Clayton Smith has been an educator for more than 20 years, and is currently the Middle School Principal at Northeastern Wayne School Corporation. When he sat down with Kate on this episode of the Western Wayne News podcast, he shared his love for Wayne County and his passion for teaching the next generation about its history. Clayton also discusses lessons learned from the pandemic, misconceptions about modern education, and what it’s like to be a school administrator in our community. Enjoy!
Transcript
Clayton Smith: I’m Clayton Smith, and I’m the principal of Northeastern Middle School.
Kate Jetmore: From Civic Spark Media and the Western Wayne News in Wayne County, Indiana, I’m Kate Jetmore. As a native of Richmond, Indiana, I’m excited to be sitting down with some of our neighbors and listening to the stories that define our community.
My guest today is Clayton Smith, who’s the middle school principal at Northeastern Wayne School Corporation. While this is his fourth year of building administration, he’s been principal for just over a year, and he’s been an educator for 20 years.
He holds degrees from Purdue, Earlham, and Ball State. Clayton has lived in Wayne County, Indiana for most of his life, with short stints in Lafayette and Indianapolis, and the Twin Cities in Minnesota. He and his wife have been married for 17 years, and they have four children. Welcome, Clayton. Thanks so much for sitting down with me today.
Clayton Smith: Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure and a joy to be with you today.
Kate Jetmore: Great. Well, I really appreciate you making the time. I know you’re a busy guy, and as you said, you are the principal of Northeastern Middle School. So, what can you share about your decision to work with young people at that age?
Clayton Smith: Well, I guess it goes all the way back to when I graduated from college from Purdue, and I majored in English. And I don’t know if you are aware, but there are not a whole lot of people knocking down your door to employ you, to hire you as an English, a fresh English graduate, an English degree graduate.
So, I applied for a job as a home-based case manager at a place called the Dunn Center, and I worked there for a few years, and it really opened the door for me to understand that I had a passion to work with young people.
But I should also preface that by saying that my parents were both teachers. And I guess, you know, in a way you could say I come from a long line of teachers. I had a great aunt that taught for 45 years in Speedway and I had another aunt that taught for about 40 years in a school over on the west side of the state called Turkey Run. And I had a cousin that taught. My mom and dad were both teachers so you could kind of almost say that teaching is like our family job.
So, as I was growing up, I always told myself I would never be a teacher. But when I got older and started realizing how, well, not only was it a job that gave you so much reward to do the job, that to see the work that you were doing with the kids and helping them and making a difference in somebody else’s life. And I remember writing down in a journal when I graduated from college, I wrote down the words, “I must make a difference.”
And I don’t think that I could find… And I’ve done some other jobs besides. I guess I should say that teaching is sort of my second career. And so, I’ve done other jobs, but no other job has given me the fulfillment that education has. I don’t do the same thing two days in a row. And it keeps you on your feet. Like days go by, and you’re so busy. And you can touch so many different lives. And it just makes it all seem worthwhile.
Now, does it have its challenges? Absolutely. I have an amazing wife, who is able to listen to my stories and, you know, she also has a challenging job as well. So, we kind of share each other’s woes from time to time, but we listen to each other and we can help each other out for sure, to listen to those, to listen to each other.
But like I said, I’ve done some other jobs in my past. But nothing has ever given me the joy that teaching has. And when I got my master’s degree from Earlham, they put me in a school in Connersville. Now I had worked in Connersville when I did my case management during my Dunn Center days. So, I was familiar with it and it was good to be back in that community again, and I stayed there for 10 years. And it was, you know… Some of the kids, not very many, but some of the kids that I had on my caseload, which I… You know, they didn’t necessarily remember me because they were so young, but having to see them grow and where they were was exciting. I got to explore different avenues of education when I was at Connersville. They opened a lot of doors for me. And that’s kind of where I got the bug, I guess, to be an administrator.
Kate Jetmore: Okay, interesting. And you know, going back to what you were saying about how, you know, there’s a strong teaching tradition in your extended family. I’m curious if you knew, well, I assume you had a sense of what it would be to be in the classroom, given that you were surrounded by all these other teachers. But was it what you expected once you actually got into the classroom?
Clayton Smith: Yes and no. At first, I mean, I spent a lot of time with my dad when I was a kid.
So I saw, I saw what the classrooms were like. I saw the kids, you know, and some of my babysitters when I was growing up were teachers, and they became my teachers later. In fact, actually one of the teachers here at Northeastern, she just retired, and when she was in high school, she was one of my babysitters.
So, it’s like, I’m constantly surrounded by people who influenced me when I was a young tyke. But you know, going through some of the things that you go through as a new teacher, I don’t know if they can really prepare you for that unless you experience it. So, like handling discipline issues, going through, you know, like figuring out how to problem-solve classroom management. We can talk about it all you want in the classroom, but when you do it, you gotta kind of, you know, live it and learn it as you’re going through it.
Kate Jetmore: And I would also imagine that that goes for, both the more challenging parts of the job, as you mentioned, disciplinary action and things like that, but also the other end of the spectrum, which is how rewarding it is. Would you say that’s the case as well?
Clayton Smith: Yeah, and it is easy to dwell on the discipline part of things, but I can tell you that that’s not what I remember about the best parts of my history of being a teacher.
When I look back, I think of the kids that have come to me maybe a year or two later and say, “I really miss your class. Like I really miss what we talked about.” Or they’ll bring up a specific subject that we had talked about in class.
I was an English teacher, so one of my favorite grades was 11th grade because it was American Literature, but you can blend American History in there as well. History is sort of like a hobby of mine. And learning about history is always something I do a lot. So, to be able to blend those two things together, it was sort of a Humanities class for me.
And I had some amazing people that I worked with too. I had an amazing Inclusion teacher. And I remember a student coming up to me and being like, “You guys are like a really bad comedy act.” Because we would make corny jokes and try to get kids to laugh. And by the time we had done it two or three times, we were kind of like, you know, Lewis and Martin, but they were really good.
But you know, it was really fun, like trying to figure out different ways to keep learning engaging and fun. And we had just a blast. And then, you know, as I left Connersville and went to different places looking for a place that I could kind of find a niche that I could end up in a place… And I wasn’t like looking for just any admin job that came along. I was being very picky. I certainly wasn’t ready to pick up my family and move across the state of Indiana for any… just because of a job. I wanted to…
I really, really, really love Wayne County. I feel like where you live, you should take a lot of pride in that. And so, I take a lot of pride in understanding and knowing the history and the people of Wayne County. And I didn’t ever want to leave that. I still don’t ever want to leave that. I feel like we owe it to ourselves to kind of know where we come from and then teach that to our kids, because some of our children, it’s getting to the point now where I think they don’t know a lot about where they live. And if you don’t know a lot about where you live, how can you be proud of it?
Kate Jetmore: Right, and that responsibility really falls on our shoulders as the adults in their lives, wouldn’t you say?
Clayton Smith: I would 100% say that’s true.
Kate Jetmore: And especially when it comes to being… You know, obviously as parents, as neighbors, as family members, but especially as teachers, because you know they’re spending their days with you.
Clayton Smith: Yeah. It’s so hard to find time to kind of put what you just described into a curriculum, because we’ve already got so much that we have to cover. But at the same time, you can find ways to do it.
Like there’s little ways that you can kind of put it in. I know that, for example, I was listening to one of the teachers teach about the Greeks and she had mentioned the Greek architecture, and Greek Revival is one of the styles of homes that is prevalent in Richmond, Indiana. So, some of our kids live in Richmond, Indiana that attend Northeastern, and I thought that would be a cool way to be like, hey, you might be living in a house that’s Greek Revival.
Kate Jetmore: Oh wow, interesting. You know, Clayton, at the beginning of our conversation, you were talking about the other teachers in your family and how that really spoke to you, and you found yourself drawn to being a teacher yourself. But you’re also talking about being a teacher in the past tense. I was an English teacher. Now you’re obviously in administration. So, can you talk a little bit about the differences between being in the classroom and being in the office?
Clayton Smith: Well, it’s really different. I guess I should start by saying that right out of the gate. Like, the things that I worried about when I was a teacher aren’t necessarily the things that I worry about first thing in the morning when I wake up, now that I’m an administrator. Now that doesn’t mean that some of those things don’t cross my mind during the course of the day, but there’s a lot that you have to shoulder as an administrator. The decisions that you make have to be made for a lot of people, not just myself or like, you know, the kids, the students that I may be teaching in the classroom. Those kids often look at the teacher or look at me as like the expert in the room. And so, you know, you get a little bit, you can get kind of… that could be kind of fun, you know, like you can get creative with that.
Whereas, you know, as an administrator, you kind of have to have thick skin because there’s going to be some people that are not going to agree with what you decide to do.
And it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re your employees, they could be parents or stakeholders in the community. So you have to be always thinking.
Kate Jetmore: Speaking of people not necessarily being in agreement, can you share any of your experiences, and I guess you would have been in the classroom at that point, with the COVID year or the COVID years?
Clayton Smith: Yeah, I would say that because… I was a teacher and an assistant principal during the COVID time, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. That was really hard.
Kate Jetmore: In what way, Clayton, can you speak a little bit more specifically about why it was so hard?
Clayton Smith: Well, I think the first part, the hard parts come in stages. So, the first stage was the unknown. You didn’t know what to say. You should just say anything. And so I kept trying to say to myself, we’ve got to figure out some way to return to normalcy when everything around you is absurd. Or maybe absurd isn’t the right word, but abnormal.
And I’m trying to talk to students through a camera like we are right now, and they’re looking at me, like I’m trying to teach them something to do with Language Arts, and I could just… and only half of them were on it. I could never get the entire class to be on at the same time. And that’s not their fault. I mean, we weren’t prepared in the sense that everybody was going to have reliable internet or the ability to look at a camera and some of the parents didn’t get to stay home. They still had to go to work.
So, you know, it was challenging and thankfully I worked in a corporation that didn’t put a lot of pressure on us to make it perfect and we did the best we could.
And then when we came back in full swing, we were wearing masks every day, but I would have waves of kids that were quarantined. So, there would be days where I would come in and then the administration would come in and take like 12 of my 24 kids out and I wouldn’t see them for two weeks.
So now I wouldn’t be able to talk to them. I could email them, I could talk to them through electronic purposes but it was just, it was just slow, you know. We did the best we could there as well.
And then I came over here as an administrator and you know, we started the school year off with thinking that we were going to be mask-free, and then within two weeks they declared that we needed to put masks back on.
And it’s kind of like, I don’t know what’s a good analogy, but it’s like telling somebody they can’t do something and then… Or telling them they can do something and then telling them they can’t. Like, it was so much work. No kids wanted to wear the masks. It was always hanging below their chin and wasn’t doing them any good. So, I was walking around and, you know, making lots of phone calls. “Jimmy’s not wearing his mask, you’ve got to put his mask up,” you know, like these types of things.
And then finally, by about three-fourths of the school year, they allowed us to take them off. And I got to see their faces for the first time, basically. I was here for the first two weeks, but I didn’t get to see them very much. So, by the time I was… and I was a new employee, so I didn’t see anybody until we got to take those masks off. And that was, it was like, I don’t know how to describe it. It was like a breath of fresh air combined with like waking up from a long, horrible nightmare. You know, it was like, “Here we are! I can see everybody!”
Kate Jetmore: Yeah, and there’s something so, so human about that. I mean, I think COVID taught us so many things. But one thing that I think it taught us is how important it is to see each other’s faces.
Clayton Smith: Yeah.
Kate Jetmore: I mean, I never thought about that before we were all covering half of our face up or more than half of our face up.
Clayton Smith: And I think, just to clarify too, I think we were all doing what we thought was very, very best for our kids. I… and everybody just did such an amazing job. And, you know, like, but like I said, I would never wish that on anybody. It was, it was really, really hard.
Kate Jetmore: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, definitely when I think back on 2020 and 2021, it’s almost like when a really bad storm goes by and then you, you know, it passes and the sun kind of peaks out and you look up at those black clouds that are kind of drifting away and you’re like, “Oh my God, that was nuts.”
Clayton Smith: Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.
Kate Jetmore: I think when I look back at the transcript of this conversation later, I’m probably going to see the word school many, many times. And I think when we say the word school, we all have kind of a muscle memory of what that was when we were young, when we went to school, and we think that that still is what school is.
But things have obviously changed so much since we were in school ourselves. So, I’d love to ask you what do most people misunderstand about the current classroom experience?
Clayton Smith: Well, I think the thing that most people, and if we’re talking about most people, I’m guessing it’s the people that are not in the building on a day-to-day basis. It’s how hard it is to get a child’s attention. Let me explain what I mean by that.
The cell phone probably has been one of the greatest inventions of the last 100 years, it maybe rivals the car. The cell phone has evolved to be more than just a phone though. I mean, we all know that. It’s a device that for adults, it plays an enormous role in our lives. Like if you go to a basketball game, your tickets may be on your phone. You use it as a camera, for video. You don’t see anybody carrying one of those bulky video cameras anymore. It’s a one-stop piece of equipment. It contains a lot of… people’s bank cards are on there. In some cases, their lives are literally on their phone.
But as a kid, it’s still just a toy. And we have kids that go to bed at night with their phones still next to them, and they’re looking at it. And they come to school, and they start the day… They may have gone to bed at 9:30 or 10:00, but they’ve not gone to sleep till 1 or 2 in the morning. And parents may not even know that. So they come in and they’re already groggy, maybe a little bit grumpy, because of lack of sleep.
And then you have nutrition, also a big thing. Like we see a lot more of kids walking into school with Mountain Dew. We see kids coming in with high sugar, high carb kinds of… like Pop Tarts and that kind of, like on-the-go kind of things to eat. And you know, it’s…
And then I think that kids kind of sometimes expect their teachers to be entertainers, to like just put on a show for them. And what we really, we’re under a lot of pressure. You know, we have, like I mentioned before, we have standards that we have to teach them and then there’s tests that they have to take, that the students have to take. Now they’re in the state of Indiana, they’re giving checkpoints throughout the year and our teachers are now challenged with the task of trying to squeeze all of those standards in before they take that test.
And then in addition to all of that, budget cuts. You know, it’s expensive to run a school in 2025. And I’ll tell you that one of the reasons why it’s expensive is because a lot of our buildings are old, and that’s not something that we can just say, “Hey, let’s buy the land next door and build a new school, and we’ll have it ready for next year.” I mean, it’s just not that simple.
Kate Jetmore: Yeah.
Clayton Smith: You know, the four schools that combined to become Northeastern… When they closed those schools, their age was not as old as the age of the school that we’re in right now.
And so, we have to take a lot of those things into consideration. We gotta have a building for our kids to come into, so it’s gotta be safe, and it’s gotta be viable for them to be able to learn.
So, a lot of that stuff is important for people to understand. And, you know, like we have teachers… I may be biased, but I feel like we have some of the best teachers that you can find, in our school. With that being said, there are just not a lot of people going into education right now. So, you know, one of the things that I worry about is what if one of my amazing teachers decides to leave? Who am I going to replace him or her with?
Because when I first got into teaching, it was very competitive. Like, I was an English Language Arts teacher, and there were multiple candidates. And I know this, because when I got hired, they told me who I had to beat out to get that job. And as a person that sits on the other side of the desk now and takes in the applications, we just don’t get that many. So, I have to kind of go find them. I have to hunt them down, have to go sniff them out. I have to go find leads. It’s almost like being a private detective, in a way, to go find… I hear somebody is a really good, maybe a pretty good candidate, just graduated. And I gotta leap before somebody else does because they’re all in the same boat we are.
Kate Jetmore: Right, for sure. Well, Clayton, I really appreciate this peek into what it’s like in your job. And, you know, I think we can all sort of extrapolate that and imagine that this is what teachers all over the country are experiencing and administrators, and to a certain extent, students, you’ve shared some of that as well.
But more than anything, I just want to thank you so much for making the time today to sit down with me. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation and learning more about you, and more about your job. And I want to wish you and your family all the best.
Clayton Smith: Well, thank you so much for having me. And it has been a pleasure, my pleasure to speak with you as well.