Rethinking Education #190

Zoe Weil:

I want to know that I did my best, that I strived to truly be a good and kind person. And that's what this way of thinking allows us to do. That's really rewarding. Not to mention that it creates a more peaceful and kind world. And don't we all want that for ourselves, for our children, for our grandchildren?

Steve DeAngelis:

If your students know you care about them, you want to do your very best for them that empowers them, that motivates them, and without that, you can have the best standards in the world, all kinds of standards testing, and it's not going to work for you. You got to have that relationship.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 190, Rethinking Education, airing for the first time on Sunday, May 3, 2015. Education is a multifaceted process and one that we Mainers feel strongly about. It is also an integral aspect of well being, both present and future. Today we speak with Zoe Weil, Founder of the Institute for Humane Education and longtime Marana Cook, teacher, Nordic Ski Coach and Dean of students, Steve DeAngelis about their perspectives on education. Thank you for joining us. Many years ago I picked up a book called Above All Be Kind. This was during a time when I was raising my children. I'm still raising my children. They're older now. This book is Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times and it's by Zoe Weil. Today I have across the microphone from me, Zoe Weil. So it's pretty great that I've actually been able to make this loop come full circle. Zoe is the co founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education and is considered a pioneer in the comprehensive humane education movement. She is the author of six books including the Nautilus silver Medal winner, Most Good, Least Harm, A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life, and two books for young readers, including Moonbeam gold medal winner Claude and Medea. Her first TEDX talk, the World Becomes what yout Teach, is one of the most watched of all TEDx talks. Thanks so much for coming in and being here with me today.

Zoe Weil:

It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, before you and I started talking on air, we were talking about our sons, who are both 21, and I'm wondering how much of an influence was your son on your decision to start working in the field of humane education?

Zoe Weil:

None, because I've been working in the field long before he was born. I would say, though, that being a humane educator and teaching about how we can make a more humane and sustainable and just world was more deeply motivated when I had my own child. And I had to do the best that I could to make a better world for him.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So tell me about humane education. It seems like people would hear that term and know what it means, but it has some very specific elements for you.

Zoe Weil:

It does. So the word humane literally means having what are considered the best quality of human beings. So what are those qualities? I don't need to tell anybody what they are because we all generally agree on them. And in fact, I've asked thousands and thousands of people what are the best qualities of human beings? And the lists are always very similar. Nobody says greed or violence or hatred. So we generally agree on the best qualities of human beings. But how do we live according to those best qualities, especially in a globalized world in which all of our choices are affecting other people, animals, and the environment all over the globe. So humane education links the issues of human rights and environmental preservation and animal protection with the goal of helping people to understand how they can make a difference. Or the word that we like to use is how they can be solutionaries for a more just, sustainable and peaceful world for everyone.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have a divinity degree from Harvard. What's the relationship there for you?

Zoe Weil:

Well, I was all over the map when I was in college. I actually went to college, pre med, and I abandoned that career, unlike you, and I ended up going to law school very briefly, and I wound up in divinity school because I was fascinated by people's belief systems and their values. And I was studying comparative world religions, really trying to understand what are people's core values and beliefs and what are those impacts of those values and beliefs in the world. And I actually at the time imagined that I would become A college professor and teach world religions. And I ended up going down a different path. Everything was slowly but surely leading me toward humane education. Although what I do didn't exist when I was in college or graduate school, so I had to create it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This has been an interesting process for you and one that you've undertaken while living in Maine. Most people would have a big idea and head towards the big city. You didn't?

Zoe Weil:

Well, I grew up in the big city, the biggest one in the United States. I grew up in New York City and I went to college in Philadelphia. And I also lived in Washington D.C. and Boston. So until I was 35 years old, I lived in some of our biggest cities, at least here on the east coast. And when I was first a humane educator, it was in the Philadelphia area. And I was going into schools in a 60 mile radius in, in and around Philadelphia. I was reaching about 10,000 students a year. And I realized that if we wanted to really transform the world, to make the world a just and peaceful and healthy place for everybody, that we needed a massive movement to transform education. Education is the root system that underlies every other system. And if we educate young people to have the knowledge and the tools and the motivation to be solutionaries, we will be able to solve the problems that we face in the. I was watching the tremendous power of this education in the Philadelphia area. I would go into schools, I would watch kids after a single presentation that I gave, start a school club and then go on to be advocates and activists and do all sorts of incredible things. And there were so many stories I could tell you and I thought we really need a movement. And so I co founded the Institute for Humane Education primarily to train other people to be humane educators. And we created the first graduate programs in humane education. And they were online long before online education was as popular as it was. So really we could be anywhere. And why not be in an incredibly beautiful, wonderful place like the state of Maine. Our graduate programs, they started there online, except for one week. And our students, they come here to Maine, they fall in love with this incredible place from all over the world. Then we started doing more. We would do workshops, I would travel and lead workshops all over the country and overseas as well. And also online courses that were short so you didn't have to do a whole graduate program. And then we created a free downloadable resource center on our website. It's an award winning resource center. So we have teachers and advocates and activists all over the world who are downloading those resources so we could really be Anywhere. And now we're in the process of creating the first solutionary school. And our plan is to open it in New York City and create a totally revolutionary, totally innovative K12 curriculum that will be free and shareable to the world. So whether I'm in Maine or not won't matter, because this is going to be the wave of the future of education.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I like it. I was on your website. I was looking at the ideas behind a solutionary school, and it is K through 12, so it's going to be complete. You're going to start when they're very, very small and get them in a good place before they head off to college. Why New York City?

Zoe Weil:

Well, New York City is one of the many places where we want to see this school happen. We had a number of people who are in New York, some of our graduate students are in New York City. And so when we were looking for a place where there were going to be a lot of people who wanted to be involved in making this happen, we had those people in New York City. And of course, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere, right? So bringing the first solutionary school to New York City is a way to really showcase this kind of education. But the goal is not a single school. This will be a flagship school, but it won't be the single school. It will be a model for replication everywhere. So I am really looking forward to solutionary schools opening here in Maine and across the world.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Solutionary is kind of an interesting word because I think often when we are dealing with problems, we're dealing with problems, we're not dealing with the answers to the problems. But you are right up front saying, we are people who want to actually move things forward in a positive direction. We want to be the solutionaries. So how did you come to this place that you're calling it solutionary school?

Zoe Weil:

Well, the word came up from a former executive director of ours who just came up with that term solutionary, and I just loved it. I said, that's it. That's the word we've been looking for that really explains who we want to be and who we want young people to be. One of my frustrations with, well, society in general, certainly with government and with the media, is that so many issues are presented to us in either or terms. And even in schools, we have debate teams and students are often assigned one side or another of what's sometimes a fabricated either or or sometimes is a problem, but it's presented in black and white terms, and the students are Taught to research it, argue it, and win for their side, even if they don't agree with their side. Now I see the value in becoming that kind of critical thinker and learning persuasive skills and articulation skills. That's all good, but is that really the best we can do? And it occurred to me when I was listening to NPR one day in my car and one of those NYU debates was airing and the issue was, was the United States responsible for Mexico's drug wars? And it was again presented in either or terms. And I think my jaw dropped. I thought, that is a very complex issue and question why would we want to argue one side or the other? Why wouldn't we put the great minds together to talk about how can we end Mexico's drug wars? What are the solutions to that terrible problem? I thought, what if instead of having debate teams in all these schools in the United States, we had solutionary teams so students would be able to find a problem? It wouldn't have to be assigned to them. They could find a problem. It could be a small problem, it could be a problem in their school, could be a problem in their neighborhood, it could be a global problem. And the goal would be that they would work together collaboratively using their various skills and interests, and they would come up with solutions to the problem and then they could present those solutions. We're a very competitive society. So if we want to have those teams compete, they can still compete for the most innovative, the most practical, the most viable, the most cost effective solutions to real world problems. They're going to gain the same critical thinking skills, strategic skills, holistic thinking skills, system skills, but they're also going to be able to solve a problem. And the best ones, well, we could implement them. Wouldn't that be amazing?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's a great idea. I think about my own children and watching them evolve through the school systems. And it is black and white often. It's often we're training kids that they can be right or wrong, they can win or they can lose. And that's not really the way that the world works. Having worked with the Maine Media Collective now for several years and writing for the magazines, doing the radio show, it is a collaborative project. It is everything that comes out of this office is touched by many people. So you need to actually solve problems as a group. And I don't think that those skills are something that necessarily are fostered all the time in education.

Zoe Weil:

I don't think they're fostered much at all. Competition is happening constantly in education. At every turn. Right. Even grades are often just competitive. Right. If kids are graded on a curve, that's competition right there. The goal isn't really to make sure that every student gets an A because that means they mastered the content. You know, we would just say, oh, that's great. Inflation grades don't mean anything anymore. Everything is a competition. And so while we pay lip service to collaboration, because businesses, industries, everybody wants collaborators. Collaborators are really key. And nobody wants to hire somebody who's not a good collaborator. And yet, where do we teach it? We don't. We often think if we just throw kids into a group, they're going to collaborate, but they haven't been taught how to collaborate. It's a really important skill. And just to go back to the solutionary teams, on our website, which is humaneducation.org, people can download a solutionary team toolkit. So any teachers listening to this who want to create solutionary teams can just go to our website. It's free, and you can start a solutionary team in your school.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

the title of the book that I first read of yours above all, Be Kind Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times. I know this is not your latest book, but it's the one that I first read. I was drawn to it because of the idea of kindness and compassion, but not in a passive way. And I think that's often what we think of when we think of being compassionate. We think of not speaking ill of other people or being nice. But you're talking about a very active, mindful approach to being kind. You're talking about really taking into consideration how everybody is impacted. Everybody, meaning every creature, every living thing, is impacted by any given decision and moving forward with that knowledge. So that's an interesting. That's interesting because it's not easy.

Zoe Weil:

No, it isn't easy, but it really feels good to try. And you're right, kindness is not the same thing as being nice. Right. Being nice does feel more passive to me. Kindness is compassion in action. To me, it means really being aware of the effects of one's choices. And proximal kindness, that is, you know, being kind to people with whom you interact, that's hard enough. We have enough trouble with that. I mean, we have all of these anti bullying programs in schools because people have challenges just being kind to each other when they're interacting. How much harder is it then to be kind? When the food you eat or the clothes you wear or the electronics you use or the products you buy may have come with so many effects on other people, on other species, on the environment, they could have been terribly cruelly produced, terribly environmentally destructively produced. And it takes a real act of will to say, I'm willing to learn about that. I'm going to find out about the effects of my choices so that I can truly become in a very expansive way. And people listening to this might think, well, that's overwhelming. I don't want to know if it's going to mean that I have to constantly be looking at all my choices. And I get that. And yet there's something deeply satisfying about striving to live with integrity. And I often think to myself, you know, I have to look at myself in the mirror every day and one day I'm going to die and, and I want to know that I did my best, that I strived to truly be a good and kind person. And that's what this way of thinking allows us to do. It's really rewarding. Not to mention that it creates a more peaceful and kind world. And don't we all want that for ourselves, for our children, for our grandchildren?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think we do. And I also think you're right that people can feel overwhelmed by it because there are people that, and I've been in this situation myself where you really want to do what's best, but sometimes what's best over here is not best over here, you know, and something that you're trying to do that's good for the plants and the animals, sometimes it's hard on the people. And it's a challenge. It's a challenge to kind of weigh all of those decisions.

Zoe Weil:

Yes. And this gets to the reason why humane education is so important. And so schools are so important because we need to address the interconnected systems. And so often we look at problems in isolation. And when we do that, that means that we solve them in isolation. And that means that you may cause harm and suffering somewhere else as you're trying to solve a problem over here. So becoming a deep systems thinker when we have so many systems that intersect. So for example, in a unit that we are creating for the solutionary school, this is a 6th grade, 6 week unit around this, what are the connections between public Health problems. And the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Now when you hear that, well, first you might think, I don't know what the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is. What it is, it's an area in the Gulf of Mexico where life no longer exists. And it's because oxygen has been depleted in that area. Now why did that happen? It happened because of runoff from the Mississippi River. What's in that runoff? Nitrogen fertilizer, primarily. Also, sometimes treated sewage is a problem there. And where does all that nitrogen fertilizer come from? It comes from the way we do agriculture. And so you get into so many different ways of thinking, many systems. Now, what does all of that have to do with public health? Well, the way we do agriculture is affecting public health. We are eating too much meat and dairy products. We are eating too much junk food. And most of that is food that comes from the area around the Mississippi that is just sprayed with pesticides. Massive, massive areas of feed crops which are then fed to animals which produce only a small amount of beef back or chicken back or dairy back from the amount that we put in. We have all of the corn that's being grown and that goes into all of that junk food that we eat. And all of that is contributing to health problems. Then we have our healthcare system, we have our economic system, we have our advertising system, our agricultural system, our political system, our subsidy system, our tax system. There are so many intertwining systems with a question as simple as what are the connections between public health problems and the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico? Now imagine a sixth grader learning about all of these interconnected systems and realizing that there is no quick solution. They have to be system thinkers and think about all of these systems and then what are they going to do? Well, imagine as some of them learn these things, they go to their legislators and they say, why is it that we are subsidizing certain agricultural products? Why is it that a fast food cheeseburger and an organic apple cost the same amount? How is that possible? How is it possible that soy milk costs more than dairy milk when dairy milk is produced from cows who are fed crops like soybeans? And the conversion rate is a terrible conversion rate. How are these things possible? Then they're going to find out about tax subsidies and then they're going to be talking to their legislators saying, why do we do that? And then some of them maybe will become legislators themselves, or they'll draft legislation, or they'll become advocates in their community and they'll try and actually solve these problems at the source. Another kid might be going to the school cafeteria and saying, hey, we need to make sure that the food that we eat here in our school are healthy and just and humane and sustainable. How can we do that?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking about the actual spiritual roots of what you're describing. I'm thinking about the Buddhist tradition, which is not a religion, but it is a tradition, and the idea of interconnectivity and the idea of everything being related. Did any of this come into your mind as you were thinking about humane education?

Zoe Weil:

Yes and no. Well, first, I will say that I love the Dalai Lama's line, kindness is my religion. I think that's beautiful. I would say that I found it fascinating when I was studying world religions to learn about different traditions and their. What they taught about our relationship to the natural world, our relationship to other animals. I did find that very interesting to learn about. But I wouldn't say that any of my humane education work stemmed from any sort of spiritual or religious beliefs. It definitely stems from my ethical beliefs. And, you know, the principle that I try to live by is the mogo principle, Mogo being short for most good. How can we do the most good and the least harm to people? Animals and the environment and ourselves are included in that category of people. How can we do the most good and the least harm? That, to me, is the ethical principle by which I try to live. And I think that humane education at its core, is inviting people to figure that out for themselves.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What about the Quaker tradition? You were in Pennsylvania for your education. Obviously, there's a strong Quaker influence in Pennsylvania. And when we had Billy Shore, who was the founder of Share Our Strength, the childhood hunger relief organization, he was on our show. He actually sent me some books that were written by a teacher who has a Quaker background. Did any of that. I mean, obviously, this is its own thing, but were you aware also of that?

Zoe Weil:

Well, I was certainly aware of the Quaker tradition. I have given presentations and talks in many Quaker schools in the Philadelphia area because there's so many of them. Again, though, I would say that my values and thinking around these years intersected with, but were not informed by, the Quaker tradition.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I just think it's interesting as you're talking about systems, and I always think, you know, when I'm asking people questions about where they. Where they came from and what their influencers were. And I think it's interesting that you have synthesized something that is entirely new. This mogo principle and the idea of humane education and the solutionary school, but that it does. There are some echoes, I guess, of things that have been around.

Zoe Weil:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And that maybe in some ways, I would think that might be helpful for some people, because they already have a framework in their mind, they're already familiar with some of these other things, so that maybe they can start connecting with what you're describing.

Zoe Weil:

Absolutely. Because at our core, it's like what I said at the beginning about if you ask people what are the best qualities of human beings, the lists are always so similar. So these are innate to human beings. We agree that kindness and integrity and generosity and courage are good qualities. So I don't think anything that I've said is all that new. I mean, the Mogo Principle, sure, I coined the phrase Mogo for what that's worth, but the idea of doing the most good and the least harm is very ancient. Right to me. I liken it to the Golden Rule. To do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or to not do unto others. What is anathema to you? I mean, both of those versions of the Golden Rule are in every religious tradition and every humanist tradition. They're deeply embedded in our value system as human beings. And I would just say that the Mogo Principle asks us to take that Golden Rule and really apply it in a systematic way in a complex, globalized world. Sometimes I think people could hear this and say, do I have an agenda that I am trying to push on young people? And I would say, yes, the agenda is to do the most good and the least harm. But that's where it ends. I'm not going to tell anybody what they should think, what they should do, but I am going to ask people to think and to consider what they do in relationship to this principle. I've asked thousands and thousands of people, do you think that this principle of doing the most good and the least harm is a good principle by which to live unanimously? People say, yes. Nobody has ever said, no, that's not a good principle by which to live. We agree on the principle. Principle. We're going to disagree on how we manifest that principle, but at least let's do it honestly and with integrity. And that's what I think schools need to enable students to do. I mean, we live in such a different world from when you and I were in school. It's changing so dramatically, and yet schools haven't changed that much. And our children need to be able to graduate and negotiate this very complex world in which all of the information, all of human knowledge is available to them in a device that fits into their pocket. And yet we still have them memorizing the names and dates of presidents. Let's have them actually doing work, thinking about real world issues and trying to solve what are potentially catastrophic problems that we are facing now. I'm very optimistic. I actually believe that we are living in less violent, less discriminatory and less cruel times than ever before in recorded human history. And there's so much evidence to back that up if somebody wants to research that. So I am not Pollyanna ish about this, but the evidence is there. At the same time, the threats that are facing our children are pretty frightening threats. Climate change is a frightening threat. We have over 7 billion people. That number is continuing to grow. Every single person on this earth needs access to adequate food and clean water and a home and economic opportunity. So we face some really big issues. We are depleting the so many species of sea animals in the oceans. We are in the midst of what people are calling the city sixth extinction. We are losing so many species we don't even know exist. We're losing them. This is frightening. We could potentially lose half of all species on Earth by the end of this century if we don't figure out how to live more sustainably and live more ethically. So this is so important and this is what young people need to be able to learn to do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how do people find out about the solutionary school that you are starting, your flagship solutionary school and the Institute for Humane Education.

Zoe Weil:

So people can go to our website, humaneeducation.org they'll find links to everything, our graduate programs, workshops, free downloadable resources, the solutionary school, our blog, all sorts of things there. And they'll also find links to my TEDX talks. I've done six of them and so people can find out everything in one place. Humaneeducation.org We've been speaking with Zoe Weil,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

who is the co founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education and who is considered a pioneer in the comprehensive humane education movement and author of six books, including the one I have on my lap. I'm going to have you sign it before you leave. People who are listening, please do take the time to learn more about this. I think it's an important thing that Zoe is doing and I know it's great that you've taken the time to come all the way down here and talk with us. So thank you.

Zoe Weil:

Thank you. It's been really fun.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As a physician and small business owner. I rely on Marcy Booth from Booth, Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marcy

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Given that my mother is a teacher, I always enjoy and of course that I've had lots of education myself and many fine teachers, I always enjoy having people on the show who are themselves teachers and have dedicated their lives to this very important field. Today we'll be Speaking with Steve DeAngelis, who is a science teacher, Nordic ski coach, and halftime dean of students at Marina Cook High School in Readfield. Thanks so much for coming in and talking with us today.

Steve DeAngelis:

Thanks for letting me come. It's nice here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm really impressed with your memory of Nordic ski history. It goes back almost as far as my graduation from high school and that that says a lot because it was a while ago. I graduated in 88 and you were remembering people that used to ski on the team that I was with at Yarmouth.

Steve DeAngelis:

That's because they used to squash us like bugs. And so they were really good. They were our idols. When I first started coaching skiing, Bob Morse had been at it for a while at Yarmouth, and he still is, which is pretty impressive. I'll talk about someone who's been around a long time, but they the Yarmouth teams were the teams that when I first started coaching, we were in last and they were in first and we always, you know, that was our model. We wanted to emulate them. So we got to the point where we could compete with them pretty successfully. So that's good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah. You actually have done a great job with the Mirana Cook group. And it's something that. I guess why I'm so impressed with this is that, I mean, this is a decades long project that you've been working on. Why Nordic skiing?

Steve DeAngelis:

I've coached other sports as well, but I stuck with Nordic skiing for a couple of reasons. One is I love being outdoors and it's still something I can do with them every day. So when we're at practice every day, I'm skiing with the kids, you know, and that's hard to do that. You know, as a basketball coach my age, you're really not running up and down the court very much with the high school kids if you're playing it. But I can still ski with most of them, except the very fastest ones now, but. So that's always been a big part of it. But the other reason is really related to how much I love teaching because teaching and coaching are really the same thing in different places. And for me, coaching is especially Nordic skiing is a great way to teach some of the life lessons that I want my kids to learn. You know, it's a sport that requires intrinsic motivation to be good at. You know, nobody comes out to for Nordic skiing because they're like, oh, I'm going to be on the front page of the paper. There's going to be big crowds cheering me. Because no, if you're a Nordic skier in Maine and you're really successful, your parents and a couple of other people might be there at the race. And when you cross the line, you'll have drool coming out of your mouth and a big snot thing coming down your chin probably. And if you'd had a really good race and it could be 20 below zero and you're still out there skiing in this great wind chill or whatever. And so you have to be intrinsically motivated and you also have to deal with the elements, like whatever you're given on a given day. It's not the same. Every basketball gym is pretty close, the same, the rim's the same height and so forth. But every trailer is different. The weather's different, the wax is different, you name it, it's all different. You have to adapt. So those are great life lessons. And the other cool, cool thing about Nordic skiing that makes me crazy passionate about it is that it's a neat Blend of individual and team. Like we always do better, I think, because we work incredibly well with the team. It's a tradition on our team that the older kids work with the younger kids. At the start of the season. We have like 40, 50 kids in the team. And I'm often the only person there, the only adult. They know that if we're going to get better, they have to teach the younger kids. And so that's part of the tradition that builds great teamwork. But also we have a full range. Out of those 40 kids, there are some who had never been on skis before, ever, ever. And other kids who were going to be state champions this year. And out of that whole range, it's really great to work with kids, to have them meet their own individual goals as well. And their individual goals don't have to be to be a state champion. It can be to, you know, make it through a race without falling. And it's awesome to watch kids grow and change in a way that is almost without public notice, that it's all within themselves. And I think that's an awesome thing to learn how to do to reach those kind of goals.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you're now in the off season for skiing and you're still very busy because you're still a teacher, you're still a halftime dean of students. How do you stay physically active?

Steve DeAngelis:

That's a good question. It's not always easy to do all the kind of endurance training that I want. You know, that I would undoubtedly spend much longer time wise out skiing or running if I didn't have the job I have. So it's kind of a trade off. But I work it into other things that I do. Like we have a little sugar house we built out back of the house in Reed Field. And we just got done. We had our last boiling this last weekend. It's got too warm now. But I was thinking about just last week I was out carrying these five gallon buckets of SAP through the woods and two feet of snow on snowshoes. And you wouldn't say, oh, I'm going out for a workout. But you're getting a workout, a really good workout. And so I think a lot of what I get to do, I build it in little bits as part of our daily routine. We have a lot of land in Reed Field and we have a Christmas tree farm. A grow your own Christmas tree farm. That works out great because all the work for that's in the summertime and a lot of mowing and walking in the woods for that we have a woodlot. We cut all our own firewood, and I split it all by hand because I like to do it. So, you know, it's kind of like just fits in with the flow of life, all right. It helps me to stay safe, relatively fit that way. My kids like to tease me that I'm really skinny and wiry and look a little. But I have old man strength. Old man strength, which just comes from, you know, just doing stuff, you know.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I mean, I commented to you as you were coming in that you do look remarkably youthful, considering that you have been coaching as long as I. As far back as when I was skiing.

Steve DeAngelis:

You don't have to keep going on the far back part as much. You know, you could lighten up on that a little bit, probably.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But Bob Morrissey, you've already mentioned my ski coach. I mean, he was doing it long before I got there. He's still doing it. He looks pretty much the same.

Steve DeAngelis:

He really does now.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

He looks pretty much exactly the same.

Steve DeAngelis:

He said that gigantic mustache forever, and he looks very much the same. And he's still out there skiing, too, with the kids. He's doing amazingly well. It's an awesome sport. I keep going back to it, but great stuff.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is a great sport. You also have. You have quite a lot of educational background yourself. In addition to your Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from the University of Maine at Orono, you also have a Master's of Education and counseling from Orono. So you have lots of. You've done science, you've done counseling, this education piece. So you, in addition to this physical thing that you do with the skiing, you're also. You have this intellectual aspect of you as well. So talk to me about how that whole progression was made. Chemical engineering is a very difficult major. Why did you decide to go from there to education to teaching, counseling? How did that all come together?

Steve DeAngelis:

That's an awesome question, actually. That's a great question. I graduated from Maine with a chemical engineering degree, like you said, and I worked for what was at the time Scott Paper Company, first in Winslow and then up near Skowhegan, and they were doing a startup of a mill there at the time. And it was really interesting work, really challenging, super financially rewarding, very intense because we were doing the startup. But then after a couple of years of that, just about a little less than two years, it felt. It's really hard to describe, but I just felt like I wanted to be doing something more for other people than I was, which really hadn't Occurred to me a great deal going through high school and college. I loved science. I loved the nerdy stuff, Loved thinking about and figuring out things, Loved math. And my dad was involved in. In the science field. And so it just made sense to me. I'm just going to do that. In all honesty, I just did it because I was good at it. Made sense to me. And then I started looking around at my job after a couple years, and I remember, I still remember distinctly, there was this older fellow there, had been there for a number of years, worked for Scotty. We're not at that place. And I asked him, he didn't seem that interested in his job. So I asked him, what are you still doing this for? I started thinking about it a little bit. He says, all of a sudden, they got the golden handcuffs on me. Which just meant, he said, if I quit this job, my wife would not get to drive the car. She does. My kids, the golden handcuffs. And that just still resonates with me today. It really resonated with me then. I was like, I don't want golden handcuffs. And just. So I started looking around, just really with no idea. And of course, no Internet at the time. This is back, as you pointed out, a long time ago. So I was looking in want ads and stuff like that, and I was reading, reading the Sunday paper, and I saw a picture of the principal at Morana Cook School. It had just started up in 1976. This was in 78. And he was sitting in the hall with his arm around a kid. And I'm like, that does not look like the principal of my high school. And it just interested me. I kind of tucked it away. And then it just. Soon. Deputy. Two weeks later, I saw an ad, this was in early August, for a chemistry teacher at Marana Cook. And I'm like, how hard can that be? I'm a chemical engineer. I can teach chemistry. And when I look back on it, I was, like, incredibly arrogant to think because, I mean, I'm like, I'm a big bad chemical engineer. The education majors had it so soft in college. That's what I was thinking. And so I was like, I applied for it just on a whim. I'd never had an education course in my life. Never student touched. So I'm like, yeah, they're not going to interview me. They called me up, they asked me to come interview. And it was a pretty experimental place that I was into the open school concept, and they were willing to take risks, and they took a giant risk. I remember they called Me back, like two days later after this grueling interview. And I thought, well, that's all we're done with. They called me back and offered me the job. And I seriously asked them if they had the wrong number. I thought they had called the wrong person. And so they said, no, no, you're the one we'd like to offer this job to. And it was just a gut feeling. I said, okay, I'm going to apply. I'm going to take it. And this was like two weeks before school started in August. And so I took that job. And it was the hardest thing I'd ever done. It was like just such talk about an awakening. It's like, really? Oh, that's what it's like. It was just brutally hard. I mean, in part because I had never student taught, never had an education course in my life. But I had an awesome. A wonderful, wonderful department chair who really helped pull me along for the first couple of years. I got lucky. I got hooked in with some other physics teachers up in Waterville, and Mike Goslin was one of them who had been doing it for a lot longer. And they taught me a lot more about the teaching aspect of it, not just the content. I started out teaching chemistry, but then, like a lot of things, when you teach something, you can get really, all of a sudden, like, the light goes on. And the first year I teach one physics course, which was the hardest thing for me as an engineer. I never, even though I was successfully working as an engineer, I never really totally get it. Taught that for a year, and about halfway through the year, I remember thinking, oh, my God, that's how this works. I totally get that. And so then I just fell in love with physics and started doing that all the time and wound up getting a lot of. Doing a lot of work over the summers and continuing education with physics. And now when I teach, that's all I teach is physics. So that's kind of a. That's the short version.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The short version.

Steve DeAngelis:

We'll give you the short version.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how about this Masters of Education in Counseling? Why the counseling piece?

Steve DeAngelis:

Well, because Miratica has an awesome advisor system, a really, really wonderful thing where each teacher in the building and most the administrators even have a group of 10 to 12 students that they follow through. They take them as 9th graders and follow them through to 12th graders. Not just in homeroom. You have days out with them. You do, like, a number of extended activities beyond just a homeroom every day. And the other key piece that I think sets me random cook apart I think it's the reason I've stayed there is I feel that we do a great job of educating the whole person, really paying attention to helping them become mature adults and learn how to communicate and work with other people. Things that go beyond just the content of your courses. And I felt that if I was going to be a real. After the first couple years, I thought, if I'm going to be a really good advisor. I got a chemical engineering degree, no education background, I got to learn some more. So I took a leave of absence for a couple years and got a counseling degree mostly to help me to be a better advisor. And I came back.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How does that help you with your dean of students position that you do

Steve DeAngelis:

half time A great deal as it turned out, I always resisted that for a long time. I've been there since 1978. And so with the exception of that, two years off to get my master's in counseling. And so for, you know, as I got older and had been around for a while, people kept asking me, do you want to be principal? Do you want to go into administration? I always said no because I really, really, really love working with students with kids. Teenagers are, they keep me vibrant. It's the best and it's still the best. I love, love, love working with teenagers. And so then about three and a half, four years ago now. Yeah, three and a half years ago, one of the two deans of students positions opened up. We have half time dean of students because we feel it's important that the people in that role also stay in touch with the teaching side of things. So rather than having a full time assistant principal, we have two deans of students who both have time and teach half time. We share the dean of students part and nobody from in school applied for it. They were going to open it up outside of the school and I just felt like we needed to have someone who knew the way the school operated to be able to do it. So I did it really not because I wanted to. I still was pretty convinced that was not a good idea. I really missed and I missed the teaching still. But it's turned out to be a really good thing for me because that's where the counseling piece comes in. I really spend like when I teach physics, I spend half my time with students who really for the most part love school. They're into school, they're good at school, they get it, they like it, want to do it, spend their time at it. And then in my dean students role, I spend half my time with a Lot of kids who really don't like school, you know, school's a struggle for them for various reasons. And, you know, my thinking about that part of the job is I don't want to be seen as kind of the assistant principal who is the head knocker, you know, just like, out there, like, knocking heads to get people to do it. I want to be as proactive as possible. So my goal is to get to know all the students that I work with before they get in trouble. So you have a relationship with first. So when a kid's doing something that they shouldn't be doing, and you have to call them on it, you call them on it. Like the same reason you call your own children on something, because you love them, because you want them to be successful. And you know that if they can just skate around, do whatever they want, that's going to be a struggle for them at some point. And so I try to be as proactive as possible in that job, get to know the kids first, get to kind of head off issues. So, you know, one of my crowning achievements after doing it for a couple years was one of the students in our Alt ed program. His teacher overheard him say, oh, man, I would just crack that kid. Except Mr. D would find out about before I ever did it anyway, so there's no point, you know, And I was like, yeah, that's awesome, you know, because I just said that he knows I'm looking. He knows I care about him, knows. So it's like proactive stuff. So if that can happen, that's the best. And that's the counseling part.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm thinking about sort of the parallels between education and health. Obviously, health is what I'm in, and I'm a family doctor. And you've come to a place where there's Common Core, standardized testing, no Child Left Behind. Medicine has come to a place where we're asked to uphold certain standards. We're constantly being evaluated not only on whether we're good at being doctors, but whether we're good at talking to our patients. And ultimately, in both cases, it's hard for us to be measured on relationships. And yet those end up being probably the most important part of both fields. So how do you stay kind of focused on the importance of the relationship when what you're being told from the outside is we need you to meet these external goals that we think are important?

Steve DeAngelis:

In a way, I'm kind of lucky because I have been teaching for a long time, and I know in my heart what works, and I Know that if your students know. I mean, the most important thing, I think, for a teacher is to be passionate about your subject and what you teach and passionate about kids. Because if your kids know, if your students know you care about them and you want to do your very best for them, that empowers them, that motivates them. And without that, you can have the best standards in the world, all kinds of standards testing, and it's not going to work for you. You got to have that relationship. That's another key part about being a teacher, is just being able to meet kids where they are, to connect with them and understand why this kid is learning it differently than someone else. And that takes time. That takes that relationship building. And I know that if you can do that, that's the starting piece. And then I really think that I like the idea of Common Core, by the way. Well, at least as applied to science. Certainly I don't know as much about it for English and math, although certainly our teachers are working hard on that. But what's called the Next Generation Science Standards were just adopted actually by Maine. They're great. It's basically saying these are the things that people who really know the field think are most important to learn. I like that part. I think where I really very seriously differ is our emphasis on doing lots and lots and lots of standardized testing to prove that we're teaching that. Because it takes time away from teaching, and it takes the emphasis away from. Puts the emphasis too much on content and not enough on knowing how to figure stuff out and how to learn. Because that's my big goal with my students, is when I teach physics, I'm thinking less about. It's important that you know these equations and this content. Matter of fact, we don't have memorized equations. They always wonder. As we learn new equations, we put them up on a big poster, it's on the wall, and they're all around the room. We don't have to memorize that. Nope. You need to know how to use them. Okay. And what's most critical, I think, is that we teach people not the content so much, but how to learn and how to figure things out. Because if you know a whole bunch of content, you can't possibly know all the content in the world. Nobody can. So if you're working on something and it's something you're not familiar with and you don't know how to learn and don't know how to figure stuff out, that's a problem. So that's really the emphasis, I think needs to be on that. But the relationships come first.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

you're not original. Your family's not originally from Maine.

Steve DeAngelis:

That's correct.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When you were 12, your dad came to Maine for a job. You love Maine. You got job offers in other states. Why did you stay here?

Steve DeAngelis:

Like a lot of things, I'm not a big believer in super simple solutions to anything or explanations. There's a lot of lot of reasons. But I remember that when we came to Maine, we came from West Virginia and we came in the middle of the winter. And a week after we got here, we had one of the biggest snowstorms in the history of the state of Maine. And we got out of school for a week. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. This must happen all the time. Which it doesn't. But still, that just right then and there I just fell in love with being in the snow. I love the snow. I love being outdoors. And Maine is a great place to raise a family. The one reason I stayed, one reason I didn't go for jobs in other states, I wasn't looking to raise a family. I wasn't married at the time when I first got out of college. But I just thought to myself, this is, you know, as I looked at some of the other places I get job offers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and places, and it just Maine was clearly in my mind a great place to raise a family. And I thought, someday I want to raise a family.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And now you have.

Steve DeAngelis:

Now I have three children who are just Wonderful. Hannah, my oldest daughter, is 25, and she's been working in Boston. She got out of Colby College in 2012. She's been working in Boston for a few years, but she's moving back to Portland this summer, which is great. We're excited about that. She hopes she's in the tutoring counseling field right now, and I think she's going to hopefully go to USM and get her master's in counseling. And my son Tyler is a senior at Bowdoin. He's going to graduate in about a month after spending next winter in Europe skiing. He's on the Nordic Ski team at Bowdoin right now. I'm pretty confident he's going to be background Maine also. And my son Luca is a junior in high school, and he's also a Nordic skier and wants to go ski in college. And then he wants to be Secretary of State someday. So maybe when I'm benevolent dictator, he can be Secretary of State, although I don't benevolent dictators really need such a thing. And my wife is. Tara is amazing, and she is a counselor in the elementary schools in two of the school towns in our district. And it's a great place to raise kids. I still remember when Luca was in middle school, we were driving home from school one fall day. It was just beautiful. We drove right by the end of the lake and all these fall colors out. And just out of the blue, he says, dad, you know what? We live in a place where other people come for vacation, and so the kids all get it. I get it. You know, it's a great place to live for a lot of reasons. But if you love the outdoors, it's a great place to live.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I agree with you and I appreciate all the work you're doing, all the students you've helped teach and counsel, all the kids that you've helped coach. I, you know, it's something that I'm very glad that you listened to the guy who told you about the golden handcuffs and you didn't develop, you didn't get your own pair of golden handcuffs, and you decided you were going to go be a teacher, because I think you've made an impressive mark on the field.

Steve DeAngelis:

Well, thank you very much. But I mean, you have to know I get a tremendous amount back from kids and parents, and I so pretty fortunate in that way.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been Speaking with Steve DeAngelis, who is a teacher, a Nordic ski coach, and a halftime dean of students, also husband, father of three, enthusiastic promoter of the greater Reed Field area and I really appreciate your taking the time to come in and talk to me today.

Steve DeAngelis:

Well, thank you. It's been a lot of fun actually. Appreciate it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to Love Maine radio show number 190, Rethinking Education. Our guests have included Zoe Weil and Steve DeAngelis. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our e Newsletter and like our LoveMain Radio Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of lovemain Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Rethinking Education show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Steve DeAngelis:

Sam.