For the past year I served as a Distinguished Educator Fellow for PDK International. The biggest highlight of that experience was getting to serve as an informal mentor for Owen Elsasser, a young educator from Nebraska. Mentor is the wrong word, though, because Owen is such a dynamo that I mostly have just been a cheerleader on the sideline, watching him do all of his awesomeness…
Owen is both a delightful human being and an unstoppable force of nature. I was introduced to Owen through PDK after he had just graduated high school. Owen already was a national officer for Educators Rising, PDK’s program to help high schools create and nurture ‘grow your own’ teacher pathways, and he has continued to be involved nationally with PDK ever since. Additionally, Owen has been connecting with college-, national-, and state-level leaders and organizations around teacher preparation. He is presenting at conferences, creating new resources, and talking with whomever he can about educators, preservice preparation, and advocacy for the teaching profession. Owen is incredibly well-connected given that he is only a college sophomore, and you can find him on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, and Instagram, among others. I can’t wait to see what he does over the rest of his college career and as a classroom teacher!Â
This year Owen and I had a chance to record an episode for the PDK podcast. We discussed an issue that is near the very top of Owen’s list of interests: How do we get more men into P-12 teaching roles, particularly at the elementary and middle level?
Happy listening!
