In March of this year I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It came as a shock with lots of fear and then quickly turned into gratitude and comfort due to early detection and a great team of doctors. I really knew nothing about cancer except to fear the disease and that beloved colleagues and friends had shared their dreaded news with me in the past. I wondered what life was going to teach me and how it would impact my passion and mission for coaching in schools. My friends sent me wonderful books to read and I devoured every chapter. One dear friend directed me to a copy of the April issue of Time magazine. While everything else I read helped inform me about me, the TIME article offered me an opportunity to think about how my cancer might be useful to schools. I learned why cancer hasn’t had a “cure” like the feared Polio of the last century. I learned that it is not one disease but hundreds and that it is more like an invasion, attacking by land, air and sea. But the most important thing I learned was that the “cure” we have all hoped for is emerging in a unique way due to special collaborative teams. These collaborative teams are made up of players in science and medicine including geneticists, pathologists, biostatisticians, biochemists, oncologists, surgeons, nurses, technicians and so many others – those whose paths rarely crossed before now. I learned there was not going to be a Jonas Salk or Marie Curie. Rather, the answers would come from the most committed and brightest minds representing all facets of medicine and science as well as the pressure and demands of a celebrity public – a public who had the money, celebrity, intensity and profuse amounts of money – who said, “People are dying every day. DO BETTER.” By demanding science and medicine come together and take on cancer like they would take on a big budget movie, they brought the best and most talented people together, funded them generously, oversaw their progress rigorously and demanded big payoffs quickly! This team model completely disrupted normal business across the medical research community. In realizing these goals, professionals would put aside credit, titles, contracts, egos, and position and instead put the focus on patients; patients needing to get better now! “Aspiring is not enough. You must achieve. People will be judged by whether you have reduced mortality in cancer. This is about saving lives!”

Team science demands that “alpha” researchers and doctors work together and share the investigation, the data and the credit. Cancer is a thief and a biological con artist. One team’s researcher spent his career chasing this cellular saboteur. His belief was that, if the malignant signaling could be silenced, the cancer would not spread. His TEAM’S work found answers and those answers are increasing survival. From the most disastrous of cancers, pancreatic, to the most common cancers including prostate, breast, lung and colon – lives are being saved and no longer is “cancer” a death sentence.

So, what are we learning from science and medicine to continue the courageous stand and moral outrage against failing students and huge achievement gaps? What are our school systems learning about how we work together? How are our school teams setting everything aside to think like scientists in search of answers – answers that would close the achievement gaps and that will be as different and varied as our kids – but answers that would make the difference!

• What resonated from this article that offers insight or implications for education?
• What specific information spoke to you? How? In what way?

Reference: Time, April 1, 2013, “How to Cure Cancer.”

By Kathryn Kee