teaching

Leave a comment Posted on Christmas Songs, mel tormé, teaching

It’s Christmas Time so Let’s Remember Mel Tormé

For years now on most Fridays I begin class not with a grammar or writing exercise but with a music lesson as a way to broaden my students’ musical knowledge by playing for them some of the great singers and composers of the 20th century, artists I know they don’t have on their iPods.   Why waste their time playing the latest Taylor Swift song from “1989” when I can introduce them to an entertainer born in 1899?

Around this time of year I usually do my Mel Tormé lesson.   When I ask my students if they have heard of him or know “The Christmas Song,” not an arm goes up.   However, when I play Nat King Cole singing the opening words “chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” smiles and nods appear.

What especially gets my students’ attention is when I inform them that Tormé was their age when he wrote his first hit song. Then I tell them the story of how he visited his then songwriting collaborator Bob Wells at his house in Toluca Lake on a 100-degree day in 1945.

As a way of escaping the stifling heat (the house had no air conditioning), Wells decided to cool himself off by writing a poem about Christmas. Those 25 words ended up becoming the beginning lines to “The Christmas Song,” completed after just 45 minutes.

That composition has remained a part of the holiday soundtrack after 69 years and counting.

Following my own advice to my students about contacting famous people who they admire, I reached out to Daisy Tormé, one of Mel’s five children, and an actor and a singer in her own right, who frequently hosts KCET’s special programming.   I wanted to find out how special her family Christmases were considering her father had a great deal to do with making the season bright.

It is something that the public easily forgets when it comes to celebrities, that after their work is done, they go back to being husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.   And to Daisy, Mel was a daddy first, “the best dad.”

She has cherished memories of Christmas with her father who would purposely not schedule any work during the holidays in order to spend time with his family.   She describes “The Christmas Song” as “an American Song, magical for all of us.”

Wall Street Journal’s drama critic Terry Teachout describes “The Christmas Song” as “one of the most harmonically complex songs ever to become a hit.” Still, if it weren’t for Christmas songs heard on the radio and in the stores this time of year, how many people under the age of 50 would know who Mel Tormé or Bing Crosby were? It is a shame how quickly artists who were once extremely popular over the course of decades can be quickly forgotten.

To further illustrate this, Daisy related a story about her father who was at the storied Farmer’s Market when carolers strolled by singing “The Christmas Song” which they knew he had written though ignorant that he was a renaissance man in the industry: songwriter, singer, actor, musician.

After joining the singers in finishing the song, one of them told him that he “wasn’t that bad of a singer.” When Tormé said that he had recorded a few records in his time, the young man asked, “how many?” “Ninety.”

One of the main reasons why the song resonates so deeply is the line “and so I’m offering this simple phrase to kids from one to ninety-two,” an unusual use of first person point of view where the songwriter directly addresses the listener.

Daisy wistfully reveals that “every time I hear the song, I get emotional because it is like getting a hug from my father.”

And while Tormé never did make it to “ninety-two” having passed away in 1999 at age 73, his song has been around for almost as long as he was—and will certainly go on as long as people wish to hear beautiful music at Christmas time.   To quote Messrs. Tormé and Wells, “Merry Christmas to you.”

Leave a comment Posted on Common Core, influential teacher, Public Education, teacher competence, teacher salary, teaching

Good Teachers Still Deserve Six Figure Salaries

Back in 1998 when I was embarking on my 10th year as a teacher, I had an op-ed piece published in the Los Angeles Times about paying good teachers six figure salaries.

In the 16 years since then, little has changed.

The argument for more money is based on respect, not greed. In society, how much a person earns is directly related to how that person is perceived.   Teachers have little leverage in their profession and that is due to their pay. Higher teacher salaries would translate into increased clout.

As President Obama referenced in his 2011 State of the Union address, in South Korea teachers are known as “nation builders.”   A significant reason they have this perception is that their salaries are equivalent to other professions in that country; not so in America.

Here a teacher’s salary is not only less than comparative careers, but is ranked third out of four pay divisions at a school: administrator, counselor, teacher, clerk in high to low order.

In Glendale Unified School District, the fourth largest district in Los Angeles County,, the starting salary of a teacher is $46,868, of a counselor is $49,391, and an administrator is $63,622, while the highest salary for each category is $90,802, $106,862, and $142,337, respectively.

The salary of a first-year administrator is equivalent to that of a 12-year veteran classroom teacher.   Twelve years is about one-third of a person’s working life. No wonder many administrators exit teaching after a short stint in the classroom.

Over the course of their careers, a teacher can’t quite double her salary, a counselor can double her salary plus $8,000, and an administrator can more than double her salary plus $15,000.

At the bottom of the pay scale, the salary of two administrators doesn’t quite equal the salary of three teachers.   However, at the top of the pay scale, two administrators’ salaries surpass that of three teachers.   In other words, with more experience, the separation between administrators and teachers lengthens, implying that the value of an experienced administrator is worth more than the value of an experienced teacher.

It is interesting to note that the turnover rate among administrators is higher than that of teachers even though they are paid more.

And, don’t forget, counselors and administrators have secretaries to assist them. Not teachers.

The main argument opposed to higher pay for teachers is that there is no money for it.

Yet, there is money for so many other things whose impact on student learning is questionable including extensive diagnostic testing. One cannot minimize the impact that a qualified teacher has on a young person’s life.

And the competency of that instructor rests on a wing and a prayer.

Without financial incentives, principals can’t motivate their teachers to work harder because they can’t offer a bonus or a promotion.   Principals can’t threaten teachers if they don’t perform at a certain level of competence since teacher tenure locks in instructors for life.

Paying teachers solely based on experience and education breeds a lack of quality control.   With no reward for more effective work, the only variable separating a good teacher from a poor one is that teacher’s personal work ethic, a trait not taught in credential courses or staff development, meaning that too much of quality teaching hinges on pure luck.

I am not proposing that the salaries of my colleagues in the counseling and administration departments decrease.   However, as long as teachers rank third out of four pay classifications, the power they wield will remain minimal, and the prestige of the teaching profession will continue to languish.

No matter how often people articulate the importance of teachers, the proof is in the pay scale.

Nation builders?   Not in America.

Leave a comment Posted on Chicago, Common Core, Public Education, teaching

Without parent involvement, NYC Mayor de Blasio’s $150 community school plan is bound to fail

Lost in the middle of the midterm election coverage this week was a major press conference on Monday by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing a $150 million infusion into the Big Apple’s 94 worst performing schools, creating community schools.

What is a community school?   Officially named “The School Renewal Program,”

the Mayor calls it his “whole child, whole school, whole community” concept. By “whole child” he means that schools will not just meet students’ academic needs but “all of their needs.”

In addition to providing children with books, desks, and supplies, they will also be given free food, including a pantry, free medical care for both physical and mental needs, weekly check-ups by dentists including cleanings, and free eyeglasses. One school already has a washer and dryer for families to use.

Frankly, it is surprising the bill for this “whole” thing is only $150 million.

This is a significant proposal.   Not in terms of money, but in terms of influence.

If the nation’s largest public school system is headed in this direction, how many more districts will follow suit?

The only thing that these schools will not be doing is clothe and house the students.   Hey, why not just build dormitories on school campuses?   Having students live directly on school property would cut down the tardies. Sure, the living quarters may take away playground space, but kids these days have little time to be kids; they need to be inside, on computers, learning the Common Core standards.

A cradle to career approach is a disturbing trend where the government takes care of children from the time that they are born through their entire K-16 schooling and beyond. Schools will evolve into social service hubs, their original role as learning centers receding.

The view that schools should do more than just teach kids is nothing new. As an extension to the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), President Obama signed the Community Eligibility Provision in 2010 allowing school districts to provide free or reduced-fee lunches to all students.   This program feeds 31 million school children each day costing $11.6 billion.   The cost has almost doubled since 2000 when it was at $6.1 billion.

This year Chicago Public Schools, the third largest in the nation, is expected to serve 72 million breakfast and lunch meals.

Statewide, 58% of school children participate in NSLP, 66.2% in Los Angeles County.

Public schools rarely seem to have sufficient funds as it is.   If monies that should go into higher teacher salaries, improved school facilities, and up to date computer technology get diverted into paying doctors, dentists, washers, and dryers, the future of America’s public schools may be bleaker than it already is.

Politicians excel at concocting education initiatives for failing schools without addressing the root of the problem:   at-home parenting.

Mayor de Blasio plans on holding the principals and teachers accountable, but no where in his speech did he speak of the accountability of the parents.   You know, parents who are supposed to rear their children, feed and house them, and, yes, push them to do well in school.

Parent involvement is not just attending PTA meetings; it is talking to their children, checking their homework, partnering with the teacher.

Without parent involvement, no amount of money or ideas to fix struggling schools will ever work.

The old saying about give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime needs to apply here.

Leave a comment Posted on parents, Public Education, students, teaching

Teachers, the ultimate DIYers

Years ago doctors took blood pressure, drew blood, and administered medicine. Today, medical assistants perform these duties.

Years ago teachers took attendance, collected parent forms, and tutored students. Today, teachers still perform these duties.

The teacher remains the sole adult in the classroom working with students even though the job has grown increasingly more challenging over the decades.

Oh sure, there are adult aides in special education classes, and up until a few years ago GUSD used to provide ed assistants in English Language Development classes, but for the vast majority of the country’s three million public school teachers, they go it alone.

Ideally, a new para-educator position should be created, an aide who would assist teachers with the tasks that don’t necessitate five years of college. One para-educator could serve several teachers, so while it would cost additional money to pay them, it wouldn’t be astronomical.

A less expensive and more realistic alternative would be to restructure the clerks already in place at a school, assigning one to be the sole teacher secretary.

Administrators, the smallest employee group on campus, usually have at least two secretaries, the counselors, the next smallest, have one, yet teachers, the largest group of workers with the most student contact, have none.

Here are some things that a clerk could do for teachers that would go a long way towards making the profession more efficient.

Taking attendance, uploading homework and grades. Nowadays parents expect their children’s assignments and grades to be posted online.   Such a task requires hours of work, time outside the teaching day. How helpful it would be to email a secretary this information.

Arranging field trips.   Teachers are required to do all the work involved with organizing field trips, including filling out forms, calling the bus company, collecting money from students to pay for the bus, and beseeching parents to go as chaperones.   With a dedicated teacher secretary, more kids would have enriching experiences beyond the four-walled classroom.

Making photocopies. Up until two years ago, my workplace had a clerk who would make photocopies for teachers. Now, teachers are on their own to take paper to a copy machine, punch in a code, and then remove the paper.   Think of the time wasted for a teacher to do this instead of helping a student in his classroom.

The other day I needed to make 24 copies, an amount that normally would take a few minutes at most.   However, by the time I went downstairs to the copy machine, inputted my code (yes, we have a quota) and loaded my paper, a misfeed occurred.   After removing the crumbled piece of paper, the machine never reset.

Not wanting to leave the machine in that condition, I told a secretary nearest the room about the misfeed.   She told me she wasn’t the correct person to contact and for me to find the clerk in charge of photocopying.

Meanwhile, my 15-minute morning break was now down to 8—and I still hadn’t used the restroom. Sometimes those who don’t work in classrooms forget that those of us who do cannot leave our rooms while students are in them.

Dejected, I returned upstairs without a single copy made. Imagine a school principal or a district administrator using his time in this fashion.

With creative restructuring of the current clerks on hand, even a single employee that serves only teachers would relieve the burden upon educators’ shoulders.   However for this to happen would require a rethinking of the teacher’s placement on the education hierarchy, more of a challenge than assigning a secretary to help teachers.

In the meantime, teachers continue to be the ultimate DIYers in the professional world.

 

Leave a comment Posted on Common Core, Public Education, standardized testing, students, teaching, Uncategorized

Teachers Need to be involved in Decision-Making

In the game of education, there are many players: students, parents, teachers, administrators, district officials, state and federal politicians.   Too often, the group that has the most contact with the students, the teachers, is not part of policy decision-making.

For example, sometime beginning in the late spring, the Glendale Unified School District went ahead with a major endeavor, signing a five-year contract worth $3.4 million with Massachusetts-based Curriculum Associates to use their i-Ready diagnostic testing program, evaluating each kindergartner through 12 grader three times a year.

What was quite startling about all this was how few of the major stakeholders were in the loop, including some administrators.

Glendale Teachers Association President Phyllis Miller said that GTA was not part of any discussions about this program as well.

Just as the Common Core standards seemingly came out of nowhere, so too has i-Ready that no one knows with certainty will benefit students.

The difference between the rollout of Common Core and i-Ready was that GUSD carefully involved teachers in introducing the new standards over a three-year period; the systematic testing came like a “Bam!” a la celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse.   In the past, the district has piloted new programs before committing to them.   Not this time.

Product Marketing Director for Curriculum Associates Susan Arcuri claims that there have been positive results in Glendale.   It’s a mystery how she came to that conclusion considering testing has just begun.

Miller said that many teachers who have used i-Ready say that the test itself is taking much longer than what was expected.

Where I work, the reading test is currently being administered, taking two class periods to complete. If that holds true for the math test, that would translate to a loss of 12 hours of direct instruction in arguably the most important subject classes.

And don’t forget the time it takes school administrators to organize the computer labs and monitor the testing, time better spent elsewhere.

It’s understandable the district wants to do something to help students perform well on the new Common Core based assessments.   The idea of providing teachers with individualized data to help shape future lesson planning sounds ideal.   The problem is that it is not practical.

Any teacher watching an i-Ready presentation espousing its benefits could inform upper management of this.   How are teachers going to find the time needed to analyze the data and then to modify lessons to meet the needs of each student? If a teacher were at the decision-making table, these legitimately difficult questions would have arisen.

One would have to make quite a convincing argument that spreadsheets of colored graphs is preferable to lessons taught by a qualified teacher.

Often overlooked is the analysis already occurring in the classroom on a daily basis facilitated by the expert in that field, the teacher.   Teachers don’t need third party testing results to understand that a student has difficulty understanding a Shakespearean passage.   They discover it through their lessons and assessments.

I have had the privilege of having thousands of students spend time in my classroom. I’d like to make an impact.   But the effect I could have on a child gets further diminished with each hour of standardized testing.

Teachers are very possessive of the time they have with their students so there needs to be a strong reason to justify taking that time away.

Leave a comment Posted on Ferguson, Harper Lee, Michael Brown, Missouri, racism, students, teaching, To Kill a Mockingbird

Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson makes To Kill a Mockingbird Relevant Again

One of the charges of the high school English teacher is to help teenagers see the relevancy of literature to their lives. I’m always on the lookout on how to win over the students to read, in their minds, very old books from long, long ago.

For example, with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird that focuses on racism against African Americans in 1930s Alabama, it can be a challenging task to involve Glendale adolescents who reside in a community with only 1.3% black citizens as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.   How do you get them to understand that there are people living today who dealt with segregation, blacks and whites with separate drinking fountains, bathrooms, and schools?

That’s why in a strange way, the killing of Michael Brown on Aug. 9 in Ferguson, Missouri, with a 67.4% African American population, can have a salutary effect on making the issue of racism relevant today in the here and now, not just vague stories from a history book.

When I was in grade school, World War Two ended only 20 years earlier, yet it might as well have taken place in the 1920’s for all I fathomed.   Only until I grew older did I realize how close my lifespan was to that major event.

So when I’m teaching Mockingbird and providing the background to the 1960 novel, namely the Civil Rights movement, I’m aware that for the average 15-year-old I might as well be talking about the Civil War.

In the past I’ve exposed students to the 1955 killing of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old from Chicago who while visiting his great-uncle in Money, Mississippi was killed in the middle of the night for reportedly whistling at a white woman, thinking that at least the fact that they have already outlived Till would raise an eyebrow.  

We make connections from real life to the novel.   It took less than an hour for the all-white jury to declare the defendants accused of Till’s murder not guilty, similar to Mockingbird’s all-white jury who took a few hours to reach the guilty verdict of rape against innocent Tom Robinson. In both cases, justice was not served.

We’ve listened to Bruce Springsteen’s “American Skin (41 Shots)” inspired by the 1999 death of Amadou Diallo who was shot 19 times by NYPD officers for reaching for his wallet (the police shot 41 bullets but over 20 missed). Likewise in Mockingbird, Robinson is shot 17 times when he tries to escape from jail.

The 2012 death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida made the book relevant again.   Even though the vast majority of my students are not African-American, here was a kid about their age with a bag of Skittles.

When I asked students to research what was happening in Ferguson, suggesting various newspaper and television websites, several came back excitedly reporting eyewitness videos they viewed on YouTube. One, in particular, showed a protester being carted off like a pig on a spit eerily reminiscent of black and white footage from the 1960s, another connection.

As we study Mockingbird this year, it may not be possible to know for sure how many students will connect with the 54-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner as a result of Ms. Lee’s brilliant prose or Michael Brown’s tragic death.  

All that is known is that what happened in Ferguson should never have happened in 2014, and hope that it leaves a lasting impression on today’s young people who will inherit this society from us very soon.

 

Leave a comment Posted on Common Core, influential teacher, parents, Public Education, students, teaching

What’s Better for Students: Dynamic Teachers or Diagnostic Testing?

This summer has not been kind to California educators with increased deductions from their paychecks to pay for the pension fund, and tenure and job protection ruled illegal by a Superior Court judge.

So it was refreshing to hear good things said about teachers at last week’s district kickoff meeting from keynote speaker Rebecca Mieliwocki, the 2012 National Teacher of the Year who still teaches 7th grade English teacher at Luther Burbank Middle School.

Ms. Mieliwocki spoke about her experiences traveling around the world as the U.S. teacher ambassador. Since so much attention in recent years has centered on how students from other nations score higher on tests than American children, she wanted to find what magic was being performed in other countries’ classrooms.

Ironically, Ms. Mieliwocki discovered that it was the American teachers who “were the envy of every teacher I met.”   The foreign instructors queried her about the methods of her homeland colleagues.

She went on to tell stories about the importance of teachers accepting students for who they are.  

One young girl in her class always wore the same cowboy boots with flowers on them every day to school.   Some students wondered why she didn’t have another pair of shoes to wear.   It turned out that her father had passed away and the boots were the last item they had bought together. When she wore the boots, she felt close to her dad.

Once her powerful message had been delivered, and teachers were inspired, on came the next speaker, a representative from a testing company called i-Ready.   Too bad the district didn’t seem ready to properly unroll this new program of testing all K-12 students three times a year beginning in a couple of weeks.

When Rebecca spoke, she had the full attention of the teacher throng. When the spokesperson for the new i-Ready testing program presented, a sea of LED lanterns erupted as teachers got out their phones, quickly feeling disconnected including one male teacher sitting in front of me shopping for a thong.

I had to go to i-Ready’s website to get basic information of what was behind the new diagnostic testing: “i-Ready provides data-driven insights and support for successful implementation of the new standards.”  

On top of new Common Core standards that teachers are still adjusting to, now we have this intrusive testing schedule that will devour at least 2 hours for each test.

It’s sad, really, that the district folks don’t get it.   Teachers don’t need more information on kids because we are not provided the necessary time to analyze the data we already have. Students march in and out of classrooms day after day.   Except for an hour long meeting here and there, teachers have no regularly scheduled full work days to examine data with their colleagues.

The kickoff meeting was a clash of two conflicting approaches to education: the inspiration of a dynamic teacher versus the top-down implementation of mandatory testing. The latter presentation quashed the excitement of the one that preceded it.

If only the district brass had the foresight to end the all-staff meeting immediately following Ms. Mieliwocki’s speech, releasing them to use the rest of the day to set up their classrooms for the students.

It reminds one of Charles Dickens’ powerful opening to A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

As Ms. Mieliwocki said, people “have to be brave to take on the work of an educator.”

Leave a comment Posted on drivers education, Public Education, students, teaching

Make Drivers Education Classes Mandatory in High School

Knowing that the leading cause of death among teenagers is fatal car crashes, one would think that teaching adolescents how to safely drive would be a national priority—or at least a high school graduation requirement.

Not so.

California Department of Education Public Information Officer Giorgos Kazanis said that out of the 1,100 school districts in the state, only 171 still offer a driving education course

despite California Education Code Section 51220(j) stating that “grades 7-12 . . . shall offer courses in . . . automobile driver education.”

Schools nowadays have plenty of bullying and drug prevention programs, but nothing on car accident prevention.

 Drivers education classes fell victim to budget cuts a quarter of a century ago when money from the Victims Compensation Fund (an explanation that would consume another column) which paid for in-car training was redirected for other purposes, leading schools to stop offering the courses as well. That funding has never been replenished.

Maybe that explains why fewer 16-year-olds have a driver’s license these days.

If you are old enough you may recall taking a class in high school called Safety that focused on the state’s Vehicle Code.   In addition to learning about the rules of the road, films were shown depicting staged and real car accidents. For a nominal fee, students could sign up for in-car driving lessons after school, usually taught by coaches or counselors. Some schools actually had driving simulators.  

One of the enigmas of public education is the dearth of important life skills not taught in classrooms. Part of the state’s secondary curriculum should include knowledge on how to open a bank account, how to apply for a credit card and a loan, and how to drive a motor vehicle.   And all students should be taught how to properly use electronic devices such as smart phones and tablets.

Oh sure, young people can quickly figure out how to text using abbreviations and emoticons, but how many know how to intelligently navigate the Internet or specify their Google searches, important lifelong abilities?

Some teachers on their own may give a lesson or two on life skills, but there is nothing that mandates it.

It’s too bad for what better way to make use of the regular school day than to have at least one hour devoted to things most people need to know when they grow up.  

Now that my son is 15 ½ I am going through the experience of paying hundreds of dollars for a driver’s ed course along with personal in-car training.   The 30 hours of classroom instruction is in addition to his normal school workload. It’s as if the driving class is an extracurricular like a sport.  

Of course Advanced Placement courses are important, but honor students get in accidents, too.

Sometimes those in education have tunnel vision when it comes to what students need to know.   It sounds good to require a student to take academic classes. However, beware: the word “academic” can mean something that is educational as well as something irrelevant. You would have a hard time convincing my son that geometry is more practical than driving.  

Instead of Common Core dominating the education conversation we need more of a Common Sense approach to what kids should know in order to survive in the real world.

 

 

1 Comment Posted on Public Education, students, teaching

Teachers Have Time Off?

“Teachers have so much time off” is an often repeated sentiment among non-educators.

True, teachers have vacation time that rivals workers in European nations.   For example, Portugal provides for 35 paid days off.   Never mind that the teacher summer leave is unpaid.

In Glendale, those who do teach in the summer end up with 4 weeks off compared to 9 for those who don’t.   I’m fortunate to be in the minority of teachers who don’t teach summer school, though that wasn’t the case for my first 20 years.

It was a nice coincidence that when I finally did settle down, get married, and have children (in that order, by the way), I had the extra time off to spend with my kids who were also at home.

“Time off” is something that is quite relative.   It reminds one of the saying “time off for good behavior” which of course refers to prisoners not teachers (though there may be a few similarities).

As a teacher, my mind remains “on,” receptive to ideas I absorb through reading material and watching content.   I’ll print out a well written op-ed piece to share with my journalism students or I’ll draft a new way to help kids edit their writing.

Hours are invested in organizing files, lessons, thoughts before the school engine revs up.

What I’ve discovered is that it takes a few weeks to decompress from the rush-rush-rush nature of teaching five classes a day.   Once my mind ebbs and flows at a more natural clip, then I can relax.

Even if a teacher is able to not think about work, days out of the classroom may help those who feel the dreaded teacher disease—teacher burnout.

When I was a rookie teacher, many a veteran colleague spoke of teacher burnout as a coal miner would of black lung disease, an ailment that inevitably gets to all educators.

Old, bitter people holding court in the faculty cafeteria sharing their war stories and exit strategies were not going to burst my enthusiastic bubble.

I learned quite early on to pace myself. Teaching requires a level of mental and physical vitality that is hard to sustain if school were in session year round. Teachers don’t have solar panels on their bodies that store energy from the summer ready for dispersion throughout the rest of the year.

What is asked of and demanded of teachers nowadays is an impossible expectation.   How can you meet the Common Core standards, keep up with the ever changing pedagogy, accurately account for the whereabouts for 150 students, handle the emotional needs of dozens of diverse students from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and still connect to kids so that they will receive instruction that will improve their skills?

Each start of school I have to brace myself for the first month until things finally settle into a routine.

Those initial weeks more than pays for all the time off during the summer.

Well, I can confidently say that as I enter my 26th year of teaching I have yet to catch teacher burnout (maybe it’s the Omega-3 fish oil supplements).

Quite frankly, I’ve grown to enjoy teaching the more I do it. What I still relish about it is that no matter the increasing encroachment of federal and state mandates, I still control and create much of the work I do with children.

Perhaps when I retire I’ll grasp the meaning of “time off” means. Until then an idea just came to me on how to get kids jazzed about using subordinating conjunctions.

 

Leave a comment Posted on influential teacher, teaching

My Mentor, Mr. Sage

I was contacted by an author to contribute an essay to a book on influential teachers. No, I’m not one of the influential teachers; rather, I am writing about one of my influential teachers.

John Sage, my advanced 10th grade English teacher, impacted my life more than any other teacher I had. While a very good teacher, what I remember most about him has little to do with his lesson plans.

I was impressed by the way he approached his job. He was the best dressed teacher at Burroughs High School, always wearing a suit jacket, tie, and shiny shoes. His demeanor was proper; he was a gracious gentleman who loved literature.

When I was hospitalized at age 15 at UCLA’s Medical Center, he visited me twice, each time with a book as a present.

He took me to my first serious dramatic play, Jason Robards reprising his career-making role of Hickey in Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh.”
 
After graduating high school, we kept in touch. When he retired to a condo in San Clemente, he’d invite me down for dinner. He was a wonderful gourmet cook. When he was in the mood, he would serenade me and other dinner guests with his piano playing and singing.
 
When I was considering teaching as a profession, he patiently listened to my pro and con arguments.
 
No matter how often I saw him socially, I could never call him by his first name. It’s like one’s mother or father — it’s always Mom and Dad.
 
Years ago I heard someone say that each of us is the sum of all the people we encounter in our lives. I am the type of teacher I am today mainly because of Mr. Sage. In fact, I dedicated my first book on teaching to him, even though he died months before its publication.
 
It’s hard for me to believe that right now I’m at the age that Mr. Sage was when I had him as a teacher. And soon I will retire, and hopefully continue receiving visits from former students, as I did with Mr. Sage. I hope I do justice to his memory by writing these words.