Episode 5: Building Stronger Foundations

Embark on a journey with me, Phil Stover, as we navigate the often-overlooked symphony of public education departments and their crucial role in shaping our students' futures. Our latest episode of "Dancing in the Mind Fields" unveils the concept of 'intentional integration' and 'pastoral teachers," concepts close to my heart for uniting the instructional and operational forces of school districts. Discover how every member, from bus drivers to cafeteria staff, plays a pivotal part in nurturing young minds.

This time, I'm inviting you to reflect on the power of personal connection, sharing several transformative episodes from my own life. Several who had an impact on my journey illustrate the profound effect of pastoral care in education—a theme we explore deeply. Learn about the importance of supporting students' personal, social, and emotional growth alongside their academic achievements, and consider how you, too, can contribute to a more holistically supportive learning environment.

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phil@thedistrictmatters.com or
phil@riovistagroup.com

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Dancing in the Mind Fields and Instituto de Estudios de Historia Mexicana are subsidiaries of Rio Vista Group LLC

Enjoy listening to the podcasts and let's all keep on dancing!

Transcript

Dancing in the Mind Fields

Year One Episode 5

Building Stronger Foundations

Greetings from sunny Chihuahua, Mexico. This is your host, Phil Stover. I welcome each of you to the fifth episode of the first season of my new podcast, “Dancing in the Mind Fields.” Feedback from this series of podcasts, along with the website and Facebook group page, will allow us to discuss the joys and challenges of the forces for and against public education in the United States.

During the bulk of my career in public education I worked with and on the business, finance, and operations teams in school districts. Having said that, I was never happy with the artificial, yet ubiquitous division of a school district into the instructional and the business/operations sides of the house. I believed then and believe now that this is an artificial distinction that is a barrier to optimizing student learning. 

Many years ago, I helped create a method of professional development for stakeholders, community members, and those on the operational side of the district that I called “Intentional Integration.” It was the intentional integration of those not on the instructional staff into the learning process as partners in the same. Whether it was via mentoring during or after school hours, or by simply how they interacted with students as they worked, we sought to engage an available wider community into the instructional process.  

Our Physical Plant Operational teams were committed to “building minds by minding the buildings.” Our transportation partners helped students by being “driven to learn.” Our facilities design and  construction staff were aimed at “building student achievement.” Our strategic sourcing or procurement team was committed to “sourcing student success.” Our Labor Relations team “labored for learning.” Our budget and finance group worked to “finance the future.” Our food service team provided my favorite, “food for thought.”

Our goal was to encourage those on the instructional side of the district to allow us to join with them in working together, via our own day-to-day work and using our own unique skills to help students achieve their full potential. The business side was a dedicated team representing many different cultural, ethnic and skill-set backgrounds.  We offered all that to those on the instructional side for the purpose of joining with them in maximizing our student’s growth and potential.

 I am an advocate for what has been called the “pastoral teacher” or “pastoral learning” in public education. It is a concept that is especially popular in the United Kingdom with its National Association for Pastoral Care in Education (NAPCE). This is an organization of educators who advocate for a student experience that in addition to the traditional curricular emphasis, focuses intentionally on young people's personal, social and emotional development, not as an add-on, but as an integral component. 

 It is important to note this does not focus on “pastoral” in the traditional religious sense of the word, but literally in shepherding the students in their overall growth as a result of the school experience. As I was preparing this podcast, I was pleased to read an article in The Harvard Crimson by Dr. Danielle Allen, a Harvard professor calling for the role of the “pastoral teacher” in the search for and establishment of “academic and intellectual inquiry” at that institution. 

With the idea of maximizing growth and potential in mind, please allow me to share a few personal thoughts from my own life experience. . . . In the summer of 1969, I was a skinny 20 year old from a no-name university in northwest Arkansas. At that time, I was a religion and history major and one of my heroes whose books I was required to read was John R. W. Stott. Stott was a London pastor and a leader of the Anglican Church in Great Britain. One late summer Sunday that year, with a college classmate, I visited his church in London. We drank in every word of his sermon. After the service I shyly (yes, I was shy back then) walked up to him to shake his hand. He grinned and said, “you must be Americans, welcome to All Souls Church.”  To my great surprise he invited us to his home for Sunday dinner. He gave us, barely-out-of-our-teens-religion majors his entire Sunday afternoon. He answered questions, offered advice and made us feel like the most important persons in his world. I have never forgotten that. I don’t remember his specific words, but I will never forget the time he, one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential persons in the world, gave me, certainly one of the 100 least influential. He passed away some years ago. It is not inaccurate to say that John R. W. Stott changed this student’s self concept and possibly, my life with the gift of one afternoon. 

Abdullahi Bello-Kaoje was one of the most popular BBC Hausa-speaking broadcasters in all of Nigeria. Everyday in the early 1970s millions of people woke up to his interpretation of the Nigerian news on the radio. He was wildly popular. Prior to all of that, he was my friend. 

I lived in the Borgawa territory that ran between what was at that time eastern Dahomey and western Nigeria. Abdullahi was Fulani – a royal Fulani – part of a very rich cultural history in northwestern Nigeria. His forbearers had been leaders of the great Sokoto Caliphate. He was skinny, passionately Muslim, and a great communicator in four or five different languages!  I was skinny, passionately Baptist, and a great communicator in no language. We became terrific friends. 

For some reason I never understood, he was beaten badly at a border crossing. While recuperating under our nurse’s care, he took me to hidden Fulani places and ceremonies that others could not attend. He wasn’t yet famous, but he changed my life. He introduced me to things, people and places I could never have known or understood without him. Neither at home in rural Pennsylvania nor at the university in rural Arkansas could I have learned anything like what I learned at his side for a few months in what was to me not just a foreign country, but also a foreign world. 

 When we parted, He gave me an ancestral silver ring. He said it could make me invisible if I were ever in trouble. Unfortunately for me, it didn’t work the times my girlfriend and now wife of 53 years caught me checking out the occasional pretty lady while with her. Since that friendship of over fifty years ago I have lost the ring and Abdullahi died in a tragic accident on the Niger River. Because of him, I have never been the same. He showed me what cultural proficiency was really all about. I still miss him. That summer, he changed my life.

As a struggling graduate student some years later, I found myself skipping classes. I was working several jobs and was tired and broke. Dr. Clyde Narramore was the head of the graduate school of psychology I was attending. He heard I was missing classes. Instead of scolding me, he told me that he was announcing a scholarship for the son of a minister who had previous theological training and was majoring in counseling psychology. I will never forget that. He invented a scholarship for me. He then went one step further and hired me on the spot to be his assistant. He taught me how to write and to love doing so. He coached me, mentored me and gave of himself to me as no adult had previously done. He later died around 95 years of age. I will always be grateful to Dr. Clyde.

 Last, let me tell you about Moe. Moe Norman grew up in extreme poverty in Kitchener Ontario. He was what we would today call mild to moderately autistic on that spectrum. He struggled with communication and relationships his entire life. He also was, in the words of golfing legend Lee Trevino, “the greatest striker of a golf ball” Trevino had ever seen. His golf swing was styled as “weird, unorthodox and different, but it was also described as highly efficient, amazing and freakishly accurate. Moe won 55 tournament victories in Canada, shot 33 course records and had 17 tournament holes in one. It is said that on one hole he knew he could not hit the ball across a creek. So, he took out a three wood, aimed for the pedestrian bridge that crossed the creek, bounced the ball off it, landing it safely on the other side. I am not sure that was true, but it is a great story.

He never spent the money, nor wore the watches he won. He lived in his car as he travelled Canada, alone and without a support system. As an active player, he never had a sponsor. In 1956, he played one round in the Master’s tournament in Augusta (interestingly enough being played as I write this). In the second round, under stress from the crowds and expectations he ran off the course and drove straight home to Canada. According to his biography, Moe never had anyone in his life who understood or coached him with his autism. He was “strange,” “different” – an object of curiosity. Perhaps the greatest golfer of all time, Moe never achieved his potential, possibly for lack of a John Stott, Dr. Clyde, or Abdullahi in his life.  Read Moe Norman’s biography – it will certainly impact how you look at people who are not you.

My listeners,  let’s each commit that we will notice those who need the gift of our support, whatever our specific role in the district may be. There will be many, both among our students and our staff. Brian Tracy, the well-known speaker once said, “The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released and channeled toward some great good.” Whether your district has 600, 60,000, or 600,000 students, there will be many who need your kind words, a bit of your time, and your confidence in the ocean of their opportunity. 

Let’s each commit we will individually and collectively leave no employee or student’s potential unsailed or unexplored. Ever since the great recession of 2008 and 2009, district resources have remained flat or been diminishing, especially with inflationary costs factored in. Covid provided an influx of restricted funds, but that time and those funds have come and gone. It will be an ever-greater challenge to have the general fund resources necessary to realize consistent incremental student achievement gains over time. 

Let’s also work to diminish all the arbitrary and artificial dividing mechanisms like certificated and classified, school and central office, and management and labor. We have no time or resources for that. Let’s all join together; no one behind or in front; no one above or below….let’s walk beside each other to leave no potential unsailed or unexplored. Now, that would be a reform effort whose time has come. 

Some years ago, I wrote the following as a personal commitment to building up those around me. I penned these words: “May God grant me the grace, wisdom, and judgment to use my time well. May I not be burdened by the need to achieve more things, but by the desire to achieve better things. May I have the passion not to climb the ladder for myself but to hold the ladder for others. May I desire not to create taller buildings, but stronger foundations.” 

Thanks for tuning in to this, the fifth of our first season of podcasts. Please subscribe to us on your favorite podcast channel and email us how we are doing at phil@thedistrictmatters.com. You can also contact us on our website at riovistagroup.com or join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/dancinginthemindfields/. Everyone, have a good day and let’s all keep on dancing!