Transfer Portal

     I love college football. Of course I have my favorite team, but I love watching football no matter the team. I enjoy the players, the coaches, the fans, and just the overall sport. It just makes me happy watching college football. I had a crazy busy Saturday with four different events, but my favorite of those four was picking up my boys from a four day field trip. I was so happy to have my birdies back in the nest. The car ride from their high school to our house was full of stories from the trip. Yet, when we got home, they immediately turned on the TV to watch the two college football conference games that were still being played at 9pm Saturday.

     I was tired, but wanted to watch the games, wanted to be with my boys listening to the fun things they did in Chicago, and I was interested in the games. During the end of one the games, the announcers started talking about the transfer portal.

     So if you’re unfamiliar with college football, there is this new thing called the transfer portal. It is similar to the NFL draft. Players wishing to leave their current school and attend another college to finish their football career will put their names in the transfer portal and will then start “shopping” around for other schools to pick them up and put them on scholarship. Players do it for a multitude of reasons but the main reason is playing time. One particular player left his college last year because another player had been started by the coaches over him and he wanted to be a starter. And he has. He moved to another school, has started this year, and helped his team reach a lot of success this year. The announcer went on and on about how one player can change the entire team. While I agree with him, I have a hard time believing that one player can be the reason who make it to the “big dance.”   

     I could not shake the comment- one player can change the entire team. I don’t buy it. I started thinking about school. Can one team member make a huge impact?  Absolutely-and it doesn’t have to be a positive impact. But what I think is more important than the work you do that can change the entire team is character. I believe that rather one player can change the entire team, the statement should have stated, “One athlete OF CHARACTER will improve a team.” Character matters. It matters whether you’re playing college football or whether you’re educating students. One teacher of character-a teacher who truly understands the impact of the work they do, a teacher who understands the impact of every decision, a teacher who knows that arts and crafts are for preschool and real school deserves hard work, deep thinking, and teaching all day long no matter what, a teacher of character isn’t afraid of real conversations with team members, students, or parents, a teacher of character knows the difference between feeling bad and being sick, a teacher with character has the relationships with students that surpasses anyone that child has had outside of their family, a teacher of character fights with status quo when achievement doesn’t happen at an unbelievable level, a teacher of character will do whatever it takes to change the life of a child.

Because what the announcer didn’t go on to say is that one athlete OF CHARACTER will improve a team. One team of character will improve a school. One school of character can impace an entire community.  What an amazing place it would be if we had 100% of the school full of 100% of teachers of character.

Won't you be my neighbor?

     I think some days that I live in a my own little world. I spend time concentrating on my work, my profession, through reading and growing in my craft, my children, my family, and my friends (although said friends would say I do a lot less concentrating on them than I once did). I use social media for learning. Twitter is my favorite place to learn and collaborate with other educators-teachers and administrators. I also spend time running a house hold such as cleaning, cooking, laundry, paying bills and upkeep of the home.

     It was so super fun last week to have some time to unwind and concentrate only on family and friends. On Friday night, my boys took me to the movies. It was a highly energized “boy” movie and during the previews, I found out that a new movie about Mister Rogers, staring my most favorite actor-Tom Hanks, has been released. I wish I had known because I would have been in that theater rather than the one I was in watching racing cars and loud men talking about fast cars. As it often does when I am bored senseless in a movie, I started thinking about other things. My mind wondered to fun times watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

  

    Growing up in days prior to cartoons 24 hours a day, heck, growing up without cable, my sister and I loved ETV and most especially Mr. Rogers. While Mr. Rogers was my absolute favorite who can’t love to remember Lady Aberlin or Dr. Platypus, Chef Brockett, or Miss Paulifficate.  This show brings back such wonderful memories of my childhood. Next to HeeHaw or the Dukes of Hazard, I think this was the most played show in my house growing up. And this says a lot because our parents only allowed ½ hour of TV a day.

     I told my boys after “their” movie was over that we would definitely be seeing Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. I have made my boys watch Mr. Rogers from time to time and honestly they just were not that engaged. Probably because I am not like my parents and have allowed to much TV time or Tv and video has changed so much that the low key and language development of Mr. Rogers is just not as engaging as I wish it could be for them.  They questioned me as to why this was a “must see” movie. I, probably more than they had counted on, divulged every reason why we had to make this our next movie.

     In a clique way, I explained that everything I need to know I learned from Mr. Rogers. The first is that each person is worthy to be loved and HEARD. Would this world be so much better if we all took up that attitude. All too often we could tackle issues if we recognize that each person has unique experiences, fears, schema, losses and victories that help organize their responses to situations. We really need to do more listening than talking. Mr. Rogers did that so well. He truly believed and lived that one of the characters of highly effective people- seek first to understand before being understood.

     Additionally, Mr. Rogers quickly rose to fame. It did not change him. Nor did he take the role lightly. He took his place as a “TV Star” as an opportunity to help children understand the world around them. We, as educators, may not be on a TV screen, but we have just as an influential opportunity as Mr. Rogers. He once said, "I hope you're proud of yourself for the times you've said 'yes,' when all it meant was extra work for you and was seemingly helpful only to somebody else."  The most effective and most influential teachers are those who say yes more than others. The 8-3 teacher will never understand how influential they could have been and that makes me very sad for them.

     My favorite lesson from Mr. Rogers was to slow down. While this is probably the reason the Rosebros didn’t love Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, but this show maintained a much slower and thoughtful pace versus the loud, fast paced somewhat silly or incomprehensible cartoons of today. The pace of his show was not only perfect it allowed him to explore issues slowly and thoughtfully and deeply. He did not have the need to “put on a show.” He used his show to develop a relationship with the viewers making them feel valuable and capable of loving and being loved. I often think that Mr. Rogers, being a teacher, would have hated the Teacher pay teacher effect of classroom instruction. He was no frills. He didn’t need the latest and greatest to get the job done. And he took his time. Classroom timing is one of the things that the best teachers do so well. They know when to slow down, reteach, regroup, or move forward. Mr. Rogers did it well and so do masterful teachers.

     And most importantly, Mr. Rogers taught us about being a good neighbor. He was kind to those around him. I, obviously, am not talking about physical neighbors but rather those you spend a lot of time with each day. Mr. Rogers recognized that those around you play an important part in making the world a better and more peaceful place. It meant that you had to get to know those around you. Again, seeking to understand before being understood is most important. Treating others the way you want to be treated is just as important.  How ever can we teach our student to be tolerate when we are not? How ever can we teach our children to respect differences when we talk behind each other’s back? How ever can we teach our children to build a bigger table rather than a bigger fence when we refuse to work harder and share with each other?

     Mr. Rogers said, "We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say, 'It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes." Exceptional educators understand this as a core value and are heroes. I mean, Mr. Rogers said it, so it must be true.  

Thankful

My first teaching experience was in a wonderful, wonderful school. The principal was amazing. When I asked her once how long she had been the principal, all she said was, “I was principal when most of the Moms were students.” She was tough, but she was great. She loved the school. She loved the students. She didn’t have an easy job.

The school was full of talented teachers. These were some of the best I’ve ever worked with in all my years of teaching. They were insanely creative, dedicated, and passionate. They had to be. The student body was hard. It was a school where 90% of the students were free and reduced, at least 80% were from single parent homes, many students were being raised by someone other than a parent, and many had trouble learning. I taught special education at the school. It was hard, but I loved it.

     My first Thanksgiving as a teacher (prior to the days of googling cute activities) I developed a wonderful lesson plan about Thanksgiving. It was a cheesy lesson in which the kids were going to use their hands to draw turkeys, write something they were thankful for, and then share their sentences with each other. The night before the lesson, I got nervous. In my naive bubble of a world self, I was worried that the kids would not find something to be thankful for. I decided at the last minute to change the lesson. I decided that we would make the turkey hands and then the students would trade the turkeys and write about what they appreciated about each other. Each of the feathers would contain one thought from each of their classmates. Each thought would detail what they liked about their friend.

     The lesson went surprisingly better than I had thought. Of course, my students struggled with spelling and some of the organization of their thoughts, but in the end I was thrilled. The students spent a lot of time reading their turkey hands once they received them back and the amazing things that their classmates said about them made their hearts happy. That afternoon I was the only teacher left in the school getting ready for the next week (you know how we new teachers are) when my principal came by to kick me out or so I thought. She was in my room before I knew it with one of my students and his grandmother.

    I was so worried as this grandmother always protected her grandson-no matter what he did.  I really didn’t want to begin Thanksgiving break with an issue. The principal looked at me and said to the grandmother, “Mrs. Lynch will you tell Miss Eaddy what you just told me?” The grandmother stepped closer with Roger, her grandson, attached to her arm. She started to speak and started to cry. She wanted me to know that Roger came home upset. He was upset because no one gave me a turkey. The grandmother didn’t understand and that is when Roger detailed the activity that we had done. She said that she didn’t even know that others thought that way about Roger (her words-especially since he is so d$&^ mean to them all the time). She said that she realized by looking at his face how much those nice words meant. But he wanted to bring me a turkey since I didn’t get one. He even went to the apartment of two other classmates and had them write on a feather. I was speechless. I was touched.

     I still have that turkey. I keep it in my smile file. On the days when I have little to find in my work that I am grateful for, I pull out this smile file. I am reminded that one of the things that I will always be most grateful for is this work we do. It isn’t always easy. It isn’t always fun. It isn’t always what I want to do. But it is always important. It is always life changing-for me and for my students. And who could not be thankful for that?