Today we’d like to introduce you to Greg Deegan
Hi Greg, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I grew up in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland and attended high school near downtown Cleveland, and while riding public transportation back and forth, I became fascinated by the old, often abandoned, buildings we passed by. I realized that beyond my insular suburban reality there was a huge city that must have its own interesting and deep stories. I realized I wanted to know those stories.
After college I worked as a reporter in Columbus and then earned my Master’s in U.S. history with the intent to teach. I began teaching high school social studies at Beachwood High School in 1996, and during my time there, I became a partner in a small, part-time publishing company called Cleveland Landmarks Press. The company produced books on the history of Cleveland and as I edited manuscripts I couldn’t believe how little I knew. When I would share my insights, my students realized they didn’t know anything either. So I began teaching a course on Cleveland, its history, and the connections to the present. For the final project, students had to come up with original ideas trying to address real community challenges after having researched and interviewed stakeholders and public officials.
I decided to try to find other area educators teaching about Cleveland and came across Arin Miller-Tait at Gilmour Academy. Together we started a professional development series for area educators to learn about Cleveland and develop curricula focused on connecting students to the city in relevant, personal ways. We found two other like-minded educators (Jen Forshey and Pam Ogilvy) and did this on a part-time basis for years, adding along the way a high school student program modeled on my Beachwood High School course. Many of our educators took specifically to our work focused on the social history of Cleveland.
In 2021 the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) came to us after we had worked with members of the Cleveland Teachers Union, and they asked us to help them develop an equity series for all 7,000 employees that included understanding our social and racial history. I began doing this work full time in early 2022.
Since then, we have renamed our organization Teaching Place, added a team in Lorain which now runs Teaching Lorain, and we have expanded our work to include other high school programs, more educator professional development, and corporate and organizational “lunch and learns.” We also lead tours and write curricula. And last year, we secured the rights to the intellectual property of Cleveland Landmarks Press, so we are now publishing and selling books on Cleveland history as well.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has definitely not been a smooth road, but it’s definitely been an interesting one! In truth, when the team was planning and coordinating professional development for other educators, we did that on a part-time basis. It was a labor of love that felt meaningful and impactful. However, because we were working other full-time jobs (and raising families), it never went much beyond the educator professional development and our student program, the Teaching Cleveland Student Challenge.
When the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) came to me, I didn’t even realize the opportunity. My first comment to them was something along the lines of — we’re just a small group of educators and we wouldn’t have the capacity to educate all 7,000 employees. With some urging by people in my life like my wife, other educator friends, and others who knew about my passion, they encouraged me to take a leap off the cliff, quit my full-time job, and try to make a life of this. I decided to make the leap of faith.
The greatest struggle is trying to raise money in Northeast Ohio. Hundreds (maybe thousands?) of education nonprofits exist in our region, and trying to articulate our vision and impact is always a challenge when so many are seeking funding. We are trying to develop a love of place that is historically informed and make people proud to be from a place with such a storied — and checkered — history. How do you quantify that impact? In what ways does our work impact the “brain drain” or “brain gain” of young people either choosing to maximize their lives here or choosing to go elsewhere?
Because most of my professional life has been spent in education, trying to communicate our return on investment for area corporations has been a welcome but difficult challenge for me. We see ourselves as having a positive impact on the region’s workforce retention, and helping new employees get onboarded to area companies, but sometimes those numbers aren’t that simple to capture.
For the work we do with high school students — we have a similar challenge. How do we capture the impact of our programming on their life choices? Or their sense of place? Or their commitment to a region and its culture? We know we’re thinking outside the education box by trying to recapture a civics approach that combines active, place-based experiences where students practice finding their voices and adding them to our community conversations. We also know it’s tough to quantify all of that.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Recent research has shown that Ohio is third in the nation in the percentage (71%) of adults living in the same state where they were born and raised. And if you look at population data in Ohio, the population hasn’t grown for decades. When we ask participants in our programming if they can recall ever learning about local history and public policies, virtually nobody raises a hand.
So here’s the problem: we’re not really going anywhere, the population isn’t growing, and we haven’t learned about the history of our own community. This seems like a massive opportunity. How can we try to develop an appreciation (although we say “love!”) of place that is historically informed? How can we understand the history of the community that we have inherited? How can we engage with others in real, meaningful conversations about what this community has meant to each other, and how can that translate into real efforts of change?
This isn’t boosterism. We don’t ignore the challenges and difficulties and inequities that we have inherited. If we are more clear-eyed about the forces that shaped our region — both the positive and negative — we are going to be more inclined to feel a sense of ownership, and hopefully agency, in shaping the present and future.
We provide professional development (the Teaching Cleveland Institute and the Teaching Lorain Institute) and pedagogical support for educators to help them understand the history of their community and help them develop relevant curricula to include the community in their classrooms. We get educators connected to amazing people doing important work, and those teachers bring them into their classroom and inspire students.
We work with high school students to encourage them to add their voices to the conversation by teaching them the history and legacies of issues that shape their lives every day in two programs, the Teaching Cleveland Student Challenge (TCSC) and the Fresh Water Institute Fellowship program. For example, in the TCSC, approximately 50 high school students from about 8-10 schools come together five times over the course of an academic year to learn about one issue — its history, its legacies, and the people who devote their time to addressing that issue. Those students get inspired by the adults who take time to be with them. And, we build community among those students to make sure they feel like their city is manageable and filled with other people who want to better their communities. The final product? Students have to come up with their own original ideas to address the challenge, and they present them in a short video.
We provide corporate “Lunch and Learn” series to tie local employees into the social fabric of Cleveland and connect their company to the community in ways that make employees feel proud. We provide opportunities for real conversations about topics that are important to them, and in this era of remote work, we help to bind employees to their company, each other, and to the community. And we encourage employees to learn about and volunteer with organizations that speak to them.
We do so much more, too! We lead tours around town that tie our history into our present. We write curricula for organizations who want to engage educators in their resources. We produce books on the history of Cleveland and develop curricula around those books so that area students feel connected to their history.
And we are expanding. Now we have a team in Lorain that provides professional development for educators looking to inspire their students to appreciate Lorain’s incredible history, its current challenges, and its current opportunities.
We believe the seeds of greatness already exist in our communities, and we’re doing the best we can to plant them and nurture them.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
I’ve realized that although I thought I was open-minded to what life throws your way, I really didn’t understand what it might look like to fully embrace an opportunity. I’ve also learned that having the time to articulate my passion has left me with an appreciation for what people say when they refer to “living the dream.” I loved classroom teaching. I loved serving as the Director of Education for University Circle Inc., a nonprofit in Cleveland’s cultural center. I loved producing books on the history of Cleveland with my best friend and mentor. And I would say all those experiences helped me to clarify my “why.”
I would not have been able to be doing what I’m doing without those experiences, so I’d say that now I feel like I truly know what it means to embrace uncertainty while having a few core principles and a North Star guiding me. For me, that North Star is the inherent worth of every individual whose story needs to be honored.
Pricing:
- 1000 per corporate/organizational “Lunch and Learn” session
Contact Info:
- Website: https://teachcle.org
- Instagram: @teachcle
- Facebook: Teaching Cleveland
- LinkedIn: Teaching Cleveland
