everyone and welcome back. This is Andrew McPeek and with me is of course my wonderful co-host, incomparable Gina Watts. Hey, hey. Well folks, if you believe that school should be more about just essays and GPAs, if you believe that EQs are just as important as IQs, and if you expect amazing things from the next generation, then you're in the right place because we believe that too. That's right, Andrew. So let's jump in with our question of the week. What's a job you'd like to try just to see what it's like, even just for one day? I thought of two answers that came. know I'm supposed to pick one, but honest to God, the first answer that came to mind was a garbage man. Is that really? She's making a face. That's hilarious. Well, I'll tell you my second one too, but they, because it's like, I know that it's the bottom of the totem pole job that everybody says it is, probably. But also like riding around in those trucks and I don't know, I mean I'd be tired by the end of the day no doubt, but it kind of looks fun. The other one I thought of was Zookeeper. I feel like that would be awesome. Andrew, Andrew, I just screamed into the mic, listen friend. The two that came to my mind were waste disposal and I wasn't sure if it was garbage or if it was like, Do you remember that show like Mike, he used to like do dirty jobs or something? Mike Rowe. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. And the second one was like, I want to take care of giraffes. Andrew, that's so freakishly weird. Yeah, we're the same kind of weird as it turns out. Yes, but I don't, what? That was completely unplanned. If you can't tell by our reaction. So unplanned. And I know you guys are like, they so did that on purpose. No. Genuinely not. Because you don't even know about my love of giraffes yet. It'll probably come up on an episode. I don't, actually. We've never talked about that. deep love. Okay. There should be one named Gina. Gina the giraffe. It's It's all iteration and everything. It's just waiting for it, yeah. is. It is. There probably is one. Okay, sorry, guys. We're distracted. It was amazing. That was an amazing moment for the day. Okay, there are a million ways. for us to live out our passions, right? It is important for our students to have that opportunity as well to learn about and explore the many options that are out there for them and their future careers. It is imperative that schools with a mission to prepare students to be ready for the real world. My background has been in career development. And so I believe this wholeheartedly that our schools need to be on mission to prepare students to be ready for the real world and realize that not Every student is headed to a four-year college. I also say that as someone who's worked at a four-year institution. I believe that wholeheartedly. For as many young people that I cared for while they were there, I also helped young people leave and pursue other options that they just didn't have the information about when they were in high school. And so our topic today, we're gonna talk about that. We've called it CTE, or Career and Technical Education, and we're diving into that particular. topic with a special guest. and I talked about careers we'd like to try out for a day. A lot of times CTE gets thought of as the career you get to try out for a semester, you know, or if we go back to our early days, this wasn't CTE. They might have called it that, but what we called it was shop, right? And shop meant woodworking, it meant working on cars, it meant all kinds of things. And a lot of times it just felt like shop. was just where they sent the kids who weren't good at regular classes, right? Listen, I was good at shop. I enjoyed shop as well. I still have my clock that I made. You really do? I really do. And my oldest son made a clock too. Like, I'm just saying, like, as far as shop goes. But Andrew's being kind friends, because I'm older than Andrew. And when I went to school, it was called vocational education. OK. So it was called, like, VOTEC. Yeah. And like... and it wasn't called career and technical education. But I have a deep, deep love for CTE. Well, what's interesting is no matter how long ago you went to high school, you really don't have to go back that far to realize that the tide has shifted on CTE. Something is happening, right? So today there's a couple of factors at play. There's a rise in opportunity and pay for skilled jobs. The infamous one is welding. Everybody always seems to talk about, but welders are making a lot of money right now. So we're plumbers, people in electrical, medical, and other technical fields. And the rise in opportunities and pay in these areas have created a shift in priorities for schools. We used to see these professions, if we're being honest, as last resorts for underperforming students. But one of the places that's leading the way in this CTE shift is a school that we just found out about a couple of months ago called Gulfport High School. They're in Gulfport, Mississippi. This is a very blue collar area of the country, a place where CTE has always been a priority. But what's amazing is how they've moved CTE from the side to the center. So a few weeks ago, I actually got to meet with Dave Huffman. He's one of the teachers, one of the CTE leaders at Gulfport. And I could tell immediately that Dave is a guy with a no-nonsense attitude, which we like, but he also has a big heart for his students. And after 35 years of experience in construction and in the military, Dave actually was just recently awarded the Harbor Freight Tools for Schools National Prize. This is a major- That's awesome. Yeah, it's a major prestigious award. And it identified him as one of the top CTE instructors in the U S. So Dave is an incredible leader who I can't wait for you to hear from. But if we're being honest, as I had my conversation with Dave to hear Dave talk about his story, this is not a journey that he actually planned. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Dave Huffman. Been teaching CTE construction technology for the past 12 years. In my previous life, I spent almost 23 years in the air force on construction. So, When I retired, didn't really know what I was going to do when I grew up. And this job kind of fell in my lap and I had never really thought about high school, teaching school. But I realized that my passion is people. When this opportunity presented itself, had to do a little soul searching, talked to my wife and just kind of settled that this is what I wanted to do. it's been the best decision I've ever made. It's just so rewarding. being able to come to school each day and help change kids' lives, both personally and education. It's just the most rewarding thing I think I've ever done. It sounds like Destiny knew Dave was meant to work with kids. Yes, I think that is true, right? It's amazing to hear him tell his story. It really feels like Dave has found his sweet spot. And in fact, Gulfport High School itself has even restructured to meet the needs of a large portion of its student body. those who are preparing for work right out of school. So I asked Dave to walk me through how their innovative approach actually works. Here at Gulfport High School, we do what we call academic institutes. So our students spend first 10 years of their lives, you know, getting their core classes. Once they get to the high school, we kind of, have condensed the academics, kind of squeezed everything into their sophomore and freshman years. So they have almost every credit they need to graduate at the end of their 10th grade year. So amazing. At that point, they're going to choose a CTE program or a career pathway. And then they spend the next two years experiencing and exploring that career that they've chosen. So we have three institutes, Health and Human Sciences, STEM, and CAB, which is Communication, Arts and Business. I'm in the STEM Institute. which has myself, construction technology, engineering, robotics, and auto mechanics. then each institute has their own academic teachers. So our kids can literally come to our hallway, in my class, first block, go upstairs to the English teacher, next door to the history teacher, back downstairs to the science teacher, and never leave the building. Wow. So it's just, the academics are kind of aligned with the chosen institute. I just think it's the way that education should be done. Education without application is useless in my opinion. So, I mean, it's, love the way we do it. A lot of other schools in the state of Mississippi were kind of trailblazers were on the leading edge of a lot of this. And a lot of other schools have adopted our program and doing it themselves. But it's just, it's the key is, just to be able to, you know, I say all the time, the worst thing that could happen as a kid figures out what they don't want to do when they grow up. While I'm sure there are lots of other schools like Gulfport out there that have restructured high school in this sort of unusual way, when Dave and I talked, it was honestly the first time I had ever heard of the idea of condensing those core classes in order to spend a concentrated amount of time on career preparation towards the end of high school. Yes, me too. I think their approach, like you mentioned, it might not be unique as we don't know what every school does around the country, but it's... It's real and it's working. It's like a fast track to real world skills. I love the idea of students choosing a career pathway early on and really diving into it. Plus never having to leave the building for their classes must be so convenient for the students. I do have a question though. We know that Dave thinks about the structure, but what do the students think about it? Yeah, I was wondering the exact same thing. So I asked Dave that question. I think... You know, it's tough to really assess that because when the kids are living it, they don't realize what they have. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think they embrace it. And I think once they're gone, they kind of look back on it, especially when they talk to other, other students that didn't, didn't get educated the way they did. They start to see the value. And I just had a conversation with my daughter who's going into her junior year of college. And for the first time ever, she admitted that how prepared she. Golfport made her our high school. She had a speech class and she said she was sitting in the room listening to other people give their speeches and she was just shocked at how unprepared they were. And she got up and she killed it. You know, she slayed her speech and she's like, you know, this is because I was put in those situations during my time in high school. So I don't know if they immediately sense it, but I think they're going to look back on it and see just truly how. how amazing it is and how much it has prepared them for the real world. I don't know if you heard it, but I love that Dave drops some Gen Z slang in his, in his response there. Did you hear him drop sleigh casually? I'm not even as cool as Dave. I'm definitely not as cool. I've not. But it's an amazing story too, right? I did notice that he is telling a story about his daughter who is in college and not a career. that Gulfport is using the same career skills focus method to prepare students who are headed for a four year degree as well. Talk about the snaps. We need to give all of the snaps because that means it's working. what Dave and I think all the teachers at Gulfport have realized is that this... Like it's the same thing that we're hearing when you and I go out on the road, we're spending time with business leaders who are hiring young professionals and they're saying the same thing. The skills their students are learning as a part of their CTE programs are applicable beyond just the specific careers that they're preparing for. It seems like this is something a lot of people get wrong when they think about CTE, right? CTE is preparing kids for careers full stop, whether that career starts next year when they graduate. or many years from now after a four-year degree or graduate degrees or whatever it is. I mean, this is just not your mama's CTE. It's just not. It's not whatever you thought about CTE, vocational education, shop, whatever it was called or whatever it is called. That is not it. That's exactly right, Gina. I think you've got it. We have a saying here at Gulfport High that everything we do is for real and not faux real. We try to make every, we embrace project-based learning or problem-based learning. We put our kids in situations where, you know, gone are the days of building birdhouses and mantle clocks that you can take home and say, look how pretty this is. We try to find real world problems, real world projects that they can gain experience from. They can fail. They can succeed. They can change direction. I think that's one of the hardest thing for the academic teachers on our team. When we first started, they wanted to plan everything out step by step by step by step. Yeah. And the CTE teachers are like, Hey, it's just let it be organic. And they kind of freaked out because they're planners, you know, but you know, that was 10 years ago and here we are now. And, and one of the most adamant about planning everything out is just, let's just do it and see where it takes us. That's a great experience for. the teacher as well as the student. Andrew, you told me before we started recording today's episode that the program at Gulfport also includes international experiences for students. That was like very disorienting for me. Yeah. If I use my former knowledge of CTE, what does that look like? Yeah. I think when I was going to high school, we were lucky if we got to do a field trip 30 miles away. Say it. Yeah. Dave actually told me about a recent trip he took with his students to Peru. This is the one of many trips he's taken over the years. And for him, it was not only a really cool experience, but it was also a life changing real world example, both for him and his students of what really education itself is all about. partner with some other schools and our engineering students, 3d printing prosthetic parts. And, we get down there to Peru with, I think it was late. 20 students, half of them had never met each other. We had some from Arizona, some from Alabama, some from Mississippi. We had a plan. The plan lasted about five minutes and it blew up. So we have all these parts laid out that needed to be assembled into legs because we had to take them apart to ship them. And it was chaotic. And it started out, had, you know, kids shoulder to shoulder. I'm trying to guide them through, okay, do this, this, this, and this. And at first they were barely even looking at each other. Everything was moving very, very slow. But about an hour and a half later, I sit down when I could finally breathe and I look over at these tables with these, you know, 15, 20 kids. They're working together. They're talking. They're solving problems on their own. And they didn't need adults. You know what saying? They didn't need us to hold their hand and guide them. I think a big mistake we make is parents, adults, teachers, educators, is, you know, we want to control every aspect of what they do. And sometimes the best thing for us to do is just get out of the way and just let them do their thing, you know, and be there to support them and guide them when they need it. But we don't give these young men and women enough credit. And that was an eye-opening experience for me that they really didn't need me. And Andrew, I mean, This is what education is supposed to be. Yes. Yes. Yes. Right. I can't help but ask myself, you've talked about it before, Gina, if the goal of education is to get students ready to be an adult, to learn to do things on their own, then why do we keep doing so much for them? Right. Traditional education is full of adults making decisions for kids. But this is why I love the idea of moving CTE from the outskirts. you know, physically and literally from the outskirts of the school to the center of the school, both in programming and in the physical location. I 100 % agree. But if I'm a school leader and I'm listening and I'm leaning in to our conversation right now, I guess I'd have to wonder if everything is experiential learning, how do they know when they've been successful? Like, what are the measurements? How do we measure success and the impact of these CTE programs? Yeah. Yeah. Well, to be clear, and Dave was clear about this in our conversation, Gulfport still has grades. So it's not like everything is just experiences. Their students still take AP and college entrance exams, right? So that's still a factor. The difference is that at Gulfport, they don't believe that these stats are the only measure that matters. Where I measure success is how many of my students leave me knowing or having a better idea of what they want to do. in college, you know, I have somebody, I want to do this, but you hate math. You're not going to be an engineer, right? I mean, if you don't like math, you're not going to be an engineer. If you don't like the sciences, you're not going to be a doctor. So kind of hopefully give them that direction. They find something that they're passionate about because passion drives success. Students that go to college, they're actually majoring something that they're passionate about. They're going to be more successful. So my students that go to college and get their degrees, You know, relatively when they're supposed to four to five years these days. That's one way. But the other way is how many of my students leave me and find a career. Are they finding a job that they're passionate about? Are they bouncing around from job to job to job? Nothing against, you know, fast food workers, but that's not a career. That's a job. And that's the other way we track our students. Not that way. not tracking, not Big Brother track them. We stay in touch with them to find out what they're doing. We have to turn that data into the state. So we stay with them for at least four years after high school. What are you doing? Where are you working? How can I help? And I would say for the most part, a lot of our kids, it's really hard to put a number on as far as like percentage-wise, but I think the majority of our kids are finding ways to be successful in their lives. much more so than I would say some of our other local schools. They might have better test scores. They might be ranked higher on these online websites as far as, you know, results on tests and stuff like that. But I would say that our students are more prepared for the real world than most students that are going traditional education. And I hear that all the time from students that have went out and they're working with other people and the other peers are telling them, man, how do you know how to do this? How do you know how to use this tool? How do you know how to get in front of people and talk to them? You know, it's because they're doing it every day. that, like I said, it's hard to quantify. I know education likes to have, you know, give me a number, but not everything can be quantified, you know, with a data point. I asked Dave to give me an example, a story of a student that to him is a success story. And the one he told is a perfect example. of why we can't count out CTE in the overall mission of a school. I mean, I have a bunch, but one that really pops out in my mind is had a young man who wasn't the best student. He was a lot like me in high school. He hated school. You know, I think the education system has a tendency to make people like me. and this, this young man, name's Dakota, feel like they're not smart. Cause when you're sitting in class and all the smart kids have one thing in common, they like school. So if I don't like school, must not be smart. And it has nothing to do with intelligence. I was the type of kid that I needed the why show me where this works in the real world. Show me how I'm going to use this. And he was that type of kid. And he was always asking why, why, why. And you know, lot of teachers see that as they're challenging you, but yeah, I my best to explain why. And you know, he graduated high school, no plans to go to college. about, let's see, about nine months later, I get a phone call from him. And he's like, Mr. Elmer, I just want to let you know that I just got my W of two and I'm filing my taxes. And he said, you know, I made over $100,000 in eight months. I said, whoa. Really? Wow. Are they hiring? He was working on a pipeline over in Louisiana doing some welding, working a lot of hours, but he was enjoying it. was loving it. And he said something to me. He said, you know, all those kids in school that thought that I was going to be a loser or$80,000 in debt, and I'm $100,000 richer. That's, and I want to prepare kids for college or career because let's be honest, all roads lead to a J O B. Whether you take the same route and go to college first, or whether you go on a freeway and go straight to work, all roads lead to a J O B. So having that young man tell me that, you know, what I taught him allowed him to go out and make a living. And more than the money, he was just proud of himself. know, so it's just society like makes people who don't go to college feel bad about their decisions. He was proud of himself. He was proud of the fact that he was driving around in a nice truck and being able to take care of himself and people that he kind of saw that looked down on him are in college grinding and most of them going in debt and he's out there making money. That's what it's all about. And not taking anything away from the ones that go to college and get their degrees. That's great. Everybody has a different journey. And I've had plenty that come back once they finished their degrees and, you know, are successful because of things they learned in my class as well. So it goes both ways, but that's one of my biggest success stories. just, I love telling that story because he, he was not a good student. Most of time he was a big pain in the butt, but you know, he landed on his feet and, and he's still out there doing great things. he would have dropped out. he, I mean, he told me his senior year, the only reason he came to school was for my class. If it wasn't for you, I would have already dropped out. you know, our graduation rate is over 91%. So I think we do pretty good keeping kids in school and I think CTE has a lot to do with that. What a story. That's it right there, Andrew. CTE programs can keep kids engaged and in school. Yes. Especially those who might otherwise drop out. And a 91 % graduation rate? Why? Yeah. I can think of a few schools who would love to report that number to their district. Me too, me too. Yeah. It's time we started movie CTE to the limelight. I was convinced before Dave just kind of sealed the deal for me. That's why my final question to Dave was really a practical one. I knew something special was happening there and I wanted him to get the chance to help other people get there too. I think by now our listeners are getting the idea that we have a bias for action here. So I asked Dave to put his school leader hat on. and tell us what advice he would give to a principal or district superintendent who might be listening who wanted to add additional emphasis on career and technical education to their school. Well, think first and foremost, you need to get buy-in from your community. You need to find people in your community. A lot of people sit around and complain about, don't have the workforce, we don't have enough people to work. We'll stop complaining about it and invest. And I'm not talking financially, I'm talking about your time, internships. job shadowing experiences, just stopping by and talking to kids. Show them that you're interested in what you're doing and show them that you care. The administrators and school leadership need to find those people. They're there. They're out there. I can't imagine that you don't have people in your community that can help you in that way. And I think that's the most important thing is getting that community buy-in, getting your stakeholders involved, getting the kids, you know, They hear from the teacher all day, every day, having someone from business and industry come in and say the same things that I'm saying. just adds some validity to what I'm telling them. Investing your teachers. It's not lost on me that this leadership, this podcast. you know, the biggest downfall to me, you know, in the military leadership is everything. In the Air Force, have an Airman Leadership School, NCO Academy, senior NCO Academy. Leadership, leadership, leadership. It's part of our culture that you're training your replacements. I don't think there's enough leadership training in education. An effective teacher is a teacher who is leading children on an educational journey, right? What makes a person a student, an effective leader, makes them an effective employee. All the characteristics in a good leader are the same characteristics you're looking for in a good employee. Right? They can get along with people, conflict resolution, change management, all of that. And it's the same thing in education, right? They come down, we want to change direction. There's no change management. They just say, this is what you're going to do. Get on board or just deal with it. Right? So they're creating this culture where there's change, but there's no process to the change. It's just do it because I'm the boss and say to do it. Invest in leadership, invest in leadership training, prepare your teachers to be leaders so that by example, their students see them as a leader and they themselves want to be, you know, they want to emulate the teachers, right? So, you know, invest in some leadership training, invest in this, even for the kids, you know, we're going to be doing iLead. That's something that Brittany from John Maxwell introduced to us and we think it's very, very, important. And it's something that we plan on rolling out with our students next year because, you know, the more prepared, again, as we've been talking about the whole time for the real world, the more successful you're going to be. I don't think that we emphasize enough the importance of leadership, teamwork, conflict resolution, all of these things that make you a good leader is going to make you a good worker. It's gonna make you a good teacher. It's gonna make you a good husband, wife, whatever it is, right? So that would be my advice. And if you can do that, get the investment from your community, build up these programs, meet the needs of the community, grow future leaders, prepare your teachers, everything else is gonna fall into line. Boom, Gina. No, boom. Like boom all the way, boom. I need to meet Dave. I need to have his cell phone number. We need to be friends. I feel like you would love him though if I'm honest I fear what would happen to the rest of us if the two of you were in the same room together swapping ideas. would be dangerous. I mean I love me some CTE. I also Love something else. It's time for DMI. Let's do it By now, our loyal listeners know what DMI stands for. Don't miss it. Andrew, you want to kick us off with what's the best thing you heard today or something that stood out to you? Yeah, I mean, Dave said so many great things. There's so many things I could go back to. But for me, I think it's that moment that he went back to. And this is what I love. It doesn't even have to be CTE. It can be any form of education, but one that leads to this outcome where he said, I had a realization as the teacher, they don't need me anymore. To me, that's a period full stop. That's what it's all about. If our goal is to get kids ready, then we're getting them ready for a moment where they don't need us anymore. And if that can begin to happen in small ways inside of the classroom, then we're on the right track. That's, think CTE is a natural way to create those kinds of experiences. It can happen in any classroom, but to me, I would go to any school and if they had experiences they were creating that arrived, that helped students get to that point where they don't need the teacher anymore to keep going. And to me, that's a sign of success. I love that Dave worded it that way. That's a great one to take with us. What about you, Gina? You know, it's so full. This experience has been so full of ideas. And I guess it's a combination of things. But when we were talking a little bit ago about their students still take AP and college entrance exams, they still have grades. I think sometimes we get in our own way as educators. as school administrators, as parents, we think about what was our mama's CTE. We think about what our experience was in school. We think that there's only one way to do something, or we pursue a completely opposite way, and that's not satisfying either. And I just would encourage you friends to think about if what you heard Dave share really is resonating with you. This model, does not throw out the baby with the bathwater. It doesn't. This model allows you to keep things that are at the core of academics and also highlight experiential opportunities. Absolutely. Let's not lose our rigor, but let's add some experience. Yeah, it's a both and method. And I just wonder, you know, for those of you that are like, really want to move to golf to work. I'm thinking about it myself. Like, really want to move. OK, so let's say you don't move to golf, but how do we get this, like, how do we take a first step or how do we take a next step to see some of these things happen in our schools? And I think it's using a podcast like this to introduce a great idea and a success story. Love it. Yeah. Love it. Thanks, Gina. Yeah. And special thanks to Dave. He was incredible, an amazing leader, and we hope that he gets more awards in his future because he's doing amazing make one. Yeah, let's, let's make up our own award for them. Well, thank you also listeners for joining us on today's episode of the School on a Mission podcast. Before you hit the skip button onto your next podcast, remember we've got a little challenge for you. So grab that pen, notebook, sticky note, back of your hand, whatever you got. And we want you to write down one action statement, one action that you're going to take this week. Maybe it's something you're going to do, something to add to your to-do list, something you're going to investigate. Maybe you want to read more about something. Maybe you're to read a paper on CTE or find out more about Dave and what they're doing at Gulfport. Maybe it's a person you want to meet with. You want to sit down with a CTE instructor in your school and go, how can I give you more resources and help you succeed? Whatever it is, write it down. Got it? Perfect. Now we want you to DM it to us on Instagram or TicTac. Whatever that action step is, send it to us. We cannot wait to hear the awesome things that you're up to. Until next time, listeners, stay curious, stay bold, and keep leading your school on a mission. The School on a Mission podcast is produced by Growing Leaders, a Maxwell leadership company. You can find out more about Growing Leaders at growingleaders.com. We'd like to especially thank Rosie Lownes and Taylor Hasty for joining us as guests in today's episode. To find out more about the School on a Mission podcast, head over to schoolonamissionpodcast.com. This podcast was produced by Angelica Oliver and edited by Jake Decker.