SummerInstitute07

In regard to Warlick’s opinion about what educators should be teaching today, on page 16, he states, “…our students will need to be creative thinking, decision-making, problem solving, analytical, self-teaching, and reasoning citizens.  This will require classrooms where students invent their answers and construct their own knowledge within learning experiences that are crafted by creative teachers who do far less lecturing and far more facilitating and consulting.”  The words that stand out to me are creative, facilitating, and consulting – these three concepts are not so much ‘what’ educators should be teaching today, but rather, ‘how’ educators should be teaching today.

     In truth, I almost was not.  Let me explain.

     My mother and father were married on St. Valentine’s Day at the

Red Jacket Community Church in  Red Jacket, WV.  The bride wore an ivory  

satin tea-length wedding dress, and a luminous strand of pearls, which  

were a gift from the groom.  The groom was attired in a tailored black suit.   

The wedding ceremony and reception were perfect. 

     The excitement started when my grandmother, my uncle, my mother,  

and, my father arrived back at my grandparent’s two-story house in Red  

Jacket.  My grandmother, wise woman that she was, noticed my   

grandfather looking out from their upstairs bedroom window.  He was  

holding a shotgun.

     Without a word to the wedding party disembarking from the car, my  

grandmother went inside the house, upstairs to her bedroom, and without  

so much as a raised voice calmly took the shotgun from my grandfather  

along with the half empty fifth of sherry sitting on the windowsill.  Sherry  

was grandfather’s drink of choice; other rough hewn men of the  

mountains might have chosen bourbon or some other more common spirit  

such as moonshine.  One would almost expect to see him lounging around  

the house in slippers and a velvet smoking jacket sipping a glass of  

sherry!

      My grandfather had not wanted my mother – valedictorian of her  

graduating class from Matewan High, Golden Horseshoe winner,  

Sunday school teacher – to marry someone like my father.  Although he  

was from a fine, upstanding family.  He had quite the reputation around  

the area as a “playboy”, certainly not the type of guy a father wants his  

lovely daughter to date, much less marry.  Therefore, grandfather refused  

to walk my mother down the aisle and give her away.  That honor went to  

my uncle Stuart.  Grandfather was so deadset against these nuptials, he  

decided he would “nip things in the bud” by killing my father.    

     Naturally, if grandfather had succeeded, neither I, nor my older brother

and sister, would be here today.  

1.  Students respond to warmth and kindness.

2.  Students are more open to learning if they know that you genuinely care about them, and, that you genuinely want them to learn.

3.  Excitement about learning is contagious; if I am excited about a subject, most students will be too.

4.  Staff and resources at most schools are limited.

5.  Schools have the most poorly “maintained” copiers.  I have two words for the school administrators:  Maintenance Contract!

6.  Xexox/copier paper is guarded by teachers better than the gold at Fort Knox.

7. Teaching, to me, is not a job, it is a joy!

8.  When you see that “gotcha” look on a student’s face when they finally grasp what you have been trying to get across — that look, that moment is priceless.

9.  To want to be able to inspire students is not optional, it should be imperative.

10.  Teachers who “phone it in” do not belong in the classroom.

11.  Teachers as friends are the BEST!

12.  Keep parents in the loop; keep them informed.

13.  If the school cooks are great, let them know!  If they’re not, pray for them.

14.   Kids, for the most part, look at a 3 or 5 day suspension from school as a vacation.

15.  The acerbic commedian Dennis Miller said, ” Teachers should be paid the salaries of lawyers, and, lawyers should be paid the salaries of teachers.”