First Day Plans from a Veteran Educator

This is the story of how I started my classes in seventh and eighth grade history every year, starting my fourth year. First of all, I dispensed with reading over the rules, which I considered boring, and dived right in on material I considered useful.

I retired from teaching in 2008.

I wasn't motivated as a student, myself. So I stressed motivation.

10.

Nothing Human is Alien

“Though the outside of human life changes much, the inside changes little, 

and the lesson we cannot graduate from is human experience.” 

Edith Hamilton

Sometimes, in the middle of one of my brilliant lessons, students would grumble, “Why do we need to know this stuff?”

Or shout encouragement: “This is so boring!” 

I remembered what it was like to be bored in school, to wonder why we had to know this “stuff.”

The question I faced as a young teacher and the question we face across the spectrum of education today is the same. What basics and much, much more should we be covering?

 

*

A textbook our social studies department once reviewed came with ready made tests. All teachers had to do was run off copies and hand them out at the end of every unit. One question included on the Civil War test required students to identify the losing generals at the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. I used to cite that example at Open House Night and ask parents if anyone could supply the answer. No one in twenty years ever could.

“It is not enough to be busy…The question is: What are we busy about?”

It seemed to me that students would be fine if we focused on more useful material. History—education, really—must have true purpose. Or we need to ask ourselves a question Henry David Thoreau once posed. “It is not enough to be busy…The question is: What are we busy about?” 

              A typical junior high or middle school class meets for 8,000 minutes per year. Time in school is finite. You have ten times as much valuable material to cover as you can. So a teacher should never throw minutes away.

Not one.

I always believed attitude was the driving force for every man, woman and child in every classroom in the land. For that reason, starting my fourth year, with a reputation for discipline established, that was where I put emphasis the first week. I skipped the traditional “first day reading of the rules” and went to work, trying to shape attitudes in a positive way. I had a fresh crop of students and 8,000 minutes to employ. It hardly seemed necessary to spend the first forty-five trying to scare everyone. So I handed out rules but told students to read them at home.

“If you have good manners, and I’m sure most of you do, you pretty much know the rules,” I explained.

Really, 80% of these kids were going to be no trouble. Why start by scaring them? For the other 20%, many of whom would cause only minor disturbance, I added subtle warning: “Besides, I was in the Marine Corps. I don’t have much trouble with discipline.”

Most teachers assign seats the first day. I felt kids should have an opportunity to sit where they wished. “You pick your spot and stay there as long as you behave,” I said. (See seating chart: end of chapter.) “Or until you start pummeling your neighbor.”

 

              Curious looks. That’s good. Make kids think.

“Pummeling. It means ‘hitting repeatedly,’” I added helpfully.

“Why do we need to know this stuff?”

              

         This “rules” process took five minutes. Now, on our first day, we had time to address the question students want answered and teachers must consider: “Why do we need to know this stuff?”

For thirty years I started my opening day lesson the same way, asking: “How many of you think social studies are boring?” Most kids sniffed a trap. With gentle urging nearly all raised their hands. The problem, I explained, was that they had no idea why they were studying history. 

“History is the study of blank?” I continued.

“The past,” was always the first answer.

“Dates and events” was second.

“Dead people” was third. 

When I replied in the negative to each, someone always tried: “Dead people in the past?”

No one ever got it right, till we suffered a series of false starts. At last, some teen would venture: “History is the study of…people?”

 

Good. Get that down in notes.

“This year, we will be studying people,” I explained. “Today I’m going to show you people never change. If you want to make a lot of money when you grow up you should pay attention in science and math. If you want to understand people you should study history.

“Does anyone know who Balboa was?” I inquired. Almost no one ever did. I said he was the first European to “discover” the Pacific.

 

I drew a simple diagram, putting up the date, 1513, adding that we would not be focusing on useless names and dates in my class. This was merely a reference point.

I told the story of how Balboa led an army across Panama, cutting a path through the jungle, until Indian guides told him the “great sea” was over the next mountain. I added an “x” to show where Balboa stopped his army before going to the top alone. Now I asked why he would do so. I always waited for a girl to raise a hand and then called on her.

“He probably wanted to be famous,” Lindsay responded correctly.

 

“How can you know?” I wondered. “You don’t speak Spanish do you?” Lindsay shook her head. “You aren’t the same sex. Balboa has been dead 500 years. How could you know what he was thinking?”

 

I asked if anyone played soccer or basketball and if they’d ever been on a team with a ball hog. A flurry of response. “Balboa was no different than any ball hog. He wanted to hog the glory,” I explained.

Lindsay turned out to be a basketball player and instantly grasped the point. That’s what I wanted, for students to relate to the people we studied, to understand history was the story of humanity and for that reason had import. 

I shifted to a second example and called for volunteers to come forward and give a short speech. This was the first day of school and for kids new to junior high or middle school looked like a suicide mission. No one volunteered. I told them they could pick their topic.

No takers.

I chose two sacrificial lambs and they trudged to the front of the room, like Marie Antoinette approaching the guillotine. I kept them standing long enough to make their discomfit clear, then let them go, blending back in the crowd.

I didn’t really want anyone to give a speech. I simply wanted to show that people never change.

I asked if anyone had heard of Harry Truman. Usually only one or two kids had. I said historians rated Truman as one of our best presidents but, like my nervous pupils, when he first ran for office he dreaded public speaking. The first time he tried he froze. To illustrate, I gripped the sides of my lectern, looked at the class, looked down and made loud gulping sounds. I looked up again, gulped once more, shifted from one foot to the other and shuffled my notes. Finally, I mouthed a silent phrase and bolted for the door. 

Moments later I returned, said sorry, had to come back, need the money.

One bold soul interjected, “Awwwwwwwww, too bad.” 

“Truman never got a word out,” I added, “and fled the scene.”

Next, I asked: “How many of you could draw a Pilgrim if you had to?” Almost everyone agreed they could.

“Yeah, remember drawing around your hand to make a turkey in first grade?” Brandi said. 

“Well here’s a story your first grade teacher never mentioned,” I continued. “The Pilgrims and natives didn’t always get along. There was a fight the first week they landed. Another time, the Pilgrims saw natives standing on a nearby hill. According to eyewitnesses, they were touching the points of their arrows and making ‘gestures plainly obscene.’”

Now we needed someone who knew what “obscene” meant. Then: could anyone guess what the Indians were doing? Several kids looked like they knew. It was the first day of class. They weren’t sure they should say.

“It’s okay. Just be careful how you put it.”

“They…mooned…the Pilgrims?” Tyler finally offered.

“Yes, they did. Yes they did! History,” I continued, “is the study of people. The people in the past are like us. They hog the glory, freeze trying to speak and moon people they don’t like.”

I put the word “empathy” on the board. Could anyone provide a definition? The kids had plenty of ideas, all related to “sympathy.”

I told them “empathy” was better. I added a definition to the board: “You can feel what another person feels.”

A young lady in the front left corner of the room responded, “So sympathy is like you feel sorry for someone when their mom dies and empathy, you know how they feel, because your mom died?”

“Exactly,” I smiled.

I used several more examples to make the point—that through history we can feel what others feel. This included a quote from Virgil, twenty centuries ago: “Love conquers all.”

 

              “What did he mean?” I asked.

              No one was sure.

“Look, most of you have been in love. Jake, I know you’ve been in love!” I singled out a young man who had already shown hints of a sense of humor. “Don’t deny it. What does ‘conquers’ mean?”

              “Defeats,” he offered.

              “Right, love defeats all. All what?”

              Here Jake and his peers were stuck. “How many of you have heard the song that goes, ‘Ain’t no mountain high enough?’” I asked. “What comes next?”

              One student gave the answer straight. Several sang: “Ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough, to keep me away from you….”

              “So, Jake, what did Virgil mean?”

              “It means love overcomes all obstacles!” a girl in the back shouted before Jake could respond.

              I told everyone to get that down in notes. “The people Virgil knew—and the people we know—are the same.”

              Time was growing short and we were rushing now, rushing to cram in every scrap of learning we could. We had 7,960 minutes left. So we finished with another quote, from Terrence, a Roman playwright: “Nothing human is alien.” This was the touchstone of what we would do the rest of the year. 

“What did Terrence mean?” I asked, as we brought the lesson to a close. Again, we followed several false leads. Finally, I hinted: “How can we tell Jake is human and not alien?”

“I’m not sure we can,” his friend Brad said. Even Jake had to laugh.

 

Natalie replied, more seriously: “Aliens look different.”

“Nothing human is different? That’s not right,” I told her. “You’re young and I’m old. You’re a girl. I’m a guy. I’m pretty. Brad isn’t. We need at least one more word.”

Now Brad had to laugh.

“Nothing human is…totally…different,” Natalie tried. I wrote it on the board: “Nothing human is totally different.” 

Now students had some idea why they were marooned in history class and we had used our first forty-five minutes to good purpose.

*

That first week we dived into material and didn’t stop swimming until June. That’s how any dedicated teacher addresses basics and how every dedicated teacher now and for all eternity will.

In 1976 I saw a brief newspaper article about Bruce Jennings, a long-distance bicycle rider, and used it till I retired. Jennings lost a leg in a motorcycle accident but that couldn’t stop him. Using a bicycle with stirrups and sporting a prosthesis he set out to pedal across the United States. He was in Indiana, heading east, when Cincinnati papers filed a report.

              Now I started my second day’s lesson by asking students how many thought they could bike across the country.

Few did. 

“Then how could Jennings do it?”

I poked at kids until someone admitted, “Well, I guess I could if I wanted,” and others nodded.

We read the article, took time for comment, and I planted a seed I would nurture in months (and years) to come. How do people like Jennings do it? I’ve been intrigued by that question most of my life and wanted students to consider the matter.

I assured them almost everyone could ride across the country if motivated. The secret to success in my classroom would be the same. Which of them would be willing to “pedal” hard enough to earn it? I wanted teens to understand: Two legs suffice. One leg will do if you’re determined.

We moved to a second example to bolster the first: the 1948 presidential election, Truman vs. Thomas Dewey. We covered details briefly. How unpopular Truman then was, only one president ever sinking lower in opinion polls. (Kids guessed who, until finally someone said: “Nixon.”) We talked about how fifty reporters rode with Truman on his campaign train. One night they took a vote to see how many believed Harry could win.

The kids guessed again: “Half.” “Ten.” “Five.” “Two.”

Finally, someone got it right: “None.”

              I talked about why I admired Truman. Even though he knew he was going to lose he refused to quit. He decided to crisscross the country by rail, his famous “Whistle Stop Campaign.” He gave speeches anywhere a crowd would gather, 275 times in six weeks. I reminded my audience this was the same man who couldn’t get a word out the first time he tried to speak in public.

Truman lit into Dewey at every stop. Finally, someone in the crowd shouted, “Give ‘em hell, Harry!”

Truman replied, “That’s what I’m doing! I’m giving Dewey hell.”

              Students had funny looks. “It’s okay. I’m quoting. Go ahead and put that in your notes.

“The polls showed Truman hopelessly behind but he never gave up. The night of the election it was obvious who was going to win. The people who conduct opinion polls hadn’t bothered to check for weeks.” I used a tone of resignation to show my hero was doomed.

Now, I held up the famous picture of the man holding the Chicago Tribune:

“Does anyone know why this picture is famous?”

If any student raised a hand and appeared to know, I ignored them and called on someone else. I wanted students to get this wrong.

“Because, that’s President Dewey and he’s happy,” Ashley said.

“I didn’t even know we had a President Dewey,” Kia admitted.

 

“Well, you never heard of President Fillmore, either,” I replied, deflecting her from the truth. 

“Dewey is smiling because he didn’t like Truman,” someone else offered. It made sense, I agreed.

I took a few more answers, none correct, then asked again, “Does anyone know who this is in the picture?”

I called on Geoff who seemed to understand from the start. “I think that’s Truman. I don’t think Dewey won.”

“Very good, sir. After all the reporters gave up and the polls stopped asking, Truman kept fighting. He kept giving Dewey hell. Over the last few weeks of the campaign Truman made a huge comeback. Dewey didn’t win. The Tribune was so sure he’d be president they printed the story in advance to get the paper out early and sell more copies. 

“Truman defeated Dewey when everyone said it couldn’t be done. He won because he wouldn’t give up.”

I asked everyone to take down the word “perseverance” in their notes and added a definition: “continued effort in the face of difficulty.” 

For decades I did my best to help young men and women see the point. We can always do more than we think—if we refuse to quit—if we have perseverance.

I took my own advice and pedaled a bicycle across the USA in 2007 and again in 2011.

My students helped raise $13,500 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund before the first ride.

This is Tioga Pass, which I took, coming into Yosemite NP in 2011. There's a large RV (white dot)
just above my handle bars on the road in the distance.

Seating Chart for My Class

My third or fourth year I happened to read about a teacher who did away with traditional rows. She arranged desks in horseshoe formation. There were two rows on each wing, seats facing inward, two more at the base of the shoe. Her position was at the open end. From there she was free to roam the center of the room.

              This arrangement proved a huge improvement over ordinary rows. First, it was popular with students, almost always a virtue. It allowed them to see each other, instead of backs of heads, and fostered a friendly atmosphere, especially during discussion.

              The setup also allowed for improved discipline. Suppose, with old-fashioned rows, a child in back was thinking about poking his neighbor. Or he was penning a love note. Under the old arrangement you found yourself far away, at the front of the room, while the young man studied the distance.  To him it looked safe. He knew you wouldn’t see him poke the cute girl in the back. Or he knew by the time you came down the row he’d have his note tucked away.

The horseshoe altered the calculation. If you roamed the center randomly, it was hard for anyone in “back” to zone out. If you thought the young man in Seat A was doodling, you strolled in his direction, since no rows impeded, and stood next to his seat. You just “happened” to stop nearby and ask Sara, to his right, to answer a question. If a girl in Seat C was talking too much you walked over and without a word gave her your “teacher look” or tapped her desk.

Seat B (or its twin across the room) was a good place to park any loquacious youth. Then you surrounded them with quiet or studious types. It was easy to stand close by during discussions or lectures and tamp down disruptive impulses. Proximity sufficed. Cutting down minor problems helped avoid festering sores that lead to serious discipline trouble.

-      Megan

Swimming

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

              Standing in front of a roomful of teens you never know how they’ll respond to what you’re offering. They may not respond at all or only with grumbling. Megan contacted me via Facebook in the summer of 2013 and spilled out a powerful tale.

“Don’t know if you remember me, Megan…the writer kid,” she began with trepidation.

I did. Nice young lady.

Still, I had no idea when she was seated in my class, fifteen years earlier, that she had so much trouble at home. She needed glasses for starters but her family was too poor to afford them.

She remembers squinting as I chalked P-E-R-S-E-V-E-R-A-N-C-E on the board. She said she remembers me telling the class: “In your own lifetime you will have moments you are stuck, or faced with conflict. You cannot walk away from it. You have to overcome it. Each and every one of you can overcome anything through perseverance. You have the power to do anything.”

              At the time, she had already tried to end her life. Now my words had a “great healing power.”

“I knew what the word meant,” she explained in another Facebook message. “I just didn’t know there was a word for what I was doing…I had perseverance and I never knew it. A teacher broke the mold on giving me hope in such a tattered world.”

How tattered? Megan’s mother spent hours on the computer, focused on internet chat sites.

“She quit her job,” Megan wrote, “stayed up all hours of the night online. I can recall nights, hearing her fingers tap the keys of the keyboard, hearing, ‘You’ve Got Mail,’ over and over again.

              “The house we lived in began to fall apart, no food, no laundry being done, nothing to clean with. The bills stopped getting paid…All my mother did was smoke, eat, sleep and play on the internet.”

Problems snowballed. Megan’s parents had long since separated. Dad suffered a heart attack, his second. He could no longer work or help Megan and her younger sister much. The bank took mom’s car. By the time Megan was in high school:

I was…living in a house with no heat, no water and no electricity, and forget about food. Let me tell you, Best Senior Year ever! Nothing like taking a cold shower and going to bed freezing! Or once the water was shut off, riding your bike to shower at your grandparents.

     By then…the roof was falling in on our house and I had a constant leak in the kitchen, a skylight, I kid you not.

Finally, mom ran away with a man she met through a chat site. Megan was close to giving up. And who would have blamed her?

One day her science teacher called her “a loser” in front of the entire class. He said Megan would “never amount to anything.” That might have been the final insult that tipped a young lady toward disaster; but Megan’s English teacher overheard from across the hall, walked into the science room, “wrapped her arms around me, and took me out of that class.”

              The damage one teacher might have done was canceled out by the good done by another.

“But with hope from my wonderful English teacher and the power of one word,” Megan explained, “it occurred to me I was going to make it through…I was SO CLOSE to getting out of high school, so close to having my diploma. PERSEVERANCE. Why give up when I had already come so far?”

              Megan continued:

     I think perseverance is a good word…Never give up. Fight. I have been fighting my entire life to stay afloat. I am tired of swimming, but even if I give up, my mind is trained to swim, so I keep going. That is exactly what perseverance is.

              In a message I sent next, I told Megan I couldn’t have explained it better myself. If I was still teaching, I’d steal her story. I’d share it with a new generation of teens.

I’m glad her English teacher gave her reason to hope. I’m glad I did my little part to help.

I’m really glad Megan kept swimming and she has good reason to be proud of herself.