My Heroes

I’m back, but no Friday News Roundup this week.

June is always a slow news month when it comes to public education, schools, and learning, but I did read an article this week that piqued my interest about the importance of mentoring, no matter what professional pursuit you engage in. The article, appearing in EducationWeek online, titled “The Teacher Who Inspired Me to Be Who I Am Today” caused me to think about who my best learning coaches were growing up as a young man, a teacher, school administrator, and learning leader.

Here’s the list (I give the full name for those who are now deceased), with a brief description of the traits each one demonstrated to make me who I am today:

Marcia – Marcia taught me how to swim when I was 4 years old. She was the daughter of a dear friend of my mom’s, so she had already taken a keen interest in my upbringing. The goal was to swim 15 yards across 12 feet deep water, and I wasn’t having any of it when I started. The fact that I couldn’t see the bottom of the pool freaked me out. So, Marcia took me over to the shallow end of the pool and taught me there. Then, when she thought I was ready, we walked over to the deep end. And then? Success! Oh, the power I felt when I was able to swim on my own – in deep water, nonetheless. I paid Marcia’s gift of swimming forward many times. When I was 9, I was hired to teach a group of 5-year-olds to swim – probably an illegal hire then and now. Again, the power I felt when all those kids swam across the deep water, just like I did for Marcia. It was this teaching experience that got me interested in becoming a life-long learning leader.

Margaret Russell – Margaret Russell was my 4^th grade teacher, and we were her last class before she retired. Margaret started teaching in a one-room schoolhouse south of the Iowa town I grew up in. Her knowledge of instructional differentiation (a term she definitely didn’t use!) was impressive, and it came from her early experience as a country schoolteacher. Her love of learning was what propelled my 4^th grade class, 25 or so, to acquire our own love of learning. One moment we were learning math, another moment we were reading the “Little House” books, another moment we were playing kickball with Ms. Russell at recess – even though she was nearly 70 years old. After that 4^th grade year, I wanted to grow up and have the same impact on kids that Margaret Russell had on me.

John Haefner – When I attended the University of Iowa as a freshman, believe it or not, I thought I wanted to be a banker. I was prepared to major in finance, but business calculus did me in. I decided to call Iowa’s College of Education and was directed to Professor John Haefner’s office. Haefner was a no-nonsense kind of guy, so he immediately said something like, “So you want to drop out of business school so you can struggle putting food on the table?” And then he grinned, because he knew he was looking at a young Iowa kid he could help set on a better direction. Like Margaret Russell, my first year with Dr. Haefner was his last with me. He retired from Iowa after a storied career helping young Iowa kids like me figure out how to become a teacher.

Walt Day – Before I worked for Walt Day as a teacher, we refereed summer basketball together, so both of us were familiar with each other. One day I was doing volunteer bus duty after an assistant principal went on sick leave. Walt was the principal of a large, urban high school where I worked as a teacher and coach. While the busses were rolling away, Mr. Day came up to me and said, “You have your principal certification, right?” I said yes. And then he said, “Well why don’t you report to the assistant principal’s office tomorrow. I’d like to hire you as a school administrator.” And that, as they say, was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Walt was the best when it came to building relationships. In fact, to Walt, relationships were all that mattered when dealing with young people and the adults hired to serve them.

Rick DuFour – The father of the Professional Learning Community, Rick DuFour was a mentor of mine, and I don’t even think he knew it. But, for awhile during the 1990’s, I was a junkie for any book, workshop, or conference DuFour would write or attend. I especially became committed to PLC work when I started to understand how schools are financed. Most school budgets spend over 85% on staffing, leaving a measly 15% left to purchase curriculum program and the sort. Once I realized 85 cents of every dollar spent in schools was spent on teachers, administrators, and support staff, I understood the importance of investing in the human potential inside my school.

AP – I think I own the record for getting AP, the district superintendent who was my boss when I was a secondary principal, to drop to her office floor in exasperation after some of the decisions I made in favor of kids. AP’s background wasn’t secondary, so I had the advantage of doing things on our middle and then high school campus that other leaders might not allow. But what I knew about AP was that if you provided a safe and secure campus for young people to learn, if you achieved at high levels academically, and if you created a strong school culture where kids and parents felt comfortable, then you were going to be ok with the boss.

Cicely – Cicely was one of my middle school students when I first started teaching. Then, she grew up and became a wonderful literacy teacher on her own. We hired Cicely as one of our learning coaches when we launched a personalized learning lab school in and around the Houston Museum District. And then the student (Cicely) became the teacher and the teacher (me) became the student. I learned so much from Cicely and her companion numeracy learning coach during the three pilot years. Cicely is one of the reasons, if not the reason, for my move away from traditional school and my move toward out of school learning.

So who are your mentors? And, more importantly, why are they your mentors? At the end of the traditional school season, it seems only appropriate to think about those people and give them the credit for making you, well, you.

Have a great weekend. See you Monday. SVB