Civic Engagement for Change – Featuring Changemaker Gunin Kiran

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Patti cultivates homegrown changemakers prepared to step into their power and work with others to create the world they want to live in. Get in touch to find out how you can grow the social changemaker in yourself and those you serve with Blue Roads Changemaker YOU.

Today we welcome Changemaker Gunin Kiran to this series celebrating the work of people making the world a better place by creating “Homegrown Solutions for a Patchwork World.” Gunin completed 8 years as a school board member in my local school district last fall, but she remains very active in our community as she explores next options to put her brilliant mind and heart for service to best use.

I invited Gunin to share her Changemaker Journey on my weekly show “On Your Own Terms” on WIN WIN WOMEN after reading a recent letter to the editor she wrote standing strong in support of public education. The world is changed for the better when we raise our voices around issues important to us. Gunin does so with dignity, determination, and the wisdom to carefully consider all perspectives while keeping the needs of students at the forefront.

Watch the video of our conversation, listen to the podcast and read the summary below to learn about Gunin's experiences, her priorities and her advice for all of us who wish to engage in meaningful ways to make our democracy work, starting with the public schools where everyone learns that everyone matters.

Homegrown Gunin

Gunin credits her architect father and homemaker mother for her strong commitment to education. Her father emphasized the value of reading, writing, and research. For a long time, she thought she would become an architect, too. It was a high school teacher who saw in her an aptitude for chemistry that turned her toward chemical engineering although she reminds us…

Those are not the same thing!

Turkish is Gunin's first language, but she began to learn English in grade school and also French in middle and high. She was well prepared to attend the respected Middle East Technical University when the time came and she completed both her bachelor's and master's degrees there. The graduate program gave her the opportunity to do some tutoring and grading for the faculty and it wasn't long before she began to think about doctoral-level studies. It was in her search for a Ph.D. program that she met her husband-to-be.

I was born and raised in Ankara, Turkey.

Gunin says she lived a pretty sheltered life until then, but soon after she married, the newlyweds made their way to the United States. Her husband was the graduate coordinator of the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Maine.

So I arrive as a student and also as a wife, my first time leaving the house. From a city of 3 million to arrive in a town of 8,000!

Gunin adapted very well to these changes and found small-town life easy and fulfilling as she worked on her Ph.D. She completed all of the necessary coursework, but once their second child was coming along, she decided it was time to focus on the family.

By the time her son entered kindergarten, they were a family of five and Gunin was very involved in the community. Her husband teased her about hiring a babysitter for the two youngest so she could spend a lot of time volunteering at the school! These many hours of volunteer service opened Gunin's eyes to the challenges and joys of public education.

I realized how big a spectrum is in a classroom…

…And how hard the teacher's job is to accommodate and meet all the students where they are…

Solution-Focused Gunin

The more Gunin got involved in the school, the more she recognized the big needs inherent in every classroom.

It was quite an eye opener. I decided I've got to help them as much as I can.

She started out as a room parent helping with parties and clerical tasks and gradually got more involved with the PTA and PTO organizations. From there, she served on decision-making committees related to staff searches, school improvement, and all manner of school issues.

Over the seven years of active involvement in the school system while the Kiran family lived in Maine, Gunin moved from hardly speaking at all to greater comfort with the English language. While she could always understand and communicate…

I was actually very shy…I was not as brave and chatty as I am right now.

By the time, they relocated to Blacksburg, Virginia, Gunin was ready to dive right into active participation in each of the schools the children attended. She filled almost every role you can imagine, often at three schools simultaneously.

I covered all the PTAs and PTOs at one time. I think I was president in two and secretary in one… I did all the positions possible. I did fundraising. I was a band chaperone. I was a secretary in all three and then the president in all three…

Once her youngest daughter graduated from high school and there was an opening on the school board, Gunin thought perhaps it was time for her to run for public office. She thought,

“Now I don't have anybody in the school. I won't worry about so much conflict of interest or doing things for my own kid, but I will be still very close.”

Gunin served two four-year terms on the board including a stint as Board Chair. Although she'd been very active in the town schools her kids had attended, she said her eyes were opened again to the different needs across the entire district once she was on the board.

It was a big eye opener, how diverse the county is and how diverse the communities are…

From the very beginning, she committed herself to learn about the four main communities in the school district that serves approximately 10,000 students. Gunin made it a priority to visit each of the twenty schools from the university town to the very rural farm communities she served.

Gunin's Patchwork

Gunin's awareness of the diverse perspectives and needs of different people has unfolded across her adult life.

When I was growing up, there was not much diversity per se.

While there were different dialects spoken in the regions of her home country of Turkey, she was surrounded mostly by white people who spoke Turkish. She didn't travel much outside of Ankara except to visit family by the coast in the summers.

Gunin found the tiny town of Orono, where the University of Maine is located, even less diverse and more conservative. The school system there was “non-inclusive” at the time, meaning that students with special needs were not necessarily included in classrooms with their age-appropriate peers.

All of this changed when the family moved to the Blacksburg area where Virginia Tech serves a larger international population.

I think I learned diversity then not just in the college town but also how the school system and community are different.

In Montgomery County, she also experienced a truly inclusive school division for the first time. In her leadership role as a school board member and advocate for all students in the district, her open mind and open heart became even more important.

It made me a better person because now I am very good at listening.

Her natural “non-competitive and non-aggressive” leadership style has served her – and our district – very well.

I always like to listen and put myself into other people's shoes. I definitely will think more than once, twice, three times before I speak a word.

She says this is why she didn't tend to speak as much during her earliest years on the board. She was always listening to learn how things work and to hear the perspectives of all involved before she was ready to cast a vote or speak an opinion.

Gunin emphasizes the value of observation and learning without “jumping or judging”. When we recognize everyone's voice as part of the “fabric of society”, we make better decisions.

That's why I am very much in support of public education because you can protect your child for different reasons…, but at the end you cannot protect them forever. They have to be in the society and functioning citizens of the society and public schools. On a small scale, that's what they do.

Because public schools must address so many societal issues in addition to academics, Gunin is especially sensitive to the huge burden on public school educators.

You have to be the childcare center. You have to have the internet provider and you have to feed the kids, and transport the kids, too.

While she wishes society at large would take on more of the issues that fall to schools, Gunin is determined to make sure people understand the realities of public schools.

I have to educate the public about public schools.

Gunin also finds she must educate the public about the baggage kids often bring with them when they come to school including “Adverse Childhood Experiences”. When children come to school hungry or abused or lacking resources, including internet access at home, reading and writing are not always their first priorities.

We don't know whether they had a house to sleep in or whether they had breakfast that morning or whether they've been abused or whether they saw something they shouldn't be seeing…That is a wide spectrum of needs in the classroom of 15 and 20.

These are things I think society has to take care of and not expect it all from public education.

Changemaker Gunin

These are the hard truths that drive Gunin in her work as an advocate. There are things she knows need work and she's not willing to sit on the sidelines when she knows nothing changes without intentional effort.

Human beings are pretty easy to judge. When we don't like something, we will just tell our opinion. We don't like X, Y, and Z, but then if you want that to be different, then you have to make an effort to change that X, Y, and Z, because otherwise criticizing doesn't help.

Gunin takes her own advice. She's not one to sit around and criticize. She takes action. She also reminds us that if we don't participate as citizens by exercising our vote, then we need to just “zip it!”

It is proven that, especially nowadays, very few votes can make a huge difference.

Our voices matter not only to express our own opinions but to help inform the opinions of others.

Others…may not see the other side so they will believe what they think is right unless you talk with them about other options…

By talking to our supervisors and local school board members, we help them more fully understand the issues so they can do their jobs to represent us. If they don't hear from us, they don't know what we think is important.

Despite her years in leadership, Gunin still isn't one to relish the idea of getting in front of a microphone before a board from the other side of the podium. This is why she opted to write a letter to the Board of Supervisors in support of public education recently and make it an “open letter” by publishing it for the public in our local newspaper, the Roanoke Times.

That letter has proven to be a powerful example of the ripple effects changemakers can have when they make their opinions known. Gunin's letter has been shared again and again through social media. When a school board member in a much larger school division in Arlington, Virginia read it, she shared it with her constituents, too. In this way, Gunin's efforts to research the facts and write a well-constructed letter to a local board are multiplied.

Public education affects everyone in our nation.

If you don't see something the way it's supposed to be, you've got to go after it.

Gunin Kiran is an example of what it means to go after things that need to change. As she considers how to use her time and talents moving forward, one possibility is a book for newly elected school board members. All she's learned through her service on behalf of public schools, children, and educators over the last 35 years is profound. It comes down to this.

Public education is the cornerstone of the democracy. K through 12 is such a baseline for everything. What we do in the future starts with learning how to read and write. Even if you are an artist, you still have to read and write. If you're a scientist, you still have to read and write… It all starts in elementary and afterward.

Gunin didn't mention this in our conversation, but she's also a big supporter of the essential work of the Dialogue on Race in our community as well as the ACCE (Access to Community College Education) program. ACCE is one of many community initiatives that have grown out of more than a decade of work to talk honestly about racial issues and the experiences of the African American community close to where we live – what it's been, what it's felt like and how to make it better. Click the links in this paragraph to learn more!

It's easy to see how directly Gunin's work in the service of public education supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #4 – Quality Education. You certainly also see the connections to #3 – Good Health and Well Being, #10 – Reduced Inequalities, # 1 – No Poverty and #2 – Zero Hunger as these societal issues and goals play out every day in the public education arena. I'm sure I have missed some interconnections and I hope you will reach out and point them out to me.

I also hope you'll get in touch to let us know what YOU and people you know are doing to realize these Global Goals by the year 2030 through your own civic engagement. We can surely do it if we all work together and take our place as Changemakers!

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Patricia Talbot( CEO and Co-Founder )

Civic Engagement for Change – Featuring Changemaker Gunin Kiran

About the Author

Homegrown Gunin

Solution-Focused Gunin

Gunin's Patchwork

Changemaker Gunin

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