About Christina Houston
Christina Holston is the Executive Director of West Virginia HOSA-Future Health Professionals and a Career Technical Education Teacher at Ben Franklin Career Center where she teaches Secondary Honors Medical Assisting. She is a recipient of the 2017 West Virginia HOSA Secondary Advisor of the Year.
Prior to her career in education, she worked as a Patient Care Coordinator/Medical Assistant for an OBGYN medical practice for seven years. She started at Ben Franklin Career Center eight years ago and became the WV HOSA Executive Director in 2017. Christina also serves as the National Technical Honor Society Advisor for Ben Franklin Career Center as well as the CTSO Coordinator. She was a graduate from the program she teaches as well as a HOSA alumni.
Christina enjoys watching students blossom into young professionals. She encourages them to get out of their comfort zone and strive to be the best they can be. She believes CTE is for all students and would love for all students to have the opportunity to be involved in CTSOs. Christina believes advocating more for CTE and CTSO would help spread the word and have more opportunities for the youth.
Connect with Christina: Email | LinkedIn | Facebook
Listen Now
Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or on your favourite podcast platform.
Resources Mentioned
West Virginia HOSA-Future Health Professionals
National Technical Honor Society
National Coordinating Council for Career and Technical Student Organizations
The Transcript
**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.
Sam Demma
Welcome back to another episode on The High-Performing Educator. This is your host, Sam Demma. Today’s special guest is an exceptional human being and a new friend of mine, Christina Holston. Christina Holston is the Executive Director of West Virginia HOSA, Future Health Professionals, and a Career Technical Education Teacher at Ben Franklin Career Center, where she teaches secondary honors medical assisting. She is a recipient of the 2017 West Virginia HOSA Secondary Advisor of the Year. Prior to her career in education, she worked as a patient care coordinator and medical assistant for an OBGYN medical practice for seven years. She started at Ben Franklin Career Center eight years ago and became the West Virginia HOSA Executive Director in 2017. Christina Christina also serves as the National Technical Honor Society advisor for Ben Franklin Career Center, as well as the CTSO, Career Technical Student Organization Coordinator. She was a graduate from the program she teaches at, as well as a HOSA alumni. Christina enjoys watching students blossom into young professionals, encourages them to get out of their comfort zone, and strive to be the best they can be. Christina believes advocating more for CTE and CTSOs would help spread the word and have more opportunities for the youth. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Christina, and I will see you on the other side. Christina Holston, welcome to the show.
Christina Holston
Thank you for having me.
Sam Demma
Thank you so much for being here. For everyone listening, can you please just introduce yourself?
Christina Holston
My name is Christina Holston. I am a health science educator here in Charleston, West Virginia. I teach honors medical assisting, and I am also the executive director of West Virginia HOSA, Future Health Professionals.
Sam Demma
For a lot of people that are tuning in from Canada, they might not even be familiar with HOSA and all the brilliance that it is. Can you just give a breakdown on what HOSA is and why you’re so passionate about the work that you do with them?
Christina Holston
So, HOSA is a career tech student organization and it’s 100% healthcare. So there’s over 75 different competitions that students that are passionate about healthcare are going to pursue a career in healthcare can utilize and improve their worth ethic from team building to leadership skills to public speaking as well as those health science events that can help improve their skills. So overall HOSA is just an amazing organization to make the young leaders a better health healthcare professional in the future.
Sam Demma
I’m gonna make make the assumption that you’re very passionate about health care yourself about healthcare yourself and there was probably a point in your own journey where you were deciding do I get involved in healthcare full-time or do I teach kids in school and it seems like you’ve married both of those passions but tell me a little bit about your own career journey and what brought you to education?
Christina Holston
So when I was in high school I took the program I currently teach. No way. So my senior year in high school I took a medical assisting program. I absolutely loved it. I completed my clinical hours, which was 100 hours in a medical office with a OBGYN in the area. And after I completed my hours, I was hired right on the spot. I was his medical assistant and then I moved up to his office manager. And then my teacher that I had in the program that I’m currently teaching, retired. And she contacted me and she said, Christina, I think that you would be great for this position. And I was involved with Ben Franklin, the school
Christina Holston
that I teach at, for quite some time. I served on their advisory committee. So I was still keeping up with the school because it’s helped made me the professional I am today. So I decided to apply for the position. And I told the physician that I was working for, hey, this is something I want to do. So got the position. And then being involved in HOSA again was very important to me because I’m a HOSA alumni.
Christina Holston
So when I was in this program, I also competed in HOSA and I placed in job seeking skills both years. I represented the school nationally in Nashville, Tennessee. Career tech education has always been a big part of me. And the fact that now I can deliver that to the youth makes it even better.
Sam Demma
I know that one aspect of the amazing experiences that young people have attending CTSO events and joining them is the mentorship that comes along with it with your advisor. A lot of the times people’s advisor is not only their teacher, but it’s like a second parent or a confidant or someone you can ask advice from. Did you stay in touch with your advisor when you were going through the program in high school? Do you still talk to them now? Are they still around?
Christina Holston
I still do, and she is doing absolutely amazing. She serves now on my advisory board. So being a CareerTech educator, you’re required to have advisory members to help keep your program to the standards that it needs to be. So I keep her on board because she’s a registered RN. Even though she’s retired, she’s still very well-knowledged
Christina Holston
whenever it comes to this program. And I’ve tried to keep this program as much as what she kept it, but just continue to add to it a little bit more. And she always makes me strive to be even better. And she’ll say, well, Christina, I wanted to do that, but you know me, I didn’t have the energy. Meanwhile, this woman can outrun me.
Christina Holston
Like she’s so fit. You wouldn’t even think that she, I still don’t know her age and I’ve been trying to figure it out for 15 years, but she’s living it up on the retirement life with her grandbabies. I actually just talked to her Tuesday this week. We had a luncheon for Christmas at work and we invited the retirees and she wasn’t able to make it. But she does come to my advisory committees and she still helps me out whenever I need it. So, she’s like a second mom to me.
Sam Demma
Can you think of a moment when you were working with her or she was your mentor that just had a big impact on you, like a specific situation where something was going on and you talked to her and it just opened up new perspectives and changed the way you were thinking. And then also, if you can’t think of a specific scenario like that, tell me about one more recently with some of the students that you help and you mentor as part of the HOSA program?
Christina Holston
Well, with the teacher advisor that I had, she always believed in me, like to the point where I thought she was crazy sometimes because that just wasn’t me. Believe it or not, when I was in high school, I was very shy. I hated public speaking. I disliked it. I didn’t want to do projects in front of the class.
Christina Holston
I was just so shy and so backwards that I’m like, why is she wanting me to do all this stuff in this organization? So she wanted me to run for state officer and state officer is an executive committee of high school and post-secondary students that run the organization because HOSA as well as other career tech student organizations are student led. So she really wanted me to run for state officer. And I said, no, I said, there’s no way I could do this. I can’t give a speech in front of 700 people. There’s no way. However, I did compete. And now I take it back to with me being an advisor and with me being an educator
Christina Holston
for this program. And I always tell my students, get out of your comfort zone. If I could go back, I would have done it. And then I tell them how shy I was and how backwards I was. And they’re just in awe because they’re like, you, like, you talk all the time. You talk too much. So she always believed in me and she always gave me that push. And she still does. And here we are 15, almost 20 years later, and she’s just still one of my number one supporters. And then with regards to my students, I have two state officer candidates running as well as several competing and competitions. And this is my favorite time of the year because I see these students put in the work and they’re going to deliver that in March at our state conference. And these are kids that didn’t think that they can do anything. And then they just blossom into this young professional. And then if they place, we’re taking that to Houston, Texas this year for the International HOSA Leadership Conference.
Christina Holston
So right now, definitely when we get back from holiday break, it is going to be such an amazing time for my kids and I get to sit and just watch it all.
Sam Demma
That is absolutely awesome. I just sneezed.
Christina Holston
That was a good mute.
Sam Demma
I did mute it on point. When you were working with the students, I was honored to be at the State Conference. I got to notice how receptive they were to you and how much they look up to you. How do you think, as an educator, you build relationships with young people?
Christina Holston
You always have to have that barrier and those boundaries, of course, because you’re working with the youth. However, as an educator, it’s okay to listen to them. It’s okay for them to have a shoulder to cry on. It’s okay to give them that extra push and to be a little hard on them. I don’t wanna say be their friend because that’s not what we need to be. But we definitely need to be there for them. They’re young, they’re going to make mistakes. Just give them that opportunity. And in CareerTech Education, we’re like the best kept secret with CTE. And I hear the Department of Education say this all the time. CareerTech Education and CareerTech Student Organizations are the best kept secret because they do so much for students and that’s on the high school level and even the post-secondary level but with me being in the high school setting I see these kids that have struggled in their home high schools and There’ll be teachers that I know at these schools say Good luck with that student Don’t know if you should do this, give them a chance and they’ll be the best student that I had in that class. So just be there for them and give them chances but still be hard on them.
Sam Demma
I think it’s so important we don’t write students off before even giving them a chance just because another teacher, another person said, this is a difficult young person. And I think a challenging young person is a massive opportunity. Like the reason sometimes people are challenging to work with is because they have things going on. And I think more challenges lead to greater impact. Like some of the most impactful people in this world had challenging upbringings and were difficult to deal with growing up. And I just think there’s so much power in just seeing the human behind the challenges and behind the behaviours. Have you had situations where you’ve had difficult students? And how do you work through those specific examples?
Christina Holston
I have. Now, with being in CareerTech education, it is a little different because the students that are here at the Career Center want to be here. Ah, fair. So they try, I mean, they will do anything and everything that they can to make it through our programs and to get the trade and to get the certification, definitely in the health science education, the kids want to be here. However, I’ve had students that I’ve lost due to poor attendance. We do drug tests here. So we have them like they’re on the job. So it’s a requirement for them to have a drug test. I have lost students because of positive drug screens. It breaks my heart, but they know. They’re with me for two years. They know attendance, grade, and drug screens, part of the program. However, I’m still there for the kid because even though they can’t complete my program, I’m going to still be there for them. And I’ve had to deal with this recently with one of my students. And, you know, I told this individual, I’m still proud of you. I’m not upset with you. Am I hurt? Yeah, but this is going to be your comeback. You know, you’re going to graduate high school. You’re going to go into health care still. This is just your wake-up call. And I’m going to still be here if you need me. So it’s just that learning curve for them. And I’m not going to belittle her, I’m not gonna think less of her just because of this incident that she had. I’m going to still be her cheerleader.
Sam Demma
You have this positive perspective of seeing difficult decisions that people make as learning experiences instead of failures, which is beautiful. Where does that positive outlook come from?
Christina Holston
I would have to say I picked that up from my dad because my dad, if I made a silly mistake when I was younger, he was never one to really get on to me. He would just have that serious talk with me in the kitchen and just say, Christina, you’re gonna learn from this. It’s gonna be okay. Meanwhile, if my mama bear came in the kitchen, it was a different story. Her and I would just go at it. But no, my dad was just always more calm and it’s life. We make mistakes. We have obstacles and we learn from them. So we just take it from that. So I really give that and a lot of my worth ethic to my dad because he was such a big part of my life and really helped me be the professional that I am today.
Sam Demma
I remember coming home from grade seven. I made a terrible decision and was actually suspended. And I haven’t shared this story many times. But the thing is, I wasn’t initially suspended. Someone else got in trouble for something that I did and didn’t tell the principal that it was actually me. And so my friend went home with a suspension, I went home without one, and I was sitting on my bed, and just out of integrity, I started crying. And my dad walks in, he’s like, what’s going on? I was like, dad, I did something, someone else got in trouble for it, they didn’t say my name, so now they got a suspension, I feel terrible. He’s like, come on, son. And he brought me into his van, and he drove us back to the elementary school, and walked me into the principal’s office and I sat down and told the principal everything. I got in trouble, the other person was off their suspension. But it was one of the biggest learning experiences for me. And I go back to that moment and I think, what would have happened if my dad ran in and got extremely angry? Would I ever have been vulnerable enough again to own up to a mistake that I made in the future, knowing that I did something wrong or would I have kept it to myself because I was afraid. So I think it’s so important that when people do make mistakes, we don’t necessarily punish them for them but instead hold them to a higher standard and give them opportunities to make their decisions right. And it sounds like your dad did the same for you. And so there’s that cool similarity there. Did your parents work in CTE? Where did this passion come from?
Christina Holston
Well, my dad was involved in diesel technology. So he was a manager for a diesel shop. So he has that trade, that CTE background. And then he also was an advocate and a judge for SkillsUSA, which is another career tech student organization that’s pretty popular for the CTE world. So I remembered my dad would come here to Ben Franklin at the school that I’m teaching at, and he would judge those competitions for diesel. And a few months ago, I was going through one of his old suitcases that he had, and I actually found a thank you letter from Ben Franklin when I was in high school, because normally when you think of career tech education, you think of the bad kids. And he said, well, Christina, I just don’t know if that’s the setting for you. And I said, well, this is an honors program. I can help my GPA. It’s a health science program. So he ended up saying, okay, you can go ahead and do it. That’s fine. And I think that’s another stigma that CTE has too, that it’s only for those kids that struggle. You know, if you’re going to college, you don’t need to go to the career center. And all of that does not pertain to what career tech education is. And that’s another thing too that I’m really passionate about is just advocating and letting people know that it’s okay to send your student here. Even if they’re going to college, several of my students go to college, you’ve met a ton of them and know that they all want to be registered nurses. This is that foundation that they can get ahead of their peers and excel even more when they go to college.
Sam Demma
Not to mention the leadership skills, right?
Christina Holston
Absolutely.
Sam Demma
Communication skills, friends, lifelong relationships.
Christina Holston
The networking in general is just outstanding. I mean they’re not going and they’re in high school and then now we’re going into the middle schools with CTSOs. So I mean this is just a great learning experience for our future youth and I will advocate for it as long as I can.
Sam Demma
What are some of the opportunities you see in education right now? I know that the world is always changing and student needs are changing and opportunities are changing. What are some of the opportunities you’re excited about right now in education?
Christina Holston
With regards to opportunities, I love what I do and I love my job. And I can’t speak for academic teachers because the career tech education world is just so different. Because again, my students wanna be here. We’re working with our hands a lot more. So they get into it a little bit more than your traditional English class or your math class. So with regards to opportunities, I mean, of course they’re there because we need teachers, we need educators, we need good ones, but we just need educators that are going to understand the kids and to be there for the kids and make that path for them to take. Will it be bumpy? A hundred percent. Definitely post-COVID, you’ve seen a difference in the adolescents. But I feel like this year it’s slowly getting back to normal. The kids want to be in the classroom. Their attention span’s improving a little bit. So with regards to opportunities, I think that there’s just a wide variety, but of course there are opportunities in education because they’re needing educators to educate. But it’s just gonna take that certain special someone to be able to juggle all the struggles that you may have while you’re being an educator. I know that really didn’t answer your question, but it…
Sam Demma
No, it gives a great perspective. Like, from the way you position it, it sounds like the opportunity is to connect with the kids. I mean, that’s a consistent always. And sometimes I think whether you’re in a CT classroom or a traditional classroom, it’s like, that’s always the magic, is let’s connect with the kids. Whether the world’s changing, it’s like connect with the kids. Whether technology’s changing, connect with the kids. I just think it’s important to reiterate that. And you, I mean, you have kids in your classroom that you support and then you have a kid at home. How do you make sure that you take care of yourself, balancing so many different responsibilities with teaching and raising a kid and the work you do volunteering and even the work you do with HOSA?
Christina Holston
I love to be busy. I always have. I was an athlete when I was younger, so this is just part of my life. I educate, help my students out through the day, whether it’s pertaining to our CTE coursework or to HOSA. My students know I’m available in the evenings as well, too. I communicate with them with the school-approved app. And then, of course, I have my four-year-old at home. And on top of that, I’m a fitness instructor. So all of this keeps me going. It makes me happy. So just juggling through that, I don’t know what I would do without it. And during COVID, it was basically that way. Like I was going crazy. You couldn’t go to the gym. I couldn’t see my students. I had to do everything virtually. Like it was, that was a big wake up whenever we were shut down for the pandemic. So it’s just something that I love to do. I’ve always been busy and I added on the coordinator here at my school now to so not only do I help with the post on the state level, but I also help. I’m going to start helping with skills USA for our students upstairs as well as FFA for our animal systems program. So, you know, I’m just adding, adding to my resume.
Sam Demma
One of my mentors says, build a life you never have to retire from or take vacation from. Now, I of course would still go to beaches and swim and dance bachata and all this fun stuff. But that sentence resonates with me because if you love what you do, you enjoy showing up, you enjoy being busy because you’re looking forward to the work, you’re looking forward to the service to others and it sounds like you found a few buckets in your life that just fuel you the more you do them, which is awesome because I think a lot of people are still looking for that, whether they’re in education or not, just human beings in general. On days where you don’t feel like showing up, where you’re like, ah, I just want to sleep in today, like I don’t want to get there. Like what on those days gets you through?
Christina Holston
The overall… depends on the day. Yeah. Depends on the time of the year. What gets me through is is knowing my students’ overall goal. So with my students, they’re going to be certified medical assistants. They can get other certifications as well, too. So even though they may be struggling right now and they don’t wanna do all the work, when February’s around the corner and I give them their certification test and these kids pass it, it just makes me so happy. And not only that, but this year, my students, I have partnered up with a local hospital and my students are getting paid to do their clinical hours. Getting paid to do a hundred hours in a medical office. And then right after they’re finished with that, they’re eligible to be hired. And then not only do they have a good paying job right out of high school? But they can also get scholarship opportunities. So if they are going to nursing school, then this local hospital is gonna be there to support them. So this year is really exciting for me because even though the seniors right now are driving me a little crazy, I know that we’re getting to that end and that’s what we’ve been working on for two years. And then here in a few years when I check on them, because I keep up with all my students. I make sure that I communicate with all of them. If I had a student from seven years ago that still needs me, they know to contact me.
Christina Holston
And it can be pertaining to work or just pertaining to their mental health. Like I’m here for them and I will always be here for them. So right now it’s been a little bit of a struggle before break with my senior class, but I know when we come back in January, it’s going to be their time to get ready for that test. And we’re going to do it. They’re going to get certified. They’re going to get paid for clinical, and they’re going to get hired, and if they want to go to college, they can. If not, they have a good paying job.
Sam Demma
In the context of business, people often say, build a vision so big that other people, other team members can see themselves in that big vision. So get to know each of your team members’ dreams and aspirations and goals and find a way to help them reach that thing by working with you, through working with you. It sounds similar in your classroom. You figure out what each of the kids actually want and then try and create a pathway to help them get there. And on those days where you don’t feel like showing up, you remind yourself of each of the students’ goals. You’re like, why are we here in the first place? And I think that’s a really good reminder to educators to get to know their kids, connect with the kids. And then also to just remind yourself why you’re showing up each day. This has been an amazing conversation. It’s already been over, I think, about 30 minutes. If you could- Are you serious?
Sam Demma
Yeah, if you could travel back in time… 30 minutes? I know, isn’t that crazy? If you could travel back in time to the first day you were teaching a CTE classroom and you had all the knowledge and experience that you have now, what advice would you give your former self?
Christina Holston
Well, being a CTE educator, you get the job, they hand you the keys, and you walk into a classroom. You know nothing about lesson plans. You know nothing about curriculum maps. You know nothing about standards or CSSs. So luckily for me, I completed this program. However, stepping in a room full of high school students was a whole different ballgame. I know medical assisting and I can train a new medical assistant, but you want me to train all of these high school students? So luckily in our state we have a great system and we have a great workshop that we have to go through in order to get our teaching license because again, we’re not that traditional classroom teacher. However, I had to wait a whole year before I was able to do it. So I just winged it and with the help of my former teacher.
Sam Demma
Everything went great.
Christina Holston
And some coworkers here as well, too. So if I would give advice to my former self, stepping into a classroom, again, just be patient. My advisor that I had, my teacher I had told me, cause I like to plan and I like to be on top of things. She said, Christina, three years. Give it three years. I’m like, three years? I can’t wait that long. Like, it has to be like three days for me to have my ducks in a row. She was 100% right. I finally got it in year three. So I mentor new teachers here in our building. And I tell them the same thing. Because again, we know what we are supposed to do. But we don’t know the teaching part because we’re CTE and we came from working in industry. So just be patient, jump through those obstacles, research, be involved, continue your education, do professional development, do as much as you can because that’s overall going to make you a better educator and make you better for the students.
Sam Demma
Sometimes I get impatient too with the things that I want to happen, whether it’s speaking at a specific event or finishing a book. I’m subscribed to this newsletter and there was recently an idea that resonated with me. And the idea was that sometimes, certain activities don’t actually require any action on our part, just patience. And his example in the newsletter that he shared was massive ocean waves. At any point in time, during any day, there is at least 10 hundred foot ocean waves somewhere in the middle of the ocean that are smashing down, that are continuously rising and falling without us even doing anything. And he said, take your intentions, take your goals, take the aspirations you have and act like you’re throwing them on top of one of those waves and eventually the wave will reach the shore or it’ll come back to you. And so if you feel like you’ve prepared the best you can and you’ve done the test and you’ve studied, maybe the last thing to do is to just release it to the ocean and let it come back to you when the time is right. And for you, it sounds like that was the three years.
Christina Holston
Yes, yes, yes. And it’s true. And I would say that to all educators. I really think three years is just that good mark to really figure out, oh, okay, I’ve done this in the past, I’m not gonna do this anymore, I’m gonna take this out of my lesson, let’s add this, or I’ve done this for too long, let’s switch it up. So I think that that would just be a good rule for all new educators that are entering education and that way it can better not only themselves, but also their students.
Sam Demma
This has been an energizing conversation. I’m so excited that we set aside some time to chat about your journey through education, the different roles you’ve done, a little bit about HOSA, your beliefs around connecting with kids, building relationships. What is, to wrap up here, what is one thing you’re looking forward to in 2024?
Christina Holston
One thing I’m looking forward to in 2024 is this senior class actually getting the paid externship. A lot of our students here in West Virginia have to work. They have to pay for their cars. They have to pay for their cell phones. So this local hospital said, you know, we want them. We need good employees. We know we get good ones from this program. We want them for clinical and we want to pay them.
Christina Holston
And then that way, if they are working, then maybe they can keep that job after their clinical hour, or they don’t need that job after hour, and they can just do their clinicals and then just go home, do their homework, because they’re still high school students. So I’m really excited to see this partnership with local hospitals pick up, but I’m super excited to see my students get that certification and add those credentials behind their names and then graduate high school. So that is one thing that I’m really excited about. And then of course, the state leadership conference for HOSA. I have several students that are competing and I have two state officers, one of those state officers you’ve inspired, which I’ve shared with you. So come March, I’m really excited to see them finally show the work that they’ve been putting in for their competitions and to show the judges that they’re the best of the best. And yeah, this has been an exciting time of the year for me. Even though I was struggling right before break, I’m like, I can do this. I think all educators were. It’s just time, we gotta get to break. But then once we get back in January, we’re refreshed, we’re ready to go, and hopefully the students will be too.
Sam Demma
It’s waves right? Sometimes it’s waves. You feel great, sometimes you feel down, but you show up and that’s what brings you through it and I’m sure 2024 is going to be amazing for you. I’m excited for you and I look forward to crossing paths again at some point. But keep up the great work. Thank you so much for taking time to join me on the show But keep up the great work. Thank you so much for taking time to join me on the show and I look forward to talking again soon. Thank you.
Join the Educator Network & Connect with Christina Holston
The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education. By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators. You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.
