Brian was one of the few teachers in this study who was in the same classroom, teaching the same grade level when I visited his classroom in the Ovid-Elsie School District in 2015.  He was still teaching 8th grade U.S. History, the same grade level and topic area in which I observed him teaching during his teacher-assisting semester at Riverside Middle School in Grand Rapids in 2005.  Ten years after that first placement he still exhibited the same qualities which made him a successful teacher.  He was invested in his content and, more importantly, invested in his students.

When I visited his classroom in February of 2008, I noticed some similarities to where I started my teaching career at Southern Cayuga Central Junior-Senior High School in Upstate New York.  The combined buildings sat outside of town on open land, away from the towns that combined to form the school district.  Ovid-Elsie is rural and the student population is predominantly white.

When I walked into Brian’s classroom before school started, he was busy preparing for the day.  His agenda was up on the board so his students would know the plan for the class period.  His classroom was outfitted with a computer on his desk, tied to an overhead projector. Brian started all his classes with a “brain teaser” that was not content-specific.  He explained that he liked to get the students stirring up their grey matter before class began.  He pointed out student artwork in the hallway outside of his classroom, an idea that he said he had “stolen” from the Science Department.  All good teachers “steal” good ideas from other good teachers. Why reinvent the wheel when the wheel already exists?

As the students went to work on the brain teaser Brian went around the room checking students’ homework.  He also had the students working on the “bell work” for the day, “5 Reasons Warhawks wanted the War of 1812”.  Brian also started every class every day with a “This Day in History” fact which he gleaned from the History Channel website.  Right away the students were busy on their initial activity, focused on their work.  As discussion began concerning the bell work question the students posed their answers on the 5 Reasons: “keep independent”, “wanted Canada”, “wanted Florida”, “wanted revenge”, “wanted to stop Native American attacks”.  The students’ answers provided good background information for this day’s lesson and reinforced prior knowledge from previous lessons. At various times Brian posed questions to the entire class which they answered in unison. “Was everyone a War Hawk?”  “No”.  Brian then referred to the posters the students created from a previous lesson and again provided an opportunity to reinforce prior knowledge. The poster assignment was for the students to create artwork and slogans designed to convince the U.S. citizens in 1812 to go to war with Great Britain (Zalud, f.n., p.1, 2008).

At this point Brian, using the computer tied to the overhead projector, showed a short video clip from the Discovery Channel.  He accessed this clip through a service that many schools had at this time called United Streaming.  The clip had to do with the British practice of “impressment”, kidnapping sailors from U.S. ships and forcing them to serve on British naval vessels, a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty.  Brian called this segment of the class, “The War of 1812 in 2 minutes”.  He had the students get out note paper in order to take notes from a slide show he created.  One of the first images on the screen was that of President James Madison.  Brian asked a good question about a map he displayed on the battles of the War; “What do these battles have in common?”  The students made good comments, “near water”, “near or in Canada”.  Brian explained that this war and the battles constituted the first U.S. attempt at taking land and expanding the country outside of its existing borders.  Next, he asked why New Orleans was important and why did the battle there need to be fought.  A student knew that the Treaty of Ghent had already been signed, ending the war and Brian reinforced that student’s answer and the problem with communication that existed across thousands of miles of ocean.

At this point Brian asked the class for a definition of the word “incentive”.  A student gave a workable definition and then Brian made a connection to present day. Brian did this very well in his time at Riverside Middle School, tying history to relatable events and experiences in the students’ present lives.  Brian’s connection was the similarity between land grants offered to U.S. soldiers as payment for service and the incentive program in the form of aid for college study to today’s servicemen and women.

During his lecture using the slideshow Brian employed a laser pointer to create focus on key features in images and maps.  The students’ body language showed that this focusing device worked in maintaining student interest and curiosity.

An image of the U.S.S. Constitution, “Old Ironsides” was next on the screen.  Brian once again appealed to the students’ prior knowledge by referring the Revolutionary War battle at Bunker (Breed’s) Hill and how the Americans waited until the British soldiers had advanced up the hill before firing (“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes”).  He tied that fact to the close-in bombardment in the naval battle between the Constitution and the British ship, Guerriere (https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/ships/uss-constitution-americas-ship-of-state/history.htmlm, accessed March 19, 2018).

Brian proceeded with an in-depth lecture, incorporating many images on the screen and done with enthusiasm and confidence in what he was describing.  The lecture lasted about a half hour, at which point he assigned two separate activities for the last twenty minutes of class, a pink study guide sheet and a map of the War of 1812.  He allowed his students to work with partners and they did so with no disruption.  Most of the students finished the map work quickly and then set about the work of completing the study guide (Zalud, f.n., p.3, 2008).

As Brian’s second hour class started the work on their brain teaser he explained to me that this activity was evidence for a NCA (North Central Accreditation) report for the school district.  The district wanted to show evidence for problem-solving in their report for accreditation.  It was typical at that time that districts focused on developing students’ problem-solving skills.  Brian pointed out to me that the district thought that having students work through historical cause and effect was not considered problem-solving (Brian, f.n., p.3, 2008) so the administration had the teachers institute brain teasers as a way of providing evidence that the district was providing a means for students to improve their problem-solving skills. This ignored the ability of historical thinking skills in providing a content-focused way of providing evidence. It displays an all-to-often administrative characteristic of using a ‘one size fits all solution’ and ignoring natural content-based activities that provides a better link to what the students learn.

Like many teachers in many school districts Brian was working with a textbook that was at least 10 years old. Thus, the text and the support materials that came with it no longer aligned with the “Content Expectations” issued at the time of my first visit by the Michigan Department of Education.  At that time in February of 2008, he had no idea when the district would buy new texts, although the English/Language Arts teachers did have new textbooks that did align with the state standards.  Most school districts do not have the fiscal means to replace all of their textbooks and support materials for all subjects at the same time and those same fiscal limitations make it difficult to buy new materials whenever a state decides to issue new teaching standards.  He did tell me that he was able to make up some of the age of the text by bringing in outside digital resources through the use of his computer and the projector. It was obvious as the day went by that he had invested a considerable amount of time working on supplementing his lessons with those resources.  When I talked to Brian about the problem of using older textbooks and trying to keep up with changes in the state’s standards he said that he and his 7th grade colleague were charged with re-writing the middle school curriculum on their own with little outside help from the department chair or the administration. Coupled with that lack of support was the fact that he had only one departmental meeting in a year and a half and there was supposed to be a meeting every month (Zalud, f.n., p.3, 2008).

Brian employed the same procedure in his Second Period class.  The students in all his classes were supposed to have read Section 5 from the chapter the previous evening for homework and based on their answers to his questions it appeared that they had completed the reading.  Of course, their competency in answering questions may have also resulted from information Brian supplied in previous classes, but for whatever the reason, the students were prepared and ready for the class discussion.

Brian told me later that the previous year he had taught the War of 1812 over a week and a half time period in his classes.  Due to the changes in the Content Expectations he was expected to “cover” the same amount of material in a few days.  He posed some good questions to me about how the new Content Expectations would align with the new state standardized test and how the change in the amount of time he had to teach the material would impact the students’ results on the test.

In both classes Brian displayed good classroom management skills. The students were engaged, focused on the content and able to answer questions when he asked them.  While he was lecturing his classes he was aware of the students’ speed in note-taking and stopped his lecture from time to time, making sure that every student was keeping up.  All the while Brian lectured he kept up a steady stream of questions, some basic recall or knowledge-based questions and some upper level questions that required some deduction, inference or analysis by his classes.  In the process Brian used simple, but relatable memory cues in helping the students name locations of battles:  “Where do the Blue Jays and Raptors play?”  Students: “Toronto”.  All through his classes Brian was making connections to prior knowledge and leading students in making connections to previous events and cause and effect situations.  Due to the interplay between Brian and his students in his Second Period class he was a slide or two short versus his first period lecture. (Brian, f.n., p.4, 2008).  I had no idea if he was able to make up this time the next day with his students.  This is a common challenge teachers face.  What happens when your students engage so well in asking questions and making connections that the teacher does not “cover” the content that is dictated by the curriculum and evaluated in the standardized test?  Do the students gain more ability versus knowledge by the process or are they better served by the amount of information they stockpile in their brains?

As mentioned earlier, Brian taught all of the 8th grade U.S. History classes in his district.  I asked him later in the day if he admitted that it got a little repetitive after about three periods.  Block scheduling, in this case, would be a good system for teachers who teach the same subject all day long. Due to the fact that most block schedules feature longer class periods but less classes per day, at least a teacher would not be expected to teach the same class and material five or six times the same day.  The ability for a teacher keeping delivery fresh and organized with a more traditional bell schedule would be challenging.

During his third period class Brian made a reference to a movie that was popular at that time, “Master and Commander” and likened the combat scenes in that movie to what the captain of the U.S.S. Constitution did in the combat with the British ship.  The references to hauling sail, fighting in a rocking boat at sea and the fact that in those days a ship captain in a sailing vessel could not simply “motor” to a better fighting position were all apropos connections between the movie and the historical lesson Brian was imparting.  During this class period the students again asked some good questions and made good connections, using information they learned outside of Brian’s class that applied to what they were learning this day.  This class did need a little more prompting when it came to making connections between the leadership of Tecumseh, Native American individualist fighting abilities and United States’ skills versus British regimental style being a factor in the struggle between the U.S. and Great Britain.  Brian got a little further along in his lecture in this class than he did in his first two classes but that did not seem to concern him.  His classroom management skills were again on display when several students toward the end of the period finished the two activities that were assigned. Brian immediately suggested other assignments they might work on and therefore prevented any potential mischief from occurring due to idle time.  Brian explained to me later that he averages about twenty assignments per grading period.  He also told me that the high school has a “ZAP” policy; if students do not have their homework completed they are held after school.  Since the middle schoolers are limited to bus transportation Brian modified this policy to where his students have to come in during their lunch period to work on incomplete assignments. The “ZAP” policy reminded me of the difference in attitude and policy between my first teaching assignment in New York and my school in Kansas.  The New York school invested in a later bus run in order to accommodate both behavioral and academic detention.  Southern Cayuga teachers easily assigned after school time for students who were reticent in completing their assigned homework.  That after school time was not viewed necessarily as punishment, at least not by the teachers, but as an opportunity for the students to receive extra help and catch up with their classmates.  That same attitude did not exist in Kansas.  That school’s policy did not extend to later bus runs, either for disciplinary or academic reasons. It wasn’t until block scheduling was instituted several years before I left my Kansas school that the idea of providing “catch up” time was part of school policy, at least in the high school.  As a part of block scheduling a “seminar” block was created twice a week and through hall passes and teacher email students were assigned time for making up late work or for extra tutoring.

Brian’s 4th and 5th period classes followed the same format as his previous classes.  The same basic objectives were met with only the variation of differing ways the students asked questions or made their own relevant connections to the material.  Brian kept up his focus and engagement in his teaching style and his students followed suit.  No class dragged and most all of the students seemed engaged in what they were learning.  At the beginning of the 5th Period class Brian did remove the Brain Teaser activity because the class became distracted and noisy. Several students were disappointed in not being able to engage in “teasing” out an answer.  Similarly, a few students admitted to not completing their assigned reading for the day. This apparent lack of homework did not stop the students from engaging to ask questions during the lecture section of the class.  Brian said later that this class was always a little “squirrely” after lunch and it took a little more effort on his part to keep them focused (Brian, f.n., p. 7, 2008).  All throughout the day Brian encouraged the students in asking questions and that openness created a positive learning environment for all his students, not matter how “squirrely” they might be.  His last hour class ended the lesson in about the same place that his other four classes which showed that despite differences in the amount of students’ questions and Brian’s follow-up answers he was able to plan and execute his objectives for the day.

Video Interview, 2008

Defining Success

Brian defined success in teaching as “when you can see kids have that ‘ah, ha’ moment, and they relate something that I had previously talked about with something we’re talking about now or something that’s going on now (in public, not just the classroom), where they can (say), ‘Oh, I get that’” (Brian, v.t., p.1, 2008).  He wanted his students to apply what they learned across cases and across history.  Brian thought students who could figure things out on their own would also do well on the state standardized tests and that was important to him as well.

Content, 2008

In terms of his college preparation Brian described two areas where he thought GVSU was successful in preparing him for his career.  One was content knowledge.  He admitted that he received sufficient knowledge for what he was doing.  He complimented one of his history professors for his ability to make lectures interesting and engaging.  Brian thought that an outside observer might think his classes at Ovid-Elsie were chaotic but he thought of his classes and students more as excited (Zalud, v.t., p.2, 2008).  He compared his preparation to teachers he knew from other schools who had only a short time in a single classroom for their student-teaching experience and Brian thought his two placements, one in a ‘diverse’ setting, over two semesters did a much better job preparing him for success.  Brian said that even though Ovid-Elsie was predominantly white, it was considered a low income district and his time at Riverside Middle School, with its very diverse, and low-income population provided him with the knowledge in dealing with the challenges his Ovid-Elsie students faced. In Brian’s words, “I mean the color of the skin is different, but the problems are the same” (Zalud, v.t., p.3, 2008).  Brian’s second placement was in the Lowell schools, a suburban school with a much higher socio-economic base and he said that if Lowell had been his only student-teaching experience he would not have been as well prepared to deal with his students’ challenges.  Brian also credited the teacher he had at Riverside, Gary Velthouse, with helping Brian realize that there are many possible avenues when dealing with the problems students bring to school (Zalud, v.t., p.2-3, 2008).

I next asked Brian how well he was able to apply the content knowledge he learned in college to his 8th grade U.S. History class.  Brian cited one class, “The American Colonies and the Revolutionary War”, an upper level class, with being directly applicable to his teaching. He commented on websites and connections the professor made in the college class that were easily transferred to his 8th grade curriculum. He also said he used his college textbooks and notes to supplement his textbook when preparing lectures and presentations for his current students.  Overall, Brian said his Social Studies major was the best option for what he was teaching, due to the concentration of history courses, but also for the other courses in Economics, Geography and Political Science that make up the major.  I commented that Brian successfully mixed all those content areas into his lectures during the day, using maps, and discussing the politics and economics of the War of 1812.  Brian said he also elicited help from his students.  He asked them about their family histories and what historical artifacts that they have in their family possessions which they might bring to class.  Several of his students stated that they had Native American ancestry and Brian was a little frustrated that he did not have the time to fully connect his students’ backgrounds with the history they were studying.  It was apparent that Brian was constantly seeking ways to improve his teaching and to make ways for his students in making personal connections to the history taught in his classes.

Strategies and Methods, 2008

The topic of teaching methods was next in our discussion.  Brian had already mentioned Professor Stark and his ability in engaging his college students by his passion for his subject and his ability in driving discussion.  Brian also mentioned the technology in education course he was required to take for the education section of his degree.  He learned the importance of using visuals and not just text in engaging students.  To the greatest degree possible Brian sought to use images of the actual artifacts in historical events. When discussing Andrew Jackson’s Horse Bend engagement with Native Americans, Brian thought it necessary to find photos or images that correctly portrayed the event and not just generic items (Zalud, v.t., p.4, 2008).

Brian also applied a method he learned his social studies methods class.  In a student project-based learning activity he had the students research the individual colonies at the time of the American Revolution. Brian provided some background information, had the student groups research colonies and then these groups taught the rest of the class what they learned.  “I found when they learn from each other, they learn more than when they learn from me.  If they can hear a classmate say it, they’re going to remember it…” (Zalud, v.t., p.4, 2008).

Another strategy Brian used was personalizing what students learned. He had them visualize themselves in historical events or situations, like trying to fit below decks on the U.S.S. Constitution, which would be a headache for anyone close to six feet tall (https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2016/07/14/decks/, accessed March 21, 2018). “…if you can try to make the kid see himself in the situation, they’re going to probably remember it better than if you just tell them” (Zalud, v.t., p.5, 2008).  Brian told me that he borrowed this idea from high school teachers and college professors. He said the process was similar with the recruitment posters he had the students create for the War Hawks. Some students would approach him and say they could only find two items to place on the poster and Brian encouraged them to find more on their own, instead of just giving them ideas.  Brian achieved similar results when he had his students use a popular website for research surrounding the 2008 election.  Students in discussions outside of class time were discussing the information they found on the candidates.  They were invested in their learning and they wanted to share that knowledge with others (Zalud, v.t., p.6, 2008).

I asked Brian if his high school social studies teachers and his college professors took the time to have their classes think historically.  He said he did experience that type of approach and he added that as a student it was always easier for him to learn discrete information, if he was able to connect those facts to other facts or events.  He admitted that some students had the attitude ‘just tell me what I need to know for the test’ and other students had their own systems for remembering and applying information. He thought it was important for the students to make connections or have him explain how events were connected. Through the ‘student grapevine’ Brian found out which professors were good at having the students making connections about what they learned and he gravitated toward those professors’ classes (Zalud, v.t., p.7, 2008).

Brian felt fairly confident in the content knowledge he received while in college, to the point where he embellished the basic information provided by his textbook for the American Revolution.  However, he said there were some gaps in some areas, such as the Civil War.  When he realized he needed more information he took it upon himself to learn more or bring in presenters with specialized knowledge in an area of history.  When queried by his students about his apparent lack of knowledge in an area Brian readily admitted that he was still learning and that he and his students could learn together (Zalud, v.t., p.8, 2008).  In my own career I have witnessed teachers who were afraid to admit to their students that they were not totally knowledgeable about their content area.  Some of these teachers even faked their way through it and in the process incorrectly informed their classes.  I think this is a ‘worst case scenario’.  Good teachers should project an atmosphere of continually learning, not matter how long they have taught or how much they think they know.  That type of positive learning atmosphere is the most conducive in convincing students that learning is a life-long process and teachers should model that attitude.

Despite feeling confident with most of the content he taught and having a ‘toolkit’ full of teaching methods and strategies, at a point a year and a half out of college Brian was still challenged with providing differentiated learning approaches, especially when it came to the fact that at his school, and most others, academically challenged students were part of the regular classroom.  His biggest challenge with these students was using the textbook in imparting knowledge.  Some of his students were reading several grade levels below 8th grade and he knew that they could not process information the same way a student reading on grade level would comprehend what was read.  Brian’s answer to this problem in 2008 was reducing the amount of textbook reading in favor of a lecture format where he could decipher the text for those students on lower reading levels, even if it meant approaching lectures in different ways with the changing student populations in his classes (Zalud, v.t., p.9, 2008).

Like many Social Studies teachers I have encountered through my years in education Brian admitted that he felt the least prepared for teaching economics. He took that fact into account when he applied for teaching positions.  It did not sound to me that he would shy away from learning more about teaching that subject if he was assigned to teach it beyond the level that he incorporates basic economics information and concepts to his 8th Graders. Those few times where he has errored, i.e. mislabeling a ‘supply and demand’ graph, he confessed to his error to his students and said he was human and he was capable of error.  He also modeled for his students the idea that it was perfectly acceptable to reach out for help when you know you need it (Zalud, v.t., p.10).

The motivation for graduate degrees has changed in the last few years in Michigan.  In the past school districts would defray the expenses, plus grad credit would move a teacher along in the salary schedule.  While grad credit will still move a person further in the pay scale in most districts, reimbursement for the credit after taking classes has disappeared in many places and many teachers are simply using professional development hours to re-certify.  Brian indicated that he was more prone to pursuing further content coursework. Taking further pedagogical coursework would help him better understand educational policy issues (Zalud, v.t., p.11, 2008).

Pearls of Wisdom, 2008

Brian’s first advice for future teachers was preparing for a good interview.  He told me that if the school personnel liked a person then they would supply the knowledge necessary for being successful in their district.  Next, he said being flexible and being able to change is a must.  If beginning teachers are not open to school policy and the ways a school operates with those policies then it does not bode well for a new teacher’s job. “You are their employee.  You’re their commodity.  You are expendable.” (Zalud, v.t., p.11, 2008).  He admitted that what he said was a bit brutal, but nonetheless true.  When he applied to Ovid-Elsie he was one of 175 applicants (this was at a time when teacher jobs, especially for Social Studies teachers, were very few and far between).  He also said that a teacher needed to pay attention to deadlines, be willing to do what the district asks and have at least a 3.0 grade point average (Zalud, v.t., p.11-12, 2008).  While Brian was a student at GVSU the History Department had a 2.7 gpa minimum for acceptance into the teacher education program.  A few years later the Department a minimum 3.0 for entry into College of Education.  Even with those minimums and with stiffer requirements dictated by the State of Michigan, students with below a 3.0 may be allowed entry into the teacher education program.

Brian was assigned a mentor teacher upon his arrival at Ovid-Elsie and this person was very helpful.  When Brian asked for help with a situation, help was extended with no judgment about Brian’s ability. This mentor was a science teacher and Brian did not know if the difference in content areas prevented the mentor from giving detailed advice or just that the mentor was a ‘hands off’ type of person.  The mentor’s advice tended toward, “this is how I do things” and how the students might benefit from some consistency in how the teachers taught.  In Brian’s case, they both found some common ground on how they approach teaching and Brian was appreciative of his mentoring.  Brian also leaned on his mentor when he needed to vent because of student behavioral problems or when the classroom technology was not working.  Every day for a new teacher is a scramble to keep up and having the support of a veteran teacher definitely helped Brian cope with the challenges (Zalud, v.t., p.12, 2008).

Brian recommended that future teachers keep all of the college notes, even for the courses they might not immediately teach or seem to be outside the venue of what they are teaching now.  He definitely used his U.S. History notes often, but even though he did not currently teach European history, he has kept those notes as well.  He heard more than a few teachers say, “I wish I would have kept that now.  I wish I wouldn’t have thrown that away” (Zalud, v.t., p.13, 2008).

Brian’s last bit of advice was for new teachers preparing themselves for correcting grammatical errors in students’ writing assignments. He felt he received good instruction in his college coursework in building thesis statements and supporting those statements with evidence, but he was not well-prepared for the technical aspects for grading grammar. He reinforced the importance of explaining to students and their parents how a certain grade on a paper was attained.  Constructive criticism through detailed feedback was important (Zalud, v.t., p.14, 2008).

2015

When I next met with Brian in May of 2015 he was in the same classroom, teaching 8th grade U.S. History when I visited in 2008.  By this time Brian had been teaching in the Ovid-Elsie district for nine years. He was one of a few who were situated in the same circumstances (the same room and the same teaching assignment.)  When I visited him in 2008 he was the only 8th Grade Social Studies teacher, but since then the district added a part-time teacher who only taught online. For whatever reason the online classes did not work so the district hired a full-time 7th Grade Social Studies teacher at the start of the 2017 school year (Zalud, f.n., p. 2, 2015).

Every student had a Chromebook and Brian admitted that he did not use the textbook much at all.  What he did use now was Schoology (https://www.schoology.com/k-12, accessed March 22, 2018), but he was not altogether happy with that platform because the students had discovered that they could copy tests questions from the software into a word processing document and share the questions amongst their friends.  All tests were being given on Schoology™, in part, for preparing students for online state testing (Zalud, f.n., p.1, 2015).

At this point in time Brian’s class sizes averaged in the mid-20s and the school population was fairly stable. The district was not losing population like many rural schools were around the state.  The district achieved the top scores in the county in math and science, but due to some low scores in other areas the school was a “focus” school, requiring added paperwork for the school improvement team.  Later in the day Brian gave a little more detail concerning the stability of the school population.  While the incoming kindergarten class numbered about 90 children, the middle and high school classes were in the 130-140 range.  The change was due to “schools of choice”. Due to higher test scores, students from a neighboring school district were coming to Ovid-Elsie for middle school and staying to graduate from the high school (Zalud, f.n., p.5, 2015). Adding to those numbers was the fact that Ovid-Elsie typically hosts 25-30 foreign exchange students per year!  In the two school districts with similarly sized student populations where I taught before joining the college ranks it was more like two or three foreign exchange students per year.  Brian told me that there was a foreign exchange student coordinator in the area who helped to funnel students to his district (Zalud, f.n., p.5, 2015). The teaching staff was not as stable as the student population.  Brian said that, for various reasons, there were only two teachers in the middle school who were there when I visited in 2008. He did not get into the details for the huge turnover (Zalud, f.n., p.5, 2015).

There was some shifting in the administration in order to seek efficiencies. At this time point Brian and another teacher had served dual roles as administrators for a year, but the district then decided to revert to a building principal.  This was the fourth principal in the building in Brian’s nine years. He did mention to me during the day that he had looked for employment in other districts but due to the length of his teaching experience and the fact that he now had his Master’s degree he was not attractive to many districts.  About the only option was to pursue employment as an administrator and Brian said he did not want to go to the “dark side” (Zalud, f.n., p.3, 2015).

Brian’s extracurricular duties included serving on the football coaching staff on a neighboring school, Owosso. Owosso had offered him the head football coaching position but the district wanted him to start on Step 1 of the salary schedule.  Brian explained that Owosso hired a first-year teacher for the position and that person left after the first year because his wife had a career change, presumably a career that paid better than a first year teacher (Zalud, f.n., p. 3, 2015).  Brian also served as track coach for the high school and during the day I had the opportunity to accompany Brian as he watched one of his athletes sign a letter of intent to run track in college the next year. Brian’s wife was teaching in the K-3 building in the district.  Brian shared some salary figures for the district with me.  In 2015 Ovid-Elsie started beginning teachers at $34,000 per year and with Brian’s nine years of teaching experience and his Master’s degree he was currently earning in the mid-50s, not including his wife’s salary.  With those finances they were able to buy a nice house on a local lake and, with the area’s cost of living, they had a comfortable life style (Zalud, f.n., p.3, 2015).

As Brian’s first period class began the students’ warm up activity was “Reading in a Minute” (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzUqPrSlaqylUkFKR1R3TDRGa2s/view, accessed March 22, 2018) with one partner and then Brian had them change partners for another minute. Then Brian continued vocabulary work from yesterday.  As he had in 2008, the next feature of the lesson was an event from “This Day in History” from the History Channel. Today’s fact was the Soviets ratifying the ban on nuclear weapons in outer space in 1967.

Next Brian had the students pull out their “Yellow Books”. These were bound packets that the students used versus the textbooks that he was using in 2008.  The district went to these packets since the advent of Chromebooks for every student.  Early in the day Brian remarked that the teachers in the district were not necessarily being held to the teaching standards for each grade level and he thought there should be better oversight on what teachers were teaching in their classrooms.  At this point I told him about a remark that another grad had made who taught a high school level U.S. History class.  When he reached the point in the year where his standards included World War II he was going to show a clip from the Omaha Beach landings from the movie, “Saving Private Ryan”.  When the teacher announced this upcoming activity in class the students told him that their 8th grade teacher showed them the whole movie the year before.  Eighth grade standards are supposed to end in the 19th Century.  Brian said he extended his curriculum to immigration and the development of big business even though his old textbook ended earlier.  He said the high school faculty did not have the time to reach back that far so Brian picked up the gap.

The main part of the lesson plan for this day was an Immigration web quest.  It was a two-day assignment that included a comparison between “old school” immigration with present-day immigration.  As Brian set up the assignment he gave the class clear instructions for what they were supposed to do.  Brian had the same careful approach to instructions when I visited him in 2008.  As part of this assignment the students had to take a Citizenship Naturalization test and they had to achieve a 70% rating in order to pass.  The real pass rate on the test given to those who wish to become citizens is 60% (https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Office of Citizenship/Citizenship Resource Center Site/Publications/PDFs/Test_Scoring_Guidelines.pdf, accessed March 22, 2018).  As Brian walked around the classroom he responded quickly to questions raised by his students as they worked through their Web Quest.  Brian borrowed the Web Quest activity from the iCivics website (https://www.icivics.org, accessed March 22, 2018).  He said the site developed from having games to offering much more in the last few years and he really enjoyed using it.

“Flipped classrooms” is a fairly recent teaching strategy (https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/flipping-the-classroom/, accessed March 23, 2018) which involves “pre-loading” basic information for a lesson through the use of online videos outside of the school day.  Basically, it is an updated version of homework. Students are expected to prepare the night before a lesson by watching a presentation and then the next class day they proceed with using upper level Bloom’s taxonomy skills in analyzing, evaluating and creating information (https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/, accessed March 23, 2018).  There are some critics, Brian amongst them, that have doubts about the workability of this strategy (https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/flipping-flipped-classroom, accessed March 23, 2018).  Brian’s concern centered around the rural nature of his school district and the potential lack of access or poor access to the Internet (Zalud, f.n., p.3, 2015).

Brian used the feedback from his First Period class in changing his lesson for his next class period.  In the First Period class he used the term, Push/Pull and there were several questions raised by the students as to the exact meaning of the term. Brian headed off potential questions in 2nd Period by beginning the Web Quest activity with a brief explanation of the term. As he did in his teacher-assisting semester class and the previous visit I made to his classroom in 2008 Brian tied the term to experiences relevant to the students’ lives.  The students still needed some further explanation by him in order to fully understand the meaning. The adaptation to his lesson moved the activity along more easily (Zalud, f.n., p.4, 2015).

Brian’s classroom, like many classrooms today, featured a no phone policy.  He caught a student looking at a cell phone and when confronted the student said it was his mom’s.  I think that gambit was an attempt at keeping the phone because why would a teacher seize a parent’s phone. The ploy did not work and Brian took the phone and told the student he could retrieve it at the end of the day.  Brian’s comment to me later was that he thought technology was too pervasive, but he admitted the conundrum that many teachers face.  If tech is a tool that many students have, why not use it as a tool in the classroom?  As with the advent of computers in the classroom, starting in the late 1980s, how do teachers control what the students are doing with the tech, especially when phones are easily hidden from view?  Brian’s other comment was while facts such as in what year did the Civil War start are readily available online, answering the question, “What caused the Civil War?” requires analyzing multiple points of view and then evaluating that information, something the Web may not do well (Zalud, f.n., p.4, 2015).

One non-tech approach Brian used in teaching the Civil War was to invite a Civil War reenactment group to his school.  The reenactors came with all their gear, including guns and the students were allowed to fire the muskets and rifles. My body language must have been a key that I thought that practice was problematic since giving students objects that explode, even without ammunition, has potential negative side-effects.  Brian was quick to follow up, explaining that in this rural community 30 to 40% of the middle school students go hunting during deer season (Zalud, f.n., p.4, 2015).  When I first arrived in Michigan in 2001 I was surprised that more than a few school districts grant students an excused absence for the opening of deer season and the following Monday morning teachers begin classes by asking if their students were successful.  This question was usually answered by personal photos of students holding an antlered head in their hands.

During the school day Brian explained the school district’s grading policy.  The middle school was on a 70-30 grading regime: with 70% of the students’ grades dependent on assessment. The high school students had 80% of their grades based on assessment. This was similar to another school I had previously visited on the east side of the state.   Brian thought this formula weighted assessment too heavily.  In his experience many students simply did not care about their grades.  At Ovid-Elsie students were allowed to repeatedly take tests with no adverse impact on their grades. In other words, poor results were simply thrown out.  Brian said there had been a change recently.  Now students were required to do extra work, in the form of remediation, in order to re-take tests.  Before this change in policy some students were taking the test the first time with no preparation simply to see what was on the test and then re-take it.  The change in policy resulted in far fewer students following this option (Zalud, f.n., p.5, 2015). They did not want to do the extra work in order to re-take the test.  The other school I mentioned only allowed for a single re-take.

Class period passing bells were a definite part of my K-12 learning and teaching experiences.  In some instances, the sounds at the end and beginning of class periods were truly bells and sometimes they were irritating buzzers.  At many colleges (http://100hourboard.org/questions/28670/, accessed March 23, 2018) the time is marked by bells ringing from bell towers.  Ovid-Elsie had no sound signals.  Brian explained that in the principal’s view, bells no longer had a place in a “post-industrial society” and students should be made responsible for tracking time on their own (Zalud, f.n., p.5, 2015).

Throughout the day all of Brian’s classes started the class period with work on vocabulary. I asked him if this activity was school policy.  He told me that part of reason for the work was that this unit on Immigration and Big Business was pushed down from the high school and the teachers there wanted the students familiar with the words’ meanings in order for the high school teachers to use that foundational knowledge for future lessons (Zalud, f.n., p.5, 2015).

My lunch time experiences at the various schools I visited varied quite a bit. Most of the time I brought a sack lunch in the hopes of being flexible to the way teachers operated in their normal school day.  In some schools the teachers ate in the same cafeteria space as their students, most often with a few of their colleagues.  Some teachers never left their classrooms and a teacher or two might drop in to share lunch.  One lunch period featured on ongoing euchre game where cards were played in-between food bites.  At Brian’s school lunch centered around an on-going ping pong tournament. Apparently, there was some dissension amongst the elementary teachers that the middle school teachers were allowed to have a ping pong table but the complaints did not end in the banishment of the game.  Both the euchre and ping pong games helped to provide a stress relief for the day; a break from class schedules and the students.  Still in the background of the games there was on-going teacher chatter about students and upcoming events.

One of those events was discussed at the beginning of Brian’s 5th Period class. The next day the 8th graders were headed to the Clinton County R.E.S.A. (Regional Educational Service Agency).  The import of the field trip was for students to receive information and experience with the Career Tech Center and other programs and services that might help students with future career choices (http://www.ccresa.org/page.php?ID=111, accessed March 23, 2018).  The rest of the class period ran similar to Brian’s other U.S. History classes. There were a few more questions about “push/pull” factors, but the only other difference was the impact of spring sports. At one point about one quarter of Brian’s students left for a track meet.  Brian was not too concerned about these students missing instruction due to the nature of the Web Quest assignment for the day.  These tracksters would simply have to finish their work at home (Zalud, f.n., p.6, 2015).

Brian’s last class was project-based in nature and entitled “Global Studies”.  The class normally had 16 students in it but there were only 12 present this day.  The other four were at the track meet.  To begin the class Brian tossed a ball out to one of the students and each “catcher” would toss the ball to another student, after reporting on some news item they had heard about since yesterday’s class.  Randomness of the ball-tossing served to keep all the students awake and engaged in the activity.  This course featured no real curriculum. The students were allowed to choose from a list of areas of the world to research.  Some students chose to work in small groups, while other students worked alone.  Their projects were then turned into Schoology for sharing and presentation.  One of the features of the class was extensive map work and a project for each continent.  The atmosphere for the class was very relaxed, but the students were definitely engaged in their projects (Zalud, f.n., p.7, 2015).

Video Interview, 2015

Defining Success, 2015

Brian’s definition of success changed somewhat by 2015, although both definitions related to one another.  In 2008 he said seeing the “ah, ha” moments in his students’ faces when they showed they made a connection between different parts of knowledge made him feel successful.  In 2015 he said developing relationships with students was the most important factor.  We walked through the middle school and high school hallways on the way to a ceremony where one of his athletes committed to a college scholarship and students in the hallways called out his name to greet him.  Students came to his classroom voluntarily seeking help, not just with U.S. History, but also with life. In Brian’s words,

“…for a lot of kids that I teach 8^th Grade history is not that important, but having an adult in their life that cares about them is (important) knowing that if something is going on at home…” My father had a stroke last year, the same weekend that I had a kid that had (a father that had a stroke) and we kind of went through the process together and he’s even a freshman and he’ll talk to me about what his dad is doing in recovery versus what mine is and knowing that that kid knows I cared about him and he cared about me, that, to me, is success.  If they remember the branches of government, that’s awesome, but if they know somebody cared about them, I think that’s better” (Zalud, v.t., p.1, 2015).

On the question on whether or he felt his college experience prepared him for success Brian said he was definitely prepared academically and for the actual classroom.  He admitted that no one will be totally prepared for teaching because “when you actually get it, it’s yours” (Zalud, v.t., p.1, 2015).  No program will generate all the potential experiences that teachers encounter and no student teaching placement, no matter how long or how many placements you have, will replicate what teachers face when the ultimate responsibility for what goes on within those walls falls on your individual shoulders.  He still maintained that his two placements in two different schools prepared him much better for the realities of teaching than other teachers received in one placement over 8 to 10 weeks (Zalud, v.t., p.1, 2015).

Challenges, 2015

Brian thought he was lucky.  He thought his school was great and he received great support from the administration.  Even when he went through a time with just one principal in charge of both the high school and the middle school and many responsibilities were thrown on his shoulders, he thought that experience made him a better teacher, especially if he decided to go into administration in the future.  I asked Brian is he shouldered those administrative duties in exchange for release time or a lighter teaching load.  He shook his head, “no”.  At the same time Brian admitted that the science teacher was the main person responsible (he became an elementary principal later) and Brian assisted him in creating teaching schedules and dealing with discipline problems.  That year there existed a very challenging group of 8th graders that Brian described as “mean kids who didn’t even like each other”.  In the process of describing that school year Brian talked about how the team dealt with those challenges, not how he dealt with the problems.  He recognized that teaching success was also defined by working together as a staff and not as an individual.  I think my most challenging years in education happened when we had weak administrators who had a difficult time making decisions and dealing with situations “head on”.  In those cases, many of the teachers became ‘siloed’ in their classrooms and just tried to make it through the year.

Dealing With Stress, 2015

Brian’s first answer in dealing was stress was almost humorous but I knew it was true; Ping Pong.  What that answer really meant was that he worked alongside a group of teachers who supported each other, engaged in social activities like golf, had dinners out and shared their common problems.  Part of that sharing was venting, but Brian also said that along with the “whining” were shared comments about how they dealt with problems in a positive way.  He was aware that the same environment did not exist in all buildings in the district.  I had heard similar comments from another middle school teacher, who, when attending a PD session in an area high school found out that that school’s faculty were basically going it alone.  She could not imagine teaching in a situation like that (Zalud, v.t., p.3, 2015). Brian continued by saying that he needed lunch time to “re-set”.  He did not want to carry the problems created in one class over to the next one and having lunch with his colleagues, playing ping pong and sharing some of the problems of the early day helped him with the stress. Brian also said that some of the teachers get together for a PX90 (https://www.livestrong.com/article/233199-how-to-lose-weight-with-px90/, accessed March 23, 2018), biking or basketball or simply “run it off” (Zalud, v.t., p.3, 2015).

Motivation, 2015

With all the pressures that combine to make teaching a challenge I wanted each graduate to tell me what kept them in the classroom, doing the best possible job for the students under their care.  Brian returned to his earlier comment about establishing positive relationships with his students.  Whether it was joking around with his students, offering life advice or teaching them the history of the United States he was focused on providing skills that would lead to success in life.  He viewed teaching middle schoolers as an advantage over teaching high school because in his view high school students become jaded with their education and are not having as much “fun” as they do as younger students.  With the fact that his textbook was so aged, but with Chromebooks for every child, Brian was motivated by the challenge that technology brought to him.  What new sources and new methods would technology allow that would make him a better teacher and help his students learn new information and new skills?  He was balancing that motivation for teaching with coaching two sports, football at another high school and track at his own, plus his married life and at the same time trying not to work until 10 o’clock at night preparing for the next day and grading today’s papers.

Brian admitted that teaching the same content and being in the same classroom has been an advantage for him.  In the process of not having to change the content he teaches, even with changes in state standards and in technology he was more likely to build upon what he was doing than starting all over again.  Brian stood out in this study in that fact. Other teachers continue to build and innovate but with the added burden of having their teaching assignments changed, in some cases, almost yearly. The record in this study is one woman who has gone through changes between high school and middle school and nine different course preparations in order to keep her job in a district with shrinking enrollment.

I next asked Brian what changes he had seen in the way he taught.  He related that when he started teaching he thought he was fairly accomplished using technology in the classroom but that tech use had increased quite a bit.  He said that his administrator basically said that if teachers were not willing to adapt to the increased use of tech that the teachers better find some other job (Zalud, v.t., p.5-6, 2015).  The fact that the students found “Google Answers” so easily convinced Brian that he now needed to have his students provide “Tell me why answers” (Zalud, v.t., p.6, 2015).  The students had a tough time adapting to the fact that Brian wanted them to think; to analyze, evaluate and create, versus just provide information.

“…they hate it. They hate reading.  They hate writing, but I think it’s going to make them better in the long run.  I know it’s going to make them better…you got to read and you got to write and if you can’t read and write you can’t make it.  And so, by making them read George Washington’s Farewell Address or Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and decipher it, break it down and tell me what it means, they hate doing it, but I hope in the long run they see they’re getting better from me making them do that.  And I hope it’s a life skill.  I know I talked about connections and it doesn’t matter in the long run what they learned about George Washington if they learned a new skill that they can use later in life on something else.  They’re going to get instructions that they don’t know how to do from a boss and they’re going to have to figure things out for their own one day” (Zalud, v.t., p.6, 2015).

So, the students learn the skills versus concentrating on just the knowledge and the connections and concepts with those facts.  How did Brian assess his teaching and evaluate his students’ learning? How did his administrators evaluate Brian’s teaching?  Brian told me the school adopted the policy of pre and post testing.  Brian, with administration approval, used his final exam as the pre-test.  Then he took the results of the final at the end of the year and used them as a way of planning for the next year.  He also used “exit slips” as a more frequent way of monitoring student progress and his teaching.  He used the students ‘bell work’ as a way to monitor his teaching and make changes during the hour.  Based on student answers to the bell work and the exit slips he made changes to his teaching throughout the day.  Brian said that people should not think about making themselves better teachers week-by-week but almost hour-by-hour.

Brian gave two examples of challenges he faced in assessing what he is doing in the classroom and how he adjusted to those changes.  In his 5th Hour class he had a group of girls that wanted to know more about the development of the Texas oil business.  This information was far beyond what the textbooks offered so the students went online to find out more about it.  They were self-motivated and Brian just provided a few deeper questions and a little nudging to help these students in their research. These girls went far beyond Brian’s normal testing and so were “off the charts” in terms of how the evaluation instrument he used with the rest of the class would.  How could he measure his success with that group of girls beyond the fact that they were asking deeper questions and seeking more connections to the information? Brian also told me about an 8th grader who scored so high on the pre-test that he was given a 100% in the course before he even started the semester. This student was already taking math classes at the high school level, but due to the rural nature of the school district and what it could offer based on staff and scheduling, this student could not be offered advanced classes in every subject. Brian thought that online coursework for this advanced student may be the answer but again that avenue did not really answer how well Brian did in terms of helping this student learn (Zalud, v.t., p.7-8, 2015).

The district’s formal teacher evaluation instrument was called 5D (http://mymassp.com/files/04_5D TeacherEvalRubric_no_observables.pdf, accessed March 26, 2018).  Brian said he made goals for himself and then provided information or evidence showing how he met those goals. He also said he was evaluated by his students’ gains based on pre and post-test results.  Last year he had 95% of his students make a 15% gain between the two tests (Zalud, v.t, p.8, 2015).  Like many teachers around the state, and based on the new teaching evaluation models, Brian was told that no teacher in his district would be considered “highly effective”, but rather they would all be labeled “effective”.  Brian was not the only teacher in the state to be incredulous with this decision.  Teachers in the past who were told they were doing an excellent job were arbitrarily told, not based on any truly justifiable evidence, that now they were essentially moved down a rung, just for the sake of setting a new base for future evaluations.  This new evaluation instrument was ushered in at the same time that substantial changes were made in the seniority and tenure laws in the state of Michigan, thus making it easier to remove experienced and more expensive teachers.  In the past the district doled out $50 bonuses to teachers labeled “highly effective” so immediately, even though that sum was small, the district saved some money.  Brian, and presumably other teachers in his district, did not think $50 was much of a reward for superior teaching.  He also said that in the past, in the run-up to state tests the district did much in promoting to the students the importance of the test to the students and their district.  This year the administration was low-key, with no hype. According to Brian this lack of prep and hype existed so the first scores on the new state test would be low so that in resulting years the district would show large gains.  Brian reckoned that the same approach might have been applied to the “effective” versus “highly effective” designation for teachers in that the district would state that after a year’s work on making teachers better they now had evidence that they made their teachers better (Zalud, v.t., p.8, 2015).

The nature of formal evaluations changed for Brian as well.  In the past his administrator would come in for a class, take notes and then share that evaluation with Brian.  Under the new system the principal came in and checked items off on an iPad. There is no appointment set for the evaluation.  It is a “drop-in”, unannounced and the principal was only in the room for 10 or 15 minutes.  Those visits only happened once a year for Brian but he had to submit his lesson plans every week on Monday morning for the upcoming week.  The lesson plan was not detailed and just gave a general outline about what the class would be doing that day, but when the principal walked in he better be able to relate what he saw to what Brian handed in. Brian said there had been times when he had to email the principal and say that the plans for the day or week had changed due to tech problems or some other reason.  He was not sure how those last-minute changes impacted his evaluation (Zalud, v.t., p.9-10, 2015).

Brian explained that his lesson plans must cite the state teaching and learning standards.  At the time of this interview he was concerned about the possibility of standard-based grading.  As an example of what a grading scheme like that may look like he said, “…if a kid doesn’t pass U.5.1.3 they don’t get whatever that is, technically they are not supposed to move on, if we move to that (form of grading).  He had no idea what that would mean at the secondary education level.  In the elementary level, where his wife was teaching, he admitted that she was already involved in a bit of that type of assessment, i.e., if a student was not reading at the third grade level, the student would stay in second grade reading level books.  Brian translated that example into his class by the example that might exist if part of his class successfully passed a test on one section of U.S. History but some of the students did not.  Would those unsuccessful students continue to remediate while the rest of the students moved on? What would a classroom look like if the students were studying different periods or, in many history teachers’ curriculums, different chapters, at the same time?  Brian’s reaction was a system like that could not work.  If one group was studying the Reconstruction while another was still on the Constitutional Convention how would the classroom operate?  There was rumor that Social Studies might have to give up teaching history chronologically in favor of thematic study, but he had no idea how that system might operate (Zalud, v.t., p.10-11, 2015).

Continuing Education, 2015

By the time of my second visit with Brian he had attained his Master’s degree in Administration.  I asked how his graduate education and how professional development outside of his degree contributed to his success in the classroom.  Brian said that due to budget cuts there was no longer any money for him to attend the state’s Social Studies conference.  He said he might be able to pay for the conference himself and the district might pay for his substitute teacher, but, so far, he had not exercised that option.  As a result, his professional development was limited to district-provided sessions and he said that those opportunities were not good. In nine years he had only been allowed to leave for the day two or three times. He thought that the day was well-used.  In trying to appeal to all staff the sessions were so vague, so generic that he did not feel that type of PD made him a better teacher in the long run.

In an attempt to supplement what the district provided Brian joined professional organizations, hoping that their newsletters provided him an opportunity to grow as an educator.  At the time of our interview that hope had not been realized so he was left with local PD. Added to the challenge of continuing professional development was Brian’s commitment to coaching two sports (I witnessed that investment in time and effort resulting in a college scholarship for one of his track athletes during the day) and his chairmanship of the district’s accreditation team.  Those responsibilities resulted in Brian missing at least twelve days of school per year and at that point he faced the quandary that many good teachers face, “Should I leave my students in the care of substitute teacher when I know I do a better job teaching than even a good sub does?”

Brian did allow that his administrative degree did gave him tools for making decisions in the classroom and how to deal with certain student situations.  He also believed that his future might lead to a job as principal or athletic director (many times in smaller rural districts athletic directors also serve as assistant principals/disciplinary directors) so at least his options were open for the future.

I asked him about his county-wide RESA (Regional Education Service Agency) and the PD it provided.  He said that he had received information about programs such as an online testing database, RTI (http://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/what/whatisrti, accessed March 26, 2018), Response to Intervention. There had not been an opportunity to receive any PD regarding his classroom discipline.  In fact, he did not know if the local RESA even had a Social Studies Curriculum Director or consultant.  He did say that the RESA did provide help in aligning his curriculum with the state standards and helping his district coordinate what all teachers teach in Social Studies for each grade level but he had no idea, and, in fact, was somewhat negative about any outside agency contributing or controlling what teachers decided to teach within their individual classrooms (Zalud, v.t., p.12, 2015).

Mentoring, 2015

Brian reminded me from our meeting in 2008 that he had received mentoring help from two teachers, both in his building but neither taught his content, one taught Math and the other taught Science.  While they were helpful with day to day problems and since he was the only person who taught 8th Grade U.S. History he was on his own concerning his content.  He did have help from another rookie teacher who taught 7th Grade, but they dealt with different content.  Brian did attempt to reach out to the teacher who had his classroom before Brian came to Ovid-Elsie.  That teacher had left all his teaching materials. They did have one meeting but then Brian decided after his first year that if he did not use something that person left Brian would throw it away.  Brian thought basically starting from scratch had made him a better teacher.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2015

Brian’s first pearl differed from what he offered in 2008.  He posed the question, “What did we do to become Public Enemy #1? Because I don’t know why, but there is an outcry against (us) that we, as teachers, are doing some wrong and I know there are teachers out there that are evil and awful because you hear about them on the news, you see the stories, but it’s a very small percentage, so be willing and ready for people to give you a hard time about what you are going into, but do it because you love it and that’s what you want to do” (Zalud, v.t., p.14, 2015).

His next pearl concerned teachers’ toolboxes.  His advice there was for new teachers to network as much as possible. Those connections helped Brian to make up for the lack of support he had in his district. He also counseled future teachers to be honest with their students, especially when plans go awry and lessons do not go as planned. The two-way part of building trusting relationships is important and it is just as important for students in realizing that teachers are humans too.  Brian puts stickers from popular culture and photos from trips he has taken on his classroom walls and podium so the students know he has a life outside of school and there are facets of his life that they have experienced and might share as well.  The stickers and photos help in developing teacher-student relationships.  Brian framed the importance of these relationships in this way, “They want to know stuff because, especially in this district I’m in, some of the kids’ home life is awful.  It sucks. They don’t know where mom and dad are.  They don’t know if mom and dad have a job so having a constant adult that they can turn to is assuring for a lot of them. …They might hate you one day because you are enforcing a rule but they are going to respect you for enforcing a rule.  Don’t be wishy-washy. Stick to your guns.  They might hate you, but they will get over it. …It’s worked for me so far.  Brian wanted future teachers to know that they will not be paid for students ‘liking’ them all the time.  Brian’s last bit of advice was to have fun.  On the days when he is tired and he doesn’t want to be in the room, but then he reminds himself that his responsibility and duty is to his students and they are in the room and engaged because a good teacher makes his or her classroom a place the students want to be.  It is a teacher’s job to accept that responsibility and enjoy it (Zalud, v.t., p.15-16, 2015).