Jordan Beel told me during my first round of observations and interviews in 2008 that his educational goal was not becoming an administrator.  Since that first meeting, he became the assistant principal in the West Ottawa School District, the tech leader in that same district and now he is the principal at Hudsonville High School, where he attended and graduated before attending Grand Valley State University (GVSU).

Back in 2008 Jordan’s first class of the day was “American History and Culture,” an elective class at Lowell High School, where Jordan started his teaching career. This course was based on a course at Forest Hills High School created by Jordan’s classroom teacher when Jordan was student teaching.  The students had to fulfill their freshmen and sophomore history requirements before being allowed to sign up for this course.  In that way, they would have some background knowledge which would help as they dealt with the information in this upper-level course.

After a brief introduction Jordan moved his class into a computer lab, which was designated for the Social Studies Department use.  A few years ago, the Lowell District decided to buy computers instead of new textbooks. As with most technology the computers at this point were outdated and operated slowly. Jordan told me later that the tech was going to be updated soon. What textbooks Jordan did have for use were outdated. The last chapter of this text was entitled, “The Beginnings of the Space Age.”  While he thought the Social Studies Department got the worst end of the deal, it did appear that the lab was used frequently.

This was the second week of the trimester schedule which was new to Lowell this year, and the teachers were still adjusting to the change from semester long classes to twelve-week classes.  The class periods were 69 minutes long with a seven-minute passing period.  The first trimester had five-minute passing periods but there were so many tardies in the large high school building that the administration decided to cut a few minutes from each class and move to a longer passing period. The previous year the school was on block scheduling for a semester, which featured a ten-minute passing period.  Jordan did not say that the change in schedules was causing huge problems. Several teachers in this study were dealing with schedule changes, either switching to trimesters or switching back to semester schedules. The common theme amongst those teachers dealing with the change in schedules was the amount of  time the teachers had to put in adjusting how they taught and that was no minor challenge.  Jordan also commented that much of what the students received in classes with a twelve-week time limit was surface knowledge. The pace was so quick that the depth of coverage was being heavily sacrificed. I had witnessed the same type of coverage both in and outside of the state of Michigan in schools working on a trimester schedule. New teachers, with the recent experience of college coursework, had trouble tailoring the depth of knowledge high school students need compared to what their college experience offered.

Jordan had his students watch the movie Downfall, a docudrama about Hitler’s last days. The movie was in German with English subtitles.  Jordan had the students view the movie and then asked his students to test the historical validity of the facts presented.  He made the point that for certain generations the main exposure to historical events was through movies and he implied that it was important for students to develop critical thinking skills now so they were more discerning adults in the future.  This was no easy task.  Jordan said the information present was very accurate and that the students had to dig out facts.  The other films the students were going to watch had far more inaccuracies which would make their fact-checking much easier.  Jordan handed out study packets for the movie, which included a cast list, some history, a list of events and the geography involved.  The end product was a group presentation that was to last six to eight minutes. The presentation could take the form of skit, poster board, video, PowerPoint or any other type of model, as long as it was approved by Jordan.  He limited his students to using only one PowerPoint presentation per trimester, encouraging them to use other methods of presentation. Jordan included a grading rubric for his students, which included peer analysis. A critical analysis sheet was also a part of the packet. That sheet would assist the students in separating fact from fiction, detecting bias and then prompted student opinions.

A problem which occurred early on in the process was the school’s web blocking software. Jordan discovered that the movie was blocked from streaming and yet there was nothing he knew of in the movie which was offensive. Blocking software is often set to key words, as I found out in the process of communicating with my major advisor at Kansas State University, while I was using my school computer as I was teaching at Circle High School in Kansas.  I received notification from our technology person that I had violated the web blocking software so I went to his office to find out why.  He scanned the website and found out that since my major area of study, “Educational Computing, Design and Telecommunication” was under the direction of a section of the College Education which included “Adult” Education the word adult was the guilty party.  I will let the reader make the connection to adult and why that key word caused a block. Apparently Jordan was able to have the movie unblocked after consulting with the technology staff.

As the students set to work, it appeared they were all thoroughly engaged in the lesson.  Most of them were on computers. Several of them were working on a poster presentation. They had to storyboard their presentation for Jordan’s approval before working on the final product.

Jordan had another elective course, entitled “United States History: The 20s and 30s.” Contrasting with the class I was now observing, Jordan said the U.S. History class was more of dumping ground for students with holes in their schedules and thus those students were less engaged in learning than the ones that chose Jordan’s Culture class. This fact was reinforced when a new student walked into Jordan’s class, saying that she/he had just transferred in from another class, two weeks into the trimester.  Two weeks in a trimester schedule equals a month of classes in a regular semester schedule and Jordan said that based on the counseling department’s own rules, this transfer was not supposed to happen.  It sounded like a dumping ground situation to me.

Jordan’s second period class was Western Civilization.  The class quickly took a quiz and then headed to the simulation lab in order to engage in a trench warfare simulation. This class had three units for the 12-week trimester: World War I, the rise and fall of Hitler’s Germany and Russian history from Peter the Great to Stalin.  This was the last year for the Western Civilization class as the new state standards were going into effect next year and the class would then be entitled “World History and Geography.”

Jordan’s classroom featured many posters and pictures which corresponded to the material being taught in his classes, including a Core Democratic Values poster. Instead of a pull-down map of the world, Jordan had a map of Western Europe drawn on one of his white boards with permanent marker.  He could still write notes on the board if he needed the space, but he could also seamlessly draw on the map if his lesson required a geographic location, without wasting the time (and sometimes the mystery and technical problems) of pulling down a map.  He related to me that all the classrooms next year would be equipped with ceiling-mounted computer projectors but at this time only three classrooms in the building had projectors, and those were on mobile carts.

The trench warfare website was from the BBC and the students had to take the role of a British cavalry commander.  There were no other choices for roles. This role required the students to set up attacks or defenses based on various scenarios, such as choosing weapons and other supplies.  One of the scenarios would always result in failure and massive casualties, no matter what options the commander chose.  The choice of a cavalry commander was in direct contrast to the new level of technological warfare that was posed in World War I; horses versus machine guns and massed artillery.  Jordan immediately referred his students to their prior knowledge from yesterday’s class which discussed new warfare technology.  After that brief introduction to the simulation Jordan handed out sheets for the students to record their choices of weapons and supplies and the results of the simulation.  He made the students responsible for their actions and learning.  Although there were enough computers for every student, these older models were beginning to break down so he was not certain if all his students would have their own computer throughout the lesson. As it was, the computers kept on working and the students were engaged throughout the rest of the class in the simulation.

Jordan’s next class was an elective filled with third trimester seniors.  There was quite a bit of  “senioritis” evident and since this course was not required these students were difficult to motivate, a challenging situation for him.  Countering that challenge was the fact that in order to enter this elective class the students had to have decent grades and a sound content background so the class acted as a kind of reward for students’ past academic behavior. Although this class was set on a looser structure than his other classes, the packet Jordan handed out and his explanation for today’s lesson made it seem like there was a decent amount of academic rigor involved. The annual report for Lowell Schools showed high marks on state tests, as well as a high percentage of students continuing on to college.  There was a district and community-wide expectation for academic success.

Throughout the day Jordan reinforced higher level thinking skills.  In this class he asked his students to critically analyze the impact of pop culture on society, especially the movie media.  He allowed a fairly wide latitude in terms of student projects, reinforcing that he wanted the students to be creative and “take ownership” of their learning, a common theme in all his classes.  Every class was engaged in their lessons and there was an obvious two-way respect between Jordan and his students.  His classroom management style was low-key and there was no need for an assertive discipline style.

Interview, 2008

Jordan’s was a Social Studies major with a History emphasis and a Computer Science minor.  He was fortunate in teaching only one of the three elective classes taught at Lowell High School this year, “History and American Culture through Film.”  He felt honored to be chosen to teach this elective which he proposed last year.  This year was his third year of his career. He also taught Western Civilization, freshman Economics, a freshman U.S. History course, which studied the years from the Gilded Age to 1900 and a sophomore U.S. History course, which spanned the time from 1945 to the present.

Defining Success, 2008

Jordan thought success could be defined in many different ways but he told his students in all his classes on the first day of class that his intention was not to make everyone love history or become a historian, but to enjoy learning in his classroom and get the content they need to be successful in life.  One of his markers for success was when students told him that they did not like history classes before taking him, but now they did.  In Jordan’s words, “success, it seems like every class has a different definition of it, but as long as they can be in here and can leave class maybe knowing a little bit more than they did and having a good time doing it, but still learning that material in here, that defines success for my classes.” (Beel, v.t., 2008, p.1)

One way he reached success was by being enthusiastic in his teaching and about the material he was teaching. He argued that future teachers need that enthusiasm about everything they teach or they should not be teaching it.  He felt good when students commented, “You must really like this stuff!”: especially when he inwardly was not that excited about some of the material, but his students still saw his enthusiasm.  He admitted that teachers have to be actors on a stage at times, but with the change in teaching from lecture to more student-centered learning, part of the “sage on the stage” approach changed to individual relationships with students as teachers work on providing support for student project-based learning.

Content, 2008

Next, I asked him if GVSU helped prepare him for success in the classroom, both from the content side and the pedagogy side. He admitted, like other teachers in this study, that he might have focused on his upper-level courses a little more if he had known how that material directly applied to the future courses he would be teaching, but he also said that no teacher knows what they might teach after they graduate from college.  He pointed to the necessity of constantly learning on the job in order to keep up with new research and changing standards. He said he had great professors in his undergrad years, but it was necessary to immerse yourself in your subject once a teacher finds out what their teaching assignment is for the year.  He related that his first year of teaching involved re-learning what he learned in college.  He was a fan of student-centered learning because that meant that they would become masters of the content in the process of teaching their classmates about history through student presentations.

As far as specific content learned in his major, much of what he learned at GVSU he directly applied to his high school history classes: specifically how he used simulations in his Western Civilization class in teaching about the French Revolution, and the application of content from his upper-level college course on Nazi Germany.  Jordan supported the idea of future teachers taking a wide range of coursework based on the idea that they might teach many different courses during their careers, but he also thought having colleges align their courses based on state standards was a good idea.

Strategies and Methods, 2008

Jordan said he saw direct application of strategies and methods from his college experience in terms of lessons which involved student-centered learning.  He mentioned History Alive™ as an example of activities that provided more active learning.  Jordan admitted that a certain amount of lecture was still necessary in order to prepare students for college-level classes such as history coursework, but he thought students succeeded a bit more when they owned what they learned.  If they adopted the responsibility for their education, led discussions, and were asked higher level questions, more learning would take place versus rote memorization and regurgitation.

I asked him if his history coursework in college provided those types of experiences and his answer was “yes and no”.  Some of his history professors were more traditional with lecture and notes and some professors incorporated a more student-driven format. Both formats did showcase one of his main goals, the necessity for promoting critical thinking.  At this point Jordan brought in the importance of using primary source documents and how students should analyze the material, adopt a thesis and then defend that idea with evidence from the source.  He thought his college experience provided an excellent foundation for that approach in his high school classes.  Jordan also explained that college provided him the tools to bolster areas of content in which he might not have a solid background.  He had to teach himself some material and he knew what it took to learn and then utilize that information in an effective way in his classroom.

Jordan was concerned about the impact of standardized testing. The phrase “a mile wide but an inch deep” came out.  Although he was concerned about how standardized tests might limit the depth of knowledge and the ability of teachers in employing higher level thinking skills, he was optimistic that teachers would find a way in continuing that mode of teaching and learning in their classrooms.

By this time in Jordan’s third year of teaching he was responsible for six different teaching preparations. Most of the coursework was history, but the concentrations of those courses varied over time and location so those courses were truly different and involved teaching different ages and groups of students.  Like more than a few of the teachers in this study Jordan was also dealing with a change in the teaching schedule, from semester to trimester.  He was also preparing, based on a change of state standards and curriculum, for a World 2 course, which would start chronologically with the Renaissance and proceed to modern day; twelve weeks to study and learn about everything that happened from 15th and 16th centuries to today.  We both thought that span of years and events in a trimester schedule was daunting.

Next, I asked Jordan what areas of weakness in terms of strategies and methods he thought he had as he started his career.  His first comment was that he was so concerned about communicating content that the idea of differentiated instruction for the various students under his care and guidance and tooling lessons for their ability levels might have been forgotten. Jordan’s answer to the overall question of his preparation was positive. He said that he was well-versed in all the terms and methods which arose in discussions and professional development at his school. Jordan said he was fortunate to have good mentors, especially his classroom teacher at Forest Hills.  He was also fortunate for having a team-teaching experience with a special education teacher his first year at Lowell.  Those experienced teachers brought strategies to Jordan’s classes for developing reading skills, using different lesson presentation methods and organizational methods, which not only applied to the special education students in his classes, but which Jordan also applied to his other students in ways that improved his teaching and their learning.

A common theme arose concerning a course which all future teachers required to take at GVSU, Content Literacy.  Jordan joined with other grads in saying that the course was focused on elementary reading materials and abilities.  He was fortunate that he was paired with another future secondary teacher for a class project so they created their project based on their future teaching assignment.  We discussed ways in which content literacy might be folded into other course work, such as the Social Studies Methods course and the Capstone course.  I put that suggestion into operation in my future classes by mentioning various works which might be used in teaching 6th through 12th graders and how those readings might be employed through various methods.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2008

Jordan’s first pearl was “Don’t leave (college) without knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel” (Beel, v.t., 2008, p.10). All the seminars and course work in college really does prepare a person for teaching, but the first year will be challenging and you just have to work through it.  He cautioned future teachers to keep everything from their college classes because those resources might be useful as they scramble to prepare lessons in their first few years of teaching.  Jordan said that new teachers should plan on getting to school early and staying late. His first year he arrived at least an hour before school started and often stayed until 6 at night.  He also advised when preparing lesson plans, try to change things up and do not just repeat what worked last semester and year. Make it better.

Interview, 2015

Defining Success

Before my second round of interviews, I sent all the teachers my field notes and links to their videos so they might reflect on what they said and how those notes and their words might have changed over seven years.  Jordan’s first comment was that he noticed he concentrated on the importance of content when defining success in the classroom in 2008.  In 2015 he shifted to developing relationships with the students.  I think those relationships were just as important to him in 2008, based on my time in his classroom and how he talked about his students. Jordan was just more open about creating trust and rapport with the students under his care and guidance. He went further though and said it really didn’t matter how well a teacher knew his or her content or how well she or he invoked best practices. In Jordan’s words,

“It doesn’t matter how much you know your content.  It doesn’t matter how much you know every best practice strategy.  It starts with relationships in the classroom and the best teachers that I see here (at West Ottawa) and the best teachers that I worked with at Lowell too, are the ones who know how to maintain and develop and grow that relationship and they’re the ones who kids come back and visit after they graduate. …I define ‘success’ as the students come in and they can learn because they trust you because they have that relationship with you and they know that you care about (their) success.” (Beel, v.t., 2015, p. 1)

Jordan appreciated the fact that the education and skills he gained for both his undergrad and grad degrees at GVSU provided for his success.  Another aspect of his definition of success was the ability in continuing to learn. He was an administrator who learned from the teachers.  He recognized their experience and knowledge and thought it was important to listen and seek advice from them.

Jordan still considered himself a teacher, as did all of the people in this study who had left the classroom, either to become administrators, enter another level of education or enter private business or the military.  Part of Jordan’s responsibility at West Ottawa was dealing with behavior issues and he considered those meetings to be learning opportunities. He also was responsible for evaluating teachers and he told them that his job was supporting them.  Jordan took on another role, along with his duties as assistant principal. Based on the fact that he was a computer science minor during his undergrad years, he was leading the effort on using tech in the classroom.  He became certified as a Google Certified Educator. He led trainings for the teachers and administrators, but he did not necessarily push teachers in becoming more tech-savvy.  He knew the workload that teachers faced and did not want to add to that unless they asked for support. He paraphrased a quote he found on a Twitter feed that said, “There’s only two jobs in schools. You’re either a teacher or you’re supporting teachers” (Beel, v.t., 2015, p.2). His support might include some difficult conversations with students and teachers, but he saw those situations as creating better outcomes for both groups.

Challenges, 2015

Jordan thought his biggest challenge was dealing with student apathy.  He admitted that he did not have any quantitative data to support this thought but from an anecdotal point of view he said that good teachers are spending more time on helping students learn how to learn and how those teachers make the connections with students so that they might fight through their apathy.  On the other hand, Jordan thought that a teacher who trumpets the fact that he or she is the expert and the students who do not choose to learn the way they teach are at fault.  Jordan believed that part of this student apathy came from their belief that they could just look something up and they didn’t need a teacher to impart information.  Students did not see the need for memorization. Jordan said that the shift in education in the last ten years has been towards teaching students how to think critically with all the information within their grasp.  It was more important now for students to be able to judge bad versus good information and then form opinions and articulate their thoughts through the use of evidence.  Jordan supported the Common Core standards based on their emphasis on skill development.

Jordan re-stated his biggest challenge was helping teachers adjust to the change from being an expert on content and delivering that knowledge to a person who helps students learn information, analyze what they have learned and then apply the information in a meaningful way in their lives.  Present-day education should not be helping students memorize information for a standardized test.  He stated that the present testing scheme did not measure the skills needed for the 21st Century.

Another challenge for Jordan was the difference in students every year.  A standardized test does not necessary apply to differences in students. “…How do we make decisions curriculum-wise and instructionally that are best for students even though we have to worry about the high stakes testing too” (Beel, v.t., 2015, p.4)?

Dealing With Stress, 2015

“Have fun on the job!”  Jordan tries to maintain a positive attitude.  He admitted that some days were better than others.  He had a great wife and young children and he looked forward to going home at night and sharing time with his family.  Family kept him focused on the important things in life and once he had children, his focus changed.  He wanted to make things better for other children beyond his own.  He knew that education had to change from his experience in high school because his children and students’ future education and jobs were going to be different from the world he faced when he graduated from high school.  He admitted that being an administrator was a bit more stressful than being a teacher. He played basketball and listened to music to de-stress. He also said that it helped that he had a great administrative team to work with at West Ottawa.  Jordan appreciated the fact that he worked with the same group of students throughout their high school careers, from freshmen year until they graduated.  He implied that working with that same caseload of students made his job easier because he could develop strong relationships with that cohort.

I agree with that idea.  I taught in a medium-sized high school in Kansas for 24 years and most years I taught 10th, 11th and 12th graders.  I had an opportunity to learn more about them, how they learned and what stresses they faced in their lives and with that knowledge I believe I was a better teacher and a better person.  Likewise, I taught sophomores, juniors and seniors at GVSU and those contact points allowed me to see their growth, their worries and stress points and they got a chance to know me and how I might best help them become teachers.

Motivation, 2015

Jordan returned to the fact that once he had his own children his frame of reference changed.  His desire for making school and the system of education as good as it could be now had a personal motivation.  This is not to say that he was any less focused before he had a family, but now his determination was even greater. “If I’m not looking at every kid who walks through the doors here like my own kid, then shame on me” (Beel, v.t., 2015, p.6).  Jordan referred to a quote used by the high school principal at the beginning of year. “Think about a child in your life who is most important to you. It might be your own kids or it might be a niece or nephew, or whatever and what would you want for them coming into school.  Right?  How would you want their school experience to be” Beel, v.t., 2015, p.6) The teachers at the meeting then had a conversation about what that effort might look like and then the principal said, “Then how dare we not do that for everybody (Beel, v.t., 2015, p.6)

So that’s what’s keeps me going.  Every kid who walks in here is someone else’s son or daughter that wants the best for them so without wearing your heart on your sleeve and taking it home with you because that would drive you nuts, you still try to treat every student the way you would want your own child to be treated at school.  So, I think that’s what’s keeps me going because I think we can still have a really, really big impact and you see that every year with these stories at graduation we recognize these students for various things and oftentimes you hear these stories and like, “Wow! This is why we do what we do.  At the high school level, it’s kind of cool because we get to see the culmination of that.  One of the reasons why I always liked this level and I never really worked at, other than student assisting at any other level, but that’s such a great thing every year to see the celebration and the reward and everybody carrying their diploma so that’s what keeps me going. (Beel, v.t., 2015, p.6)

Jordan then said that he told the teachers he worked with that the highest form of praise they can receive is “I hope you are still teaching when my kids are in high school because I want them to have you” (Beel, v.t., 2015, p.7).  That statement brought me back to the day in 2001 when I resigned my teaching position from Circle High School. I gave my letter of resignation to the high school principal, and then, after the next school board meeting, he contacted me and said there was a bit of a problem.  He said that the board was not unanimous in accepting my letter. Two of the board members voted not to accept it because I had not yet taught their children.  That statement still humbles me and makes me profoundly content that I chose the right profession.

Strategies and Methods, 2015

Jordan admitted that when he first started his career he was focused on the content. His appreciation for the study of history had not changed but the way he approached teaching it and, now as an assistant principal working with the Social Studies Department, had changed.  While he was teaching, he constantly questioned himself and others on how they could make their lessons better. He moved towards skill-based learning, such as analyzing primary source documents.

He also told me that he was becoming more data-driven and when he came to West Ottawa, he found an atmosphere of collaboration where the teachers used common assessments, both formative and summative, that led them to ways of making constant improvement in what and how they taught.  He was no longer just focused on how to make standardized test scores better, but how to best teach the many different students under his care and guidance, more successfully.  The aim of his school district was preparing students to be college-, career- and life-ready.

Evaluations, 2015

Jordan was not sure the evaluation process in his first teaching position made him a better teacher.  He was observed several times by an administrator and they discussed things like putting a daily agenda on the board, but Jordan said he became a better teacher because of conversations he had with colleagues.  Team-teaching was another approach that improved his teaching. The ability to share in real time the positives and negative outcomes of a lesson helped him improve in the classroom.  A checklist approach to teacher evaluation, which his first school used at that time, did not make a big difference in improving his teaching.

The evaluation process, now that he was in a different district and acting as an administrator, changed.  Every teacher was evaluated every year.  The process was not centered on the years before tenure, as it was when he started teaching.  West Ottawa had two full-period observations and two unscheduled “drop-ins”.  These evaluations were based on the Charlotte Danielson model.  He used a mobile application called TeachScape, where he aligned the evidence he observed to components in the Danielson model, scored it and then provided feedback.  The formal evaluations were prefaced by meetings discussing the upcoming lesson plan and then follow-up post observation meetings discussing how the lesson went.  Jordan saw his role as one of support.

Another facet of evaluation in his district was Professional Growth Plans or PGP.  Teachers submitted those plans in the fall and then their movement toward fulfilling those plans were discussed throughout the year.  For Jordan, these conversations centered around how he might assist teachers in meeting their goals.

As one of the assistant principals Jordan was assigned 25 teachers for evaluation.  Three of them had consistently received “highly effective” ratings over the past two years and based on state guidelines they no longer had to have yearly observations. That still meant that his caseload was 22 teachers, which involved two formal evaluations, pre-observation and post-observation meetings, as well as two drop-in observations. Even with a mobile application on his laptop, with clickable Danielson guidelines, that was still a heavy workload. Jordan’s view of this process was that of an opportunity for conversations about what constituted good teaching.  Out of those conversations Jordan suggested a new way to share information on teaching, the West Ottawa Academy or WOA.  Teachers in the district would now present their expertise and ideas to fellow colleagues, with the idea that the district teachers knew the presenters and could see the local impact of the strategies they used in their classrooms.  No more relying on an outside presenter for providing professional development, who might not teach in the same educational environment and might not have data that would be useful for the climate in West Ottawa.  These sessions were voluntary and there were choices of sessions for the teachers. No more “one size fits all” professional development from an outside expert.  Jordan thought that this approach provided a more positive atmosphere for risk-taking and hoped for improvement in teaching. It supported the idea that it was worth taking a risk, even if a new idea failed, because it was all in the effort for improving how students learned. While the formal evaluation process was part of the process, Jordan thought that promoting collegiality and professional in-house development was a better method of improving teaching and learning.

Mentoring, 2015

At Lowell, Jordan was matched with a tenured, experienced teacher in the Social Studies Department, who acted as a colleague and friend as well as a mentor. She offered him advice on school policies and the daily business of teaching.  The relationship was informal and helpful for a beginning teacher.  Jordan also had to meet every other month or so with other beginning teachers at the Administration Offices in order to set goals for their first year of teaching.  He only had a vague memory of those meetings and doubted the effectiveness of the time spent in those meetings, while admitting that it was a long time ago and memories blurred.  He did recall developing relationships with other first year teachers in the district, even if they did not teach in the same building as he did.

West Ottawa was different in that mentors were assigned within their departments so teachers might receive content mentoring as well as advice on daily operations and school policy. West Ottawa attempted to match the best teachers with the beginning teachers.  Another feature of the school district was a program entitled “Student Labs.”  Substitute teachers were procured for first year teachers and those teachers would follow a student through her or his school day.  The teachers were to act as if they were students. If the students took notes, the teacher took notes.  If the students took a quiz, the teacher took the quiz and, in that way, the teacher would experience what a school day meant for the students.  The teachers might even dress like a student for the day, complete with jeans and a backpack.  After that experience the teacher would make a presentation based on their experience to the rest of the staff at the next staff meeting.  Most of the presentations were positive, and some of the presentations were eye-opening because even if these new teachers were not long removed from their high school days, they had forgotten what life was like for high school students. Even though Jordan was very positive about what West Ottawa was doing in helping new teachers adapt to their careers, similar to his feelings about teaching, he thought there were still ways in which mentoring might be improved.

Continuing Education, 2015

I started this question off in the interview by saying that many of the teachers in this study had negative reactions to most professional development in their districts.  Jordan agreed that sometimes bringing in outside experts and ‘one size fits all’ sessions was probably not the best model and that is why the West Ottawa Academy was a good idea.  Teachers were more likely in accepting knowledge and advice from a fellow colleague they knew versus an unknown person from outside the district.

Jordan thought his graduate work at GVSU was “very real world.”  Many of the classes were taught by current or retired administrators who focused on practice versus theory.  Along those lines he had a funny story about his interview at Lowell when he started his career.  One of the questions by the interviewers was, “Where do you see yourself in ten years?”  Jordan’s father had been a principal for as long as Jordan could remember and the thought of reliving his father’s responsibilities and duties was not something Jordan was interested in doing. His response was, “I am never going to be a principal.”  He wanted to teach A.P. History, and coach football and basketball.  He saw himself getting a Master’s in History and possibly becoming a college professor in the future. His father opined that that degree might limit his options and a degree in Educational Leadership might be a better option for the future.  He took his father’s advice and that was the course of study Jordan chose. While Jordan enjoyed his undergrad history classes, he soon realized that he enjoyed all classes if they presented engaging information and he saw practical application for the knowledge and skills he gained. That was definitely the case for him in his graduate study.  He won the “Outstanding Student” award upon completion of his graduate degree in Educational Leadership.

An administrative position did open up at Lowell just after Jordan was awarded his degree but he was not a finalist for the position, which he thought that was a good thing.  He thought it would have been difficult to switch roles from being a colleague with many friends in his Social Studies Department and other departments to becoming their principal. He knew he could still be collegial with the teachers, no matter where he chose to be an administrator, but making the switch from collegial to authoritative might have been more difficult at Lowell than starting off as a new administrator at West Ottawa.

An added bonus for Jordan was that he evaluated members of the Social Studies Department and that allowed him the opportunity to sit in on History classes and enjoy the content and discussions; not so much when Jordan observes Advanced or A.P. Calculus classes, but he could still see teachers following their lesson plans and using good pedagogy, even if he did not totally understand the content.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2015

To paraphrase Jordan: “If you don’t love kids, then you shouldn’t be teaching.”  You are not teaching for the summers off, but to make a difference in students’ lives. He argued that if a person is in teaching for the content then they would be better served by becoming a content specialist at the college level.  Jordan also advised future teachers to get into classrooms as early as possible in their college careers, before their last few years of education. A sad experience for him is to see young teachers realize after their first experience in the classroom that teaching is not for them. Better for that realization to happen before they are responsible for students’ education.  He cautioned future teachers that they must leave their personal lives at the door when they enter school, as hard as that might be, because their focus needs to be on the people sitting the chairs in front of them.  Jordan warned that teaching is draining and exhausting and if at any point a person does not believe they have the innate tools to be successful and comfortable in the job, then they should probably find another occupation.  Teaching is “about relationships and it’s about getting kids to trust you and invest time in them and ask them about their lives and then when you get that, you can get them to learn.” (Beel, v.t., 2015, p.18)

Jordan’s next pearl had to do with teacher referrals to the principal’s office. And to be honest the best teachers never send referrals (to the principal).

I mean, let’s be honest, because they deal with the issue…not that they shouldn’t. There are things that happen that need to be referred to me and I…that’s my job.  But to be perfectly honest the teachers that are the best they never refer kids. They never send kids down to the office because they either A.) established that relationship with their students beforehand where they don’t have a lot of discipline issues and they know how to monitor subtlety in their classroom or when something does happen, they want to be the ones to deal with it because it’s more empowering than to just say, “Go to the office”.  They’re the ones pulling the kids out in the hallway and trying to get to the root of the behavior. Those are the best teachers because they want to know why the kid acted out and they’ll ask them, “What else is going on?  Oh, you didn’t eat dinner or breakfast because you didn’t sleep home last night?  Let’s go talk about that.  Let’s go talk to your counselor.”  That’s the kind of thing that makes, that separates good teachers from great teachers.  And so, you better be ready to do that.  For a young teacher, I’ve seen first year teachers do that.  The great part. Sometimes age isn’t an excuse. It can be done by someone in their first month of teaching because they know that.  It’s a people skill, relationship building thing. (Beel, v.t., 2015, p.18)

I think his advice is correct. If teachers do not develop trusting relationships with their students and try to find out why they sometimes act out with bad behaviors, instead of just sending them away from someone else to take care of the problem, then they are not doing their job.  There is a time and place to rely on the principal’s office, especially with egregious behaviors that are explicitly covered in the student handbook, but as much as possible, teachers are the ones who should know the students they teach on a daily basis and should be the first line when problems arise in the classroom.