Gladly Would I Teach

While taking my first education course in college more than three decades ago, I was required to observe a teacher at a local school. I  can’t remember much about the experience except that it was thrilling to walk into a school as a teacher in training instead of a student. Two or three days each week I spent a couple of hours with an excellent teacher whose name I, unfortunately, no longer remember. I observed her, graded papers for her, looked at her lesson plans, and performed little tasks that she asked me to complete.

One day she asked me if I wanted to prepare and then teach a short lesson one day.  Although I was shy and a little intimidated to take that first step of standing in front of a class on my own, I agreed and started planning. The next day my college supervisor found out what I was going to do and called me into his office and said, “I’m going to call the teacher today and tell her that you cannot teach yet. You aren’t required to actually teach until you have taken a couple of other courses.”

I assumed the professor had misunderstood the situation and thought the teacher was forcing me to teach before I was ready. When I explained that she had just given me an option, he didn’t care. He didn’t want me to teach.

He didn’t want me to teach, and I didn’t.

I didn’t understand why he was opposed to me teaching a short lesson, and back in those days we rarely asked for explanations. I still don’t know why he stopped my first teaching effort. Did he think I would fail? Did he think I needed to learn the “right” way before standing in front of a class?

When I began my student teaching two years later, I was twenty years old and scared to death as I stood before a senior class of seventeen and eighteen year olds. Oh, how much easier it would have been for me if I had eased into teaching a little at a time over the course of a couple of years instead of simply observing a teacher from the sidelines.

I have been thinking about this experience because this semester I have a teacher in training (I don’t know what the proper terminology is today since the terms keep changing.) Amanda works with me for two class periods (3 hours) one day each week. Last week I asked her if she wanted to prepare a short 5-minute lesson to teach, and she readily agreed.

Today was Amanda’s big day, and she did a goodl job engaging students and leading them to look at literature from a different perspective. I hope today is the beginning of a long line of successful and enthusiastic teaching  moments that she will experience during what I hope will be a very long teaching career.

Was I wrong to encourage her to start teaching so early?

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Yesterday I was reading another blog that listed ideas of ways to get students to stay in their desks. Please Sit Down As I read some of the suggestions, I remembered an extremely clever and effective strategy that another teacher employed many years ago.

Todd was an energetic eighth grader who simply could not stay in his desk. When he misbehaved, he jumped up out of his seat. When he participated in discussions, he jumped out of his seat. If something across the room even remotely looked exciting, Todd jumped out of his seat.

Todd jumped out of his seat in the morning and in the afternoon.

In first period and seventh period

In English class and in math

At lunch and homeroom.

His team teachers were exasperated and talked to Todd privately, called parents, assigned extra homework, punished and rewarded, but nothing seemed to work.

Finally, Leslie held him for detention, something none of us had tried. Why hold him for detention when we knew he would pop up all over the place and drive us crazy? But Leslie had a plan.

When Todd reported to her room for detention after school, she told him to sit in his desk. Then she explained the rules. “Since you love to jump out of your seat, we’ll play a little game,” she told Todd. She then pulled out a stopwatch. “I’m going to set the watch for 30 seconds. When time expires, I’ll say, ‘Time’s up,’ and you’ll move to the next desk in the row.” Todd smiled, and Leslie clicked the stop watch.

“Time’s up!  Move please.” Todd enthusiastically jumped up and moved to the next seat.

Todd had so much fun . . . the first 10 minutes.

Twenty minutes into detention, he was bored and quietly moved to the next desk.

Forty minutes into detention, he was so tired of moving that he asked the teacher if he could stop. “Just 20 more minutes, Todd, and you’ll be through.”

“I’m tired,” he whined, but she reminded him of how tired all of his teachers were of constantly telling him to sit down.

When detention ended, Leslie explained to him that she loved his enthusiasm but he couldn’t keep jumping up from his desk and wandering around the room because it was disruptive. “Tomorrow when you are in class,” she reminded him, “you have to stay in your desk. If you jump up again, we’re going to be right back here in detention with the stopwatch.”

The punishment was revolutionary. While Todd continued to get excited in class and sit on the edge of his seat, we no longer had to warn, prod, punish, chastise, and chase Todd back to his seat.

Jumping up out of a desk apparently is lots of fun . . . unless you have to do it every 30 seconds for a solid hour!

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Have you ever found that when you are totally engrossed in what you are doing, a student always pops up to interrupt?

Years and years ago as I was adjusting to contacts, one popped out while I was sitting at my desk. Since students were working quietly at their own desks, I was able to feel around on my desk (good indication of just how bad my eyesight is) and find the missing contact.  As I tried quickly and quietly to spray solution on the contact and put it in my eye, a student walked up to my desk and interrupted me, “Ms. Parrott.”

“Just a minute,” I replied as I proceeded to try to put the contact in my eye.

“Ms. Parrott, Ms. Parrott,” he replied a little louder.

“Just a minute, please,” I responded as I raised the contact to my eye and tried to position it.

“But, Ms. Parrott!” he stated loudly and emphatically.

Irritated, I growled. “If you will wait just two minutes, I’ll HELP you!”

“Fine,” he replied. “Just go ahead and stick that piece of Scotch tape in your eye and see if I care!”

I had to do some heavy duty apologizing as the student then helped me find the missing contact lens on my desk!

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

For the past two days, I have written about the loss of a good friend and inspirational teacher.  I suspect I should write about a different topic today, but as most people can understand, most of my thoughts right now center around Ed and his students.

Ed’s facebook memorial page now includes over 850 members, and hundreds of current and former students have written beautiful notes to and about Ed. These notes are indicative of the true measure of a teacher. While education experts emphasize curriculum, instruction, and skills needed to pass state tests, the poignant notes on Ed’s memorial page illustrate that a teacher’s personality, compassion, and interest in students are the traits that students most remember.

What do Ed’s students in the past four decades remember about Ed?

• He loved students, encouraged them, and believed in them even when they did not believe in themselves.
• He had high expectations for himself and for others and never hesitated to correct them when he thought they were slacking off.
• He loved his subject (drama, literature, and music) and was enthusiastic in sharing that love with students.
• He gave the best hugs of all time! One person wrote, “When Mr. Deavers hugged it… was as if he was hugging your soul, he hugged as hard as he could and even though you probably couldn’t breathe, it was a good suffocation.”
• He often stayed in touch with students even years after they left his classroom.
• Ed had an infectious sense of humor.
• He emphasized academics and required students to remembrer what they had learned. One student wrote about how Ed required students to recite famous passages from Julius Caesar whenever he pointed at them – in class, in the cafeteria, at a basketball game, etc.
• He was an enthusiastic learner and reader.
• In addition to being a memorable teacher, he was a wonderful friend to students.

One student who took Ed’s class over twenty years ago wrote, “Ed always said that he had to work harder than others because he would have a shortened life [because of Type I Diabetes].”

While Ed did indeed have a shortened life, oh, how he lived!

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Most public schools block facebook and other social-networking sites because they believe students will misuse these websites. While problems may indeed crop up when students use social-networking sites, we also need to look at the advantages of these sites and how they help us communicate with students.

I first used facebook with students three years ago when students encouraged me to set up a facebook group for my classes. I’ll write about that experience at another time. Suffice it to say that I learned very quickly that facebook was the fastest and easiest method to get in touch with large groups of students.

This weekend I have learned another facebook advantage.

As I wrote yesterday in my post, my school is grieving over the death of a popular teacher who passed away late Friday afternoon. Since the death occurred after school on a Friday before a three-day weekend, we worried about how to contact students. No one wanted students to return to school on Tuesday and learn about the death. Administrators sent an email to the faculty, and drama teachers sent text messages to students in drama leadership positions. That was a good start.

Facebook, however, was the perfect vehicle to inform students rapidly.

Once a handful of students and teachers who knew about Ed’s death posted information on facebook, more and more students and former students learned of the death and passed on the information. When we found out the funeral arrangements yesterday afternoon, we were able to convey that information quickly on facebook.

Perhaps facebook’s greatest support, however, has been in allowing students to grieve collectively by sharing their feelings of loss and their wonderful stories about a beloved teacher. A former student established a facebook page for students to post their feelings and stories. As I write this blog post, the page for Ed Deavers already has 500 members, many of whom have shared their favorite stories about Ed.

In the beginning, the page for Ed included members of our high school and a few who had recently graduated. Twenty-four hours later, the page includes members and stories from students who first met this remarkable teacher 25 years ago. Indeed, the facebook page includes loving and humorous stories from students who range in age from 15 to over 40.

I suspect there are many people who will view this situation and challenge that commiseration through facebook is not the same thing as grieving in the physical presence of others whom we love. I agree. However, on a long weekend when we have little contact with students, facebook has become a remarkable tool to allow students to share and cope with such a great loss.

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Last night I received the sad news that Ed, a dear friend with whom I have taught for many years, died. Ed had suffered from complications of Type I Diabetes for many years and had been admitted into the hospital this past weekend. He was released yesterday and later suffered a heart attack.

Ed was a Shakespearean scholar and drama teacher. He pushed students hard, but they loved him because they knew he loved them and they knew that he always concentrated on making them better. Many of the tributes that students are currently posting on Facebook emphasize that Ed helped to make them who they are today. He was a rare teacher who delivered life’s lessons, lessons that stay with all of us for eternity.

Ed was also one of the funniest people I have ever known – slick, sophisticated and sarcastic humor. That’s why I loved sitting next to him in staff meetings. He would listen attentively regardless of how preposterous and redundant the information, and when the speaker paused, he would whisper a one-liner, sigh, and roll his eyes so dramatically to make me laugh.

When Ed produced plays, the performances were so mature and polished that it was easy to lose sight of the fact that he was working with high school students and not seasoned performers.

In the last few years, Ed’s health had deteriorated rapidly and he often had to use a cane, or a walker, or at times even a wheelchair, but he continued to teach daily. He adjusted his schedule so his planning period was before school so he could leave for doctors’ appointments in the afternoon. He was often in pain and often struggled, but he still performed his duties, still maintained high expectations for his students, still made all of us laugh with his quick wit, and, most importantly, he still inspired young adults.

Ed was always the first teacher to arrive in the morning, and I always arrived about five minutes later. When I drive to school Tuesday morning, I won’t see Ed’s car in the parking lot as I have every day for almost a decade. I’m worried about that moment.

Ed may not be in school physically on Tuesday, but his spirit will live on forever in the hearts of those students and teachers who knew and loved him.

I will miss you, my friend!

His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, ‘This was a man!’

The video below is from a 2005 performance that students dedicated to Ed. They present the dedication to him at the end of this clip.

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

I just got off the phone with a Fox News producer who is working on a story about Teachers Pay Teachers, an online store that allows teachers to sell teacher-created activities, plans, and tests to other teachers. I have previously written about my enthusiasm for this site.

Is It Wrong to Sell Teaching Materials?

Although I refused to appear on camera, I enjoyed discussing why I think Teachers Pay Teachers is a valuable resource for teachers.

When I first started teaching over three decades ago, I struggled to find activities and assignments for my students. We had one textbook, and within the same classroom I had many students who could not read the textbook and many students who had previously mastered the material in the textbook. I was constantly trying to create enrichment and remediation activities. I was exhausted! Teachers Pay Teachers would have made my life so much easier.

One of the topics the news producer broached was whether or not selling teacher-created materials might curtail teacher collaboration. While I indeed think this might be a legitimate concern if teachers tried to sell their materials to other teachers within a school, I doubt this happens. I suspect that those of us who upload items on Teachers Pay Teachers freely share our work with other teachers in our schools. We only sell items to teachers we don’t know, teachers who may teach hundreds and hundreds of miles from us. Surely no one would suggest that it is a teacher’s responsibility to share materials with every teacher in the country!

If you are a new teacher and need activities, tests, and assignments, take a look at Teachers Pay Teachers. You can probably find many inexpensive items that might save you some time. If you are an experienced teacher, you might want to consider selling assignments through Teachers Pay Teachers to make a little extra money for yourself or to use with your own students.

Teachers Pay Teachers

My students have been delivering speeches for the last two days, and so far I am really impressed at their research and their ability to convey what they have learned. Although a few students have been nervous, most students have been well-prepared, interesting, and poised.

Students had to select their own topics (with my approval), research the topic, and then prepare a 5-minute speech. As always, the topics are extremely varied and run the gamut from very serious and scholarly to humorous. Here’s the list of speeches I have watched during the first two days.

Roberto Goizueta’s Influence on Coca-Cola

Functional Training (Cross-Fit)

History of Pointe Shoes (Ballet)

Vitamin D Deficiency

The Perks of Working at Google

Super Foods

Cap and Trade

History of Pi

History of Deodorant

Utilidors at Disney World

Witricity

Mercury 13 (Female Astronauts in the early 1960s)

Avatar Cinematography

Childhood Vaccinations

Dream Interpretation

FIFA

Reactive Attachment Disorder in Adopted Children

For years, I have required hundreds of students to give these short speeches on topics of their choice. As a result, I know a couple of minutes of information on a plethora of topics. In other words, I know just enough to be dangerous.

Did you know that because we rarely go outside without sunscreen, a high percentage of Americans today suffer from problems that are a result of insufficient Vitamin D? Such deficiencies could be corrected if we received only 20 minutes of sunshine three times each week.

Did you know that the concept of Pi first appeared in the bible or that there are contests where individuals memorize thousands of digits of pi: 3.14159265 (plus thousands of additional digits)?

Did you know that acres of tunnels run underneath Disney World in order to provide  waste removal, vendor deliveries, and dressing areas for characters?

Did you know that we are rapidly approaching the point where electricity will be broadcast in a room (or house,  or building, or maybe even a city) and objects will operate without having to be plugged into an electrical outlet?

Did you know that in the early 1960s 14 women were put through the same tests as the Mercury 7 astronauts to see if they were competent to become astronauts? And that they performed as well or better than men on most tests?

Did you know that I listened to an excellent speech on cap and trade, but I still don’t understand exactly what it is or why anyone would believe we should implement such a policy?

I love speeches because students teach me things I need to know!

As a child, I was terrified of those days when teachers assigned ORAL book reports. I loved to read, but the thought of standing in front of a class and talking about what I had read frightened me. In fact, I used to be so afraid of speaking in front of a class that I would become sick and miss one or two sick days when the oral reports rolled around. My favorite ploy was to bargain with the teacher. In a couple of instances, I convinced teachers to allow me to read two books instead of one and write two book reports instead of delivering an oral report. At the time I thought they were the best teachers on the face of the Earth.

Usually, however, the teacher refused to bargain and made me stand in front of the class and speak. I trembled, mumbled, and stumbled through my speech as I fought back the tears.  I become nervous today just thinking of those days when a podium in front of the classroom served as my biggest nemesis. Sometimes I had teachers who encouraged me, sometimes they told me i was being silly, and some never even noticed my fear. I have never forgotten those experiences.

I wish I could say that I overcame my fear of speaking in front of groups as I grew older, but I still can’t stand it.  Through the years I have become better at public speaking, but I still shudder at the very thought that I must deliver any type of presentation.

My students are delivering their first presentation to the class this week. A few of them are excited, but most of them will simply endure the assignment. I also know that I have a few shy students who will worry and make themselves sick over the speech just as I did so many decades ago. I still make these fearful students give a speech, just as I’ll make them get up in front of the group a couple of additional times during the semester because I want them to improve and want them to learn that they can indeed speak with confidence. I try to provide a safe environment and encourage them because I want them to leave my classroom and move on to college with the knowledge that they will be just fine if they take a future class that requires presentations.

I assign speeches because I know public speaking is a skill students need to practice.

The little girl in me, however, feels their pain and wants to console them and tell them they can write a research paper instead.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a teacher.

Here is the post I wrote to students to help alleviate their fear:

Nervous About Making a Speech?

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Have you heard the story about the middle school quarterback who has already committed to play football for the University of Southern California?  If not, please read this story.

Delaware high school football: 13-year-old’s pledge to USC stuns sports world

I first saw the story on one of the morning shows, and I’m still trying to figure out what I think about it. While I think it is marvelous to see such a talented young man who is working hard to achieve his dreams, I don’t understand the purpose of committing or pledging at such a young age to later play football at a specific university. What’s the hurry, particularly when it appears that the pledge is not binding on either the player or the university?

Part of me wants to scream, “Let him be a kid!” Yes, David Sills is talented, but does he possess other talents that he might develop if he did not devote all of his time to football? Instead of spending so much time working with a quarterback coach, wouldn’t the young man be healthier and happier if he spent more time just playing with his friends and doing 13-year-old activities instead of worrying about his future as a college quarterback?

I want to scream that this is not right, but I stop myself.

I don’t know the young man or the family, but I have no doubt that the parents are helping their son make the right decisions. How could a parent turn down an offer when it is exactly what the son has been working to achieve?

David’s devotion and commitment to football is no different from some of the exceptional students I work with every day who have long dreamed of becoming engineers and doctors. They take every advanced course they can work into their schedules and pursue every opportunity they can find to attend seminars or find internships that will allow them to learn more about the subjects they love.

I just wish USC would contact them with such enthusiasm and reserve places in the freshman class for such exceptional academic students!

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott