"Helping Students Find Their Voice Thru Middle School Speech" - The GIPS Cast, Ep. 056

"We do it [teach] because we care and we want to raise really great humans to make a really great world."

It’s not just an activity — it’s students finding their voice.

At least, that’s what Mrs. Zeller will tell you.

Kathryn Zeller has been a teacher at Westridge Middle School for a number of years.  And anyone who’s stepped into her classroom will tell you — she’s passionate, she’s creative, and she will find a way to reach every student.

That’s the common theme for Mrs. Zeller’s passion project — the Westridge Middle School Speech Team.

Mrs. Zeller joins 'The GIPS Cast' to share why Middle School Speech is deeply connected to helping students discover who they are and how to share themselves confidently with the world.

Throughout the conversation, Mrs. Zeller shares her focus of giving students a chance to participate in something; helping them find a sense of belonging at school; and having fun. 

A few Westridge students — Kingleigh, Kyra, & Grace — pop-in to share their voices and experiences too.  All of it, of course, rooted in making friends and crafting cool speeches along the way.

Because it all comes back to fostering creativity and empowering student voices.

Listen to the latest episode above or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.

(Transcript may be found below the episode player.)

#WeAreGIPS 

-- 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Podcast Intro  00:00

This is Grand Island Public Schools podcast, and these are our stories. We are learners. We are educators and teaching hearts as well as minds. We are 10,000 diverse voices, and we're changing the world together, one classroom at a time. These are our stories. We are GIPS, we are GIPS, somos que efe ese, we are GIPS, somos GIPS, we are GIPS. And this is 'The GIPS Cast'!

 

Mitchell Roush  00:32

Welcome back to 'The GIPS Cast', a conversation based podcast exploring the voices of Grand Island Public Schools in Nebraska. I'm your host, Mitchell Roush, the Communications Director here at GIPS, and as always, I'm grateful to bring to you new stories from all corners of our district, because here we're driven by our mission of Every Student, Every Day, a Success.

 

Speaker 1  01:00

"Help me. Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my Obi. Ho, I see a bad mood horizon."

 

Mitchell Roush  01:07

It's not just an activity, it's students finding their voice and finding a place to belong, at least that's what Ms. Zeller will tell you. Kathryn Zeller has been a teacher at Westridge Middle School for a number of years, and anyone who stepped into her classroom will tell you she's passionate, she's creative, and she will find a way to reach every student. And that's the common through line for one of Ms. Zeller's passion projects, the Westridge Middle School Speech Team. Yep, you heard that, right? Middle School Speech Team, Miss Zeller coaches the Westridge speech squad, and her focus is simple:  give students a chance to participate in something, to find a sense of belonging at school and to have fun, making friends and making really cool performances and speeches along the way. I recently had the opportunity to visit a Westridge speech team practice. As a former speech kid myself, I had to check it out, and it was everything you would expect, fun, vibrant, random and filled with student creativity. Ms. Zeller was kind enough to sit down with me and share more about her passion for teaching middle school, her goal to make Middle School speech huge, and how she sees students thriving through the speech team opportunity. In addition to our conversation, you'll also get to hear a few snippets from a few of the Westridge speech students who shared their work. Give a listen.

 

Kathryn Zeller  02:41

All right, so my name is Mrs. Kat Zeller. I work here at Westridge. I currently am the Cougar team for science and math, but I also teach an ELA how course and an ELA reading comprehension course. I coach volleyball, girls, wrestling, soccer over at bar and speech here.

 

Mitchell Roush  03:04

So you're busy.

 

Kathryn Zeller  03:05

Yes.

 

Mitchell Roush  03:07

Thank you for being here, and thank you for letting me come and hang out at speech practice for the afternoon. Super fun.

 

Kathryn Zeller  03:13

My pleasure.

 

Mitchell Roush  03:14

So I think this is really cool that you've got a thriving Speech Team here at the middle school level, and I just wanted to see what it was like. And I think our listeners wanted to, you know, would think that this is really cool, but thinking is your time as a speech coach. Like there's the concept of coaching speech right, but then there's all the other benefits of getting the kids involved and building connections and everything. So talk to me about that. What are one or two of the most significant ways you've seen the speech program positively impact your middle school students.

 

Kathryn Zeller  03:46

I would say that them finding a connection that's meaningful to the school and to the district has been one of the best things that speech was offered because a lot of our kids aren't necessarily the super athletic kiddos, or they don't always feel like they have a niche where they fit in at school. And speech is providing them with that, and it's really providing them with, like, a group of peers to get along with. And one of the real benefits we have is the connection to the high school. So, you know, a lot of times kids get really nervous because they feel like, you know, Gish is just so big, yeah, and how are they gonna ever find their place to fit in? So one of the things we do is the high school speech kids come down and they work with our students, and they now have a connection. They meet the high school speech coach. She comes down and helps us with our meets. And so they start to feel like they have that place where they belong, and so then it's not so scary when they transition up to that high school. And let's be honest, it helps us feed our program.

 

Mitchell Roush  04:51

All of those things can be true at the same time, right? But you said something that I'm sure means a lot to you, and I know that it means a lot to so many of the educators we have here in the dick. District, which is that sense of belonging and helping students find that sense of belonging. What does that mean to you?

 

Kathryn Zeller  05:06

Oh my gosh. So I just love it when a kid says they'll come out for speech, and they don't think they're gonna like it, yep, and then the next thing, you know, it's like they're saying it was one of the best, like, surprises that they had, you know, that they didn't think they were going to fall in love with it, but then they do. And I think this idea that we're providing them with an opportunity to compete against other kids really gives them that idea of purposefulness, and really shows them like that. You know, it's really funny, because, like, you'll talk to people, and they always say that speaking is like something they're horrified to do.

 

Mitchell Roush  05:44

It's everyone's biggest fear.

 

Kathryn Zeller  05:48

Right? Nobody wants to do it. I mean, I was at the coffee shop today, and the guy was like, I can talk one on one, but talking to larger groups, that's just not for me. And I'm like, Girl, I feel you. I'm the kind of the same, but like, these kids do it, and then all of a sudden they're like, I can do it, and I can do it well, and it gives them such confidence. And I love seeing that, especially with some of our kids, you know, who honestly, like struggle to make eye contact in the hallway sometime, all of a sudden become this kid who you almost want to put them back into the box because they get a little too theatrical. You but they found the passion.

 

Mitchell Roush  06:25

That's what it's about.

 

Kinleigh  06:33

My name is Kinleigh Jones. I'm in sixth grade, and I go to Westridge middle school, so my piece is trying to sneak my boyfriend on a family vacation, and my mom is not having it whatsoever. So the other day, my mom and dad informed the fam that were going on a two and a half week family vacation. They were totally pumped. My siblings were totally pumped. I not so much. You see, there's only one major hiccup into me having an amazing vacation with my family, and that was my boyfriend. He was absolutely perfect for me. We've been eating for two whole weeks. He completes me. So how can I ever go on a family vacation that lasts longer than my relationship with my boyfriend? The answer I couldn't which led me to the decision that my boyfriend would just have to come along with me. Of course, when I asked my mom if he could come along, she had made her no. I cried, I pleaded. I offered to do the dishes for the dishes for the rest of 2025 and all of 2026 she would a bunch. So I had to find a way to sneak my boyfriend on this trip. I have three plans. Number one, sneak him into my luggage. Number two, sneak him into the car. And number three, meeting him there.

 

Mitchell Roush  07:40

Were you a part of launching the speech team here? Or did it start before you came here? Do you know the history of how this whole thing?

 

Kathryn Zeller  07:46

It started, sort of in array of such so I was here at Westridge back in the early 2000s Dr Brose was our principal, and was he was really into providing a lot of after school activities, if we had an interest among students. And so we started just a very informal speech club. And then I left, and I went into really good hands. In fact, one of our speech coaches that was here is now our high school speech coach. She was just elected to be, you know, the president of the Nebraska theaters, something, something.

 

Mitchell Roush  08:23

Yes, that Ms. Thunker.

 

Kathryn Zeller  08:24

Yes.

 

Mitchell Roush  08:25

She's a rock star.

 

Kathryn Zeller  08:26

She's amazing, and I love her. So we've had some really good people running it over the course of the years. I recently took it back over just because we were struggling to find somebody who was comfortable and running speech and the chaos of speech, it's a unique animal. And luckily, I've got this amazing co coach this year, Ms Anderson. She's a first year teacher, but my gosh, she has come in and provided us with so many awesome ideas, and she's amazing at blocking stuff, so I love it very, very thankful to have her join our team, but we have almost 50 kids out this year.

 

Mitchell Roush  09:03

5-0. Amazing. 50 middle schoolers showing up to do this speech thing,

 

Kathryn Zeller  09:10

Right? Like I was figuring on my fingers and toes, and I think that's like 115 of our student population, yeah, which is, it's a good number. I want to see it grow. Yeah, I don't know why, but I do.

 

Mitchell Roush  09:21

I know why, because you love seeing kids getting connected, thriving, making connections to all the things you talked about.

 

Kathryn Zeller  09:27

Yeah. So we had our first speech meet that we hosted here last year, and we had a good number of schools turn out. I think there was about seven schools that came. We had about 6570 competitors, including our own, all middle schools, all middle schools. Legit love and so then, you know, like, why stop there? So we actually decided to do two meets this year. So our first meet is coming up this Saturday, and it's open to the public. So if people want to come show up to Westridge, they'll like, we will happily. You can have a great day of it being. Entertained, that's right. And then our next one will be on May 10, and we're looking like, I mean, it's, it's really exciting. Central Nebraska has such great speech teams for the high school level, yes, but we, and we have some really good middle school speech teams around but we don't really have a lot of people hosting meets, okay? And it's hard for our kids to then find something that's local Exactly. So by providing them with two home meats here in Great Grand Island, you're stepping up. You're hosting, we are bringing it. I love that. What's super exciting, and what I love to see down the road is like our goal, Miss plunkers and my secret, you know, plans for taking over the world is that eventually we'll have a speech team at every single Middle School. Currently it's looking like we have a speech team at bar, yep, and then here at Westridge, so hopefully next year, we'll be able to add on Walnut, and then we'll just become a powerhouse all the way around.

 

Mitchell Roush  10:55

I love that. That is so cool.

 

Kyra  10:57

Hi, my name is Kyra. I'm in eighth grade at Westridge Middle School in Grand Island.

 

Mitchell Roush  11:10

So, Kyra, this is really cool. I've had a chance to come and check out the Westridge speech team practice, and you're on the speech team, which is really neat. So tell me what how did you get hooked up in doing speech?

 

Kyra  11:23

My friend did speech, and she asked me to join it when I was in seventh grade, and I decided to join this year instead.

 

Mitchell Roush  11:32

That's really cool. Why not, right? Good deal. What um, categories are you doing for speech this year?

 

Kyra  11:39

Um, I'm doing an entertainment piece and a humorous my entertainment is about the frustrations of playing D and D or Dungeons and Dragons, and then my humorous is called the 42nd annual pirating convention.

 

Mitchell Roush  11:52

So entertainment and humorous? Why don't you explain the difference between those two categories? For me

 

Kyra  11:58

and entertainment is a piece that you write yourself, and you're allowed to have like a board to do it with. Humorous is more commonly a speech like a piece written by somebody else.

 

Mitchell Roush  12:12

Awesome. Which one's your favorite?

 

Kyra  12:15

I kind of like them both.

 

Mitchell Roush  12:17

That's cool. And so you've joined speech team as an eighth grader this year as a new experience. What has been your favorite thing about being on the team so far?

 

Kyra  12:26

The speech coach, because she's a lot of fun, very encouraging and very down to earth.

 

Mitchell Roush  12:32

If you were talking to somebody thinking about joining the speech team and hasn't done it yet, what would you tell them.

 

Kyra  12:40

Don't be scared to do it, because once you're doing it, you don't even realize it.

 

Mitchell Roush  12:46

That's cool. Anything else you'd like to share about your speech team experience?

 

Kyra  12:53

It's just really cool.

 

Mitchell Roush  13:00

This is a really unique and I think, meaningful opportunity that you're providing at the middle school level. So when you're talking to parents and you're and you're making your pitch about getting the other middle schools to start a team and everything this stretches beyond just the public speaking piece. So students develop through participating in middle school speech. What are the other things that they develop? How does this help them?

 

Kathryn Zeller  13:22

Oh, my goodness, in so many ways. I mean, obviously the public speaking aspect is huge, but also, like their ability to write, we have some kids who have composed self written pieces, persuasives and entertainments and informatives that just they don't realize what they're capable of until they get it out, and then all of a sudden they know, they're like, oh my gosh, I can write, and I can write.

 

Mitchell Roush  13:48

I did this, yeah.

 

Kathryn Zeller  13:49

'I did it all on my own.' And I love that. I've got kids who can advocate for themselves, you know, as a coach, as a teacher, sometimes you want to get in there and be like, Oh, we could tweak this, you know. And I love when a kid is like, no, like, hold up, let me do it. Like, I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna do it well, I'm like, I've got this valid like, I've got this means to communicate that now to somebody. And I just

 

Mitchell Roush  14:11

That's everything. Yeah, we don't always have kids,

 

Kathryn Zeller  14:15

you know, express themselves and advocate for themselves. And here we do. We have these kids who are saying, like, No, I've got this, and I know what I'm gonna do. And so it's just really empowering to see these little, these little humans becoming these strong, like potential leaders for our community.

 

Grace  14:36

Hi, my name is Grace. I'm in eighth grade, and I go to Westridge Middle School. So the piece I'll be showing for you is a piece from pirate Pete's pirate adventure about a pirate who goes on adventure to help some sea fairies. And I will be showing the part where the giant and the pirate kind of battle it out, you could say. So here we go. Squawk, it's a dream. Squawk. Well. All be the thunder runs coming from the giant's big feet stomping about. He must be the scurvy dog that horn swag with the Saffer from the sea fairies, Fi Fauci. I knew I smelled pirate scum, stinky, sneaky pirates. Argin be not a stinky you be Oh, and you're salty too, trying to make the Sapphire from me. A Do you know what I do to stinky sneaky pirates? Arg, nay. I yank off the hooks. That's what I do to stinky sneaky pirates. Well, you can yank off me hook, if you like. You can use it to catch a big mackerel fish, but just don't throw me in the sea. A pirate afraid of the sea, a Oh, forget ye hook. Oh, yank off you. Peg Leg. You can yank off me peg leg, if you like. You can use it in a big toothpick, but just don't throw me in the sea. I'll use it as a toothpick hour right after I eat. That is. Or you can eat me if you wish, but you can blow me up in a big pot of pirate stew, but just please don't throw me in the sea. You really afraid of the sea, aren't you? Well, then how about a wittle swim?

 

Mitchell Roush  16:31

You talked about bars launching their team. I've seen them advertising that, which is really cool. And you're optimistic about getting it to Walnut as well, and you're obviously closely connected to the Gish team and everything. Do you have any other hopes and dreams for speech and GIPS at the middle school level, whatever?

 

Kathryn Zeller  16:47

Secretly, yes. I would like to see within the next five years as qualifying for nationals? Yes. So nationals, a lot of times are fairly local, like the middle Midwest states. So you know something where if we could get a few really strong kids to go and compete, I would love to see us go and compete at the national level. I think we've got talent here. Yes, totally handle that. And I think it's well worth showing off what we got.

 

Mitchell Roush  17:17

Yes, I'm here for it. Speak it into the universe. Let's make this happen. Okay, I love that, and I love that you're thinking big, because why not? And to what you said earlier, like, the kids can do it, yes, so empower them to do it. Yeah, that's awesome. Like,

 

Kathryn Zeller  17:33

I don't know you see kids really come out shining, yeah, and finding out who they are. And I think it's just, I don't know, I was one of those kids that I was so shy growing up, I couldn't even look people in the eye.

 

Mitchell Roush  17:49

And then I now, you get up in front of people every day and teach.

 

Kathryn Zeller  17:53

Stumbled into speech, and it was one of those, like, where we just had a writing assignment, and the teacher was like, this is decent. Like, let's go have you present. And the next thing I know is, like, qualifying at State.

 

Mitchell Roush  18:04

Sometimes it's that simple, like, again, like the power of an educator going to a student and saying, I see this in you, yes.

 

Kathryn Zeller  18:12

That's really been one of those things, like a parent teacher conferences. It's so much fun to you know, you start hearing from the ELA teachers like, oh, this kid wrote a really good essay, or, Oh, this kid is, like, really great with their speech. And so, like, you find those parents at the parent teacher conferences, and you're just like, hey, you thought about speech. Really like to see your kid come tospeech.

 

Mitchell Roush  18:32

Yeah.

 

Kathryn Zeller  18:32

And then they do. And all of a sudden you have this network of crazy kids running around the school, amazing, making speeches in all sorts of classrooms and hallways and oh my goodness, it's it is something special.

 

Mitchell Roush  18:45

That is so cool, and that's what it's all about. Is there anything else about the Middle School speech world you want to dish on?

 

Kathryn Zeller  18:52

goodness again? You know it's open to the community. So April 26 may 10, starting at 9am show up here at Westridge, and you'll hear some really fun stuf.

 

Mitchell Roush  19:03

That's exciting.  I like to ask everybody that guests on this podcast the same question, one, because I'm fascinated by the answers, and two, because I think our listeners really enjoy hearing from our educators in this regard. So I want to ask you, Miss seller, what is one thing about public education that you want people to know or to better understand?

 

Kathryn Zeller  19:21

I want people to know, like, just how much educators care. Yeah, like we, I really, truly think teaching as a calling, kind of like the priesthood and and that when you go into it, you go into it fully aware of that commitment and that you're here to just do whatever you can to make the lives of our kids better. And you know, especially with public education, like my students always laugh at me, but like, I'm like, they're like, Who is this kid that, like, walked in? I'm like, this is one of my children. They're like, Wait, doesn't look like one of your children. I don't. Like, no, this is one of my children, and that's like, the thing, like, all of the students I've ever had are my kids. I may not pay for their college education, but they're mine. Yeah, they're my babies.

 

Mitchell Roush  20:09

And step step into any public educators classroom, and they're going to tell you the same thing, exactly.

 

Kathryn Zeller  20:15

Absolutely. Like, we we do it because we care and we want to raise really great humans to make a really great world.

 

Mitchell Roush  20:22

That's a good word. That is a good word and a good reminder for all of us, Miss seller. Thank you so much for what you do every day, for taking care of your students, your kids, and for spending as much time as you do, bringing opportunities to to these kids, because you do everything out here. Yeah, and then some. That's awesome. Thank you so much for being here.

 

Kathryn Zeller  20:43

No problem. You have a wonderful day.

 

Mitchell Roush  20:52

Teachers doing incredible things by connecting students with opportunities that help them discover themselves and confidently share their voices with the world. We love to see it. Thank you so much to miss Zeller and the students from the Westridge Middle School speech team for jumping on board and sharing their stories with the podcast here. Thank you listeners, of course, so much for joining us here at the GI PS cast, we wouldn't be here without you if you enjoyed this episode, or if you enjoy this show overall, we would love it if you gave us a rating or a review on your favorite podcast platform, on Apple podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, wherever it is, you listen to us, and of course, Be sure to check out GIPS.org. That's www.GIPS.org, our district website. It is our hub of information resources, news and updates from the district. Everything that you need to know about Grand Island Public Schools. Thanks again for listening with us. We will be coming back at you soon with some more great stories from our district.