Growth Mindset

Whether he’s tossing books at pep rallies, writing grants, developing community partnerships, or convening a student roundtable to improve the school, Dustin Hensley is driven to serve students.

Along with two other teachers and 23 students at Elizabethton High School, Hensley developed The Bartleby Project (2015–21), a project-based learning curriculum incorporating service within the teens’ small Appalachian community. Bartleby was submitted to the XQ Institute’s Super School competition, and although Elizabethton High wasn’t selected for the grand prize—a new school building—the $200,000 from XQ helped open the door to $2.5 million in grants.

Hensley was also instrumental in developing a roundtable (currently virtual) where students discuss ways to improve their school, and connected its members to Student Voice, a national nonprofit. As part of a national team of educators, he partnered with Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) on a student performance framework to quantify social and emotional development. Teens from Hensley’s roundtable participated and, as a result, redecorated school counselors’ offices to make them more attractive to students dealing with mental health issues.

Hensley also builds relationships with students to help them cultivate their own growth. He helped one start a program connecting teens with nursing home residents, and introduced two students interested in archives to a local historian. They helped transform an old storage closet to house a digital record of the school and community from the 1930s to today. He also coaxed Massachusetts Institute of Technology representatives to travel 800 miles to visit the school and talk with a student who wanted to apply.

“I want to do this in a way that they do not become reliant on me to provide them with what they need, but for them to become self-sufficient in acquiring information for both learning and enjoyment,” he says. According to his student and nominator Veronica Watson, it is working. “XQ says that Elizabethton High School is ‘one of the most forward-thinking high schools in America,’” she says, “and I give Mr. Hensley all the credit for that.”