A guy who likes to live a simple life. Or at least he thinks he lives a simple life… Pat has been married for 28 years, he has lived in Springfield, Missouri for 22 years, is a father to three grown sons and a dog dad to two fur babies! His current jobs at school include serving on multiple committees, working with students on an individual basis, and doing administrative work behind the scenes. You may ask how he does it all? Well it starts with three cups of coffee in the morning, a handful of gummy vitamins, and a daily game of Wordle. Since Pat lives in the central time zone he has the morning to himself before school starts. This then gives him the time to plan camping trips, walk the dogs, and catch up on some reading.
Recently, Pat and his wife drove their airstream to Utah to visit Zion National Park. This is the 20th national park they have visited in the last four years! They bring with them bikes, kayaks, and their hiking gear. Since all of their kids have headed to college and left the house, outdoor activities have become a bigger part of their life.
When they aren’t camping, Pat likes to cook vegetarian dinners or watch a good show on TV. He has yet to find a show as good as Mad Men! It’s an especially good day if Pat can find time to read. A recent favorite was The Three-Body Problem book series by Cixin Liu.
Life hasn’t always been this simple. Pat has been a classroom teacher, IT director, stay at home dad, and entrepreneur. Those roles didn’t always leave a lot of down time. The consistent thread was him crafting a creative path, for himself or for his children. If you googled his name in 2005, you might find him and his three kids in Fortune Magazine in a feature story about the stay at home dad who invented the Pez mp3 player. If you googled his name in 2016, you would find a local story about him being the founder of u.school, a self-directed school in Springfield, Missouri. If you googled his name today, it’s more likely you would find one of his three kids who are all recording musicians.
As a virtual staff member, Pat still gets the chance to come up with creative and entrepreneurial solutions. As well as helping a new generation of students find their path in life. Pat was drawn to Self-Directed Education because it is the form of education that most values and respects the humanity of each student. As a classroom teacher, Pat recognized the problems with public education and was always on the lookout for ways to make it better for the students.
The virtual program at The Open School is not something he could have even imagined when his career began. If you were to describe the freedom students have to follow their own interests and passions he would have immediately been on board! Even if the internet wouldn’t have made any sense to him in 1989!
