When was the last time you walked into a high school classroom and felt the energy, excitement, and joy of a kindergarten classroom? A place where students are having so much fun learning that they don’t want to leave when the bell rings.

Well, that’s the kind of classroom our guest today, Emily Kaufman, has created. Emily is an award-winning world languages teacher in Connecticut, and in this episode, we challenged her to reflect on what exactly she does to make her classroom such a joyful and engaging place to learn. From playful activities to students voluntarily giving up their free time to continue learning, Emily reminds us that learning doesn’t always have to feel like work.

And this connects beautifully to one of the 10 actions in our new book, The Future Creative: 10 Actions for Fueling Creativity in Education, and that action is enjoy the ride. Because sometimes in our pursuit of academic outcomes, we forget just how important joy, play, and having fun can be to the learning process, including for us as teachers

 Hello everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood. And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. This is the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the field of education. We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

All with the goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning. So let’s begin 

Today we welcome to the show Emily Kaufman. is a French teacher and former student at Joe Barlow High School in Connecticut.  Now,  beyond the classroom, Emily has taken on numerous leadership roles, supporting her colleagues, strengthening the school community, and creating opportunities for students to experience language and culture beyond the classroom, and that’s certainly gonna be a big part of our conversation today. But one of the reasons why Emily is on the show is that she received the Teacher of the Year Award for her work as a world languages teacher, and it was after hearing her speak when she received that award that Cindy and I realized we had to bring her onto the show. So first of all, Emily, congratulations again on your award, and welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much, and thank you for having me

 Now, before we get into the weeds of anything, this is the first time we’ve had a world languages teacher on the show. So I wanna talk a little bit just about world languages, and I thought it might be a good opportunity for us to get into that conversation by you sharing how you first got into thinking about teaching world languages at a high school

 Yeah, it’s fun because I get to tell my students that I started learning French the same place they did. 50% of them went to the same middle school that I did, and then I just kept going. But I actually stopped taking French, after my freshman year of college and derailed towards, wanting to teach biology and then swapping to psychology, and, eventually found my way back to French, senior year when I visited someone who was studying abroad and realized how much I loved it and missed it, and re-engaging with the culture there really made a huge difference.

So having that opportunity to be there, is what drew me back in. I got to step into the very large, tiny shoes of my former French teacher, Sandy Vanosdale, who is certainly a huge part of the reason that I am doing what I do today.

 Dr. Cyndi Burnett: Emily, because we haven’t had anyone talking about world languages, I would really like to hear from you. What are some ways that you approach world languages in a creative way?

Emily Kaufman: in the classroom, the goal is to have as much French as possible. So, at the early days, it’s a lot of me talking at them and giving them all these block phrases to be able to practice with, and giving them the opportunity to put in the weird creative fun chaos wherever they can. So whether that’s them, doing something like an art project that’s related to the language and then speaking about it kind of with set pieces, but weaving in their own personality.

And then as they get to the upper levels, they start having, film debates. They start giving more opinions. They start being able to create and write their own fairy tales, kind of rewriting If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, but in French and with their own silly story versions. So we have a, we have a lot of fun.

It’s a, it’s a great way to engage

 Dr. Matthew Worwood: You know, I always find that, that fascinating, take that example you just said there about having a debate about what was it the best movie
And so you’re sitting there.  You have to obviously have got a significant control over the language to have that debate, right?
Am I right in thinking with language, you just gotta go for it, right? Like the reality is, is you just gotta put yourself out there, and you’re gonna probably make lots and lots of mistakes along the way and sound silly. And I can imagine it can be incredibly frustrating trying to like articulate a point like, “No, no, no, no, I totally disagree right now with what you’re saying,” but then you don’t have the words to express that. Could you talk a little bit about those making mistakes and how you’ve been able to navigate that?

Emily Kafuman: All the time. It’s, it’s called circumlocution, where you’re trying to talk about what you wanna say if you don’t have the words. So, you know, we talk about, people that forget how to say contact solution, and they’re just saying water for my eyes over and over again ’cause you’re trying to grasp at something that makes sense.

And some of my favorite lessons are the bell rings, and kids start yelling at each other in English because they had what they wanted to say and are still figuring out how to say it in French. , But I think part of what we do really well, the world language department here, is build that culture of we’re all gonna make mistakes.

You need to be nice to each other. You need to be kind about it, and it’s such a good skill to remember that anyone that’s speaking with an accent that’s not your own is coming from a culture that’s not your own. And so I think it really helps set them up for that empathy, , when they hear someone speaking English, that obviously didn’t have it as a first language.

So, we, we love it because it just, it helps keep them  empathetic to those experiences. , The goal is to get understood. So if you can be understood, that’s what matters much more than having perfect linguistic skills. So you’re gonna make errors in English.

They’re, you know, learning English vocabulary at the same time as French vocabulary half of the time. So if I say, you know, optimism, sometimes that’s something that a freshman hasn’t seen before, and so they’re having both languages coming at them at once. And so we really engage in the rolling with it and see what you can get and always go for it. 

Kelly, I know in some classrooms you, teachers make, students always speak the language that they’re learning inside the classroom. Is that the case in yours?

Yes, as  soon as we get to level three, we really push for that. If you’re speaking, it should be in French, uh, which is freshmen coming in. Um, we have one, two, three, four, five, six/AP. So we have, we have a whole range. But, that level two, you start seeing more of it, and the goal is immersion because we obviously can’t follow our students around and talk in their ears in French all day long.

You only get so much contact time, so having as much in the language as possible is definitely the goal. .

Emily, what I love about that is I have never thought about foreign languages and how much risk is involved,   but it’s really a vulnerable place to be because if you’re trying to communicate with someone and you don’t have the word for contact lens or you don’t know how to pronounce something in that language, it can be a place where you feel vulnerable even opening your mouth.

It’s part of the world language classroom experience, and I love sharing that, I’m learning Spanish and I’ll travel with kids to Spain, and I will make every mistake I can in front of them because it’s like, “You guys are better at this than me, but I’ll still talk.” So go for it and have fun, and there’s nothing wrong with the mistakes.

It’s the goal of getting your idea across and a little bit of charades here and there.

  I do want to kind of share, a little bit of my personal experience with this piece as well. With my dyslexia, languages was really hard for me, you know. And particularly, conjugated verbs, right? Like, and,

Yes

It was, it’s really hard for me. And the reason why I bring this up is that I was visiting my eldest’s high school.

They had an open day a couple of weeks ago, and one of the classes was his French class. And I walk in, and she starts speaking French to me, and she was asking me the most basic questions, and I, I froze. I literally couldn’t even in- provide the most basic response, and I immediately started to feel myself going into this shell. I was disengaging, To the extent, Cindy, I kid you not, she was asking me, like, questions that were really easy, and I refused to answer. I was, I was freaking out. And Lucas and, and my wife, they were looking, they were kind of teasing me a little bit. But they didn’t realize that I was really panicking in that moment. And I remember thinking, “That must be so hard, to, to engage in this lesson if you feel so bad at it.” So that, that’s point one. the flip side of my experience is that I married into an Italian family, so I had to start learning Italian. Again, I can’t do anything with the conjugated verbs. But to your point, I problem solve how to communicate, right? So whatever words that I kinda have, I have no idea how I’m coming across, but I think after a while they kinda know what I’m trying to say. But I have to really be creative because I can’t say , the thing that I want in the shop, for example.

So I have to find a way with my current level of language to kinda communicate that I want this, and I also want to know what price it is, and I want to know whether I can buy it in 10 minutes or something like that. So what I’ve,

Yeah

is that there are certain environments where I just go for it, and actually my language does improve by just going for it, and I’m comfortable having mistakes. But actually in a classroom environment, I freeze, and reason why I bring this up is that my gut feeling is that you’ve got to have version of Matthew Worwood A, version of Matthew Worwood B, and then you must have everyone in, in, in between as well.

So how do you manage all of that when they walk in the classroom and you, you start trying to speak language to them, for example?

I think classroom environment is always going to be number one, I think for me, for a world language classroom,  because it involves so much of that risk-taking and, finding that comfort. But it’s also a reminder, and I say this in English at the start of the year for the, the new language learners, if I said, “I to go yesterday to food place,” you probably would get that I went to a restaurant or a market yesterday.

You don’t have to be perfect at the conjugations to get what you want to say across. You don’t have to do this perfectly for such a long time, and I have a seven-year-old who still says things that I’m– they’re so adorably wrong. It’s like you guys are gonna make the cutest mistakes for such a long time, and most French speakers are gonna say, “That was adorable,” when they hear those mistakes anyway, if you are trying.

So putting forth the effort to say, “I’m gonna make the mistakes and be understood,” versus, “I’m not gonna make the mistakes and not get what I want or need or am trying to get across,” is gonna be worse. So we just make it fun, too, because it’s, you know… We do, we do a lot of silliness,

 And as a bridge to that, Emily, one of the reasons I know Matt wanted to bring you on the show, not just because of silliness, but because of the joy that you have talked about in bringing that into the classroom.  So Emily, can you share with us what joy looks like in the world languages classroom?

For me, it’s things like today during my period seven class where I had an activity that they were gonna do, partnered quick conversations, and one of them asked, “Can we do this as a class and run across the room for our preferences?” ‘Cause it was two choices on the board, uh, for elements of the house, which one do you prefer?

And so we did it that way, and they all got up and jumped up and were engaging with, you know, “Why do you prefer this ridiculous house?” “It looks more comfortable. It’s got more light.” And they’re, they’re speaking in broken sentences, full sentences in French, , but having so much more fun than th-they would’ve in that partnered one that had originally been the intent because we’re gonna roll with, with what people need, and the, the kids need to move.

They need to be able to have that fun. And so, uh, the more we can bring it in is always going to benefit us where we can. , For me personally, I also think that letting them see us be silly and to have fun, so my, you know, conversation starters of the day, I will have one that’s a pretty normal question of, “How was the weekend?”

Or, you know, something just quick to get them into French mode, and then the other one is usually either a hypothetical or a, a preference. The best candy. What’s the best candy around Halloween? And, uh, even if it’s just a little moment to get them sparked into, to feeling something happy is, is the goal.

 I, I don’t know about you, Cindy, and Emily, to your point, but I’m, I’m looking at the background, and this is, this is primarily an audio podcast, but I think you had said when you first came on, we spoke about your background, and you said it looks like you’re a kindergarten teacher, um, because of the fun, fun, fun background. And, you know, it, it’s, it’s a, it’s not a great stereotype, but the reality is I do associate kindergarten classrooms with kinda like fun colors and a place where they do… They’re silly, and you have conversations about what’s their favorite candy, what’s their favorite movie, go up and grab a hat like you just shared and, and tell me which one’s the most silliness. Um, and I don’t associate that with the, with the high school class environment. And I’m sitting here finding myself wondering, is that because you’re learning languages for a first time, it’s kinda like, let’s just get ourselves back in that mindset of when we’re little children. is it just a case of that’s, that’s what I bring to the classroom? You know, I, I kind of come in with that fun, joyful energy that, that, as I said, is a stereotype we might see.

Well, I think that playfulness piece and is part of enjoying the ride, which is one of the actions in our latest book, Emily, called The Future

Mm-hmm.

And it sounds like when you go into the classroom, even just like looking behind you and, and seeing… I wish everyone could see your face ’cause you have this wonderful warm smile about you that it’s like, “Yeah, I’m enjoying the ride.

I love being in my class,” and I see a duck behind you, and I know there’s a story about the duck. So just really embracing sort of what’s happening inside of the classroom, even if it’s a little risky by trying new words or playing games or bringing in that passion and dedication that you have, but allowing yourself to model that creative behavior, which is interestingly enough, another one of our actions is to model that creative behavior.

It sounds like that’s what you’re doing for your students. So, you know, you act a little silly or,  you know, you bring in these games, and all of a sudden they’re like, “Oh yeah, I guess I can do that as well.” And I think that’s a really powerful piece that I think a lot of high school teachers might be afraid to do, and I wonder if that’s what it is, Matt.

I wonder if it’s fear. The high school audience, they’re the like, “I’m too cool for this” kind of thing. So have you experienced that sort of, “I’m t- too cool for this,” or do they just embrace it? I’d love to hear how they respond to you in,, in these engaging activities.

, I think it, it certainly depends on the kid, but on the whole, the, the kids are ready. Uh, they’re kids. They, they still wanna have fun with it, and, , we play,  Werewolf. In French it’s Loup-Garou, and, it’s effectively, you know, Seven Up style game, but every single one of them takes it incredibly seriously, and they’re having so much fun.

It’s my, you know, I got a good sub report because I was out and you had everybody was great and did their da- tasks, uh, kind of setup. And I think that for, for me, it’s seeing the kids be kids that’s so important because I feel like they want to skip this phase of childhood, which is such a great one to get to bask in for a little bit.

The fact that all of the kids were talking about trick-or-treating together, all of those things are such wonderful things to see because they, they haven’t stopped them yet. And so the more we can keep them being kids and seeing it’s okay to be 37 and just as goofy about, costumes and wearing the rest of the spirit week gear is, is important.

Let them see that we can have fun with it too

  📍  cindy, Cindy alluded to it, some of our listeners can’t see, but you’ve got a, a duck. I don’t know if it’s a cardboard cutout. And now you’re holding a duck. You’re holding a, a cuddly toy duck right now. Yellow, big red nose. I’m gonna, again, keep my stereotypes.

It, it looks like it’s going with , a French theme, which would make sense, right?

Oh ja.

like,

Ja

So tell us a little bit about this duck because, this is bringing a smile to your face. We wanna know more.

So the duck was, made. This is a crocheted duck from a group of students who, certainly are right in that creative bubble that we’re talking about.

This is a crew that could not have had more fun being silly and diving into everything creative they could get their hands on. The duck was made based off of a book they had written for me based off of a silly conversation about a gorilla versus polar bear fight when we were doing imperfect versus conditional hypothetical phrases.

And, , the duck turned into our classroom mascot. It was just a, a gift that they had given me that has now evolved into an Instagram account that’s Quan Quan le Quan Quan, and, he’s traveled with us to France, and the kids take him and take him to the Eiffel Tower and take photos with him all over Paris.

And then he went with me to Spain, and kids in the Spanish group got to do the same. He’s gone home for weekends with kids. But it’s just another one of those little pieces of joy that we can, can send out and, and bask in. And the, you know, the f- f- the same group, they took my podium home and painted it, and the duck is on my podium.

When they asked for a letter of rec, they, they did a flamethrower, which was based off of the conversation about the polar bear and gorilla. It’s just giving them the space to go wild, and then they seem to really go for it, which is, is such a fun thing. But, that crew that I had for four years, I think getting to see them go from freshmen, where they would have had some of those nerves, to, to letting them continue to be their silly selves.

They would, talk about 2:00 AM crepe parties that they would have. During high school, they would have a sleepover, and we would make crepes in class, and they would go home and make crepes as a sleepover party. And it’s, it’s community, and that’s what we’re looking to build in, in the world language classrooms.

Hmm.

I can’t, I can’t help but just, just listening to you,  there are so many things that you just said there that actually we could expand on and have conversations about, but it, it seems to me that they’re just so natural to you. I mean, it’s like we make crepes and, and we, we, we open Instagram accounts for, for characters and , are all the students doing all of these activities and work in your lesson, or sometimes they’re going outside your lesson and putting in extra work to bring something to your classroom?

 , I mean, my podium they took home for the weekend and then came back with it fully painted with characters and jokes from the classroom. The same thing with the books, the, all of it is, is their own time, and I think again, it’s that idea of they can be really good at being kids if we keep reminding them that’s a good thing to be, and to stay in and not lose

I can’t let you off the hook. Uh, the reality is it,  it seems to me you’re just saying that, “Yeah, I’ve got these, these high school kids, and they just go home and find time to do extra work, to just kind of like brighten up my classroom.” And, Cindy, am I, am I kinda like seeing something different?

It seems like it’s very easy for you, Emily, but I don’t think that that is that common. I mean, there, there’s gotta be something that you’re bringing to this classroom through your relationships, through this concept of joy that I think is, is probably coming across of, yeah, we just have fun.

We just have joy. So maybe, maybe a better question. Cindy, I know you ask this question a lot. Let, let’s say that I’m a French teacher, I’m a world language teacher. In  fact, I’m, I’m any teacher. And, and I’ll tell you what, I am a high school teacher, right? Because again, let’s stick with the stereotype. I’m– I’ve got loads of lessons. I’m str- I’m struggling with time. I’m dealing with teenagers, and I’m just like, “My students aren’t enjoying my space.” What, what advice do you have for me, Emily? Like, like how do I get my students to take my podium for the weekend and do something really cool with it?  

 what’s fun is that I know that it’s not just me in this building that is having this amount of fun because we have a really open door policy. So I can say that the majority of the teachers in this building are bringing themselves in a vulnerable way in front of their kids all the time. They are throwing themselves into being silly in front of the room full of teenagers that is dealing with the teenage angst that happens.

And I think letting yourself go there first makes them so much more likely. I have an incredible place to be, um, at Barlow. But I get invites from my, uh, you know, computer technology teacher invites people because they’re gonna be running around the classroom with cords and wires to, to show how different things are interconnected for coding.

I’m invited upstairs to the physics classroom because they’re doing experiments, and I walk in with him wearing sunglasses instead of safety goggles to pull a piece of paper out from under a soda can to show static versus the, the different types of friction. It’s all of the things that people are already doing that make it fun for all of us.

 So it sounds like joy and play part of the culture of the school. So it’s not just walking inside of Ms. Kaufman’s classroom, it’s walking inside of most classrooms in your school

 I, I really do genuinely feel it’s a very special place to be. In terms of that creativity allowance, I, I went to Barlow, so I had, many of my colleagues were my teachers, which is a very fun experience to have. But we had an English teacher who on assessment day, you’d come in for a timed write.

You’ve read X and Y, and you have a poem in front of you. You have to synthesize the three, and he would walk in, and your prompt would be whatever he did when he walked in. So he would walk in and spill a glass of water and expect you to combine all of the things you’ve read with the imagery of him spilling a glass of water on the floor in front of you or on his desk or throwing a handful of grass, and then he would say, “Write.”

And that was your prompt for your essay. So the culture that’s built around creativity and fun and not being scared to do something completely different is, is really fabulous to be a part of here.

 Emily, you know what? I’m just in the mood to keep challenging you harder because it sounds to me you just seem to have fun with everything. So let’s go take it to another level. I’m in an administration.

I’m a principal listening to this right now,  and I feel like I’m struggling with this culture. Give me three things that, that you think I, I could do over the next six to 12 months. A recognition it takes time to, to change culture, but what, what are the, the two or three things that you think I should start thinking about as a principal to try and facilitate what sounds to me, to, to Cindy’s point, a culture full of just joy and, and fun at this school?

 I think going into teachers’ classrooms and seeing what they’re already doing is such an important piece, because I think that even if it’s not being vocalized and not being observed, there’s so much of this happening in the classrooms that would otherwise be unknown. I know that, we’ve had great experiences with our administrators coming in and getting to see how the classrooms function, because there are so many people that have the open door policy.

And so the more that a, a principal can get into the classrooms would certainly be a first one. And I think having this kind of conversation, with your teachers in a low-stress, not evaluative, this is just let’s hear what you enjoy about your job, let’s hear what you are passionate about in your subject, and learn from each other is, is another one that I, I’ve really appreciated in this culture that we have here.

 because we’re all eager learners, and so we’re all eager teachers because we all wanna go back and forth between the two, as much as we can, what I wrote in the spring when I was asking my colleagues, you know, to nomin- well, after I’d been nominated and was, writing my philosophy of teaching for the teachers to read, it’s this, this is a place that people are here because we loved learning.

So let’s share what we loved about what we’ve learned, and then never stop. So that was the John Cotton Dana, who dares to teach must never cease to learn kind of energy.  Good things

And it, it also reminds me of a quote from our very first guest on the show ever, Dr. Susan Keller-Mathers, who talked about  good teaching is creative teaching. And I think what you just talked about exemplifies that. When you are an effective teacher, when you are a good teacher, you are a creative teacher as well.

And, and you gave us so many great examples today, so thank you so much. before we go, we’re going to ask you a question that we ask all of our guests, which is, can you tell us about a time a teacher spotted your creative potential and the impact that had on you?

I think it was when we, in, in children’s literature here, we read all of the original fairy tales, and then we have to write our own. And if you know anything about the original fairy tales, they’re all so dark and terrifying. And it was something that I had never written in the style of before.

 and so I got to write this story about a, a window and an attic, and I remember writing it and having so much fun doing something so different from what I would traditionally write, ’cause I really like to write to speak, and so writing to speak and writing a creative piece are so different. , And I remember the, the teacher, who’s still here and is amazing, just having so much fun digging in and making it darker, and asking you to, you know, “Push it.

Go further and keep going with it.” And having that experience of, of stepping out of the comfort zone was certainly a favorite. But, I think the writing program here has a lot of fun with those creative tasks.

 Can you tell us a little bit about that impact it had on you?

I think I will always be a, a writer at heart because of this place in terms of, they just make you fall in love with the books that they love so much. And so I think it certainly made me a reader forever. But, with writing, we have, um, just, you know, social gatherings, but they’re, they’re jokingly called poets.

And so I send out a haiku before I invite people to come to the gatherings. And instead of just letting me write my silly little random haiku, I get feedback from my old English teachers of, “Hey, you should check out this, this style to, to keep going.” And I think that community of continuing learners is such a, such a rich one here.

So I think that’s, that I get to live in it is certainly the impact that it will continue to have for the rest of my career here

Well, Emily, thank you so much for joining us today, and again, congratulations on your award and, and we wish you all the best and, and your colleagues as you kind of continue this, this journey of learning that in an environment of just fun and, and joy.   Now before we go, we want to remind you, if you are listening to this show soon after its publication, we are attending the twenty-twenty six NAGC conference. So if you’re going, we would like to connect with you. Just reach out to us at questions at Fueling Creativity podcast. And as we alluded to in this show, we also have our book, The Future Creative: Ten Actions for Fueling Creativity in Education, which offers some of the practical strategies we discussed in today’s episode, as well as a few 📍 more. And don’t forget, we have our collections page at fuelingcreativitypodcast.com/collections. That’s where we’ve kind of organized all of our different episodes into collections, though we don’t have a collection for world languages, so hopefully this will be one of many episodes for world language teachers. Thanks for listening, and we look forward to connecting with you next week. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood

My name is Dr. Cindy Burnett