What do military service and public education have in common? More than you might think. Aaron and Rachael sit down with three educator-veterans — retired science teacher John Odell, social studies teacher Del Fuller, and retired math teacher Dana West — to explore the parallels between serving in uniform and serving in the classroom.
What do military service and public education have in common? More than you might think. Aaron and Rachael sit down with three educator-veterans — retired science teacher John Odell, social studies teacher Del Fuller, and retired math teacher Dana West — to explore the parallels between serving in uniform and serving in the classroom.
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Voiceover:
Welcome to Duty Free Lunch, the official podcast of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Join us as we unpack the issues that matter most to you. From cutting edge classroom strategies to thought-provoking policy discussions, if it impacts PSEA members, it's on the menu.
Aaron Chapin:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Duty Free Lunch. I am your president, Aaron Chapin. Here with me today, it's PSEA Treasurer, Rachael West. How you doing, Rachael?
Rachael West:
I'm doing great. How are you?
Aaron Chapin:
Well, it's great to see you. No Jeff today.
Rachael West:
No Jeff again. They just left us. I think maybe they're trying to put Jeff on the wayside.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, his ratings are down.
Rachael West:
Well, that's what happens.
Aaron Chapin:
I've heard that the episodes he's in, ratings are low.
Rachael West:
Well, so I guess they got to bring in the top-
Aaron Chapin:
They got to bring in the voice.
Rachael West:
... the top earners. Right.
Aaron Chapin:
Mm-hmm. How are the kids doing?
Rachael West:
They're great.
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah. How's the school year? Are-
Rachael West:
Pretty good.
Aaron Chapin:
... they having a good school year?
Rachael West:
Pretty good. We're getting into musical season.
Aaron Chapin:
Oh, musical season. That's awesome.
Rachael West:
I've got theater kids.
Aaron Chapin:
They love it.
Rachael West:
Mm-hmm.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, good. They thinking about going into the military?
Rachael West:
I can't picture either of them choosing that, but we should see.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, today's episode is a special one as I so cleverly alluded to.
Rachael West:
Look at you.
Aaron Chapin:
I know.
Rachael West:
Sneaky.
Aaron Chapin:
I know. Maybe I'll do this for a living one day. We're talking with PSEA members who have served their country in the military, but also they've served in public education. Teaching and military service may look kind of different on the surface, but they are rooted in service, leadership, and commitment to the common good. And so our guests today are going to be bringing this perspective with decades of combined service in both fields. Who do we got joining us today? Well, we got John ODel. He's a PSEA retired science teacher and army veteran. Del Fuller, he's a high school social studies teacher and army veteran. And then you might know this last person, Dana West. He's married to somebody we might know. He's a PSEA retired math teacher. Army veteran. That's right. He is the current husband of our own treasurer, Rachael West. That's right, Dana.
John, Dana, Del, welcome to Duty Free Lunch. How you doing, Del?
Del Fuller:
I am doing fine.
Aaron Chapin:
Dana, how are you doing?
Dana West:
Doing great. Thank you.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, of course. You're married to Rachael.
Dana West:
Right?
Aaron Chapin:
What about you, John? How are you doing?
John Odell:
I'm excited about going on with this.
Aaron Chapin:
Are you sure?
John Odell:
Well, [inaudible 00:02:38] can edit, I hope.
Aaron Chapin:
All right. Here we go, everybody. Buckle up. Let's start at the beginning. So each of you chose to serve in the military and then later you served a career in public education. So I'm looking for just briefly what drew you to both of these paths and how did your military experience influence your decision to become an educator? I'm going to start with you, Del, because you're sitting right next to me.
Del Fuller:
So what drew me to the military was 1983, we had a huge recession. People couldn't find jobs. I couldn't either. Two years out of high school. So I joined the army. As far as being a leader, what drew me to education, being a leader in the military we're constantly training our troops and then I ended up doing a stint as a recruiter. I was in a classroom with a lot of students in high school and it just kind of made me think about being a teacher.
Aaron Chapin:
Oh, all right. John, what about you?
John Odell:
I graduated from high school in 1969, Vietnam going on heavy. My father, like many of my co-graduates, had served in World War II. And I actually had an appointment to West Point that I turned down to go out to Oklahoma and went through the ROTC program receiving my commission there. One of my assignments actually brought me to Philadelphia as a visiting professor at Temple University and ROTC instructor. And that was an intro into classroom teaching as compared to what Del said about joining your unit. But also one of the things that we did, I was working with the Pennsylvania National Guard helping out and they ran a National Guard Youth Camp every summer. So I would come up in the summertime and help them work with the children of National Guardsmen.
Aaron Chapin:
Interesting. And so that led you to eventually classroom teaching.
John Odell:
Yes.
Aaron Chapin:
Awesome. What about you, Dana? Because I don't think I know your story.
Dana West:
Well, to be honest, I knew I wanted to be a teacher before I knew I was going to go into the military. In high school, I knew I was going to teach, but I happened to be in the guidance office one day and saw an advertisement about ROTC. Decided to apply for a scholarship and got a four-year scholarship. So went to Penn State and was commissioned out of there and became a teacher and served most of my time in the reserves then.
Aaron Chapin:
So we've got different twists and turns here with your stories.
Rachael West:
I know that military service often emphasizes leadership, teamwork, and accountability. So how do those values show up for you once you were in the classroom or a school community? And we'll start with John this time.
John Odell:
Part of that when you are in the military is you're building trust with your soldiers. And to me, it's also with the students. They're getting to know me and look up to me that I'm there to help them on there. Also, it allows you to listen to diverse views of things on the students depending on the school you're in and hearing like that. So that was... In the military, I had a mixed unit over in Korea. It was half US Army, half Korean national soldiers. So I was talking about a cultural change of things and getting used to working with them while also working with my American soldiers. So that really helped out to me.
Rachael West:
Great. Thank you. Dana, how about you?
Dana West:
Well, anytime in the military you're in a unit, you're trying to build a cohesive group that works together to meet a success together, and I think a classroom is very much the same way. You want your students to be successful, you want them to feel like they are part of the classroom and they're driving things just as much as you are. So it's team building.
Rachael West:
Del, you're up.
Del Fuller:
So I think that a lot of people look at the military and they see somebody and they're like, "Oh, you're in the military. You're going to whip everybody into shape and be like a drill sergeant." And I find that that is not necessarily what we did in the military, that we use our influence to try to get people to do things that they normally wouldn't do. And fortunately in a classroom, we're just trying to get kids to try to do what we want them to do and it's not something that they wouldn't naturally do. But if you can build that cohesiveness and build that where they want to do things for you as a teacher because you're leading them, then it leads them to complete their assignments on a more readily basis. And I think that helps with our student scores and improvement.
Rachael West:
It's funny, you kind of, I think, touched on what my next question was going to be. And so military and teaching, for those of us that have never experienced being in the military, it can be hard to understand how you might transfer those skills. So what was the transition like? I know Del, you transitioned from straight military to education. So what skills carried over most directly, maybe even pertaining to how you just answered that last question?
Del Fuller:
So I think that for me in transition, I was enlisted. So I worked with the troops on a daily basis and I think that coming into the classroom with that and the planning aspect of it, we had to do our training calendars six weeks in advance. I only have to do my lesson plans one week in advance, but I think having to have those future goals that you have to work toward and getting your training calendar together really translates well into what you have to do as a teacher to get ready for your classroom. I just think that the idea of talking to the students is not much different than talking to my troops and trying to get people to do things. Instead of dictating, it ends up being a lot more, "Hey, let's do this. We need to get this done." And it's more of a we approach. And I think when you get students to buy into that, they feel like they have some ownership.
Aaron Chapin:
Not sure I've ever thought about it that way. That's right.
Rachael West:
Okay. So Dana, you did military and college at the same time and went straight into the classroom. So what skills do you think you got from the military that you used in the classroom?
Dana West:
Well, again, team building, but I think I'd like to talk a little bit more about advice I got when I was in college. In both my teaching classes and ROTC, I was given the advice of get to know the people who are there when you get there, know who makes things run, know who can help you be successful. So in the military, it was my non-commissioned officers. When I got there, I tried to immediately build a good rapport with them. When I got to my first school, it was the ESP staff, the custodians, the secretarial staff, all those people who helped me transition into the classroom and that helped me with the success there.
Rachael West:
I think I remember a mentor who might be sitting next to me who may have given me that same advice my first year teaching was to make sure I knew those ESP members who really ran the school. All right. John?
John Odell:
I'm going to do some of the same thing. I had a mentor assigned to me when I started teaching and we had adjoining chemical rooms. He was eighth grade science, I was eighth grade science. So every morning he and I were both early risers and we'd be in at 6:30 in the morning, class didn't start till much later, going over things, talking about what to do. And he was really helping me get into how things go and getting to know the different things. He also was my union rep and he very early got me involved in the union because it just happened that when I started teaching, six weeks into teaching, we went on strike for eight weeks and he was helping me really understand how the union was necessary for running the school.
Aaron Chapin:
So public education, I don't think a lot of people really see it this way, but it is a form of service. So I'm kind of curious to just how you personally define service and did maybe your military background shape the way you're viewing your role as a teacher as an education advocate? I'm going to give first to you, Dana. What do you think?
Dana West:
Well, I define service as giving back to the community and with the understanding of you might not actually see the end result, but you have to have trust that your students are going to be successful, the unit that you're training is going to be successful. I think that's how they relate there is just the service, the idea of giving back to the community.
Aaron Chapin:
What about you, Del?
Del Fuller:
So same as Dana, it's giving back to your community. When you swore an oath to defend the constitution of the United States and all those officers and everybody pointed above you, we go one step further where we're saying, "Hey, we're willing to put our body on the line. We're willing to die for what we believe in." And I think that as a teacher, we're not necessarily putting our bodies out there in combat, although with school violence, sometimes that is the case, but I think that brings us into this area of where we are defending or not defending, but we are going into education as a form of service to further what we believe in our American values.
Aaron Chapin:
What about you, John?
John Odell:
When I'm teaching, I look at it as I'm helping prepare future voters who will make the call of who's going to run our country, their community, that they understand it better to have a better... Looking at the civics aspect of things.
Aaron Chapin:
Interesting. Okay.
Rachael West:
All right. All of you have been part of the association that advocates for students and educators and public schools. Dana, I'll start with you. How did your experience in the military shape your views on collective action, solidarity, and/or standing up for one another?
Dana West:
Well, ROTC was all about learning to be a leader. And the best definition I ever heard of being a leader was the ability to make somebody want to follow. So I think that is what I tried to carry over into the classroom. And as far as union, I just chose to try to continue to be a leader in a different environment. I became a building rep my second year and served like that for 25 years. And I was also a grievance chair and the secretary of my local. So I just think the ability to lead, the desire to lead, and then taking the chance to.
Aaron Chapin:
John or Del, anything you want to add to that answer maybe?
Del Fuller:
The only thing I would add is one of the things I saw frequently was you want to take care of your brother in arms, your brothers and sisters in arms. So whenever you see another teacher who needs something, you want to step in and help them out. So that tends to really lead into that union leadership side of it.
Aaron Chapin:
All right. I'm going to stay with you, Del, because you're a social studies teacher. You're currently in the classroom and you help students understand civic responsibility, history, democracy, which is kind of important these days in America. How does your military experience inform the way you're going to teach your students these topics in the classroom?
Del Fuller:
I think what it does is it causes me to bring an extra passion to the idea of civics. And I teach a class called Democracy in Action to high school juniors. So I find that when I'm in front of the classroom, whenever you have that authenticity of like, "Hey, I swore an oath to defend the constitution of the United States," that they tend to see that and they tend to see the truth that you're speaking and what you believe in. But like John, I also look at it as I'm trying to train voters to go out and vote for what they believe in. And I truly believe that and I do mock elections every year so that kids can see exactly what it looks like and try to make it as realistic as possible.
Aaron Chapin:
That's pretty awesome.
Rachael West:
So John and Dana, you're both retired educators. John, you've had maybe some time to reflect on your career as a serviceman and as an educator. When you're looking back, how do you see your military service and your education careers intersect and what lessons from both still guide you today?
John Odell:
One thing is everything is teamwork when you're together in the classroom, working with the other teachers, leading by example. That's the first thing when I started substitute teaching going into every day was 150 different new students or so going day by day, setting the example so it wasn't, "Oh, here comes a new guy just off the street." And they got to understand how it came from.
Rachael West:
Thank you. So Dana, would you like to comment on your reflection? You haven't had as much time as a retired educator, but...
Dana West:
I just think whether you're in a unit in the military or whether you're in a classroom, the people that you're responsible for, you want them to feel like they are part of a team, that you're going to take care of them. I think the more you do that, the more they are willing and excited to take care of you in ways like doing their best on a test or state testing or a field training exercise in the military. If they know that you're leading by example, like John said, and they know you're willing to stick your neck out for them and make the sacrifice, they'll do the same.
Rachael West:
Sounds like the way we talk about PSEA a lot. So many of our students and educators come from military families or obviously as we have you three in here today are veterans themselves. Do you have any advice that you would give schools and districts about better supporting our students and staff that are a part of military families? And I'm just looking to see if anybody make eye contact with me first and wants to speak up first. All right, John, go ahead.
John Odell:
Big difference. When I was in the military, I went into the military, there were draftees and career people during the Vietnam and early parts of that time, you never had a National Guard or Reserve Unit deploy. Since Desert Storm through Iraq and Afghanistan, the National Guard and Reserve are constantly being deployed. And you have to understand now that could be parents of students, cousins, nephews, aunts. They're looking at going overseas and being pulled away. And how is the school being prepared for these deployments for these students who are going away?
And I hate to bring up the bad part of what happens when someone is hurt or injured. We just had two Iowa National Guard soldiers get killed in Syria and a number wounded this week. We just had a West Virginia National Guardsman get shot in Washington and get killed there. Schools really need to... Back in the early '60s, you didn't have to worry about that. Now, again, with the repetition and the movement of National Guard and Reserve activation, schools really need to be prepared for what are we going to do if the family of one of our students gets hurt or dies.
Aaron Chapin:
You make a really good point, John. Really good point.
Rachael West:
Del or Dana, do you have something to add?
Del Fuller:
Other than somebody like a situation where they lose a parent, a cousin or somebody who's being... Somebody who's just transitioning in, say their parents retire or something, they move into the area, treat that student the same way you would any other new student coming in. Give them the supports that you would give. Help them try to learn who the other people are. So in addition to that part of it, but I really think just being listening and treating people like a human would help go a long way.
Aaron Chapin:
Great advice. So finally, what message do you each want to share with PSEA members who are veterans or maybe they're currently serving in the guard or the reserves about the value of their experience in public education and within the union? What about you? Dana, I'm going to start with you.
Dana West:
I would just say, and I would encourage them to act on the leadership training they've been given. All soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen, whether they're training to be a leader or just being in training, they are learning how to lead. So take advantage of that, whether it's in your local union, even going away to PSEA training, take advantage of those opportunities to become a leader.
Aaron Chapin:
What about you, John?
John Odell:
I think two ways of looking at that. One, yes, get involved with the PSEA training, but also I think you can, when you go to Gettysburg or training like that, what you've brought in and learned from your military can fit in very well and help them look at things from a different point of view or so that people can be more effective.
Aaron Chapin:
Great advice. What about you, Del? Anything to add?
Del Fuller:
I think that anybody who is in the service anywhere, the military spends a lot of money trying to train people to become leaders. And whether you are in the service of any branch, whether you are in a school teaching or in union leadership, everything has... It's an institution with structure and I think knowing how processes are supposed to work, we have UCMJ, knowing how all those processes are supposed to work, it makes it very easy to see how leadership should work in different places. A guy that was in Marine Corps helped write a book called Leaders Eat Last, great book people to read no matter what you are doing for leadership.
Aaron Chapin:
Leaders Eat Last.
Del Fuller:
Leaders Eat Last.
Rachael West:
That is the second time I've heard that book referred to today?
Aaron Chapin:
Really?
Rachael West:
In a meeting I had this morning, somebody else talked about that book. I think I'm going to have to write it down. I think I'm going to check it out.
Aaron Chapin:
I always go to the back of the line.
Rachael West:
Do you?
Aaron Chapin:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know what time it is?
Rachael West:
I really hope it's-
Aaron Chapin:
Pop quiz. Go ahead, Rachael. You got a pop quiz. This is one of my favorite pop quiz questions.
Rachael West:
All right. So I have a pop quiz question and I'm going to start with Dana.
Dana West:
Oh, boy.
Rachael West:
Who is your favorite PSEA officer?
Dana West:
Well, it would have to be you, sweetheart.
Rachael West:
Good answer. Good answer. All right. I mean, I don't know if the rest of you would like to be in on this.
Aaron Chapin:
Oh, you got to give it to him. Go ahead.
Rachael West:
All right, Del.
Del Fuller:
I'm going to stick with my fellow army person over there and I'm going to go with Rachael also.
Dana West:
Thank you, Del.
Rachael West:
All right.
Aaron Chapin:
Wow.
Rachael West:
John?
Dana West:
Got support.
John Odell:
What are my choices?
Aaron Chapin:
Well, just remember, we're starting to do budgeting for PSEA and retired might need more money next year.
John Odell:
Ouch. Rachael's got my vote.
Aaron Chapin:
There you go.
Rachael West:
I'm glad I cleaned up today.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, you deserve it. It's been a fun year for you.
Rachael West:
It has been.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, this has been an absolute honor. You all, first of all, I admire the fact that you gave so much time in the services. It's a real commitment and our country really should be honoring you even more than you should. I really appreciate that. I appreciate just the time that you spent in the classroom as well. We have unique relationships with these three gentlemen. We've known Del for a long time. He's been on the board of directors for a while. John, just starting with our board of directors. And of course, Dana, I feel like I've known you for like two decades. I'm not sure I ever had this on the bingo card of being on a podcast with you two decades ago.
Dana West:
It is pretty funny, right?
Aaron Chapin:
It's a little odd, but thank you very much. The three of you are remarkable individuals. Thank you for your service. Thanks for being in the classroom. Unfortunately, that is today's episode. And as I mentioned, our guests today have been John Odell, Del Fuller and yes, the one and only Dana West. Sorry, ladies, he's taken. Thanks again for sharing your stories.
John Odell:
Thanks for inviting us.
Aaron Chapin:
Hey.
Del Fuller:
Yes, thank you.
Aaron Chapin:
It's been awesome. And I'm glad the three of you came to the studio today. It's always great to have people in the studio. And thanks again for our listeners for tuning in. If you got some feedback, you probably got some complaints today. Go ahead. Send them my way at podcast@psea.org. I'd be happy to read them. I am Aaron Chapin.
Rachael West:
And I'm Rachael West.
Aaron Chapin:
And you have been listening, Rachael.
Rachael West:
To Duty Free Lunch.
Aaron Chapin:
Bye for now.
Voiceover:
You've been listening to Duty Free Lunch with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Visit psa.org/podcast to learn more and don't forget to subscribe and share. Paid for by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.