Public Education Matters

Various student voices 0:08
Public education matters. Public education matters. Public education matters.

Scott DiMauro 0:15
This is Public Education Matters brought to you by the Ohio Education Association.

Katie Olmsted 0:26
Thanks for joining us for this episode of Public Education Matters. I'm your host, Katie Olmsted, and I'm part of the communications team for the Ohio Education Association and the more than 100,000 k-12 teachers, education support professionals, higher ed faculty members and so many others OEA represents across the state. Those educators are also represented by the Ohio Teacher of the Year, who, among other things, serves as an ambassador for the profession. That person is chosen by the State Board of Education from among the State Board District Teachers of the Year. And it just so happens this year, every single one of those Ohio Teacher of the Year finalists is an OEA member. Twinsburg Education Association member, Daneé Pinckney was surprised at a school assembly at the beginning of this school year with the news that she had been selected as the 2025 Ohio Teacher of the Year. She's a high school English teacher who is passionate about igniting a sense of civic engagement in her students, and who found her passion for teaching again when she was able to start an African American literature course at Twinsburg High School. Now, as Ohio Teacher of the Year, she's helping other educators find their passion for the profession again, and shining a light on what educators and their students need to succeed. Take a listen.

Daneé, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us and talk a little bit more about your work as both a Twinsburg Tiger and as the 2025 Ohio Teacher of the Year. First of all, congratulations. This is such a big honor and such a well deserved honor from everything I've heard about you.

Daneé Pinckney 2:17
Thank you, Katie. I appreciate you having me on the show. And yeah, it's it's a huge honor, and I am still slowly soaking it all in.

Katie Olmsted 2:26
So when you got the news that you were named the 2025 Ohio Teacher of the Year, what did you think?

Daneé Pinckney 2:34
So they actually tricked me pretty well with how they delivered the news. I was expecting it to come one way, and they totally bamboozled me into thinking it was a news interview I was doing. And so when I got in, I was completely off guard. And I think had I known it was coming, I would have been more better prepared to have a rehearsed reaction. And instead, they just got me sobbing. I boohoo cried the whole time because it was just, it was completely just overwhelming, something that I never even knew was possible. But, you know, teaching is what I've always wanted to do, so it felt amazing. I told everybody it was like the the Oscars for teaching.

Katie Olmsted 3:18
And as the Ohio Teacher of the Year, it's not just some hardware, it actually provides you with an important platform to represent Ohio's teachers and to meet with Ohio's teachers. Talk to me a little bit about the work you're going to be doing this year.

Daneé Pinckney 3:32
It seems like I'm going to be doing a lot of speaking engagements, a lot of having keynote presentations and breakout sessions and workshops, especially in rooms where there's educational leadership, rooms where there are other teachers. And I even have something scheduled with some students. And so I am really excited just trying to push forward this platform on retaining teachers, recruiting teachers, and just making it, making education something that people want to do and want to stay in.

Katie Olmsted 4:03
So why did you want to be a teacher?

Daneé Pinckney 4:04
I've always wanted to be a teacher. So when you talk about little kids saying, what do they want to do? That was me. I was saying I wanted to be a teacher. My mother was in education. My grandmother eventually got into education. My biological father is related to education, and so teaching is just maybe in my blood, but also my teachers that I had as my own teachers were amazing, and I just love the feeling that I had, being in school, being able to learn, and having people that weren't actually your blood, being able to pour so much life into you. So yeah, I don't know. I've been fascinated with education for as long as I can remember.

Katie Olmsted 4:42
But you know just as well as any other teacher, that there are challenges. We have recruitment and retention challenges in Ohio right now. What do you think is driving that? And what do you think we can do about that?

Daneé Pinckney 4:56
I think that we just had a very quickly changing climate in education. I do feel that slowly we were getting to a point where people were wanting to change how we looked at education as a country, but Covid happening and just that, that pandemic that we all went through really fast tracked all of those issues. It put a glaring spotlight on so many of the problems that are happening in education. And so I think that it's just, teachers are struggling with, how do they make their work still valuable? Parents are struggling with, is education still suited for their children? Administration is struggling with, how do we make teachers and students feel like this is worth it? And I think that everyone is just kind of battling the 'what is the point?' and 'is this still working for us?' And so it's really important that we are willing to change, willing to adjust, but also willing to listen to the voices, the experts that are in the classrooms, which are the teachers. And sometimes I don't think that that's always on the forefront of people's mind.

Katie Olmsted 6:09
There's also the question of just even making an attractive career for people who are coming in. And we know that starting salaries for educators are much lower than what they would be getting with the same level of education, same level of experience for any other field. Is that something that you're hearing as you're talking to other educators about one of the the barriers?

Daneé Pinckney 6:34
Oh, absolutely. And I think that it's really important to point out that we have this narrative - Teachers go into it, not for the money; they go into it because of the heart of it all. But if you're looking at teachers that are not feeling like they're able to put their hearts into it, or their hearts are being ripped out on a regular basis, then yeah, what are you doing to keep them otherwise? And I do think the money is something we should look at. And even to make it even more of a hot topic conversation, I don't think that this conversation would be going the same if teaching wasn't a female-dominated career choice. And so that is definitely something that we as a nation have to look at and how we address just areas that we consider to be important. And how do we show that with our pockets.

Katie Olmsted 7:22
You mentioned teachers getting their their hearts ripped out. I mean it, it is a tough time politically to be a teacher in Ohio. There's a lot of attacks on public education. They sort of end up in the the crossfire of these culture war things that really don't have anything to do with what's happening in our classrooms, but they do score cheap political points. And here you come saying, okay, I'm still gonna give my students what they need. One of the things that you are known for is that you started an African American literature course for your high school students. Were you worried about backlash for that? And what has been the reaction from your students in the community?

Daneé Pinckney 8:05
I would absolutely be lying to you if I told you I was not worried about backlash. One thing that's interesting about my school is we are a very, very diverse school. Our teaching staff is not so much. And so when it comes to core, core classes in our building, I was the only core teacher of color, Black teacher, so it was definitely something where I came in. My previous job was at an Afrocentric school in Columbus City Schools, and I was like, I don't know if this is going to be pushing too many buttons. I don't know if this is something that will be acceptable, and this is something that is very near and dear to my heart. I have always been super big on Black history, Black literature, Black culture, and so for me to put myself out there seemed really, really risky. But when the year 2020 happened, and we had so much civil unrest, and there were so many questions about, do black lives matter? It became abundantly clear that my students needed it. They actually got together with current students and previous students, and they put on their own Black Lives Matter protest, a march on the city square that we had, and they asked me to be involved. And these are students that I've been working with previously, but I got to hear their voices in a way that I'd never heard before. And it was just like, Daneé, if it's not any more clear to you that you need to start this class, this is it like, this is your sign. And so I did it, and I was like, I don't at that point, honestly, Katie, I was ready to be done with teaching. I was at my burnout stage, and I was going through a really, really rough identity crisis, because teaching is what I always knew I wanted to do. But being vulnerable and saying, maybe I'll try to start this class, which is something I'm passionate about, and going out there pursuing grants, because just in case, I couldn't get everything I needed from the school, I wanted to be able to say there were no limits on what I could do with this class, that actually helped to reinvigorate me. And so when we talk about teachers being burned out, I think that my story is a perfect example of when teachers are able to be passionate about what they do, and when they feel like they have the freedom to pursue their own personal passions, it actually can change so much of the dynamic between them wanting to stay at their jobs, them being effective to students, them actually enticing students to want to potentially look at this as a career option themselves. And so I do think that it all kind of plays together.

Katie Olmsted 10:27
And how has the reaction from your students been? I mean, we talk a lot about how our students need to see themselves reflected and respected in their curriculum. We also talk about people needing to see other people in their curriculum. It what, what have you seen from your students?

Daneé Pinckney 10:44
So the class actually started out as an elective course, and we had 15 students that were enrolled. The next year, we made it a full course option for seniors, and we jumped up to 75. So I have went from one class to three different classes, and that's been the case for the last three years. And when we like conduct surveys and we talk to the students, or even just when the students talk to me, they give me their evaluations at the end of the year, they write me emails years later, they always talk about the impact of the class, about being able to be seen in the way that they haven't been seen before, about feeling like they were learning more about history that maybe people didn't want them to know, or maybe they weren't willing to learn. And then what's really been surprising to me is how impactful the class has been, just like you said, students that are not considered to be Black students. I had a student a couple of days ago, and I was driving home just thinking about it like, oh, Daneé, don't you start crying. But one of my white male students came into my class. He was supposed to be at home. He just was still up at the school for whatever reason. And he had brought another white male student into my class. And I had a poster of Phyllis Wheatley. And he came in and he said to his friend, do you know who this is? And his friend said, no, teach me something. And he really sat there and started to teach him. And I like, even right now I could cry because I was just like, this is beautiful. I love that. Like you said, we are opening students' minds to experiences, to history, to parts of their history, because this is US history. You are learning about so many people and things and your brothers, your sisters, your fellow man that you maybe would not have gotten elsewhere. And that doesn't only extend to Black students.

Katie Olmsted 12:23
I truly believe that when we all know our history and a true, full, honest version of our history, we are all better citizens. Our country is stronger, our state is stronger. As communities, we are stronger. And I see that passion in your work as well, because what you do is not just for the classroom. You have so many community connections, and you build strong citizens in your class. Can you talk to me a little bit about that work?

Daneé Pinckney 12:50
Absolutely. So one part of Black history that fascinates me is that we don't quite often tell the story of who actually were the movers and shakers in the Civil Rights movement. When we talk about the Civil Rights era, we don't really, I feel, put the narrative out there enough that these are young people, these are kids. And these are kids that change the trajectory of our nation, of our globalized society. And so when I teach, I tell my students, don't think that you have to wait, like do not feel like you have to wait to be a change agent. You don't. You can't, actually, because the longer that we wait, the more comfortable we get in our situations, and we're less willing to to shake things up. And really, I mean, you got everything on your side. You have your your limberness, your energy levels are still kind of good. This is the time to full fledge go out and attack the world and just really change things and make a stand, take a stand for what you believe in. And so through the Civil Rights Movement, we talk about just how this is your time. What could you do? What is something that is pressing to you, what is some area that you feel like it deserves your attention? And let's attack it. Let's do that. And so with that unit, my students have gone out and they've worked with different community groups. They've conducted interviews with important civil rights activists in our area. They've partnered with humanitarian programs. They've gone out and volunteered with homeless shelters. They've helped to advocate for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. Last year, most recently, we actually collaborated with a school in Ghana, and the students on their own, like led this entire project fundraiser where they raised almost $2,000 to send back to these students in Ghana to help them with pursuing their educations and making sure that their schools were set up. And it has blown me away just how impactful that moment was for students. Because, leading up to that, I was like, y'all are saying you're going to do this, but are you really? I feel like I'm going to have to do this, this and this, and for a while it was me panicking. The week of the event, my students were emailing me constantly. They were popping up my room, like, we just want to make sure that we have this. We want to make sure this is right. And I was just like, wow. I always explain that passion is that feeling of I can't sleep because I'm so excited, and I saw it in my kids and, oh yeah, this is going to be good. And sure enough, like I still hear from them, and they're just Ms. Pickney, you empowered us. You really made us feel like we can do things. And it's like, I I'm not going to take full credit for empowering you. What I think you saw is me modeling that in my own life, because I had to learn that for myself. And you were able to, you know, watch that model and see what was already inside of you. So it's really exciting.

Katie Olmsted 15:45
And does that feed back into your own passion about teaching, seeing that passion come alive in them?

Daneé Pinckney 15:51
Absolutely, absolutely, I need to. It's like, um, Sonic coins, like you're running. You said you have to, you have to hit these Sonic coins. Because it again, going back to that climate of everything teaching can feel very dark sometimes. It can feel very low sometimes, I mean, the minute you turn on the news, and, God forbid, you get on something like Twitter or X now, like you are constantly just seeing attacks on your profession, attacks on your professionalism, attacks on your, your heart and where you are actually at as a teacher, and so you have to look for those moments of joy. You have to look for those moments of affirmation, because they are not they're not just going to pop out. You have to look for them.

Katie Olmsted 16:36
Well Daneé, thank you for sharing your passion with us, and congratulations again on being the 2025 Ohio Teacher of the Year. I can't wait to see what you do this year.

Daneé Pinckney 16:47
Thank you so much, Katie.

Katie Olmsted 16:53
That does it for this episode of Public Education Matters. You do not want to miss next week's episode. We're digging into digital tools and AI tech in the classroom: the opportunities, the challenges and the best practices. Make sure you subscribe to this podcast on your favorite listening platform so you get all of these great conversations with new episodes dropping every Thursday this season, because in Ohio, public education matters.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai