How To Survive The Classroom

Latest Episodes:

Why Colonoscopies Are Underrated Aug 10, 2026

Show notes

Hey teacher besties! This week is a big one because Molly is officially, permanently part of the podcast now, so it's me, Gerry, and Molly for the long haul. I catch you all up on the first ever Teacher Talk Sycamore Summit I hosted (mimosas, a rage room dream for next year, and Gaspar Randazzo doing a fully clean set), and then we get into some real teacher talk: professional development horror stories, including Molly's unforgettable superintendent-with-a-50-slide-clip-art-deck story. We also swap first week of school stories, Gerry's "I'm a warden" intimidation tactics, plus Molly's mortifying tale of teaching an entire day with her sleeves completely ripped off and not knowing it. Then things get a little unhinged, because that's just how we do it. I tell you guys about the time I genuinely thought there was a man in a ski mask behind my house (spoiler: I grabbed scissors and did absolutely nothing useful with them), Gerry one-ups me with his own naked-scissors home defense story, and somehow we end up giving out medical advice about colonoscopies and IBS. We close it out with our hills to die on, because apparently off-brand crayons and back-to-school-night-the-night-before-school are both worth fighting for. It's a chaotic one, guys, but I loved it.

ORDER MY NEW BOOK (AVAILABLE NOW)!!! — https://bit.ly/49CZ5A0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Takeaways:

Molly is officially a permanent co-host on the podcast now, and I could not be more excited about it.
Bad professional development, minor disasters, and embarrassing moments genuinely make the best content if you can laugh at yourself.
Gerry's classroom management strategy involves a lot of scaring kids and occasionally flipping a desk for emphasis.
Real talk: get your colonoscopy, guys, because colon cancer is scary and it's showing up younger than people think.
I will always stand firm on my hill that off-brand crayons and colored pencils are simply unacceptable.

Knoword is an online tool for creating fun vocabulary games. Visit Knoword.com to learn how it fits into your classroom.

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Welcome Back To School Aug 03, 2026

Show notes

We are BACK, teacher besties, and I have SO much to catch you up on. It's the season three premiere of How to Survive the Classroom, and Gerry has arrived with a NEW nose ring, a PASSED edTPA, and a very concerning number of years since his last dentist appointment. Buckle up.

We recap Gerry's full edTPA journey and then get into a real conversation kicked off by my 100-year-old grandpa, who was a teacher for seven years before he quit, largely because he was frustrated that pay was tied to years of service instead of actual skill. Fifty years later, that same debate is still going, and we dig into merit-based pay, the limits of standardized testing, and why electives teachers get left out of the conversation entirely.

Then we jump into back-to-school fan questions: what NOT to do your first year, the worst icebreakers ever, and how new teachers can actually protect their time. Plus, an unhinged Two Truths and a Lie round where Gerry casually mentions being present for an Easter Sunday prison riot and I have some follow-up questions.

ORDER MY NEW BOOK (AVAILABLE NOW)!!! — https://bit.ly/49CZ5A0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Takeaways:

Do NOT coach your first year of teaching. Even if you love the sport, the workload will bury you. Wait until year two if you can.

Please do not become a teacher just because you want to coach. Coaching is its own career path, teaching kids just to earn a whistle isn't fair to the students in your classroom.

Watch your icebreakers. Two Truths and a Lie in a class of 30 will take the entire period AND leave you exposed to whatever wild thing a student wants to reveal. Choose carefully.

Do the work at school. Grading, prep, and lesson planning inside the building beats opening your laptop at 9 PM every night. Protect your home time.

The teacher pay debate has been the same conversation for 50+ years. Both skill and years of service matter, but standardized test scores mostly measure the poverty level of an area, so any "merit-based" system needs a smarter way to measure real impact.

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edTPA Survival Guide Jun 29, 2026

Show notes

Teacher besties, we made it. This is the season finale of How to Survive the Classroom, and we're going out with a BIG one. Gerry has NEWS, he submitted his edTPA. Like, two hours before the Pacific Time deadline news. (He fully Patoka'd it.) He walks me through his 4 Ps of marketing lesson plan, we trauma-bond over watching yourself teach on video, and he reveals that his comedy tell when a joke bombs is just saying "Hell yeah" into the mic, which will now live rent-free in my head for the rest of my life.

Then we tackle fan questions. How to actually land a teaching job, what to ask in the interview, and which AI tools and books are actually worth your time.

We also get into the Roast of Kevin Hart and why lazy jokes never land, why Tires might be the funniest sitcom on TV right now, and the ongoing saga of my mom genuinely believing Gerry has face tattoos.

Gerry's hill to die on this week: the edTPA needs to go. Mine: every single teacher is allowed to COUCH ROT this summer with zero guilt. We'll see you back in August for the next season.

ORDER MY NEW BOOK (AVAILABLE NOW)!!! — https://bit.ly/49CZ5A0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Takeaways:

The "side door" is a legit way into the classroom. Subbing, long-term subbing, and instructional assistant roles can absolutely lead to full-time teaching jobs, and often build the relationships that get you hired.

In a job interview, ask about adjunct duties (lunch, bus, coverage) AND whether they're paid. Knowing your district's coverage policy before you sign saves you a lot of resentment later.

AI tools like Magic School AI and Diffit can be genuine time-savers for lesson planning, generating questions, and differentiating materials, as long as you're using them to support your work, not replace your thinking.

The edTPA may have its place in traditional teacher prep, but for lateral-entry teachers who have already been in the classroom for years, the hoop-jumping starts to feel pointless. Worth pushing back on.

Teachers: you are allowed to do absolutely NOTHING this summer. Couch rotting is a valid, evidence-based recovery method. (Source: me.)

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New Teacher Survival Guide Jun 22, 2026

Show notes

It is officially summer, teacher besties, and I have made a HUGE mistake. I decided I wasn't going to pay for summer camp this year, which means I'm home with my own children, who can apparently sense when I'm overstimulated and somehow get closer AND louder. This week's How to Survive the Classroom is a wide-ranging chat that takes us from Gerry's truly unhinged childhood Holocaust summer camp, to the ethics of ghost tours, to the dark history of New Orleans, to the new-teacher essentials you do (and definitely DON'T) actually need.

Then I get on a soapbox about the real hill this week: the federal Department of Education said it was going away, and somehow Linda McMahon is still posting mandates on Instagram. We also briefly fall down the rabbit hole of Stone Cold Steve Austin running for office and the MMA stadium being built on the White House lawn, because of course we do.

ORDER MY NEW BOOK (AVAILABLE NOW)!!! — https://bit.ly/49CZ5A0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Takeaways:

New teachers, save your money. Highlighters, fancy turn-in baskets, and elaborate organizational systems are mostly overrated. Focus your energy on a bathroom-pass system you'll actually use.

The most underrated new-teacher skill is teaching classroom routines on purpose. If kids walk in wrong, make them walk in again. They'll be annoyed, but it works.

The "everyone else has it together" myth is a lie. Even veteran teachers are pivoting, guessing, and occasionally throwing on Shark Tank when the copies didn't get made.

Year seven is when you officially become a veteran teacher, with bonus dog years for anyone who taught through the pandemic or wore multiple hats early in their career.

When the federal government says it's dismantling the Department of Education but is somehow still issuing mandates, it's worth paying attention and worth pushing back, no matter where you sit politically.

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Winston Hodges on Working With Autistic Students & Going Viral on Funny AF Jun 15, 2026

Show notes

Gerry and I are joined by Funny AF top six finalist and stand-up comedian Winston Hodges, who, before he was making Kevin Hart, Chelsea Handler, and Kumail Nanjiani laugh on Netflix, spent four years teaching at a school for kids on the autism spectrum in Virginia.

Winston shares some of the wildest classroom stories I've heard on this pod, whether it's getting hit with a globe mid-Civil War lecture, becoming the school's unofficial crisis negotiator, or the one-month average staff retention that meant his coworker Marissa quit on day TWO. He also explains why special education teachers are tough as nails, and how working with kids on the autism spectrum made him weirdly elite at managing other comedians' meltdowns.

Then we go fully behind the scenes of Funny AF. Who ran the light by ten full minutes and genuinely thought they killed, the conversation about his late dad that got cut, why some sets got edited harder than others, and how he handled the brutal Threads discourse around the show.

ORDER MY NEW BOOK (AVAILABLE NOW)!!! — https://bit.ly/49CZ5A0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Takeaways:

Special education teachers are some of the toughest, most skilled humans in the building. The "sweet and gentle" stereotype misses the patience, paperwork, and de-escalation skills the job actually demands.

Crisis de-escalation is a transferable superpower. Working with autistic students made Winston better at handling hecklers, talking comics off the ledge, and the kind of active listening most people don't get in their day-to-day life.

Reality TV editing is real, but Funny AF wasn't a hit piece. Winston says the team genuinely loved comedy and worked to make everyone look good, even when they could have done the opposite.

Don't trust the algorithm to tell you when your favorite comic is in town. Get on their email list, or you'll be the person commenting "when are you coming to my city?" two days after they leave.

Comedy used to feel like a brotherhood, comics could trash-talk each other privately but had each other's backs publicly. That solidarity is slipping, and it's a bummer for the whole craft.

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Classroom Management Hacks That Backfire Jun 08, 2026

Show notes

I bombed a comedy show in New Orleans this weekend, and Gerry and I are unpacking every chaotic detail on this week's How to Survive the Classroom, from the venue surprise-merging me with another show, to the broken mic, to me literally apologizing to Kevin Hart in my anxiety dream that night.

Then we finally dive into the Canvas hack and how Gerry's school was down for FIVE days. We dig into how the breach actually happened, why district-issued phishing tests are honestly the pettiest thing in education, and the unhinged disgruntled-employee email saga I once lived through that the district quietly scrubbed from every inbox overnight.

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Takeaways:

Comedians are often nicer to you after a bad set than a good one, which honestly says everything you need to know about the industry (and frankly, teaching, too).

The Canvas hack was resolved because Instructure paid up. The breach started with a free for-teacher account, so treat suspicious emails like the threat they are.

"I'll wait" classroom management only works if you're ready for it NOT to work. Always have a real Plan B for the class that calls your bluff.

Telling students you'll be absent is a gamble. Some classes will plan accordingly, others will use it as permission to check out before you even leave.

We may need to rethink the kindergarten / fifth grade / preschool graduation industrial complex. Save the bedazzled cap energy for moments that actually mark a meaningful transition.

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Is Anyone Thinking Critically? Homeschool and AI Jun 01, 2026

Show notes

Are these new teacher red flags or green flags? This week we play a back-to-school hallway game ranking the behaviors that tell you exactly what kind of colleague you're dealing with, from Bitmoji classrooms to teachers who don't drink caffeine to anyone clickety-clacking down the hallway in stiletto heels.

Then we get into a question I have been wrestling with hard: should teachers use AI to grade essays? We dig into what AI gets right, what it gets wrong, and the bigger danger of "internet consensus" quietly replacing real critical thinking in our classrooms.

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Takeaways:

Teacher hallway red flags are real. Lifelong-learner energy on PD day, brand-new Bitmoji classrooms in 2026, no caffeine ever, and stiletto heels in the hallway all earn the side-eye.

AI essay grading (like Magic School AI) can be useful for big class loads and reducing bias, but it's a tool, not a replacement for your eyes on the page.

ChatGPT is a people pleaser. It will agree with you even when it's wrong, which is exactly why teaching kids critical thinking around AI matters more than ever.

If you homeschool, you should be the loudest advocate for better public schools. A strong, well-funded public education system is foundational to a strong democracy.

When enrollment shrinks, push your district to keep class sizes small instead of cutting teachers. Smaller classes are a tangible win you can advocate for right now.

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They Didn’t Have My Subject In School with Steven Rogers May 25, 2026

Show notes

Have you ever booking a show in New York City only to realize there are so many comedy giants there that you can barely sell a dozen tickets ? Because that is exactly the humbling moment I’m bonding over with today's guest, the insanely talented Steven Rogers! Steven works with absolute legends like Nate Bargatze and Brian Regan (who actually produced his special), but he had to cancel a New York show tonight for the exact same reason . Talk about a fast kinship .

We are diving deep into what it truly means to "work clean" in a business that often relies on shock factor, why Steven refuses to change his jokes just to fit a late-night TV slot, and don't worry, we bring it right back to the classroom . Gerry highlights how 13 years of comedy writing mirrors teaching perfectly: if you stick to the exact same routine and refuse to change with the world around you, you lose your connection with your audience.

Plus, Steven shares why he was bored out of his mind in school but always got along best with his teachers, including his 10th-grade math teacher who still comes to his shows !

ORDER MY NEW BOOK (AVAILABLE NOW)!!! — https://bit.ly/49CZ5A0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Takeaways:

The New York Humbling: Andrea and Steven connect over the brutal reality of trying to sell tickets in New York City, proving that even headliners get beaten up by the market .
The Math of Clean Comedy: Why Steven Rogers chose to write exclusively clean sets from day one, rather than rewriting a joke 200 times just to get a late-night TV slot .
Order and Chaos in Writing: Steven breaks down his loose, structured-yet-chaotic joke writing process, which involves emptying anxieties onto a notebook page so he can observe the world clearly .
The Constant Lesson Plan: Gerry links Steven’s 13-year comedy journey to public education, arguing that teachers constantly have to adapt their frameworks to avoid getting left behind .
Team Cat Content: Andrea tries to convince Steven to turn his hairless cats into viral content superstars because the algorithm is practically begging for it .

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The Mental Resilience of Taking Big Swings May 18, 2026

Show notes

I’m wrapping up my semester and Gerry is surviving quarter four, but honestly, we’re both just exhausted from a weekend of comedy. Gerry has been out here opening for Joe Dombrowski and doing guest spots with Josh Johnson from The Daily Show, no big deal!

We’re getting real about the "success through failure" mindset and how that translates to the classroom. Sometimes you take a big swing with a lesson plan and it just... doesn't hit. We dive into the "apathy epidemic" teachers are facing right now and why some of us are just too tired to cajole students who have mentally checked out.

Also, things get a little... messy. Gerry shares the most embarrassing story involving a Target, a classroom chair, and a gamble on a fart that he definitely lost. Plus, my dog may or may not have used my pant leg as a fire hydrant before I went to work. Write in and tell us: what’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done in public while "surviving" the week?

ORDER MY NEW BOOK (AVAILABLE NOW)!!! — https://bit.ly/49CZ5A0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Takeaways:

Failing Upward: Why you have to fail more times than you succeed to make it in comedy or in a middle school math class.
The Apathy Epidemic: Andrea and Gerry discuss the struggle of motivating students post-pandemic and why "begging and cajoling" isn't always the answer.
Gerry’s Comedy Streak: From Cleveland to Columbus, Gerry recounts his weekend performing with some of the biggest names in the business.
The Wrong Rental Key: A classic comedy club mishap involving Joe Dombrowski and a car key that looked right but definitely didn't start the engine.
A Messy Situation: Gerry finally tells the full story of his "Target Incident" and why you should never trust a snack-sized bag of Takis.

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Raising Gerry: A Mother’s Day Special May 11, 2026

Show notes

We are back with part two of our Mother's Day special, and this time the spotlight is on Gerry’s mom, Melanie Potoka!. Not only is she the woman who raised Gerry, but she’s also a fellow educator who’s been in the game for 10 years teaching fifth-grade math and science. Melanie drops some major truth bombs about Gerry’s childhood, including the fact that she was actually shocked he became a teacher since she figured he’d be a preacher or a sports broadcaster.

We dive into Gerry’s legendary costume phase (Elvis! Pirates! The Situation from Jersey Shore!) and why he currently has five Spider-Man "dolls" within arms reach while we're recording. Plus, Melanie spills the tea on Gerry’s high school days, including the time a teacher threatened to kick him out for saying the book The Giver sucked, and honestly, Gerry still stands by that review.

We also talk about the "gummy bear war" and the "little man" catchphrase that has been haunting their family car rides for years. Happy Mother’s Day to all our teacher moms out there, we hope you're getting some quiet time (and maybe a coloring book) today!

ORDER MY NEW BOOK (AVAILABLE NOW)!!! — https://bit.ly/49CZ5A0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Takeaways:

The Career Surprise: Why Melanie never saw Gerry's teaching career coming, despite his natural gift for gab and remembering random facts.
"The Situation" at Spirit Halloween: The hilarious story of the year Gerry chose the most "wild" Halloween costume possible and ended up on the local news.
The Giver Debate: Gerry recounts the first time he was almost kicked out of a classroom for his very vocal (and very negative) literary critique.
The Surgery Incident: Melanie and Andrea discuss a "medicated" Gerry post-kidney surgery, involving an exposed hospital gown and some very questionable comments to the nurses.
Mom as the #1 Fan (and Heckler): Why Melanie’s "delayed laugh" and tendency to guess punchlines makes her the most stressful audience member at Gerry’s comedy shows.

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