A question arose when I started my first research sabbatical in 2008 on whether or not I should know the former GVSU students involved in my research.  One person counseled me that I might be too close since I had some of these students in multiple classes and I would not be able to maintain objectivity.  Another person remarked that since I did know many of these students very well, they would be more open with me about their successes and failures.  Jason was one of the former students that I knew the best out of all the group.  Not knowing that someday I would have him as a student, I was a student in one of his uncle’s classes during my Master’s study at Wichita State.  Dr. Jim Duram was kind enough to make up gaps in the course offerings at Wichita State by sponsoring me for two independent study courses on Constitutional History.  I did not make the connection to Michigan and Grand Valley State when I was recruited by the History Department that their administrative assistant, Michelle Duram, was Jim’s sister-in-law and Jason’s mother.  Jim was not on my list of references, although my transcript from Wichita State was in my file.

Jason was in my teacher-assistant seminar and I did observe him teaching several times at Kelloggsville Middle School.  The first observation stands out in my memory because in the debriefing Jason was obviously very nervous.  As I helped him relax he reminded me of my connections to his family and the importance of living up to their success.  Jason was one of the first examples of a question I was asked when his future principal called me for a reference.  The question: “Would you trust this person with your children (later grandchildren)?”  I answered in the positive.

Jason teaches at Grand Haven High School.  When I entered his classroom in April 2008, I immediately noticed that all the walls, counter tops and tops of cabinets were covered with historical objects. There were even things hanging from the ceiling! There were photos, posters, and maps on the walls; a globe and airplanes hanging from the ceiling.  It was almost sensory overload, but everything was apropos to the World History class he taught.  Jason’s classroom was outfitted with a wall-mounted tv, an expensive pull-down map of the world, two computers for student use, a ceiling mounted projector and a video player.

The school schedule was organized into a six-period day and each period was 57 minutes long.  World History at Grand Haven was a freshmen level class, but there was a smattering of upperclassmen for various reasons.

Jason related that there was not a formalized K-12 social studies curriculum at this time in Grand Haven.  The district followed the state standards, but there was no real coordination amongst the department members due to changes in the curriculum between grades.  He did not say whether that lack of coordination caused any problems with what he was teaching.

When his first period class was starting, he told me that he had a number of special education students in this class and that he teamed with a special education teacher all day long. She would come in and out his classroom during the day, assisting the students when they needed extra help with assignments.

My visit this day was just prior to Spring Break and Jason told me that quite a few students and their families would leave a day or two early and many of them would be late coming back from break.  He also said that quite a few teachers would also extend their Spring Break.  Every teacher is challenged when a fair-sized group of students are absent for whatever reason, sickness, testing or vacations.  What do you do with your lesson plans?  Do you teach what you normally planned for the day and then try to catch up the absent students upon their return?  Does the district have a policy for make-up work?  Whose responsibility is it to make sure these absent students have the same content and skills as those who were present for class?

Class started every day with a quiz, based on the reading homework from the previous day.  Jason asked three questions, plus an extra credit question based on current events. These questions focused on Indian independence, Gandhi, the Salt March, with the extra credit question on the two major religions of India.  These quizzes were peer graded, with Jason double-checking the answers afterwards, thus he had a semi-formal formative assessment on the students’ knowledge and a check to see if they really did their homework reading.

Jason’s posted the agenda on the board and it was jam-packed for 57 minutes:  Quiz, Review Questions, Reading handout on Gandhi, note-taking guide for notes on the lecture, questions on the current notes, a Gandhi video clip that lasted 5 to 7 minutes, a “predictor” question (where was this information heading?) and then time to start the next homework assignment.  The Special Education teacher shared with me that her students had a difficult time answering the summary questions that accompanied the reading homework.

To start the lecture portion of the class Jason posed three questions on the board: What was the caste system?  What two religions conflicted with each other?  Who took over India or “imperialized” India after the fall of the Mughal Empire?  The students appeared to have a good grasp on the caste system, based on a simulation which Jason had conducted in a previous class.  Jason immediately made a comment that related the caste system to interactions between parents and their teenage children and that related to a quote, often wrongly attributed to Gandhi, that Jason projected on the board:  “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” (Associated Press News, https://www.apnews.com/afs:Content:2315880316 accessed October 25, 2019).  The students seemed to connect to this statement.

Next, Jason had students read portions of the handout after he offered a candy bribe for volunteers.  He had more volunteers than he needed. Quickly into the reading Jason made a connection between Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.  The students recognized the connection in philosophy of non-violent resistance but did not necessarily agree with Gandhi’s idea that it was important to bear the consequences of resistance in order to show how the punishment for resistance was necessary to show the injustices of the system.  Throughout the reading Jason helped his students with pronouncing words.  Almost half of his first period class was made up of special needs students. He always complimented his students when they finished reading a portion of the handout.

At this point in the class, Jason made a quick “aside” statement, “Gandhi in a day.  You got to love it” (Duram, f.n., 2008, p.3).  Jason contacted me before I visited his classroom, just after the state had adopted new social studies standards.  He was frustrated with the scope of what he had to teach and, specifically with a meeting the social studies teachers had with a district administrator.  One of the standards for World History involved teaching about the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.  The administrator, concerned about fitting all the “facts” into the school calendar year, stated that 800 years of Roman history could be taught in three days!  Jason was aghast, to say the least, and asked me a question for which I had no answer: “If you were teaching about Rome and given three days to do it, what would you leave out?” I am sure a pacing guide was created and after 46 years in multiple levels of education I am aware that there is a limit for what is taught in a semester or a year or multiple years. Teachers who have the luxury of a well-rounded content course of study in their preparation for teaching, and perhaps you have had graduate level content courses, are inundated with information within multiple courses and semesters.  If they are dedicated to their content and love what they learn and teach, removing information from their storehouse of knowledge and presenting the “nuggets” is painful.  Tough decisions must be made, but students must eventually graduate within a prescribed number of courses and years.  The best argument I have heard is that since we cannot teach everything, we must give our students the tools to learn and apply future information on their own.

Echoing this hoped-for ability, Jason queried his students throughout the lesson, offering possible connections between cultures and histories, connecting the history of India to the United States and to the students’ lives.  One example was the Amritsar Massacre and the Boston Massacre.  He did not focus on the number killed, but rather on the fact that armed authorities fired on an unarmed crowd.  He asked his class why authorities would be fearful of large public gatherings and the students had good responses: fear of overthrow, fear of uprising, fear of organized resistance.  Jason’s method of teaching was fast-paced, full of questions for his students, including both lower and upper-level questions on the Bloom’s taxonomy scale and designed to include as many students as possible.  He entertained many different answers to his questions and was not judgmental in the variety of answers.

Jason’s experience at this point in his career with interdepartmental cooperation was very positive.  Grand Haven had a great group of dedicated social studies teachers who shared information and resources.  Through grant work involving multiple school districts I knew that Grand Haven an outstanding staff. There were common assessments given by the department within units that were multiple choice questions, but the end of unit tests were all essay questions.  These essay questions were shared within the department, as were grading rubrics for these questions.

During his preparation period Jason explained the demographics of the school district. While the lakeshore area of Grand Haven included million-dollar homes the east side of the district included migrant farm worker families whose children may come to school without breakfast.  Finding commonality in his students’ life experiences in order to make connections to his curriculum presented challenges for Jason. Based on my observations it seemed like the students were able relate what he was teaching to their own world.  It was obvious that Jason established a mutual respect for the young people in his classroom, no matter their socio-economic background or their intellectual ability.  He allowed his students time within the class to process the information he presented, despite the fast-paced and varied nature of the lesson that day.  He drew connections to previous days’ lessons, thereby activating the students’ prior knowledge and their ability in discerning similarities and differences between cultures and time periods.

Interview, 2008

Jason echoed the sentiments from the paragraph above in his answer to the first question in the interview: “How do you define success?”

I would define teaching success as the ability to communicate life skills to students; first, and foremost, on how to be successful in life.  Not so much content area right off the bat.  Get the ability to be successful citizens.  My job as a social studies teacher is to get them to participate in their government, understand it, and especially since I teach World History, get them to appreciate other people, and one of our major goals as a social studies department, if we can end hatred around that world, that would be one of the biggest things. If they leave my room with nothing else, but to understand various places, their histories, their cultural backgrounds and have respect for that, we can do away with a lot of problems that have been present in history, but currently we are seeing with some of our students (Duram, v.t., 2008, p.1).

Jason told me he also measured his success based on his students’ test scores.  If they did poorly it reflected on his teaching and he reinforced that he not only wanted his students retaining knowledge but also building skills in applying what they learned to other historical contexts and their lives.

Jason had a firm belief that one of the factors in his teaching success was a college-sponsored trip to Egypt during his undergrad years at GVSU.  He thought it important that his students see how other countries and regions deal with politics, economics and religion from more than an ‘American’ point of view.  He, and his departmental colleagues, wanted to develop in their students a more objective view of the world, outside of Grand Haven, Michigan, United States of America.

Did Jason feel like his university training provided for his success?  The first part of his answer was influenced by his study abroad experience.  He thought that every college student should experience different countries and cultures.  He said that the expense was not that great and the payback in influence in his teaching career was well worth what he did spend.

Content, 2008

Secondly, with one exception, he thought his college professors did an excellent job providing him with a solid content base. The exception was World History.  At the time of his undergraduate education there was a focus on Western Civilization and no requirement for World History. Jason, like many successful teachers, was doing what he had to do to make up for that shortcoming.  This lack of a broader approach to World History was shared with my department and corrections were made to the program in a fairly short time, given the pace of university change.

His comment reminded me of my own training.  Cortland State University, where I received my undergraduate degree, designed a program of study wherein the students were basically history majors, with either a minor in a subject tied into the social studies discipline or a cognate minor involving economics, political science and geography.  After moving to Kansas, I became involved with the state’s revision of the Social Studies standards and I hosted nine student teachers over the years.  To my surprise, several of the state universities only required a total of 15 hours of coursework within the social studies for a degree. I found that there were history teachers who had only six hours of U.S. History and maybe six hours of World History.  This lack of content preparation was made painfully aware to me when I was doing research in late 1990s for my dissertation.  I asked a teacher in a rural school district about a new standard concerning ancient civilizations. A topic was the development of democracy in Ancient Greece and in particular the funeral oration of Pericles.  He had no idea who Pericles was or what the oration had to do with democracy.  He had over thirty years of experience in the classroom.  Part of his lack of knowledge on this subject was clearly on him.  Part of it was due to the fact that even World History from the basis of Western civilizations was not being taught in some schools in Kansas when I arrived in the late 1970’s. Clearly part was due to poor preparation by the university system in Kansas.

Besides the lack of a broad approach to World History Jason said his background in geography also was thin, based on his first-year teaching.  His program of study required only 6 credit hours of geography and he was assigned to teach a geography course at Grand Haven.  In that respect, was his preparation any different from 1970s Kansas?  The same credit hour requirements held true for economics and political science and yet program graduates were teaching economics and civics/government courses in their respective schools.  Social studies presents a problem with its multi-discipline approach.  No college program would entertain the thought of requiring a major or even a minor in each of the components of the discipline, yet teachers are labeled “highly qualified” and certified to teach those topics under the broad “social studies” umbrella.  Some of the solution to this problem rests on the states.  Only by requiring continuing education after graduation, whether it be by ‘professional development’ or graduate hours, will the obvious holes in content background for teachers be filled if they are tasked with teaching those courses.  Part of the responsibility rests on the teachers in that they need to recognize the weaknesses in their preparation and do what they can do through reading, attending conferences and taking coursework outside of maintaining certification to create a sound content background for their teaching.  All of this preparation takes time and money and with the state of teacher pay, student debt and lack of state and federal funding for education today I see no quick solution on any level of this problem.

I asked Jason a more specific follow up question at this point in the interview: what content coursework for his degree was he able to directly apply to his teaching?  Like several of the people in the study he said he kept everything.  At this point he said that the broad study approach was useful for his career because he knew his subject load might change (it did) and the state standards might change (they did).  With his RX or Social Studies certification in the state of Michigan he, and his administration, could bend with changes.  Ironically, he said that there was not one specific college course he directly applied, but it was rather the combination of courses and how he adapted and applied all the acquired knowledge and skills that were most beneficial.  This situation was a commonality amongst the teachers.  In many instances they could not tell me from whom or what course they learned what they taught.  They just knew they learned it within their undergraduate degree.  Jason credited the liberal arts approach at Grand Valley with his ability in combining the body of his content to his classroom.  Another teacher explained that his district only hired people with the Social Studies certification because of the flexibility that person’s degree allowed with changes in the district’s curriculum.  Jason’s first experience with interviews jolted him somewhat when he was told by two districts that they would not hire him because of his Social Studies certification.  Then at the same job fair he was told by different districts that they only hired people with that certification. This was the same answer he received when he was interviewed and hired by Grand Haven.  He told me that one of his colleagues, who had been teaching the same subject for a number of years was switched to a different course load, in part, due to changes in the state’s standards.  That teacher was “excited” for the change.  Jason thought it was healthy for teachers in having a change of course work and not be limited to one subject all day or all year long.  While the school district where I taught in Kansas had a small department, we could have set up the load where one person taught all the same subject throughout the day, but to prevent a stale attitude from developing in a teacher we tried to have each person have three different preparations during the year or semester.

Strategies and Methods, 2008

Jason first response was making sure he was excited about what he taught and part of that was in how he talked.  He stayed away from speaking in a monotone and he definitely was not “dry” in his presentation or his questioning.  He also employed proximity as a way of heading off behavior problems, getting close to the students who might be potential problems. “So, I think the number one thing: if you don’t have control of the class, you don’t have a shot at teaching anybody” (Duram, v.t, 2008, p.4).  He learned through his teacher-assisting and student teaching semesters that he needed to keep his students’ attention. Finally, he said it was important not to get into a rut.  Try various approaches to learning and do not rely on one way to reach students.  Jason modeled that final aspect throughout his classes.  He never went more than five minutes in presenting information without asking a question or promoting discussion about the information he just presented.  The students responded with comments that showed they were paying attention and thinking about what he said.

Next, we discussed whether or not his undergraduate education within the History Department prepared him for teaching writing with his content area.  Jason pointed out that every unit test given at Grand Haven High School had an essay question.  He admitted that, at first, he focused on grammar and spelling and did not concentrate enough on the ideas presented.  He said he got bogged down and essay grading was taking up a huge amount of time. After consulting with another teacher Jason started focusing on three most important expectations for any given assignment and that helped him with lowering the time of grading and sharpened his approach. He thought he did a poor job at grading essays the first few years he taught and he wished he had learned more about creating a grading rubric for writing during his time at GVSU.

The History Department hoped that our graduates would be adept at fostering ‘historical thinking’ in their future students.  There were many examples of this type of thinking in Jason’s classes throughout the day.  Students made connections to other ‘massacres’ in other countries’ histories.  Jason credited his experience in history classes during his college career with developing his own students’ ability in analyzing and applying historical events.  He felt that he never had an instance in his course work where the focus was names, dates and events, but rather, how he might apply what he learned, and what were the causative factors to an event.  Jason used Venn diagrams in his classes in helping his students discern causative factors and what factors might not lead to a particular event.

Simulations were another method used in Jason’s classes. In this particular visit I noticed a visceral reaction in the students when Jason referred to a simulation game, he used demonstrating the caste system in India.  They easily recognized the connection he made from his lecture to the game in which they participated.

Another method that Jason and his colleagues incorporated in their lessons was project-based.  One example involved displaying, through a Power Point presentation the impact of the Industrial Revolution totally with images, with no text allowed.  The project reinforced the power of images in delivering concepts, while at the same time empowering the students’ ability in communicating their thoughts through the images.  He also described plans for a 3D project where the students constructed something relating to history.  Jason admitted that project-based learning did take time away from a tight schedule when it came to meet the teaching standards and at this point the teachers were focusing on shorter term, one class projects versus multi-day lessons. However, he also mentioned that the department was investigating course-long projects which would focus on over-arching themes, thus giving students the opportunity to analyze and explain the impact of historical events over time and then being able to apply those themes to present day current events.

What gaps existed in Jason’s content knowledge when he started his career?  In his first semester he was informed he would be teaching a law class by his principal.  Jason admitted that he was a little “freaked out” due to his lone two college courses in political science, neither of which had a specific law focus.  He was fortunate that the person who had previously taught this law class was able to sit down with Jason and share ideas and resources, especially since the major resource for the course was an outdated textbook. Jason said the other factor that helped him survive and succeed was the fact that Grand Valley prepared him to research and learn.  That ability was a definite asset since his required World History course work at GVSU included almost nothing on ancient civilizations, or any time period involving Chinese, Japanese or Indian history.

Beyond methods and strategies was the actual preparation of lesson plans.  Jason, as with all the rest of the college students in teacher preparation degrees at GVSU and other universities throughout the United States, had to create multi-page, detailed lesson plans. While that work helped him develop the ideas surrounding an effective lesson, Jason found that there was not enough time in the day, with two or three class preparations per semester, to create these long, detailed lessons.  He preferred an outline format, which provided the critical information, without the extra verbiage.  He settled into a system that worked for him.

A lesson planning challenge for Jason was preparing for ‘inclusion’, specifically in his classes where he had large numbers of special needs students.  Most times these students’ Individualized Education Plans (I.E.P.s) required that they leave his classroom when there was a test so that they might receive help and extra time in deciphering the questions. Even with the short daily quizzes the special needs students might leave the classroom for individual help.  In the normal presentation of the lesson and questioning it took more time in explaining the information and related concepts to the point that the non-special needs students became bored due to the pace of the class. Even the non-special needs students required some differentiation in methods and teaching strategies which further complicated the lesson planning process.  A compounding problem was that the special education teacher often did not have the same amount of time during the day for coordinating lesson planning and this person was also tasked with teaching all the other subjects in the curriculum.

An increasing part of a teacher’s job and day has become dealing with the minutiae of teaching; paperwork, emails to parents, forms to be filled out, I.E.P.s and 504 plans read on a daily basis as reminder of accommodations for students.  Jason’s recommendation for future teachers when dealing with minutiae in their daily teaching lives was realizing that no matter what your plans were in the morning for your day, somewhere along the way you will be dealing with chaos and teachers must roll with the punches.  In the words of one of my mentor professors, “Don’t worry, nothing will be all right” with emphasis on the “don’t worry”.  Jason also said that the difficulties of daily teacher life becomes a way for teachers to bond.  By sharing the frustrations and upsets in their daily planned schedule, there was an opportunity for venting and also coming together in the fact that they were all in this situation together and not alone in facing the challenges that teaching brings every day.  Jason offered the advice of having teacher candidates start a practice lesson in a college classroom session and then purposefully interrupting their practice with an announcement, a student walking in tardy, a request from the guidance counselor for students to make up a standardized test or any of another assortment of interruptions teachers face on almost a daily basis.  At that point I told Jason that I was not sure how real I wanted to make my students’ college preparation for fear that they might decide that teaching was not for them.  The best advice to relate to future teachers is that teachers must be flexible and be able to adjust to changing situations, and that is true with almost any profession.

There are some colleges, similar to my experience back in the early 1970s, where students have one student placement in one classroom, sometimes for part of a semester, sometimes for a semester and sometimes for a whole year.  Grand Valley State most often places their students in two different schools, in two different settings (urban, suburban, rural), and at two different grade levels.  Jason did his student assisting semester at Kelloggsville Middle School, not too far from downtown Grand Rapids, and his student teaching in Wayland High School, a bedroom community in a more rural setting south of Grand Rapids.  While Jason said it would have been nice to have a high school placement similar to Grand Haven, both of his placements worked to his advantage when applying for multiple jobs at very different districts.  He had experience with different age groups, different content areas and teachers with different teaching styles.  I was surprised when Jason said he was challenged when dealing with the wealth of the Grand Haven community.  Some people may think that economic well-being means a well-adjusted, focused learner.  While not sharing the details of his challenges with students from the upper socio-economic strata, Jason related that those young people provide their own set of challenges.

He also said that the types of interview questions varied across the spectrum concerning districts with different socio-economic factors and that future teachers should be made aware of the potential for different types of interviews.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2008

Jason’s first “pearl” was when interviewing for a job a person needs to be able to do something besides teach, especially in a smaller district with less resources and a smaller workforce.  I “volunteered” to host the prom in my first year in Kansas.  I was asked to be cheerleading advisor in my first year in New York.  In 2008 Jason was coaching three sports, but included hosting dances, sponsoring clubs, whatever the school needed when it came to applying for a job.  I drove the practice bus for freshmen basketball in Kansas.  I got up at 4:30 in the morning for the entire basketball season, drove almost the entire school district, in order to get 15 players to school by 5:30 for a 6 AM practice.  Economic necessity made me accept that extra duty, but the district also asked me to drive the Varsity basketball game bus and keep score at games. That extra income came in handy while my wife was at home with our two young children.  Jason suggested that student teachers volunteer to help out with duties in their placements in order to prepare for future ‘opportunities’.  That volunteering would serve future teachers well when listed on their resumes.

Jason’s next “pearl” was inviting the principal in for an observation during student teaching.  Teacher candidates, depending on the college program, may have multiple observations by their college professors, but it another set of eyes, with possibly a different perspective, is an added advantage, especially when asking for references for a job application.  In Jason’s case that observation at Wayland paid off because the principal there knew the principal at Grand Haven and that networking helped him get his job. He also suggested that beginning teachers invite their colleagues in for observations.  Jason believed that collegial observations were less tense and less threatening than administrative ones.  Just having any outside observer in your room provides an opportunity for improvement through feedback from a different perspective.

Jason’s next “Number One Thing” was expecting the first year of teaching to be Hell, but it gets easier and better, or at least teachers get used to the challenges.  A major plus for Jason was that his Social Studies colleagues at Grand Haven were more than willing to share their experience and their resources, which was unlike his student teaching experiences.  During student teaching there were more closed doors and individualized focus. “This is my stuff, this is what I did, and you figure out your own stuff” (Duram, v.t., 2008, p.12).  At first Jason resented his classroom teacher’s attitude, but similar to other teachers in this study, that forced self-reliance made Jason a better teacher in the future.  In fact, when handed a packaged curriculum from a teacher who taught a class that Jason took over his first year of teaching, he found out very quickly that what worked for that teacher did not work for him, and he had to go back to square one after initially believing he would have no problem teaching this class.  He had the tools for square one due to his student teaching experience.

Jason’s last bit of advice was to be your own teacher. Follow good teaching practices that apply to any classroom, but find out what style best suits you and your students and then be flexible and be able to adjust to changing situations.

2015

When I returned to Jason’s classroom in 2015 his teaching load had changed.  Now he was teaching six sections of World History. At this point in his career, he experienced the change from his original semester schedule to a trimester schedule and now back to a semester schedule. The physical atmosphere in Jason’s class had not changed over the years, and, in fact, there seemed to be more posters, more models, more motivational signs, many examples of student projects. Jason commented that this change in the schedule had provided some difficulties for his administrators when it came to teacher evaluations in that they were attempting to coordinate his students’ progress in the curriculum based on his previous trimester schedule.  He was not sure how they could make the comparison in student growth due to these two different time scales.  Jason’s succinct comment was that it was a “apples and oranges” approach.

Next Jason commented that he lost up to ten minutes per day doing everything but content: “Capturing Kids’ Hearts”, “Good News” and other educational practices beyond the teaching of World History.  He did not question the potential positive results of these daily practices, just that he knew he was taking time away from an already over-filled World History curriculum.

As per my previous visit he maintained a daily agenda for his classes on his white board, as well as the daily quizzes for his students.  The learning target for the day was “What issues arose in the aftermath of World War II and how did new tensions develop?”  Jason also previewed an essay question for an upcoming student evaluation, as well as the grading rubric for that essay.  Jason led a discussion of the material after a quiz that included extension material. As with my previous visit to his classroom Jason was well versed in the content for his curriculum.  The results for the quiz were very positive.

After the quiz discussion the students worked on some map questions for a few minutes.  They were allowed to partner for this part of the lesson and the entire class engaged in the work with no problems.  Jason affirmed to me that he taught beyond the facts and was more focused on the concepts concerned with his curriculum.  It appeared that the students were well versed in the background information in answering the worksheet questions.

Jason shifted to a Power Point presentation that he had prepared on the events after World War II including the devastation, war crimes trials and the impact of the Occupying Allies.  Several of his students mentioned that they had visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. when the class discussed the war crimes.  Throughout his lecture Jason sprinkled in referrals to prior knowledge his students received from previous lessons, thus strengthening their memories and drawing connections which brought greater meaning to the material.  Within the slide presentation were imbedded good illustrations of propaganda involved in the after-war period.  At this point in the class Jason assigned a “Think, Pair, Share” activity where he asked his students to brainstorm the 5 major developments after World War II.  Students’ responses were as follows: Berlin Wall, not just the physical structure, but also the concepts behind the Wall, the United Nations, the Cold War, the United States as a super power, NATO versus the Warsaw Pact, and nuclear tension.

At this point in the class Jason handed out a study guide for the test on Wednesday, in particular, as in the previous class, an essay question.  He provided the students with an essay template which included the thesis, sub-thesis, introduction, sequence of paragraphs, refutation (defending their argument against opposing viewpoints), and a conclusion.  Jason also reinforced the ideas of providing evidence, sources, correct vocabulary, elaboration, paragraphs and other grammatical conventions.  The overall evaluation included multiple choice questions and the essay. Similar to other districts in this study this evaluation was a common assessment given by all the teachers involved with World History instruction.

In the remaining 11 minutes of the class Jason gave the students time to decide their thesis statement and write their introduction.  He allowed the class to share ideas.  There was an interesting aside by one of the students.  There was a choice of essays and when it became apparent that the majority of the class was focusing on one particular question, this enterprising student announced to his nearby classmates that he would choose the other question that no one else had chosen.  His thought was since he was potentially lone writer on this essay he would be graded more leniently.  Apparently at this point in the semester he had not grown to appreciate Jason’s high standards when it came to answering essays.

Many of the staff and students were wearing red clothing the day I visited in support of a LGBTQ Day.  Jason related that there had been a cultural shift in the Grand Haven community since he started his career there. There was more understanding and tolerance, but at the same time a business owner in the community had posted on Facebook that he would not do business with the LGBTQ community. The Grand Haven city government quickly announced that they supported tolerance.

Similar to my previous visit in 2008, while the students were busy at their desks Jason was in constant motion, helping students and making sure everyone was on task.  The class appeared to be self-focused so there was very little Jason had to do in order to keep the students busy. At the very end of the period Jason reinforced the fact of the upcoming test and foreshadowed the upcoming week’s classes.

During the quiz discussion in Jason’s Second Hour class a student related that her great grandmother was in Auschwitz and that she found the concentration camp tattoo on her great grandmother’s arm during the funeral.  I am not sure of the class reaction to this student’s comment, but it was yet another reminder of the importance of teaching about the Holocaust in United States’ schools, especially since even “Desert Storm” was becoming a distant memory to these students.  World War II may be ancient history to these students born at the end of the 20th Century, but there are many atrocities that should never had been forgotten.

I asked Jason about the map work and he replied that the district has chosen to focus some class time on geographic information due to a lack of knowledge on the students’ part.  If, indeed, there was some basic research by the district in discovering this lack of content knowledge by the student body and then the district and its teachers decided to work on this problem the new goal displayed a commitment to research and data-driven goal-setting instead of simple “flavor of the year” educational reform.  I contacted Jason recently after I finished a rough draft of this chapter and he thought the changes from semester to trimester and back to semester might have been due to semesters being a less costly alternative to trimester schedules.

Throughout the day Jason displayed a good sense of humor with his students.  An atmosphere of respect existed between Jason and his students.  He did not have any major behavioral problems throughout the day and Jason did a good job complimenting students on their contributions to class discussion.  Another positive teaching trait that he displayed throughout the school day was the willingness to admit that he did not know certain facts, thereby implying or directly saying that everyone should continually learn.  He felt pressure as a beginning teacher to present an image of a teacher who knew what he was talking about in order to gain the respect of his students, but realized very quickly that that approach was disingenuous to his students and himself.  Jason explained a situation where one of his students brought in some information which proved Jason incorrect on a part of his teaching lesson.  Like all good teachers, Jason was quick to admit his error and thank the student for finding the correct information.  He thought it was even more important for teachers to be humble today about their knowledge due to the students’ ability to quickly research with tools literally in the palm of their hands.

Jason also did a good job of moving questions around his classes, trying to engage as many students as possible in class discussions.  I was also impressed by the fact that despite some interruptions in some of his classes during the day, Jason incorporated all the important concepts which corresponded to his learning target, no matter how much time was taken away due to disruptions from announcements, students leaving for help, students being called out of class, or staff members entering the classroom to ask a question or a fire drill.

Interview, 2015

Defining Success

Jason thought that one of his keys to success was the combination of coursework he had at GVSU.  While he admitted that there was no way the courses provided him with all the content knowledge he needed to teach the all the assigned subjects, he did say that GVSU prepared him to think and taught him how to prepare for everything he would teach.  A good case in point was a law class assigned to him his first year of teaching.  With just two basic survey level classes in political science he faced the task of teaching a detailed curriculum, well-beyond his college preparation.  Due to his training and his willingness to work hard for his students, he felt that he was successful in teaching that course. What he did take exception with in his preparation was the expectation that a detailed 3 or 4 page lesson plan was necessary to teach every day.  He was not supportive of a “one size fits all” approach to a lesson plan template and he encouraged the idea of finding a format that fit a particular teacher’s needs and abilities.

Jason also took exception with the amount of theory he was required to learn within the College of Education’s coursework.  He implied that there needed to be more done in how a teacher translated the theory in reality based on the differing environments and students which challenge a teacher every day and every year.  Theory only goes so far before a teacher has to face reality.

Returning to his content preparation Jason said because he had the tools to adjust to new content and changing state standards, he was successful in learning new material for the expanded World History requirements, based on the fact that his college preparation focused mainly on Western Civilization.  He admitted that, “…there were a lot of late nights, a lot of extra reading, a lot of collaborating with other people and it really wasn’t just about learning about the information but it was finding resources you could actually teach with” (Duram, v.t., 2015, p.2).

It’s one thing to teach yourself but then, how do I teach this to a 13-14 year old kid who has never…might not really understand even parts of Africa, so if I am going to try to talk about Egypt or I’m going to try to talk about Sudan or whatever and they don’t even know where that is, so now to try to bring that down to a level that actually makes sense and to try to find those materials that they can make or use.  One of the things that I learned was that it’s a process, Year 1, you just continue to get better and the mistakes you make you need to learn from them continually so I’d like to think that I am a lot better at teaching World History now than…just by learning from the mistakes of just the first couple years teaching that class and so, but, yeah, it was a lot of self-teaching (Duram, v.t., 2015, p.2).

Challenges, 2015

Jason said he had a very good experience during his teacher-assisting semester but a shocking experience at the beginning of his student teaching semester.  Two weeks before he was to start student teaching his classroom teacher gave him the class textbook and told Jason that he would take over the class as soon as he started.  He was knocked back on his heels, but rose to the challenge and felt that semester was good preparation for teaching in that teachers are constantly facing changes in teaching, including responsibilities outside of the scope of the curriculum they teach, i.e. chaperoning a dance, selling tickets, sponsoring a club or organization in an area where the teacher has no previous personal experience.

Jason cited time management as a huge challenge.  When he began his career, not including coaching time, his typical day was 7 AM to 4 PM.  There were a few nights when he did not go home until 11 o’clock at night and a few more where he actually slept at the school since he was working so late at night in order to be prepared for the next day.  Jason recently had a student teacher who quickly realized the amount of time necessary in order for a teacher to do the job successfully and commented that he never knew it took that much time to do all the things a good teacher has to do to stay ahead of the work that is required.  Jason admitted that part of ability in successfully coping with the time challenges came from the help and support he received from his colleagues.  He thought a cooperative and supportive atmosphere was unique to Social Studies teachers, versus other departments he had witnessed where teachers are more protective of the resources and materials they build and use in the classroom.

Mentoring, 2015

Jason was assigned a mentor and there was a program that the mentor was to follow, but Jason found that he learned more and received more helpful advice from plain conversations and sharing with his mentor, rather than the proscribed program of mentoring.  He thought the mentoring program put more work on his plate, in his first year, and that is something he did not need, more work.

At this point in the interview Jason made a connection between his student teaching experience and a student teacher he had in his classroom.

And one of the things I learned when I had my student teacher in class was that we were similar in some ways but we had some drastic differences in how we taught and he learned very early on…we actually learn that…I think every student teacher goes through this at some point and I think if you don’t you are not being pushed hard enough.  I had a break down during student teaching about the fourth week in.  I broke down and I said, “I don’t know if I can do this”.  I was burning the candle at both ends.  I was coaching, I was teaching, I was going to class and, “I can’t do it” and the guy I was working with at the time, my mentor teacher sat me down and said, “you need to make a choice.  Either this is yours or it’s not. This is your career.”  And I think sometimes you get coddled so much, kind of…sometimes you have got to step it up.  And I know I had the same thing with the (student) teacher I had.  I came in and I observed a lesson and it was bad.  It was really bad.  He was not organized.  He did not know what was going on and that hadn’t been the case.  He had been getting better but he had a bad day and I pretty much sat him down and said, “this is unacceptable.  Our kids deserve better than that.  I expect you to come back ready to go or I am taking over the class and he, more or less, just needed to be ‘punched in the face’.  “It’s time.  It’s now time and this is my career” and he came back and did a phenomenal job but one of the things we sat down and looked at was his style was trying to mimic mine too much and he realized real quick that he’s not the kind of guy that is going to go out and hold an audience with his jokes or his moving around with discussion.  He had to do more group work and he pulled off things that I’d never in a million years that I would touch because it’s just not me and the same thing we went through so by the time we were done it was cool to see him really develop his own teaching style and that’s what I focused on, “You need to be you.  I need to be me” and the students even realized that because they were like, “whoa, this is different!”  And that’s a good thing, I think.  That shows me that you are actually teaching and you’re not just being somebody else.  You’re being a teacher and an educator (Duram, v.t., p.5-6, 2015).

Dealing with Stress, 2015

Jason’s first response to the question about dealing with the stress that teaching brings was that he exercised, but he quickly followed that comment by saying that teachers should start the day “not wound up”.  In other words, if a teacher begins the day stressed, the day might get much worse very quickly.  He found out that working out before school helped him start the day off right.  Coaching was another way that helped him relieve the stress that accumulated during the day. Another technique Jason used was physically and emotionally getting away from teaching, even if it was only for an hour or two or taking a weekend trip.  He knew that beginning teachers have a steep learning curve, much planning and were always grading student work, but it was still important to get away and re-energize.  Jason also recommended finding students who might help with the more trivial tasks that teachers have, such as organizing a “make-up” work file and writing assignments on the white board.  He thought that having students take part in some of the inner workings of the class, even if these duties were somewhat trivial, helped the students become accountable for their education, and, at the same time, the teacher is freed up for all the other constant duties and responsibilities of the classroom.  Jason felt fortunate that his district has teacher-assistants, students who help with paperwork and other mundane tasks.  He knew that other districts had para-pros that helped with students who struggled with the work or just needed some extra help with their learning, beyond the work of special education para-pros or certified special education teachers.

At this point in the interview, I mentioned to Jason that in my first year of teaching I was engaged, but not married and I thought that was a good thing.  I was concerned that I was so busy with my job that I would not be able to spend enough time as a newlywed in laying the foundation for a good marriage.  It was not that I ignored my fiancée, but she was also student teaching so we both needed time away from each other to focus on our occupations.  Jason agreed to the point that he asked one of the student teachers if she had a ‘significant other’.  He admitted it was a weird question, but he placed the question in the context of the amount of time and effort required of a student teacher and he wanted her to know what she would face during her semester in his classroom.  Work/life balance is an important factor for every teacher’s success in his or her career.

Motivation, 2015

Jason told me that this very question was a topic of conversation in the teachers’ work area recently.  The conversation focused on ways for finding success for struggling students, no matter what their grades were.  Like Jason, many teachers know there are students who are self-learners, need little prodding and basically can be set free to learn on their own.  Jason found his greatest motivation in helping the underperforming students find success in his classroom. He described it as ‘detective work’.  What were the underlying issues, many times not related to academic reasons, for students’ struggles?  One of Jason’s greatest rewards for finding success for these struggling students is to run into them after they graduate and find that they have found success in life.

Strategies and Methods, 2015

First, Jason warned that it is not necessary for teachers to immediately jump on every new idea that comes to education.  It is important to find methods that work for the teaching style for individual teachers, but also be willing to try out new ideas when old methods are not achieving success.  His biggest change was getting students more actively involved in their learning versus passive learning through lecture.  He openly admitted to his classes when he tried out a new idea that it might not be a smooth process at first, but to bear with him and help him work through it.  He said he apologized to his students if the new method did not work as well as he hoped.  He was honest and he implied that he sought student feedback on how this new idea worked in class.

Another change was student assessment.  Jason found multiple ways in using formative and summative assessment with his students in order to get a clear picture of how and what they were learning.  His goal was to match the type of assessment with his learning objectives, whether it be a simple quiz, an essay, a multiple-choice test, Socratic questions or group or individual projects.  Again, he cautioned against changing what teachers do for assessment just for the sake of change.  If a particular method was working for a teacher then that person should not make wholesale changes, but add change through small layers.

His last comment on this question had to do with flexibility.  Teachers should be prepared for failure and how they respond to it.  There were multiple examples from former colleagues during my teacher career and students in my classes at GVSU where they spent hours creating an excellent lesson plan, only to see it totally flop when put into practice.  The ability to adjust on the fly, have a back-up plan if a plan did not work the way a teacher had hoped it would work and, in the case of truly successful teachers, be honest with your students and yourself when ‘well laid plans’ go astray.

Evaluation, 2015

The first method that Jason explained concerning evaluation of his teaching was a feedback sheet that he gave his students at the end of the semester.  He related that when he shared that idea with other teachers, they were not sure they would do something like that.  Jason  even told administrators that he would rather see what his students thought of his teaching than the administrators’ evaluation because the students interacted with him every day.  He admitted he sometimes received student comments like, “don’t give us tests!” but for the most part he received honest answers that made him reflect upon his teaching in a positive and constructive way.  He used a Likert scale of 0 to 5 and short answer, written responses that were open-ended in nature.  The open-ended questions were things like, “What is the most effective teaching strategy I employ? What are my greatest weaknesses as a teacher? What is my greatest strength as a teacher?”  What should I steal (copy) from another teacher?”  In Jason’s estimation if a teacher was afraid of student feedback, then perhaps, that teacher had “some issues” to deal with concerning their teaching and how their teaching was received by their students.

As for administrative evaluations, Jason was usually asked by administrators when was a good time to visit.  He thought that circumstance was a bit contrived, like inviting someone in when something especially interesting was being taught, but Jason’s stance was that any teacher should feel comfortable with anyone coming into their room at any time.  Those longer visits/observations were a thing of the past as by 2015 the “drop-in” was the new method.  The visit might not be announced and it would last only about 15 minutes.  Jason doubted that any administrator had visited his room more than 15 minutes at a time over the last five years before my day long visit in 2015.

My formal observations as a college professor started 10 minutes before the class period, I was observing so that I might be settled in before the next class came in and I stayed for the entire class period.  My de-briefing sessions often lasted 20 to 30 minutes after the class was over and then I typed up my notes and emailed them to the observed student the same day so that I had time to reflect on my notes as I typed and the students had a second opportunity in reacting to what I told them in the de-briefing.  Often, I would add teaching resources and ideas to my emails as well.   Jason also told me that the present evaluation system at his school put more emphasis on the teacher in proving she or he was meeting learning targets or school building or district goals than previous evaluation systems. While this proof may have resulted in better teaching it also served in creating more work for the teachers.  It was typical in my teaching experience that educational reforms often added more work, with little or no recognition by administrators that teachers already had a tremendous amount of paperwork. Jason did not think the new system measured up to the feedback he received from his students.  Jason thought learning targets served more as a ‘checklist’ of items to accomplish and did not indicate whether or not the students were learning information to the point where they can utilize and apply what they learned.

In administrators’ defense Jason thought they were overworked when observations were combined with all the daily and sometimes unpredictable events in administrators’ days.  The sheer number of teacher evaluations, even with a 15-minute limit, coupled with the many and varied form of discipline problems, many types of communication required with the public in general, parents in specific and increasing number of state guidelines and laws dictated a busy daily schedule for any administrator.

Continuing Education, 2015

Four years previous to my visit Jason completed his graduate degree in Secondary Education.  He continued to take graduate level coursework, but he said the most useful continuing education was the opportunity to meet with his colleagues.

The best professional development I ever had, the opportunity, we finally had, we knew we had to make some changes to our World History curriculum. We asked for a one-day pull-out.  In that 6 hours of time, every teacher that was in there, we felt we learned so much. We stole so much. We got so many new ideas that I felt like I left that as such a better teacher than when I entered, so much better than anything I have ever been a part of… But really just meeting with other people who do what you do is really a great opportunity to get us professional development so we’ve talked about it a lot of times as teachers, the real formal professional development I can’t say that it has been all that awesome for me. What’s really great is when I just get an opportunity to sit down, sometimes we just sit at a restaurant and bounce ideas off each other, “What’s working for you, what’s not?” Those are the professional conversations that really benefit us as educators  (Duram, v.t., p.11, 2015).

Pearls of Wisdom, 2015

Jason started with an answer shared by many teachers in this study: “(Teaching) is going to be way more work than you think it’s going to be” (Duram, v.t., 2015, p.12).  Budgeting time for completing teaching duties and responsibilities is a must, as well as keeping organized.  Much of teaching time is taken up in lesson preparation and then molding those lessons to fit your teaching style and the learning capabilities of your students.  At the same time new teachers must hold out the hope that even though the first few years may be exhausting things do get better. Successful teachers develop great lessons which need only some minor adjustment versus wholesale reinvention.  Time budgeting and organization improve.  Flexibility and adjustment skills are refined.  Successful teachers need to find that balance between setting standards for behavior and work in the classroom and finding ways to have fun while teaching and learning with your students.

Jason’s last pearl was very positive, both for people who decide teaching is not for them and for people who decide to dedicate their lives to the profession.

Teaching is a great career and I absolutely love it and I enjoy every day and I tell students and we actually do this for our “College Days” for our students,  “Why did you go into teaching?”  “Why did college prepare you?” and for me it is always typically you have 3 or 4 types of people.  You have people who want power, people who want money, people who want to enjoy their career and then you have people who are forced into working, for whatever reasons those be, and you’re not going to make a lot money as a teacher.  The power sure is not there.  And so what you get is you better like what you do and I would say to any student teacher, and, again, another “Pearl of Wisdom”, if you get done student teaching and you’re like, “I don’t know”, there’s nothing wrong with saying “That’s not for me”.  That happens all the time, and even with 3rd and 4th year teachers, if it’s not for you.  There’s a lot of great people who want jobs.  Let them in and let them have it (teaching) and (you) go on to a new career and do something else and say, “Well, I invested this time…” because 30 or 40 years is a long doggone time so if it’s not for you, it’s not for you.  My wife had a roommate in college. She did her student teaching and she said, “It’s just not for me”.  And she went and she’s very successful in another career now and she realized that it just wasn’t going to work for her, and so I would say know when it’s not the right fit, but if it is, man, give everything you’ve got to it and have a ball (Duram, v.t., 2015, p.30-31).