In this episode, Gaspare Randazzo, NYC high school teacher and standup comedian, shares how he uses humor on stage and in his classroom to engage students.
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Teaching and Stand-Up
Daphne:
Hi, Gaspare. Thank you so much for being here today.
Gaspare:
Hi, Daphne. How’s everything?
Daphne:
Good. I have been following you on Instagram for a while just because you’re very funny and I like following people who I feel like do a really good mixture of humor without being too negative because sometimes the negative gets in my head. Even though I’m no longer in the teaching profession, it still can be overwhelming, and I feel like you’ve done a really good balance of both, and I’d love to talk a little bit about that, but going into just wanting to hear a little bit about you, if the audience has never heard of you before. Do you want to share a little bit about your history and education and where they may know you from.
Gaspare:
So I mean, you may know me if you were ever in New York City classroom. So not that I’ve been in them all, but I’ve been in a lot of them. So I’m in my 13th year of teaching. I live in Staten Island… Or I’m going into my 13th year of teaching right now. Or am I? No, I am. I am. I don’t want to be, but I am. I love teaching. And I pretend, and I joke about online that I don’t like it, but in reality, I do love it. I teach high school history. I have a special ed license. I teach gen ed, special ed, I teach everything, and I do love it. I love the profession of teaching, but I also know that there’s a lot of flaws in it. And it’s not necessarily. . . I just making fun of the flaws that we all see and recognize, but no one ever wants to talk about them.
So I’m not going to sit up there and be like, “Oh, I’m going to talk about quitting because I hate it.” I don’t hate it. I actually like going to work, mainly to film videos. But I like going to work because I enjoy it. I enjoy teaching. I enjoy hanging out with the kids. It’s a fun thing for me.
Daphne:
And then you also do podcasts and other things outside of teaching and standup comedy as well?
Gaspare:
Teaching’s not like my whole identity. I’m a teacher. Sure. Just like a firefighter’s, a firefighter, he doesn’t live, breathe, eat firefighting. I’m not one of those teachers, I’m not coming home and bringing my bag home with me and redecorating my classroom at home and then transferring that to the room the next day. I’m not doing that. When I leave teaching, that’s when I leave. I leave my job. Just like if you worked any other job, you’d leave your job at night. I leave my job because when I go home, I have a whole life. I have two kids. I have a six and a three-year-old. I’m married. My wife runs a jewelry business called True Warrior Jewelry. We’re busy. It’s not like I just come home and I’m like, “Okay, well now I’m going to think about Teachers Pay Teachers and lesson plans. I don’t care, honestly.
I like teaching, but to a degree, I also like feeding my children and making dinner for them at night because they need to eat and reading books with them and doing all the dad stuff. Also, I run a podcast called the Social Studies Podcast with Joe Dombrowski. Some of you might know him, Mr. D, I know he is been on here before. We have a podcast together where we co-host. So we record episodes at night. So by the time I get home, feed my… Cook dinner, bathe my kids, put the kids to bed, then we record the… It’s long, long days. And then on the weekends, I do standup comedy. So I’ve been touring the country. I’ve been doing shows all over doing standup, and it’s been a really cool experience, really great ride.
And majority of my audience is teachers, it’s like 90%, probably more teachers. And it’s cool because it’s almost like a professional development, but like people want to be there. And they all come and like I joke and I talk about teaching, I talk about my kids, I talk about everything. But then after the show, it becomes this kumbaya venting session where all the teachers… When you get a room of teachers together, they can’t shut up about teaching. So then it’s just cool. It’s a nice experience for everybody, I think. I mean, I don’t know. I have a good time.
Gaspare shares how he uses humor in the classroom
Daphne:
Yeah. We’ll go into your comedy career in a little bit. Let’s go into what your actual day-to-day role looks like as a high school teacher because you’ve found a method of teaching that has helped you engage the students, but also make learning fun and teaching fun for you, which is incorporating humor into your lessons. Do you mind sharing a little bit about how you do that and how you approach it?
Gaspare:
I teach high school, so I can’t come in and… It’s not the same. It’s not elementary school where the kids are excited to be there. High school’s a whole different ball game. If kids don’t want to come, they just don’t come. That’s just how it is. High school’s different. So I try to make it fun. And the kids… I mean, not trying to toot my own horn, but the kids being in my class, they like me. We have a good time together. And so what I do to make it fun is I dress up like whatever I’m teaching. So because I teach history… So for example, if I’m teaching Julius Caesar, I’ll dress up in a toga and come in as Julius Caesar. I try to make it fun and we play music and I joke with them and I treat them people because a lot of teachers are like… Walk in, this is what we do.
That’s not me, that’s not as a person. So I’m never going to tell these kids like, “Come in, this is the routine. Sit down, shut up.” That’s not me. I want class to be fun. I want it to be a safe space. I want to be nice to these kids because you don’t know… That kid… You say good morning to a kid, you might be the only person in his whole day that talks to him nicely because you don’t know what goes on in their houses, you don’t know what goes on in their real lives. So I just try to be super nice to the kids and be like the teacher that I wished I had when I was young. Because when I was young, I had one teacher that was like that, and she was like, “Yeah, I’m a teacher, but I’m also a person first. So if you guys need something, if something’s going on in your lives, talk to me.”
And I did. Like my mom had a brain aneurysm when I was a kid when I was in high school. She had a 50/50 chance of survival basically. And like, I had a teacher and she just said, “I don’t care if you know how to write an essay in English. This is more important in your life right now, being there for your family. So I’ll help you. We’ll figure it out.” All the other stuff. But I never had a teacher do that. Before that, it was just like, “This is the work. Oh, you got stuff going on? Oh well. Get your work done.” So I just said to myself, “I wanted to be that teacher for people.”
Daphne:
Yeah. I think that that’s one of the things that so many teachers go into this profession because they had a teacher like that, that really touched them and really changed the trajectory of who they were as a human, being able to see how much that impacted them, made them want to do it in return. And then it’s also part of the reason why this career is so emotionally exhausting is because you have so many people who are coming down, asking you to do so many things on top of the fact that you are buying coats for students that might not have coats, or you are worrying about what’s happening to them the second the bell rings. Or you are dealing with really big traumatic issues in students’ lives, but at the same time, you’re supposed to be teaching 10 different lessons a day and grading all those papers and answering all the emails.
Gaspare:
You’re also dealing with stuff in your own life. I mean, like I’m married, I got two kids. Life’s not perfect. You know what I mean? So you’re also going to work every day with all that crap in your own mind. And then you got to deal with their crap. It’s just like… It piles up and then it’s… You go home and you just spent the whole day dealing with all their stuff, now you got to go home and deal with reality and the real world stuff of your. . . It’s rough. It’s not easy.
Daphne:
Yeah. And so how do you find a transition? Because when you are integrating humor in the classroom, and high school students are totally different than what I taught. I taught fifth grade and I could make them laugh, but the fifth graders are an easy audience. I’m not going to pat myself on the back. I do too.
Gaspare:
Butt jokes and fart jokes.
Gaspare talks about balancing jokes and structure in the classroom
Daphne:
I mean, I didn’t do the butt jokes or the fart jokes, but I could make them laugh. But then there’s this transition from, “Hey, no, for reals, this is serious time and you have to pay attention to me.” Do you ever have a struggle with balancing both the very fun times and then also the, “No for reals, pay attention to me and don’t talk back,” times?
Gaspare:
That’s probably my biggest challenge in all my years of teaching is I’m always in fun mode. I don’t know how to turn that off. So then when I have to turn it off it… Which is good because when I have to turn it off, the kids are like, “Oh shoot, he’s being serious right now. So this must actually be important that we need to focus on it.” But it is hard because when you allow that leash to be so long of fun and then you say, “Oh, no, no, actually also we’re going to be serious too.” Kids are kind of like, “Wait, whoa, whoa, this isn’t fun.” But then I tell them, “I could’ve been like this all year. I’m asking you for one day.” And they pretty much respect that. I’m very open with them. I say, “I don’t care what you do outside this class. I don’t care who you hang out with, what you do.” And I make that very clear on the first day. And they’re pretty receptive of that. And they kind of have my back, which is nice.
Daphne:
Yeah. I feel like with me, there were a couple moments where like the most mature I have ever been was not laughing when I was trying to be serious, and a kid actually cracked a really good joke at my expense where I wanted to be like, “High five. That was good.” This legend, I will never forget him, can’t say his name on air, but I was, “Hey everyone, it’s time to put all of these toys away. I only have a couple of moments to ask you guys to do this. No, for reals, listen, everyone put those balls away.” Everyone grabbed the balls and put the balls away. And he just like… At the right perfect moment said like, “That’s what she said.” Or like do. . . I said, “Everybody grabbed the balls.” And he’s like, “That’s what she said.” And I just was like wrecked having to be super straight-faced.
Gaspare:
In high school we could laugh at that with them, like it’s okay. No one’s really going to get mad. I had the kids on Christmas, we were playing this game. I actually saw it on TikTok and I was like, “Oh, I should do it with my students,” which I regretted instantly because my students aren’t like a perfect Midwestern classroom on TikTok. But I was like, “Oh, let me play this.” So I gave—I said, “What do you think I would want for Christmas? Write it down anonymously like what you think I would want.” And the first kid. . . The first paper I got back… I’m opening the first paper I got back, said, “For Christmas, Mr. Randazzo would want a new hairline.” And I was like, “Damn, that was good.” I laughed, the kids laughed. But that’s the thing, in high school. . . Well, then I was like, “All right, I hate this game.”
I threw all the papers out because I didn’t want to hear anymore. But in high school, you’re allowed that freedom because you have to also keep in mind, the kids are older. I teach seniors, so they’re 17, 18 years old. So in reality. . . I mean, I like to pretend they’re almost my age, but I am 34 now. But when I started teaching, I was 22 years old. I was teaching 18-year olds, like how crazy that is. Thinking back, I’m like, “Wait, we could like hang out. I could see you in the real world when I go out.” It’s so bizarre teaching high school.
Daphne:
I never thought about that. I’ve only worked at elementary school. I only did fifth grade. And my biggest concern with ever doing an older grade was fifth grade was perfect for me because they have some autonomy. They’re able to like be responsible, take care of themselves. It’s not as dangerous as little kids where I would need to be on top of it all the time. But also, their insults don’t hurt as much, like even when they’re really legitimately mad at you, it’s still like… Their brain hasn’t formed all the way to really understand what hurts your feelings. And I have junior high and high school teachers who have told me like, “Oh, they know exactly what my insecurity is, something that my loved ones probably wouldn’t have figured out. They have it and they call me out on it and I have to try not to cry in class.”
Gaspare:
Yeah. I mean high school, they can. . . Once I was like… I wasn’t sad. I just walked into the classroom and I was like, “Blah.” And this girl goes, “Damn, Mr. Randazzo looking like his wife just left him.” But I was like, “What?” But that stuff they say. . . Well, she was like, “Oh man, you look like your kids hate you.” But it was funny stuff, but I laugh because I really don’t. . . The thing is like, I dish it out so I have to be able to take it. So I’m okay with them saying that stuff. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. Like some teachers will be like, “Oh, well you should never let a kid talk to you like that.” Also, there’s that level of comfort that they know I’m not. . . I would’ve actually probably not said that, but I would’ve joked. . . I joked more with teachers I liked than teachers that I was scared of.
I wouldn’t even smile at them. I’m not a believer in the whole, “Don’t smile till Christmas.” I come in smiling on day one. If I’m not showing you that I like them and want to be there, why would you want to even be there? And I see both sides.
Daphne:
I’ve heard people say that, but I don’t. . . Do people actually implement that? It just seems like a miserable place to be or like-
Gaspare:
I know a lot of teachers who are like, “You don’t show your personality till halfway through the year, otherwise the kids will take advantage.” I’m like, “They hate you for the first half of the year. Why the hell would I want anyone, yet alone people that I spend more time. . .” I spend more time during the school year with my students than my kids when you think about it. You know what I mean? I’m with them eight hours. My kids are only… I’m with them for 30 minutes in the morning and then three hours after school before they go to bed.
Daphne:
And I am not a teaching expert. I did not last very long in the classroom. I was only in the classroom for three years. So I’m not going to necessarily judge other people’s approaches, but I can only speak to myself. And what I really struggle with is I can tell when I start things on a negative note like that, when I know a student has a reputation or is potentially going to be a problem, quote, unquote, “problem student”, I go in with an attitude of seeking to figure out what they’re doing wrong at all times. That’s just something that I personally know I struggle with is. I’m that person that get. . . And I have ADHD, which is just recently diagnosed, but I remember in the classroom feeling super tense and being waiting to hear a whisper and waiting to catch something going wrong.
If I was in a bad mood and like if I was looking for something, you’re always going to find it. Like if you’re looking for an issue. . . And I feel like someone going into the classroom and saying, “Don’t let your guard down, don’t enjoy this. Don’t have fun,” is going to make you that tense person who’s just constantly looking for the issue.
Gaspare:
Yeah. And for me, I’m just not that as a person, period. I’ve only been mad two times my whole life. It’s not in my nature to be mad. So how am I going to come in there, be serious, stare at these kids? When I got hired for my job as a teacher in the school I’m in, I literally… At one point in the interview, we were talking about something. . . Abraham Lincoln came up and I was like, “I have a tattoo of Abraham Lincoln.” They were like, “Really?” And I was like, “Yeah, it’s on my leg.” I got on the chair and pulled my pants up to show them the tattoo. So like obviously, I don’t take anything that serious in my life, so I can’t go in and fake this whole seriousness on them. It’s just not me.
Daphne:
Yeah. I mean, everybody comes in with a different personality too. Some people are just very serious people.
Gaspare:
Yeah. And that’s fine. And it’s not. . . I’m not knocking those people, it’s just not me. It just couldn’t be me.
Daphne:
Yeah. I think just going in with the attitude of like, “I don’t want them to like me,” period, until the certain date. Is that like. . . I’m looking for something bad to happen. I’m looking for misbehaviors or mistrust. And I know myself. And when I go into situations like, “Oh, I’m waiting for this person to be a punk.” Like in my adult life, you have that friend that always like pisses you off and you’re like, “Oh, I’m waiting for this person to say something dumb and so I can get upset.” And then you’re just grasping at straws waiting for it.
Gaspare:
And especially in the teacher world, because how many times it’s like, “Oh, Daphne, let me just let you know. So Joe is really a bad kid, so get ready for him because he’s going to suck.” And in your mind, you’re like, “You suck, show me you suck. I’m waiting for it.” So like I kind of try to—listen, I’d be lying if I was like, “Oh, rose colored goggles.” And every kid is. . . Some kids, you’re like, “Oh, you have a bad reputation for a reason. And I’m not going to be trying to find out why.” I’ve been doing this long enough to know that some kids just don’t want to be fixed. Maybe not in fifth grade, you still have a shot, but like 17, 18 years old, you kind of are what you are. I mean not always. There are people who change, absolutely. But your perception of things change. You get jaded over time. I feel like I’ve been in the classroom a decently long time.
Daphne:
I think that there’s some reason to say, “Hey, this may happen and here are the few strategies I’ve seen that have worked. Let me hook let you up with a couple strategies that I’ve seen have worked. When this kid becomes like this, this can actually make it better.” That’s a lot better than, “Hey, by the way, good luck next year, these people. . .”
Gaspare:
But that’s what is said. That’s like the MO. It’s, “Oh shoot, you got him. Oh, well, you’ll see.” It’s like, “Oh shit, I guess I’ll see. This sucks.”
Gaspare discusses keeping a professional online presence—with the classroom in mind—while promoting his stand-up
Daphne:
So one big question that I have, because I personally, the reason why I left the classroom was… I could probably list 10 big reasons, but ultimately, the last year when I was just really hardcore mentally struggling and just having a very difficult time with being overworked and some mental health issues, I had a group of parents that had identified me and decided that I was too young to teach. . . Thank you. But too young to teach their gifted and talented students and not qualified, and then looking for every reason to dislike me, social media threads, whatever they could do to make me feel unwelcome in this school and to try and get me in trouble. And it just completely broke me where I was like, “I don’t like this career anymore.” I can’t imagine with a social media presence, with a podcast where you speak your mind and with maybe an unconventional teaching style, you may have had some challenges with parents in the past, and I’m wondering how you approach those challenges. And if you tell me no, then I know you’re lying.
Gaspare:
You’re not going to believe me. All right, so here’s where I think I get a little lucky. I never post videos negatively talking about students. Okay. So that’s the first thing. I never curse in my videos. I’m never openly like. . . I’m going to make fun of kids. I actually don’t make fun of kids. Well, I make fun of teachers. I make fun of the system as a whole. So I’m never like, “Oh, hey guys, I just graded all these papers and I gave everybody an F because I feel like it.” So they don’t really have a lot of ammunition to come at me. Sure they can listen to the podcast and say, “Oh, you speak your mind, but listen, we have editors too.” You know what I mean? So when things are a little dicey, we make sure that we listen to it. Then Joe listens, then my mom listens and Joe’s mom listens.
We round table, like, “How can this be perceived? I think we’re in the clear. Okay, cool.” So we are smart about that because at the end of the day, and I hate using this, but you do become a public figure. If you’re on the internet, you’re online, I’m doing shows, I’m around the country and it’s hard. I actually get the most crap from my students because they all see that I’m on social media, and so a lot of them will be like, “Oh, mister, how was Austin, Texas this week?” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?” And they’re like, “Yeah, you didn’t do a show in Austin, Texas this weekend? I’m like, “Nope, not me.” I was like, “I was home reading IEPs.” And they’re like, “Yeah, you didn’t do a show in Austin?” Then they like pull up my photo of me in Austin, Texas, like underneath the sign that says Austin, Texas.
And I’m like, “Wow, AI is getting really good, guys. That’s crazy.” But they laugh. But for them it’s also kind of cool because I remember when I was a kid, teachers are mythical creatures. We didn’t know where they resided to at the end of the day. So for my students, it’s kind of weird because they have this weird inside look at my life because I’ll leave work and then post like, “Oh, something funny’s going on at the supermarket,” and I post about it. So they’re like, “Oh, how was was the supermarket yesterday? Did you get those avocados you were talking about?” And it’s kind of this weird dynamic, but I don’t really have anything to hide, like I’m not drinking on there. I’m not smoking. I’m not doing anything that’s like, “Oh, you’re a bad example for the kids.” Like what am I doing? You know what, I’m living a normal life.
I go home, I pick up my kids after school. So, “Oh, I’m getting real crazy.” I’m not in a. . . But if I’m at a comedy club performing, I’m at work. Would you call up and say, “Oh, your teacher’s tutoring after school”? No, it’s my job. It’s just another job. Just like some people tutor, some people do. I do comedy, I make money, therefore it’s a job. I pay taxes on it. You know what I mean? So you really can’t tell me I can’t do that because not missing work to—that’s another thing. I’m very careful. I’m not doing shows on days where I have work and if I am, I’m going to work that day and I’ll figure out, because that’s how you could start getting yourself in trouble when I called out on a Friday, but then I’m in Austin, Texas Friday night because then someone could say, “Well, you clearly went and did a show.” But I don’t do that. So what could you say?
Gaspare tells Daphne where he draws boundaries when working on his stand-up material
Daphne:
Yeah. You answered a question that I had written down that was basically like, do you have guidelines of what you will and won’t say? And it sounds like the majority of what you do is protect stories about your students. You respect like those aren’t your stories to necessarily tell and they can.
Gaspare:
Well, I don’t ever. If you watch my. . . I never ever tell student stories. I just make fun of teachers. I make fun of myself.
Daphne:
Burnout, overwhelm and PDs.
Gaspare:
Yeah. Like I make fun of myself, so you want to be mad at me for making fun of myself? Okay. I’m sorry that I am offending you by making fun of myself. But listen, I understand that with anything, you could always find fault in something. With any profession at all, I could go through anyone’s Instagrams, find something that makes them out to be the bad guy, finds something that makes them to be a hero. You put what you want online, you paint the picture, you create it. You know what I mean? So I’m very careful. Yes, do I post a lot of stuff? But I’m very careful and strategic in what I post to make sure I’m not going to get myself in trouble.
Gaspare discusses balancing family along with his hectic professional life
Daphne:
I am curious how you even managed to balance one of these side projects with a full-time teaching career, let alone like a podcast in itself is almost a full-time job, I can speak from experience. Instagram, social media presence where you’re creating content can almost be a full-time job of thinking of ideas, creating it, responding to DMs, responding to comments, all of that. And then managing a tour, going on a tour. Also, you have children, you have a relationship, and a job on top of that. How have you figured out a way or a system to do all of it?
Gaspare:
I’m still trying to figure it out. It’s hard. Listen, my wife and I are a very good team. We work very well together. We have a great balance for sure. And you have to, obviously. It sucks. There’s days where you sacrifice. So as I tell everybody—because that’s a big question online a lot is, “How do you do all this stuff?” Because not like a hang-out with my kids for 10 minutes kind of dad. On an average day, I leave work, I get home from work, I pick up my kids, we go home. My wife is a school social worker. My wife goes home, my wife starts doing her jewelry business because she works after work. So she’ll do her jewelry business, I’ll make dinner for the kids and her. Well, I’ll make dinner for us, the family. Then she’ll come up from working, we’ll all eat as a family.
Then she’ll bathe one kid, I’ll bathe the other kid. Then we relax a little, watch some TV. Then I put one kid to bed, she puts the other kid to bed. And it usually rotates. One night I’ll put my daughter, one night I put my son, whatever. But now I will say, my son’s getting older, so it’s a little easier because he’s like, “I’m just going to go in my room and lay down.” And I’m like, “Yes, that sounds wonderful. Please. That is an awesome idea,” If I don’t have to be in there for an hour. So it’s a lot. But then… They go to bed, then… I always say like, “When my kids go to bed, my real life starts,” because then they go to bed at 8:30. Then I come down, I film the podcast. Now I’m lucky that my podcast is with my best friend.
So it’s not this whole process of like, “Oh, it’s work.” We talk. . . I was just on the phone with him for an hour driving. So we were like, “We should have just recorded this and made this the podcast episode,” because we are close, and that’s real. So it’s a lot. It’s a lot of juggling, a lot of balancing. And then on the weekends it’s hard because I don’t tour and do as much as I want because I want to be at my son’s baseball games. I want to be at my daughter’s dance recitals because I’m never going to get that back. And they’re only going to be young once, and I’m not having any more kids. I even told my wife, I said, “If something happens to you or we get divorced,” I said, “If I meet someone, she wants kids, it’s over.”
She’s like, “Why are you even telling me this?” I’m like, “Well, I’m just letting you know, these are my only two forever.” So it’s a lot. But like I say with everything, and like I like I’ve witnessed with my wife, if you want to do something, you make it work. And that means you put in the time, you put in the effort, the energy, and it’s exhausting. And there are times where I don’t want to record. So this more. . . So just to put into perspective, we’re filming… It’s the summer. Sorry, we’re batching.
Daphne:
No, it’s okay. They know. . . At this point, they know I’m pregnant, they know that I’m doing things ahead of time.
Gaspare:
So we’re filming this episode in the summer. So just to put it into perspective, yesterday I picked my kids up from camp, dropped them off home, my wife was waiting for them. Then I drove to Connecticut. I live in New York. It’s about a two and a half hour ride. Did a show, stayed after the show, met every single person in the audience, left at midnight, got home at about 2:00 in the morning, woke up at 8:00 in the morning because I did a show. Or I’m doing a show, but it’ll have been done at a baseball stadium this summer at a Staten Island. Like a minor league baseball team is having me perform in their stadium. So I went to the stadium at 8:00 in the morning to film promo for it. So they gave me unlimited access to the stadium. They literally gave me the keys and were like, “Have fun.”
So I filmed in the weight room, in the dugouts, on the field, in the stands. I filmed all this stuff. So I filmed from 8:00 to 11:00, then I got in my car and sped home so that I could jump on this. And then I’m going to go pick up my kids from camp when this is over. You know what I mean? It’s just the juggling act. And I’ll pick up my kids from camp and then we’ll do our normal nighttime stuff. And then I’m going on a date with my wife tonight because we haven’t gone out, me and her, in three months. So we’re going out tonight and my eyes are bleeding from being tired. But these are the sacrifices you do if you want to make your life work.
Daphne:
I mean, we definitely appreciate you being here—
Gaspare:
No, no, I wasn’t saying it to feel bad for me. I’m just—
Daphne:
I know. No, I mean, I definitely am hardcore on the struggle bus right now, back to back, working on things, trying to make sure that everything’s done. But I am also not juggling the kids yet or juggling a full-time job.
Gaspare:
It’s the kids that ruin everything, in the best way possible.
Daphne:
Telling hormonal, pregnant with twins, woman that right now is probably not the best idea.
Gaspare:
Listen, all I’ll tell you—this is my parenting advice, and everyone’s going to give you parenting advice and it’s going to suck, and you’re going to just, “Okay, cool. Thank you so much.” This is my parenting advice. Don’t listen to anyone else’s parenting advice because you’re going to figure it out on your own because every kid is different and everybody works different. And how you and your husband are going to deal with things is not how Jane and John would’ve dealt with it. So you can’t go by anybody’s advice. So whatever people tell you, just smile, nod, and then forget about it because it’s irrelevant, because everyone’s going to tell you how to raise your kids, but in reality, you’ll figure it out. The cavemen figured it out, you’ll figure it out. I mean, you’ll have two of them, so you got two chances.
Daphne:
I was going to a fertility acupuncturist who was amazing, and her best thing that she’s told me so far was when she had her first. She said the emotions were too big. They were too scary how attached she was to her first child. And then once she had her second child, she’s like, “Oh, I chilled out a little bit. The stakes weren’t. . .” Like, obviously, the stakes are hot. You love your children, but she’s like, “Once there’s two, you realize there’s too much going on for you to have that intense amount of focus on one.” She’s like, “You might normalize.” Knowing me, probably I won’t be normal. I’ll be just double crazy, but we’ll figure it out.
Gaspare:
But I could see that because like how we treated my son growing up versus my daughter, who’s younger, it’s a whole different world. Like my daughter’s so much more independent, tougher, just. . . I mean, second kid. . . I don’t know. I don’t know how it works with twins.
Daphne:
I don’t either. So we’ll figure it out.
Gaspare:
There’s no real playbook on parenting, even though there’s those books, they’re not real because sure, okay, cool, the book tells you what to do, but you’re not living in it. You’re just reading a book. It’s like the people who never were in the classroom who tell us how to teach. Not to say that people write those books. Most of them are parents, I’m sure. But when you’re in the moment and it’s 3:00 in the morning and your kid just vomited and you’re like, “Oh God.” And then the book’s like, “Well, don’t ever let them sleep in the bed with you. That starts a bad habit.” You know what? I’m not washing sheets at 3:00 in the morning, so they are sleeping in the bed. Oh well. And it all works out.
Daphne:
I know we’re going kind of on a more personal side—
Gaspare:
Sorry.
Daphne:
No, don’t apologize. I’m just going to get personal with you and ask you a question.
Gaspare:
Oh, yeah, you could get personal with me. I don’t care.
Gaspare shares how teaching creates stability in his professional life, while stand-up is more unpredictable
Daphne:
There are so many teachers in this audience who are thinking of leaving the classroom or they are doing some sort of side hustle, whether it’s creating things on Teachers Pay Teachers, or they’re… Have their own Etsy shop or a side business of some sort. And what I’m curious with you is, is there a point when you start to be successful enough and one or the other career where you just give up one or the other? Do you have that figured out in your brain of, “When do I have to leave teaching because it’s just not sustainable or it’s holding back my comedy career?” Or, “When do I give up on comedy and just go 100% on teaching?” And that’s not my business.
Gaspare:
No one wants to do that.
Daphne:
But okay, well, you made a face, so I figured out which direction was more aligned with your thoughts.
Gaspare:
It’s twofold. Okay. There are numbers that I have, right. Because I turned down jobs a lot now, and it sucks because someone said, “Can you do this?” And I’m like, “I want to do it. Financially, I definitely want to do it, but I don’t want to piss off my school and I don’t want to do this and that.” But on the other side, teaching is a. . . And this is a cop out answer because I’m sure everybody who’s sitting at home on the fence is saying the same answer, but like teaching, whether the pay is great or not, which we know it’s not great, but it’s livable. People can live on a teacher’s salary, so it’s consistent, right? And that’s stable. There you go. That’s the word. It’s stable. And having something that’s stable, right? So look at people during COVID, people just lost their jobs and that was it.
But not teachers. We got paid through it. We are not really going anywhere. Teachers aren’t going anywhere. We will always pretty much have a job, as long as you want to have a job. So I have a mortgage, I have two kids. I have cars that we pay for. So it’s like, yes, comedy is great, the money is very good. I’m not going to lie to you and be like, “It’s not.” The money’s better than teaching, but what comedy isn’t, is stable. So all it takes is one day where people are like, “Actually, we hate this guy.” And now all of a sudden I’m hated and I don’t have a career anymore. And whereas in in teaching, they could hate me all they want, I’m in a union. I’m not going anywhere. So there’s that safety net of being a teacher, but like you said, it’s now costing me money to be a teacher in some ways. So—
Daphne:
Devil’s advocate here.
Gaspare:
Yeah, please do.
Daphne:
Diving into your business, what would it look like if you tried to create some sort of safety net, not telling you to do it tomorrow, as we’re recording this in late July, I know you guys are listening and you’re like, “It’s already the middle of the school year, why are you telling him this?” What if you left your position for a year with the intention of substitute teaching as much as humanly possible to see what happens that year.
Gaspare:
That’s on the agenda. We’ll just leave it at that.
I like being with my kids. I like being with my family. And whereas in comedy, that’s not really the world where you’re home that much.
You’re on the road a lot. And people don’t realize, number one, being on the road, sure it’s fun. The hour that you’re performing is fun. The hour in the club when you’re hanging out with the other comedians is fun. The hour after where you hang out with the fans or the people who are there is fun. But guess what, that’s three out of 24 hours. I sleep for six because I don’t sleep long. So that’s nine hours we got, right? That means the other 15 hours, it’s boring. You’re alone. And my wife’s like, “Oh, you must love it. You must like it.” No, I would love it if I was single, maybe, but I’m married. Like where am I going? What am I doing? I can’t just walk up to a group of people and be like, “Hey, you guys want to hang out? Cool. Tell me where, let’s meet up.” It doesn’t really work when you’re by yourself in the middle of nowhere and then you’re just meeting up with random people. It’s not really a good look.
Daphne:
I was working for Microsoft at the same time, and I ended up heading that threshold of it’s not sustainable to do both, and it also just does not make sense. I have to pick a lane. I’m not doing either of these things well.
Gaspare:
See. And so that’s the big problem. I’m sorry to cut you off. Go ahead.
Daphne:
No, you’re fine, you’re fine. But I also traveled for them. For me, there was a level of excitement, but it was four times a year, maybe a week long trip. So I liked it because I liked staying in a new city. They usually put us up somewhere cool. But I agree, it would get old very quickly, even though Instagram highlight reels will tell you, “Sitting at the beach with your laptop is amazing.” And it’s like, “That’s not what it looks like. I’m sitting in a sad hotel bar.”
Gaspare:
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I’m in the middle of Buffalo, like where am I going? You know what I mean? And then my wife’s like, “Go sightseeing.” I’m like, “I’m not going to Niagara Falls by myself.” I’m not doing that. I’m not taking a 40-minute Uber to sit and watch the falls and be like. And I’m not that person as you know online. I’m never going to post and be like, “Blessed.” Like, “Here I am.” That’s not me. Like you said, it’s more like I’m sitting in my hotel watching SportsCenter and I’m like, “This is the life.” Like I go buy a cheeseburger and eat on my bed. I’m like, “Yeah, I’m living,” because it’s like… Social media’s fake. Anyway, whatever.
Daphne:
My biggest flex was like. . . I’m not traveling with my husband. That means that I get this really big bed. And then I just am a sad lady who leaves half of the suitcase on one side of the bed and never takes it off.
Gaspare:
Well, that’s my wife, she’s always like, “Have fun traveling. It must be nice.” Then she’s like, “I miss you. Come home. It’s boring.” Because she’s always like, “Can’t wait to have the house to myself when the kids are in camp.” And then she’s like, “No, it’s actually kind of boring when you’re not here.” I’m like, “Yeah, like I’m the fun of the house. I get it.” I’m the fun one. But I do agree with you. When you have one foot in both doors, you’re never fully giving it your all. I’m definitely not the teacher I once was. I’m not the teacher I was years ago where I was so into it and teaching was my life and my identity. And I’m also not the comedian that I know I can be because I have all… Sometimes I think, like if I didn’t go to work every day and I had… So like just to put into perspective this morning, I went and filmed at the baseball stadium for three hours, the promo videos, and I had a blast. And I was like, “Wow. I could also make videos,” period, just being in here.
Like fun videos. And I could make content and I can make promo videos for other things. Oh wait, I can’t, I have a full-time job. So like this was a special circumstance, but that’s. . . Like tomorrow, my kids don’t have camp. So that’s that. We’re just back to normal life. And I just think if I had time to myself, I would be able to just full on, make my comedy great, make my promos great, make my content great. But-
Daphne:
And that’s a big discussion in entrepreneur space, founder space of people who are using their full-time job to fund whatever their passion project or side hustle is. And then they have to look at what point does it make sense to take that leap? And I am rooting for you to do whatever is best for you and your family.
Well, let’s wrap up because I feel like I could talk to you nonstop, and this has been just such a fun conversation, but where can people who are listening find you to follow you? Instagram, TikTok, whatever social media is your favorite?
Gaspare:
Instagram is where I do the most. I’m not a fan of TikTok. I mean, I’m on it because we have to be. But Instagram is where you could find me @standuprandazzo, like standup comedy, and my last name is Randazzo, so standuprandazzo. I’m working on just changing it to my real name, Gaspare Randazzo, but unfortunately, there’s someone else who has it, and they haven’t been active on Instagram since like 1999, so I can’t get in touch with them.
Daphne:
Oh no. Well, we will link it in today’s show notes too, to make it easier for other people to find you. Thank you so much, Gaspare, for being here. It was just such a fun conversation.
Gaspare:
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Mentioned in the episode:
- Gaspare is on Instagram at @standuprandazzo
- Our career path quiz at www.teachercareercoach.com/quiz
- Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course (If you are a Teacher Career Coach Course member, you can also sign up for our one-on-one Career Clarity calls.)
