Ep. 35 Building Relationships & Creating Safe Spaces at CUSD feat. Beth Murphy

Check out Bret Schanzenbach’s conversation with CBAD award-winning teacher Beth Murphy about COVID’s effects on education and the students, how teachers are creating connections for their kids, and more.

Learn more about the Carlsbad Chamber.

On the latest episode of the Carlsbad People, Purpose, and Impact Podcast, Carlsbad Unified School District teacher and CBAD award recipient, Beth Murphy, joins Bret Schanzenbach to talk about education, COVID, and future opportunities for students. It wasn’t until she was almost done with college and had her own children that Beth realized she wanted to be a teacher. She taught kindergarten for almost 11 years, until she was asked to teach middle school science. Although teaching middle school often has a bad reputation, Beth says it’s actually the best-kept secret in education and loves her middle schoolers!

In Beth’s classes, she and her students focus mainly on biology and geology, which is what she majored in at college. She not only teaches science, she also advises the GSA (Gender Student Alliance) Club, which promotes inclusion, as well as the Web Program which is a mentoring program where eighth-graders mentor incoming sixth graders during the school year. Whether she’s encouraging students to be respectful of others’ choices, creating environments where older students can mentor the younger ones, or promoting opportunities where they can join together as a student body, all of Beth’s endeavors and focuses are about connection. In this episode, she and Bret talk about how she got into teaching, her primary focuses at CUSD, and the positive and negative ways COVID has affected students and education.

Interview Links

Learn more about Beth’s school, Valley Middle School.

Connect with Beth Murphy via email.