Partner Post Jean Dyszel continues putting in the miles for quality teaching and learning in Pennsylvania 

Jean Dyszel spends a lot of time on her bicycles. She rides 15-20 miles a day on her Specialized hybrid or e-bike, often with family or friends. She’s cycled throughout Europe and the Galapagos Islands, and she’s discovering her home state of Pennsylvania.

“I just finished a 32-mile tour of historic Chester County, which is absolutely gorgeous and beautiful,” Dyszel says. “I’m in the Harrisburg Bicycle Club, so I bike ‘around the neighborhood’ with them.”

The sustained approach Dyszel takes in her cycling is also apparent in her work as a professional educator. She began her career 52 years ago as an English teacher in the West Shore School District in New Cumberland She spent a total of 35 years at West Shore, moving from literacy coach to assistant superintendent.

“My love of curriculum and instruction drove me on,” Dyszel says. “Even as a teacher, if they were rewriting curriculum or designing professional development, I would volunteer. I always wanted to stay in teaching and learning, which is what curriculum and instruction offer.”

For the last 17 years, Dyszel has continued her work with curriculum and instruction as a consultant for the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE). She first connected with Initiative director Boaz Dvir while helping the Act 70 Advisory Committee curate teaching resources about the Holocaust, other genocides, and human rights violations on PDE’s Standards Aligned System website.

Dyszel provided crucial support to help the Initiative grow. She made it possible for teachers to earn continuing education (Act 48) hours for participating in the Initiative’s first yearlong professional learning program. She also shared the Initiative’s Trauma-Informed Practices module through her statewide education networks.

“In working with Boaz and the Initiative, I think about how I can help make a difference so that history doesn’t repeat itself,” Dyszel says. “We can give teachers valuable resources that can help them be more cognizant of the past and how it informs our future, to make for a better world.”

The teachers with whom Dyszel works need ongoing support because many feel overwhelmed by demands on their time and difficulties they face, she said. “It just seems to me that these times now are perhaps more challenging than ever before.”

She also feels encouraged. “On the positive side,” she said, “I think a lot of our schools have strong leadership that guides people and works with them and supports good professional development, so that we can retain the excellent people we have and invite others to join our cadre.”

Dyszel has planned to retire more than once, but she keeps coming back to support ongoing projects at PDE and the educators with whom she works. She smiles as she lists the projects she’ll take on between now and December, when she plans to retire—again. She hopes to spend her days with her two “girlfriend granddaughters,” in her garden, and on her bicycles.

In the meantime, Dyszel’s patient approach makes her partnership with the Initiative a natural one. She says the Initiative’s programs are successful because “we do it one teacher at a time, one school at a time, one district at a time—and promote it in every way that we can.”