The “first-year teaching blues” are real, but they don’t have to be a career-ender. In this episode, Daniel explores the impact of the GREAT Grant (Georgia Residency for Educating Amazing Teachers), a program designed to turn career-changers into thriving educators through a paid residency model.

We sit down with Jillian Degan, a former “problem child” student who swore she’d never teach, and Amelia Ellison, the veteran mentor who guided her. Together, they pull back the curtain on what a successful mentor-mentee relationship actually looks like—moving beyond “signing the paperwork” to building a partnership based on vulnerability, trust, and the freedom to fail.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• The Non-Traditional Path: How both Jillian (Healthcare) and Amelia (Business) transitioned into education and how their outside perspectives shape their classrooms.
• The “Productive Struggle”: Why Jillian had to learn to stop “hating group work” and allow her students to struggle together to find the right answers.
• Reverse Mentorship: How a veteran teacher learned to embrace new technology and creative “anchor charts” by watching her mentee take risks.
• Management vs. Relationships: Why rigid systems (like “the clipboard”) often fail new teachers, and why emotional intelligence works better than calling parents every day.
• The “Vibe” Check: Why it is critical for a new teacher to speak up and request a different mentor if the personality fit isn’t right.
• The Power of Constructive Feedback: How to give feedback that builds a new teacher up rather than just telling them “fix your classroom management” without explaining how.

You can find this episode on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you listen to your podcasts.