LeAnn Murphy Cassidy, Ed.S

I think the fact that it's just something I'm really passionate about. I had the right role models - my dad was my hero. My dad came from nothing, literally. He grew up in the tenement apartments outside of Boston, lost his dad at a young age, and was the first in his family to go to college. He always made time for other people, doing civic things. It was important that we also did for other people, and I think that's what drove it for me. I also had a music teacher in middle school by the name of Mike Casella who gave me a space in the music room that just changed things for me about how I viewed myself and how I viewed what happened in education. I got into education because I didn't want what happened to me to happen to any other kid. I wanted them to feel like they were accepted. I fell in love with working with multiple youth groups, and I was a camp counselor during the summer. I've tried to instill this in my own kids, and all of my kids are in service industries - they're nurses and PAs and nuclear engineers, electrical engineers, and one who works for the government as a parliamentarian. Everybody is involved with civic organizations, and I think for me, it was just my niche.

Don't take yourself too seriously, because you have to be able to laugh in the moment. I learned that one from my dad. My dad was a finance director, and he never took himself too seriously - he wasn't afraid to make a fool of himself. He was in the annual Kiwanis Club show, and at his funeral, I wore sparkly combat boots because my dad was in the annual Kiwanis Club show and he never took himself too seriously. He was respected across his field and spent 36 years as finance director, but he always made sure that humor was always a part. So he always told us, never take yourself too seriously. I'm a little more on that serious edge because I'm the oldest and the only girl, and I grew up in an age where girls were still trying to get their rights. But I think that has served me well in education. I've always believed in never taking credit for the stuff I did - it was because we were a team. I was the one always leaving little gag gifts in people's boxes or breakfast showing up, and eventually they figured out it was me, but I never did it for that recognition. It was just because you need to honor and lift up the educators as much as the kids, because they're the ones who take care of the kids every day.

I think that what we do is enough, and that we make a difference one child at a time. That is important for the future of society, because we create every other job, we create every other field based on what children learn in a classroom. Eventually, all the things they do from preschool through high school builds them towards what they're eventually going to become in the future. So I want them to imagine their possibilities. For anybody considering the field or young women who are in it, it's worth the difficulty for the outcome, because the outcome is beautiful. When you get that letter 10 years after you've had a kid and they send you a letter saying 'you saw me' - I've kept every one that a kid has ever written, and those are the things you hold onto in education because you're not going to fix everything, you can't fix everything. The biggest thing to hold onto is we're here to give a safe space for kids to learn, to imagine their possibilities, and then help them bring those to fruition in the best way possible. You don't go into it expecting to be wealthy monetarily because you're never going to be, but you do it to help kids see their possibilities, because at some point in time, somebody made you seen. It's about giving kids voice - they want somebody to see them, to help them find their voice.

Technology is definitely a problem. These kids spend too much time on technology, and their capacity to persevere for an extended reading or an extended writing is much harder for them. They don't have sustained attention - they have a really hard time at sustaining attention. I see them distracted and easily distracted, and COVID made it worse because schools went to one-to-one. There's been research done in recent years because test scores are off - well, yeah, they're off because we stop expecting kids to read for an extended period of time. They don't read as many books, and parents don't expect kids to read either. They've got them so overbooked. Today's young people are overbooked after school, so they can't sit and read a chapter book. They also don't hold kids accountable for their work - parents have become their kids' friends as opposed to their parents. A lot of these kids don't have the necessary skills to deal with something that might make them uncomfortable or how to disagree. There's a lot more kids with anxiety, more than I've ever seen before, and it's because they don't know how to deal with challenges. They don't have that same sense of resilience. The phones in school is one of the worst things. I think testing on computers has been horrible for kids. The education world is finally recognizing that, but it's going to be slow because it's convenient.

Authenticity - you always know where you stand with me. I'm straightforward. My other motto is have no regrets, and blessed are the flexible, for they shall never be bent out of shape. That's been my mantra for a very long time. I think in education, it's really important because since COVID, things have changed drastically within the classrooms and in what students are like. I think it's important for kids to understand other people and other perspectives. I'm not afraid to teach history from multiple perspectives, and I think that's been really important because kids build empathy that way. If I build a class where they learn empathy for other people, then I've done my job as an educator. In the world we live in today, they need to understand other people and other perspectives. It was important that we did for other people - that's what my dad taught me. I've always believed in honoring my colleagues and lifting up educators. I never did things for recognition - it was just because you need to honor and lift up the educators as much as the kids.