What is a Learner?

Last week I walked by Mrs. Eason's classroom and noticed that students were intensely paying attention to another student presenting. I couldn't help myself and had to see what was going on. Her 9th grade students were presenting speeches on the topic, "What is a Learner?" The first full speech that I had the opportunity to hear came from Hannah Faulkner. If there is anything I could compare her presentation to, it would be an evangelical preacher. I found myself wanting to shout "Amen" several times as she spoke. I asked for a copy of her speech so that I can share it with you. Here are a few excerpts:

"2,340. That's how many days you'll be in school from kindergarten to 12th grade. That's how long you have to plan the rest of your life."
"What is a Learner? Learners can often be overlooked, because they aren't always an A+ student...they work their way around [problems] and persevere."
"Now you probably expect me to list off a bunch of people who persevered to reach the top, but of what relevance are they to us? There's those people like Katie Eason, Rebecca Burris, Lillian Corbitt, Caroline Clark and Charlie Howell who are looked at as only teachers. But that's the thing, they are teachers. Without them, how would we develop into learners? They are the ones that can help us make something of ourselves."
"As a student, stay committed to molding into a learner and use every last minute of those 2,340 days. Whether it's the best times or the worst times, it's the only time you've got."

Here we have a student that is impacted in very very best way possible. She gets it, and that is 100% due to the support she has received from her teachers at Greene Central. As we begin testing for our students, it's nice to also know that while we can teach students to answer questions on our content, we are also teaching students to become real learners.

Going to College

This week Greene Early College held its graduation ceremony. I was asked by the graduating class to speak at their ceremony and proudly accepted. For this particular group of students, I was one of five principals that served at their school in five years. I joked in my message to them that they had probably been exposed to more leadership styles than most people twice their age. Despite that turnover, this group turned out to be one exceptional class of graduates from Greene County. Three students received full scholarships and the others assembled a collective scholarship offering of over $1.7 million. One student alone amassed $400,000 in offerings. That is pretty exceptional.

I strongly believe that the key ingredient in their success is an overwhelming quality that anyone quickly notices among this group. This group of students works together and celebrates each other.  I have honestly never seen another group of teenagers do this like they do it. The call each other a family and treat each other that way. They still have times of disagreement, but in that disagreement, they seek to find resolve. Maybe it's because they learned to depend on one another, or because they are such a small group and know each other so well. Whatever the reason, it is successful and I would love to learn how to replicate it.

At this point, most of our seniors know where they will be next year. They may have been accepted to a university or community college, and with those students, we were successful. This year we started the process of building a college-going culture and that is a long and arduous journey.  Next year, more students have selected honors, AP and community college classes than ever before and we will have the task of pulling them up to prepare them for those rigors. It will be tough, but I am already smiling because by simply making the choice to be there shows that they are beginning to think like college-bound students. If we can teach them to celebrate and support one another along the way, we can make them successful students, but more importantly, we will make them successful adults.

Teacher Appreciation

I hope by now that you have felt some appreciation from your students and colleagues this week. Teacher Appreciation Week is a great time to recognize those individuals that do a lot for students. Ironically, the qualities that teachers are often appreciated for may have little or nothing to do with instruction. Teachers are often appreciated for the relationships and expectations that they have for their students. Students appreciate the way that they make them feel as individuals much more than the knowledge they impart. I vividly remember loving a high school English teacher that taught me so much more than how to write. She set such high expectations for me as a student and as a young man. When I stepped out of line, she called me out quickly, sometimes even going to the point of taking off her shoe to throw at me! (Please do not follow her example on this!)

This job requires inspiration and many of us were inspired to work in education because of a teacher that we had in school. That person made us want to be like them. I am still inspired by many of you. I stand in awe of your positivity, your dedication and your relentless pursuit of achieving more from your students. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week and thank you for being an inspiration to students and adults alike.

Good Teaching is Like Pornography

A professor once told me that good teaching is like pornography; both are tough to define, but you definitely know it when you see it. We often want to simplify things so that they offer solutions for us in nice neat packages, but in arenas that rely on artful skill, it rarely works that way. Take the statue of David by Michelangelo for instance. Here is a fully nude man in an openly public place. If a person where to do that, it would be indecent and considered pornography, but because he is sculpted he becomes one of the greatest works ever and people take pictures with him. So where is the line between art and porn? It's tough to say and depends highly on the material and the audience.

Teaching is exactly the same; good teaching is anyway. It would be simple to say "just do this with your class and they will learn," but that will never hold true. Good teaching is highly dependent on the material and the audience. What works in one class, will bomb with another. What works one day, may fail tomorrow. The art is not in the execution of good teaching, but in recognizing what connects with the audience and delivering that. I recently visited Mrs. Lopez-Hodges's Spanish for Native Speakers II class and while I could only understand a little of what was being said during the observation, I knew that what I saw was good teaching. Students communicated with the teacher, responded to one another and through their mannerisms, I saw relationships, thinking, challenge and effort. I didn't need to understand it; I knew it, because I saw it.

Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week and I think that good teaching should not only be recognized by students, parents and administrators. Good teaching should be recognized by fellow teachers as well. If you have seen good teaching lately, let a fellow teacher know. It will mean a lot to them that a fellow artist has recognized great work.