Design, Disney, and Library Anthropology with Sarah Beals Sager
In today’s episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Sarah Beals Sager to the show. Ryan met Sarah through a mutual Disney friend, Dr. Cody Havard, a couple of years ago. They both sat on a panel that discussed Marvel and fandom for Dr. Harvard’s University of Memphis class. After hearing Sarah talk about her fandom for Marvel, her passion for Disney, and the work she does as a library anthropologist, Ryan knew he had to ask her to come on the My Disney Class Podcasts. Today she graciously made time in her busy schedule to talk with us. Speaking of her busy schedule, listen to this! Sarah recently completed two masters’ degrees at the same time from the University of Denver. One in library and informational services and the other in anthropology. Sarah already has nine years of creative branding and marketing experience that she roots firmly in research. She originally was trained as a digital artist and has a passion, that she admits to having adopted from her dad, for the importance of organization. Sarah has worked for Disney, at Walt Disney World, twice. Once through the college program and then later she came back to work in custodial and in cosmetology. She currently is an entrepreneur and is currently being contracted out by Disney to work her library anthropology magic!
On today’s show, Sarah will share with us her passion for Disney and wanting to work in the creative side of theme parks as well as her journey from the Disney college program to working as an independent contractor for Disney. She will also discuss the importance of choice in creating learning environments both in museums, theme parks, and classrooms. Sarah will also discuss how she does and would use her background to help make theme parks more engaging!
We believe you are going to love hearing Sarah’s unique journey and perspective on learning environments, organization, engagement, and fun! Remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already amazing community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!
In today’s episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Emily Gathman. Emily is a 6th grade Science teacher at Bussey Middle School in Garland Texas. She loves to inspire her students to be creative problem-solvers as they tackle real-world Science and engineering problems in her classroom.
In today’s episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Emily Gathman. Emily is a 6th grade Science teacher at Bussey Middle School in Garland Texas. She loves to inspire her students to be creative problem-solvers as they tackle real-world Science and engineering problems in her classroom. Emily was recognized in 2021 as the Bussey Middle School's, Teacher of the year which as you will see in this episode is truly well deserved!
On the show, Emily will share with us how she has incorporated the lessons that she has learned from Disney as well as what brings her inspiration from Disney into her classroom for her students. This ranges from how she has designed physical things in her classroom to how she uses inspirational quotes. For example, Emily helps her students handle failures they encounter in her class by using the quote,” Failure is not an endpoint but a jumping-off point.” She combines this quote with stories about how Walt Disney himself overcame many failures. We think you will agree as you listen to Emily describe her classroom that she is definitely inspiring her students to be innovators, just like Uncle Walt!
We hope you enjoy today’s episode and as always, we would love for you to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. If you have any feedback or would like to come on the show, please email us at MyDisneyClass@gmail.com, and don’t forget to join our Facebook community at Educators Who Love Disney.
Planning for the Community of Tomorrow!
In today’s episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie take a deep dive into Walt Disney’s plans for the Experimental, Prototype, Community of Tomorrow (E.P.C.O.T) or what later would be labeled as Progress City. This was an unfinished concept for a planned community developed by Walt Disney and designed by WED Enterprises in the 1960s. Its purpose was to be a “real city that would never cease to be a living blueprint of the future,” building on the latest technology and innovation from American industry this project would be the central component of Disney’s “Florida Project,” a massive property of undeveloped swampland located between Orlando and Kissimmee Florida.
In this episode, which will be part 1 of a two-part series, Howie and Ryan will talk through what they believe Walt’s vision was for the “Florida Project,” and why he wanted to make this his next great adventure and legacy. They will then dive deeper into what his plans were for the land his company was buying in Florida. Including the airport of the future, the E.P.C.O.T industrial park, E.P.C.O.T. the city, and even Walt’s reluctance to build another Disneyland / Magic Kingdom on this land.
We hope you enjoy this exploration of Walt’s vision for the E.P.C.O.T. that would unfortunately never be seen and we hope that you will join us on November 1st as we continue this topic. In part 2, we will pick up where we left off and discuss what happened after Walt’s death, why the vision and plan for E.P.C.O.T. changed and what the future of E.P.C.O.T. looks like. As always, we would love for you to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. If you have any feedback or would like to come on the show, please email us at MyDisneyClass@gmail.com, and don’t forget to join our Facebook community at Educators Who Love Disney.
In today’s episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan look back on this year starting in August 2019 and bring everyone up to our current situation. Ryan and Howie typically love to reflect back on what has transpired over the current school year and with the podcasts, but this year has definitely been a wild ride and disembarking and exiting into the gift shop has some scary question marks! Though trying to stay positive is important and we try to do our best to look back at both Disney and our school year to remember the good times and the lessons learned.
We hope you enjoy today’s show as we cover everything from the NBA experience to Disney + and everything from last summer’s podcast recommendations to this basted pandemic that has turned our educational lives upside down. There are always lessons to be learned if we just take the time to slow down and look at things through different lenses. Remember though reflection is good, but perseverating on the past and things we cannot change can be toxic.
Think of what our good buddy Gusteau says in Ratatouille-- "If you focus on what you left behind, you will never be able to see what lies ahead."
Today on the show, Ryan and Howie welcomes a true Space Ranger, Denise Wright. Denise is a Science teacher at Ocean Bay middle school and has been in education for 22 years. She loves teaching Science and has a passion for STEM, robotics, NASA and of course, Disney. Denise is also a Tynker Blue Ribbon educator. Tynker Blue Ribbon educators are dedicated to making computer programming and coding an integrated part of students’ everyday lives. She is also a NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador (SSA). Solar System Ambassadors work across the nation to share NASA science and mission discoveries through a variety of events that inspire students and communities. Denise also sits on the NSTA tech advisory board and was the 2015 teacher of the year.
Denise has a passion for astronomy and has worked to incorporate her passion into her daily lessons. She was a piloting teacher for the Distance Learning Program at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia, South Carolina. In this program, she was one of the first teachers to pilot a historic Alvan Clarke Telescope to be used in a classroom distance learning environment. Denise also has attended Astronomy Camp at the University of Arizona and the NASA Space Science Teacher’s Institute at the University of Colorado.
So it’s safe to say that in today’s episode you are going to get a lot of Space talk, which is fine with Ryan! We know you are going to enjoy hearing Denise talk about all these great things she is doing to inspire students and she also shares a ton of resources that you can use in your classrooms to help inspire the world’s next Buzz or Sally Ride.
Join Ryan and Howie as they welcome an old friend Jerry Johnston back to the show. The self proclaimed three Caballeros have a huge announcement of a new partnership between My Disney Class and Buena Vista University. Howie, Jerry, and Ryan will be offering a graduate level class through Buena Vista University that will help participants bring the Magic of Disney into their classrooms and schools. Oh and by the way, this online class has a special field trip. Yep you guessed it, we are going to take a week long field trip to the most Magical classroom of all, Walt Disney World! Listen as we discuss what is going to make this class so special as well as what the course will cover and how an on-line class works. We wrap this show up with Jerry sharing some of his experiences of taking students down to WDW. He shares how some of his students thought that a mouse couldn’t teach them anything and by the second day they were confessing how wrong they were. We hope you enjoy this show but more importantly we hope you will consider joining us on this unbelievable opportunity to earn graduate level credit by learning from a very special mouse.