ChangED
ChangED is an educator based podcast for Pennsylvania teachers to learn more about the PA STEELS Standards and science in general. It is hosted by Andrew Kuhn and Patrice Semicek.
ChangED
Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing
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Dr. Demetrius Roberts, special consultant for STEM and computer science with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, joins us to share his remarkable educational journey and the powerful lessons it offers for today's educators. Growing up in Philadelphia's diverse urban landscape and attending a Career and Technical Education high school fundamentally shaped Dr. Roberts' approach to teaching.
This realization sparked a turning point in his teaching philosophy. After discovering his high school students struggling with basic math during a history lesson, he embraced cross-curricular teaching, finding ways to incorporate math, writing, and creative expression into his social studies classroom. His mantra became "build, make, do" – transforming passive learning into active engagement. Dr. Roberts offers unique perspective on Pennsylvania's education landscape from his state-level position.
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Welcome to Change and Changed
Speaker 1welcome back to change and changed. Change it. Your number one educational podcast from the location that you were broadcasting, we're broadcasting from, which is and we're back, we are back at the conference being the pennsylvania educational Expo and Conference, conference, conference, conference.
Speaker 3Good job reading that, yeah.
Speaker 1good thing I took the lanyard off of my neck so I could read it. True story, hashtag facts. So we're back and we learned lessons from last time, kind of. Not to do 22 episodes in two days. That's a growth mindset. So we decided we were going to bring in big hitters like our guests. But before we get there, I'm Andrew Kuhn, your favorite host of Change Ed. I'm an education consultant from Montgomery County Intermediate Unit.
Speaker 3And here with me is Patrice Semicek, the actual favorite. Like we determined that a year ago, we're still living into it. We can ask Tony, tony.
Speaker 4And Tony Marabito, SDF CLI21.
Speaker 1Did you just blank out? We were just talking about you in front of you and you just introduced yourself.
Speaker 3I did what just happened. He stayed out of it.
Speaker 4If this drops on Monday, I just want to say go birds.
Speaker 3I feel like we got a long time to live into the bird situation we do.
Speaker 4I also want to point out Andrew's mic. Yeah, please, seems like you're compensating, but it is nice and it is great to be back at Pete.
Speaker 1Well, we were the number one family radio show. Are we going to talk?
Speaker 3about how it's compensating. We're just going to leave it up to the listener Leave it up.
Speaker 1Okay, my radio show.
Speaker 3Are we going to talk about how it's compensating?
Speaker 1We're just going to leave it up to the listeners. We'll leave it up, okay, for our listeners. I have a boom mic because my he's the host, because I'm the host and because of our fans, they want to hear more of him.
Speaker 3Nope, they don't. They've written it and said take him out.
Speaker 1Let's get to our guests. Very good friend of all of ours, a good friend of Pennsylvania, education, education in general, the one, the only, no other than Dr Demetrius Roberts, welcome.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh, I couldn't be. I couldn't be more excited to be on this podcast right now. I mean here with you all. I'm in Chocolate City Day after the Eagles win. I feel like I got doused with Gatorade. Came to the Super Bowl like I was there, like I participated, tired from the event, celebrating, and I couldn't think of a better way to follow up how I'm feeling right now than being here, with you all and Andrew's big microphone.
Speaker 1Depending how this goes, you might get doused again from Gatorade oh my god, I already spilled my water all over the table, all over the electronics. Good day, yes, feeling great Good day. So let me ask you this, demetrius, when we think about the Super Bowl since you brought it up, super Bowl yesterday what does something like that look like in education? Are there moments where we have like Super Bowl, moments where, like we did it, like we conquered, or the teacher gets doused for her? Really, you know figuratively, not literally, where the teacher gets doused with the Gatorade. Are there moments like that in education?
Speaker 2I don't know if we've had a moment like that in recent past. I do think. When I get excited at the Superbowl, I like to listen to the players how they talk about what it took, and last night I was just so impressed that players kept echoing this phrase it sounded like it's coming straight from the coach which is you can't be great without the greatness of others Yep, yep. And I think that applies Like we can take a lesson learned from that Super Bowl victory, regardless of whatever team you're voting for, whatever, like just somebody who's won, that's made, that's put in the time with the work, and you see everyone's on the same page. They're moving the ship all in one direction and I think that's my hope for education.
Speaker 2Like you know, sometimes within the education community we don't always have the same vision. We don't always use the same language. We get called on buzzwords and then we each have our different interpretation of the buzz vision. We don't always use the same language. We get called on buzzwords and then we each have our different interpretation of the buzzword. But you look at a successful team like that Super Bowl team, they're all saying the same thing, they mean it all the same way, and I think that we can take that to what we do in education, for sure.
Speaker 4Speaking of hard work, I know you wear many, many hats, but where did you start? What was your career like? To where you are now? And then talk about just some of your titles, because then we'll get into it a little bit more after that.
From CTE Student to Education Consultant
Speaker 2So, yeah, I guess I'll start with the title. I'm really proud of this opportunity. I have to make an impact in Pennsylvania working with the Department of Education and right now I'm the point of contact and a special consultant for STEM and computer science. And right now I'm the point of contact and a special consultant for STEM and computer science. I get to work closely with the PA Smart Initiative and many projects that come out of it. We all know there's the grant projects but there's a lot of side projects and programs. You know I'm a proud to support and lead for the state within that work.
Speaker 2And where it all started for me is my high school experience in Philadelphia. So urban setting that gives me one kind of dynamic. You know I got to interact with lots of different people so I got to see how a lot of different people live, from my friends who had big single family homes in certain parts of the city to my friends who grew up in Section A housing, so just a range of wealth to poverty, race, gender, color, all the different things. So I feel like I understand people. For me it started going to a CTE school, so I didn't have a traditional high school experience. I knew I wanted to be a teacher at some point. So I go to school and do the whole teacher thing that we all do. And then when I become a secondary teacher actually in social studies my first year teaching in high school was my first time teaching or being in a high school setting like in school all day. For me, high school was do some classes in the morning and then in the afternoon we're making something, right, yeah, in the house. Yeah, right, I'm using what I learned in geometry to do the plumbing. I did plumbing as a CTE trade in my day. So I'm using what I learned in geometry to do the plumbing. I did plumbing as a CTE trade in my day. So I'm using the geometry, I'm using the science of how water works. I was able to apply what I was learning.
Speaker 2So when I became a teacher in a regular school, I had empathy for the kids. I was like I would be bored. You just go to class, to class to class and like you're sitting in rows and you just do these assignments. I was like, oh, that seems terrible, like we got to make some stuff. We got to do some stuff.
Speaker 2And a pivotal moment for me was it was like the 250th anniversary of, maybe, signing of the Articles of Confederation, teaching US history, and I went to have the kids to do the math to figure out, like 250th year. So I'm like, all right, I used to want to be a math teacher so I found myself working in some math standards. I'm going to get a math standard in today and I do this warm up activity and the question was like how long ago was the Articles of Confederation signed? It was on this date and I gave them the date right and it was the actual date that day. So this really needed to be the do the year.
Speaker 2So we do the activity. A couple of kids' hands go up, they're excited, I'm excited, the kids are participating, they're engaged. I point to the first student and she's like 47. And I was like, okay, okay, all right, that's good effort, that's good effort, but not quite. Let's keep working on it. So I ended up popping around with like three, four, five kids in high school that were struggling with the basic. You know, 2000 and whatever the year was 2007 minus 1787 or whatever it was and that day I went to the math teacher and she was like, yeah, I'm struggling, it's a struggle, and I was like we got to work together.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2Like I don't care if I teach social studies, like I can do math standards, I bet they're struggling in English. And so, from that moment forth, I took my CTE experience of wanting to build make do. How do I do that in social studies? All right, we're going to build make do. We want to write letters to Congress people. You can make a play, you can do something right, you can make a song, make a rap lyric which, by the way, this whole podcast takes me back to my recording days with my studio Podcasts, take me back to my recording days with my studio, my students.
Speaker 2I used to have but, long story short that CTE experience and that experience of wow, like my students were struggling with other areas, not just history. So I felt the need to do some cross-curricular learning and fast forward. You know that becomes STEM. Fast forward. I go to school, I go back for distance learning, instructional technology, and now I'm learning these online learning principles, these other instructional strategies, how I can be more efficient, how I can clip learning so that we can do more in the class.
Speaker 2And I have this build momentum and I'm a young teacher, I'm presenting to my colleagues about what's going on, lessons learned and I find my way to intermediate unit where I get to do that all the time and it's been amazing just working with other intermediate units, doing good work on the stage that the department took notice when the position was open and having an opportunity to ask if I want to come and support, and so it's just been an amazing career journey, not like I would have foreseen it, but for me, chasing that impact, like that moment where my kids were struggling like I want every, I want every student, every teacher to be able to do what it takes, connect all the dots and do meaningful, meaningful teaching and learning for students. So that's where I'm at.
Cross-Curricular Learning and STEM Development
Speaker 1So, demetrius, with that background and with all the, with everything you just shared, what I'm thinking about as you're talking is I would love to hear about your lens, with which you're seeing things now, and I say that because you know I had, I had the lens of an educator and I saw things from the classroom, how it was working. You know I had that perspective and then when I switched to the IU, it changed my perspective, because now I'm working with multiple school districts and multiple non-public schools, and so I saw education from a completely different perspective. I'm imagining that perspective. You can see even farther than we can, and you know you're talking about the entire state, not just county or an IU. I'm curious on some of the things that you're seeing, or that perspective of that lens.
Speaker 2No, thank you, that's a really good question. I just want to point out I don't think I have an opportunity to think about that, right, you know, like the Maslow's hierarchy, right. So because I don't have everyday students I'm thinking about, because I don't have an everyday building I'm thinking about because I don't have an everyday building I'm thinking about because I'm in this fortunate position to be working for the state. It doesn't mean the ability to have a little lens kind of across the landscape. And I think my thing that I'm stuck on right now is I think that we are so rich in technology, we're rich in instructional strategies, like I think there's so much out there that we can do, you know, with the games, the tools, like it's all out there. Every school is diving in a little bit differently and what I kind of see across the board is that you've got to narrow the focus and I think sometimes we're arguing about the margins of what it means to narrow that focus, so we get caught in this battle. You probably should have teachers just focus on in a given school, like these are the eight technologies you're using, but like everyone likes the different tools, the data systems are always operable. So like it's hard to get to that data-driven kind of mindset universally across education.
Speaker 2All of our schools are at a different place. We're seeing in Pennsylvania, you know we look at subcategories of our students when it comes to our state testing, so we're looking at them by. You know race, gender, economics, you know how students, ips, how students are performing in these subgroups. We're seeing that as a challenge across the state. Certain subgroups in different areas are struggling. I think there's so much that you have to take on as a classroom teacher how to get there. You know who makes the call for what simplification looks like and bringing all the dots together, I don't have the solutions. Some of the work that we're doing across the state is there to support, but ultimately in Pennsylvania it's local control, so it has to be supporting schools moving forward and they make those critical decisions and I think it's happening.
Speaker 1But technology is moving so fast at the same time too and I think our systems are struggling to keep up with the speed and the pace of change, with what's available to everyone I think one of the gifts of this podcast is that we're able to have these great conversations but also share with educators that there is a whole system, support that's all working towards the bettering education and providing better pathways in. Again. I remember, for me as an educator, a decision would come along and you would think what idiot made this decision, and really the reality is that there's a whole line of people that just finally landed at that last spot, and so for me, this is part of that mission. How do we share that so we know it's not just one portion who made this decision. There's a whole line of factors that come into play. A lot of what I'm hearing is is about engagement. How do we engage learners so that they're active, active participants, not just passive?
Speaker 3can I just say one thing. You said that what is making this decision? Having worked in the state-ish level for gifted, it's not. Not about, because of what you said, d everybody's at different spots across the state Making a decision. You have to make what's in the middle, what's the median decision that's going to make the most impact. Some districts are going to be farther ahead of it and some districts are going to be farther behind it and are going to need more support. So I think that's a misconception that sometimes we have if we're not in the system to know like especially in Pennsylvania, with so much local control, the decisions that are being made't make as many decisions as you do or the people at PDE. The conversation is where am I going to make the most impact for the most people?
Speaker 2oh, pdes making decisions. But it's a big system. It's the beauty of our country, huge state too. The beauty of our country is we have this complex system where we have three branches Now don't get me pulling my social studies hat now Three branches. I've been having to educate people about how governance is supposed to work.
Pennsylvania's Education System Challenges
Speaker 3It's not that kind of podcast, what the president does, what the legislation does, not that kind of podcast?
Speaker 2No, but where I'm going with it is that you know the legislative body makes the laws right. Pde's job is to support the execution of how we're supposed to follow the rules of those laws.
Speaker 3And oftentimes the people making the rules don't know about the system.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, or you know they're making the rules. You know the legislators and that gives them all the respect in the world. I think it's a hard job, really hard job. You're fighting for your community, but it's a big system. They're making laws. They're basing it off data, like I know that. They're interacting with superintendents who are helping. They're interacting with other bodies who help you know, provide them with the best information about what's happening. They make a law. Pde has to interpret that law and that law has to get carried out by all the school districts and then that impacts administrators and teachers. So I just give kudos.
Speaker 2It's a big system and I think, for educators listening on, I think the trap is getting called up and all those things that you don't have control over. I'm going to use a Super Bowl line. I think that's going to be my thing right now. I'm going to use a Jalen Hurts line. I think, as an educator, I think that the main thing is just keep the main thing, the main thing, which is students. I know that's a broad statement, but if we're just focusing on doing good things for kids every day, building your craft, working on your routines right, working on your structures you know, your engagement structures, your, you know, get the movement involved. Differentiation, those basic everyday skills of a teacher, that's your controllables.
Speaker 2Right, we don't impact the law. Right, your superintendent doesn't necessarily impact the law. They may, they may try to influence, but going back to those big decisions, as an educator you don't have control over those things. So it's spinning your brain energy around, emotionally, being mad at them, upset or whatever it may be. It's not the role I mean. That's not my role either. Right, I don't make the laws. My role is to support people in that environment. How can we get the right professional learning, the right training, the right supports, money for resources to be able to carry out the vision of our laws the best way possible?
Speaker 1I would like to take a moment to clarify my idiot comment. No, I know what you're saying. What I meant was I didn't realize it was larger than the local decisions that were being made so locally it was like that's where it was. Like what idiot decided this made sense, and I guess my point is that there is that bigger system that I just didn't realize. When I applied for the IU position, they said well, tell us what are some of the PDE initiatives you're a part of. I'm like I have no idea. Here's what I'm doing.
Speaker 4I do STEM. He still got the job.
Speaker 3It was him and one other person. This is my first day teaching.
Speaker 1I don't know what you want from me.
Speaker 3Some other IU took the other person. Yeah, yeah, I think it was Sorry.
Speaker 4That was perfect.
Focus on What Teachers Can Control
Speaker 1No, but in that conversation then I said, well, here are all the things. I'm part of CSI, I'm doing this, but we didn't call them those, the initiatives didn't have the same name at the local level. So again, that's where there's, like that, what could be that breakdown, as you're saying, what's the main thing? If we're all saying this is the main thing, we're agreeing on that, that changes the whole conversation. We're saying over here, this is what we care about. And I mean we're going to tie back to what you're saying about the technology. A lot of technology is technology, right, like we should be human focused and technology infused, not technology focused and human infused. And when we, when we flip them, that's when it's like I feel like we can lose sight on, like the engagement part. While they were engaged, while they were using technology, were they actually learning or were they just using technology, which I don't know where I'm going with this, other than I felt inspired to say it in front of you all. Sorry, sorry.
Speaker 3I didn't mean to call you out. I just wanted to clarify, like not knowing, not knowing the system and the way that it works, it does impact our potential outcomes too.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, I guess what I'm promoting is like it was my ignorance. I know that Tony still doesn't know, so I'm trying to help others.
Speaker 4Change this up a little bit. I love that you talked about your CTE experience, because without that experience I don't think you bring in that that make do into your classroom Right.
Speaker 4And I think social studies teacher, that's kind of uncommon and going cross-curricular because usually high school teachers want to stay in their silos. I'm very much elementary background. We work together all the time Kids come in and 99% of the time they want to learn. But you lose that love of learning a little bit in high school. But the fact that you had that CTE afterwards I wish more kids could experience that.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean I was a little fortunate. Like you know, there's no social studies test, there's no social studies keystone, so I think without that pressure that came from, someone that works at the state.
Speaker 2You know, I can admit, as a social studies teacher, without that pressure, I felt a sense of flexibility but also a sense of duty to support. Yeah, you know that it was our school's score right and I love math and I love the art of language and writing, and so it was really a pleasure to try to figure out how to make those connections and again, keeping the main thing, the main thing. It came from a place of. I want my students to have an amazing learning experience, amazing experience in school, as much as possible. No, no, no one's perfect. I didn't do that every day. I had bomb days. I had days that I, you know the Eagles won. You know I was in the Super Bowl the day before and I had to just get through the next day. I had those days. But I think that's the effort, right, that's the goal is to try to create those amazing experiences.
Speaker 2Yes, you know you might be using technology. Yeah, you may be doing these things, and that's why I just encourage educators. Yeah, there's some tips and tricks, like you know I'm a routines freak, instructional routines and strategies. That way kids know what to expect, so that they can focus on the learning, not focus on the process and procedures. Like you can geek out with some of the nuances of what that looks like, how to build it out, how to build lessons those ways. But I just encourage people to you know if they're feeling whatever pressure, struggling, frustration in the classroom. We just want to be an encouragement to people that you know, one kid impacting, one kid a day, one kid a week, you know, to me it's all worth it Because you never know. You never know what a kid's going home to. It might be a spark that day.
Speaker 1It's adventurous, because I'm such a big fan of yours, I'm going to give you the second to last final thought on the show. Is there anything that you'd like to add? Anything you want to say that you didn't get to share with our audience?
Final Thoughts: Teachers Make a Difference
Speaker 2Yeah. My final thought here is just teachers, educators be encouraged. You do make a difference. Yeah, you make a difference every day, even if it's one kid. I encourage you to keep it going. I encourage you to find those opportunities, not just in the classroom, but as a kid who the reason why I wanted to become an educator wasn't just the stuff in the classroom, it was my experiences with my teachers outside of the classroom, so in sports, in clubs, in tutoring. So I encourage you to stay involved in kids' lives. You make a big difference, you make an impact and if you're doing that, you're a great educator.
Speaker 3I love that.
Speaker 4I don't think you have anything left to say there, Andrea.
Speaker 3It's tough to follow, oh, but he's going to. I actually read my notes.
Speaker 1It's a good note. How dare you?
Speaker 3Beatrice the end. Really, this will be a first Nope.
Speaker 1Make sure that you follow I'm very uncomfortable Our podcast Change Ed and share it with all of your friends. Do you want to say something else?
Speaker 3No, no, that's good Weird though.