"Choosing to Dance" — An Interview with ASCD President Kay Musgrove

Hi, I'm Kathleen Burke, Director of ASCD's Annual Conference. Welcome to ASCD's Annual Conference Online 2002.

As the first in a series of online programs that will preview topics and highlights of the 2002 Annual Conference, we are pleased to welcome ASCD President Kay A. Musgrove. Kay is the Assistant Superintendent in Franklin, Tennessee.

Kay, you have played a major role in planning ASCD's 2002 Conference. Please share with our audience how ASCD arrived at the theme of "Choosing to Dance: Taking Bold Steps for the Sake of Our Children."

When the conference planning committee met, we looked at the theme that we knew would be for 2001, which was "Reaching for Balance: Resolving Education Dilemmas." And we really wanted to move on from that theme to talk about the positive solutions that educators take and the challenges that they face each day. We had a great committee, the ideas bouncing all over the room, and so we finally came up the first day with "Choosing to Dance." The second day, we had "Put the Steps in for the Sake of the Children," but it just wasn't there yet, and the second day we all came together and said it's "Choosing to Dance: Taking Bold Steps for the Sake of Our Children." And we've never looked back. We all think it's a very good theme for an educational conference. We're real proud of it.

And I understand that this is a theme that strikes a personal chord, as well?

Many years ago, I'd been deeply affected by the illness and death of my daughter, who had leukemia. And I realized many years ago that we all have choices to make. And so I took that story to the conference committee, that we have choices, that I learned to live with choices, that I learned that even though we had to deal with this awful tragedy in our lives, that we had Stacy for 10 years because of choices that we made with her treatment and that you either can decide that I can't handle this and you move to putting a blanket around you and you don't embrace life, or you move on and you realize that you only have today that you can live with. And as we looked at that, and as I challenged them, we felt, I felt, as if educators always make choices. They're continually choosing, well, choosing to dance. And they take bold steps. And we decided that we wanted those bold steps to come out, and for us to share with the other people in our organization about what educators are doing. Just today, I talked with someone from ASCD, and the question was posed to him, "Well, are we going to San Antonio in light of what's happened September the 11th?" and he said, "By all means." The two of us talked, and we said it came back to these choices again. We have to make choices. The President right now is telling us, "Go on with your lives, but be aware." That looks like it's a dilemma, but I'm here to tell you it's not a dilemma, we do have to go on with it. And the comment was made this morning that during these times educators must be enlightened, and never is there a time more important in our lives that we need to come together and be influenced, be enlightened, be challenged by what we will hear in San Antonio.

This Annual Conference Online 2002 project is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Their focus this year is on health in education. What are some of the ways that the issue of "health" has an impact on student achievement?

It impacts it beyond what we can imagine. You know we've always said if a child comes hungry, if a child is sick, it's very difficult for them to learn. I go back to Maslow and his hierarchy. We've got to meet the basic needs of children before they can move on to the knowledge level. Nowhere was that more important than the 10 years I spent with my daughter being ill. I was so very fortunate, so very fortunate that a doctor told me early on when we went through the treatment, she was in remission, and we looked at the doctor and we said, "What now?" And he said, "You go back and you have as normal a life as possible." And over and over, when it was so easy just to say, "Oh Stacy, you don't have to go to school, you're having a difficult time," we came back to those words "have a normal life." And health is very important for that normal life. It's just indescribable how important it is. And children must be healthy, they must feel good about themselves, they must be at a level where they can learn because they are healthy. And so it's very important.

Thank you, Kay. And thanks to our Internet audience for tuning in to one of a series of online programs previewing the ASCD's 2002 Annual Conference in San Antonio. Check back this time next week when we will post the next program, featuring Dr. Joycelyn Elders. Before you leave this site, take a few minutes to visit the ASCD Annual Conference web page for the latest conference updates. I'm Kathleen Burke.