Rekindling the Spirit of Education:
An Interview with ASCD President Elect Jim Collins

      Creative Leaps recently had the opportunity to speak with Jim Collins, President Elect of the New York Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). We discussed priorities in education, and the value of the arts in learning for both students and educators.

      Jim began his career as a teacher and principal. Over the years, he has become a leading educational staff developer and administrator in the New York Capital District. He works with a number of organizations, including the New York BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services), the School Administrators Association for New York State, and the Educational Testing Service of New Jersey. He is also an adjunct professor at Russell Sage College in Albany.

NH: What compelled you to make the shift from teacher-principal to administrator and philosopher in the field?

Jim: I had a desire to help other professionals in the field, and I thought I could do that better in a position where I was responsible for professional development. Educators need to be learners, too, and somebody needs to support them.

Let’s talk about ASCD for a while. What are the most important services that ASCD provides for its educators and associates?

They provide a myriad of services…magazines, books, articles on the most recent [education] trends, professional development workshops and conferences, online courses… they play the role of advocate for education both nationally and internationally. Its mission is centered around educators supporting kids’ education. They’re all about advocating for educational responsibility and change. It’s the largest and most comprehensive educational organization in the country.

Tell me about some of the trends in education that ASCD is currently focusing on and supporting.

Concerned with all aspects of responsible education, they are particularly concerned with helping schools respond to NCLB (No Child Left Behind) legislation and helping schools make educated decisions about the teaching and learning needs of all its students. [ASCD] is just so comprehensive, and they deal with a number of issues.

It sounds then like ASCD is most concerned with responding to the needs of educators as they arise.

They are very responsive and very flexible to those needs. It’s not a single-focused organization. They don’t have a political agenda. They have an agenda to support educators, wherever they are.

What do you, personally, feel are the biggest challenges to educators today?

Educating every child. We cannot afford, and never have been able to afford, losing any children. But we do. They fail to graduate, they get disenchanted with education, and we lose them, and we can’t afford to because so much depends on [our children and what they learn]…What students learn and how they view themselves in relation to the world is so important to the future of this country and world.

There’s a challenge, too, because the profession is turning over right now. We’ve had a lot of new teachers come into the field over the last five years. We’ve got a challenge to keep them motivated and excited about their profession when, at times, it’s very exhausting.

We have the challenge of continually learning about learning. We can’t sit back on our heels and presume we’re not going to discover how people, how kids, learn. People who are challenged positively about all this keep their spirit up...Education, like any other profession, is going to constantly change, and we’ve got to realize that.

I’m interested in what you said earlier about educators needing to be learners too. You’ve participated in professional development opportunities led by John Cimino and Creative Leaps International for ASCD national conferences and at the Mid-Hudson Leadership Academy. What do you think such an encounter with the arts does for educators and individuals? How does it help them to be better learners?

For any profession to be successful, we have to have deep knowledge and skills about the profession. But we also have to keep our spirit, and the value of spirit in education, our continuing desire to change the lives of kids…We try very hard to do our best job, and some people get defeated by it and their spirit dies. I’m always interested in finding ways to rekindle that spirit, to remind us why we came to education in the first place.

Creative Leaps rekindled my spirit…and it’s through their connection of the arts. It’s the use of music, poetry, literature, lessons from other people, that sparked my imagination, sparked my drive, rekindled my spirit…You can do that in a variety of ways, but I think doing it through the medium of the arts [is effective], especially music—the connection between what the artists are saying and how you interpret it as individuals.

The arts are not only a vehicle for learning. They’re a vehicle and a path: to thinking about what we do and why we do it. Creative Leaps’ process opens up possibilities.

If we don’t fan the flames every once in a while, we’re not going to really be able to call ourselves professionals. I think professionals do that. They look for ways for the flames to be fanned.

I hear you’d like to create new professional development opportunities in the Capital District. Can you talk more about that?

It’s through my work with BOCES. [We’re thinking of] establishing a professional development activity where we’d offer a Concert of Ideas [from Creative Leaps].

What would the purpose or theme of the activities be?

For administrators, it would be the idea of sustaining leadership. For new teachers—making sure they develop the spirit that’s necessary to be an educator for a long time. When your work isn’t pleasurable any more, it affects your job…

And you stop wanting to do it.

Or you continue to do it, but you do it badly…I do believe that the people who continue to be highly inspired do a better job. [The arts] inspire people to think about how they do their job and why they do it.

If a genie in a bottle came along and granted you three wishes—three things that you could make happen in the field of education—what would you wish for?

First, that both students and staff would come to school every day enthused about learning.

Second, that we would find the time and the energy always to help those kids who are struggling.

And third, that we would be able to establish very solid relationships with parents and the community and all others in our society around the value of an education.

(pause)

Notice I didn’t mention money and resources. Not that they aren’t important. But I’m one of those people who believes you could get kids excited about learning even if you held class in your garage. Possible. Not easy, but possible.

Jim Collin’s article on current education trends and perspectives will appear in the June edition of Creative Leaps.

Learn more about New York ASCD at http://newyorkstate.ascd.org

Learn more about BOCES of New York at http://www.capregboces.org/

Learn more about Creative Leaps, the Concert of Ideas, and Professional Development for educators and organizations at http://www.creativeleaps.org

Related articles in this issue:

Creative Leaps Artists Headline at Mid-Hudson Leadership Academy

 

 

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