MANSFIELD — The setting seemed odd at first, but Kevin Honeycutt embraced it with gusto.
The Kansas man was trying to inspire local educational administrators while speaking to them Wednesday at the Ohio State Reformatory, site of the movie “The Shawshank Redemption.” Honeycutt repeatedly referenced the surroundings to his audience, describing them as beautiful and scary.
Still, he urged those bars and walls not to become real in their own classrooms.
“Look around here,” he said to the audience. “We’ve got to make sure our schools aren’t places like this.”
Honeycutt’s dynamic message was part of a daylong leadership conference titled “Schools Re-Imagined.” The event was conducted by the Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center. Among those in attendance was Dr. Lonny J. Rivera, Ohio’s superintendent of public instruction.
“I think it was amazing,” Rivera said of Honeycutt’s address. “The movie kind of lends itself to what he was talking about, like when Brooks gets out of prison, he’s so institutionalized by the walls and how typecast things are in his environment that he can’t function when those walls are gone.
“As educators, we need to look at our climate and relationship pieces with students and ask ourselves if we’re preparing them for what’s next.”
Honeycutt is the product of a troubled background, describing his father as an abusive alcoholic and an outlaw. He grew up in extreme poverty and bounced through approximately 20 schools. But he found inspiration in the form of social workers and crucial support from teachers.
That background provided him with an insight to reach the most difficult students facing the most trying circumstances.
“Every time an educator or school leader becomes a leader again, the cell doors for kids swing open and kids walk out into the bright light of their own potential,” Honeycutt said. “Most good school innovation dies of domestic violence. We have teachers (ostracized) for trying something new.
“We can’t be afraid of failure. The problem with schools is we are not allowed to fail. Edison didn’t invent the light bulb on the first try. He learned something with every failure. It’s healthy to keep learning, and it’s fun. You live longer, too.”
He asked administrators to embrace teachers with innovative ideas, those involved in social media and on the cutting edge of new methods and idealistic approaches.
“We have to ask ourselves how do we connect kids, teachers and classrooms to a larger, less-confined world,” Honeycutt said. “We can’t teach them just about yesterday if we want to get them ready for tomorrow.”
Honeycutt said at times he’s unwittingly lived his own message. Just after his son left home, he told his wife they were now empty nesters. A short time later, she announced that would no longer be the case. She was pregnant.
“She told me, ‘We’re back in the game,'” he remembered. “I said, ‘I didn’t know I had any eligibility left.’ “
Now with another young son beginning his educational legacy, Honeycutt must walk the walk.
“I’m showing him I’m still learning, too,” he said. “I’ve got to be in places where he’s going to be. Today’s kids are raising themselves in the digital world and no one is on recess duty.
“You think I want to be on Twitter or Instagram? Hey, we’re in a service profession. There is no cruise control.”
Honeycutt challenged the audience to connect with everyone involved at their schools, cooks, bus drivers, custodians, teachers and students. He was in the classroom for 13 years before he began teaching teachers, and yet his travels have proven that money in a school district is nowhere near as important as those connections.
He noted the most inspiring districts exude that esprit de corps. While others are specialists that share a parking lot but not a common vision.
“We can’t afford to be secret geniuses,” Honeycutt said. “Talk about your kids. What are they doing? How are you empowering them to empower themselves? Everybody knows the bad stories, tell them your good stories. I’ll bet everyone here has one right now. Share them.”
He reiterated that students often need someone to believe in them before they can believe in themselves, and pointed to himself as an example.
“I think you can flip a student. I think you can flip a teacher, too,” Honeycutt said. “How do we change mindsets, that’s the challenge.
“Let’s not do a one day in-and-out, let’s keep the conversation going.”
