Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: This is insightful questions, a podcast designed to introduce us to our new head of school, Dem Yusuak. Join us as we uncover his vision and connect with voices across eps and engaging monthly conversations.
Get ready to explore the essence of leadership and community in this exciting journey.
This is insightful questions.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: My name is Alex, and I'm a fifth grader at Eastside Prep. We changed the format for a bit for this week's podcast. What you're about to hear is a recording of a conversation held with Mr. Uswak and all the fifth and 6th graders at EPS. Students created each of the questions and you'll hear some asked by Mr. Hagen, some asked by the students who suggested them. Mr. Hagen starts us off hard.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: Meeting question from one of our 6th graders.
[00:01:00] Speaker D: Oh, boy.
[00:01:01] Speaker C: Maybe the most important question could be asked. Do you think a hot dog is a sandwich?
Why or why not.
[00:01:13] Speaker E: Sandwich?
[00:01:15] Speaker D: This is a podcast so no one can see my face. But this question has haunted me for my entire career as an educator and my entire time as a human.
Is a hot dog a sandwich? There is an answer, and it is no.
My favorite candy. Oh, my goodness.
That should just pop into your mind, right? The hundred grand.
[00:02:06] Speaker E: What?
[00:02:31] Speaker D: After Dr. K said, why are there plastic cups in here? And then I attempted to add a healthy choice with a cliff bar. Not sure if I succeeded, but people like them. People like them.
[00:02:44] Speaker C: Excellent. Another question from 6th grade.
What was your favorite subject when you were in middle school?
[00:02:52] Speaker D: In middle school, if you ask my son Ollie, does he go lunch?
That is a fun time. That is not a class.
No. My favorite class, I had two.
My school had the late 80s version of a maker's case. So we had plastic shop, we had wood shop, and you got to build lamps. And I think I made my parents, like, a napkin holder out of plastic. And it was ugliest thing ever constructed. But I made it, so they love it.
I made a starship enterprise out of plastic and then put it on like it was like white plastic on space. That was fun. My other favorite class was 8th grade government, 8th grade civics.
Learning about this is maybe why I went into becoming a history teacher, but learning about how government works.
[00:04:09] Speaker C: All right, our next question.
[00:04:11] Speaker F: What did you teach before you became.
[00:04:13] Speaker E: The head of school?
[00:04:15] Speaker D: Before I was the head of school here. Well, let's see. I taught Pacific Northwest humanities to 7th graders at the Northwest school. I taught 10th grade humanities to sophomores at the Northwest school. I taught PE. I taught rock climbing with Mr. Winkleman back there and Ms. Kufner and coach John and I were on the 7th grade team together way back when, when I started there.
So the school prior to that, I taught almost everything. I taught reading, science, text, bb, social studies, and then here I've taught hd two for two years with Mr. Baghan and I helped write a class with Dr. Olsen called experience arches and a class called experience Seattle. And I've taught compgov and I do a seminar. I'm not doing that this year because I'm in this new role, but I can't wait to do that again in the future. Thank you, Coco.
Thank you for clapping. About me teaching the fun.
[00:05:18] Speaker F: Why did you become the head of school and what inspired you to become?
[00:05:22] Speaker D: That was a great question. Why did I hope I have an answer.
[00:05:26] Speaker E: No.
[00:05:34] Speaker D: I love this school. I love school.
I love working with kids. I love working with adults who are working with kids. And the opportunity to support everyone in this amazing work we do was just too good an opportunity to not think about it.
I believe in you. I believe that you have limitless potential.
And I love teaching. And teaching is hard work and helping folks to figure out how to best teach, how to best support students, how to have a strong community, how to be our best selves. That's my job, and it's a really exciting one. And so that's why I wanted to become ahead of school.
[00:06:23] Speaker C: What inspired you?
[00:06:25] Speaker D: Yeah, I've had great inspiration along the way. My first boss at Tooni Canapel, she was my middle school director who hired me with only two years of teaching.
She was such a great educational leader, and I kind of wanted to be like her. And so I became a middle school head. And then Dr. Macaluso, who founded this know just has had such an amazing vision for how we can do school differently and the kind of community we can be. She inspired me, too. And my grandma was a teacher.
My mother in law was a teacher. So education is kind of in our family.
Next question from Joshua.
[00:07:09] Speaker F: What is your best achievement at UPS since the year you started?
[00:07:13] Speaker D: My best achievement at EPS?
Well, I can share an early one because it was a big deal and it took. All of my achievements are because I work with other people. Like, we do all these things together, and one of the things we had to do together. I'm going to wait a sec, make sure everyone was listening.
[00:07:47] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:07:49] Speaker D: When I started here, the laptop program only existed in the upper school, and we thought, well, wait a minute, we're missing out on the opportunity to be creative and to use those tools. But we're also missing out on the opportunity to learn how to use those tools well, and that's hard, but we took on that challenge. Now, the funny thing about our laptop program is the year it started, the laptops were three months late, and there was great sadness. It actually turned out to be a happy accident because we could get school running and then add the laptops in. That was a while ago, though. I would say another great accomplishment. Know, working with folks on our advisory program, our social emotional learning program, I worked with Mr. Briggs to add middle school tech courses. That was a fun project.
Honestly, I think I'm most proud of working with folks, when I get to work with folks about teaching and how well we teach, that's one of my favorite.
[00:08:56] Speaker C: What is your favorite part of your job, and what is the hardest part of your job?
[00:09:02] Speaker D: Hardest part of my job is saying no.
Hardest part of my job is saying no. There are more ideas than we have time for.
Their resources are scarce, and sometimes I have to say no to really good ideas, or sometimes I have to say not yet. And between you and me, I'm a little bit of a people pleaser, and so sometimes that's hard. So I really have to think carefully about those decisions. And am I making the decisions because they're the right decision or because I don't want someone to be upset? So that's tough. That's the hard part of my job. One of the real hard parts of my job, compared to being the middle school head, is I don't see students as often. I'm working with different groups of people more often, and I became a teacher for, like, I don't know you, so that part can be tough. But my favorite part is, I feel like I'm here to help everyone be the best they can be. Whether those are parents, whether those are faculty and staff, whether those are students. It's a really kind of incredible way to do your job.
[00:10:11] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:10:13] Speaker D: Next question.
[00:10:16] Speaker F: What's your goal for EpSat? What do you hope graduates of EPS will win, and what experience do you hope you will take from your experience?
[00:10:25] Speaker D: So what do I hope EPS graduates will learn?
Thank you for that so much.
How to work together, how to look after one another. How to think critically, how to innovate wisely. Uh oh, here comes that mission. How to act responsibly, how to lead.
I want you to learn that there's your experience and there's the experiences of others. I want you to learn that we're stronger when we're working together.
I want you to learn to have fun while you learn.
I want you to learn that if things are hard, you can push through, and if you stick with it, you will succeed. I want you to learn.
Oh, my God. I want you to learn about. I was talking with Anna and e three the other day about the retrograde of planets. We'll learn more about that.
I want you to learn how to use this stuff. But mostly I want you to learn about yourselves and about your place in the community and your place in the world. That's what I want you to learn.
[00:11:33] Speaker C: Another great question from our 6th graders. What is your best advice for me, 6th grade student, to stay happy with my grade at school?
[00:11:46] Speaker E: Questions.
[00:11:51] Speaker D: This is a tricky thing, but if you can learn that your grade is the result of your effort and not a reflection of who you are, it's the best thing you can do.
[00:12:04] Speaker E: Thank you.
Thank. Thank God.
[00:12:19] Speaker D: All right, another question.
[00:12:22] Speaker F: What do you think this school will become in ten to 20 years?
[00:12:28] Speaker D: Ten to 20 years? We talk about that a lot.
There are some parts of the school that I hope never change and we're always focused on. So in ten to 20 years, we should still be a caring and inclusive community. We should still bring together a diverse array of learners. We should still value relationship between adults and students. We should still think. To me, rigor and academic achievement is about being able to think deeply.
And along the way, I think we have some work to do in some of our program spaces. I'd like us to think about our carbon footprint. I'd like to think about institutional sustainability. I'd like us to think about maybe the senior year can look a little different from the traditional scope and sequence of things. I'd like us to think about connection to community and partnerships that are reciprocal. Reciprocal means like we're both benefiting.
I'd like us to continue to work on how we make sure our faculty and staff are developing and growing and having opportunity.
And I think we need another gaga ball pet.
[00:13:51] Speaker E: No, just kidding.
[00:13:57] Speaker D: No, we're good.
[00:14:05] Speaker E: Oh, you know what?
[00:14:08] Speaker D: There was some. There was just a chance starting, I do think, from a facilities. Chris, what's next, Mr. Hage? All right.
[00:14:19] Speaker C: We are to a point, there are a lot of other questions submitted, but we wanted to get through these first. So now if you have a question that hasn't been asked or answered, and I know many of you do, we won't be able to get to everyone. But if you have a question for Mr. Yusuac, great opportunity to get to know him, his vision for the school. What keeps him going every day. This will be the time to ask it, and I will just try to get as many folks as we can.
All right, we're going to go through. A few folks have asked me specifically if they can ask, do you support.
[00:14:56] Speaker F: The idea of building a sky bridge from the team at the gym to the Frio learning center?
[00:15:02] Speaker E: Yes.
[00:15:14] Speaker D: I would prefer to see a zip line.
[00:15:16] Speaker E: Yeah, it.
[00:15:54] Speaker F: Hey, buddy, what did you eat for breakfast this morning? Did you either eat a five star hobby meal or did you eat just breakfast at home?
[00:16:05] Speaker D: I had a five star hobby meal. Yeah, absolutely. It was my first one in the week and it was amazing because hobby is amazing.
Okay, hold on.
Give everyone a chance.
[00:16:22] Speaker F: How does it feel to be the principal of the best school ever?
Pretty darn good.
[00:16:30] Speaker D: Pretty darn good. I love my job.
Hold on, hold on.
[00:16:40] Speaker F: Do you think we'll ever have a soccer field?
[00:16:42] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:16:49] Speaker D: I do. Yeah, I do think we'll have that.
I might be eight.
[00:16:59] Speaker C: All right, we are almost out of time. We're not going to get to every question. We're going to get to a few more apologies if we don't get to your question. However, I can just have. However, I know something about Mr. Yusweck. He loves talking with students. So if you have a question that you don't get answered, stop by his office, please. Maybe pick up some jelly beans or a cliff bar and ask one question. So we've got a few more questions.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us on this week's podcast. To gain more insights, check out the EPS weekly news. Each Friday.
