Melissa Trisko and Anastasia Chrzanowski first met when the latter was hired – in Trisko’s words, Monte Vista “stole” Crhzanowski from Venture. Three years later, Samantha Goodman and Lora Hartig joined the Social Science department, and the four teachers (who all taught World Geography) became good friends. Besides all previously teaching World Geography, the four also chaperoned a student trip to Germany in the summer of 2023. 

The interview with this group was done in two parts. The first was with only Ms. Trisko, Ms. Chrzanowski, and Ms. Goodman, while the second was with Ms. Hartig and Ms. Goodman.

OB: How did you guys all meet?

MT: I was the first one here at Monte Vista – it’s my eighth year at Monte Vista now – and so I met Ms. Chrzanowski when she got hired. She had been at Venture and we… stole her. And so that’s when we started becoming friends and then

SG: I think also it helped because we teach some of the same subjects. All three of us teach World Geography and then Ms. Chrzanowski and I [teach AP World]. So it kind of just ended up working out that not only are we friends but we collaborate really well together.

MT: And then Ms Goodman and Ms Hartig were hired in the same year so they were both on the Geo team that year so that’s how we all first started collaborating. And then I was recruiting for a Germany trip, so I asked if they wanted to be fellow chaperones and that’s when… fate aligned.

AC: And then [we] also chaperone junior prom together. 

SG: Yeah, that was so fun. 

OB: Can you tell us about some memories on that trip to Germany?

MT: We had a BIG group.

AC: We had a really big group. It was like 30-some people.

MT: So it was definitely a lot of work, but [with] some fun shenanigans mixed in along the way.

*sounds of agreement*

AC: [It was] really cool to be able to go and experience – like a lot of the kids that we had in history (AP Euro or AP World) – so to be able to go to places that we talked about in history was really cool and a lot of the kids were nerding out like us, so that was awesome. I think just getting to know kids more and having that downtime was just as good as the big exciting things.

MT: For us it was kind of fun because we just have that really informal time with students, so we get to be human beings with each other, with students, which was fun. Because we will be different when we’re not around students (obviously, aren’t we all?) but with that kind of environment we get to be our fun selves…

AC: Like having meals together, and after a long day just being able to say “Oh my gosh, I’m so tired.” And seeing other people get closer too, that was really nice.

MT: It was also fun for us as well because some of those days you’re just exhausted by the end of the tour and so just ending up in each other’s hotel rooms sitting on the floor, just commiserating but also sharing the memories. That’s always kind of fun. 

SG: I think it was also fun because I felt like half the group hadn’t been to Europe in forever or maybe they had never gone before… I remember my first time going to Europe, and it was nice to see my students experience their first time heading over there too. The excitement of just being in a different country, a different continent. 

CH: What does friendship mean to you?

SG: Ooh, I’ll go with this. I would say trustworthiness. There are definitely things where as a new – newer – teacher I’ve gone to Ms. Trisko, Ms. Chrzanowski, and Ms. Hartig – and Ms. Hartig and I can share a lot of the new teacher “oh my gosh, what am I doing?”. So sometimes [I] go and I go “I feel like this lesson went horribly.” or “I feel like I’m not really doing my job super well. I’m struggling with this.” and I feel like I can confide in them and have that reassurance and trustworthiness. And then it just ends up turning into a longer conversation about “what are you doing this weekend?” [and] something like that.

MT: I like that you said trustworthiness because the first word that popped into my mind was honesty. Like we have lots of coworkers here on this campus, but many of them I wouldn’t really be my honest self with – either because it’s a professional environment so I need to be a professional here or it’s just I don’t have that relationship with them. So having those people on campus that when you’re having a bad day or you have that imposter syndrome beaten into your mind, that “what am I doing here? How am I an educator, let alone influencing these children?”, it’s nice to have people that you feel safe with, that I can be honest [with], that I can [say] “I’m not okay right now” and they’re there for you with really good hugs.

AC: Always, always. Friendship equals hugs, and support. I think that emotional support and being able to be our honest selves and trust one another is important. I think friendship also goes with being able to be vulnerable and open up and be a little raw and show that everyone has a little bit of ugliness. Everyone’s got stuff that they deal with. Having someone there that loves you unconditionally and is consistently there for you is-

MT: They see your pretty and they see your ugly, and they still see you.

AC: But they love you regardless.

SG: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Isn’t that a Clint Eastwood movie?

MT: Clint Eastwood tried to date my grandpa’s sister.

SG: Oh my god…

CH & AC: *laughing*

OB: Whoa!

MT: And she was in high school, he was NOT! *cowboy voice* She turned him down!

AC: Also adding laughter [and] joy.

MT: Back to the Germany trip, there were moments where we were just exhausted, or one too many bits of drama, just “no, no, you guys – you need nothing from me today.” And being able to turn to each other, and a shared eyeroll, a shared inside joke, and it’s okay. I’m laughing. It’s fine. 

OB: Is there a specific moment you remember where you were so exhausted you were kind of delirious that you guys shared together?

MT: Oh gosh… I would say the last day of our trip we had a couple medical emergencies we were dealing with, so we had a lot of communication going on. Ms. Goodman had stayed behind our last day, [so] we were hitting two museums. The kids are exhausted. We are exhausted, but we’re walking through museums just going “Isn’t this great guys? Isn’t this great?” and then we have a moment to ourselves going *mimes nearly collapsing* [and] literally holding each other up. And then it’s [back to the] show and dance… but when it’s just us you can feel your whole face fall and we can show each other that. Especially on that last day, when we just needed to get through it. 

AC: The last day for sure. Goodman and I had to tag team an issue that happened to happen at night. So we were in our PJs trying to-

MT: The one night I take off as the lead controller. 

AC: Yeah, trying to deal with different stuff. We can look back and giggle at it now, but in the moment it was [tough].

…

OB: Should we move on to the next question?

CH: I’m trying to find more; a lot of these are bad.

MT: I will say we also have similar [moments] in like, staff meetings, we definitely keep little inside jokes. I love texting little things to Ms. Goodman during staff meetings because I know she’s going to get it on her watch. So I watch her and wait for her to get it to watch her try to not laugh. 

SG: Sometimes it’s like historical memes or stuff

AC: Something relatable, but not.

OB: Do you guys have a favorite historical event?

MT: Don’t get me started.

CH: That actually does lead into another question: what time period would you want to live in? Which I know is probably none of them, to be honest, but still.

MT: Loaded question.

SG: As women, probably none of them.

MT: This is where you get the distinction between the romantics and the realists.

AC: I would say considering our gender, before the neolithic revolution?

MT: Matriarchies!

AC: Yeah, so maybe then. Otherwise… I honestly don’t know.

MT: This is where I am the romantic and they’re the realists and I’m like “mid-1800s England.” I want the long flowy dresses, I want the Jane Austen!

AC: You’re going to die! You’re going to die of typhoid!

MT: I know! Failure to thrive!

AC: Do you have one, Sam?

MT: No, she’s a modern woman.

AC: I’d rather be in the future. 

MT: She wants her independence and a profession.

SG: I would love to go back to maybe the early 1900s in the US and be a part of the suffrage movement. I think that would be really cool, because you have the women’s march now, but being a part of the suffrage movement…

AC: Some kind of feminist movement… I’d be like a rebel. I’d be guillotined. They’d hate me.

MT: My first year teaching, I remember my students told me when we were learning about the witch trials “so, how would you define a witch?” I was like an outspoken woman, who has independent thought. And they were like “you would’ve been burnt!” Thanks!

OB: Those are good ones. 

AC: What are you genuinely curious about?

CH: Do you guys see mirrors of your relationship in students’ relationships?

AC: Ooh, that’s a good question. 

MT: Sometimes? Especially when you see a group that clearly has their inside jokes. They know  each other by their language (and body language). They just know each other really well. I do. That, or I recognize some of my relationships that I had with my friends when I was in high school. 

AC: I do, I feel that. I feel like some people are just such great students and pay attention, but they can’t sit together. And sometimes at staff meetings, or at the staff room, if we’re all together, we’re giggling.

MT: And I’m texting her [Goodman].

AC: Sometimes when you get us together, it’s hard to get us to be paying attention. 

MT: Yeah, so I can definitely see myself in some of those groups. 

SG: I was thinking about you texting me because in high school I had a class with my best friend. We took the same classes, and I’d known her since kindergarten (we’re going on 20-something years of friendship now). And my Spanish teacher let us sit wherever we wanted. I swear I did not pay attention. All we did was talk and laugh the whole time. I don’t remember the Spanish word for it, but my teacher would always call me a “lobster” or a “shrimp” because my face was always red because I was laughing. It was honestly really funny. I deserved that. I’ll see two best friends in my classes who I have to separate and they want to sit together, so that’s the only thing I can really think of. 

*sounds of agreement*

MT: I had a similar thing in my… geometry class? One of my best friends was also the TA for the class. I’m getting married this summer, [the friend] is one of my bridesmaids – [Chrzanowski] is also one of my bridesmaids. And I learned nothing because she and I would just chat the whole time. The teacher let it happen. 

AC: Who was the teacher? Sexton?

MT: No… Hunter?

AC: You don’t even remember the teacher?

*AC & SG laughing*

SG: Shows how much you paid attention. 

MT: I don’t remember the math, let alone the teacher. My numbers need to be in order, on a line, with events attached, and then I can do math. 

…

OB: Can you tell me about a time that you guys have gone out together outside of school?

SG: I mean we just go-

AC: Trivia nights?

SG: Yeah, we did trivia night. That was a little while ago. It’s mainly just to grab food after class on a Friday or stuff. We’ll probably run into student walking around downtown Danville or Alamo. 

MT: We avoid Danville. 

SG: Usually in the middle of the semester it doesn’t really happen, but more towards the end we got a decent amount of teachers [and] we went to Sauced right before fall break, which was really nice. I think it’s a nice way to not just talk about work. 

MT: And with the four of us, I’d say it’s a lot of on-campus. We do hang out off-campus, but it really is our support system on-campus. Being able to commiserate, catching up with somebody before class starts, [etc.]

AC: Asking advice. “What do you think of this?”, “What would you do?”.

MT: And then we got a group chat with the four of us that began with chaperoning our Germany trip and then just never died. So that’s where we catch up. 

AC: Send photos, send memes. 

MT: Lot of history memes. 

SG: *laughing YouTube reels.

OB: Do you guys have a fun name for your group chat?

SG: No, because she [Trisko] doesn’t have an iPhone, so we can’t name it. 

AC: I don’t know what it would be. 

SG: We could be SLAM! Because Sam, Lora, Anastasia, and Melissa.

OB: Do you guys have any final things to say?

AC: I do. I would say that having friends in the workplace is really important. Especially as a teacher, it’s a really difficult job, and it can be emotionally taxing a lot of time. So to have people – I can tell my husband and other friends – but to have your teacher people and your teacher friends, it’s nice to have those people. 

MT: Especially when they truly know what you’re going through. And that there are different times of the school year that are crazy, crazy busy, but it’s also fun, because you know that you have friends. If you’re going to Germany, you’re going to need people who you know who have ten days free during the summer, so we can hang out mid-week during the summer. 

The interview below was with only Hartig and Goodman. 

CH: So in the other meeting, you [Goodman] mentioned that you two started the same year?

SG: Same year, yeah. So we contacted each other before we even moved and got the job. We came through this together. 

LH: I think I was in Texas at the time when we talked on the phone. 

SG: Yeah, so two weeks before we even started school. 

CH: Do you guys have any specific memories that stand out to you about your friendship?

SG: Not like a specific memory, but overall with Ms. Hartig in particular, it was nice feeling like I had a buddy who was also new to Monte Vista. This campus is huge, we were both trying to figure out what the heck we were doing, what subjects we were teaching – we both taught World Geography at the same time, so we were sharing resources there. Another favorite memory with Ms. Trisko, Ms. Chrzanowski, and Ms. Hartig is just how close we’ve gotten over the past couple years and just having that camaraderie has been great to know that I have friends to trust, confide in, and laugh with, vent, all of the above. 

LH: And joke with, we have the best inside jokes, whether it’s history related or [not].

SG: History memes, yeah.

LH: For me, I’ve enjoyed working junior prom.

SG: Oh that’s been fun. It’s a tradition. 

LH: With all of us. We did it last year and this year. We sign up [and] make sure we’re all in there together. Also, one memory I remember about you [Goodman] is the football games, because we signed up for the first one because we were new and they thought she was a student. That still cracks me up to this day. 

SG: The security guards did their job so well. They wouldn’t let me in. I had to call the assistant principal and prove to them that I was a [teacher]. I was wearing a Monte Vista Social Science shirt too and they thought I stole it – or not stolen it but was pretending to be a teacher. Which is fair. 

LH: And then how we just laughed off that World Geography textbook. Because I was thinking we’d have to prepare, and then I got it, and I went “gosh, this book is so old.”

SG: It’s older than you [CH]. It came out in 2003, and tells you how to “use the interwebs.”

LH: And Pluto existing as a planet. 

SG: *laughing* THAT’S how old it is. 

CH: Do you have any of your favorite inside jokes that are publishable?

SG: I can’t think of any inside jokes off the top of my head… or here’s one: it’s kind of like a department inside joke. So Mr. Rossi started off this year with three words of affirmation: kind, joyful, and optimistic. So whenever something happens – for example, the copier just got jammed and I couldn’t make any copies. We all just kind of look at each other and go-

SG & LH: -kind, joyful, optimistic!

SG: So that has been an insider, not just with us, but with our department. And I mean, you [CH] experience this as a student. You get frustrated, and it’s *through gritted teeth* “kind, joyful, optimistic!”

LH: It’s also little things too. You [Goodman] did that also AI training, so now we just make fun of anything AI related. 

SG: *robotically* I am the robot. 

LH: It applies to all of us to.

…

CH: You guys mentioned that you tend to just have lunch together. Do you have any other favorite ways to spend time together?

LH: Collaboration… sitting together during the trainings [and] meetings. 

SG: Yeah, because a lot of what we do is we work together. I think it kind of kills two birds with one stone where we not only get to catch up withe ach other and spend time, and work together to help our students. Outside of that, the middle of semesters are hard, but sometimes we’ll get food together. 

LH: Or at the holidays!

SG: Yeah, Lora had a little holiday-Christmas-thingamabobber at her house. It’s nice just to hang out, get some pizza – I don’t even remember [what else], chips and guac?

LH: Yeah, yeah. 

CH: Alright, last question. Out of just the two fo you, do you think you would be friends in high school?

SG: I don’t know what you would be like in high school. I don’t mean that in a weird way-

LH: Because I’m so old?!

SG: No- yeah…

LH: *laughing*

SG: I think we would be. Like if Lora sat next to me in a class I think our friendship would form. I mean, what did you [Hartig] do in high school?

LH: I was an ROTC, so I was kinda secluded. And I went to a huge high school, but if we were in sociology or some class, I could see wanting to partner up with you. 

SG: She’s [Hartig] a super social person so I think the short answer is yes. I think if our paths crossed than yes. We would. 

CH: Do you have any last things you’d like to add?

LH: I’m just happy because we got hired at the same time. I love the people that we work with. We’re going to keep signing up for junior prom.

SG: Yeah, yeah. 

LH: *shrugs* That’s it.