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Christi is an administrator in a rural school district in Kentucky and previously taught Agriculture for 13 years. She was impacted by CTE early on in life and went into Ag Education right after finishing high school. She transitioned into administration after the birth of her children in order to reach more students by impacting teachers and to have more time for her own family. Christi also felt the need to get more involved with the ACTE organization at this point of her career.

When I asked her about what she would want anybody to know about CTE, she replied that “it offers something for everybody!” Students who come out of our programs have many options – to enter the workforce, to go on into post-secondary, to join the military… We serve any child, Christi said, from regular ed to special ed, the higher achievers with dual credit/dual enrollment opportunities as well as the child that goes directly into a career. CTE is the application of what our children have learned in ours as well as in other classes.

I also asked Christi about her experience with leadership opportunities within CTE. She replied that it is nice to get as involved as you want to be. It may sometimes be difficult to break into an organization’s structure but if you search for opportunities and make your interest to get involved known, you will find people who are willing to support you and who recognize where change needs to be made.

Christi and I are both looking forward to our mentorship year. We realized that we have a lot in common – from working as CTE administrators in our districts, to our experience with social media and our roles on Social Media committees in our respective state organizations. I am excited to work with Christi and to learn from her this year!

As a 2020 New Professionals Fellow, I’ve been eager to grow and step outside my comfort zone, while under the guidance of new colleagues, mentors, and leaders. Prior to my current role as CTE Coordinator for Baltimore County Public Schools, I was Supervisor for Technology and Engineering Education in BCPS, was a Graduate Research Assistant at Virginia Tech, and a Middle School Technology and Engineering Education teacher in Georgia. In less than 10 years, I transitioned from 1^st year teacher, to Coordinator of CTE. A significant amount of leadership change.

Although much of my leadership journey has been deliberate, many of my transitions have been spontaneous, a product of timely opportunities, would lead many in leadership roles to imposter syndrome. My mentor shared a similar leadership journey, which I realize is more common, than not. In my initial meeting with my mentor, I become cognizant of the importance of networking and relationships; more importantly how mentors shape professional growth – including my own – through conversations that are often informal. As an avid reader on leadership, my mentor shared the importance of having discussions with colleagues of all walks of life, to learn from them, share ideas, and solicit feedback. This was an area of professional growth I needed to focus on and was a significant suggestion for our first meeting.

My mentor and I also discussed the upcoming ACTE Region 1 conference, and leadership opportunities within my local region. I had not given much thought to joining a committee, championing an initiative, or taking on a leadership role, but my mentor shared her experiences and how she has been able to manage her time and full-time position. She shared how the Region 1 community has grown in recent years, even discussing the transition my state has taken to be more active. I plan to attend my upcoming ACTE Region 1 conference and find opportunities to engage in activities that relate to my background, career interests, and initiatives I’m championing in my school system.

My mentor and I also discussed her professional development plan, and suggestions for crafting my own. One of the challenges I shared, was the success I had in becoming a CTE Coordinator, yet the path was not a specific goal I truly ever pursued. Thus, creating professional development plans, were going to be a bit more focused on specific leadership competencies and experiences I wanted to achieve while in my current role.

In the wake of the COVID-19 quarantine, educators are scrambling to find ways to continue the learning online. Unless you have lived in an area that was devastated by a natural disaster, you probably have not had experience with a disruption of education. Natural disasters wipe out physical resources as well as electronic ones, at least for a period of time. With a quarantine, we have an advantage in that an electronic means of teaching and learning is still intact. Still, we are scratching our heads and asking, “How can I effectively teach online with little notice? I’m not prepared for this!”

Two days before the start of my senior year of high school, an F5 tornado destroyed my school and much of my hometown and surrounding area. Twenty-nine people died and hundreds were injured. I would have been at the school’s tennis courts that day except the first match of the season was at a neighboring town. Less than an hour after the tornado, my teammates and I arrived back at the school to a massive pile of rubble and wondered if anyone was still alive. When we got off the bus, the sound of silence was deafening – no people out and about yet, no power lines buzzing, no cars moving, no birds singing, nothing. Crying mothers soon arrived… screaming, pointing at the school, and wondering where their practicing football players were. I can still see their faces.

I have been reflecting on this event much during the past couple of weeks. Although it happened nearly 30 years ago, the experience is still clear in my mind. More specifically, though, I have been examining this perspective: How did our teachers manage to get us learning less than three weeks after a tornado leveled the school?

Luckily, we were able to relocate to a vacated school about 10 miles away. In 1990, teachers taught with books and chalkboards and curriculum filed in three-ring binders, all stored in heavy metal cabinets and most of that was gone. We didn’t use the Internet. We did not have email or text messages and we certainly did not have apps like Zoom. Call waiting was still a coveted luxury.

I’m certain that no curriculum-based learning was accomplished during the first month. We were all just trying to keep our heads above the water. After all, many students and teachers lost their homes. Some narrowly escaped death. One teacher was killed in his classroom as he was preparing for the start of the school year. I find myself thinking of the strength the teachers must have had to return to the classroom just a couple of weeks after suffering tremendous personal and professional losses.

But as a student, what do I remember? I remember teachers who smiled and tried their best to make sure we were OK – whatever that was supposed to look like. I am sure lesson plans changed drastically, both in what was going to be taught and how. Donations of supplies poured in and some of it was usable and some was not. Teachers made do with what they had. We weren’t learning curriculum; we were learning life. We were learning resourcefulness and collaboration. We were learning problem solving and critical thinking. We were learning resilience and compassion. Our teachers did not teach these things to us. They modeled them.

This is not unlike what we are experiencing with COVID-19, except we do not have a visual reminder of rubble to signify what has been temporarily taken away from us: the physical aspect of teaching. Our schools are still there; we just aren’t in them. Teachers are scrambling to figure out how to teach their classes with new tools (technology) whether or not they possess the skill to do so. “Donations” are pouring in from companies offering free access to their online tools, often overwhelming teachers because there are so many options. Many can relate to their lecturing-was-the-only-option educator ancestors who, when handed a book fresh off Gutenberg’s press, thought, “What in the heck do I do with this?”

Here’s what I do know: you will not be able to teach what you intended to teach and you certainly won’t be able to teach it the way you intended. This kind of disruption forces creativity and innovation. It forces us to think outside the box. If our teaching doesn’t change as a result of this experience, we will fail to grow as educators.

We will also fail if we do not check on the well-being of our students throughout the rest of the semester. And I mean, throughout. Some of them will not be OK even after they have gotten used to the quarantine life. Some will be affected by COVID-19 directly but every single one of them is being affected indirectly. Some of my classmates are still not “fine” after the tornado. Giving students a worthwhile experience in your online class may be the only sense of normalcy they have right now. You know it’s not the best you can do for them, but it’s all you can do right now. Your students appreciate your effort.

Tell them you are trying. Tell them you are in unchartered waters. Tell them you are all in it together and that you are going to give them the best experience you can possibly give them, with whatever means you have. But above all, be brave. They will notice. We noticed. And almost 30 years later, I still remember.

I recall back in 1990’s reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) and consecutively completing a Franklin Covey Planning workshop. I had felt that I was “Covey Ready” to begin my journey into educational leadership. Stephen Covey taught us to be more effective in accomplishing our goals by aligning ourselves to the principles of “true north”. Covey described “Ture North” as a moral and ethical compass that is timeless and foundational to a leader’s character. With book and planner in hand and my brain busting with new information, I felt that I was well-prepared.

I am a regular podcast-“er” which is sometimes good and sometimes not-so-good. By that I mean that sometimes I get tired of pouring “knowledge” in and take the occasional daily break with “junk food” for the brain. This typically equivalates to the occasional stand-up comedy or pop-culture podcast.

I did take the time to listen to Stephen Covey podcast and other recommended leadership audio tutorials. When The 7 Habits for Highly Effective Teens (Sean Covey, 1998) came out on the local bookshelves I purchased a class set for the entrepreneurship program I taught.

As you can tell I was a true advocate for the teachings of Stephen Covey.

When our Fellowship Group was given the charge of choosing a book about leadership I had originally chosen “The Life Code” by Dr. Phil McGraw. I appreciated this reading but felt I needed to find something that better aligned to my own journey into leadership. That is when I decided to do some googling which lead me back to over a dozen selections from Stephen R. Covey. After browsing through the various titles and summaries I landed on The 8^th Habit From Effectiveness and Greatness (2001).

Covey describes the 8^th Habit as:

“…the most important vision of all is to develop a sense of self, a sense of your own destiny, a sense of your unique mission and role in life, a sense of purpose and meaning”.

In alignment with this is one of my favorite Dr. Phil McGraw’s quotes:

“If you don’t know who you are and someone comes to tell you who you are, there’s nothing for them to compete with.”

It’s about knowing “self”. Knowing your mission, role, and a sense of destiny. The 8^th Habit is defining what that sense of self is. It’s also about defining your purpose and your meaning. Covey suggests that it takes profound personal reflection and asking deep questions to yourself.

In Chapter 5 Covey provides a visual interpretation on this 8^th element with a segmented circle with passion, vision and discipline circling the inside of portion of the word “Conscience”.

In regard to the conscience Covey quotes Gandhi’s teachings about what will destroy us:

• Wealth without work
• Pleasure without conscience
• Knowledge without character
• Commerce without morality
• Science without humanity
• Worship without sacrifice
• Politics without principle

These points are reflective of gifts that are falsely gained.

However, “…When people strive to live by their conscience, it produces integrity and peace of mind”, author J.H. Boetcker.

Covey explains what he calls “The 4 Roles’ model. In a five-year study called the “Evergreen Project” more than 200 well-established management practices as they were employed by over 160 companies over a 10 year period. They concluded that companies that outperformed their industry peers excelled at four primary management practices:

1. Strategy -Devise and maintain a clearly stated, focused strategy.
2. Execution – Develop and maintain flawless operation execution.
3. Culture – Develop and maintain a performance-oriented culture.
4. Structure – Build and maintain a fast, flexible, flat organization.

In summary the 8^th Habit is finding your voice and inspiring others to find theirs.

If I had to define my own voice, I would use the 4 components with each being titled the same as Covey’s.

1. Passion – my passion is to enrich the lives of others by providing information and guidance that can help direct their futures. To assist companies in workforce development strategies that can build communities, increase local pools of talent and therefore provide workers with an increased sense of being valued.
2. Vision – my vision is to develop industry tools that can assist educators and businesses to begin moving at a more aligned “speed” as well as being able to utilize a common language. I also believe that understanding one another’s barriers and opportunities will bring these two entities together and authentically understanding all needs of all stakeholders. My vision is also to develop a communication tool that can reach families and students to channel authentic and unbiased information to them that they can base their decision making on.
3. Discipline – the way that I demonstrate discipline in my life is both professional and personal. Personally, I see to it everyday that I have these daily habits:
   1. I drink a bottle of water every morning when I first get up.
   2. I do some form of a workout everyday for a minimum of 30 minutes.
   3. I eat a salad every day.
   4. I drink 4 bottles of water (min.) every day.
   5. I avoid sugar, red meat and pork.
   6. I speak with my son every day.
   7. I list 3 things I am grateful for every day.
   8. Point out the positive in others.
   9. Reach out to one friend a day to let them know I am here for them.
   10. Have a personal conversation with our creator.

Professionally I see to it everyday that I have these daily habits:

1. Respond to all emails and phone calls within a 24-hour period.
2. Acknowledge a co-worker/colleague for a job well done.

Professionally I am working to become more disciplined:

1. Read one professional development book a month.
2. Focus on one professional and one personal topic each month.
3. Decrease social media time.
4. Conscious – the heart of it all. I feel that the most important act that I can submerge myself in is to role model for others that are around me. Integrity and self-value come through the peace of mind that is attained through a “clean” conscious.

As my own personal role model Dr. Phil McGraw says:

“…Those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing.”

I am not certain that I am an authentic model of this theory, but I do feel that my morals, values and ethics do drive my decision making and hope that it will have an even bigger impact in my future as a professional leader.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to have one profession my adult life and in the blink of an eye have to change my life course at the age of 43.  All of the uncertainty and worry about being able to provide for my family would be almost enough to consume a person.

This is exactly what happened with one of our post-secondary students, Brian Thomas.  Brian was a Market Manager/Butcher for 27 years before being hurt on the job. When listening to him, you can tell he enjoyed his craft and the amount of pride in how good he was at it.  It was his life.  It was the only skill he had to provide a livable wage to support his family.  Unfortunately, Brian’s workplace accident fractured several vertebrae.  The doctors were not able perform surgery on 2 of the vertebrae for fear of leaving him paralyzed.  This left him with a 20lb weight restriction meaning he could not work in any manual labor job.

Brain had to start from scratch in his professional life.  Having 3 children and a mortgage, Brian knew he had to work but was lost in what direction he should take.  He did some research and found the CADD program at Francis Tuttle Technology Center. I spoke with Brian several times throughout the enrollment process.  It was apparent that he was nervous and anxious to start the CADD program.

The first week after he started classes we touched base and he was enjoying the program, but was still apprehensive. The next week he came to me and said he thought that he had made a mistake.  He said that he was having trouble but was not a quitter so he was going to see it through.  The third week of Brian being enrolled I attended a CADD Advisory Board meeting.  The instructor shared information with the group about a project his students were working on.  He even showed one outstanding student’s project.  I immediately knew who the creator was because of conversations that Brain and I had about his hobbies.  I was proud that he had fought through his doubts and had given the program his all!  That afternoon I went to the CADD program to tell Brian “I told you so.”  Walking through the door of the classroom Brain looked at me and immediately came to me saying he needed to talk to me.  He ushered me to a table in the corner and said, “I cannot do this program.”  I was completely baffled!  He was having an anxiety attack and almost in tears.  He was talking about how he was never going to be able to keep up and he had definitely made a mistake enrolling into CADD.  I told him I was in a little bit of shock because I had just been at a meeting where his instructor used his project over students that had been enrolled in the program for a much longer time.  I shared some of the complements that the group was saying.  I then asked, “Your teacher thinks you’re doing fabulous, why do you not think you are?”  It turns out Brian had never used a computer except for the ten key to order products at his old profession.  Not only was he training for a new profession with the weight of the world on his shoulders but he was training on a device that he was unfamiliar with.   Brian was not comfortable telling his instructor that he needed him to slow down, that the simple instructions that were being given were not simple at all because he had never used that terminology before, or to ask him to show steps again.  He was bottling up the worry and frustration, working hard to try to keep up and it had got to him.  The weight of the mortgage, groceries, and family on his mind set him into panic mode.

Brian and I talked to the instructor who had no idea that he never used a computer before and the instructor was more than happy to slow down and repeat instructions.  Now, Brian is ahead in his course work.  He also has an air of confidence that was not apparent to me earlier in the school year.  As a matter of fact, Brian has become someone that other students turn to for advice.  He came to me just the other day and said, “you need to go talk to a student, they are feeling frustrated.”

One of the most relevant characteristics of leadership, according to leadership expert and author John Maxwell, is the ability to define reality in meaningful ways. Recently, equity issues have taken precedence in career and technology education (CTE) campuses to provide and support students in equitable manners. Educational equality means providing the same amount of resources and support regardless of their learning needs. Educational equity refers to the ability of providing resources and support based on individual needs. This discernment becomes even more relevant when using technology with student population who may or may not have easily available access to the internet. Moreover, teachers realize that equity issues often meet students’ needs more accurately and a variety of sources are use continuously to close the achievement gap. Thus, current reality is equitable access to technology of teachers and students, especially those dependent on improper funding methods. The duty of an educational leader is to develop an equitable strategy to help access technology and resources for teachers and students alike to close the achievement gap. Some of these strategies are discussed the following.

1. Invest in technology to provide access and training to latest tech tools

Investing in latest technology ensures that teachers have access to modern tools to deliver lessons resembling area of study for which there is a labor market demanding a set of necessary skills.

2. Invite social media to reach beyond classroom

Allowing social sites such as Twitter, Facebook etc. give your teachers the opportunity to reach to colleagues and stay abreast of professional development beyond the school and students the opportunity to connect in conjoined projects with their peers from various locations.

3. Offer access to online paid professional learning communities and resources

There are many online teacher-led professional opportunities for teachers to attend and learn about the latest use of technology in the classroom. Teachers are able to attend professional development as well as learn from best practices. This ensures that teachers and students alike have the opportunity to apply best learning principles that help close the achievement gap.

As a leader, you have a transformational and transactional responsibility to meet the needs of your teachers and students. Make no assumptions, but rather ask, observe, and seek to enhance your teacher and student skill level. First seek out how students learn and what teachers need to teach successfully, and then dive into implementation process of new tech innovations. In essence, model effective approaches for your educators to teach and your students to learn.

Happy CTE Month!

Part of engaging students in CTE is not only talking about it throughout the school year, but also showing students the benefits of CTE and how it can prepare them for college and careers after high school. I start each school year by recruiting students for my own CTSO, DECA. DECA itself “prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs for careers in marketing, finance, hospitality and management in high schools and colleges around the globe.”

Everything Career and Technical Education does is to prepare students; prepare them for college, prepare them for careers, prepare them for life. I think that is one reason why I love CTSOs so much! Students receive that hands-on learning in and outside the classroom. There are so many choices students have in CTE. All they need to do is choose a career path and CTE probably has it covered!

To engage students and use them as advocates for CTE, DECA ordered t-shirts this year that say “I AM CTE.” Teachers and students in CTE classes wear their shirts every Thursday during the month of February to get other students talking and recruit for our programs. Business students’ shirts are royal blue, Family and Consumer Science are red, Healthcare is green, Industrial Tech is Gray, Welding is black, and Agriculture is yellow. We plan to reorder shirts for new CTE students every year so this can be an ongoing campaign for Pea Ridge High School.

DECA also participates in Chapter Campaigns to engage in CTE. We work on them in class with our curriculum to then hand over to DECA for our State Conference. Currently, to advocate for CTE Month, DECA has hidden DECA diamonds around the school. Each diamond has a prize written on the back ranging from a free coffee to 50% off a single item from our school-based enterprise. This not only engages CTE students, but students around the high school. When students turn in their DECA diamonds to redeem their prizes, it gives our CTE students a chance to discuss CTE and how important these courses are.

I will never forget when I had a set of parents come up to me my second year of teaching and thanked me for DECA and everything we do. Their son, who had not quite found his niche in high school, discovered it his freshman year when he joined DECA. This student found new friends and discovered new opportunities he otherwise never would have had by engaging in DECA.

THAT is what CTE and CTSO’s do for our students.