Engaging Teachers: Captain Tim Stainer
When you were young, did you ever imagine yourself as a firefighter? Tim Stainer did and after a career of saving lives, he decided to teach others to do the same. Tim teaches at the Delaware Area Career Center in Delaware, Ohio. Data shows that his students are incredibly highly engaged. They love their work and find it challenging.
DACC’s website proudly announces their mission to “Empower, Prepare, Inspire, Connect: Elevate your life.” Tim is certainly an amazing Elevator. We had a chance recently to chat with Tim about his work, student engagement, and education in general.
Rob: Could tell us a little bit about your career in the fire department and how you got to DACC?
Tim: I was a full-time firefighter. I went up to the rank of captain. I became the training officer at the fire department and then went to work in adult education. Then I became the public safety coordinator, which meant I oversaw all the fire and EMS training, both adult and high school, for that school, and I was doing that while I was still full time in the fire service. When I retired, I started doing the same job for Delaware Area Career Center.
After I retired, the high school job as a teacher came open. I was interested because I had loved the education part of it, and I took the chance. I became a full-time teacher, and the rest is history.
Rob: Are there things you miss from your time as an active firefighter?
Tim: I miss the camaraderie, and I miss the ability to go through important things with people, you know, depending on people, and they're depending on you, right? I miss that excitement. But the teaching has certainly filled a void. At my retirement party, I talked about putting great people in the fire service as my next phase. That's what drives me, making sure that we're putting great people in the fire service. The fire service is extremely short of firefighters right now, so the more we can great people we can put in there, the better off everything's going to be.
Rob: How is the day organized for your students?
Tim: Half the day they’re in our lab, half of the day they're in traditional academics.
Rob: Do your students talk to you about the difference between their lab and their traditional classes?
Tim: They love lab way more than they love academics. I try to reinforce the importance of academics, because if you don't come out of high school with a diploma, this isn't going to matter. But there is a motivational difference for sure.
Rob: Is it your sense that your students feel a passion for the work they're doing with you?
Tim: One of the things that I really focus on is that the only way they're going to be successful is that they have to be passionate, and they have to be engaged. In both the firefighting work and the EMT work.
Rob: Why do your students find their work with you so engaging?
Tim: These courses are extremely difficult. I will lose students for grades and performance problems. It is extremely challenging. It's the same course that adults are taking. The only way students can be successful is, they have to love it. I always tell them they must be passionate. They must be obsessed with it. One thing that I think is extremely important is that I love the topics. I've been obsessed with firefighting and EMT since I came out of high school, and I was 19 years old, going to my first class. I was hired full time at 21. I’ve loved it every day.
DACC supports everything that we do, and it gives us everything that we need for the program to be successful. If I had students that came in and they were super fired up about fire and EMS, but we didn't have the resources to do fire and EMS training, it still wouldn't work out. So, the school plays a super important part.
Last, the student services department is great. They are constantly helping my students learn and be successful at this extremely hard curriculum. They make the difference in making sure our students are successful. We are all part of a team focusing on our students. Me, I have to love it and show them that I love it. The school must support everything that we're doing.
Teachers don't have to be fancy. We don't have to have all these tricks and stuff up our sleeve. But you do have to love your field.
This might sound a little corny, but I say this to the students all the time. always say “can't, never could.” If a kid tells me they can't do this or that, I always tell them “Can’t, never could” so that they don't use the word “can't” in this program, because everything can be accomplished. There's no excuse, right. If I must work harder than the person next to me, that is just what needs to be done. Somebody that's stronger might be able to get away with not using great techniques, somebody that's not as strong needs to have perfect technique. So, one of the things that we don't accept in this program is people using the word “can't”.
Rob: One of the differences between what you're doing and what other teachers are doing is your work leads to an outcome, a certification that actually leads to something important in their lives. In Math or English, kids must take standardized tests, but they don't have anything to do with your life after that. I wonder whether that sense of purpose is why your students are so engaged?
Tim: That certainly is a factor of engagement. However, if I was a math teacher, I would do everything in my power to make sure they understood that math was important. I think it might be easy to say, “well, math is not as important so that the kids don't love it as much.” Well, that's your job as a math teacher, right? Make it relatable.
Rob: Is there a specific thing that you love to teach?
Tim: I'll give you one for Emergency Medical Services and one for firefighting.
So, if I had to pick one for EMS, it would be shock. Everything that we do in EMS, we are either trying to keep somebody out of shock or help them once they start down that path. And when it comes to fire, I think hose movement is probably one of my favorite things to teach because it is so important. The students need to gain different skills to be good at pulling the hose off the fire truck, stretching it, charging it, and getting it into the fire wherever the fire is to put the fire out. If you can't do that in the first minute of pulling up in a fire engine, then the rest of it isn't going to matter. There is a lecture for all that. But then hands-on is really how they get good, and we do a lot of it.
Rob: What leads your students to love the work?
Tim: Once you are doing something that is hard and you're accomplishing things, that's what makes you fall in love with it. They work in companies so right from the beginning they have camaraderie within their company. It's like what I experienced at the firehouse. I loved going through things with people and accomplishing things. And I'm sure they're experiencing the same thing, when they either all pass a test in the classroom, or they've accomplished a big day of hose movement out on the training ground.
Rob: What leads them to feel challenged?
Tim: The curriculum itself is difficult and the hands-on portion is very difficult. So, they are constantly being challenged. The homework I give has some difficulty to it. They are constantly under the gun.
Rob: Do you work with them on the issue of pressure?
Tim: We integrate that into the whole course. One of our sayings is you got to be comfortable being uncomfortable, because that is really a firefighter's life.
Rob: Are you aware of your engagement data?
Tim: Yes. I think it's validating, that what I'm doing is working right. I think I may start breaking it down even more looking at individual lessons and then I could start really tweaking individual lessons.
Rob: What are the obstacles to your doing your best work?
Tim: I would just say that the students are so busy that making sure that they're 100% engaged in this curriculum, 100% of the time, can sometimes be challenging. The school gives me every resource that I need to be successful and, and they remove a lot of the obstacles that other people may have.
Rob: Are you in touch with folks who have finished your program and are out in the world now?
Tim: I stay in contact with all of those who go into the fire service, even from two, three, four years ago. They want me to know about their first experiences, and when they get better jobs than they started with. A couple of them, we have hired to come back as assistants. I love that because I want to create a culture. The more my students can see ex-students who are working in the fire services, the better for the culture.
Rob: What makes you hopeful?
Tim: We're putting a lot of effort into getting better, and that's a great thing. You know, using the Wellington Engagement Index and all these different tools that we have, and we can share, and we lean on each other. Teachers working hard to get better can only be great for education. Another thing is the young people—I think there's terrific young people that come through this program. They learn and mature and get their license, and they go out and they work. The more success stories that we have, the better it's going to be holistically for DACC and other career centers. And the more success that we have the better for education, right? If I can teach a kid that it's important to study for this work, then maybe I can teach a kid that it's important to study for everything else, too.