POWERBALL

A few weeks ago, as the powerball winnings edged towards $400 million dollars, my family and I had many discussions of what we would do if we hit the powerball.  There were talks of  a home at Golden Oaks (a gated community on Walt Disney World property), a beach front home, new cars, a boat, elaborate vacations, and interesting other adventures.  It was fun talking these dreams with my boys. Of course, if you haven’t figured it out by now, we were not one of the extremely lucky folks who won that amazing jackpot. After our loss, my boys and I had a discussion about those things that we had so very much desired. Much of our conversation centered on the religious aspect of being grateful for what you do have, but then I explained to my boys that all of those things-the fancy beach front home, ultra luxurious cars, and fun vacation spots- were possible even without the lottery. It requires work. Hard work. More than you want to work-work. You see the lottery is an easy fix—a quick $2 investment for a lifetime of no financial worries. This got me thinking about our work here. It got me thinking about investment. An easy fix to our jobs is to throw worksheets and loads of teacher pay teacher materials at students. An easy fix is to copy what someone else does. An easy fix is to do what you’ve always done rather than continuing to grow.  I remember early in my teaching career getting one of those extremely cheesy wall hangings that said the best part of teaching: June, July, and August. Isn’t that sad? Sure, it is fun to have some uninterrupted time off in the summer, but should that be the reason we work in a school? Should that be the best part? I would say the person that thought that was funny enough to put on a wall hanging, wasn’t fully invested. Investment is an emotional roller coaster. When you are invested fully in something, you stop at nothing to ensure the success of your students, your grade level, and your school.  Is it hard work? Does it require doing things a little different than you’ve done in the past? Does it require having goals and discovering a plan to reach the goals?  Does it require you to be so tired sometimes you can’t hold your eyes open? The answer to all of those questions, and I dare say many more, is yes. The most powerful factor in transforming students is a relationship with a caring teacher who is fully invested in making sure that every student in the classroom is given every opportunity for success. The investment in that child is a highly rewarding experience albeit at times frustrating and tiring. I see so often the amazing powerball winnings of students coming back here to see old teachers who have affected them deeply. It is by far the feeling that I can only attribute to winning the jackpot. 

We have three goals as a school: to be a model (1) IB school, (2) reader/writer workshop school, & (3) technology integration school. Last week, we have 7 visitors here looking at reader’s and writer’s workshop, and another school has reached out to come see our IB program. We are well on our way to reaching those goals. But I can assure you it will never happen if we don’t have the investment of each person employed here at JBE. When that happens, we all win big.

Believe in me

My mother has died. Such a short sentence to compile so many emotions. Last Monday was as normal as any Monday goes for a school principal. Arrived at school at 6:15am, walked the building to check on any weekend fun that may have happened in the building, worked on a parent newsletter before car duty at 7:15am. I ate breakfast with late arrival students and discussed a situation with my assistant principal. Then I received a phone call. My sister. She said that my father had found my mother unresponsive and she was on the way to the ER. She would call later. I did two classroom observations. I spoke with some teachers about some situations. I wrote a memo. I answered some more emails. I went to the high school for an IGP meeting. The entire time I had my phone in my hand-and if you know me- this is unusual. I hate cell phones. I loathe the idea of always being connected. My sister called around 12 to say my mom had an infection and because of her transplant surgery in September they would be transporting her to MUSC in an effort to treat her properly. She sounded positive. My day got a little better. After school I was in a meeting when my sister called again. Mom took a turn downhill.

Yet, I was still not overly concerned. You see my mother has been in the hospital a lot. She has been sick a lot. But my mother ALWAYS got better. She ALWAYS came home. I called my aunt. She had been with my mother. She told me that my mother was sick and looked bad but she was going to be okay. She was worried about my Dad.  As I’ve done more times than I can count, I left Spartanburg within thirty minutes. I was in Charleston at 7:30pm.  I arrived in the waiting room and found my Dad without looking up and with a voice so fragile and shaky I worried he would break, he said, “We need a miracle.” This infection had quickly turned septic, meaning the infection was in her blood stream. She was in a coma by the time I arrived in Charleston. At 2:30am the doctors came and told my Dad and I to tell my mother goodbye. We called my sister and brother. I begged my mother to hold on so that my siblings could arrive. As any great mother, she did just that. Watching my father say goodbye to his bride of 48 years was hard, watching my sister and brother say goodbye was harder. Yet, holding my mother’s hand as she left our world on Tuesday morning was the most peaceful feeling I have ever experienced.

My mother is the reason I am an educator. She was not an educator. That would have been a terrible failure. She could never be tough. She could never handle the heartache involved in being a educator to students who face struggles academically, socially, parentally, or economically. She could have never managed a classroom. She could never tell a child no. It is okay, I am not talking about my incredible mom. Not everyone should be an educator. I am an educator because she valued education. I am an educator because every day she believed in me. When Mrs. Sprott complained about my handwriting, she told me the curly que on the letter M was beautiful. When I could not understand geometry, she got herself a tutor so she could teach me. When it was discovered that reading was difficult for me in 3^rd grade, she spent two days in my class to learn how my teacher taught so she could do the same with me at home. Not a day went by that she was not giving me encouragement, whether it was learning to read, applying for college scholarships, or trying to finish my doctorate degree. Every person needs a cheerleader. Every person deserves for someone to believe in them. I became an educator because my mother made me feel that I could do anything and I wanted other children to feel the same way.

My family elected me to give the eulogy at my mother’s services. I spent some time alone Friday writing down my thoughts. I was so nervous that I would not say the right words. I was worried that I would not make sense or my stories would get the “you had to be there” reaction. I feared that I would say too much or not enough. I instinctively picked up my cell to get some reassurance from---my Mom. As I scrolled through my contacts, it hit me when I saw her name on my screen. She certainly was not going to answer or it was going to be interesting if she had. No matter my level of success , no matter my failures, no matter how many times I had disappointed her, gone against her advice, or failed to listen, she was the one person who always believed in me. And she was gone. This is a tough statement to write. But this is why I am an educator. She believed in me and in turn I believe in others—no matter how many times they soar and it looks like they don’t need me or how many times they disappoint and need my encouragement.  I was lucky to have that for 44 years. Should not each student in your class have it for at least 180 days?

Let me get you someone else.....

This weekend I had to do something that I absolutely despise. I had to deal with a customer service call. A gift that I received for Christmas has already stopped working and I needed to figure out how to either get another product or get a refund. I called the dreaded 1-800 number and waited. I was on hold for a surprisingly short period of time and then detailed my story. After pouring upon this poor lady the demise of the device, she stopped me and stated, “Yeah, I can’t help you, you need to speak with returns. Let me get you someone else.”  She put me on hold and after a five minutes,  I spent another few minutes discussing my problem with the lady in returns. This very kind lady stopped me and said that she couldn’t help me and I needed to speak with the warranty department. She then put me on hold and again, for the third time, I, now a little more impatiently, articulated the reason for my call. The man on the other end asked a few questions and then stated the dreaded words I waited to hear, “You’ll need to talk with our return department.” Now this is the part of the story where I wish I could say I just hung up.  Sometimes I think the companies design it this way.  But, no, I did not hang up. I made myself feel better at the expense of poor Valarie, the warranty department customer service representative and of course demanded to speak to “someone higher”-whatever that means- and demanded help.

As I was getting over being mad about the situation, I thought about a teaching job I once had. One of my first teaching jobs was that of resource teacher (now known as academic support). I also thought about why I left that job. I loved my students. Over twenty years later, I’m still in contact with some of those students. The school I worked was in a difficult area. My students taught me so much about teaching, relationships, and life outside the bubble I grew up and went to college in the years previous.  Some of my kids were difficult to like. Some of my students were difficult to teach. Some of my students were both. I worked with one teacher who had my students waiting outside her door for me each day when it was time for resource. Each day she gave me a play by play of their day so far. She would also detail other students of hers that I “needed to serve” as well. 

Because I taught academic support, I felt strongly that I needed to give these students strategies to be successful in their regular classes. Sure, they were behind grade level but I was amazed how much they caught up with some one-on-one or small group teaching. We worked each day on the skills listed on their IEP, and many that probably were not. I worked these kids hard. I met them before school. I kept them after school.  One student, Travis, who was a 2^nd grader, amazed me with this progress. Travis was a smart little boy who was being raised by his great grandmother.  Before I could teach him reading skills, I had to teach Travis that he was safe at school and that I would never hurt him, no matter how hard he tried me. Once we turned his behavior around, his learning soared. In no time, Travis was reading at a level that was just a few months behind same age/grade peers. I thought it time to move away from the readers that I was using in my class to working on what he was doing in his class. I wanted to work on what he was doing in his own class so that I could start seeing if he really could transfer strategies. I started first by asking Travis to bring his work with him to resource. When that didn’t happen, I went to his teacher. This is when my heart broke. She was not doing reading with Travis. She gave Travis to me. She wanted that to be my job. About this same time another one of this teacher’s students qualified for services with me. Again I discovered that this teacher stopped working with this student on reading. To make matters worse, this student would end up spending hours with me each day because of his behavior in the class. These kids really no longer mattered to her. They were no longer her “problem”, they were mine.

Part of me wanted to understand the plight of the teacher. It was tough. It was hard. But then I was unable to make myself comprehend how the teacher could not see just how far these students could go if they had teaching from her and teaching and reinforcement from me. The more I worked in the school, the more it became obvious that this was the philosophy of the school. If other people taught the students- whether it be me as the resource teacher, the interventionist, or the behavior counselor- the regular teacher fully believed that they had no responsibility with that student.  As soon as I realized how bad this philosophy permeated within the school, I knew I needed to leave. It was not right to be the only  one working with our most involved students.

 As hard as it was to leave some of my students, I knew that I needed to be at a school where everyone took responsibility for all students and everyone worked hard for all students.

As an administrator, I sit in more IEP meetings each year than I can count. I attend six RTI meetings each month. I attend academic meetings with parents. I have informal meetings with teachers concerned about students. I am thrilled when a new placement into our academic support occurs and I can tell the parent that this is a great thing for the student. Not only will the student receive specialized services with our talented resource teacher, in many cases they will still receive services during our Walk to Read time, and they will still receive classroom instruction in small group. The more I have learned about what happened some 20 years ago with my students, the more I realize that this practice borders on malpractice.

I want nothing more to have each classroom full of students who are ready to learn, on grade level, and behave respectfully without being off task. I would be remiss if I didn’t say I think that would probably be very boring, but to say those "types" are the only students we would teach would not be just malpractice, it would be criminal. To think we do not have a responsibility to teach every child we touch “like our hair is on fire” is not only sad, it is unprofessional. Don’t our kids deserve this? Doesn’t our profession deserve this?

I beg of you never be the kind of teacher like my customer service call this weekend-“Not my job-let me give you to someone else!”

Choose Your Hard

As I stated last week, Rosebro#1 will be driving very soon. It has been a very interesting time as a parent. The thought of him driving puts me in quite the conundrum. I want him to drive. I cannot tell you the number of times he has been the last one picked up from golf practice as I coming barreling in on two wheels. Several times he has been playing golf and a spring or summer storm will quickly form and the "poor" kid has had to hang out with those men in the club house who enjoy, instead of going home, “locker room talk”, lots of beverages, and playing cards- probably fun for him, not so much the fun I wish for him to have.  I am constantly being asked to take him to a friend’s house. I cannot even begin to talk about how much I look forward to him helping me with transporting Rosebro2 to and from his various activities. 

Then I start thinking about the first time he will roll down the driveway without me. The loss of control is enough to make me anxious. I will also miss our talks in the car. In fact, he was so embarrassed about “the talk” that we had to have that talk on I-85 because he refused to discuss these things at home and threatened to jump out of the car anytime I tried to bring it up-the only time he didn’t threaten to jump out was traveling about 80MPH going down the interstate.  I will miss the conversations, seeing the Mom of the friend when I drop him off, reminding him of his behaviors, and singing to our favorite songs. All of this seems like so far away each time I have to drive with him.

As a former special education teacher, one of the skills I learned quickly when trying to help my students was the breaking down of skills. Any skill I needed the student to learn, I had to take away all assumptions that the student knew any of the prerequisite skills necessary to complete the task. Teaching Rosebro1 to drive is really no different. He is 15. At an extremely rough estimate he has been in a car at least 11,000 times in his life. Yet, simple skills such as which way to push the blinker button or how to turn on windshield wipers has gone unnoticed and must be taught. I specifically teach so many skills that are almost subconscious for me now as a driver for thirty+ years. This is hard work. It is hard because I am having to remind myself of things that innate for me but are unknown for him. It is hard because I do not think pharmacists make Xanax strong enough to deal with the levels of anxiety I feel. It is hard because he makes mistakes-even when we discussed and practiced what to do what feels like a million times. It is hard as well because what I never want to get is that phone call that my child has been in an accident that has harmed himself, others, or both. Teaching him is hard. Him not knowing is hard. I choose my hard.

Last week I was talking with a frustrated teacher who stated, “we do this. I don’t know why they don’t know it.”  I started thinking about Rosebro#1 who has been in a car over ten thousand times. If I use that same mentality, then I should hand over the keys and let him go. In order for him to get it, I have to specifically, purposefully, and repeatedly teach him the variety of skills necessary. I have to scaffold information. I now model behavior as I drive and he rides. I speak aloud about the red light, but stopping and paying attention and then turning right. I talk aloud about why I am doing what I am doing not for my benefit but for his. I model good behavior such as keeping my cell phone in the back seat rather than taking phone calls or reading text/emails. After I’ve modeled it and he can talk about it at a level where it seems he understands it, we then allow him to have guided practice. When all of this occurs, there will be a day-much sooner than I am ready-when he will do all of this independently.

 Nike’s famous slogan, “just do it” left out some important steps. As teachers, our students can’t “just do it!” It is one reason why worksheets drive me crazy. Busy students do not indicate students who are learning. Students will not learn information just by doing it. Do they need practice?  Absolutely. But what they need more is modeling and direct, specific, purposeful, and repetitive teaching. Only then can a student be successful independently. This type of teaching is hard. It is hard to establish small groups in your classroom. It is hard to make data driven decisions in your classroom. It is also hard to have students not on grade level. It is hard to scaffold learning. It is also hard to find 8 hours worth of "work" each day for students. It is also hard to work hard every day and not see much progress. Choose your hard.