catchiNG up: Beyond the Classroom

Peter Ng
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Personal Journals
  • Updated Weekly

What happens to the people who shaped you — after the bell rings? catchiNG Up is a reflective podcast where educator Peter Ng reconnects with former students, colleagues, and friends to explore who they were, who they're becoming, and what they've learned along the way. Because learning doesn't stop when the bell rings. Want to be featured? linktr.ee/The_catchiNGupPodcast

  1. 2d ago

    Episode 25 - Can You Teach That in German?

    Peter reconnects with Nabeel Kandah, who just wrapped up 33 years of teaching in North Carolina public high schools. Nabeel's path into education wasn't planned: a German & Biology double major at Michigan, a need for a job, and a local ad that led him to Southern Durham High School, where he ended up teaching German and Earth Science after his principal asked him to cover a subject he'd never formally studied. They dig into his 14 years at Southern Durham and years at Enloe Magnet High School in Raleigh, the biannual student exchange trips to Germany, growing up in an Arabic-speaking household in suburban Detroit, and how learning German as an adult unlocked patterns across languages he'd absorbed informally as a kid. Now newly retired, Nabeel talks about easing into this next chapter — playing bass for his band Riffium, learning multi-track recording and producing, catching up on reading, and reconnecting with family in Michigan. The conversation closes on what growth looks like once the report cards and deadlines are gone: finding joy in the smaller things and building enough "Teflon" to let outside noise slide off without losing yourself. A reminder that growth isn't always linear — follow us on Instagram @The_catchinguppodcast for clips every Friday.

  2. Sep 9

    Episode 24 - Rewriting the Story

    In this episode of catchiNG Up: Beyond the Classroom, Peter reconnects with Jennifer Longbrake — a program specialist, curriculum writer, and fellow alum of the alternative certification program that brought them together nearly a decade ago. Jenn shares her journey from teaching middle school language arts (6th, 7th, and 8th grade) to her current role as a program specialist, where she writes curriculum, trains teachers, and supports schools in the classroom. She and Peter talk about the challenges and joys of working with middle schoolers, what it's like to shift from managing a classroom to coaching adults, and the winding paths that lead teachers toward leadership roles. The conversation turns to Jenn's biggest passion project: a novel she's been writing — and rewriting — for the past five years. Born out of a COVID-era rabbit hole of rock documentaries, her ensemble novel follows a fictional band in the late 1970s, centered on a female guitarist breaking into a male-dominated scene. Jenn opens up about what it's taken to rewrite the story three times over, her plans to self-publish, and why she's doing it purely for the love of the craft. Peter and Jenn also dig into what it means to be intentionally creative as adults, how growth stops looking like grades and starts looking like curiosity, and what they're each still becoming as they navigate their thirties. 🎧 New episodes every Wednesday, clips every Friday📱 Follow along on Instagram: @The_catchinguppodcast🔗 linktr.ee/The_catchiNGupPodcast Because growth isn't always linear.

  3. Sep 2

    Episode 23 - Objection, Overruled by a Trumpet

    This week I'm catching up with Marcus Grey — a friend I met through Julia and Hannah, and now an in-house litigation attorney for a major record label in New York. We talk about what actually changes when you go from billing hours at a law firm to being "the client" in-house, and get into the surprisingly complicated business of music: why a single song is really two separate copyrights (the master recording and the composition), how that split played out very publicly in Taylor Swift's fight over her masters, and the wave of AI-related disputes now landing on his desk. We also nerd out on word origins — where "attorney" actually comes from, and why a group of lawyers is called a "bar" — before Marcus opens up about rediscovering piano and trumpet after years of law school and job changes pulled him away from them. He closes out this episode's signature segment with some genuinely solid advice to his younger self about trusting the process through big decisions. Follow along for clips every Friday and new episodes every Wednesday. Remember: growth isn't always linear.

  4. Aug 26

    Episode 22 - Never Stop Learning

    Growth isn't always linear — and neither is the road that gets you where you're going. In this episode, Peter reconnects with Rosa Maria Weaver, his former IB Spanish teacher from high school in St. Augustine, Florida. Rosa Maria opens up about growing up in Mexico City, navigating a rigid class system, and the culture shock of studying archaeology alongside Marxist-Leninist refugee professors after a childhood in a strict, conservative Catholic school. She traces her path from arriving in the U.S. not speaking English, to decades in the classroom, to retiring... and coming right back because she "just can't quit." Along the way: the neuroscience of relearning a language in your 60s, surprising parallels between school systems across Latin America, and what it means to parent differently than you were raised. Rosa Maria's advice to her younger self says it all — travel more, don't wait, and live in the present, because it passes fast. 🎧 New episodes every Wednesday, clips every Friday.Follow @The_catchinguppodcast for more.

  5. Aug 19

    Episode 21 - Lord Randy: Music, Legends, and Living Full

    This week I'm catching up with someone I know a little differently than most of my guests—Randy Poe, my wife's uncle, a man who has genuinely lived several lifetimes in one. Randy grew up bouncing between Alabama and Missouri, fell in love with music before he was old enough to understand what that meant, and built a career most people couldn't dream up if they tried. We talk about growing up near Muscle Shoals, Alabama — the tiny cluster of towns that quietly produced some of the greatest recordings of the 20th century, from Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones — and the story of how Duane Allman's guitar solo on Wilson Pickett's "Hey Jude" may have kicked off Southern rock entirely. Randy also opens up about moving to New York City with $225 to his name, working his way from typing 110 words a minute as a temp to becoming, at 25 years old, the Executive Director of the Songwriters Hall of Fame — a job that put him in the same room as Lieber and Stoller, Sammy Cahn, and some of the biggest names in American music history. From there, we cover his career as a music publisher and author of six books (including a Grammy-nominated biography of Duane Allman), his current gig playing bass in a band with Elvis Costello's drummer, becoming an actual Scottish "Lord," and what it means to keep chasing adventure at 70 instead of slowing down. We close out with our two signature segments — what Randy learned recently, and the advice he'd give his 16-year-old self — and his answer to that second one might be the most honest piece of advice we've had on the show yet. This one's a reminder that growth isn't always linear, and sometimes the best stories come from the people already sitting at your dinner table. 🎧 New episodes every Wednesday. Clips every Friday.📱 Follow us on Instagram: @The_catchinguppodcast🔗 Linktree: linktr.ee/The_catchiNGupPodcast #catchiNGup #BeyondTheClassroom

  6. Aug 5

    Episode 20 - Lessons Learned

    Season 2 comes to a close the way it started — just me, no guest, no script. Back in the first solo episode, I talked about why I became a teacher. This time, it's what a decade-plus in the classroom actually taught me: how the subject on your certification isn't always the one you end up teaching, why growth is never a straight line, how mentoring students changes the mentor as much as the mentored, and why the best lessons rarely come from the lesson plan. Thanks for riding along this season — see you for Season 3.

  7. Jul 29

    Episode 19 - The Other Side of the Mic

    This week, we're flipping the script. Normally Peter's the one asking the questions — but for this special episode, his younger brother Matt takes over as host, and Peter sits in the guest chair for once. What follows is part conversation, part unfiltered sibling check-in. Peter and Matt dig into what it was like growing up four years apart — the closeness, the natural distance that came with different life stages, and how their relationship evolved from sharing a house to reconnecting as adults. They talk about the pull toward teaching, the mentors who shaped Peter without him ever following in their exact footsteps, and what it really means to leave something behind — not a building or an award, but the kind of impact that shows up years later in a former student's life. Along the way, there's plenty of the nostalgia that makes this one fun: Costco runs that turned into six-hour windows of Domino's and Halo 2, the agony of Naruto Shippuden filler arcs on the worst streaming site imaginable, and an N64 hotel room takeover while their parents enjoyed a steak dinner in peace. But Matt doesn't let Peter stay comfortable for long. He asks the harder questions too — what Peter's never said to his face, how growth really happens, and whether the "leave a legacy" mindset is realistic or just a setup for disappointment. It's a rare, honest look at Peter from someone who's known him his whole life. If you've ever wondered what's on the other side of the mic — for Peter, and for the relationship that shaped who he became — this episode is for you. Remember: growth isn't always linear. Follow us on Instagram @The_catchinguppodcast for clips every Friday, and find everything else at linktr.ee/The_catchiNGupPodcast

  8. Jul 23

    Episode 18 - Lifting Through the Setbacks

    This week on catchiNG Up, I'm reconnecting with Zach Nelson — someone I first crossed paths with back at Nike, where our timelines almost overlapped. Zach's now a store manager at a medical dispensary, and we spend this episode tracing the road that got him there. We open by swapping Nike stories — Zach started at the St. Augustine store back in April 2010 while he was still in his second semester at Flagler College, and I share my own experience working the massive Orlando I-Drive location, including my brief career as an in-store "hype man." We compare notes on just how intense Nike's brand culture could get depending on which store you worked, and why the Orlando flagships operated on a completely different level than smaller outlet locations. From there, we dig into Zach's path from retail into dispensary management, what that industry actually looks like day to day, and how a recent promotion has let him start seriously attacking old debt. We also talk candidly about the toll of a demanding pre-IB course load in high school, why he made the call to step back into regular honors classes, and how that decision — which felt like a setback at the time — ended up being the right one. The back half of the conversation turns to Zach's return to powerlifting after years of setbacks from back injuries. He opens up about what it's taken to get back in the gym, the competition he's training for now, and what it means to chase PRs again after feeling like so much time was lost. It's a real look at what patience and rebuilding actually look like. We close things out with our signature growth question — and Zach's answer, that growth is simply being able to look back and honestly say "I'm better than I was," is exactly why this episode is called what it is. Growth isn't always linear, and Zach's story is proof that setbacks aren't the end of the road — they're just part of it. 🎧 New episodes every Wednesday. Clips every Friday.📲 Follow us on Instagram: @The_catchinguppodcast🔗 Linktree: linktr.ee/The_catchiNGupPodcast #catchiNGUp #GrowthIsntLinear #Powerlifting

See All (26)

Trailer

5
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

What happens to the people who shaped you — after the bell rings? catchiNG Up is a reflective podcast where educator Peter Ng reconnects with former students, colleagues, and friends to explore who they were, who they're becoming, and what they've learned along the way. Because learning doesn't stop when the bell rings. Want to be featured? linktr.ee/The_catchiNGupPodcast

Information

You Might Also Like