The Way to College Podcast - Ep 176 - Michelle Singh

So, welcome to another episode of the Way to College podcast. My name is Dr. Ossessa Liva and I'm excited about my conversation today. I'm excited. I'm always excited about the conversations that I have with folks because I have wonderful and amazing guests who have incredibly rich stories and today is no different. And so, before we get started, I'm going to ask my guest to introduce herself. So, Michelle, would you mind introducing yourself to our audience out there? Absolutely. Hi, everyone. I am Michelle Singh. I, there are so many things that I would like to share, right? But first and foremost, I am a human being who leads with empathy. I value empathy so much because that was what got me through my educational experience as an immigrant, as someone who was made fun of because of being different. And so, I'm an educator, a forever educator. I spent, I've been in education for 20 years, actually 21 years and taught in one of the biggest school districts in the United States for 15 of those years. I'm a college professor of teacher education. I'm actually in my college classroom. I just finished a class just now. And I have a daughter who is at Howard University, a junior, and my husband, I have a husband too. Twenty, twenty two years together and three dogs. And so, you know, I, there's a lot of, there's a lot of different layers to me. And so, ultimately, I, what I want you to know about me is that I value empathy, I value relationships, I value connection, I value kindness. And that's how I lead, that's how I show up. And, and, and that's what I look for in people. I love that. I love that. So I'm excited because I'm a fellow empath. I, yeah, I, I, you know, I, I, well, I don't like to talk about myself, but absolutely, I'm incredibly empathetic. You know, I think, I think my students would probably echo that sentiment. I still teach part time and at a university and, and, and for me, I think that what I enjoy most is connecting with students and hearing their stories. And so, so, so thank you. Thank you for sharing that, Michelle. Michelle, I ask all of my guests. We start with the same question. The question is, if you had to identify a starting point for your educational journey, who that starting point be for you? A starting point for my educational journey. Okay. So I would say the first, the first impactful memory I had of my educational journey was I lived in Jamaica. I'm originally from Jamaica grew up in Jamaica moved to America in Miami, when I was nine with my family. So I remember my brother and I going to school one morning, and we were turned around by the principal of the school, because my mom couldn't pay the school fee. And I didn't get access to education, because we could not afford it. That left such a mark on me. And I didn't realize it until I, I got to this big age. But it made me and it pushed me to value education above anything else. Now, that is a good and a bad. And I'll tell you why. Because our family did move to America for better opportunities. And so I did everything I could to make sure my education was number one, you know, did grade in school got scholarships went to college went to grad school went to grad school went to grad school and I got to the education. Right. All of the things. So, I definitely took advantage of the educational access that we got here in the United States, because that access was taken from me at such a young age and it impacted me so much. Now, the other side of that is, I valued education above everything, above the person above the human, because for a long time, I saw people as their accomplishments as who they were. Because that is what I value. That's what drove me and it took me time to reframe that. So to see the human to see the human first, not just the person with the degrees. Wow. Wow. Yes, that's my. That's my first. And that's my educational experience. Oh, my gosh. You. One thank you for sharing that with us. I can't imagine what that must have been like to be turned away and said, Well, you know, mom can't afford school this. You know, so you've got it. You and your brother have got to leave. And then, and then, okay, it's taken away from me. I'm not going to place this incredible value on education, but then to see sort of those accomplishments. And I don't think so thank you for sharing that and sharing sort of that dichotomy there. But I don't think the second part, right, placing those accomplishments above people. I don't think that's that's uncommon, right? I feel like a lot of us do that. It's not. A lot of us do that. And here's the thing that I noticed about myself. I allowed getting the thing getting the degree to cause me to have limiting beliefs about myself. Because there have been situations where my life experience makes me an expert at this thing. But because I don't have that degree, I doubt that I can do that thing. Because I've such high value on the actual accolade, the actual certification, the actual degree. And then it becomes, it becomes like just checking off of a list game. So I am just doing the thing to check things off of a list to fulfill this standard that I've set for myself of just trying to get the highest peak in education. But I still feel a void. I'm not really like truly fulfilled because am I really, am I really walking in my purpose then? Or am I just trying to check things off of a list because of what I've told myself about the value of education? Wow. So I've had to confront those things for myself. And I'm not saying that I don't value education because listen, I have a daughter in college and she has scholarships. And she goes to a private school, Howard University in Washington DC, which is far away from Miami, Florida. And Lord knows that if she didn't get scholarships, she wouldn't be there. So I value education, but it is my number one. My number one is who I am as a human being and how I show a human being to others. And how I'm able to tell stories about my family not being able to pay for school. Like, I wanted to be so put together and I wanted that to be how people saw me all buttoned up and perfect that I didn't allow the real me to come out to really connect with people. And I think that's how I allowed how that education and that, that, that craving for it. So when does it happen? When does it happen for you where you kind of have to shift and you, you, right? And you recognize the person where you, the, the, not necessarily, you know, you still value the accolades, right? The accomplishments, but you put the person first. When did that happen to you? When did I realize that that's what I did was just a year ago to be quite honest. One year. Wow. And I was, you know, I say I have there, there are four things that I need in my life to make sure that I'm living my life right and my mind is right. I need God. I need my therapist. I need a coach and I need a community. Having those four things keeps me right. And so being a part of, you know, having all those four things the past year, I've been doing just a lot of inner work, internal work to identify the triggers, the things that cause me to be a perfectionist. And when I'm a perfectionist, I get stuck and I don't take action. And that caused me to have limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome. And I've been trying to work on identifying what is the root cause of those things. And it stems that the value of education and having all of the things in order is the reasons that I have those qualities that I need to be aware of to know when I'm triggered, to know what to do when they show up and how to address them to reframe so that I can get back to focusing on me as a human being and not me as a person with all of the degrees. Yeah. Wow. You went heavy fast. And I love it. I love it. I love, you know, that you're so honest and open with us and talking about right, because I think, you know, we do we place this incredible value on education and everybody's got this, that educational journey and that story and, and when was is that moment that the education becomes this the most important thing in our lives, and whether it's messaging from folks or from our parents or a story like yours. And so I think we all wrestle with that right and then we all develop sort of our own relationships with education. Yeah. So let me ask you so here you are your young child. What is it that your parents did for a living. And you're growing up. Yeah, so okay so in Jamaica. It was just my mom so my mom, my, I didn't grow up with my father. He actually left Jamaica when I was very young and came to America so my mom and my aunts and my grandparents. And so the time in Jamaica. We had a bar. And so that was, I remembered my mom and my family doing just managing the bar and my grandparents and some of my aunts and my uncles would come back and forth from America, because they worked up here, they came back down there to bring stuff and bring them back to America. And so it kind of was like that until we saved up enough. And everybody got their papers, you know, to the visas to come to America. And so once we were able to do all of that, we came to America and live. And then when we came to America, my mom worked for Home Depot. And then she eventually went back to school and got her GED and then she became a teacher so she worked in the daycare for pretty much. Yeah, pretty much, you know, most of what I remember. So that's what my mom did. And my dad, like I said, I didn't grow up with my dad. I have a relationship with him now that I'm an adult, but I didn't grow up with my father. My grandfather was like my father, ultimately. Early, other than that story, an incredibly powerful story. What kind of messaging did you get at home about education? That was the like, education was the only way. That's all. And here's the thing. Because we were from another country. That was the only thing that my family knew that we came here for better opportunities and the way for a better opportunity was to get an education. Like you cannot fumble this. You got your education is it. So I took that very seriously because remember, I also knew what it was like to have it snatched. Yeah. And so I took that seriously. And I did my very best in all of, you know, graduated top of my class. I mean, I did it. I took it seriously. Like so seriously to the point. So my best friend from childhood. She tells me that I need to loosen up and I've needed to loosen up all my life because I've always been so serious because I've always been so serious about education and being this perfect, you know, this this idea of perfect that I've never loosened up and shown. Hey, look, I got, you know, I failed. I had I have fears and imperfections. And I can say it out loud. Like, I am just now being okay with talking about these things. I would not have been talking about these things two years ago. I would have been telling you all about my different degrees and my, you know, accomplishments. I wouldn't have been here talking about failures and shame and all of those things. But those things are what make me who I am. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you going there and sharing that with us. Now, every, every kid gets asked this, right? You're growing up, you're going to school, you're doing well in school, you're graduating top of your class. What is it that you wanted to be when you grew up? Yeah, good question. So I remember an elementary school for career day when we had to dress up. I want to say my grandfather had a briefcase in the house. So I dressed up as the thing that I thought was appropriate. A lawyer. I had no real, really, I had no interest in being a lawyer, but I knew that was what my family would approve of, right? Yeah. And so for a little time, I wanted to be a lawyer, but deep down inside, I wanted to be a vet because I love animals. I love, I mean, I say that, you know, I want to grow up and be a vet even now. But I, you know, I ultimately became a teacher because later, later, later on, like in middle school and in high school, I would, you know, I would always volunteer with the younger kids and I would do tutoring and I thought that I was a, I was good at those things. And so I went to college and here's the thing, because you talked about this, with representation, when I was in high school, my school principal was a black woman, Mrs. King, she's still alive. And she's delightful. And there was this program that I was a part of. It was called the academic, the Advanced Academic Internship Program. And so it was designed for, for high school seniors to be able to intern with the career that they wanted. And so I looked up to this lady so much that I wanted to be her. I wanted to be a principal and I interned as her assistant. And so every day for my sixth period class, I would go to her in her office and observe her do things with her for her, because I wanted to be her. She was a black woman in a position where everyone respected and valued her. She created such a home, a safe place for our, for just the school. I've never seen a high school with so much pride. The way, and I've taught in a few different high schools, I've never seen a high school that had that level of pride as my high school did. And I do credit it to her because of the environment that she created. And I wanted to be her. And when I went to college, I was like, yeah, I want to be a principal. And the people, the people told me, oh, you know, you have to be a classroom teacher before you become a principal. I was like, what? What am I going to teach? And so I remember the teacher, my English teacher, she told me, she's like, Michelle, you know, you're a really good writer. So I was like, oh, yeah, let me go ahead and become an English major so I could be this English teacher and go be a principal. So you want to get into education, you want to be a principal? Mm-hmm. And you've been an educator now, what, 21 years? Mm-hmm. 21 years. So even as an undergrad, going away to college, you knew education, you never deviated from that path. No, I never deviated. College of education, yep, straight, straight through. I knew I wanted to be a teacher. A lot of my volunteer work was with teaching as well. So I just knew I wanted to be a teacher in some way. I was good at it. And I always loved sharing and anything I learned, I wanted to share. And so, yeah, I became an English teacher and you want to know the irony in all of this? I never became a principal. Too much in love with teaching? Too much. I loved teaching English in the classroom. Now, I did spend five years at the district and I worked with schools and administrators and teachers with educational technology and doing training and development for educational technology. So I love the technology as well. But I love the classroom. I love teaching English. I call myself a forever ELA teacher because I just love teaching in high school English. I love your story because I think for a lot of folks, a lot of, you know, it sounds like you're a fortunate, you found something that you aspired to be, wanted to be this principal. And it led you, you know, like you said, you had to teach in order to become a principal and it was in teaching that you found your love and found what it is that you're passionate about. I think for a lot of folks, it's usually a couple of, they've got to try their hands at a couple of different things until they find that what they're truly passionate about. So kudos to you for finding that path. Now, let me ask you before becoming a teacher, you know, you're here you are, you grew up in Jamaica, come to the immigrate to the United States. And I can imagine the transition was that transition difficult for you? Oh, yes. Is an immigrant child? Yeah. Absolutely. I've had lots of transitions in life. I want to say that was one of the biggest transitions, you know, leaving a whole culture, a whole country, a whole everything that you've ever known, right? Like all my toys, all of them, anything I could think of. I remember, I remember I left at nine and I remember we couldn't pack so arts and, and, and, and, you know, carpentry and things like that shoe making and clothes making. That's not hard to come by in Jamaica. Like everybody does that. So it's easy if somebody makes shoes and make clothes and make furniture. My mom had gotten me a bedroom set for my dolls and it was handmade. So it was wooden bed with a mattress with a little dresser and what we call a whatnot, which is like a, I don't know, like an entertainment center. Yeah. And I love that little set so much because it was so unique. And I mean, it looked like real adults, you know, furniture, but just the mini. It was for my dolls, but we couldn't fit it in the suitcase. And I still remember hiding it in the house because I was hoping that one day I would go back and it would be there and I could bring it back. I never ended up going back to Jamaica until I was a teenager. And do you know when I went back to the house, I looked in the closet where I hid it thinking it was going to still be there. Oh, God, let it be. So many people have been in and out that house, you know, I know it ended up somewhere with someone who needed it, but lots of transitions. I shared that story because, you know, I'm a nine year old kid and I love my toys. I love that sense of safety that, you know, having that kind of transition kind of breaks that sense of safety a little bit because I'm no longer in the place that I know well with the people that I know with the culture and the language that I know now I'm in a brand new place. In a new school, people are making fun of me because of how I talk and how I dress. I remember teachers, some of the teachers gave me like a school uniform but that was back back then before uniforms are mandatory. So I'm like the only kid wearing uniforms, because we wore uniforms in Jamaica every single day so for me it wasn't a big deal to wear uniforms. So I actually loved wearing uniforms because that's what we did in Jamaica, but people are making fun of me and bullying me and, you know, I'm experiencing that as a nine year old kid again. Yeah. You know, that that's that that belonging that sense of safety, the rejection, all of that is what I felt. So yeah, lots of transitions, lots of, lots of fears, lots of rejection. Yeah. Wow. Oh my gosh that's so powerful. The, when did you feel like when you're in school, when you're in the United States you're in school. When did you feel like you were where you're supposed to be like okay I feel welcome. When did I feel welcome. I will say, I didn't feel welcome until I found a friend group that made me feel welcome that made me feel like home. In high school, I have a small, small crew, and we are still close today, we have a little text group in fact I messaged them not too long ago and I was like, as I'm kind of going through my healing process I'm like you know, I want to thank you all because you always made, you always gave me a feeling of home. And I never shared that with you all before but I always felt like home with them, because I didn't feel safe anywhere else. But with them, I could be myself. I could be, you know, my hair is not put together. You know, I don't have to have on like the, you know, the best looking clothes I could be myself. I could, I could, you know, laugh and be goofy, goofy, you know, I'll have to be serious and get all a right. And with that group, I mean, those are my dogs, those my homies, right. That group is where I felt like home. And I will say that that's really like the only place I felt like home. I didn't feel at home at home. I didn't feel at home in school either. Well, I couldn't be myself. Yeah, yeah. I expected to be at home. I mean, I was on edge. I feel like at home I was expected to be the. I like to call it the golden child, because I'm the one first generation college student first one to go to college. I'm the one that got all the good grades. I'm one of the oldest second oldest cousins. So I'm kind of like the one that the other ones are looking up to as well. So I felt like I had a role to play there and I couldn't mess up. I couldn't fumble there. I couldn't fumble at school either. Wow. That's a that's a heavy burden to carry. Oh yeah, I realized for a young person. I realize that now yeah, but I've carried that up until I started this process of healing. Yeah, yeah, and not new. I didn't know that I carried it. And that's also why I was so afraid to fail. I was so afraid of failure. I was afraid of rejection. All of those, you know, because I had to be so put together. I was afraid of those things because those things told me that I wasn't good enough. And it was that and that's why I wrote I wrote an article for edutopia about, you know, embracing failure. And that's why I talked to when I teach my classes. To the new teachers, I talk about the idea of embracing failure as an opportunity for growth embracing your limitations. Your, your, your, what they call weaknesses. These are opportunities for growth. I just had this conversation today with my class. I love that. I love that. And I couldn't agree more. I mean, I think, yeah, we think we we need to embrace. And then I can go off on a tangent about my, I've been thinking actually about that very thing the last couple of days, because we'll be starting a new semester for us and on Monday, Tuesday, I'm sorry. And, and I'm still sort of my mind still last semester about students experiences with with failure. So thank you for sharing that. Michelle, you get into education or an educator, a long time educator, but you're doing some other work. You do some other things. Can we talk about the work that you're doing now outside of your teaching, which is incredibly important, which is central to who you are, right? But, but tell us about the work that you're doing and why, why choose to do that work? Why is that work so important as well? We. Okay, so I left. I left my full time job at the public school in 2019. Ultimately, because I was in a work environment that did not serve me well. I was in a toxic work environment. I was deteriorating, and I couldn't take it anymore. And I got an opportunity where I could leave and I left. I left 15, my 15 year career into this opportunity and I didn't know what it was going to be. But I just knew that if I had stayed in the job, I, I, I, my, my health, my mental, physical, emotional, all of the health's were failing. All of them. Yeah. Wow. So that was the start of something that I didn't know, because initially when I left, I was leaving just to work as a consultant for, for Microsoft as a Microsoft learning consultant. And I was like, man, I got this, you know, I got this, I'm going to do this. This is, this is it. This is it. I'm doing the technology. I'm doing the teaching. I'm still doing teaching and training. I'm just doing it in a different setting. And I'm no longer working with high school students. I'm working with the teachers. But the teachers are, are, are still impacting their own students. So I still feel that connection there, right? And when I did that, I did that for a year, but it kind of opened my eyes to what it was like on the other side. And what the other side was doing corporate, you know, the corporate world and what, what they were doing and how they were connected to education and how I could be a different type of teacher. And so that led me to ultimately start my educational consulting business. And I do teacher training and development. I focus on culturally responsive pedagogy and I focus on implementing educational technology so that teachers can create inclusive environments for their students. But ultimately what I have found in my, in my time working with teachers and in my research and everything that I have been doing, what I've found is that if the teacher is not connected to themselves. They don't have capacity to be connected to their students or anybody else. So there is inner work that has to be done for that teacher to become engaged with who they are and what they are so that they can show up fully for themselves and for their students. And that's the work that I'm doing now is helping women educators, women education leaders, particularly women education leaders of color, address the mindset blocks that keep them stuck, especially if they're transitioning like from a from a teaching role to a leadership role or even trying to figure out if they want to transition from being an education to doing something else, helping them identify triggers. What are those core feelings and core events of their life that has caused them to behave in a certain way. And what has that cost them. And the other thing is embracing wellness but more so rest and self love. So, go ahead. So, I mean, this is powerful work. Right. And so my question is, when did you realize this was necessary. And, or was it just a matter of you reflecting on your own experience recognizing your needs recognizing your own development, right. That it led you to this work. It's both. It's it's me recognizing that that's what I needed. And that's what I needed to do. I needed to unpack and unmask and reveal all of the things so that I could show up better. And I am connecting so much more authentically with people. My relationships are stronger because I'm showing up more as like me, who I am. So, it's, you know, 50% of it is me, but 50% of it is also talking to coaching, working with other women who have these same exact blocks, things that keep them stuck, these same, the same behaviors that they suffer from the perfectionism and the posture syndrome and the self doubt and all of those things have there's a there's a reason why all of that happens you have to get to the core of what that is. And I have done the work to figure out how to get to the core and I can share. I can help you with that as well, because I've done the work. And I have the strategies. Yeah. Well, I'm glad I'm glad you've done the work. I'm glad you're making yourself available to teachers and sharing those strategies, you know, when I believe it was your assistant reached out to me and and talked about the work that you're doing. And so, you know, there was something that really piqued my interest and it was about, we just talked about this just before getting into the work that you're doing, but turning those setbacks turning setbacks into these growth opportunities. And so, you know, would you like to speak to that specifically so like you're working with these teachers you're working with that helping them unpack. When we talk about turning setbacks into growth opportunities, how do you present that to them and what's maybe you know we don't want to give everything away but maybe what's one tip you share with the teachers. I would say that the biggest the biggest thing I would say is reframe reframing really looking at that setback and try and try to to reframe it. So I actually had this conversation with a client last night. They thought that they experienced a setback but when we reframed it, it wasn't a setback it was her actually establishing her boundaries and saying no to something that didn't serve her anymore. And she thought that walking away from that particular opportunity was a failure. She felt like a failure because she didn't complete it but she was actually honoring her boundaries. Yeah. So how can you look at what that thing is and reframe it to find the positive in it. How does it serve you well there's a reason why whatever happened happened there's a lesson in there somehow what is the lesson in that particular experience. Find the lesson because with that lesson comes growth. So so what's the lesson and what's the blessing. Those are the two things I always look for in opportunities that don't work out and that do work out. What is the lesson and what's the blessing. You might mean by that what do you mean by that what do you mean what is the blessing. There's always a blessing and something we we might see a door closing for us. But that may be God telling us that okay you're done with that assignment. I'm going to give you something bigger and I don't know what that bigger is until it comes but if I didn't close that door. I would have never opened up space for that bigger to come to me. So there is a always a blessing in it because opportunity. I don't I don't believe I believe everything happens. I know this is cliche but I'm a woman of faith and I believe God makes things happen for a reason and we may not see the benefits of it but they will they will reveal themselves in the future. So so try to think of the blessing like what is God trying to teach me in this moment. That's the blessing. What is God trying to teach me in this moment. It's the lesson. The blessing because that lesson is a blessing from God because I'm learning and I'm a grow from it and it's going to teach me something that I'm going to be able to use in the future. It's building my character it's building my resilience. So even though it may feel raw and it may hurt it's uncomfortable. There is a lesson and there's a blessing in it because you're going to need you're going to need that strength for what's to come. Wow. I love that. I love that. Thank you. The lesson and the blessing if I had to if I had to give just one thing find the lesson and the blessing in the failure. I started off saying something else but the lesson and the blessing will help you to reframe though. I think it's perfect right. A lot of times we look at something or you said we close the door the client that you spoke to right. He was setting boundaries not recognizing it saw that maybe as a lost opportunity. Right. And we reframe it to think about what's the lesson that I'm being taught and what is the blessing because there is a blessing there. I think it's powerful. Amen. I think that's powerful and and I think that's spot on. Yeah. I think God don't play about his people. Absolutely not. No. Michelle we thank you. Thank you for your time today. I am. I'm excited about the work that you're doing. I'm I'm you know I think it sounds like you know what you've shared with us where you've taken us today. And all of setbacks right that there are blessings and there are lessons along the way countless lessons and blessings. So thank you for sharing that. Thank you for doing the work and helping others to do that same work because I think that's incredibly powerful. Incredibly powerful tool that I think I think a lot of us can use a lot of us right we are so quick to react. We see something and we see a lost opportunity and that's all we see and we can't get past that right but that reframing and thinking about that lesson and the blessing. Absolutely powerful work. So thank you for the work that you're doing as we head out because I do want to be mindful of your time you've got you've got three dogs and a husband at home and so I want to. Yeah. Yeah. I and and everything that you do I know you've got a lot on your plate as we transition out as we transition out. Any any final thoughts any final words you'd like to leave with our audience out there. I will say that you can't do it alone. You cannot do this work alone you can't you know you need like I told y'all I had like four support structures. I have God. I have my therapist my coach and a community. That's four. You could choose just one. But you can't yeah you can't do it alone. You're going to be going to be lonely and you're not going to move you're not going to have momentum when you are alone. You're not going to have that accountability to tell you to to go a little bit further. So you need to have some some kind of some kind of network some kind of community some kind of support some kind of just something to help you along along the way. So I would say seek out seek out support whatever that looks whatever that support looks like for you. So you know you have to have that. Thank you. I think that's the perfect way to end our conversation and then Michelle. Michelle thank you thank you for your story thank you for the lessons. I'm incredibly appreciative of it. I'm incredibly appreciative of your time today because I know it's valuable. And I know your story is going to resonate with so many of our listeners out there. So I appreciate it. Appreciate you too. I hope so. I really do hope so and thank you for having me and I can share my my website if you're interested in. Absolutely yeah. And and go ahead. I'm sorry go ahead. Oh no no no. So if if you're interested in connecting with me, you can go to empty to empower. So that's the word empty the number to empowered dot com empty to empowered dot com. I'll make sure we also add it to the show notes. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So yeah I enjoyed our conversation didn't know I was going to talk about some of the stuff that I talked about. But hey, I mean listen I go where I go where God tells me to go. Well I appreciate it. There might be somebody out there that you know that needs that message. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, he I mean I yeah I think it was a powerful message. And I'd even venture to say it's a universal message. So thank you. Thank you this concludes another episode way to college podcast thank you to my guest thank you to our listeners out there. Please make sure you subscribe rate follow all of that good stuff and and do me a favor and share the podcast with one other person. I'd appreciate it. Talk again soon. Bye bye. Bye. you