Five Takeaways from the TRANSFORMING EDUCATION Series

by

Chuck Cascio

     When I started the “Transforming Education” series on my blog last school year my goal was simple: Cut through the empty political blather and share ideas and experiences from people who have actually devoted their lives to teaching, school administration, and education-reform initiatives. As a former teacher of 27 years at both the secondary school and university levels, and as a former executive at two major education research/reform organizations, I knew this-- 

     The reality that people inside schools experience daily is vastly different from the “experience” of people who push around political and/or personal agendas. 

      Inside any school building, where youths move through various levels of maturation daily, there are multiple tensions, challenges, and, yes, rewards. Every teacher who is doing their job thoroughly is basically putting on approximately five hours of “shows” daily for youths whose brains and emotions are often pulled in many different directions. Administrators, counselors, and support staff are submerged in analyzing challenges and experiences that can help each individual child. And leaders in education reform organizations like the Urban Schools Human Capital Academy, the National Board for Professional Teaching standards, and many others put their experiences on the ground-floor as they search for innovative ways to help the daily challenges that their colleagues inside schools face.   

     These ground-floor experiences and the challenges that emerge from them are at the heart of education reform. That is not to say that political interest is not important—it is, for all the obvious reasons in American society today. But far too often, the political proposals and decisions are made without any realistic understanding of what goes into the exhausting day-to-day operations of educators. So I invited educators and education-reformers with that ground-level reality to contribute to my ongoing series “Transforming Education” and they responded with truly enlightening experiences, comments, and proposals that have the capability of making real change. 

Here are five key takeaways summarized from their collective comments, but I urge all readers to review my blog site to read their comments in depth…and to follow the series, which will continue during the 2022-2023 school year:

     >>>TAKEAWAY #1: Grass-Roots Reform—The need for transformation is immediate and it must start at the grass-roots level, which means getting the input of teachers, administrators, and educational organizations. The conversation in the field has been overtaken by politicians and others who have little or no experience actually engaging in day-to-day learning activities. Nor have they spent significant time inside school buildings actually experiencing and analyzing the fundamentals of educational operations. 

     Every person contributing to the Transforming Educations series has had--and is having--those experiences. 

     Every person in the series knows what it is like to try to engage students in activities designed to help strengthen their self-image, to increase students’ understanding that the world extends far beyond their own daily lives, and to help students commit to increasing their knowledge—all part of a process that is constantly evolving. The experiences discussed in the series are filled with levels of engagement that show the respondents’ awareness of how true education develops. From the heartbreaking racism some experienced to the realization that someone in a position of educational development actually believed in them, these educators show how their lives were changed. 

     Those lives were changed not through narrow-minded, empty rhetoric but through daily, minute-by-minute decisions made with the knowledge that the world is bigger than any one person. Through the comments of these committed educators, we see realistic actions that can be taken—actions dedicated to making students aware that their lives are more than a simple ideology.

     >>>TAKEAWAY #2: Students First--When a teacher or coach or counselor or administrator makes it a point to let students know that their lives and their intellect are meaningful and can be used for a greater good, those educators have a positive influence on countless lives. Sadly, respondents in the “Transforming Education” series also shared some examples of the opposite experience--the unnecessary criticism leveled by an education professional on students in ways that made those students feel inferior and reduced their sense of purpose. 

     Educators are not perfect…they make mistakes like lawyers, doctors, athletes, mechanics, politicians and other professionals do. They may not even be aware of their negativity in the moment and the lasting impact it can have on individual lives. But they must be made aware! There are ways to do that, to assist educators who need to have their purpose adjusted, and those methods must be implemented in order to bring teaching to a new level of professionalism--a level that is essential and is already being implemented by many in the field. 

     I believe that educators want to reach their students in a positive manner. They recognize their opportunity to change lives in a moment and to guide students as they consider their future. We see from the responses in the series that everyone, when reflecting on their own experiences as students, had both positive and negative experiences. But let’s focus on the positive, the responses that show how teachers can shape lives through simple, consistent, personalized interactions.  Transformation occurs primarily by keeping students in mind as the priority rather than the goals of politicians.

>>>TAKEAWAY #3: The Times Are (Always) Changing--Old methods of instruction are being outmoded. Relax!That does not mean that every teacher needs to become a technology expert. However, it does mean that the reality needs to be faced--kids today are tech-driven, and in the “Transforming Education” series various statements show ways in which new, more engaging methods of learning can be implemented. 

     Sure, educators should try to do things that take kids away from their technology—to engage them in conversation, to stimulate their on-the-spot thinking, to help them realize that they are MORE than their technology. But that can be done while also engaging them to use technology in creative ways--perhaps to develop videos that correlate to a piece of literature or to elaborate on a historical event or to encourage them to explore cutting-edge areas of science. The educators in this series, and the others out there like them, have those creative ideas but they MUST be given the opportunity to explore and implement them without fear of political reprisal.

     Society moves on as time moves on. New experiences impact and shape daily lives. Our cars are different. Our methods of payment for daily needs are different. Our social interactions are different. Yesterday’s science fiction is today’s reality. The respondents in the series make us realize that things also change in education and, therefore, educators and education itself must change in order to match the times and the experiences of the youths we serve.      

>>>TAKEAWAY #4: Teachers Deserve Respect…and Higher Pay--Various responses in the series also touch upon the ongoing lack of respect for teachers in particular and educators in general. This has to change. Anyone who actually believes that teaching--real teaching--is easy has never actually done it!!! Teachers are pretty much on stage for several hours per day in front of the toughest "audience" imaginable--young people whose active minds are ready to be engaged and are easily distracted. 

    As is noted in some responses, too often teachers are viewed as having an "easy" schedule--"only" working nine months of the year, summers "off," etc. That is nonsense!!!  Teachers who are deeply engaged in their work put in countless hours during the school year and during summer month studying, preparing, creating, learning. It is a nonstop process, and it is a process that requires the highest levels of professionalism. 

     Yet the average public school teacher salary in the United States is approximately $64,000, a figure that varies significantly by state and locale.  (Members of Congress and the Supreme Court receive well into three-times that amount, along with staff, retirement, and various other benefits.) Teacher benefits such as health care, retirement, IRA contributions also vary widely with some states and localities not providing pensions at all. 

     The knee-jerk reaction to improving teacher pay and related issues is that there are not enough measures in place to determine how effective teacher performance is, so providing increased benefits and pay across the board would reward even those who are not reaching high levels of professionalism. Perhaps to the surprise of many, I agree that there should be measures in place to ensure that teachers are performing at the most effective levels possible, and an answer is in front of us: 

     Series respondent Peggy Brookins heads the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, an organization that has established the highest levels of teaching performance as developed by educators and researchers in their respective fields for more than 30 years! Implementing those standards nationally would provide goals for teachers to reach, the possibility for incentivized compensation for teachers who reach those goals, and the requirement that every few years teachers must show that they are continuing to perform at the highest levels of those evolving standards. 

     Teachers deserve to be treated, evaluated, and compensated as professionals, but the standards that they are to reach cannot be established by politicians operating in isolation of the profession. The members of the profession themselves can--and have--established those standards. All that is required now is implementing a process for transformation. 

>>>TAKEAWAY #5: CHANGE IS POSSIBLE!!! This series will continue indefinitely because too many people seem to believe that meaningful change in education is either unattainable or can only come from outside sources. Every person has some experience, at the very least, as a student. But those singular experiences do not comprise the total reality! Read the insights in “Transforming Education” in order to get at least a taste of the complexity that goes into teaching, school administration, and education reform. There is no singular experience, no personal solution—education is so much bigger than the singular. It is about many; it is about thousands of individual decisions made by educators and students daily; it is about understanding that the real world is larger than any one person’s reality.

     Certainly, given the system in which we live where political realities tend to drive other realities, we should not ignore the potential impact of politicians on the decisions that need to be made to help transform education. However, those politicians should not venture into the unknown. They should make a commitment to spend significant time inside school buildings, talking to teachers and administrators, observing the incredible diversity in the student body, and meeting with education-reform organizations to gain a personal, detailed insight into what those organizations do and how they might help in the transformation.

     Change is essential. Change is overdue. Change requires thoughtful, insightful, experiential action.  With that, then yes: Change IS possible!

Your Thoughts/Comments? Write to chuckwrites@yahoo.com

Copyright: Chuck Cascio; all rights reserved.

TRANSFORMING EDUCATION TODAY
(Sixth in a Series of Interviews with Education Leaders)

Featuring Lindsay Trout

 Note from Chuck Cascio: Given the difficult issues facing educators today in the USA, I have been running a series in which I contact established educators and request their insights, in their own words, on a number of vitally important education issues. Readers who would like to comment on the views expressed may email me at chuckwrites@yahoo.com. My Twitter handle is @ChuckCascio. Not all comments will be responded to by me and/or the individuals interviewed, but all will be read and, if appropriate, forwarded to others engaged in meaningful education reform. I am pleased to present as the sixth interview in this series of the views of elementary school principal Lindsay Trout, recipient of the 2021 Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools Principal of the Year Award as well as a Best of Reston (VA) honor. Lindsay’s profile appears below:

For the past 10 years, Lindsay Trout has served as the principal of Terraset Elementary School in Reston, VA, the school she attended as a child. Her passion as an educator started as an elementary school special education teacher in Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools. Lindsay coached high school basketball and soccer at South Lakes High School in Reston before becoming a special education and leadership teacher there, which is also her high school alma mater. After earning a Masters in Educational Leadership from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, Lindsay became an assistant principal at South Lakes. When Lindsay became eligible to seek a principal position, she was selected to fill that opening at Terraset. Lindsay prides herself in a lifelong mission of giving back to the children and families of Reston, because she says the lessons she was “showered with there hugely impacted the servant leader” she strives to be every day. 

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>>>Can you identify an educator (or educators) who provided you with uniquely positive insights into subject matter as well as teaching style? If so, please explain what made them unique.

When I think of “those” two teachers whose way of teaching profoundly impacted me as a human being and future educator, I discover a common theme: authenticity. I was lucky enough to have the same teacher, Ms. Anne O’Hara, in third grade and part of fourth at Spring Hill Elementary in McLean, VA. She was a mom first and a teacher a close second. What made me want to be my best self was how she emulated being “real.” She often shared how her high school-aged daughter did in her track meets, and occasionally her son would run by the classroom window during the school day. She laughed at herself; she laughed with us; she cried and showed us how to always have space for emotions while we learned about the State of Virginia, played (competitive) kickball, or stuck up for each other in the cafeteria. Because of these lessons, we wanted to do our best and be our best…and for me, that meant wanting to be a teacher—just like her. 

Similarly, when I was a junior at South Lakes High School in Reston, VA, I had the great fortune of being chosen for the newly formed Leadership Class. The class was unique to South Lakes with no established countywide curriculum; therefore, the curriculum and focus was left to the teacher, Mrs. Faye Cascio. Our first assignment of the year set the tone that this was going to be a space of vulnerability as a way of learning authenticity. Like all exemplary educators, Mrs. Cascio modeled the “work” for this assignment. We were to bring in a song that revealed something about us/our lives/our paths as a way of introducing ourselves to each other…a way of creating a powerful classroom community. Mrs. Cascio was not above this work; rather, she courageously shared a song (a Kathy Mattea song, I still remember it!) that expressed the difficult, yet hopeful, time that was her current reality. We walked into that special classroom as strangers, and through her raw vulnerability we were instantly committed to each other, ourselves, and the work of servant leadership. (And that’s not easy to do with 22 self-absorbed teenagers!)

>>>What inspired your career as a leader in education?

When I was 13 my mom went back to school at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA to get her teaching degree in physical education. As a student in that program, she had the opportunity to volunteer at a huge Special Olympics Track and Field meet. I asked if I could go with her to volunteer. When we arrived and checked in, we were told that we were designated “huggers” and that I was assigned to any and all athletes in Lane 4 on the track. A few races in, an eight-year old named Chuckie came through the finish line in his wheelchair powered by a lever on the right side of his cheek because he was born without arms or legs. Chuckie’s affect was flat—no smile, no glimmer in his eyes and the second I lifted away from the hug I gave him, I decided I was going to stay with him through his events until he smiled. I abandoned Lane 4, checked Chuckie’s schedule of events and together we went from one event to the next. Finally we were at the softball throw station where he took his spot next to a catapult device that he could operate with his head and neck. He hoisted back the catapult, released it and that softball launched, and so did his smile for the first time all day.

After the event, Mom and I got back into her Oldsmobile Omega and I said, “Mom, I want to be a special education teacher.”

>>>Identify a couple of accomplishments that you and/or members of your school and/or organization achieved that you feel have had a lasting impact on education.

When I taught leadership in Mrs. Cascio’s footsteps at South Lakes High School, some of my students with special needs were part of the class. It was an ‘integration’ that most students had not been privy to before. Students with significant intellectual disabilities and students with severe physical impairments were integral members of our classroom community rooted in servant leadership. I created safe spaces and opportunities for students to tell their own stories about what it is like to have severe cerebral palsy or to have learning difficulties. We learned profound lessons like how to be comfortable in really long wait times so that students could attempt (and often fail) intelligible speech only to be relegated to an assistive communication device in order to participate in a classroom discussion. 

Students learned that sometimes it is blatantly obvious what someone has to offer to a situation or a cause and sometimes it takes locking arms, opening ears and being patient to learn what special contribution a person can make. As a result of living (not just learning) servant leadership, students learned to act when there was a need—a lesson I believe many of them took with them into their post-high school lives. They raised thousands of dollars for victims of Hurricane Katrina, as well as for a classmate going through cancer treatment, and also hosted a bone marrow drive (the biggest the area had ever seen) for someone they didn’t even know. These opportunities obviously impacted those in need at the time and put the students on a path of making a difference.

As principal at Terraset Elementary, through the course of the pandemic, we developed a mission called “Terraset Together.” The idea came during the aftermath of the George Floyd murder as the pandemic forced us all to be isolated in our homes. We badly needed connector pieces in a time where we felt unreachable to one another. These connector pieces especially had to reach those who felt disconnected BEFORE Covid and the George Floyd killing. We created forums where voices were not just heard but were invited to share. We didn’t just invite families who did not feel part of the conversation, we truly listened to and embraced what they had to say. We summarized our mission as a need to “do better and be better for all of our children and families” and to feel like we are making progress…in an area where there is lots of work to be done.

>>>What do you see as the major challenges in education today?

Public school systems’ way of educating children is antiquated and horrifically slow to change. Simply put, we still teach too much to one type of child/learner. We, as public school educators, do not have enough options/pathways/entry-points for students to learn their strengths in order to have something strong to build upon. Instead, we ask all students to enter a narrow pathway and hope that they have some success along the way. When they don’t (because of different learning styles and abilities, vastly different interests and needs), in essence they “fail” right to a dead end. The reality is that we, as educators, have failed to find them their path—the one that goes and goes and goes.

>>>Who should have the final say in what is taught in schools? 

In essence, students should have the final say about what is taught in schools. There is grave disproportionality between how times have changed and how public schools have not evolved since the creation of public schools in the early 1800’s. At that time, schools had a singular purpose of preparing people for democratic citizenship; we now need schools to have a space for every single child to discover their path to a productive, kind, contributing citizen. We, as a public school system, need to create more and different entry points that meet children and families where they are. We need to help children create their own paths instead of having all paths converge into one common walkway.

Copyright, Chuck Cascio and Lindsay Trout; all rights reserved.

Send comments tochuckwrites@yahoo.com