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Ohio's public schools serve 1.6 million children - 90 percent of students in the state! What happens in the classroom has impacts far beyond the walls of the K-12 school building or higher ed lecture hall. So, on behalf of the 120,000 members of the Ohio Education Association, we're taking a deeper dive into some of the many education issues facing our students, educators, and communities. Originally launched in 2021 as Education Matters, Public Education Matters is your source for insightful conversations with the people who shape the education landscape in Ohio. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on Public Education Matters? Email us at educationmatters@ohea.org
Intro - Various members and students speaking 0:08
Public Education Matters. Public Education Matters. Public Education Matters because every student matters. Education Matters. Public Education Matters because it is the foundation of our democracy. Public Education Matters because we are stronger when we speak in one voice. Public Education Matters. Public Education Matters. Public Education Matters, Public Education Matters. This is Public Education Matters, brought to you by the Ohio Education Association.
Katie Olmsted 0:41
Welcome back to public Education Matters. I'm Katie Olmsted, and I'm part of the communications team for the Ohio Education Association and the nearly 120,000 public school educators OEA represents in school districts across the state. Wherever students are learning in our state, whatever their zip code, race, background, ability, or family income, they deserve a world class education in their community. But because of systemic inequities, and unconstitutional school funding practices that perpetuate the haves and have nots situation in our schools, kids going to schools in different zip codes in different districts that are right next to each other, who may be living only miles apart from each other may feel like they are worlds apart. But here's the thing: Those students are not so different from each other at all. And a nonprofit organization called Erase the Space is helping them realize that and grow from that point. Erase the Space facilitates writing exchange programs between students in different districts. Think pen pals, but then take that to the next level and make it way more meaningful. Over the last several years Erase the Space has given Central Ohio students across several districts the opportunity to really explore tough questions together and eventually meet up and truly connect with each other as they see just how much they really have in common. Olentangy Teachers Association member Derek Burtch co-founded Erase the Space with another teacher, initially linking his class in Olentangy with her class in Columbus, and expanded the program. From there, Mr. Burtch sat down with us to share more about what Erase the Space is trying to do, and how they want to continue growing and changing students' perspectives in the future.
Derek Burtch 2:36
Erase the Space is a program that started when I met another teacher, who I don't, I don't know that we were supposed to meet. There's a lot of like, separation between districts, you're kind of like in your little silo, and kids are in their bubbles. But we met in grad school, Amelia Gordon, who was a former CEA member, and now lives in Washington DC, we met and came up with this idea that we wanted our kids to learn together. We recognize that there was a lot of similarities between them, despite all the differences that people on the outside look at, and like the mythology that gets imposed upon them. And so we thought, why shouldn't they learn together, and have some discourse outside of their classroom and outside of their district? So it's essentially a learning exchange program a little bit different than like a pen pal, where it's mainly like, Hi, this is who I am. And that becomes kind of the extent of the exchange. We want them to have like, work to do together. We think it's democratic, when you have work to do together. And so that became like the shared learning part of our of our process. So students in different classes - nd so for example, my class at Olentangy Liberty when I was there, and Amelia's class at South High School, when she was there, did some introductions of themselves. So there is some letter writing. We want them to have narrative control, to say who they are, and also have the ability to push some of those narratives that may be previously established about them aside. And then we had some shared learning that they did. They get to reflect on the learning on the parallel lesson plans, send that to their partner, and engage in discourse and kind of like a slow way at first. And the further we get along in the shared learning, to whatever that that topic teachers decide is, they start to kind of build their own solutions around that, having to like take in both different life experiences as they're going through this. And in the end, they meet. So we're getting students together in separate districts that are literally not supposed to meet each other in a neutral space. So it's been like the Columbus library, it's been Otterbein University. We've had students meet At OEA last year. And that way they're in this like, democratic public space that like nobody owns, but they all belong. And so we asked them to collaborate and reimagine ways to think about our world based on the shared learning that they did. That's, that's a nutshell, I guess. Yeah.
Katie Olmsted 5:21
And how has it gone? What have the students walked away talking about?
Derek Burtch 5:27
The students generally walk away with relationships. And that's what we want. The the idea that there's this like product that they come up with afterwards is kind of, they start to think that that's what they're in there for. And really, it's about that like slow building of a relationship with meaning and intention. So they walk away with like somebody that they can either text, or we've had students visit each other and like, hang out at each other's houses. But they also walk away with like a larger idea of what community is, that we're not locked into, like, I'm only going to make decisions that benefit me and my like small community, but can start to think about, like how to reach across geography and like, start to come up with some problem solving solutions together. And that's why we do it, too, because we noticed, noticed, like we knew, and everybody knows that, like schools today are still segregated and segregated by economic class, segregated by race, oftentimes, and Columbus is the second most economically segregated metro area in the entire country. And so we saw this, and started to think about, like, if we do want our students to interact across these boundaries that are drawn, how are we going to do that in a meaningful way where we aren't going to like, perpetuate harm that the system has inflicted upon some students? Not perpetuate a false sense of superiority that is that is enforced in some districts? How do we get them together, like as human beings and as students, but still address the power dynamics that exist? So that when they engage, they can just do it, and the teachers have set up a container for them to be themselves outside of what school has determined they are.
Katie Olmsted 7:24
And more even than just what school has determined, but just their zip code.
Derek Burtch 7:28
Yes.
Katie Olmsted 7:28
Just where their families live has such a determination on how some of these people are defined.
Derek Burtch 7:35
Yes.
Katie Olmsted 7:35
I think, across the state in all districts, but especially here in the Columbus metro area, we see that. What were the challenges when you were dreaming up this idea? Did you think it was going to work?
Derek Burtch 7:50
Yeah, we thought it would work. It flopped the first time we tried it.
Katie Olmsted 7:55
Okay, tell me about that.
Derek Burtch 7:56
So, we started off, and it was an exchange that was a lot about place. And, you know, we were English teachers. And so we were like, well, we want to we want it to be like part of like what we do, while still engaging students and learning outside of their district, like crossing that boundary. And what we did was we had them write a description of their place, you know, their world. And the other students were supposed to, like draw or depict that based on like, the descriptors they use and, and so like the drawing ended, it was supposed to be like a, like feedback, whether or not they like, did something that they wanted to, or it was a misdescription. And like, it was super Englishy, you know, super language artsy. But it wasn't how they wanted to engage. You know, their, their social capital invested in place. And so they weren't as engaged. And November 2016 rolls around after that flops. And Amelia and I just kind of meet and both sets of students are just reeling in the wake of like 2016 and this this divide that had been there watching adults, like, what are you guys doing? What are we supposed to be doing? And so we were like, We got to figure something out. And I started to think about some of the stuff I had been working on in like democratic theory, which was part of what I was doing in my grad school. And I was like, I think a lot has to be a lot about like them. And then we can move from there. And so we started with like narrative first, and the the ability to control your own narrative and tell your own story. And once that happened, we started to kind of put these other things in place, like there's a necessity to have shared work, if we're going to do this, because there's got to be like a purpose that we're coming together. That's what democracy is, right? And we also need to address all these things that we've seen other exchanges do and fail at. So there's a famous story called Three Miles on NPR. And it's in LA, there's a public school and a private school doing an exchange. And public school kids show up on the bus at the private school. And some of them are like, I'm not getting off the bus, I'm not going in there. I'm not doing it. And so we had to really think, how are we going to address the power dynamics that exist between students already create a container for them to interact in a safe way, that's not going to continue to perpetuate harm that is inflicted through the system. And also allow them to be like authentically themselves. So we have like a big problem on our hands to try to figure out, but what we what we came back to is like that, they're also like, 14 or 15 years old, and they really just want to interact with other people. That, that they do want to do that. And so we started to think about, okay, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna have to make sure that like the safety of and like psychological safety of Amelia's students is something that comes first, because it is a more marginalized group in this in this system. And if we know we're doing this, to keep them safe in this interaction, that my students are going to be okay. And the more we thought about it, the more we started to come up with curriculum that that fit that. And we've just also listened to students that have done it. We've added things. So this narrative that they exchanged, we didn't initially have like a way to respond that you just got it, you got to kind of know who your partner was. And after the first year, we're like, I think there needs to be like a response to this. And we came up with the emoji response. So like, when you wrote this, I felt this emoji because... so they get to unpack that. But there's also like, something safer about putting a frowny face than like the word angry, to express how that person's words impacted you. And that allowed for like, we needed to get into the tension, and we had to be in it with them. There's a lot of - there's a lot of opportunity to avoid that. And that's not what it's about. It's about going through that together, being really curious. And then finding what's on the other side of that. And what we've discovered is that there's, you know, students who are in college that still text each other that were from different schools that met. There are students that have in engaged in like activism work after this, or we had a student from our first year, create kind of her own Erase the Space. She created the Columbus Civic, which was a newspaper that took local news and worked with translators to translate it into first generation or new American population so that they could get the local news. So yeah, it just it allowed for other ideas that maybe wouldn't have happened, had we not given this opportunity to cross that boundary, if that makes sense.
Katie Olmsted 13:02
What made you in the first place be passionate about creating this opportunity?
Derek Burtch 13:09
I - for a long time, I got I got into teaching because I wanted to do something different. I mean, if we're talking like the real personal reason I got into teaching is because I'm ADHD and school wasn't really for me. And I wanted to make a classroom where school was for, for kids like me and for every kind of kid. And so I've always wanted to do something different within the system. And the more that I learned about it, so I, you know, I taught at North Union High School. I was an NUEA president there, and I got to be in like a rural district. I went to Olentangy and got to be there and just started, right. I mean, not just recognize, but like really identify these differences and the inequity that is involved in education. And once Amelia and I got together and started to create this, it was about finding ways to address the inequities in education, but not to do it with some legislation or like, like fundraising, but to like, actually give kids the opportunity to question what is there and trust that, like, their ideas are better than ours.
Katie Olmsted 14:28
Did they surprise you with that? Did I mean, obviously, you're not surprised you because you thought they would have better ideas than we do. But have they come up with things or or interacted in ways that, you know, just kind of blew your mind?
Derek Burtch 14:40
Yeah, absolutely. And right, it didn't surprise us. Their ideas surprise us because we couldn't think of them.
Katie Olmsted 14:47
Right.
Derek Burtch 14:48
You know, we believe that as two white teachers that came up with this, we come with baggage and we come with baggage from deals that we made to either like accept our privilege and, you know, stand on it and to get to where we are. But we have young people who have less baggage, right? Whatever their racial identity is in this. And they have a freer way of thinking about the solutions, because we have built in censors that say, Nope, that can't happen. Nope, you can't do this. Nope, you can't do that. And they just don't have that. And we want to essentially, like, let that flow and listen to what they have to say. Because we think they have really great ideas. And they get shut down oftentimes, because either they're dismissed because they're young people, or because the adults listening don't want to do it. They're like, No, no, that actually would change my life too much. So they've come up with some really cool things that, you know, part of what we've done in the past, like a traditional curriculum that we've done is, hey, listen, schools are segregated still. And we're going to look at, like what that means. And like why that is. So the policies, the maps, like all those things that go into that. And then at the end, their question is like, well, what, what do you think could happen? You live 20 miles apart, but you're literally not supposed to meet each other based on school district boundaries. What do you what are some things that you think, could break that. Not the solution, what is a solution that you think could happen, and they get to put their heads together, and they've come up with like, a scavenger hunt for kids from different districts, that they get to learn more about the metro area together before school starts. One thing you know, there's always like these like fairs, or like fun runs. But outside like public gatherings is generally what they come up with. But one of the really cool ideas was at this funfair that they wanted to have was that everybody that showed up, got a wristband. And in order to get tickets, or tokens, you had to find the person with the matching wristband. So you had to have a conversation with somebody who didn't know. And from that point on, they they were there, their theory was that the conversation would just kind of spread. And we've actually done that at one of our Erase the Space cookouts where we gave people these different -these wristbands and the kinds of conversations that were happening from people that didn't know each other. It was real that happened. So we would love to make those things possible. We're working with currently with Ohio State to try and set up a more sustainable way to do this, and maybe even have some resources to like, allow students to create these things. But just the fact that they came up with that idea together, we believe as the radical work.
Katie Olmsted 17:35
You mentioned the baggage. Do you think because they're 14 and 15, and maybe they don't have that set identity that adults kind of get stuck with that's why they can see things in new ways?
Derek Burtch 17:48
Absolutely.
Katie Olmsted 17:50
I mean, I wouldn't work with adults, if we tried the same thing, do you think?
Derek Burtch 17:52
I think that it could work in a different way, that it would be more like shedding layers of assumptions that maybe we've we've taken on and believed as truth for years. But what they get to do is they get to challenge those things immediately, right? They're still developing. And that doesn't that doesn't mean, I don't mean to say that, like, freshmen in high school don't have, you know, social mythology that they've taken in, right? They do. But they also have not used it, in a way. And I'm going to the white students who have not used it in a way to get ahead, right, and use that social mythology about themselves or about others, to perpetuate this inequity. So it's an easier thing to let go of, when you are faced with someone else who's like, yeah, I have, you know, we're very similar. Like, we're, we're very, we're, but we just we come from different zip codes. We come from different schools. That's it. Right. And they're easy. It's easier to let go of that when you have not capitalized on privilege or been the been the recipient of prejudice and exclusion.
Katie Olmsted 19:17
So what's next? Where does this go from here?
Derek Burtch 19:21
We are expanding. This is the biggest year we've had. And we've had some, some difficulties with exchanges, because that always happens. You're dealing with essentially the bureaucracy of two school buildings and trying to get kids together. That's hard in and of itself. But we are - we have two elementary exchanges this year. We had our first elementary exchange last year. And so we've worked with middle school and elementary teachers to like retrofit this experience to meet the needs of their students. So the shared learning isn't necessarily about like the policies and the maps from the current Institute about how schools are segregated, but the fifth graders this year are, they're all getting a book Step By Step, which is published by Daydreamers Press, which is local, about the Hillsboro March for Freedom, the hill, the mothers and students that marched for two years to desegregate Hillsboro schools. And so we're finding ways that this process of like narrative sharing, work to do together, and then in person collaboration can fit these different levels. And the outcome is still an expansion of the idea of what community is, different ways to build relationships and to... to really connect. And I'm fine with that pause. Because I wanted to be really intentional with my word, but it's all about this like real connection that you can make. That's not voyeuristic. Let me peek into your life and feel a certain way. Like we need each other. And we also need to connect with each other to do all of these things. So we're, we're expanding. Ohio State is hoping that we can expand beyond Central Ohio and find ways that Erase the Space can fit different areas of the state. Because we all have these different lines that have been drawn, that a lot of people just don't want to cross or don't have like the opportunity to.
Katie Olmsted 21:25
And you create these opportunities with Erase the Space. Derek Burtch, thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Derek Burtch 21:31
Thanks for having me, Katie. This was fun.
Katie Olmsted 21:36
Of course, we have a link to learn more about the Erase the Space organization and its mission in the show notes for this episode. And if you're interested in having your students take part in one of the Erase the Space exchanges, you can sign up right there on the Erase the Space website. A Erase the Space is all about creating connections and building relationships. And that's something Columbus Education Association member India Strother knows extremely well through her work as a school counselor. But throughout the school year, India has been taking those skills to new places, and putting them to work in her role as OEA's NEA Fellow. We asked India to tell us more about her experience.
Katie Olmsted 22:25
India Strother, NEA Fellow, thank you for joining us. What does it mean to be an NEA Fellow and what do you end up doing in that role?
India Strother 22:35
It is one of the greatest experience that I have had as a member, because it allows me to work with OEA staff in a different capacity. I was a member organizer for the last about three years doing member organizing work. And this just allowed me to be on - I'm on leave. I'm on Union leave. And I'm working full time as a organizer out of the OME which is the Organizing Member Engagement department. And my mentor, Alison Hoffa, shout out to Alison. But it means that I get to help in various ways, whether it's crisis organizing, internal, external campaigns, I'm allowed to shadow LRCs. And really get to understand what being a union organizer and a Labor Relation Consultant is, and doing that type of work on a day-to-day basis. So it is definitely an amazing, it has been an amazing year. The release time has been monumental for me, because I've only been able to hone in on skills and develop skills that I had not had before. So it definitely gives you more than the bird's eyes view on what a career in labor management really looks like. And I have fell in love more and more each day with the thought of serving our members in a permanent capacity moving forward.
Katie Olmsted 24:27
What led you to this point? What's the career arc that that that one day you wake up, and you say, Yeah, I think I could do that professionally.
India Strother 24:38
Well, it started with an ask, right?
Katie Olmsted 24:41
It always starts with an ask, doesn't it?
India Strother 24:43
It always starts with an ask, and you know, those who have heard my story many times, I'm a union baby. I was that child that went to my grandfather's union events. If so, I did not understand what the union was at that time. But I didn't know that a union was a place where family came together. And so as I got older, and I was able to join my union, I knew that that's where I wanted to be, as far as just being a union member. But when another member leader gave me that ask, and I saw that I can make an impact not only within my local, but also my community, it, it gave me a way to not only be an activist and a mobilizer, and also just, you know, I became a member leader. And that has been my greatest journey. So yep, it started with masking it. I've been on that train ever since.
Katie Olmsted 25:46
And when you're not an NEA Fellow, you are a school counselor in Columbus. How do the skills that you take from that career, translate into your work in organizing?
India Strother 26:01
Everything that I have as a school counselor translates. You know, school counselors in Ohio, we are trained - it's like, almost, well, I will say this, I graduated in 2016 got my first job as a school counselor. So that might be eons for some of our zero to 10 members who are listening. I was trying to do couch to chair therapy. We had like a five class difference between a school counselor and someone who wanted to practice their therapy, and, you know, marriage and family or at a center or whatnot. So I take those skills of conflict resolution, and I really am able to get to listen to our members are there our members hearts, right? Whether it is wonderful news, or whether it's areas of opportunities that we have to work on, I'm able to listen to them, and I'm also able to help them see the brighter side of things and meet them where they're at. And I think that anyone who has been a school counselor knows that that's what we do for our children. We meet them where they're at. And we try to have some sort of conflict resolution so we can get, you know, the result that we're that we all want and need. And I feel very strongly that when you are doing labor, any type of labor work, whether you're an organizer, or LRC, its people centered and being a counselor is people centered. It's human to human. And that really means more than all the technicalities.
Katie Olmsted 27:54
And your time as an NEA Fellow is coming to a close is that right? I was it everything you thought it would be?
India Strother 28:08
OEA has given me everything that I need to carry this passion forward. It is everything. It's everything you know, and I will be remiss if I if I don't say thank you publicly to John Coneglio, because, again, without him, I wouldn't be here. Without Alison Hoffa and Ryan Dunn, and Airia Clay and Patricia Collins Murdock, and all of the LRCs that have helped me and the organizers who have helped me. And if I leave anybody out, I am so sorry. It's definitely not intentional. But um, yeah, it has been, it has been everything that I've ever wanted. I have not one complaint about my experience. It's amazing. And the staff has been amazing and welcoming. And our members have also welcomed me with open arms. And, you know, it feels like a family. It does not feel like I came in and I was just, you know, this, this temporary person, right, this temporary position. It felt like I was completely a part of the family moving forward. So if I could do it 1000 times over, I would.
Katie Olmsted 29:42
India, thank you for sharing your thoughts on the experience with us here.
India Strother 29:46
Thank you for having me.
Katie Olmsted 29:50
Well, that does it for this episode of Public Education Matters. If you have thoughts on this episode, or what you'd like to hear about here in the future, please send me an email at educationmatters@ohea.org. You can also connect with OEA anytime on social media. We're @OhioEA on Facebook, X and Instagram. Until next time, stay well. And remember in Ohio, public education matters.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai