The Elephant and the Teacher

Michelle was nervous walking into Capitol Hill — advocating for public education felt heavy, tense, and a little unattainable. One conversation, and one question, changed how the whole day went. In this episode, she unpacks the question that’s reshaping how she shows up for students, colleagues, and herself: what if the opposite were true? In This Episode The story behind Michelle’s Capitol Hill D...

Fresh off Washington Week with 55 fellow State Teachers of the Year, Michelle takes on a word most teachers dread: data. Learning doesn’t pause between assessments, so why should our data collection? Michelle uses Stephen Covey’s “seek first to understand” and Sarah Brown Wessling’s idea of using curiosity as a tool to unravel . With them, she shows how walking the room with a simple roster turns...

This week, Michelle sits down with Matt Neale, the 2026 Virginia Teacher of the Year. Matt has spent 20+ years in education, including 14 years teaching English and journalism at Hidden Valley High School in Roanoke County, where he revitalized the journalism program. Matt walks us through his ASK philosophy (Approachable, Standards, Kindness) and what each looks like when the bell rings. He share...

One student finishes early, starts chatting with their neighbors, and suddenly quiet work time is falling apart. In this flip the script reframing episode, Michelle walks through a three-minute mental reset using collaborative problem-solving. You'll get three steps to run through before you walk over, plus a low-key script for inviting the student into solving the problem with you, so you can...

Host Michelle Roundy opens with a personal story about a pair of rubber gloves that did more harm than good to unpack a common trap in education: confusing protection with support. She explores how educators, coaches, and leaders often withhold honest feedback, stay silent during toxic conversations, or avoid challenging professional learning under the guise of keeping the peace. Michelle challeng...

Who really owns your classroom on the first day — you, or your students? Michelle Roundy walks through her step-by-step restorative circle protocol for co-creating classroom expectations with kids, from mindfulness openers and talking-piece rounds to building a shared "agreements" chart instead of a list of teacher-enforced rules.  She shares the five reasons co-creation deepens learning...

This week Michelle shows up unscripted in real time talking through how she navigated the overwhelm of the first weeks back to school. She caught herself slipping into old people-pleasing patterns she thought she’d outgrown: saying yes to everything, running on autopilot, losing the boundaries it took her years to build. It’s an honest look at what happens when a new role tests the habits that use...

Do you have to leave the classroom to grow as a teacher? In this episode of The Elephant and the Teacher , host Michelle Roundy challenges the myth that real teacher leadership and instructional leadership only happen in an administrator's office. Responding to a question from fellow educator Ryan Donovan, she shares two field-tested strategies she has used for classroom-based leadership. Buil...

In today’s episode Michelle is revisiting one of the oldest stories we tell about ambition and failure: the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus. But instead of the usual “don’t fly too close to the sun” warning, she pulls the myth apart through depth psychology and Jungian archetypes to ask a much more useful question – what if the wax was never meant to hold? As educators and leaders, she argues, t...

Prompted by a question from Tiffani Jaseph, the 2026 Arizona State Teacher of the Year — "What can I do better as a special education teacher?" — Michelle answers as both a classroom teacher and the mom of Emily, her 14-year-old daughter with Down syndrome. She lays out five pillars special education teachers can use to build real partnerships with families: high expectations, two-way trust, genui...

In this episode, Michelle shares a simple restaurant moment — being handed a "build-your-own" bowl of pho — that turned into a bigger reflection on how we design learning experiences for students and adults alike. She unpacks what happens when we move from serving a pre-assembled "dish" (the text, the questions, the assignment) to offering a base, plus meaningful choices for en...

Supporting a burned-out team doesn't mean absorbing their stress or fixing what you can't control — it means helping them reclaim the agency that burnout takes away, while protecting your own energy in the process. This episode answers a listener question from Marifi Dokulan, the 2026 Teacher of the Year in the Northern Mariana Islands, who wrote in wrestling with a familiar tension: how d...

Michelle sits down with Julia Edwards, the 2026 Maine Teacher of the Year, choral director, and creator of the Cultural Context Curriculum, for a wide-ranging conversation about what it really means to lead learning rather than deliver it. They talk about: Joyful chaos — reframing the overwhelm of a big year (or a big life) as a wild ride worth gratitude, not just survival. Co-regulation through c...

Thank you for listening to Season 1 of The Elephant and The Teacher! Please fill out this form to help me curate my content for Season 2. Have an amazing summer and we'll be back soon! My Summer Reading List: Wild Dark Shore by Charolette McConaghy The Correspondent by Virginia Evans Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell North Woods by Daniel Mason How to Carry What Can’t be Fixed by Megan Devine The...

By the time June hits, most teachers' nervous systems are running on pure adrenaline. In this mini episode, Michelle offers three reflective questions to carry into your summer that are about you – the human behind the teacher. (1) When were you most authentic? (2) When did you fully receive from others? (3) When did you feel truly seen? These moments aren't just good memories for your jou...

When everything changes, the instinct is to grip harder. To control the outcome, manage the future, and think your way through the panic. But what if steadiness isn't found in certainty at all? In this episode, Michelle explores what it actually looks like to stay grounded when your identity is on the line. Ask a Question: Have a question for Michelle? Fill out the listener form [Linked Here]...

In this episode, Michelle shares a profound personal experience from a week-long ancestral skills course in Montana, where she found herself barefoot and blindfolded walking through the forest. What started as a physical challenge quickly surfaced something much deeper: old stories about inadequacy, toughness, and the fear of needing help.  The lessons she carried out of that forest go straight in...

In the second half of their deep dive into evidence based grading, Michelle Roundy and Ryan Donovan—award-winning AP U.S. History teacher and 2026 Top 50 Trailblazing Educator—tackle the "elephant" of traditional grading.  The conversation shifts into the practical "how-to" of an evidence-based classroom, highlighting the necessity of breaking down complex assessments into mana...

In this episode, Michelle sits down in person with her friend and colleague Stephanie Hardeman — educator, executive coach, and founder of Teton Teams Development — to explore two powerful commitments from The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership : taking 100% personal responsibility and speaking candidly. Together they unpack the "above and below the line" model, examining how fear drives us in...

In this episode, Michelle Roundy sits down with Ryan Donovan , Arizona’s Teacher of the Year and a Top 50 Trailblazing Educator, to dismantle traditional grading. They explore why the standard 0–100% scale often fails to reflect true student mastery and how the "points game" can actually stifle a student’s natural love of learning. Ryan shares his personal pivot from using grades as a to...

Inspired by a high school science teacher’s provocative lesson plan, Michelle dives into the archetypal story of Bluebeard . Michelle relates the tale as a powerful metaphor for the internal "predator" that exists within every educator and leader. This internal voice often demands we maintain the status quo, warning us that looking too closely at the systemic failures or personal biases...

In this vulnerable episode, Michelle Roundy explores the raw experience of making a public mistake and the emotional "elephant" that often follows: shame. Moving beyond her personal story, Michelle uses the wisdom of Brené Brown to distinguish between guilt and shame, illustrating how the latter can shut down our ability to learn. It’s a must-listen for anyone looking to foster a culture...

In this insightful follow-up episode, Michelle Roundy dives into the casual and often unconscious ways we describe our students. Drawing inspiration from her conversation with Drew in Episode 12 and a poignant quote in Ocean Vuong’s Emperor of Gladness , Michelle challenges the notion that rethinking our language is merely about “toxic positivity” or sanitizing the truth. Instead, she argues that...

In this special episode, I’m sitting down for a heartfelt and practical conversation with a very special guest: my husband, Drew Roundy . Drew serves as a Sergeant and the School Resource Officer (SRO) at the high school where I work, giving him a unique vantage point on leadership, safety, and the power of human connection. We’re diving into the "one thing" that defines our relationship...

In this episode of The Elephant and the Teacher , Michelle Roundy tackles a heavy "elephant" in the modern classroom: the growing sense of paralysis and fear among teenage students. From a visceral fear of failure to the "shield" of social media, our students are standing on the edge of the adult world, and to them, the drop looks steeper than ever. Michelle shares a personal s...