Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in Path Finders, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each week, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Like what you see here? You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article and receive more conversations like this in your inbox each week.
Ashlie Crosson was named the 2025 National Teacher of the Year for the Council of Chief State School Officers. A first-generation college student, she teaches English and journalism in rural Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, where she also grew up. Our conversation below covers the importance of a global education in rural schools, the value of school journalism programs, and the pleasures of returning home.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Kim Kobersmith, The Daily Yonder: Tell me about the education you received growing up in Lewistown [PA] and why you value that.
Ashlie Crosson: I came to Lewistown in 5th grade. My youngest elementary years were in the suburbs of Harrisburg, and coming here was a bit of a culture shock. Then I realized the size of my school district was that perfect balance between knowing just about everybody and having my own space with my own friend group. I really knew everybody that I was walking across the stage with on graduation day.
The teachers knew the community so well, because they’re our neighbors. My educators weren’t just the people who were teaching me content, but the people who were watching me grow up. That made them invested in the success of all of their students, and I was the recipient of that. They saw me beyond just my grades and the work that I was turning in, and wanted to see me grow as an individual and as somebody who could be a future contributor to our community. I wasn’t an exception. That was the norm for being a student in Mifflin County.
DY: You were a first-generation college student, so I was curious when you realized you wanted to go to college and what was the inspiration for it?
AC: It was pretty late. It was probably junior year, I was in a few AP classes where talk of college was the norm. Having some strong relationships with teachers, they saw potential in me and started saying, “What do you plan to do after this?”
I didn’t visit a college until my senior year. I had no idea how to fill out a college application, I didn’t know what the FAFSA was, every step of it was brand new to me and my parents. It was my guidance counselor who helped me turn, “Maybe I’ll do this thing,” into, “I’m going to go to college.”
At first, I went to a college where I was miserable. I started out as a journalism major, and it was in the city and had a really high placement rate for internships, and it all seemed right. And then I got there, and I just felt like a complete fish out of water. Coming from a small town, coming from a lower socioeconomic status, I just didn’t fit in at all. And so my high school guidance counselor helped me through the process all over again. I visited another university that was closer to home, not in the middle of a city, but had a really good program for English education. I stepped onto that campus and was like, “This is it.”
DY: What do you teach and how is your curriculum influenced by your experience as a 2018 Fulbright Teacher for Global Classrooms fellow?
AC: I teach three classes for our journalism program, English 10, AP Language, and a class called Survival Stories. We changed our curriculum coming out of Covid because we wanted to find ways to help students re-engage with reading and class discussions. We decided if we could cater their curriculum around the things that they’re interested in, maybe that would help. And it does!
One semester of English each year is a grade-level class, but the other half is an interest-based elective. Survival Stories focuses on humanitarian crises around the world from a youth perspective. Our theme is really looking at – when survival is on the line, because of war or a natural disaster or a societal crisis – how does that impact childhood and education? Then we look at what things impact adolescents in Mifflin County and ways we can overcome those things.
The Fulbright Fellowship taught me how to bring global competencies and global stories into my curriculum as an English teacher. Students in a more urban area have more direct connections to cultural centers and experience a natural diversity of ideas and lifestyles. I would say in rural America, that’s a little bit harder to find.
We are trying to bridge the divide a little bit, not just in terms of space and region, but also a mental divide that rural students can have when they’re trying to picture themselves in this greater ecosystem. I want to show students not just next steps to success, but also how they fit within a global world. That you can come from a rural area in a small town, and you’re still a global citizen.
DY: At the Daily Yonder we write a lot about rural news, so can you tell us about your journalism work in the school and the district?
AC: When I got my hands on the journalism class in 2021ish, the newspaper wasn’t very consistent. As small-town journalism fades away, the living record of those people and of that town fades with it. We wanted our students to have a way to capture what it means to be a Mifflin County resident.
Once we built the stability of the newspaper, we expanded to create our district magazine, The PawPrint, published three times a year. It’s a real-world portfolio building publishing experience for my students. And beyond that, it’s one of the ways our district is trying to take back the narrative of our schools. The rhetoric around education is disconnected from what is often really going on in the schools in your backyard. The fact that students are the ones writing those stories, the proof is in the product. Their education in Mifflin County is what has led them to this level of success.
There also weren’t many students using the journalism program as a launch pad into a potential career or college path. We started thinking about what careers can come out of this. Students started connecting with people in the industry, learning about other communications-related jobs like PR, or becoming a copy editor, or working in photography. I have a handful of students who have gone on to college to major in journalism, PR, communications, broadcast, and I also have a handful of students who immediately went into the workforce as staff writers.
Our state and country focus a lot on career and technical education and I think that’s super valuable. I want to see next how we grow those programs that also have an academic slant to them. Things like journalism, where you need hands-on experience but you also need these very specific academic skills.
DY: Why was it important for you to return to your hometown?
AC: Moving back home was a really difficult decision to make. I taught elsewhere for nine years and I was completely happy. But there was a part of me that always felt that pull to come back home. My education opened so many doors for me, and my teachers who invested in me gave me the confidence to pursue dream after dream, challenge after challenge. I wanted to do that for other students, but the chance to do that in the community that did it for me is as meaningful as it can be. Rural areas have challenges finding and retaining highly qualified teachers. I just felt like if I had the opportunity to fill one of those needs for my community, then that was the best way to pay it forward.
A lot of the conversations I have are helping young people understand why they might want to come back to this area. I left, and I think it’s great to leave, spread your wings, and experience other things. But I came back, and I am helping them see this might be a place where they want to raise a family someday.
In teaching English, we live in stories. I want to help my students learn how to share their stories, and feel empowered by their stories, and do that in part through sharing some of mine. It’s great if I can teach them how to write an essay, but I’d rather be their role model as someone who has a career and a life that she feels really proud and joyful about.
This interview first appeared in Path Finders, a weekly email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each Monday, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Join the mailing list today, to have these illuminating conversations delivered straight to your inbox.
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