Column: Learning Matters: Sometimes it’s the little things that help in facing challenges

In my April 29 column, I mentioned an upcoming conference that I attended last week, along with other representatives from workforce development, K-12 education and community colleges.

It focused on increasing enrollment in career- and technical-education classes, getting the word out to students, teachers and counselors about the value of connecting classroom experience to careers.

Participating districts shared how teachers were working with industry professionals to take learning outside the confines of classrooms, helping students see their studies not just as graduation or college-admission requirements but as steps toward good careers in fields with prospects for advancement.

Our Glendale and Burbank contingent — the Verdugo Creative Technologies Consortium, or VCTC — agreed the conference provided a wealth of good information, including updates on tracking college- and career-placement outcomes and several online resources for both teachers and students.

It was helpful, as always, to see how other school districts and their partners are progressing and to have time to consider together our next steps in career-pathway development. The closing speaker was appropriately motivating, sending us off with an “each-one-reach-one” message to help improve students’ futures.

I appreciated the message and started wondering how the larger community might join in sharing career stories. But as I headed home, I began to experience the same mix of feelings I’ve had at the end of many school board and state PTA conferences: enthusiasm at the prospects for improvement clouded by angst at the enormity of any quest for systemic change.

I know how slow reform can be and how unpredictably public policy can sometimes roll out, as Glendale has experienced recently in decisions by both the state and county.

I understand some of the forces aligned against career-technical education classes — matters such as fitting classes into already packed student schedules, graduation and instructional-minutes requirements, teacher contracts and credentialing issues, not to mention the century-long bias separating notions of academic and career or “vocational” education. Returning from the conference, I began to feel more deflated than elated.

But then I got back to Glendale, and the enormity of systemic change gave way to smaller matters — to a student film showcase and the work of a PTA nominating committee.

I began to remember how students and parents usually experience change in their lives: through one teacher or one field trip, a particular book or activity or performance; through people who help them navigate success or failure; through friends and shared responsibilities.

At the VCTC film showcase at the Alex Theatre, I saw students dressed up to watch their films on the big screen. At the reception afterward, they posed proudly for photos with their teachers and with the professionals who’d given them guidance and support. Some parents stood smiling in the wings.

I spoke with a young adult actor who told me he’d answered an ad to audition for a film and was surprised to encounter a crew of high school students. He was even more stunned at the quality of the students’ work and the equipment available for their use. To the students, the young man was a star, and they posed for photos with him too.

Next came the work of the elementary school PTA nominating committee, on which I had an advisory role. I confess I was asking myself how, 30 years after starting in PTA, I was back doing this, given my other commitments. But then I started to feel the energy that comes from engaging with other parents and assembling a good team.

I sat by with increasing satisfaction as parents half my age used their social-media skills to get the word out to the school community. I listened as they weighed their own talents, encouraged others and, in the end, brought together a board of eager volunteers, all wanting the best for their children. They may not yet know the exact duties of their offices, but they’re ready to learn and work together.

I happily watched as the incoming president, coming off her night duty work as a nurse, said with a smile to the incoming kindergarten mom who’d agreed to serve as PTA secretary, “You can expect to spend a lot of time at school,” she said.

As I look back on educational changes and challenges since our daughter started kindergarten and I joined PTA, it’s the people I remember more than the challenges. Conferences will continue to influence education policy and practices in significant ways, and I hope career pathways will multiply. But children and parents will remember the people along the way.

Each one reach one.

JOYLENE WAGNER is a past member of the Glendale Unified school board, from 2005 to 2013, and currently serves on the boards of Glendale Educational Foundation and other nonprofit organizations. Email her at jkate4400@aol.com.