Tag Archives: Best Practices

Alan Haskvitz: Showing the best teachers among us how to be even better

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Every teacher is a chalkboard champion in my book, but sometimes I discover an educator that shows even the best teacher among us how to be even better. One such educator is Alan Haskvitz, a middle school teacher from Walnut, California.

Alan, who was born in 1942, has earned four degrees and possesses credentials to teach English, social studies, special education, gifted education, journalism, and business. His career as an educator has spanned more than four decades. Currently, Alan teaches history at Suzanne Middle School in the Walnut Unified School District in Walnut, California. He also serves as the chair of his school’s Social Studies Department.

When Alan first came to Walnut, his students’ standardized test scores were only in the 22nd percentile. However, by using his unique teaching methods, he helped his students improve their scores into the 94th percentile. This was the largest gain in California history.

What are Alan’s unique teaching methods? Well, he introduced “quality circles” in the classroom. A quality circle is a group of students who work cooperatively to identify, analyze, and solve a problem. Also, Alan was one of the first educators to actively promote “service learning” as part of the social studies curriculum. Service learning combines learning objectives with community service in order to provide a practical, progressive learning experience that also meets the needs of the larger community.

For his achievements in the classroom, Alan was inducted into the National Teachers Hall of Fame in 1997. He has also been named a “Hero in Education” by Reader’s Digest. He has recognized as a National Middle Level Teacher of the Year, and a USA Today All-Star Teacher. In addition, this chalkboard champion has been honored with the Robert Cherry International Award for Great Teachers, an award usually given only to university-level instructors.

To learn more about this amazing educator, see his biography at Alan Haskvitz. You can also check out the website that Alan works on in collaboration with the Horace Mann Companies, ReachEveryChild.com.

 

The instructional strategies Miracle Worker Anne Sullivan Macy used to teach Helen Keller

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Anne Sullivan Macy with Helen Keller Photo Credit: Public Domain

Anne Sullivan: this teacher’s name is synonymous with Miracle Worker. Anne is the remarkable teacher who worked with Helen Keller, an extremely intelligent blind and deaf child from Tuscumbia, Alabama. The relationship between the teacher and the student is explored in the play The Miracle Worker by William Gibson, an iconic piece of American literature that is frequently taught in public schools. This award-winning play depicts the exact moment at which, due to Anne’s expert instructional efforts, Helen was able to grasp the concept of language. This knowledge unlocked a world of isolation for the little girl, allowing her to connect with her fellow human beings, and making it possible for her to earn a university degree at a time when educating women was rare. The scene is sweet. But what strategies, exactly, did the miracle-working teacher use in order to achieve this breakthrough? After extensive reading on the subject, I think I may be able to identify a few of them.

First of all, Anne read every bit of published material available in her day about the education of handicapped students. Knowledge of pedagogy is the first step to effective practice. In addition to this, Anne had the “advantage” of personal experience, as she herself had wrestled with severe vision impairment as a result of trachoma. I’m sure at one time or another, we’ve all met an educator who is particularly effective at working with students who are facing the same challenges the teacher himself faced as a youngster.

Second, Anne was a keen observer, and she made it a point to watch the normal processes of language acquisition. She then replicated those processes as best she could to fit the particular circumstances and needs of her student. Today, we would probably call this strategy recognizing brain-based learning, and coordinating teaching strategies to fit the way the brain naturally learns.

Also, experts generally agree that much of Anne’s success in teaching Helen language was attributed to the fact that the teacher always communicated to her student with complete sentences. Concrete nouns such as water or spoon, verbs such was pump or run, or adjectives such as hot or smooth,  may be easy to convey. But abstract ideas such as beauty or truth, or certain parts of speech such as pronouns and some prepositions are much more difficult to impart to an individual unable to see or hear. Yet Annie always used these words in her everyday communication with Helen anyway.

Fourth, Anne was especially adept at incorporating experiential learning into her lesson plans. The effectiveness of “learning by doing” has been well documented, but in a day and age when most instruction consisted of rote memorization without necessarily comprehending, Anne’s insistence on teaching through constructed experience was truly innovative. Wading through the creek water, climbing the tree, holding the chick as it hatched from the egg—experiences like these were the staples of Anne’s instructional program.

To learn more about Anne Sullivan Macy, I have included an abbreviated but concise biography of this amazing teacher in my book, Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Teachers who Educated America’s Disenfranchised Students, which can also be found at amazon.com at the following link: Chalkboard Champions.

How To Not Be Hard on Yourself

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As teachers, we set high standards for ourselves and for our students. After all, reaching for the stars is how one gets off the ground. But sometimes, when we reflect on our performance in the classroom or on our interactions with kids and parents, we tend to be overly critical of ourselves. I stumbled across this graphic yesterday, and decided to share it. It offers good advice for everyone who tends to be too self-judgmental, not just teachers. Enjoy!

Teacher Haley Curfman Wears Her Students’ Artwork

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Here’s a teacher who really knows how to celebrate her students. She’s Haley Curfman, a second grade teacher at Blackwell Elementary School in Blackwell, Oklahoma.

For the second year in a row, she brought a white dress to school and encouraged her students to fill the fabric with their art work. “This is something I’d seen on Pinterest a few years ago, and I fell in love with the idea,” she says. “I think every teacher should do this! It’s a great project and an even better keepsake.”

Haley says she purchased an inexpensive white dress, and pre-washed it before she brought it to the classroom. With fabric markers she purchased from Walmart, she set up an activity station that featured the dress, the markers, and pieces of cardboard to place between the layers of fabric. She reports that it took approximately a month to complete, because the students worked on it intermittently as time allowed. When the students were finished adding their artwork, she wore the dress for a class party, and then put it on display.

“It’s been pointed out that this idea has been around way longer than Pinterest,” discloses Haley. “Teachers have been sharing their dresses, aprons, quilts, T-shirts, etc. with me that they’ve been creating since the 1950’s with the same concept. Which is awesome, and I love that you are sharing them with me! Thank you all so much for your kindness and support!” she concludes.

For more of Haley’s classroom projects, check out her Facebook page at The Weary Teacher.

School Violence Prevention Counselors Could Help Prevent Tragedies

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As a nation, we are now attempting to recover from yet another school shooting, this latest one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which claimed the lives of 14 students and three teachers. The tragedy has sparked yet another heated debate about best practices for protecting students in our nation’s schools. Much of the current debate has centered around such strategies as enforcing stricter gun control laws, strengthening mental health services, bettering law enforcement responses to reported threats, and arming teachers in schools. Are there any other strategies that could be considered? I think so.

After the Columbine shooting, the California legislature mandated that a school violence prevention counselor be placed in every high school. Unfortunately, state funding for these positions was cut about a decade ago when the economic downturn hit, but it would certainly be a good idea to consider passing a similar mandate on a federal level.

A school violence prevention counselor can develop beneficial instructional programs on such topics as anger management, conflict resolution, anti-bullying, stress management, depression, or domestic violence. As for “see something, say something,” there are times when a student may be more willing to share about a potential threat with a counselor than with a resource officer, who, as a policeman, may seem like an intimidating person to approach. School violence prevention counselors have been specially trained to recognize and respond to potential threats, serving as a front-line defense. Because they have more training, more resources, and more time than other school personnel, they are better able to sift through rumors and reports and identify those threats that are the most likely to pose real danger. They may even be able to reduce the tensions that sometimes give rise to violent incidents.

When considering strategies for preventing further tragedies like the ones that have occurred at Columbine and Stoneman Douglas, it’s important to remember that there is no one single fix. We must use a combination of approaches that are both vigorous and innovative. Let’s include federal funding for the training and hiring of school violence prevention counselors in the conversation.