How to Live, Be, & Lead

Educator and leader Melinda Tsapatsaris puts progressive pedagogy into practice at Westland School in Los Angeles, California, where students and teachers are partners in the democratic act of learning.

Twenty years into her career as an educator, alumna Melinda Tsapatsaris still finds practice a key to her, well, practice.

“I like that we never think we have it down, that practice means repetition and reflection and revising for the next time—how to meet children’s needs in the most reflective way,” she says.

It’s no wonder Tsapatsaris, BSED ’98, uses the words “reflection” and “reflective.” As a member of a student cohort in The Patton College of Education’s award-winning Creating Active and Reflective Educators (CARE) program, she uses its principles as head of school (akin to superintendent) at the independent K-12 school she leads.

“The CARE program was totally authentic in that it modeled how its students should live, be, and lead in schools,” Tsapatsaris says. “The program emphasized project-based learning, reflection, grappling, Socratic methods, democratic practices, critical and creative thinking, multicultural practice, and relationship building.”

While at OHIO, Tsapatsaris recalls a time when an instructor demonstrated what it means to practice democracy in the classroom. The instructor asked the class to share the grade they felt they deserved on an assignment.

“This self-reflection, this idea of empowering the student, takes out that hierarchical model,” Tsapatsaris says.

Putting knowledge into practice

Students call teachers by their first names at Westland School, a school that champions inquiry-based, experiential learning. When she observes a classroom at Westland, Tsapatsaris says, she’s looking to see that the students are the ones working hardest, not the teacher, who is “there giving them counsel,” she says.

Tsapatsaris says CARE taught her the importance of continuously cultivating a sense of community in schools, a lesson she learned as a member of a three-year-long OHIO student cohort placed in Athens County’s rural Federal Hocking School District.

“You have to build a really connected community to get to the place where you’re taking big intellectual risks,” she says. “Learning is a social act.”

Feature photo: Westland School’s teachers and head of school Melinda Tsapatsaris [LEFT] practice progressive pedagogy at the Los Angeles, California, school, where students and teachers are united in the democratic act of learning. Photo by Kyle Grillot, BSVC ’12