Alumni & Student Stories

Dedicated Educators: This Couple Says Antioch Empowered Them

Joe Powell, B.A. Liberal Studies, 1997; M.A.Ed., 1998; Graduate Teacher         Preparation, 2001
Shari Howard-Powell, M.A.Ed. with Teacher Preparation, 1998

When they talk, you sense you are listening to the impassioned voices of tomorrow’s top educators. Joe Powell and Shari Howard-Powell have an electric enthusiasm for what they do.

Their vision is clear, they say, because of the many ways Antioch opened their eyes to how to initiate needed changes in education.

"Antioch gives you an opportunity to look within yourself about why you want to be a teacher,” Howard-Powell says.

"It took Antioch to see what I had in my soul. My soul had been bottled up, pushed down and stepped on,” Powell describes. "Antioch taught me to release it.”

Antioch creates change agents, according to this couple, and for them the focus is on change for children of color.

College a Foreign Idea

Joe Powell is a native of Detroit, where he says public schools didn’t create high expectations for students. "The most they did was catch those salvageable for a high school diploma just to get a job. College was like talking a foreign language. It was so far removed,” he describes.

When he finished high school, Joe joined the Navy and was stationed in Bremerton as a firefighter on the U.S.S. Nimitz. On leave one Saturday in July 1990, he visited Seattle’s Seward Park with some of his Navy buddies.

Shari Howard-Powell remembers that day well because it was her sister’s wedding day. Howard-Powell was 18 and had just graduated from high school. She pleaded with her parents to let her go to Seward Park with her girlfriends. She can tell you every detail of that trip to the park, how she boldly rode on the swing and caught Joe Powell’s eye.

Howard-Powell was raised in Seattle — her dad a school principal, her mom a teacher. From age 6, she dreamed of becoming a teacher herself. When she met Joe Powell, though, her career goal slowly started to grab hold of him, too.

"All through the time we were dating, she asked me, 'What do you want to do with your life?' Yet for me, those kinds of dreams, visions and ideals were destroyed in school. It took a very special relationship before I’d even consider it," Powell says.

"I knew I could be involved in decisions about my education at Antioch. It’s not all about talk at Antioch, either. It’s about action."
– Joe PowellJoe and Shari married in 1991. He was on the Nimitz in the Persian Gulf before he was discharged in 1992. He figured he’d become a firefighter once he left the Navy, but he encountered hiring freezes when he started looking for work.

"I figured I’d find a 9-to-5 job and everything would be all right. It was like I was settling for less," he says.

He applied for a job as a neighborhood caseworker. The interviewer didn’t think he was qualified, yet he recognized Powell’s spunk and urged him to look into a social-service program at Seattle Central Community College. Powell became frustrated as he filled out the application and tossed it in the trash. Howard-Powell retrieved it and sent it in.

"This was do-able with her belief strengthening me," Powell says, shooting his wife a smile.

Stopping the Cycle

In his last year of study, he had to complete an internship and landed in an elementary school for a year.

"I started seeing students going through experiences like I had gone through. Right then and there, I wanted to make sure that cycle would be broken, especially for people of color," Powell says.

He finished his associate of applied science degree in human services. Howard-Powell forged ahead with her dream and started work on her bachelor’s degree at the University of Washington.

Powell found a job as a classified employee running a detention center for grades 1-6 for the Renton School District. He created his own strategies of school-service learning. He reinforced the social skills of these students, convincing them this was a privilege, not a right. By the end of his first year, detention dropped 50 percent.

Although his success rate continued to soar, Powell says he didn’t feel his colleagues took him seriously. He had another revelation: he was doing an assistant principal’s job for much less than a teacher’s salary. He knew it was time to complete his bachelor’s degree.

Powell explored Washington state colleges to find a school that would fuel his newfound interest in innovative approaches to education.

"I knew I could be involved in decisions about my education at Antioch. It’s not all about talk at Antioch, either. It’s about action," Powell says.

He and his wife completed their bachelor’s degrees in 1997 – his from Antioch, hers from the UW. They both decided they wanted to pursue a master’s degree in education.

"That’s when I convinced her to come to Antioch," he says with a grin.

"At Antioch, you think more,” Howard-Powell says. "The faculty wants to know you, wants to know how you feel about what you learn. You don’t regurgitate just to get a grade."

They Credit Antioch

They say their discoveries at Antioch have a lot to do with where they are today.

"At Antioch, I recognized that not all kids learn the same way. There are different learning styles and multiple intelligences. Antioch taught me to be a teacher who respects other learning styles rather than treats students like little robots," says Howard-Powell, who today teaches advanced learners in the second grade at Seattle’s Thurgood Marshall Elementary School.

"I am in touch with my mindset, my spirituality and myself because of my Antioch experience," says Powell, now an administrator at Seattle’s Emerson Elementary School. "I realize now the greatest changes in education need to take place at the leadership level and I’m there now."

"At Antioch, you think more. The faculty wants to know you, wants to know how you feel about what you learn. You don’t regurgitate just to get a grade."
– Shari Howard-PowellHis focus is on culturally responsive teaching and educational leadership and he’s pursuing a doctorate in education with a Seattle cohort at a university in Florida.

Quality is Campus-wide

His vantage point is unusual, he says, because he experienced a spectrum of Antioch programs.

"When I went through the bachelor degree completion program," Powell notes, "I had no idea the master’s program in education would have the same values, the same quality and consistency. I learned that it’s not just within a particular program, it’s within the institution as a whole."

Powell reflects on how his difficult learning experiences in childhood made him a stronger educator.

"It’s really all about the kids. There is no way they’re going to fail under my eye. It can’t happen and it won’t happen. That came from Antioch.

"Accepting and embracing my experience — that came from Antioch, too," he says. "It’s a journey. I reflect on that and I share it to empower others."

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