ChangED

Education Needs Industry Just as Much as Industry Needs Education

• Andrew Kuhn & Patrice Semicek • Season 2 • Episode 36

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Ever wondered why the business world keeps lamenting graduates' lack of "soft skills"? The answer might lie in how disconnected our educational practices have become from the real-world demands facing our students.

Scott Oste, Curriculum Supervisor at Northampton Area School District, brings a refreshing perspective to this challenge. Having left teaching to work in corporate America before returning to education, Oste has crafted an approach that intentionally breaks down the walls between classrooms and industry. "Do we truly know what's expected of kids? Do we truly know what colleges even want of kids?" These questions drive his work creating meaningful partnerships with businesses across manufacturing, healthcare, biomedical fields, and beyond.

What makes Northampton's approach powerful is how they've aligned these partnerships with their district's "Profile of a Graduate" framework. Rather than treating industry connections as an add-on, they've integrated them into their core educational mission. The result? Teachers have better buy-in, students gain exposure to careers they never knew existed, and the district stays responsive to rapidly changing workforce needs.

Whether you're a classroom teacher seeking to make learning more relevant, an administrator looking to build community partnerships, or someone passionate about preparing students for an unpredictable future, this conversation offers practical insights for breaking out of educational silos and embracing a more connected approach to learning. 

Want to learn more about ChangED? Check out our website at: learn.mciu.org/changed

Speaker 1:

pronounce your last name for me host host like toast okay. Oh, it's got oasty toasty okay yeah, oasty toasty, go ahead go ahead I dare you go ahead.

Speaker 3:

All right, we're good ready yeah all right back up if you're gonna yell it.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to Change Ed. Changed Change Ed, the number one. Oh, excuse me, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2:

I've seen a podcast or two.

Speaker 1:

It's not your first rodeo. Nope, we are the number one rated educational podcast in the entire Keystone State Commonwealth. It's a common, but it's also called the Keystone State Commonwealth. It's a Commonwealth.

Speaker 3:

But it's also called the Keystone State, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

Keystone State, Commonwealth Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3:

Isn't that what's on your license plates?

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes.

Speaker 3:

See, I know some things.

Speaker 1:

Change that I am your host.

Speaker 3:

Andrew Kuhn, education consultant from Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, and here with me is Patrice Semicek, the montgomery county intermediate unit and still an educational consultant, hasn't changed yet and everyone's favorite sdf tony marbito.

Speaker 4:

Cliu 21 carbon lehigh intermediate unit sdf sdf. You already said it, so I do yeah, today's guest.

Speaker 3:

do we ever really need to clarify that, Like once in a while? Maybe like SDF could sound?

Speaker 4:

What is SDF Staff Facility? Oh boy, now even I forgot Staff Development Facilitator. Okay, I forgot my own title. No one calls me that.

Speaker 3:

No one calls any of us any of this. I don't have business cards anymore.

Speaker 4:

Education Consultant I call myself something else, that's fine. You call yourself something else else that's fine you call yourself something else like a stem integration person. That's fancy. Specialist sounds way better.

Speaker 3:

Then you should put just did you just change your email, so that signature is. That's what it is now I should get on that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, just change, it sounds better, I like that our guest definitely agrees yeah, we clearly have four hosts, uh andrew is out, I don't this happens all the time, yet somehow he weasels his way back in. Our guest is also a listener of the show. Send me an email.

Speaker 3:

There are only one.

Speaker 1:

Yes, thank you for the one lesson. I'm the guy.

Speaker 3:

He's friends with my mom, that's how he got connected to the show. Well, your mom stopped listening a while ago.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but she Facebook blasted it. So the your mom stopped listening a while ago. Yeah, actually, but she Facebook blasted it. So, um, the fan of the show, he, he sent me an email. Let me know that whenever he has to do the most awful chores at his house, that's when he listens.

Speaker 3:

Wow, that is a solid recommendation. I'm cleaning toilets, I'm listening to you.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you're not lying, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I got to dig through the trash for my kid's retainer. Feels good, put on some ChangeEd. Put on some ChangeEd. We're there in your worst times.

Speaker 3:

At least we're being listened to.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so we would like to welcome Scott Ost. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Scott, would you mind introducing yourself to the ChangeEd Nation please?

Speaker 2:

Sure, my name is Scott Ost. I am a curriculum supervisor at Northampton Area School District, which also involves lots of other duties as assigned. So although I do curriculum, there's lots of other things I do too, but it's all good.

Speaker 1:

Now, do you have a floating title, just like Tony? I mean, do you make things up as on the go?

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, I make it up as we go. I mean, last week I was a guidance counselor, this week I'm a STEM specialist, today I'm an Uber driver. I'm driving people around, okay, so TBD.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, to be determined. Okay, all right.

Speaker 3:

Duties as assigned. Yes, yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:

We know from our conversation interaction that you've done a lot of work in really the STEALS realm and preparing and working with teachers to get them ready, and what does that look like for you specifically at the district level and maybe what are some of the highlights that you've had from that and even some challenges that you've kind of encountered that maybe didn't expect?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's encompassed a whole host of things. Right, you can think of STEM and STEELS as very integrated in nature. That's the approach we've taken in our district. A lot of things have come together as of late, kind of right at the perfect time. We have a brand new profile of a graduate that has core competencies and skills that we hope every student in Northampton leaves with. So we've anchored everything around that and so Steeles occurred right around that as well, and so we've been using those competencies and skills to match up to steals and so teachers have better buy-in that way because they see the connections.

Speaker 2:

We also have a lot of anchoring around developing some business partnerships in the local area. We've done a lot of networking with both local and regional businesses in any industry you know, from manufacturing to healthcare to. We have connections at the airport and we work in the biomedical fields. Down to the other day I was. I was looking at Google maps and there's a, there's a spot 10 minutes away from us and they manufacture scents like what you smell, candles and for like different things that you use. So like all those connections have kind of come to us right at the same time and a combination of those network connections or those business connections and steals and our profile of a graduate have really helped us, launch us into a different universe.

Speaker 1:

Nice, I want to lean into this because I really like where you're going with this. My question is about your journey and from your perspective, were you prepared and then those things came together? Or were you like, let's launch into this and see what comes? And you just had an open mind, kind of as a district, and you're like, oh great, let's, yeah, let's try this, let's try this. So which came first, the cart or the horse?

Speaker 2:

My journey started as a teacher in science, middle school teacher, and then I actually I quit teaching for a period of time in my career To listen, to Change it, of course, yes. Well, I had the idea before you did actually, I just didn't put it in action. But I left teaching, went into business for three years and did some stuff in corporate America your typical like big company sales job. I was actually one of these guys out here for a period of time, so I used to go to the vendor shows and travel around two states and so I got a sense of how the outside world works with schools right and and how they partner together. And then, you know, my heartstrings were pulling hard enough and I have a family history of education and there's a lot of educators in my family and ultimately it pulled me back into the classroom. But what I did leave that experience with was a brand new appreciation for how we really have to break down walls in our spaces and open ourselves up to the outside world, because at the end of the day, our kids leave our education system and they go out into the world. Do we truly know what those skills are? Do we truly know what's expected of kids? Do we truly know what colleges even want of kids? And so my journey has taught me that you've got to really. You got to really build partnerships with everyone around you.

Speaker 2:

And it goes back to that old adage, right, it takes a village to raise a child. It's totally true. I mean, without the partnerships that we have at other local districts, but also in business and in industry, even nonprofit organizations and organizations that volunteer, a lot of volunteer work that goes into it. They all contribute to this madness that we have, and Steeles has skyrocketed that to a certain degree. You know it's. It's, allowed me to say well, because of the new standards, I now have to look for environmental partnerships as part of the environmental literacy standards. To answer your question, andrew, I mean it, it. My journey taught me that that is essential. It's essential. Our district didn't you know this didn't just happen for for pure luck.

Speaker 3:

You were intentional.

Speaker 2:

And we were very intentional with how we do things and and I want other districts to to learn and grow too. I don't think I have all the answers I want. I want them to see the value in breaking down those walls.

Speaker 1:

What I'm hearing you say is that you're also modeling what we would hope for from our teachers and and then, in turn, they can model what we would hope for for our students as well. So you're you're modeling this shift in in mindset and how we're going to actually approach science and how we're going to do these things. You know what's interesting for me? What stood out when you were saying that is that and you said it much more eloquently than I can, and you can't have a job on this podcast, but uh- it's really well-paying.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, I bet it is. Yeah, yeah, people listen to us at their worst times.

Speaker 2:

It's really so amazing I can tell by the room that you're in.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, um we at least have a door Enjoy a mint that we the one mint we need to say the other one for the next guest. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I'm speaking from experience. We, as educators, think we know what's next. We think we know. I was a middle school teacher and I was like I am preparing you for high school. Yeah, that's what I told my students. You need this for high school High school teachers. This is what you need for college College. You need this for high school high school teachers. This is what you need for college college. This is what you need for your life, for your career.

Speaker 1:

And I think you hit the nail on the head. That said, we actually don't know. Yeah, not definitively. The way that we say that and I think a lot of that comes from our own experience but the reality is is that for all of us in this room, we all had a different experience. So I'm preparing you for what was my experience, but there could be 25 of you in that room and none of you are going to walk specifically in my shoes or have any of the scenarios that we do. So being able to broaden that to say we're preparing you for the unknown right. We have some ideas of what that might look like. We have had lots of shows where we've talked about AI and the impact of AI. We don't really know what that's going to look like, right, and even for science. We said it often probably me, because I have all these androisms that we are one discovery away from rocking our understanding of everything that we've ever known.

Speaker 3:

That's a newer one.

Speaker 1:

It felt good though.

Speaker 3:

It's a newer one.

Speaker 1:

It felt like it's been around longer than you made it sound. Sorry, it's been around longer.

Speaker 2:

It sends the passion behind what you just said. Yeah, it's very nice, thank you, Scott, You're welcome.

Speaker 1:

Thank you Actually. I take that back. We are hiring if you're interested.

Speaker 3:

Well, but here's what we to need to remember. Going back to what you were saying, is industry has been saying this for a long time. This is where the whole 21st century skills stuff came from right. Like we're trying to prepare kids for industry without connecting to industry to actually know what industry really wants. Like we think we know because some probably professors did a research study and said here's what we think industry really wants us to know, and now we need to continue to beef up our soft skills or we do all these surveys and we think one survey is going to tell us everything. So the connection that you're making to outside partners is a phenomenal one, I'm sure. Like you said, sometimes I try. That was definitely not one. Sorry, I had to Andrew's more of the pun guy. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

And fun Pun fun. Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 3:

So, but what I think is important is a lot of educators actually don't do anything outside of education. Yeah, many of us Correct Never left the classroom, literally never left the classroom. I'm K-12, then I'm post-secondary ed, then I'm straight into a classroom. So I think that sometimes we do ourselves a disservice as educators by not having outside perspective. And that does go back to what you were saying, andrew, about a myopic view and not being able to really know what's out there. So I'm sure your district is massively benefiting from your two years out.

Speaker 2:

We are yeah, it's, it's. Think of backwards planning. Right, it's, it's backwards planning for us, like the end result, Like we're going to let you go out into the world and see what you can do, but at the same time, my pitch to industry is like, listen, like this is a win for you because you get to see. You get to see. I'm going to pull some language from a former podcast episode that you had, oh dear. A couple of weeks ago I heard something about a braided river.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, he really does listen.

Speaker 3:

Wow, that's a deep cut.

Speaker 2:

A braided river right and so you know, different from a pipeline right where you've got all these ecosystems of different people and places and organizations that come together and they kind of contribute toward the same goal. So you know, my pitch to industry is listen, it's a win for you because we're building that braided river, so to speak. They know it as a pipeline. I'm working on that. I stole the braided river thing but it's a win for you. But it's also a win for us because I'm more intentional with, I'm much more purposeful with how we design instruction in our classrooms and we can pivot along the way based on what feedback you're giving us. So you know, no longer do I not have the correct amount of data and feedback that I need to adjust instruction in our classroom. Those, those relationships with industry is massive.

Speaker 2:

And you spoke a second ago about AI. We're even talking right now about our October in service being scheduled around. We've we've sent teachers out on field trips to these different local organizations and that has helped tremendously give different perspective right, and it was one day. But everybody came back and said you know how impactful and powerful that was. And we have an AI leadership team right now and next year. I think we're speaking of taking those same industry partners now and doing a reverse and saying now you come to us and tell us what AI looks like in your industry and how it's changing your industry, so that we can adapt and modify policies and rules and procedures in our district around what you're seeing, but again very intentional and purposeful, around how we address district level initiatives, you know yeah address district level initiatives.

Speaker 3:

you know, yeah, the other thing that I think is important too and not once have you mentioned, and maybe you do this, but the important thing for us when we're considering partnering with industry people, oftentimes they feel like we're coming at them, asking them for funds.

Speaker 4:

Like what money do you have? How can you?

Speaker 3:

support us there and what really we need. Yeah, we all need, you know, money to support stuff, but what we really need is that actual partnership where we are creating that braided river that you mentioned. Thank you again for listening. You're welcome Braided river where we're not. It's a mutually beneficial relationship. It's not just give me whatever money you have or tools you use.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's no ask.

Speaker 3:

It's not about that. It's about how can we help each other.

Speaker 2:

It is, and we as a district, we have to create various entry points, right? I mean, every industry has different pre-apprenticeships, internships, job shadowing right, Just like I do with kids.

Speaker 3:

Or even human capital to be able to have a conversation, right yeah.

Speaker 2:

We take the same approach with kids. Like I've got to meet kids where they are. I, as a supervisor, I have to meet teachers where they are. I've got to meet industry where they are too. I can't go into an industry that has a pre-apprenticeship program the same way that I can go into another industry and they don't even know what pre-apprenticeship means. So if you're at the base level of trying to get yourself into a classroom in front of kids, great. If you want to come in and visit, just do a presentation, wonderful. You've got a pre-apprenticeship program that I can send kids to and I can give them high school graduate credit for Perfect. Yeah. But like it's all about providing those different avenues for kids and industry, yeah, depending on where they're at, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Part of what I was thinking is, as you were sharing on this, and actually I went to school to be an educator, I taught for a year and then I left for 12 years and worked in a nonprofit world and came back and for sure.

Speaker 3:

Wait, you're not really that good of a listener. If you've never heard that story, I'm just kidding. I really just edit that out. Wow, he's been teaching for five years. Just kidding.

Speaker 1:

It's my second day teaching, but but it really informed me and gave me a different perspective being kind of out and coming back and has informed a lot of the choices and decisions I make and also how I am as an educator. But what it made me think of and it's not something that exists now what would be interesting is that there are so many different groups or organizations that might have a set way that they believe or something that they do, but they'll say, when you turn a certain age, if you're part of this group, you need to go out into the world for two years and then come back, or don't you choose? And so that's just an interesting component to consider for educators Like, well, what if you actually did go do something somewhere else? Or even if you worked in education with a corporation? That'd be a fascinating partnership where it was like go and you're going to work on corporate training for two years and then you join into education.

Speaker 1:

But I guess what I'm thinking for you know most of our listeners who are like, well, I can't do it now, I'm already locked in, I can't do that now it's it's finding your own path to gain that additional perspective, but also getting into these partnerships, not necessarily looking for something that you're going to get, but coming into it with like a I just like to partner, right, like I don't know what that looks like, but the thing that resonates with me is that we're hearing so often I actually I don't care where you are in education the concerns of corporate America. They don't know how to collaborate, they don't know how to problem solve, they don't know how to do these things. So then, when it trickles down to us at the education level, we're like, yeah, all they want to do is be on their phone. It's almost like we're validating that issue versus saying that's what I need to do, that's the work, that's the work that we have to do.

Speaker 3:

That's a major shift. Going back to Steeles or connecting it to this kind of teaching, it's a major shift in the way in which you approach things. They don't know how to collaborate because we stand and deliver. They don't know how to collaborate because we don't give them projects to do. They don't know how to collaborate because we're not breaking ourselves out of our molds and reading a book that isn't related to education, if we're reading something like that at all. So to your point, yeah, I think we need to do a better job of recognizing how our practice and pedagogy needs to shift so that we're meeting the needs of our kids where they're at, and then they can be successful adults in industry.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and as the adult you're modeling to what that looks like. So of course, as a teacher, you know it's scary to kind of reach out to the outside world. I mean, I mean, I learned in business how to cold call real quick. It's very intimidating and hard to do and it's awkward and uncomfortable. But what it did to teach me is listen. I mean there's, there's human beings out there and we can connect you to one individual in one business who will come into your classroom and one on one day. Right, you're modeling to kids that we are.

Speaker 2:

We are again intentional about bringing industry in to teach you about the jobs and careers and skills, if you will. I mean, we don't. Even in middle school, when I taught, I didn't have them really even speak about the day in the life of you know, fill in the blank, I had them speak to the kids about collaboration, communication, critical thinking, problem solving, working in a group, being dependable, and that's all we would talk about. You know is a lot of the behavioral things and not necessarily the content. But but the feedback from industry is if you can teach those, you know those core. We call them soft skills, right, I think they're. They're more like power skills.

Speaker 3:

It's actually very hard to learn.

Speaker 2:

They're very hard to learn and those power skills are extremely beneficial in any industry. Doesn't matter what you get, you get yourself into, and so that's been our profile of a graduate. Of course, and we live and breathe that. You know, at least right now, and I think it's provided enough benefit to us that the staff has bought in and we want to continue that. But that's all it takes. It just takes one single day, one single person, and you're modeling how to make that difference.

Speaker 3:

I would imagine it's a domino effect too, Like once one teacher sees how successful it is, they're talking to another teacher and then they just kind of build from there.

Speaker 4:

I think it also incentivizes the students, too, to want to learn. So if you have someone coming in from outside and this is my occupation this is why you need to learn this Now I have a reason to actually pay attention to this teacher during this class.

Speaker 3:

And it might be something they've never even thought of. Like there's so many jobs out there. We, we talked to Ricky Arnold, the astronaut that was here at NSTA, and he was like it takes 500 people to get one person into space and there's like, all right, I could be over-exaggerating, but it's like a lot of people Cause I don't ever over-exaggerate but the Never, not through editing you, sure don't or exaggerate, but the Never Not through editing you sure don't.

Speaker 3:

However, there are so many jobs that you don't even think about, like, who is the person that's designing the sleeping bag that's being stuck to the wall so you don't float all around the space station? That's a job. So that's the idea of even exposing someone to a job. I probably would have been in a different career if.

Speaker 3:

I knew there were other things Posing someone to a job. I probably would have been in a different career if I knew there were other things. I watched CSI so I wanted to go into forensics and then I changed my mind when I realized it was not the place for me. But that was it. I would have totally been in a very different pathway if I had known there were other. Not that I don't love teaching. I love teaching, but it's the family business.

Speaker 1:

One of the big things I'm hearing from this is it's important to find a way to continually gain perspective.

Speaker 1:

Yeah no-transcript, not in the classroom every day, so you know if we're going to speak to it. It can't just be a stagnant. When I taught and now every day that I'm here, it gets farther ways. Having these conversations, asking questions, you know, being curious, but also intentionally connecting with educators who are doing the work and learning from them and then being able to use, channel, channel that experience. And I think why that's important is, again, education can become and feel very insular and you can feel you know because you're a fan of the show, you'll, of course, love that I say this.

Speaker 1:

You know the four walls in the classroom, but in the fifth wall of isolation, and so that's when we become more of like we're teaching history because of what we knew in the world that we grew up in versus where the world is now, and there's been so many transitions that are happening in this ever evolving world. So even just one step of making this partnership or reaching out in some other way can also benefit us in so many ways that we can learn more about our own practice and be beneficial to each other. Love that, and obviously you can see that this is how the podcast magic happened. We didn't even know we were going to talk about partnerships.

Speaker 2:

I had no idea what you were going to talk about. Don't you always have the last word? Are you going to say something?

Speaker 1:

Well, obviously I'm going to let you have the second to last final word.

Speaker 3:

It's a special treat.

Speaker 1:

Don't you know, Only for fans that listen and participate scott yeah, scott, only today, right now, during this recording. Do you want to lead him into it? Oh yeah, so scott do you have.

Speaker 2:

What do you want me to say?

Speaker 1:

you're in charge, scott, everyone heard that. Thank you, it's on the recording, scott, based on this podcast. Again, thank you for coming on and spending the time with us, but really focusing on this idea of this, this collaborative nature and partnerships, do you have any final thoughts or things that you'd like to throw out there or add that we just didn't get to cover?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think bottom line is this isn't just a Northampton thing. I think there's a lot of great districts in the region, in Lehigh Valley where we're stationed, and Pennsylvania obviously has a lot of great districts. I think we want to take this as a collaborative approach. You know you just spoke a minute ago about there's a lot of competition out there, right. I mean, districts are undergoing a lot of competition now too with the structure of education.

Speaker 2:

I want all of us to succeed, and I think I want other districts around us to equally understand the value of partnerships. And so if there's any way we can partner just district to district and share connections with each other, I think that's equally as powerful even more powerful and impactful. So I love to see other districts in the region adopt similar approaches and I think I can learn a lot from them too. There's a lot of great things that people do that I've often seen happen before us, that I've like just kind of finagled a little bit differently and gone my own approach, but all it takes is that spark of an idea, yeah, and so I want you know, everybody to know, that equally important are the partnerships across districts too.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you don't have to say anything else.

Speaker 1:

No, but Scott asked me to. He said please.

Speaker 3:

With his eyes. It was all in his eyes. Yeah, yeah, please With his eyes.

Speaker 1:

It was all in his eyes yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like I'm drowning here.

Speaker 2:

Andrew, Can you please? I'm going to stress out if you don't have the last word.

Speaker 4:

I can't listen to my own episode.

Speaker 1:

The thing that stuck with me the most through this and we talked about so many great things here we talked about perspective, we talked about the value of partnerships and keeping ourselves relevant, but really was in the character and intentionality of leadership, and I mean leadership at every level. So I know for a lot of our listeners, they're educators and they're listening and being like, yeah, preach, enter, raise, all about admin, it is, but we're also the leaders then in our classroom. So it's, it's, it's at every level. And what I want to say is it's, it's easy to manage, but you have to be intentional to lead and you have to really have that design and be planned out, which is clearly happening here.

Speaker 1:

So thank you for your leadership and for all the work that you do. Look for those connections, but also try to foster those connections at wherever you are right. It actually doesn't matter where you are in the ladder of education. You can inspire from any spot and be a part of part of that. So, scott, thank you for coming on and for telling me how great of a host I am before we started recording. I know everybody couldn't see that, but I want them to make sure that they heard that Nobody saw anything, because this is an audio.

Speaker 1:

All right, nobody heard that. All right, we're done here you.