This weekend:
Michelle's getting a new daughter-in-law.
Bria's getting a new sister-in-law.
And Kay's getting a new-granddaughter-in-law.
Welcome to the family, Carson! Congratulations, Justin & Carson! We love you!
(We'll write a regular post next weekend...)
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” -Robert F. Kennedy
I have always had a tough relationship with failure. Early on I knew only that failure was bad, but not that failure was necessary. Many people my age would say that they have a fear of failure. With the job market the way it is, and the increasing standards and expectations, there is a lot of pressure on people to succeed.
Throughout my life I have seen a lot of success along with a lot of failure and it has all played an integral part in making me the person I am today. Each time I failed, I was devastated. I couldn’t see beyond the fact that I wanted so badly to succeed in the situation and it just didn’t happen for me.
I don't want to sit here and spell out all of my failures to you; that would take too long. I'll just say that I have experienced a lot of failure in my short life. At the time I could never see how it was beneficial for me, but looking back I am happy to have those experiences. If I had succeeded in some areas, it would not have pushed me to dream bigger and try harder. My failures have pushed me to keep trying and in a lot of instances, what I achieved post-failure was much greater than what I wanted to achieve in the first place.
I also believe that my failures have shaped me into a stronger person. I don't think that I would be prepared for the life I have now if I hadn’t experienced failures in my life. Every day I face challenges that I might not have been equipped to face without my past experiences. Now, I still face hardships and failures, but I know that I will eventually succeed and I will be better off for having experienced it.
- Bria
I love the first book my seventh graders read each year: Lois Lowry’s The Giver. It’s the students’ first foray into controversial subjects, this one being the inherent fallacies in trying to produce a utopian society. Up to this point in their lives, they have been champions of fairness. So I show them a place where everything is “fair” – a.k.a. the same – so that no one has to suffer the pain associated with wrong choices. It’s not long before kids are explaining to me why they need to be allowed to experience failure. It’s not me they need to convince, though.
My most successful students had failure as an option. You might say to me All students have failure as an option, and you’d be partially correct. Failure is a possibility for all, but not an option. Sometimes the limitations on allowing failure are self-imposed. Before coming to a school for the gifted, many of my students experienced a kind of stardom in their regular classrooms. Now that they are among a school of “stars,” the shining is less frequent. Oh, the tears not being number one can bring! I have to remind them that I am not here for them to show me what they already know. I’m here to teach, and if they master everything quickly, I’m just going to find new material that they don’t know. A student becomes successful in this program when he learns that a failure can push him to try harder the next time, but it will never bring him shame if he learns from it.
Sometimes the limitations come from parents. Much to my own children’s chagrins, I don’t hesitate to share some of their failures when conferencing with parents. I want them to see that my kids were responsible for the good choices after that failure… my kids made their futures a possibility by learning from their mistakes. In my experience, the parent who controls too tightly cripples the teen. Sure, it was painful to watch my kids make bad choices. I was there, though, with them through the consequences and definitely through the analyzation for future similar situations. Some of their decisions seemed like absolutely the opposite of what I would do, but I always looked at their intentions. If the intentions were good, I found ways to support the intentions if I couldn’t support the action.
Occasionally, prospective clients to the school will chastise me for our lack of uniforms, the fact that we still have a candy store at school, taking field trips all over the country, allowing teens to listen to their music while taking tests, letting the kids take all the electives, having game systems available for recess… having a recess in secondary school. Anywhere I vary from the public school template of secondary education, I find a critic. I assure my kids that I will fight the good fight for them as long as they are responsible with the freedoms I’ve given them. It’s my personal belief that it is better for the kids to make a choice that leads to a failure while they are still in secondary school where their parents and I can help them make better decisions than it is to let those first failures come in college or the adult life. Who’s going to guide them then? If a teen buys three candy bars a day every day for a month, knowing he has a fitness test coming up, and then vomits when running the mile, that’s a great opportunity to have the teen explore what might be causing the nausea. I’d rather they experiment with their relationship with food here than to have them go to college and try to live on Mountain Dew and ramen.
So, I guess my point is: don’t cause your child to fear failure. Instead, tell her that she will experience failures, but she is in a safe place to do that. Failures do not make her a loser. In fact, learning from those failures makes her a fighter.
- Michelle
The first time I heard the term “helicopter parent,” I was both taken back by the concept and overwhelmed by an epiphany! “Fear of failure” is probably the most prevalent problem with which I deal in our school full of gifted students.
Students in our school usually have a history of winning, especially in board games played with family members. When they come to our school, where most of the students have experienced the same winning streak, they are overwhelmed by the knowledge that they won’t always win. We teach them to learn from their failures and plan for success the next time. This is no easy task. We have to overcome many emotional outbursts. After all, gifted people tend to avoid anything at which they might fail. Even our students from the eastern countries of the world joke about an “Asian F” – that being an “ A-.”
Our society has created the “helicopter parent” syndrome. Hiding behind the veil of social media network, people often send messages that are outright cruel! Any parent would want to protect his children. But we have seen this protection taken to an extreme. All children receive trophies, plaques and ribbons just for participation in sports, performances and contests. Thus, I have seen children even demand a trophy when none was slated to be awarded.
No one wants to fail; no child goes to school seeking to become a failure. Yet, there are many students who often seem to self-destruct. I finally figured out why one of my brightest boys always did poorly on his achievement test. His parents so controlled his life that he chose to fail his tests because they couldn’t be there to control that area also. He found the ultimate “gotcha!” The fear of failure can be a motivating force for anyone. The danger lies in letting it control our lives.
Once again, common sense seems to be lacking. We allow people to perform in front of audiences even though the performance is painful to watch. It’s a national pass time to laugh at ridiculous performances and replay them for others’ entertainment. How sad!
It is my opinion that all things should have an expected standard and parents and educators should teach students to meet those standards. Goal-setting seems to be a lost art! We have standards set for consumer products, food preparation, and many other things. Why don’t we set standards for students? Oh yes, not everyone agrees with me and the talk shows are full of diverse answers. Common Core Curriculum caused a near riot nation-wide! People did not want to be “commanded” about what to teach.
So, I’ve done my part by opening a private school where we do have standards for students to meet. We teach goal-setting and learning from our failures. And, every morning before school, I pray for the students in our nation as a whole. In our school, we work with parents in allowing their children to experience failure when it seems apparent that is the only way the child will learn to take and accept responsibility. We work with both parent and child to set goals, develop a plan of operation, and allow improvements to erase previous failures. Such intervention strategies are done on a case-by-case basis. No one shoe fits everyone!
- Kay
Self-discipline is difficult to teach, but easy to inspire in children under the right conditions. I think back to my time in junior high and high school, and I was incredibly driven because I had a firm foundation of discipline.
This was not always the case for me. I remember in 4th and 5th grade, choosing to not read my books until the last minute, and then frantically flipping through pages the morning of, finishing maybe half of the reading and then taking the test. Eventually I had to learn that this would not work out for me.
My parents did a great job of identifying my brother’s and my interests early on and exploring them with us. For Justin, initially it was the military, so we went to West Point. For me, it wasn’t so clear cut. I knew I wanted to be the leader, and my parents worked hard to provide me with examples of great leadership. They also encouraged me to take on leadership positions at school. Because they exposed me to what it would take to reach my goals early on, I had a dream towards which to work and a clear idea of what I needed to do to reach it.
I'm not saying that a child should identify his career before junior high, but I do believe that identifying the child’s dreams and communicating the stakes of meeting those dreams will in turn instill a drive and an aspect of self-discipline that might not have previously existed.
All throughout high school we toured colleges, we competed, we were exposed to real life challenges, and it made me hungry for the life of a career woman. Once I had this idea in my head about what I wanted to be and how I could get there, I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way. My parents didn’t make this decision for me, but they opened the door for me to be able to make this decision for myself. They exposed me to many situations that some parents might not have, but it made me want to do whatever I could do to be successful. Now, as I begin my adult life, working in downtown Chicago, I'm still working towards the dream I had as a high school student touring colleges and experiencing vast opportunities. I will always credit those early experiences for the work ethic I have now.
- Bria
Discipline...the very word causes my flesh to tingle! Why? Parents in schools expect excellent discipline in classrooms, but they can’t even agree between spouses just what “excellent discipline” methods are! That’s the very reason students play one parent against the other - usually bypassing the harder disciplinarian and going straight to the “easy mark,” as I’ve heard one student say.
There’s an old adage that “one teaches as they were taught themselves.” I’m glad that isn’t reality. My mother made me go break the branch off a neighbor’s peach tree to bring to her when I broke rules - then she spanked me with it. Yes, it hurt...it left small welts (for a while), but no...the authorities were not called. Did I learn a lesson? Yes! Behave!
Today I hear parents trying to be their child’s friend, rather than maintaining their parental role. In that role, they allow major decisions to be made by the child...decisions that are often life-changing. This is shocking since the child does not yet have the discernment to weigh the possible outcomes.
I still have a letter written to me by a former student who really “told me off” for “riding his case.” When he gave me the note after class, I acknowledged its content, including the foul language. However, I still made him follow the rules. Yet, later when he was in high school across town, he showed up in my classroom one day. I asked him why he wasn’t in school. He told me that another boy with a knife was after him to hurt him over a girl he liked. I asked why he came to me. He said, “I didn’t know where else I could go. I need your help.” So, I helped.
I’ve often thought about that incident. His mother related to me just recently that he always spoke about me. I believe he knew I followed rules (unless they defied common sense as some do today) and thus, I could be counted upon to help him do what was right.
So I ask, why are parents surprised when their children who’ve been “in charge” make seriously poor choices, fail to launch, and take sometimes fatal risks? Hmmm, I wonder.
Parents and schools should promote rules that are positively safety-based. Then they should hold children “accountable” for failure to obey those rules. Helicopter parenting, knee-jerk reactions, and allowing the child to be in control all hinder discipline. Children make choices, and they have to be taught which ones are right and which ones are wrong.
- Kay
Anyone who has worked with me in my “principal” role will tell you that my favorite quote stems from an adaptation of a quote by Henry Cloud. I say, “A person will not change a behavior until that behavior becomes uncomfortable.” Then I go on to help the parent know how to reach “uncomfortable”! This week’s topic is “discipline.” My daughter’s blog absolutely nailed it on the head as to how to cultivate self-disciplined kids. I will not repeat, but instead only add that the most successful graduates of our school – the ones who have truly done something great with their lives – are the ones who were self-disciplined… who had their own goals.
So, how do you as a parent get your child to the “self-disciplined” point? There are three key components, as far as I see it. The first is modeling. Self-disciplined parents raise self-disciplined kids. That doesn’t mean, I never had to spank my son or put my daughter on time-out, because I did. It means that my husband and I shared our failures, the self-disciplining we did, and then the later successes with our children. We told them that learning was a life-long process, and while no one expects you to be perfect from the get-go, they do expect you to be fixing things along the way. Failures were not things to be hidden; they were ways to show our kids that trying is what mattered.
The second component is, of course, making sure that the undesirable behavior has an undesirable consequence. Parents, every kid can “wait out” a lecture. It’s easy… because they’re not listening. It’s important that you as the parent identify undesirable behaviors before they occur. Go ahead and assign a punishment for those anticipated behaviors ahead of time as well. Then when your child chooses to do the undesirable behavior, he/she chooses to accept the punishment that goes with it. This method takes you out of the equation completely because the child made the decision, not you. This is what society does. When I speed, I know what the consequence is if I get caught. I am not surprised to receive a ticket; I chose that consequence when I decided to break the law.
The final component is consistency. Parents will tell me of trying “this” and trying “that,” but a key ingredient to a discipline working is making sure it’s a consequence every time. The students at my school are gifted. They can wait out any parent. If they know that the parent is only going to follow through on a threat once, they will simply wait until the parent forgets, or do the behavior at a time that they know the parent will be too tired to follow through. My students have even bragged about letting the parents “reason” with them and acting like they really “learned their lesson.” Many can cry on demand!
Pick your discipline and stick to it for a bit. If you have been consistent and the behavior persists, than you may have not chosen an undesirable consequence, so make the punishment stiffer. If the punishment is already stiff, and your child persists, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your rule. Usually, if a child is willing to accept punishment, there’s a good chance your rule is faulty.
I’m not trying to come off like some guru of discipline. Believe me, I work on self-discipline 24/7! A friend once told me that no one could be harder on me than me! This is just some of what I’ve used when helping parents along my journey. I hope you find it helpful as well!
- Michelle
Why would anyone want to teach nowadays? Bright-eyed education graduates are greeted with large classes, low support, and so many administrative directives that they barely have time to teach. I have two reoccurring nightmares: one is that I have to go back to college, and the other is that I’m back teaching in public schools.
Both of these nightmares are rooted in a single truth: I hate school. Oh, I love the social parts, of course! But the actual classroom time? Bor-ing. When I figured out that I was fated to be a teacher, I determined that learning in my classroom would never be a drudgery. I’ve grown much since then, and I realize that there are many educational processes that cannot escape being boring. But when they are sandwiched between thought-provoking and challenging lessons and enveloped in a room that excites, that “bor-ing” gets upgraded to a “stimulating.”
I spent fourteen years teaching in public schools, and I had many great mentors and fellow teachers. I’d work with most again in a heartbeat! But I have to be honest and say that I was desperately seeking something more satisfying. So, when I got the opportunity to work at my parents’ newly-opened private school for gifted and talented, I jumped at the chance. Because it is incorporated as a business rather than a non-profit or parochial school, there are opportunities to do things unheard of in public education.
For instance, as the Chief Operating Officer, I perform the duties that a principal would in the public school; however, I teach all day as well. My teaching ranges from secondary literature, English and speech to PK 3 – 12th music to chess club. I am both the secondary students’ activities director and the person who washes their lunch trays!
The best move my parents made, though, was to not accept any government funding. This limits what the government can do at our school, and thereby frees us to do what we’re supposed to do: teach. It’s amazing how much getting rid of government bureaucracy can improve school. Our kids know that the better they look, the better we look. They understand that we are here to make them the most desirable candidates for both college and their future jobs.
I’m sure there are those reading this now who are saying, “Ahhh. We know why she does what she does. Money.” Ideally, school as a business should be a great money-maker. Lawton Academy, though, has yet to turn more than the profit required to stay open as a business. My daughter working as an intern is making about the same thing I am making in my job! Our lack of profit isn’t because we are not successful, though. We just keep funneling the money back into the school. (A visit to our website would reveal that we provide all supplies and a free lunch to all students at a very low tuition rate.)
What’s our angle? Why do we do this? At the heart of it for me is this: I believe it is my mission. I now know that my disinterest in school is common to gifted students. Granted, I am on about the lowest rung of the gifted ladder, but I channel all those memories and the way I needed everything to be relevant to real life into teaching these gifted kids. I show them where they’ll use it, and I make sure not to waste their time, all the while reminding them not to waste mine.
There’s a little blue sign hanging in the entry way of our elementary building. It says,
Tell the children I love them.
- God
In His infinite love, He has given us the chance to learn some of the greatest wonders of His universe, and I get to be one of the people who helps kids explore them. Too cool!
- Michelle
This week we are all talking about why we do what we do. When we first decided on this topic, I thought about what it is that I do. Right now I work the normal 9:00-5:00, I have night classes, I volunteer, I go to networking events, and I raise a six-month-old puppy. This is just a surface-level look at my life. The fact is, I’m busy, but I’m not alone. At the beginning of my summer class, the professor went around the room and had everyone talk about what keeps them busy. As I listened to student after student talk about working multiple jobs, internships, and taking classes, I realized that we are all overcommitted. Often times my generation gets a bad reputation for being lazy and superficial. But I look around me and I see nothing but people trying their hardest to make it by.
Last week I talked about how students are expected to go to school and get work experience, but it really is so much more than that. We are also expected to network and volunteer and take care of ourselves, mentally and physically. In general, it seems like people have just accepted that this is what it takes to make it in the current job market. So, in a roundabout way, to answer the, “why we do what we do” question, it’s because we have to. We know that the standards are tough and the expectations are increasingly higher. We do what we do because we have to perform at a certain level to survive. Our counterparts who are taking the easier paths are finding themselves jobless and living at home, and we want better for ourselves. So really, we do what we do because we are driven to pursue our own “American dream.” We are all really busy right now, but we know that we have a bright future ahead of us. We do what we do because we are working towards a better tomorrow.
- Bria
What could cause a 72-year-old person to “want” to get up and go to a ten-hour workday? Simple… it’s a “calling” to do my best to provide what I consider to be an appropriate education for children. We read about problems in schools across the country, and we shake our heads. We’ve come to call our school “the common sense” school. Many causes can be found for problems in our nation’s schools, but experience also tells me a lot of it can be traced to a lack of common sense. As Pogo once mused, “We’ve met the enemy…and the enemy is us!”
My career has been filled with successes and wonderful experiences. I have served on many Oklahoma State Department of Education committees, a special committee of the Governor, and been elected state president of the Oklahoma Association for Gifted, Creative and Talented. One extremely enjoyable appointment was to a consortium of state leaders for Arts for the Gifted which met in California.
But none of the above can tell you why I do what I do each and every school day. To know the answer to that question, one would have to live what I have experienced. I have held a crying child as I had to break the news to him that his little brother set fire to the family trailer and his sister was burned to death. Likewise, I also took care of a child whose mother was stabbed to death in a horrible bank robbery. I tried to console my newly hired teaching assistant as we watched helplessly while people tried to find her husband’s body in the lake where his military company was having a family picnic. He tried to save the life of a drowning soldier, only to lose his own…while his children watched.
I taught a slow-growth child who clapped with joy as she learned to read…ever so slowly. Even though progress was being made, I watched as family members had her placed in an institution because the psychologist said she’d never be able to learn. Many were the students of abuse who confided in me and trusted that I would help them. Some have come to me in later years and explained why some days were just so “bad” but they couldn’t put it into words. Yet, I had given them hope.
On the positive side, I have been thrilled to hear from previous students who took my challenges and found themselves successfully teaching in inner-city schools. Others have found careers that are most satisfying, and they write to tell me I had a part in their journey.
I have attended the funerals of quite a few previous students. I think I know of at least eleven who have met death. With each day, I ask myself if I did a good enough job of teaching them the academics while also preparing them to meet their Maker at death’s door. I hope I did. And when I recognize students taking a path that has led others to unrewarding lives, I try hard to steer them toward a better path.
Today, in Lawton Academy, there is at any one time children studying together in the same classrooms who come from countries all over the world. Their countries may be at war, or playing politics as usual, but they are joined in the common experience of being educated in our classrooms. A sign has hung in my office from time to time which says: “Will it matter that I was here? I will only pass this way once.” That is why I teach and do what it is that I do.
- Kay
Thank you to Justin, my son, for checking out the Overtime Rule from the Department of Labor and the President. He went online and found this statement about exemptions:
3. Q. Is there an exemption for schools and institutions of higher education from either the FLSA or the Department's overtime regulations governing white collar workers?
Schools and institutions of higher education are generally covered by the FLSA's minimum wage and overtime provisions. Several provisions apply, however, to many employees at these institutions that exempt them from the Final Rule. Teachers are exempt if their primary duty is teaching, tutoring, instructing or lecturing. "Teachers" include, for example, regular academic teachers, kindergarten or nursery school teachers, teachers of gifted or disabled children, professors, adjunct instructors, teachers of skilled and semi-skilled trades and occupations, home economics teachers, vocal or instrument music teachers, and under certain circumstances, athletic coaches and assistant coaches. Although a preschool may engage in some educational activities, preschool employees whose primary duty is to care for the physical needs of the facility's children would not meet the requirements for the exemption as a bona fide teacher. Generally, the Department views graduate and undergraduate students who are engaged in research under a faculty member's supervision in the course of obtaining a degree to be in an educational relationship and not an employment relationship with the school or with a grantor. As such, the Department will not assert such workers are entitled to overtime. In addition, the administrative personnel that help run higher education institutions and interact with students outside the classroom, such as department heads, academic counselors and advisors, intervention specialists and others with similar responsibilities are subject to a special salary threshold that does not apply to white-collar employees outside of higher education. Instead, they are not eligible for overtime if they are paid at least as much as the entrance salary for teachers at their institution. Finally, public universities or colleges that qualify as a "public agency" under the FLSA may compensate overtime-eligible employees through the use of compensatory time off in lieu of cash overtime premiums.
From this, I would conclude that we teachers needn't worry about restrictions on overtime. We've informed out accountant, who first made us aware of this law, and we are eagerly awaiting his confirmation that we are reading it correctly. I'll be very relieved if I was wrong because I was really worried that we would not be able to have any weekend competitions any more! My apologies to any teachers out there that I might have scared.
-Michelle
So much has changed in the twenty-eight years since I began teaching! In the first five years, I only remember one student diagnosed with ADHD. I never had any worries about food allergies or spending too much time in the sun. I’m not sure if the change is due to better diagnoses or just too much information via the Internet, but it is very definitely a different job.
What hasn’t changed is my teaching style. Methods come and go. In fact, my last professional development workshop in public education was exactly the same as my first fourteen years earlier. I wanted to say, “This is where I came in. Can I quit professional development now?”
All kidding aside, I really have not changed the way in which I teach. And kids have not changed in the way they respond. When a teacher challenges students to learn beyond the basics, students respond positively. They like to know that they are becoming smarter than the average students their age. This has been my experience, whether in public education or private. Sure, there are those students who will not respond no matter what. But I have found those students to be far and few between, and the reason for their lack of desire to learn rarely has anything to do with my teaching style. If I can establish a relationship with those, many make great progress.
I wish I could say that I think education itself has changed for the good. When the worry of a lawsuit trumps sound educational practices, I shake my head in dismay. I do believe in a list of objectives to be met at each grade level, but I’m not really a fan of Common Core. I see college entrance exams being aligned to it, and visions of Fahrenheit 451 and Cpt. Beatty’s speech about “chocking kids full of facts” comes to mind. One of my eighth graders last year put it best when she proposed that students will no longer need to distinguish themselves, but rather just prove how many facts they could retain. She went on to say that teachers would no longer need to learn more than the Common Core either. Bright student!
I most dread the President’s edict that goes into effect in December, though. It requires that all salaried people making less than $50,000 a year be paid overtime if working past 40 hours a week. This is going to seriously effect teachers. If a teacher is good, he/she is teaching during the work day. All grading and planning cannot be done in an hour planning period, and most private school teachers don’t even get that hour planning period. And what about tournaments on the weekends? Are speech and vocal and band and sports teachers going to have to give those things up because already-strapped districts do not have money for overtime? I know the President’s intentions were good, but this is going to do so much more harm to education than good.
Luckily, I’m an owner at my school (which is a business, not a non-profit). We owners can work as much as we want! But, I have teachers who are really hard-pressed to figure out how to get it all in to a 40-hour work week.
I have tremendous faith in the kids of today. My students are amazing, and they exceed every expectation I have of them! I love my work, and I love helping them realize their dreams. While I have doubts about the state of education today, I have no doubts about the state of the educated!
- Michelle
Teaching continuously for 50 years has allowed me to observe changes in education. I agree with peers that the students of today are not the same as those we taught 50 years ago. We were able to teach 30 in a classroom, but discipline was much better in the “old” days. Children knew they faced punishment at home if they misbehaved at school. That’s not the case today.
One big change I’ve seen is the learning modality shift. The majority of learners in the past were auditory or visual learners. Only a few needed tactile or kinesthetic learning experiences. We even enrolled in classes and workshops to learn how to teach these “special” children. Now, about 80% of learners fall into this same category.
So I wonder how learning does take place in a room where the teacher uses mostly lecture or visual methods. Did our society as a whole fail to make this a strong “connect”?
Perhaps the absorption of video experiences has added the following negatives to our lives: 1) children are not aware of addresses, phone numbers or directions home; and 2) children insist they should be able to “start over” or push a “reset” button when things go wrong.
While URLs and phones with memories supplant the need for memorization, what are we to expect when a power outage occurs or a battery runs down? It appears that some are having difficulty separating what is real from what is virtual. And last of all, “I’m bored,” and “I don’t know what to do,” has become the mantra of many students when a peaceful moment does occur.
- Kay
8/7/16
Hello everyone,
Quick warning: I’m approaching this topic as a student entering graduate school who will one day take on a crippling amount of debt from her student loans. Jumping in… Over the last thirty or so years, this country has experienced a high concentration of wealth. The repercussions of this occurrence are that the rich have become richer while the poor have become poorer, largely eliminating the middle class. This change has seen ramifications in higher education with tuition on the rise, making college education affordable only for the wealthiest.
At the same time, we are seeing a rise in standards of higher education in the workforce. Positions that previously required only good judgment and a strong work ethic are now filled with people who went to graduate school. An employee in my office building who has worked with my company for over 30 years spoke to this idea saying, “It’s become a trend that everyone has at least their Master’s degree now. It wasn’t always like this.”
Now let’s step back and think about what this means for students. Before, to set yourself apart amongst a sea of applicants, you needed a college degree. As the job market got tougher, people further distinguished themselves by going back to school for a Master’s degree. Now everyone is on the same playing field and we are being told, “Well, it’s really about your work experience.” That puts someone like myself in a very tough situation because I was in school while I evidently should have been getting work experience!
The overall topic for this post revolved around the question: what is the state of education today? I would say education is no longer a privilege or an asset; it is an expectation. Because colleges have also noticed this trend, I believe tuition rates will continue to skyrocket until we see a collapse of that market. So, honestly, I think that the state of education is kind of a mess right now. Like many aspects of our society, we are going to need to make serious progress in this area to fix the problems we have made for ourselves. I’m optimistic that change is on the horizon, but until then, Discover Student Loans will be my best frienemy.
- Bria
“There is a season for everything under the sun.” It has been brought to my attention that I am now the matriarch of our family since we have four generations alive now, and the possibility exists for a fifth generation to appear out of my grandson’s marriage in September. Although my mother is being cared for in a skilled care home at this time, she is in fairly good health for 97 years.
Even though I am in the autumn years of my life (71), I still am able to put in twelve hour work days as superintendent, teacher, and co-owner of Lawton Academy of Arts and Sciences, a PreK-3 through 12th grade private school for gifted and talented students.
My life experiences have been flavored by a mother-in-law who entered Oklahoma in a horse and wagon, a mother who shared adventures of a Model T Ford in the Ozarks of Missouri, my childhood in the “new” atomic age and space race to the moon, and now the age of virtual realities via the internet. Throughout the 47 years I have taught children in school and youth in church groups, I have witnessed many changes or swings of the pendulum. Rather than let these “epiphany” experiences go with me to the grave, I choose to share them with anyone willing to read this blog.
To make my point, let me share the following example of “change” which occurred last week in my first/second grade classroom. I used a picture of a mop to elicit the beginning sound of “m”, only to find that no child in my class knew what a mop was. After I carefully explained how mothers used a mop to clean tile floors, I was brought to 21st century reality! “We don’t have one of those in our house. We have a Swifter!” The vote was unanimous: “mops” are out of today’s lexicon! Welcome to my world.
Hey there! I’m Bria, a recent college graduate, dog enthusiast, and lover of all things charitable. When we initially discussed my contributions to this blog, I thought, “What could I possibly write about that people would want to read?” Well, I’m not sure if I have found the answer yet, but that is part of starting this crazy, fun adventure.
I have spent the last three years at DePaul University completing my undergraduate degree in public relations. Next year I will be continuing with DePaul to pursue higher education. I have extensive experience in the nonprofit sector, and I spent 10 months as the Executive Director of a local startup company.
I’ve recently been thrust into adulthood with very little preparation. My life completely changed three months ago when I adopted a German Shepherd/Rottweiler puppy. People laugh when I call her my baby, but she really is a huge responsibility. I now spend my evenings taking her on long walks/runs and sewing and re-sewing holes in my couch cushions. I also recently got my first “big girl job,” working with a prominent Chicago nonprofit. All this, combined with my upcoming graduate classes keeps me very busy. I live a full, yet fulfilling life and I am happy to begin sharing it with you. Thanks for reading. See you soon!
Okay… here we go! I am pretty excited about this venture. That in and of itself is pretty ironic, seeing as I spend a good portion of my week telling students to write, not blog. Four class periods a day I teach middle and high school students how to write in preparation for college, and for years, I’ve enjoyed ACT 5-Year Trends that show 100% of my seniors are ready for college writing.
My name is Michelle Smith, and, if I chose an adjective to describe my life, it would have to be ironic. My parents and I own a small private school of which I am the Chief Operating Officer (kind of like the principal). Yet, I teach all day because I feel administrators need to be in the classroom to fully understand the changing needs of students. We are Christians, yet we have purposefully not made the school faith-based so that gifted students of any belief system will feel welcome. Even so, we bathe every move in prayer. I like rules and rule followers, but I love pushing boundaries and even more, facilitating students to “go beyond.”
So, here I am, preparing to begin a blogging venture with my daughter and mother. What started as a discussion about a book idea with my daughter quickly became a three-generation blogging idea. It’s unique… I like it! I know I’ve stated that I teach English/Lit most of the day, but I’ve also said I’m a “boundary pusher,” so don’t expect my writing to be flavorless. I’m an Oklahoman, and we love to speak in idioms.
Okay, just a little bit more about me so that you will have background from which to draw conclusions about my blogs. I have been married to the same man, JT, since I was 21… 28 years now. (Now you know my age!) JT spent 30 years in the Army, completing six deployments and a couple of schools, all of which kept us apart from six months to a year at a time. Not one of those deployments was as hard, though, as his recent retirement. I gained fifty pounds, which I have ten months to lose before my son’s wedding! JT and I have two kids, both of whom ended up in Chicago for college. Justin is a free-lance web developer and a maker for Capital One. Bria you will meet through this very blog site! Can I brag, though? She’s on track to finish both her Bachelors and her Masters in Public Relations in four years. We are so proud of both of them.
I play the piano and am a singer. I don’t like to play for anybody but my students because I’m self-taught, but I will sing a solo anywhere! I taught music in Texas, and I teach choir and acting/speech throughout my school (PK3 – 12th grade). I also teach chess, robotics, PE, and BusComm. I am the sponsor for student council, honor society, class officers, MathCounts, BEST Robotics, competition choir, and state and national speech competitions, and I drive the bus in which we travel.
Needless to say, I am a very busy woman. I love it, though. I cannot stand to have “nothing” to do. Blogging is an extension of my favorite activity – talking. I was spanked and isolated in school for talking too much, but it didn’t stop me. I tease that I became a teacher because I can talk all day and when students interrupt me, I can say, “Shhh. I’m talking here.”
My book idea: share the experiences we’ve had as we created a private school that is a business rather than a parochial or non-profit. Essentially, it’s a start-up. We’ve been educating students for sixteen years now, and we have enjoyed much success. My daughter suggested that a blogging site would let me share what we’ve learned as well as what we are learning along the way. So, for my part of the site, I intend to share how we’ve accomplished what we have, as well as give insights into how to get the best education for your gifted child and ways to deal with such an intelligent child! That’s enough rambling for today. Talk to you soon!
