This post was adapted from a speech given at the Road To Teaching Conference at Santa Ana College on November 22, 2014.

When I look out at pre-service teachers, I see the future of education in California.  And I feel good about it. They are bringing energy and excitement with them into the classroom.  They will infuse their departments with new ideas about teaching and learning. They will understand brain theory better than any generation of teachers before them.  They will use that to develop environments where students love to learn.  I am very proud of the path they (and you, teachers reading this) have chosen.

Speaking of paths, let me tell you a little bit about my path into teaching.  I was the oldest of 4 boys, and no one from my family had graduated from high school before.  My family was quite poor and I worked in the fields for as long as I can remember.  I picked tobacco, bell peppers, cabbage, peaches… you name it.   School was an escape for me, so I worked hard and eventually graduated valedictorian.  I thought a college degree would come easily for me, but I only received a small amount of financial aid and was unable to finish my first time around.  I received my bachelor’s degree in Mathematics 20 years after I started.

I have been teaching for 14 years at Florin High School in Sacramento.  We are one of the lowest income schools in California, but we have never been low performing.  I work with a fantastic bunch of teachers who are at school when the sun comes up and they are there when the sun goes down.  You don’t work at Florin High School without caring about the students.  We were recognized by the US Dept of Education as one of the top 4 high schools in America for closing the Achievement Gap.  We have been recognized twice by US News and World Report and Newsweek magazine as one of the top 200 high schools in the US.  We don’t get a lot of local press, because the public does not think that a low income school can provide a high quality education.  I will honestly tell you that we can and we do.

This year of service as California State Teacher of the Year has changed my life forever.  I have met and talked to the President of the United States.  I’ve attended a reception at the Vice President’s home with Dr. Jill Biden.  I’ve met with the President’s Domestic Policy Council and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s Teach to Lead Committee.  I have visited schools and universities around California, and have spoken before thousands and thousands of people.  I have visited schools in Japan, and even attended Space Camp.

We discussed the dress code the night before.

What I have learned is that we have one of the best communities of teachers in the world.  I know you hear just the opposite most of the time, but it’s not true.  We have nearly 400,000 public school teachers in California, and those teachers are very often using the latest and best teaching strategies in their classroom.  We are integrating more and more cutting-edge technologies into our lessons, and our administrators are realizing that we should be allowed to take risks in developing new curriculum.

This is a new age for education in America, and I am proud and excited that we are part of it.

When I agreed to speak at Santa Ana College, the organizers asked if I would give my speech a name.  I mentioned that I kind of liked “George” or “Mildred”, but they emailed me back and said, “Not that kind of name. You know … a theme.” So I thought for a while and I came up with “Cleaning off the Whiteboard.” (It’s also the name I chose for this blog!) It may seem a bit odd, but think about it: a teacher has taught all day and is cleaning off their whiteboard after the last student has walked out.  What are they thinking about?  Most of us are reflecting on how well our lessons went or what we should have done or how we can help a particular student.  By the time the whiteboard is clean, we have a measure of resolve.  We will change that lesson or call that parent or take some action that will make us better teachers.  Right?

This year, I think it was because I am the State Teacher of the Year, my school thought I should teach a different schedule.  I was given regular Statistics, AP Statistics (which I normally teach) and a class of repeat Algebra 1 students.

The regular Statistics class had about 27 students, all seniors.  When I tried to put the first of their grades into our online grading system, I couldn’t.  The system had my regular Statistics class coded as AP.  When I told the class about it the next day, they asked if I could make the class AP.  None of them had ever had an AP class of any kind before, so I explained what it would be like and my expectations of an AP student.  They said “We know, Mr. Smith, but you won’t let us fail.”  Dear readers, the faith that those students have in me is very humbling.  One hundred  percent of the class filled out AP forms and it became an AP class. Last week, we took a quiz and they scored higher than the other two AP classes, students who are veteran honor and AP students.

My Algebra 1 class, the last class of the day, was supposed to be a class of 25 students who had earned a “C” or higher in 1st semester Algebra, but had a “D” in 2nd semester.  On the first day of school, I had a class of 43 students who had all failed 2nd semester Algebra, and most had either failed first semester or had a “D”.  Many of the students had less than 10 total of the 240 credits needed to graduate.  It took a lot of pleading to get the class down to 33 students.  Now I am down to 27 because of attrition.

For the first two weeks of school, when I cleaned off my whiteboard, my hands were trembling and my eyes were watering.  I tried every teaching strategy I knew and nothing worked.  These students hated math.  Most hated school.  It took half the class period just to get them to get out a pencil.

I felt that the State should take away my Teacher of the Year title, because I was failing big time.  Then one day, when I was cleaning off my whiteboard, I realized that by admitting failure,  I was failing my students.  As much as they drove me crazy, I loved those kids, and I was going to make sure they knew it.  I changed the way I taught.  I had to instill an intrinsic desire to succeed, and that wasn’t easy.  We celebrated success.  I rewarded peer-tutors.  My desks are arranged in groups, and I made facilitators in each group.  I have index cards with their names on it, and I call on each student, multiple times each period.

On day 41, I stood in front of the class and said, “For the last 41 days, I have greeted you at the door.  I have honestly been happy to see you.  If I didn’t tell you, I showed you each day that I love you and believe in you.  From this day forward, you will not tell me that you can’t do something.  You will believe in yourself and the love that I have for you.  Let’s get to work.”

I am proud to say that when I turned in grades on Monday, that I have 10 “A”s, 9 “B”s, 4 “C”s, 1 “D”, and 3 “F”s.

Still, many days, when I clean off my whiteboard I am emotionally and physically exhausted, but I am not afraid of failing that class.  I still have work to do, but it is within my reach.  Those students depend on me to show how much I care for them each day.

I also give out hugs (the chocolate kind).  When I see a student having a bad day, I will grab a hug out of the container and walk by his or her desk and quietly put the hug on the corner of their desk, and walk on.  It does not matter if that student likes chocolate or not, it always makes their day a bit better and lets them know that there is somebody out there that cares about them.  Some students asked me the other day if I really liked chocolate, and I told them that I was allergic: it makes me break out in pounds.

They didn’t get it.

Before you get bored and move on, I wanted to talk to you a bit about technology.  Never before has a group of teachers been as technologically advanced as those receiving their credentials right now.  Many of them are digital natives, growing up surrounded by technology.  They are comfortable with it.  They can learn with it.  And more importantly, they can relate to the students they are about to teach.

The Common Core Standards have been a huge catalyst in getting technology into our classrooms.  But many veteran teachers are shy about using it, and we certainly don’t get enough professional development on how to use it.

If you don’t plan on using technology in your classroom, please reconsider.  It will not replace great teaching practices, but it should be used to enhance what and how you teach.  Our students will be expected to use technology in more ways than social media, and it is our responsibility to teach them.

Try using apps like Kahoot, or Padlet or Wordle.  Try creating assessments using GradeCam, Illuminate, or GradeNinja.  Flip your class or some lessons.  Try it.  Multi-subject teachers – Flipping your classroom may seem impractical, but posting videos of your lessons will help parents understand the Common Core methods of teaching.  Try using Animoto, CamStudio or SnagIt (not developed by me, whatever the company name says!) to create your videos.

This technology is out there, and a large portion of it is free to use. It’s time to take the way we educate to the next level.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you’ll subscribe to get more teaching advice and educational technology information! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message via WordPress.

Still Cleaning,

Tim

P.S. Here is a .pdf of the PowerPoint I used for the presentation. It has some extra tidbits and summarizes things pretty well!

PDF