Connecting Through Stories: Lucinda Sage McGordon’s Journey in Education and Podcasting

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor, and welcome to the education on Far podcast, the place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world.

Listen to teachers, parents, and mentors, share how they are supporting children to live their best authentic life, and are proving to be a guiding light to us all.

Hello.

Welcome back to the education on Far podcast.

Great to be back with you.

And today I'm excited because I'm talking to Lucinda Sage McGordon, and the reason being that she's a fellow podcast.

She's also into the arts and theatre and education, and it's been really fascinating chatting about her life and how all of these things have sort of made her the person that she is and to be able to create her podcast, the story Power podcast, is really exciting for me because as someone who has a life which has different elements in terms of my music, in terms of the podcast, in terms of education, it's great to chat to someone who has also had that kind of experience.

So I really hope you enjoyed this wonderful conversation today.

Hi, Lucinda.

Thank you so much for joining us here on the education on FA podcast.

It's always great to find someone who's so supportive about the arts.

It's also so great to chat to someone who's into podcasting.

So we've got a real win win conversation today.

So, yeah, thanks so much for being here.

Oh, thank you so much, Mark, for inviting me.

I'm happy that you took my invitation or my request to be on your show.

So why don't we start with your podcast first?

Let's all talk about the hearing now, and then we'll sort of work back into that sort of art kind of history and things that you were doing before.

So, yeah, tell us about the podcast, first of all.

Okay.

And I was teaching from Zoom, which was really, some of the classes were okay, but acting via Zoom was really interesting and difficult.

But we enjoyed that.

I enjoyed learning how to use Zoom, and we did have some really great actors who just rose to the challenge.

And so, yeah, I had a team teacher that I was working with, a professional, a theater professional.

And so I started it kind of as a way to talk about the stories that people consume and what did they learn from them?

Because when I was a child, we had family movie night, and that's what we did.

We analyzed the movie that we had just watched and, well, we could do it during the commercials because at that time, there was no streaming or anything like that.

So it was, there were commercial breaks where we could say what, what just happened there?

And I, you know, I don't understand why that character did what they did, and eventually, and that was fun, I enjoyed talking to former students, people at the college, former college friends about that.

But at one point, I interviewed, well, three women started it, but I only interviewed two people from Douglas, Arizona, who had started this oral history project, and they were interviewing people from the community and having them tell their stories.

And that's when I realized, oh, you know, I need to expand what I'm doing and talk to people about their lives and their creative endeavors and how they got into that and that kind of thing.

And it happened that podmatch found me about that same time.

And so I was able to talk to a lot of artists, writers, musicians, visual artists, filmmakers.

And so the tone of the podcast changed a little bit.

I mean, we still do talk about movies and television and books and characters and, you know, that kind of thing, but I really focused a lot more on their personal stories than just what they were creating.

And so that I have really enjoyed doing it that way since.

I mean, it's not that I didn't enjoy it in the beginning, but you know how it is when you start a podcast, you just have to start it and then see how it goes and develop it and expand it as you know it goes.

So, so that's kind of where I am with it now.

And it's, I just, I'm about four and a half years into it and I'm going to continue doing it because I love doing it.

I love every aspect of it, even, which you can't really say that about lots of endeavors in your life.

But, but that is, for me, that's fun.

It's fun.

And I think for me, I mean, even just sort of here now, today, it's that kind of, you know, we're thousands of miles, apartheid and yes, there's technology involved, but there's still that human connection in the best way that we can.

Like I said, we're still telling our stories, we're still sharing our experiences for those people listening or those people watching.

And I think just to sort of be able to step in and embrace those options these days, it's just such a wonderful opportunity.

Oh, yes, because, you know, I think we need human connection, and I'm pretty much a homebody because I'm an introvert and I'm highly empathetic and sensitive.

And so sometimes being in big crowds is like, ah, it's difficult.

Difficult for me.

So.

But, yes, we just had, like yesterday, we just had some facetime with our youngest niece and nephew.

They had just gone to a comic con.

And so we wanted to find out, you know, their experiences.

And, yeah, they live in Washington state, we live in Arizona.

So it was really nice to just connect with them that way and see their faces and, you know, see the photographs that they had autographed and, you know, that kind of thing.

What I was just going to say, sorry.

In terms of the, of the pandemic, I remember what sort of my kids at that time was still in school and having to connect and do all their schoolwork.

But actually, it was interesting that they had a lot more connection than we first expected because of their friends and social media and their ability to sort of have their own conversations around what was going on.

And actually, it was incredibly supportive for everybody.

I think.

Yes, if it had happened when I was going to school, we would not have, it would have been, nobody was, nobody was doing their work, their schoolwork, because we didn't have those technologies then.

Yeah, it would have been bad, would have just stopped.

Indeed.

And, yeah, like I say, it's great, especially when you've got family members.

Like, it's just saying in your, in your situation, to be able to sort of suddenly share the excitement of and to do it in the here and now as well, it's a bit different than waiting for the letter to arrive in the post or anything like that, right?

Yes.

And I'm a descendant of Oregon trail people, and it took months, you know, to get a letter when they came out to Oregon in Washington.

So amazing.

So let's take a step back then, into your sort of educational, professional life in terms of where did that kind of art and theatre and that sort of passion lie and how did that sort of manifest itself into what you were teaching and those experiences?

Yes.

Well, it all started, actually, when I was a child and my parents instituted family movie night.

My dad was dyslexic.

It was difficult.

He had taught himself how to read, but it was really difficult reading out loud.

And my mom worked even before I went to school, so she was tired and they didn't read stories to us at night.

But we did have family movie night, and we would talk about the movie, as I indicated before, and analyze it and so forth.

It wasn't this way for any of my other siblings, but for me, I just fell in love with stories.

And so practically every work decision, education decision, all centered around stories.

My first degree was in religious studies, and I was studying it for all the ancient myths and stories and that kind of thing.

And then I added theater and speech halfway between.

So I had a double major when I graduated, and then I got a master's in theater and worked in the theater for a number of years.

And then when we moved to Arizona, I.

There was no.

I didn't have an outlet for that until I started teaching.

And then I was able to, you know, convert that into teaching drama at high school.

At the high school level.

I started off as a substitute teacher, but, yeah, the drama teacher found out that I had a master's, and she said, I'm retiring.

You need to apply for my job.

So I taught that for a couple of years, and then, you know, some political stuff happened.

Somebody wanted my job, and so they maneuvered me out.

And then I moved to Douglas, Arizona, and started teaching English.

American lit was the one that I taught the most.

I did have one class of freshman English, but I did get to direct some plays.

And then eventually I did get to have one class of drama, which was fun.

And that was a really neat experience because almost everybody spoke Spanish as their first language.

And one of the things that, right before I stopped teaching high school was that Arizona passed this law that all teachers had to be get a certification in or an endorsement in ell techniques, which is english language learners.

So we learned all these really great techniques to have students talking to each other and brainstorming and reiterating what the lesson was about.

And it was a great way for those students who had just come over the board.

Sometimes they just came over the border every day to go to school for them to learn more advanced English.

And we would read all of our stories out loud as well.

And I love that because in that school, we had three classes a day that were 100 minutes each, and sitting that long was like death, you know, for the kids.

So being able to get out of their chairs and talk to each other and, you know, they were doing the assignment that I had given them, but I was letting them interact with each other.

And that was really, that was so fantastic.

I love teaching there because they were all really, most of the students were very excited about learning because they wanted to advance.

You know, they wanted to have.

Get jobs that were going to bring in a lot of money for their families.

And, yeah, so it was, I love teaching there.

And I was teaching in that school district for five years, and then I moved to teaching college at the local community college.

And so did you find over that time, because certainly here in the UK, especially in recent years, the arts and music and everything is kind of being pushed to one side.

The funding is being cut, it's been diminished.

And I think what you said so beautifully, there is just, you know, the impact it has just by having a different environment, let alone a subject change or anything like that.

And so you sort of experiencing that same thing in terms of the direction of the learning as well.

Don't even get me started.

Well, I will tell, I will say something.

Yes, in the United States, it's called stem science, technology.

I think it's engineering and math.

That's what they're, they think this is going to save the world, these subjects.

And, you know, I'm admittedly prejudiced, but arts and humanities are the way that we're going to save the world in terms of interacting with each other, communicating with each other, making connections, because that's where, when you study those subjects, that's where you learn about human nature.

And communication is part of that.

The communication classes are part of that.

And, but I mean, what I learned from all those years of analyzing stories was that I was learning about human emotions.

The sciences, unless it's behavioral science or something, don't really, they don't really address our emotions.

And to me, a lot of mental health issues are not really mental health issues.

They're emotional, educational health issues.

And the humanities, arts and humanities teach about that.

And we need those.

We need those.

And it is amazing how it's very siloed, isn't it?

It's that kind of, the two can't work together.

You need to be on that stem sort of pathway, and it's going to help us be able to create this and have the right kind of minds to be able to do x, y and zenith.

And, you know, the world isn't black and white.

You know, there's a mixture of everything.

And there are people who might be science, you know, hardwired, if that makes sense in terms of that's the sort of thing they get naturally.

And there might be people who artistically, they understand that and they're more in tune and able to kind of feel like this is the passion or the path I want to go in.

But it's a little blend of all of those things that makes it who everybody is and everyone's different.

And I just think having the environment wherever you can step into those passions, follow those ideas and be able to sort of learn on your feet, as it were, to sort of ebb and flow with those things, then you get the best of both worlds.

In many ways, yes.

And I don't know if you have.

You probably do.

There is this whole study that started, I think it was in, like, the late seventies or early eighties, about the different intelligences, not just mental intelligence, but emotional intelligence, kinesthetic intelligence, and emotional intelligence.

That's what you learn from stories, is how to identify, oh, this is how I'm feeling, and how do I manage that without spewing it all over everybody else?

And stories are one way to do that.

I'm going to interject one of my favorite quotes here.

Roger C.

Schenck, a cognitive scientist, said, humans are not ideally set up to understand logic.

They are ideally set up to understand stories.

And I always use that in my intro.

I mean, I have a pre canned intro that I do because it's true.

Stories are one of the oldest teaching tools of humanity.

It might have just been stories that were painted on the cave walls, but they were stories.

And so, yeah, to, to give all the money to the sciences, it's sad.

And sports, it's very sad.

And I think also it's that sense of, you know, the stories are how we relate, isn't it?

You, even if it's a factual thing that's happened to you, you tell it within a story or you frame it in some way.

And the thing I always think about the arts is I can't remember exactly what it was, whether it was a space related project or something like that.

But there was an organization that needed lots and lots of very clever people.

And so they were asking people to apply for these jobs and all these positions.

And what was interesting was that they knew they would get applications from the cleverest people, from the best universities, and they took all the science and all the things they'd need to do as a given.

We know that we'll get people who are really, really, really clever and really able to do all of that.

What we're looking for are the people who also were musicians, had been in the theater, had something else that they were able to use to give them the skills they needed to work as a team, to be able to sort of share what they needed to do and have a different dimension than just the people who were traditionally academically clever.

And I thought that was a fascinating thing and such a sort of an insightful thing about how you can go about learning, no matter what your kind of real passions are.

Yeah, that is interesting, because, you know, I, one of the things that I learned was to read body language and facial expressions and tone of voice and see if there were, like, disconnects.

And also, another thing that I learned from stories was, like, to make connections that didn't seem to be connections, you know what I mean?

And so, yeah, people who can think like that, and some of them are scientists.

Some of them go, oh, wow, I never.

Somebody says something and it'll spur their thinking.

Now, see, I always have things going on in the back of my head about stories that I just watched or just, I'm reading a story now called the Dead Rock Stars.

And they, the dead rock stars faked their deaths and became secret agents.

And, you know, so sometimes I'll be reading that and I'll go, oh, wait a minute.

You know, inside the story.

Oh, this thing is connected to that thing back there that I read, you know?

So, yeah, people who can do that, we need those.

Yeah, absolutely.

In every industry.

And so the people that are listening to your I podcasts, do you know who they are?

You know, are they storytellers and people who are interested in stories themselves?

Are they in they.

People interested in people?

Is it about the life?

What sort of insights have you gained?

I'm laughing because I don't pay attention to my stats.

Pay attention to who listens.

Yeah, I just.

I just do my story power.

And the people that I talk to, they are like that.

They are creative, but, yeah, those people are really creative, but I have no idea who listens, really, because I don't pay attention to the stats and they don't contact me.

So I guess a lot of the time, like I say, it's often people drawn into what they're listening to and the people that are doing it as well.

So it may well be that it's the.

It's the same kind of people as they go through, probably.

Yeah, probably sort of going full circle.

In terms of that sort of education experience that you had.

In terms of being a professional, was there a teacher that you had, or was there an educational experience when you were younger that kind of had something which kind of inspired you or you'd like to share?

And indeed, did that sort of help you in terms of when you then went into the profession?

Yes, when I was in.

Okay, I had two mentors in college, and one was my one, he was the religious studies teacher, my main religious studies teacher.

And then when I started doing theater, there were two instructors, and the woman instructor, her name was Celia Shaw, and the other instructor was Howard Booth.

And they were really, really inspirational to me in different ways.

I was having some difficulties in college.

It was a small college, and there were people who didn't think that I should be doing religious studies.

I was the only woman in the program, and so I was having trouble with that.

And so Howard is the one who said, go buy a book, a notebook, and start writing.

Keep a journal.

So he was the one who suggested that.

And then Celia was the one who inspired me to continue doing theater.

She saw that somebody says, why are you doing religious studies?

That doesn't seem like it goes with theater.

And she was the one who said, oh, yeah, because the Bible's made up of stories.

Where do you think you know the Bible and all other religious documents that they're all about stories?

So.

So they really inspired me.

And unfortunately, they have both passed on now.

Howard just passed on a week ago, but I always just thank them for all that they did for me, for supporting me and for encouraging me to just find out, you know, I used to tell my students, everybody has a genius.

You need to find out what yours is, you know, why you're here on the planet and just go for that.

Well, that's what Howard and Celia did for me, was go for your whatever it is that you have a passion for.

So I thank them for that.

And I think that's where the arts specifically are really important, because if you're a student who's struggling, you don't feel like you fit into the system or you don't fit into the box that you're supposed to within the current system.

I think having the opportunity to have these conversations, like I say, maybe to be part of a story, maybe to be part of something where you have the chance to look into what that might be for you in a safe environment rather than being abstract or for you to sort of have that conversation with a pupil in a way that isn't threatening or is in front of the whole class or anything like that.

And I think that's then so supportive.

And I love it when you sort of have those sort of full circle moments, like I say, because you can identify that having had that experience yourself and to then sort of pay that forward to your own pupils.

Yes, because I've had students who.

They were horrible in school, basically, but they were a great success in my class, or I had students who were.

They had some learning disability, but they came into the class and they gained confidence from learning how to do scenes and that kind of thing.

And then I had another student who said, you know, I used to be so get so nervous when I had to do a presentation in front of class.

And then I took lucinda's acting class.

This was a college student, and I, after taking that class, I just felt more at ease giving presentations in classes.

Or, you know, he joined an improv group here in our area, and I does, still does that.

And it's like, wow, that's so great.

Amazing.

Just incredible.

Yeah.

Like I say, just opens up a world that you wouldn't necessarily have even expected in that particular scenario, let alone, say, in a formal setting.

Incredible.

What was the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Or indeed, is there a piece of advice you might give your younger self now, looking back.

Nothing matters.

Someone told me that once, nothing matters, and you think that it does, but contemplate those words, because really, in the long run, it's, we're all just here learning stuff, and if you learn something, then that's, that's gold.

And, you know, everything's just lessons.

Everything that happens to you is just lessons.

So that's kind of what I used to tell my students, you know, oh, everybody makes mistakes.

It's no big deal if you learn from it.

Yeah, that's key, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think the thing I love about those sorts of things, when you frame it in such a great way like that, is it takes away from the shoulda, woulda, coulda, you know, I'm meant to do this in school.

I meant to be like this.

I meant to achieve this.

I meant for this to be the case.

And then all of a sudden, it's kind of, well, everything that happens, like I say, is a learning experience or a chance just to do it.

The world's not going to end just because of x, y and z, assuming you're not doing anything you really shouldn't be doing, and then that just takes the pressure away and you sort of talk about that kind of, you know, mental health or emotional health or whatever.

I think all those things suddenly do change a little bit because that foundation of what you believe to be important changes with you when you're thinking of it in those sorts of ways.

Yes.

Right.

I, because we're so hard on ourselves.

We're just so hard on ourselves.

And if you tell yourself, oh, well, this is just a learning experience, and maybe it is a really big mess up, but it's not like you can't fix it eventually, you know?

Yeah.

And is there a resource you'd like to share?

And this can be anything from a video, song, film, podcast, book, personal or professional.

But something which had an impact that you think would be interesting for people.

One of the, I belong to their Patreon community, too, but one of the YouTube channels that I found recently is cinema therapy, and it's Alan, I think his name is Alan C.

Wright.

He's a filmmaker, and his best friend, Jonathan Decker, who is a licensed therapist.

And so they'll, they'll pick a movie and watch it, and then they'll talk about it the way I, we used to talk about movies when I was a kid.

And, you know, what are the things that the characters learned?

What were the relationships like?

Was this a really loving relationship or was it kind of not very good, you know, not a very healthy relationship?

And what, sometimes they'll talk about heroes and villains.

What, you know, what's the character arc of this villain?

Why are they a villain?

Why are they, or why is this person a hero?

You know, those kinds of things.

And I just love that because, you know, sometimes we need distance.

We need, these are the things that have happened to me.

And if we see a movie or a television show or we read a book where the characters have, are going through similar things to us, then we get to step back a little bit and go, oh, now, how did that character deal with that thing?

Oh, maybe I can learn something from them.

Yeah.

What worked and what didn't work?

What were the consequences of their actions?

Yeah.

So I would suggest go check those guys out because, man, they're really great.

Fantastic.

And we'll have links to these things on the show notes as well.

And I love the fact when there's sort of multiples of those things as well.

Like you say, this character, it worked out in this scenario for this person, but the same sort of thing worked out differently for someone else.

And then, like, say, you can relate in whichever way worked for you.

And then again, that just becomes more and more supportive, doesn't it?

Yeah.

Really.

And I love that, you know, they're, I love the way they do it because they are so funny.

They've been friends for a long time, and it's, it's light hearted what they are doing, not, this is so heavy.

You know, you get to laugh while you're watching, watching their videos and learning something at the same time.

Yeah, that's a great combo, isn't it?

And I think that feeds into everything that we do, whether it's traditionally within school or, like I say, we're doing what we're doing on the podcast.

To have a little bit of, bit of everything in there can be can be such a key thing.

Yes.

Yes.

So, obviously, the acronym fire is important to us here.

Education on fire.

And by that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience and empowerment.

What does it strike you when you see that maybe one word specifically or a combination, but something that you think really is sort of impactful for you in that moment?

Well, one thing that empowerment just jumps out at me because that was always what I was trying to get myself to help my students find was a way to be empowered, to do what they love to do, to be able to make mistakes and survive.

Survive the mistakes that they made.

Yeah.

Because if we aren't and empowered, we just stay at home and don't do anything.

We don't interact with anybody else.

We don't, you know, so I guess resilience is also part of that because you have to.

You have to be resilient enough to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and move forward again.

Yeah.

So now, for me, the feedback and inspiration are kind of what the teachers are trying to do.

They give.

They give their students feedback so that they, you know, have a measure.

Like they give them a measure, a measuring stick to, oh, here's where you are and, you know, that kind of thing.

But I.

Yeah, an inspiration.

I was always trying to inspire my students to go find out who they are.

So I think for me as well, there's a certain amount of, like you said about the feedback there and the formality of that because, of course, we all grow up and we all mature at different rates and our experiences are different at different ages and the way that we live our life outside of school are different.

And so when it's all geared towards, you know, you're this age and you're supposed to have studied this thing at this time, it can get really muddled, all of that.

Whereas the resilience to know that, even if that's the case, you kind of know there's more to it.

And I think the empowerment side, like you said, means that you'll find your way, you know, whether it's, you know, taking your theater class or whether it's having the option of having this conversation with somebody and understanding that your story is really important and that that's worth sharing, whether it's in, you know, the fifth grade or the 6th grade or whether it comes later in college or whatever that happens to be.

But you'll find your way rather than it's all over because it didn't happen at this particular moment in this particular exam or whatever that happens to be.

And I think that sort of broadness is so important.

Yeah, this is a sort of a silly example, but, or maybe not.

I knew a young couple and they were a little bit older, and we were having a conversation and they said, you know, all of our friends, our college friends have children now, and we don't.

And I said to them, well, you know, you'll have them when it's your time.

And now they have two daughters.

They love being parents.

They're a little bit older, and, you know, it happened when it was their time to have children.

Yeah.

So hard, isn't it, not to have all those images of what shoulda woulda coulda.

And like I say, and having friends like you or having people around that can just sort of paint that picture, it will be the right time, the right place and allow that.

And I think that's where the I love the podcast world.

It's the community of being able to have a shared idea, a shared thought, a shared space where like minded people can just be.

And like I say, through the stories you're telling and through everything that you're doing, it kind of is sort of, I think, more impactful than sometimes we even think it is when we're having these conversations.

So, yeah, absolutely amazing.

Well, and all podcasts are stories for sure.

That's what they are.

Yeah.

And that comes from the people that are starting them and their story and why they're doing it and like, saying the people that maybe you bring on and you're chatting to as well.

So amazing.

It's like I say, it's lovely to sort of be able to share the time with someone who's in that world as well.

So, Lucinda, thank you so much for chatting and sharing all of those things.

I really do appreciate it.

And tell people where they can find out more about what you're doing and where they can have a listen or watch.

Oh, well, I should have done a brand better.

But my podcast is story power, and you can find it on almost any place where you find podcasts, at least the big outlets like Apple and Spotify and Amazon.

And it's also on YouTube, although I don't know if I have a link for that on podmatch.

But yeah, I also have a website.

It's Sage Woman chronicles.

I started that first.

And I have a blog there.

I'm on social media with various name combinations.

LinkedIn is Lucinda Sage mid Gordon, just like you see it there with the hyphen.

And then on Facebook, I have it Lucinda, Sage Midgarden is my personal page, without the hyphen is my writer's page, and I'm also on Instagram.

I think that's just Sage Midgordon, and that's pretty much my social media.

I'm.

Yeah.

So that's.

That's a lot.

Well, yeah, exactly.

And we'll have links to these things in the show notes as well, so people can find you from there as well.

So I also have a page.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I also have a Patreon page, but you can listen to my podcast, and the address is there.

Fantastic.

Yeah, you'll find all those things.

Well, Lucinda, thank you so much.

I really do appreciate your time and your enthusiasm for these things.

It's great to chat to.

Like I said, a fellow podcast but educator, but someone who sort of sees the world in your way, which I think is so fascinating for people to hear and will give many people within the education world sort of a sense of confirmation, I think, of what they know is true despite maybe any struggles that they're having.

So, yeah.

Thanks so much for your time.

Yes.

Thank you.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.