We spend a lot of time talking about what schools need to become. More innovative. More responsive. More future ready. But before we add another initiative, another technology, another pathway, or another reform, maybe we need to ask a more fundamental question: Have we kept the main thing the main thing? In this episode of The Wheelhouse, we are joined by Derek Shuttleworth, a public school English teacher beginning his twenty-sixth year in education, and one of his former students, Madison Middlestead. Derek has spent his career teaching across four states, multiple grade levels, and rural, urban, and suburban communities. Along the way, he has done far more than teach English. He has created clubs and community events, mentored future teachers, advocated for reform, built partnerships, and worked to expand access to postsecondary opportunities for students. Today, at Lansingburgh High School in Troy, New York, he teaches Junior Regents English and dual enrollment courses through Hudson Valley Community College while helping create pathways that could eventually allow students to earn significant college credit—and perhaps even an associate’s degree—before graduating from high school. Madison brings an equally important perspective. She is now a college student, but her journey through school was not always easy. Her experience gives us the opportunity to look at education from the other side of the desk—to consider the difference between what educators intend for students and what students actually experience. And that difference matters. Together, Derek and Madison help us explore what happens when students feel seen, known, challenged, and believed in—and what happens when they do not. We talk about the power of relationships, the importance of student voice, the difference between creating an opportunity and helping a student believe that opportunity is actually meant for them, and the responsibility educators carry in helping young people imagine possibilities they may not yet be able to imagine for themselves. Derek’s work reminds us that teaching can be much bigger than delivering a curriculum. It can mean opening doors, building pathways, expanding possibilities, and refusing to accept that the boundaries we inherited are the boundaries students must inherit. Madison reminds us of something just as important: an opportunity can exist without a student ever believing they belong in it. That is why student voice cannot simply be something we collect. It has to be something that changes us. Ultimately, this conversation brings us back to one deceptively simple question: What is the main thing? Maybe it isn’t the program. Maybe it isn’t the credential. Maybe it isn’t the newest reform, technology, or initiative. Maybe the main thing is the young person in front of us—the human being whose life should become larger because they encountered our schools. If that is true, then everything else we build has to answer to that. TakeawaysBefore schools chase what is next, we have to be clear about what must never be lost.Student voice matters most when it changes how adults think, lead, teach, and design.There is a difference between offering students an opportunity and helping them believe that opportunity is truly available to them.Relationships can shape how students see themselves, their abilities, and what they believe is possible.Teaching is bigger than delivering content; it is also about opening doors and expanding possibility.What educators intend and what students actually experience are not always the same thing.The main thing in education is the human being whose life school is supposed to enlarge. Follow Students Matter, LLC on Instagram or LinkedIn. Connect on LinkedIn with each of us individually: Kathy Mohney, Michael Pipa, Dr. Alicia Monroe, and Dr. Grant Chandler. To learn more about the Students Matter Ecosystem, stop by: Students Matter LearnHarbor Until next time, remember: Every student matters. Every educator matters. And what we create together matters. Stay Oriented.
