to reimagine teaching and learning.

Renes Lefonore is the author of “I Still Love Teaching: despite having all the reasons in the world to quit observations of the education system.” He is a language teacher in England and has been a teacher for over 23 years. And he's also a passionate musician, playing various instruments and performing across Europe. Renes's teaching philosophy is anchored in building strong relationships with students, fostering a deep love for learning and nurturing students’ unique potential. Welcome. Renee is so glad to have you here.

Renes Lophanor

Thank you, Lily, and it's a pleasure to be here as well with you wonderful

Lily Jones

Well, I always like to start with the same question, which you can take in any direction you want okay, which is to tell us about your journey as an educator.

Renes Lophanor

My journey as an educator started 20 something years ago. 20 something years ago, I was destined, destined, if I may say like that, to become an architect or an engineer. But my love for languages took over when I entered university, and I decided to become a language teacher instead, and I do not regret it at all, because I do feel more at home since I changed my pathway, and so I've been teaching for the last 22 years in a variety of educational settings with children aged 11 years to 18 years old and mixed school, single sex school, and You name it. I've done it all. I've also worked as a substitute teacher. As teacher, which we know as a substitute teacher, you do not, you do not have the same rapport with the student as when you are permanent in the school. And so that has helped me, as well, build or grow my experiences to deal with behavioral issues or building relationships with the students and staff alike. So yeah.

Lily Jones

Yeah, it's interesting thinking about substitute teaching. I did some of that when I was in my credentialing program, and it was really hard, but also so important. Like, I feel like I learned so much through that process, because it was hard, like, it took out the variables of the class culture you'd build, and the relationships you'd build, and all the things, and you have to do it in like a microcosm,

Renes Lophanor

Yeah, but you know what I decided to become? I decided to do substitute teaching for two term, almost a year because, and that was after my first year of becoming a certified teacher. I wanted to have more experience in working with more schools, more children from different backgrounds and settings. It was difficult to start with, especially because some of the schools where they send you as a substitute teacher are usually schools where teachers don't stay to work, so they they are always in constant need of of substitute teachers. But that the those experience has helped me a lot in understanding how to to tackle behavioral issues with student, especially as a substitute teacher, you they know you're not here for long. You're here maybe for one day or two days. So whatever you say, they're not going to take seriously, but when they see you the next day, and okay, maybe he's there for for good and and my approach was, and that still is the case, to teach my student the way I wanted to be taught when I was A student, and thinking of those students whose teachers were were not staying with them. They, for example, in one term, I remember one class told me they had I was the fifth teacher, the fifth German teacher in in that same term. Wow. And so for them, anyone who shows up, they they know that person is not going to stay, so they just didn't care. And talking about care students or children in general, do not care until they know how much you care about them. So. And so that's, that's what I used to to gain them to work with me, is it's by showing them that I get even though I was only substitute teacher and and that helped me had have a good time in those different schools that I want to work, to work at.

Lily Jones

I love that approach too, you know, showing that you care. And also, something you said really stood out to me too, of being the teacher that you wish you had. And I think that's so powerful to think about things that way. You know, sometimes being a teacher, a beginning teacher, in particular, sometimes you can feel like it's like me against them, control them. You gotta, like, get things moving and get all these things done. And that's not ideal. And so I'd love to hear more about that. Like, what? What do you wish you had when you were a student? How does that inform your teaching?

Renes Lophanor

Well, I wish, I wish I had more. I wish my teachers gave me more credit for who I was as a person, not just as a student, and especially in primary school and and I'm saying that because I I did my primary school years in Haiti and over there, the teachers are straight. They are straight. You can't budge if they don't tell you, if they don't allow you to, and if you decided not to do homework, you would have hell to pay. And the teachers then were seen as if, I may use that term, as the Kings, the gods, so as a student, you were no one near them, and I wish, I wish, sometimes, that I could joke with my teachers. And there was no way I could have done that in primary school. Then I moved to Paris, um, where I did my secondary years, high school and university, and that was a different ball game altogether, because over there, contrary to Haiti, the teachers were soft, to say, too soft for some of them. It was a different system. So I could have, I was tempted even to to go the opposite way and and mess about and not paying attention, or even perhaps to become rude towards them. But I didn't because of the education that I had for my parents, for my family, so which was to be respectful to everyone, and especially adults. So for me, that wasn't an issue at all, but I had already a better relationship with my teachers in in high school, and that made me enjoy those secondary school years, like, if you ask me, which if, if I liked school, or which were my favorite, my favorite school years, I will never mention Primary School for, for the reason that I mentioned, and I will always say secondary school, high school and university

Lily Jones

For sure. It's so interesting, yeah, hearing about the two different experiences there.

Renes Lophanor

Yes, and that's what I built on knowing or still having the fresh memory of my primary school years and knowing how I enjoyed my secondary, my secondary school years, I take from both to build the best method that I can build, which is to treat my students with respect and no lower than I am as a person, no higher, but just equal as a person, in and out of the classroom.

Lily Jones

So powerful. I mean, I think that power dynamic, it does more harm, and that really why, you know, like, Why do teachers have to be on this pedestal? I think sometimes teachers, um, kind of, you know, latch on to that because it feels like control. And the goal of school is not to control students.

Renes Lophanor

It's to educate, yeah, yeah. And. And to me, that's part of the education: to show that everyone can be respected, like, like, like, everyone, no one is okay. Yes, there is a hierarchy in the school, and they are aware of that. The students are aware of that. But by showing them the same risk, the same respect that you would show you will express towards your colleagues, does not mean that they see you truly as their equal. On if we're talking about hierarchy, they still know they are below in the the in the hierarchy, but still that that's something that would help. And I have an anecdote, actually, one student who was in my in my year nine class. I mean, in England, you're in the United States, right? Yes, I'm in California. Okay, so year nine in England, that's students who are 13 years old. And so that student was what they call a troublemaker, and he was constantly in trouble with the senior staff and all the colleagues. He was often temporary excluded from school, etc. But in my lesson, he always, always behaved, and for me, I was not aware of how bad his behavior was outside of my classroom until I get to read his report. A student is put on report in England when they the behavior has is not, has not been satisfactory, or if they had been excluded for something extreme. And that report is actually a little card which on which there is a target for them for one week or two. And that target can be something like showing respect to everyone in the class. Focus on your work and arrive on time on class. And they have to hand in this booklet to the teachers to in every lesson, and at the end of the lesson, the teacher will fill in if they had completed uh, those those targets, and pass it back to to the student, who will then pass it on to the next teacher. So I was reading Ryan's, that was his name, Ryan's uh report, and it said, be polite to member of staff, or no swearing, or something like that. I want I went to him when we were doing some class work, and said, Ryan, there's something I don't understand. You are all often on the report for swearing at teachers, swearing at other people, fighting, etc, but yet, in my lesson, I've never had an issue with you. Why is that? And he would look at me and said, because you're not like them. What do me and I'm not like that? Well, you're not like them. And ask him to to clarify. And then he said, Because you talk to us. When you walk past pastors in the corridor, you talk to us. You would even come join us on the playground during lunch time or break time and have a chat as if you don't treat us as if you were superior, that was his. Those were his words. And although to me, I was not in my mind, I was not doing anything special to gain his respect. But that made me realize that, ah, yeah, it's true. I haven't seen any colleagues go on the playground at break time or lunch time and chat with the students like I do. And to me, what was, to me, a natural thing to do for the students, that was something special, and that's, and that's, that's one thing that stayed with me since then, and I was just being, yeah, I was just being myself. So. If you treat them as equal, to a certain respect, there's a grand chance that they will your reciprocate the respect to you.

Lily Jones

Yes, absolutely. And I think that I felt the same way when I was teaching, you know, I felt like my classroom management was really that I truly loved all my students, and that they knew that. And so I think that, you know, when you allow yourself to have that human connection and don't feel like you have to be like the leader, the one who must be obeyed all the time. Well also, you know, like you shared with your experience, you know, moving to Paris and going to school there, like you also need to have control of your class and have it be, you know, a learning environment that works for everybody. But I think that it's only it has to start with that, like true love and appreciation and like mutual respect and really leading by example there. And then going back to one more thing that you shared, I think, just highlighting that also seeing students for who they are, you know, for really, truly, like as a parent, I have two kids or nine and 13, and that's what I love the most about their teachers, like they're when their teachers can see them or who they are, you know, all parts of it, that's the biggest gift.

Renes Lophanor

Yes, absolutely. I have two, two children as well. Yeah, 20, and 23. Okay, and so I, I should, I mean, I share my my hobbies with them, with my students, and they love that. That's that's something they find exceptional as well, because teachers don't tend necessarily to to share the hobbies or what they do with their own children, with their students, and by doing that, they see you as a normal human being. In the eyes of the students, we teachers are not human we are not normal teachers. That's a different breed of speech.

Lily Jones

Yes, absolutely. So tell me about your book, and why did you decide to write it?

Renes Lophanor

Oh, I decided to write that book for Well, one of the reason was because I wanted to share my experiences and my insight with other teachers and anyone who wants to or who's thinking about becoming a teacher, and also because in my schools, colleagues have often asked me, renes, how do you do with this class? They are a nightmare for me, but in your with you, they seem fine and and for me, when they asked me that question, I honestly had to reflect to see okay, what am I doing with them? That to me, seems normal, natural, but that other teachers are not necessarily doing, and that goes to what I some of the things I mentioned earlier, the the respect that I give them naturally, and treating them as as a human being before a student learning with them and and there was also the sanction. If you ask one of my or any of my students, if I am a strict teacher, the answer is likely to be, what do you think?

Lily Jones

I don't know. I feel like, really, yes.

Renes Lophanor

The answer is yeah. They will say yes. They will say yes. And yet, if you see them in the class, in my classroom, you would the atmosphere is so relaxed they are. No one is scared of of asking me question, no one is scared to try and pronounce a word wrong. You know, I teach, by the way, for your listeners, I teach languages, French and Spanish, so they are always willing to to try and make mistake and make mistakes and learn from them. So all these things creating that, that comfort that in the classroom for them is is one thing, I think, that that help, and I wanted to. Share with colleagues and anyone who's interested in education, how I have been doing it, to that work that has been working for me and to the point that I still love teaching. Hence the title of the book, after 22 years and and so that others could pick from, from my insights, my experiences, and see what fit them, what would fit them if they have to tweak anything they would do. Do that so it's to, in a way, to to help others to answer those questions, but also to raise awareness of the education system. What I'm about to say might, well might shock a lot of you, especially because I said, I love teaching. I hate the education system. I hate that. Yeah, yeah, yes, continue, yes, and, and, so why do I still stay in that education system, it's mainly because I hate it so much I know I can help those students who have no choice but to go through that system. So I am staying in there and try and make the life the more enjoyable during the time in school, yes and and teach them like I always wanted to be taught.

Lily Jones

So fantastic. I mean, I absolutely relate and felt the same way. I'm no longer a classroom teacher. We get to work with classroom teachers a lot, but I felt the same way. I mean, if I could keep teaching, not in the traditional education system, it would have taken away a lot of the pain. And I think for me, so much of the frustration was just not being able to do the things that I knew that my students actually needed, and to be able to teach in the way that they really needed, both, you know, in terms of what I was allowed to do or expected to do, and also just in terms of, like, capacity of having an impossible job, and like, then having to meet the needs of all these different students in different ways. So I feel that because, like, yeah, and also, like you said, students are in the education system, and we want them to continue and to be inspired and to have people who see them and to love learning and all the things. So we need people like you who are willing to, you know, work within this dysfunctional system.

Renes Lophanor

Absolutely and I'm thankful that I'm teaching in a country like England and not France, for example. Why? Because I feel I have more freedom to be creative in the classroom in England than I would be in France. I still have a lot of friends were at university with me in France when I was in France, who are now teachers in France, and their life in in the school where the schools where They work is totally different to mine in England, the the freedom of action that I have, that I'm granted in in England, they don't have that in France at all. And that's, that's, that's something I am, I'm grateful to so despite the fact that I do, I despise, in a way, the school system, there are many good things in it that we can still keep. Of course, like, you know, in everything you you can't just throw everything away. No, we, and that is one of the thing that I I would keep in the system or even develop. It's the creativity give teachers more freedom to teach the way they feel is more appropriate for a particular class, rather than forcing them to teach in a standardized manner, every single one of the classes or the same curriculum, the same thing. So so that for that I am, I am thankful that I can do that still.

Lily Jones

Mm, hmm. And teaching is such a creative profession. And I think that not having that creativity sometimes, you know, it doesn't help anyone when that creativity is squashed. And so I love that you're leading with that.

Renes Lophanor

Yeah, talking about creativity, this is one of my top concepts that I value the most in in my lessons, children are, I would say, naturally creative. They can be. You would give them my children. Let's, let's say my children are have been, they have been my best source of inspiration, seeing them, watching them play with pieces of Lego or kitchen utensils and creating stories. And I mean, it's amazing, amazing. And in the classroom, if I often try to to use play, writing skits and for for the students and or with them, and often I let them write their own script to practice the language on using the dictionaries or or online dictionaries, if, if they they want to basically all the tools that are available and let them go for I said, Listen, you have, You have the freedom to use whatever you want, as long as at the end, within the time that I set you, you are going to come up with something creative. “What exactly do you want to do?” I just want you to use these type of vocabulary in that concept you come up with something and man, the amount of things they would come up with. As a teacher, I would never think of telling them, okay, I want you to do this that no by giving them the freedom, one group will come will produce a role play. Another one would make a video, another one would make a lovely poster, and they will explain it. I mean, it's great, and seeing them use the language in in various contexts that gives it credit for them, it makes it relevant that they can use it. They can actually use it. It's not just words in a textbook that you have to recite in a standardized test in order to get a certain grade and pass or fail.

Lily Jones

And it's giving them that opportunity, you know, that chance to really put these things together and try things out in this different way that I think we don't give students so much, you know, when we give them a textbook, or when we give them something that they have to follow exactly like this, yeah, we don't get that chance to try This.

Renes Lophanor

Personally, I never had that at school, never, yeah, yeah. So yeah, you would imagine that it's because I had that as a student that I want, that I am doing the same thing to my students. But no, it's probably because I didn't have it, but I wish I had it, so I'm using that.

Lily Jones

And that framework is so helpful. I mean, I think, yeah, I became a teacher because I also didn't have a great experience in school. I didn't really love school. I always loved learning, but even as a kid, I thought it could be so much better. And so I think thinking about, yeah, the things that worked for you, but also the things that didn't work, can be a really powerful reflection for teachers as well.

Renes Lophanor

You said you loved learning, and that's that's something we we we tend to to think that children, or some children, don't do we think that some of them, especially those who don't show interest in in one subject, don't like learning, but no, they actually do like learning. And that's strange, because today I spoke to about that to one of my students doing the during lunch break. She said, Oh, I don't like what subject was it? I don't like geography. And I said, No, it's not, it's not the subject you don't like. You don't like the way it's being taught to you. She looked at me and smiled, waiting for me to explain. And then I said, and why don't you like it? She said, Wow, I don't understand anything. And I said, there you go. It. But can you recall that in a lesson when you understand something, for example, let's say geography or math, oh, oh yes. So I understand that, Oh, I like math now.

Lily Jones

That's awesome. So I think you know our listeners, some of them are classroom teachers, and some are teachers who want to stay in education, hence the name of our business, and really explore other options outside of the classroom. So I'm curious what advice you'd give to both of those kind of sectors of people, both the people who want to stay in the classroom, and those who might want to do something else in education, but not necessarily be a classroom teacher. Okay,

Renes Lophanor

Well, let's start with those who want to stay in the classroom, like myself, one of the first thing to let's say the first thing I would advise you to look after is your own well being. Because if you're not happy within yourself, intellectually, mentally and physically as well, you are not going to enjoy doing the job. Teaching is a very demanding, demanding and challenging profession, uh, working with children is, by definition, very, very difficult. And so imagine one parent is struggling with two kids. Imagine you struggling with or having to deal with 30 of them on your own, so that's very difficult, so that requires lots of strength and mental strength and physical strength. So look after yourself, and do give yourself time outside of school to do other things unrelated to school, hobbies or going out with friends or whatever you want, but something that is just for you, and that's what I do, which makes me enjoy the time when I'm in school, when I walk out At the end of the day, when I walk out the the school building, I forget everything about school. It's behind me. It is behind me. I know it's not easy for many teachers to do, but over time you will manage to find a way to separate the work and your life outside of school. Now, for those of you who want to go beyond and leave the profession behind, having being a teacher is like having been in a field of gold, you have loads of bits of goals with you that you can take elsewhere. Because as teachers, we if we have good organizational skills, good communication skills, and, and, and many, many, many more, um So and these, these things are very important in any other business that you can you, you may want to to go, to go to and, yeah, so

Lily Jones

I love that idea of a field of soul, yes. I mean, it's like, teachers do all the things, right? And you have this experience working with all these different students and all these different areas, yeah? So really, seeing, you know, I think that so many teachers feel like they could only be teachers, um, where it's like, sure, and being a teacher is fantastic. And also we need people who have been teachers to do all these other things exactly, to curriculum coach teachers, you know, support teachers and students in different ways.

Renes Lophanor

Yeah, managing, managing people. Yes, yeah, absolutely,

Lily Jones

Absolutely. Well, it's been wonderful to talk with you. Renes, can you tell us where, if our listeners can connect with you?

Renes Lophanor

Okay, well, I can be found on Instagram, Facebook. Just search my name. Renes Lophanor . Renes r, e n, e s. Lofano l, o, p, H, A N, O, R, and or reneslofano.com you'll find all the necessary information there.

Lily Jones

Yeah, wonderful. Well, we'll put the links in the show notes, and thanks again.

Renes Lophanor

Thank you very much. Lily bye, bye bye. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Lily Jones