METC kicked off its second day on Wednesday with a keynote presentation by Rafranz Davis.

Davis is the Executive Director of Professional and Digital Learning for Lufkin Independent School District in Lufkin, Texas. She talked about how to close three gaps in education: opportunity, access, and passion.

“Not all kids get to have opportunities, not all kids get to experience or express their passions in school,” Davis said. “I can walk in and identify who is and who’s not.”

One of Davis’ main points was that students are too limited when it comes to technology, and it is holding many kids back.

“We have to stop making school a structure that treats kids sort of like the pawns that we move around on the chess board, instead of giving you the ability to create that path yourself, we don’t do that at all and it’s insane.”

Davis doesn’t just say these ideas are important and can work, but she uses stories that help to give examples of how others have succeeded.

“I’m lucky that I have a nephew who has been using YouTube since as early as he realized it was created to learn and I’ve used that in discussions.”

Many of the attendees of the presentation found Davis’ stories and ideas inspirational and plan to take them back to their districts to share.

“I plan on going through my notes and taking back what I learned to the other educators at my district,” Sage Arnote, the Instruction Coach of Technology at Independence School District near Kansas City, said.

(Erykah White collaborated on the story)