Ring the Bell. It’s Time for School

The beginning of school brings with it a wide range of feelings and emotions for students and parents.  Happiness, dread, relief, wistfulness, excitement, fear, eagerness, and resolve are but a few.  While students and parents ready themselves for the sound of the bell, teachers are going through a similar process.  Many of the same feelings and emotions apply.

I always look forward to the first day of school. There is an excitement in the air that serves as a new beginning, a fresh start and the opportunity to grow and learn together.  Goals are set.  Strategies are implemented.   It is truly an exciting time. 

This is especially true for me this year as I transition to the new position of Director of Learning Design and Innovation at Woodward Academy in College Park, Georgia.  Inspired by the promise of new beginnings, I have established one single, overarching goal. 

I am dedicated and determined to help establish a sustainable rhythm of extraordinary classroom experiences for teachers and students. 

I am referring to the kind of experiences that are marked by human connection and the recognition of mutual engagement; those times when both teacher and student recognize that they have a common goal and are marching lockstep together in pursuit of it.  Those experiences, those moments of recognition, are extraordinary. The kind of experiences where both teacher and student recognize that the student has moved beyond the mastery of factoid memorization which can be replicated on a test and entered the arena of understanding and application of knowledge on a deeper, more profound level.  Again, those experiences, those moments of recognition, are extraordinary.

I will never forget Johnny Smith. He was big and strong and capable.  He was a football hero.  He was also a lazy student…or so I thought.  I was his Chemistry teacher.  I’d had enough of his poor performance and called him out into the hall one day.  I told him how disappointed I was in him and how I knew he could do better.  He looked at me somewhat stoically until I said, “Johnny, I care about you and I believe in you.  Let me help you.”  Tears ran down his face.  There was a human connection and recognition of pursuit of a common goal.  It occurred to me that Johnny was not lazy…he was afraid.  This big, talented jock was afraid.  The tears were running down my face years later as he told me that he was about to graduate from college and had spent his final year as president of the student body.  That’s extraordinary.

Years ago, our local newspaper published the end of course test scores by school. They even listed our scores per unit!  I was the only physics teacher in my school and my class scores on the light and diffraction unit were dead last.  That summer, I took advantage of a Professional Development opportunity for Physics teachers at North Carolina State University and took what I learned back to my classroom.  When the end of course results were published at the end of that next school year, we were not only first on that unit in the school district, we were 6^th in the state.  My students entered the arena of understanding and application.  That’s extraordinary.

I am dedicated and determined to help establish a sustainable rhythm of extraordinary classroom experiences for teachers and students.

Ring the bell.  It’s time for school. 

First Published in Southern Distinction Magazine:

White, C. (2015, October). Ring the Bell. It’s Time for School. Southern Distinction.