Program Rollout Mondays, Weekly - Simulcast
Performance Metrics: Network Programming Overview
Podcast Categories: Education, Business & Careers, Comedy Interviews
Andrea Forcum
Professor | Comedian | Digital Influencer | Speaker | Writer | Consultant
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Andrea Forcum—known to her 1.4M+ followers as @EducatorAndrea—is the unfiltered voice teachers didn’t know they needed. With nearly a decade of classroom experience (pre and post COVID), a doctorate, two master’s degrees, and an instinct for sharp satire, Andrea has become a rallying point for educators worldwide.
As host of the How to Survive the Classroom podcast, Andrea blends the chaos of real-life teaching with cathartic comedy. Part advice column, part survival guide, and part group therapy, Andrea dons her trauma tiara to tackle call-ins and confessions from fellow educators and brave educator allies. From hilarious war stories to brutal burnout moments, join us as we strategize, survive, and occasionally let out a good old-fashioned cathartic scream into the void.
Now a professor at Indiana State University, a sought-after speaker, and a touring comedian with The Teacher’s Lounge, Andrea is leading a movement of educators who want to feel seen, heard, and hysterically validated. Her audience isn’t just large—it’s loyal, engaged, and made up of the very people who influence school culture and buying decisions every single day.
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Student Research Group: English teacher Andrea Michelle describes three critical life skills she teaches her students
We Are Teachers: This English Teacher Before Winter Break is So Relatable
Twisted Topics: Staying in Education with Andrea
The Flywheel Effect: Letting Your Teacher Voice be Heard
We Are Teachers: This TikTok Teacher May Have Found the #1 Stressor for New Teachers
Rebel Teacher Alliance: Finding Our TikTok Star
Education Reclaimed: Reclaiming Your Classroom
Brave New Teaching: Unit Makeover: Teaching Night with Guest Andrea
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Indiana State Teacher's Association Good Teaching Conference (October 2023) Keynote
Provided encouragement and tools to be a successful educator in today's post-covid climate Breakout; provided a guide for creating a multicultural classroom environment.
Pathways Speech at ISU (August 2023)
Keynote — Supporting high school students interested in becoming high school teachers.
The Writing Project CalState Irvine (June 2023)
A discussion of Andrea's journey from being a high school teacher and providing content online.
Kappa Delta Pi New Teacher Summit (2022)
Outlined actionable, pragmatic resources and content to help new teachers navigate the post-COVID classroom.
Connection and Culture in Secondary ELA: How to Support a Multicultural Classroom Community through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, EdWeb (2022)
Detailed how to create a culturally responsive classroom that helps embrace and celebrate classroom diversity.
Gerry Potoka
Teacher | Comedian | Digital Influencer
Gerry Potoka started stand-up comedy because being a public educator just isn’t quite entertaining enough. Transplanting from Richmond County, North Carolina to Raleigh, Gerry’s personal experiences and perspectives offer a unique portrayal of his day-to-day life, career, thoughts, and feelings. Gerry has performed up and down the east coast, opening for comedians such as Josh Johnson, Zoltan Kaszas, Joe Dombrowski, Bo Johnson, Gaspare Randazzo and more, in addition to occasionally hosting for The Teachers Lounge comedy tour. He was also a finalist for 2025's North Carolina’s Funniest Person and co-hosts the How To Survive the Classroom podcast with Andrea Forcum. Gerry’s comedy is guaranteed to make you chortle (that is a smart people word for “laugh”).
Molly Dugan
Teacher | Comedian | Digital Influencer
Molly Dugan spent the first five years of her career getting paid to be softly bullied by middle schoolers before deciding to switch things up and getting slightly more respectful (but equally humbling) roasts from high schoolers for the past 3 years. Eight years into teaching Language Arts have taught Molly that education is equal parts inspiring, exhausting, ridiculous, and somehow still worth showing up for every day.
Somewhere along the way, Molly started sharing those moments online as Miss Dugan (@miss.dugan1). What began as stories about the hilarious, chaotic, and occasionally unhinged things students say has grown into a community of more than one million followers across platforms.
Molly believes that life is hard. Teaching is hard. Dating is hard. Sometimes, existing is hard. She believes that oftentimes the best way to get through it is to laugh. Whether she is sharing classroom stories, her own embarrassing moments, or a reminder that we're all just figuring it out as we go, her goal is simple: make someone laugh, help them feel seen, or at the very least, make them think, "Well...at least I'm doing better than Miss Dugan."
Molly has had the opportunity to open for The Teachers Lounge comedy tour, speak at professional development events, receive the Kansas Horizon Award, and is currently pursuing her master's degree in School Counseling.
As a co-host of How to Survive the Classroom alongside Andrea Forcum and Gerry Potoka, Molly is excited to keep sharing stories that remind educators (and non educators alike) they're not alone, that none of us have it all together, and sometimes the best survival strategy is simply finding something to laugh about.
If Molly’s tombstone had an inscription it would say: the poor thing worked harder, not smarter.
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A New Classroom Essential
Everything inexperienced first-year teachers need to manage the chaos of the modern classroom
They Never Taught Us That: Educator Andrea’s Guide to Teaching, Managing the Chaos, and Keeping Your Sanity is your friendly (and slightly frazzled) guide to the hilarious realities of the classroom that teacher training left out. Veteran educator Andrea Forcum, Ph.D., combines laugh-out-loud anecdotes from the trenches with practical tools and strategies for everything from surviving the first day to building trust with parents and other stakeholders.
In this book, readers will learn how to:
Establish classroom rules that won’t get trampled
Create a captivating lesson plan and collaborate on Individual Education Programs (IEPs)
Document parent contact, student behavior, grades (including failing assignments), and more
Navigate the paperwork avalanche without turning into a sleep-deprived zombie
Facilitate collaborative parent-teacher conferences
They Never Taught Us That: Educator Andrea’s Guide to Teaching, Managing the Chaos, and Keeping Your Sanity is an essential resource (literally, essential) for first-year teachers who are all too often scrambling for purchase on the slippery, moving, mucous-covered treadmill that is public education (said with love, of course).
“Educator Andrea will have you breathing a sigh of relief that you’re not the only awkward teacher out there, while somehow delivering a full stand-up set between the pages. With humor, heart, and hard-earned wisdom, she speaks directly to new (and hopeful) teachers in a way that feels like a real conversation with your teacher bestie.”
―LAURAN WOOLLEY, M.Ed., (@mrs.woolleyin5th), educator and content creator
ENGAGEMENT & TESTIMONIALS
