Gladly Would I Teach

Each Friday morning, my classes spend 10-15 minutes at the beginning of class watching “Around the Mountain,” a student-produced weekly video program about our school. Each segment includes news, interviews, humorous segments, and student spotlights. I am always astounded by how creative students are, and it’s great fun for me because about half the kids on the KMTV staff are in my AP English class. Under the direction of Jackie Collier, an inspirational teacher, our students produce work that is comparable to work usually found in small colleges.

If you are interested, take a look at Friday’s program. Last week, I wrote about our Valentine Dance for Special Needs students. The segment on the dance can be found on this video a little beyond the 9 minute mark.

KMTV Feb. 26, 2010

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I am often amazed at the opportunities that students have today.  Since I teach in a school that includes a Math and Science magnet program, we have many intelligent and diligent students who are thinking about becoming doctors in the future, a career interest for many of the students I have taught through the years.

Oh, but what opportunities kids have today!

Our senior magnet students are required to complete internships for one semester during their final year of high school. Some students who are considering careers in the medical field intern with doctors, and a few of the lucky ones get to spend weeks working with energetic and compassionate surgeons who are willing to mentor a seventeen or eighteen-year-old student.

That’s right – surgeons!

Students get their own scrubs and have the opportunity to enter the operating room and watch as surgeons complete operations, not once, but many, many times during the 18-week program. Every semester I have wide-eyed students who tell me all about what they see during operations, and our conversations almost always revolve around the amputations that they see.

Yes, amputations! (I would run away, but for kids who are interested in medicine, this is an experience of a lifetime.)

Imagine being eighteen years old and interested in becoming a doctor. How much would it mean to you to be able to walk into a doctor’s office or a surgeon’s office and shadow him during part of the day? Without question, students who have this amazing opportunity will remember it for the rest of their lives, and this experience will indeed help them decide if a life in medicine is what they want to pursue.

I wish all of our students had the opportunity to shadow caring professionals who are willing to devote part of their day to prepare future generations for careers.

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Like many teachers, for the past week I have been thinking about the Rhode Island high school that fired all of its teachers because the school repeatedly failed to reach NCLB standards. I don’t know much about the school, but I suspect I can guess what kind of school it is. I suspect it’s in a lower socio-economic level neighborhood and probably has a high transient rate for students and probably teachers and administrators also. I guess that few of the parents attended college, and I would imagine that some of the students who graduate from the school will be the first in their family to do so. Isn’t this the scenario of most schools that fail to meet NCLB?

Regardless of the students’ background, however, most Americans expect students in  schools like this to score as high on standardized tests as students in suburban, upper middle-class areas. How absurd!  Yes, students in impoverished areas can indeed meet the same standards as suburban kids, but it would require an extraordinary faculty and student body.

As I read about the firing of the Rhode Island teachers, I thought of my own high school in suburban Atlanta. We have a beautiful campus, and the facilities are only ten years old. Students have access to about 30 AP courses and scores and scores of extra-curricular activities and sports. The faculty is well trained and usually enthusiastic. Students perform well about the national average on standardized tests, and among the 2500 students, the only students we have to worry about are several hundred students who are not as economically advantaged as most of our students, the very type of student who probably makes up the majority of studens in the Rhode Island high school.

People who visit our school always compliment us on our facilities, the energy, compassion, and academic performance of our students, and the diligence, enthusiasm, and devotion of our teachers.

We are a wonderful school!

I wonder, however, what would happen if the couple of hundred of students who struggle academically were the majority of the student body instead of the minority?

What would people then say about our school?

Would someone step in to fire all of our teachers?

Would Arne Duncan, the United States Education Secretary, step in to applaud the firing of the entire faculty?

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

Like most states, in this bad economy, Georgia is struggling to pay for schools and teachers. Teachers were furloughed for three days in the fall, and we will probably have 3 more furlough days this semester. Next year looks just as bad, and some politicians advocate shortening the school year by as many as ten days.

Yesterday as I watched the local television news, a state legislator disclosed his idea for funding the schools. With obvious rancor, he suggested that teachers who are making $100,000 should be forced to retire so systems could replace them with $40,000 teachers.

Such thinking is indicative of what often hinders schools: shortsighted thinking.

Yes, forcing “expensive” teachers into retirement will save school systems money, but what about learning? Will it help students to force our most experienced teachers into retirement and replace them with brand new teachers? While it is indeed true that some outstanding first-year teachers are exemplary and more effective than many teachers with years and years of experience, those situations are rare. While the research is unclear as to when teaching experience levels off, the research is absolutely clear that teachers are more effective each additional year they teach for at least the first five years for elementary teachers, and high school teachers on average continue to improve for several more years. Schools need experienced teachers.

Now, perhaps the economy has reached such dire straits that we need to take bold moves as the senator suggested, but couldn’t he display a little more respect and ASK teachers who have met retirement criteria to retire instead of sneering about expensive teachers?

Yes, I am, indeed, one of the old expensive teachers. With 32 years of teaching and a doctorate, I am at the top of Georgia teachers’ salary schedule.

Where are these $100,000 Georgia teachers?

I don’t know a $100,000 Georgia teacher!

Trading in old $100,000 teachers for $40,000 teachers isn’t going to work if there are no $100,000 Georgia teachers!

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

I always end each class period by saying, “See you tomorrow. Have a nice day!” or “Have a nice weekend!”  For reasons I have never understood, however, very few students respond by wishing me a nice day or a nice weekend.

I was a teenager once, and I can still remember all of the things I wanted to accomplish and all of the friends I wanted to see during the brief 5-minute break between classes. When the bell rang to end class, I’m sure I jumped up and scooted out of the room just as fast as my students do today. I doubt I paused long enough to return greetings with my teachers.

Kids have more important things to do than to tell me good-bye at the end of class. After all of these years I should know that. I hate to admit it, but when students leave my classroom at the end of the day, it hurts my feelings when they don’t tell me good-bye.

I need to get over it!

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Edie Parrott

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