Why teachers deserve more money than CEO’s

Monday night…6:00…Tasby Lions are getting ready to play Rusk Middle School in football. The stands are almost empty (transportation issues, working parents, and the cost of the games don’t allow for most students to attend). Yet the full cheerleading squad of about 10 girls is going strong. Teachers by day, Ms. Cameron and Ms. Thomas, encourage and coach the girls; LCC teacher, Chief Brown, sits in the stands watching every play of the team and shouting words of encouragement; Assistant Principal Del Rio watches the game; three male teachers by day coach the team.

At halftime, I decided to move over to the girls volleyball game. As we walked in, the Tasby principal, Mr. Mays, was standing, cheering from the sidelines. The girls were doing well! Coach Fogelsong was standing, smiling, and mouthing the chants the girls had made up to do every time they scored a point. Ms. Dominguez, a TA during the day, was sitting on the bench right alongside, smiling and encouraging as well. Ms. Barnes, another Assistant Principal, came in during the second game to watch.

 

"So what?" you might say. "It’s their job." Right?

Not exactly. Their job is to teach. During the day. They get to work around 7:00 am…yet at 8:00 pm, they were all still going strong. I didn’t hear a word of complaint. Every single teacher I saw was excited, encouraging, and had a smile on their face. None looked exhausted or were grumbling, “I’m ready to go home!”

The other thing that struck me is that most of us have down time during our day. We may have clients to visit or meetings to attend. Many of us do have a lot on our plate. But think about teachers. They have about 100 clients that they see EVERY SINGLE DAY. They meet with their clients for seven (7!!) hours each day with *maybe* a 45 minute break to plan and prepare (or go to the bathroom or eat, whichever they prefer).

Of course, some meetings can be simply attended, but the meetings we are leading, we need to prepare for ahead of time. So when do teachers possibly prepare for these all-day, back-to-back meetings for over 100 clients?? (Did I mention that “the boss” expects them to not only conduct a meeting, but to actually move these 100 students forward by fairly significant lengths each day??). Well, it’s obvious that it’s impossible to prepare for those meetings during that seven-hour day. Preparation needs to be done before or after these seven-hour meetings.

Oh, wait… there are other meetings with the clients “attorneys” (aka: principals, grade level chair meetings, Site-Based Decision Making meetings, parent meeteings…) that must take place after hours because it’s impossible to have those meetings while meeting directly with the clients. And those "attorneys" often can’t meet until 6:00 at night because they have other obligations. Plus, those meetings must be prepared for as well.

So when does a teacher plan and prepare for the next seven-hour meeting? Oh…that would be after he/she finishes for the day…which is often after 6:00 or 7:00. And, as we saw at the ball game, those teachers were busy coaching, encouraging, and engaging the crowd in cheerleading for their school. I got home at 8:30 that night…and the coaches, teachers, and principals hadn’t even left yet.

Being an attorney, an engineer, or even a doctor may be a difficult job. But each of those jobs has factored in time to write notes and documentation, plan and prepare, and read and research for the next meeting so that they are properly equipped to help their client. We recognize the importance of that time. The teaching profession doesn’t have that same luxury…and is the only one I can think of at the moment that doesn’t allow that time.

As I watched those teachers and talked to a few of them during the game, they beamed with pride and reminisced about other students who had played at Tasby that are now in high school or college. They should be commended for their unwavering dedication and their smiles while doing it.

And yes, for what they do and how they do it, they deserve to be making more than top CEOs.  

Teaching Kids Where they Are and Helping them Discover their Greatness

As I tried to muck through the numerous emails I seem to get on a daily basis, I noticed one showed up only as "Chris." I was right in thinking it was one of our superb Americorps members from last summer.

I can't take credit for the fact that Chris is an amazing person with a gift for teaching. Instead, I wanted to post his email as a reminder to myself (and you guys) of the quality of people we get coming through our programs. I know that when Chris left our summer program, he was determined to start something like our program in Commerce, where he attends school.

What excites me about his letter is that Chris is taking on the challenge of helping inspire kids to be great. It's nothing we have in us that we give to them but, instead, something they have inside of themselves that our job, as teachers, is to help them discover and figure out ways to get them to connect the dots and be as great as we see that they are. Chris did (and is still doing) that even though he's an hour away from us now and working with completely different kids...and that makes me smile. The ripple effect continues.

Here is his email:

Hi Ms. Janet,

I just wanted to share a small story with you that you might find interesting. Last semester (and purely by chance/fate) I took on my first autistic piano student. His name is Sam. He's an extremely bright kid, very quick with numbers, and he is storming through his methods books at a rate I've never seen before...typical Asperger's Syndrome. Of course, with his learning proficiency, there is a communicating deficiency, and after talking to his mother, we think music might be the best way to help him with it.

Anyway, in our last lesson, I had him working on Bach's "Prelude in C Major." He was doing well; he had all the notes memorized, all the dynamics memorized, his fingers were curved correctly. His only problem was that some measures were a little disjointed, interrupting the flow of the piece. So, I asked him a question, "How do I know you're playing the right music?"

He pointed at the music laying on the stand, "Because the notes are right there."

So I took the music off the stand, "But you have it memorized. Let's say you're performing for me without music. How do I know you're playing the right notes?"

He stared at me blankly.

I decided a different approach. "How do you know I'm saying the right words to you right now?"

He thought for a few seconds, "Well, because I know what the words mean. We both know English."

I was impressed with his response. I wasn't sure a twelve-year-old would hit so close to the answer, but then I had to remind myself, this is Sam. I continued, "Right! More precisely, it's because I know what I'm trying to say. If I tell you, 'the cat jumped over the blue fox,' what do you think of?"

"Why is the fox blue?"

I smile, "Because he's in our imaginations. So what do you see in your imagination?"

"A cat jumping over a blue fox...what color is the cat?"

"What's your favorite color?"

"How about purple?"

"Okay, so a purple cat jumps over a blue fox. Now what do you see?"

"A purple cat jumping over a blue fox."

And now I know we're back on track together. I continue, "Alright. So how is it that you see that?"

He thinks again, "Well, because you said it."

"Correct! You see it because I see it first, and then I explain it to you, right? That's how you know I'm saying the right words! And it's the same with music..." And we go on to have a discussion about what music is. A brilliant discussion entailing Bach, John Cage, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Eventually we get back to the Prelude, and I challenge him this time to tell me something with the music.

At first he was rather confused. He wasn't sure what I meant. To him, as long as he played the right notes, rhythms, and dynamics, then he was playing the music. So we tried an exercise. I told him to take the first measure and imagine purple. Then I pointed four measures later and told him to imagine green. Then, in between, I told him to turn the purple color into the green color with the music. He didn't quite understand at first, but we worked on it for a few moments, and I broke it down for him, explaining that when I play, I pretend I am painting; each sound has it's own color and I make a picture with those sounds. So he tries again, and those four bars of music were so...true, raw, and moving. They were perfectly connected. I glanced over at his mom, who was just beaming. Sam was communicating; he was showing us his colors.

After the lesson his mom pointed something interesting out. She mentioned that he had learned the alphabet by assigning each letter a color. Seems like we might be on to a connection here.

I hope things at CityWalk are going well!

Take Care,

Chris

Teachers

Thanks to Carrie for posting this in her comment...and thanks to all of the teachers out there who do these things on a daily basis.

The value of a teacher--$320,000

Those of us who take jobs as teachers, educators, and social workers know what we're getting into when we sign up for the degree and the job. We sign on to higher salaries than people without an education, but lower than most degreed people make. But, for the most part, making the big bucks is not our intent.

In fact, the longer I'm in education, the more my job becomes a day-by-day battle to ensure children are receiving the best education possible with the resources we are given and the systems we are working against.

I've often said to people that it amazes me how quick we are to slash an education budget. I wonder who the highly paid people slashing or voting for slashing public education budgets think they received their intellectual abilities from and if they realize they probably wouldn't be in the place they are without a teacher and a school system that pretty much raised them.

I was delighted when I read a New York Times report on The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers and how an economist has actually been able to put a dollar value on how much a kindergarten teacher is worth. Though I don't anticipate this knowledge being put into practice any time soon, it is good to know that at least someone out there is quantifying the actual monetary value of what a good teacher does for a child and how it lasts for the rest of their lifetime.

Welcome back to work, teachers. You are extremely important...to the children you teach AND to the rest of society!

Education through Exploration

Resources...they're what our kids need to prepare in life.

I had access to resources growing up. One of my friends reminds me that my "resources" are a direct result of my White privilege. She's right. So many kids don't have the same access I did. But it's not *just* about being White. It's a culture...a mindset. It's the way the entire community values and facilitates learning. Unfortunately, many of our communities are not nurturing education hubs. I would like to think that our After-School Academy and University of Values summer program plays a part in changing that tide in Roseland.

Last week I trained our University of Values (UV) summer staff. I asked them to imagine some times they spent outside of school and what they did.

I told them about a chemistry set my mom purchased at a garage sale. I was intrigued by the carmel "recipe" and was convinced that this chemistry set was going to allow me to make Kraft caramels. I spent a number of days outside (mom wouldn't allow the chemistry set in the house) with my test tubes and potions trying to create carmel that I could eat. (I never managed to produce edible carmel)

Brandie told about watching Super Size Me! then trying her own experiment with french fries to see how they held up over time. She was appalled at how "preserved" the french fries stayed day after day.

Other staff told about observing animals on the farm or disecting/torturing frogs when they visited relatives in the country.

Yet, as they told me these stories, they quickly added, "Nothing educational, though." Nothing educational?!?!?!?! When did "education" become synonymous with "boring"??

This summer our theme is Environment and Recycling. We have high school juniors and seniors from the ExxonMobil Green Team; we have a Mayor Intern; we have Americorps members. All are teaching kids in hopes of inspiring them to think differently about the role they play in helping/hurting our environment.

I keep encouraging them to give the kids a little information, let them ask questions, and encourage them to research and explore. We have a "Tech Genius" class that will be documenting everything this summer. I am hopeful that they will create innovative audio and visual products throughout the summer.

As we went through training, I saw lightbulbs going on as the UV Teachers figured out that learning is exciting and that learning is everywhere! However, I'm concerned that teachers have done such a great job of realizing how exciting learning can be that they're going to end up wanting to do all of the exploration instead of facilitating it with the kids!

We have great staff and a great program. The kids will be taking trips to the Landfill, the Waste Water Treatment Plant, the Museum of Science and History, University of Texas at Dallas to see how the sciences provide careers in this area, and many others. If you want to keep up with what's going on, check out their blog throughout this summer: http://www.ourasafamily.blogspot.com/.

We hope to begin updating it soon!

Teacher inspires student

What, exactly, is "special ed"? When I was growing up, we had a "LD" (learning disabled) class. But I only remember it being for the severely physically and mentally challenged. Today it seems that children are labeled special ed for behavior problems, refusal to learn, "emotionally disturbed," and everything else. I think a lot of times it's just easier for us to get the "problem children" out of our classroom rather than figure out a way to work with them.

Maybe this says more about me, the subconscious messages I received over the years, and the overwhelmed nature of having some students in our After-School Academy who are easier to push aside than figure out ways to work with them.

I don't know Hakeem Bennett. All I know is that he is in a special education class. But I know when he was given the opportunity to express himself, he did so in a way that won him the honor of his story being turned into a book.

I wish we had more staff to spend time with individual students at our After-School Academy. I bet we would find we have a lot of Hakeem Bennetts who, if given the opportunity, could also have some award-winning ideas.





Brooklyn boy's prize essay to become a book dedicated to blind teacher

Matthew Brown, a blind special education teacher in Brooklyn, is the inspiration behind a student's essay lauding his daily determination and patience.

A new Superman book is drawing inspiration from a Brooklyn special education student and the blind teacher he considers an everyday hero.

Eighth-grader Hakeem Bennett, 13, won a national essay contest and will appear as the title character in the upcoming title, "The Kid Who Saved Superman."

His teacher, Matthew Brown - who is blind in one eye, has tunnel vision in the other and takes a guide dog to school - will also be incorporated into the story line.

"I was going to cry," Hakeem said of the moment he found out he won the contest sponsored by Stone Arch Books. "I was happy - happy for Mr. Brown to get recognized."

A student at Public School 36 in East New York, Hakeem was encouraged by his guidance counselor to enter the contest about real-life heroes last month.

It didn't take long for him to decide Brown, 38, would be the subject of his essay.

"My teacher Mr. Brown is visually impaired," he wrote. "That [is] not what makes him a hero. It is because he takes public transportation every day with Stanley his dog to school. That is why he is a true everyday superhero.

"In our class we had a project of being blindfolded and trying to find our way around the class. It was hard for me. ... I feel sad he can't see the beautiful things around. That bothers me."

Brown said he was "very touched" that one of his students would heap such praise on him and called it "humbling."

"It just reminds you why you do this," he said.

He wasn't at school Tuesday because a car ran over his foot Monday on the way to work. The injury will keep him at home for a few days.

Nevertheless, Brown calls his blindness a "gift."

"It allows me to see people for who they are," he said.

Hakeem said his teacher's qualities go beyond his disability.

"He makes sure you understand. If you don't, he'll work with you one-on-one," he said.

"When you're angry, he calms you down. He knows how to treat you fairly."

Brown has worked at the school for six years. His principal, Johanna Schneider, called him "an awesome person."

She, too, will be featured in the story line of the chapter book, which comes out June 15.

"I've always been a fan of comic books," she said. "I'm just sorry it's not Wonder Woman."

tconnor@nydailynews.com