Ep. 65 "From the Ground Up: Changing Education from 2021 to Now"

KENT: Hi everyone. We all have a unique perspective that is shaped by our experiences. And with that unique perspective comes a special place in all of our hearts—a passion, if you will—to fulfill our calling. 

Not uncommon, that passion is usually connected to wanting to make the world a better place. That mission has carried on in many individuals throughout time and history. From one compassion and individual to the next, as we continue to improve, to the best of our abilities, our culture.

Today is a special day for Noah Webster Educational Foundation because we’re celebrating our second birthday! My name is Catherine Kent, and I work as the content manager and editor here. Today, I get the special privilege of switching seats with Melvin Adams, our founder, and interviewing him for a change so he can switch roles and share his story of how he became the founder and president. 

While we have told some of those stories before, today we really want to get to know who he is as a person and allow him to share some of that great personality with us. 

Melvin, welcome to your own show!

ADAMS: Well, thank you Catherine. It’s great to be on with you today! Hopefully everyone else listening will enjoy it as well.

KENT: Awesome, awesome. Well, let’s dive in.

You’ve been an educator for many years and you’ve been heavily involved in your community and educational endeavors throughout the international community. In previous episodes you’ve talked about the founding, you’ve talked about the problems with American education. Every week you interview someone new and explore more of how we can solve those problems and what those issues are that are facing American families. 

So today let’s talk a little more and dive a little deeper into the why. The why behind Noah Webster. And why behind this mission to reclaim education. Let’s start at the very beginning—to quote The Sound of Music—and let’s talk about your childhood a little bit. What was your education like and how do you believe that your educational experiences, as a child and young adult, helped share and shape your desire to help children today.

ADAMS: Oh, my. I feel a little bit like I’m sitting in front of a school counselor! No, actually, that’s a great question.

A lot of people don’t know this, but I was born and raised in East Africa. My parents Christian missionaries. I was born in what is today the country of Eritrea. Most people would never be able to find that on the map, but at the time, it was part of Ethiopia. So it’s in the horn of Africa—kind of the Northeastern part—and Eritrea is that sliver that goes right along the northern part and it’s right on the Red Sea. Literally across the Red Sea from Yemen, which you hear sometimes in the news.

On the one side we had Sudan and on the other side we had the little country of Djibouti and Somalia. In the south would be Ethiopia and across the Red Sea is Yemen. That’s the part of the world I grew up in. I was clearly a minority in that community. I was a white boy. But, you know what? That was home to me. Really didn’t know the difference. Loved those people; love them today. 

As far as my own upbringing and education, there were a number of missionaries there and because we kind of had our own…a lot of missionaries back in that day used to send their kids off to Kenya or someplace to boarding school. Honestly, I’m grateful my parents didn’t do that. I don’t know what would have happened. It could have been a great experience, but my own experience was great growing up at home, growing up with my siblings. And there were a few other missionaries that were working in conjunction in the organization.

So we kind of had our own homeschool co-op type thing. It was great. We started out with early curriculum, it focused on—it was Calvert curriculum is what it was called back then, that particular one—and it focused on reading, writing, basic math. That kind of stuff.

Later on, we went into some other types of curriculum. The early years of accelerated Chsritian education. Experienced a little bit of that. And then, because it was a war zone for so much of my life there, later on we ended up going to Addis Ababa, which is the capital of Ethiopia, and I did my highschool year there.

I attended the Sanford English Community School. It was a British school. It had, I believe, fifty-seven different nationalities that attended. A lot of the people who were my classmates were embassy kids or ambassador’s kids, or people from the Organization of African Unity. The headquarters was there in Addis Ababa. 

So I had a very diverse educational experience. My teachers were from England but my classmates were from all over Africa, from Asia, from Europe, and from the Middle East. It was a great upbringing. It was a great experience, I learned a lot about them, learned a lot about their cultures and countries and have life-long friendships that remain until today. 

KENT: That sounds like such a fantastic education. Just the fact that you were able to interact with so many different cultures and different perspectives…it’s such a broadening of the mind. Really, it is. In today’s culture where we put so much of an emphasis on understanding different cultures, and diversity, and things like that—to have that background…what a great foundation for a perspective, to be able to interact with everyone.

What led from that moment to where you basically have this international education, right? What led you from that international education to you being like, “You know what? I want to be an educator myself. I want to interact in the education sphere in my career”?

ADAMS: Actually, that’s a very interesting question, and I have to tell a little story, here. 

I came to the States to go to college. I actually wanted to be a veterinary doctor. That’s what I wanted to be. I loved animal husbandry—it was a very agrarian community where we lived—so we always had animals: livestock, all kinds of stuff. I loved it. Thought that’s what I wanted to do, but when it was time to go to college, that was long before the internet, and it was like, “Okay, where in the world would I go to school to be a veterinary doctor?”

I had no idea, nobody I knew, my parents didn’t know. So my older sister had gotten accepted into a Christian college in Cincinnati, Ohio. My parents suggested, “Why don’t you guys go together and that way your transition away from home—you’ll both be together, you’ll be in a good environment there. You can get started there and then from there you can transition to other things and find another school where you want to go.”

That’s what we did. Because my parents were also very musical, along with my family, and we learned music as kids…so when I got to this Christian college, music was something I knew and had and didn’t really know—well, the fun thing was music, right? So I plugged in there. I ended up getting music scholarships. Traveled all over the country, representing the college through music. 

My first year was going by really quickly and I was enjoying myself and my experience and getting a lot of neat things that were going on there. So I was like, “Okay, I need to be transitioning over to vet school some place.” Didn’t know where that was, but, I’ll tell you what: there was a deeper thing going on in my life. This really comes down to the core of who I am and why I ended up doing some of the things I’ve done and why I’m doing it today.

I told you it was a Chritstian college. I was raised in a Christian missionary home. But I knew a lot about God, I had some spiritual experiences and so forth, but as I was transitioning into adulthood, there was that whole difference in ownership and responsibility around my own faith. What did I really believe? Who was God to me? Versus my parents, my family, and everything else.

Toward the end of that first year, I really began to grapple with those. I was starting to grow up, maybe, if a good way to put it. I began to understand that I had to have my own core. I couldn't just live off of things that were around me. I had to know who I was, who God created me to be, what His purpose was for me. Did I really believe in Him or not?

As I grappled with that, it led me in a whole different direction. I still love animals and some people are not going to understand this statement: but I came to understand that in God’s economy, while He created everything, His priority was humanity. People are at the top of His list of priorities. I began to understand, out of that, that for me to fulfill my purpose in life, I needed to have a focus on people. I needed to love people, I needed to serve people. Because that’s, to me, what Christianity became all about and is all about. 

I shifted focus away from veterinary work to how can I engage with, love, and serve people? How can I help others? Through that, it led me into education and directly or indirectly I’ve been there ever since.

KENT: Wow, what a journey, for sure. I think it shows a heart of—you care about animals and then, now, caring about people. There is that heart throughout, even from highschool of just wanting to care and make a difference and make things better.

It’s interesting too, because you’ve mentioned, in your story thus far, you’ve mentioned two things that tie into our core principles. And I know we had joked around before this interview started: “Don’t talk about the core principles, we talk about them all the time, this is going to be more of ‘grab your cup of coffee and tell stories type of thing.’”

But it just shows where those principles came from because, 1) you talked a lot about instruction and the instruction you received and how that made an impact and the basis that you have, even now, thanks to the schools that you had as a child. And then going into college, that faith and morality core principle became a big part of who you are.

And now, as the founder of Noah Webster, you’re fighting for—or, not really fighting, but you’re advocating for—parents to have the right for their families to get to choose the paths to faith and morality that they want. They may be different from yours or they may be the same, but that is a core tenant of who we are as an organization. 

We believe that people should be able to have those pivotal moments and interact with their families and have those conversations and that parental engagement that you mentioned multiple times—your parents, right? Having wonderful parents and wanting to help other wonderful parents help their children. It’s interesting to see the back story coming together here as you tell us your life story.

Alright, moving forward now—we’ve done childhood, collegiate life…let’s talk more about your experience as an educator once you chose that field. We know you worked around the globe as an educator, including starting a college in Europe, so you definitely have an amazing resume. But when was the pivotal moment between working in education and deciding to turn your heart more toward educational reform and decide it’s time to stand up and change things a little bit, in the sense of equipping families and educators and school board members to reclaim American education? When was that turn for you?

ADAMS: That’s a great question. I think when we were living in Europe and working there, starting that college…we traveled back and forth to the States frequently. What I noticed—it’s kind of like sometimes when you’re living in a particular place and life is happening, sometimes you don’t notice little changes that are happening as much as you do when you’re away from there and then you come back in. And it’s like, wow. Things tend to stand out and stark contrast. That’s what was happening to me.

We were over there for—we lived there for eight years. As I would come back and forth, I was seeing, in our schools, in the broader culture, some really—and again, this is the 90’s, okay? I was seeing some significant shifts and changes in what was going on that were alarming to me. Disturbing to me.

I came to the point where I decided, okay, am I going to ignore all of this stuff? Am I going to keep going down the track of life I’m on? It’s good and I love what I’m doing. Or am I going to get my hands dirty? Am I going to start pushing back? The easy thing is to just go along. But you know what? There comes a point, if you are a responsible person—whether you’re a parent, an educator, a legislator, whatever your role is—there comes a point where you have to make a decision. I’m going to let it go or I’m going to stand up and push back.

I began to understand that if some of us don’t start standing up and pushing back, the things that we enjoy today—the things that we have enjoyed throughout our lifetime—our children, our grandchildren, will never get to experience. It ties down to core principle things. That’s when I realized, okay, I’ve got to get involved. We have to figure out how we can push back in a way that is not an angry retaliation—no. It’s got to be around: “Wait a second. Let’s create awareness. Let’s talk, let’s have an intelligent conversation around what’s going on.”

There are other people who are seeing these things going on too, but sometimes it’s like, what’s going on? Everybody’s asking the question, but where are the answers? We’ve got to dig in, find the answers. And then it’s not enough to know what’s going on, but how are we going to bring solutions that people can embrace that will actually—to reclaim, to bring positive change. Positive restructuring of some things that are going astray.

That’s where that happened. It’s been a process. It’s going to be a process. Because this is a moving target. But I believe we’ve got some things figured out and I’m excited about the momentum that we’re finding as people are joining the cause and getting involved in very specific actions that they can take where they are. We’re starting to see things change community by community.

KENT: Yes, we definitely are. We definitely are seeing change happen and we’re seeing the equipping of others, thanks to the resources we have and are able to publish. Change people’s lives and they’re contacting us and telling us it’s definitely exciting to see people being equipped and empowered.

Now that NWEF…we’re here now, right? We’ve gotten to that point in the story. Let’s reflect on some of the things. We talk a lot about the joys of starting a nonprofit and all of that. But let’s reflect—or if there’s one thing that might have been harder than you thought it would be, or one thing that was a challenge that you weren’t expecting and you’ve worked to overcome that or are in the process of working to overcome that? Tell us something maybe unexpected or a little bit hard about a nonprofit.

ADAMS: This is not the first nonprofit I’ve started. I’ve done several. All of them are hard. It’s always hard because you’re taking an idea/concept and you’re basically focusing that out to the community and saying, “Hey, are we on track? Do we have buy-in and do people embrace and help that to flourish?”

I think the thing that took us by surprise—took the whole world by surprise—was COVID. We started this right in the time of COVID. We’re in our earliest years, we’re doing it at a time when all kinds of things have stood on their head. The economy has gone crazy. It’s a tough time.

And yet, ironically, as I look back on other things I’ve helped to start, or started, it’s almost always in the tough times…it’s like that’s when things kick off. And it’s like okay, if it can’t be bad it’s going to get worse. And it always does. We certainly have experienced that here in this organization.

I’ll tell you what those hardships do: they help us find out if we are committed. They help us find out if we are going to be resourceful and if we are going to find ways to work through those difficulties and still succeed. 

So, yeah. We’ve had some real challenges in the last two years. We launched two years ago. We did a lot of work prior to that, but when we launched we expected everything to take off and then it was like the whole ship started sinking around us. But, hey! There are amazing things going on and we’re all going to live through this difficult time. Things will get better and all things considered, I think things have gone amazingly well.

ADAMS: Yeah. COVID was definitely a challenge, for sure. That said, I’m thankful for it. If there had been no COVID, I would definitely not have been looking for other opportunities and would not have ended up here. So it definitely had personal perks.

On the other hand—and you’ve talked a lot about this with other guests on the podcast—but it really helped parents understand what was going on in the classrooms because while they were working from home, their kid was maybe in the same room or the room next door doing school. They could overhear, like, “Oh these teachers definitely have humongous classrooms that are too large to handle.” Or “There’s content that maybe we’re not so pleased about,” or, “Oh, I’m not sure about that mandate!” 

It was definitely a blessing in disguise. That was a challenge, for sure. What was an unexpected amazing thing that has come out of it or has come up in the history?

ADAMS: Wow. Where do we start? I think maybe the unexpected amazing thing, above all else, is what you just articulated. I mean, how could we have communicated any more clearly what’s going on in education than what happened? And parents are seeing it for themselves. Teachers are struggling with all kinds of things that they had not experienced before and all of the transitions, models and things that were being pushed upon them. Then all the mandates start coming down. A lot of training, a lot of things that are kind of—all of these things combined have really…it would have taken us years to get the public's attention over these issues. The tension is there. 

Now people are saying, “Okay, how do we fix these problems? How do we resolve these issues? What are we going to do about it? What can we do? Where are the real issues? Help us understand what’s really going on here.” When people are asking questions, it’s a lot easier to get things going than when people don’t want to hear what you have to say and don’t believe anything you’re saying.

KENT: Absolutely. Just from my own personal experience in my district, a lot more people began to run for school board. Until this point, it wasn’t even a race because one person would run. Now all the parents and grandparents who were at home were like, “Hey, I want to get involved. There are definitely some issues here.”

More and more teachers began to speak up and say, “Yeah, there is. We were already overwhelmed but now we’re really overwhelmed! There are so many more mandates and so many more responsibilities placed on us.” I think it did a great job of revealing that. Now people can come together and work together to improve things for our kids.

Whereas, before, I do believe they would have eventually—probably would have seen the light and worked to improve. But it’s so many more people, faster. Which is amazing. 

To get back to, I guess a lighter, humorous side: our namesake, obviously, is Noah Webster. There are so many clear connotations as to why we would have chosen him. But what is a fun, lesser known fact about Noah Webster? Just something that attracts you to him as a name sake that isn’t just, well, he invented the first dictionary and he has a great definition of education.

What else about Noah Webster can you tell us today?

ADAMS: I don’t know how humorous or fun this is, but I think relevant is the key word here. A lot of people don’t know this, but Noah Webster was contemporary with our founding fathers. He was living, working, and very engaged as a young adult and then as a mature adult, during our Revolutionary War period. The Declaration of Independence. All of the things we—our Constitution, our Bill of Rights…all of those things, those foundational documents, all of the political upheaval that was going on in our country were happening during his time here.

What he saw and as he interacted with many of the leaders of this new forming government and country—some of the things that he saw, the various communities and the various states, and the various interests, various languages. All of these folks—most of them, at that point—had come from Europe and whatnot and they had their own history, their own baggage, their own stuff that they brought with them.

As we were forming this new union, as a country, with new ideals of freedom and liberty, as he was looking at that, he was an architect in helping to say, “Look, if we’re going to have real liberty, there are certain components that need to go into making sure that everybody has that opportunity. There are certain things that actually empower liberty. Empower freedom. Empower prosperity and flourishing.”

At the heart of it was education. That’s why he was so critical. He was the one who founded those first textbooks and that first focus on bringing people together, common learning, and those foundational principles that would help everybody flourish and bring that liberty.

I think it’s so appropriate in all of the turmoil that we’re seeing in our country today…we need to cut through all the chaff and focus again on what are those core things that have been proven over time that are worth keeping, worth passing on to the next generation?

At the heart of it is learning and understanding how to read and write. Do those basic things. Having an accurate understanding of history. Understanding both the good and bad of history. If we don’t understand all of it, then we’re not well-informed people.

We could go on and on over this, but I think—Noah Webster was widely known as the father of American education. Well, when the progressive movement started with Horace Mann and others that were his students, they became the founders of education. The modern education movement. But really, the truth is, Noah Webster was the one who charted that course and they took a deviation from it. I think we need to look at these things and say, “What is history telling us?” 

There are certain foundational things that we cannot throw away. They are the things that really help us to flourish.

ADAMS: That’s an awesome answer. As a history major, it made me really happy to hear that story brought to light. Much like we are today, in some ways, the colonies were very fragmented. They were states but they were founded by very different groups of people. You had the Puritans to the wealthy landowners to private colonies…even New York was founded by the British.

To unite them—the solution was education. We see that repeat over and over again in history. If you educate people, you will make progress as a society. As we made progress in the 60’s and 70’s with the Civil Rights movement, we ended up on the moon. You know, it’s an established historical trend. Definitely a great namesake, for sure, from a historical standpoint.

As we wrap up, let’s talk about one last question. One last send-off for our audience. You can expound on this how you want, but a starting point would be: what’s one concrete goal that you have for the organization as a whole to continue to make an impact and to equip concerned citizens to reclaim education today?

ADAMS: We can throw numbers around—and we do all the time in-house—but the one concrete goal I have for this organization is that we resource citizens with knowledge, information, and tools so that they are equipped to bring about change where they are.

We can’t be everywhere. But our listeners are all over this country—some of them are in big cities, some are in very rural communities. The issues vary from location to location. But in every community, citizens have their concerns. They want to see things get better. 

If we can, based principles and based on understanding of systems—particularly the educational systems and educational policy, what is and what can be, the leadership structures and all of those things—if we’re able to help inform citizens so they can put their hands around that, their hearts around that, their minds around that, and they can say, “Okay, now I know where I fit in. I know how I can connect the dots where I am and help bring about the changes we need here.” That is always going to be our number one priority. That has to be our number one goal.

When the citizens are empowered to make things better, they will get better. And it won’t just be based on the next election cycle. It’s going to be based on the community who live there and will continually work towards making things better for their own families, for their own communities. At the end of the day, that’s what makes a great country.

KENT: Awesome. Yes. Absolutely, could not agree more. Because whether we’re happy with our president or not—and that’s going to change, so half the time half the nation’s going to be disappointed, right? But we don’t have to wait. We can make change. 

Or, if we are happy with the administration, we can still make change. When people are equipped to make change, school by school, district by district, that’s how we improve individual kids’ lives. As someone with a background as an educator, that is what I’m most passionate about.

I think it’s safe to say we as an organization, as individuals within an organization, our passion is about each child. While broad reforms are great and can be helpful, when we are equipped and when we choose to be empowered, when our audience, us as individuals, and audience members…when we choose to accept responsibility, empower ourselves and go out and create that change, we can begin to see that change on an individual level.

Thank you for listening today to our birthday episode. If you would like to give us a little present, please visit nwef.org to donate. We would also love to interact with you on social media, so if you have thoughts on this episode or just want to get more cool stories from Melvin, please follow us on social media. We have Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We look forward to seeing you there.