It’s better to come in last place than not to place at all

By Anna Luberda – It was 45 degrees, overcast, and there were 30 mile an hour winds.  Great day for a track meet.  Last week the track team at my school was in desperate need of an extra adult as one of their coaches was unable to attend a meet.  I volunteered the day before because I was told that I would get to go out to dinner with the team afterwards.  As a poor student teacher and now an even poorer Jesuit volunteer, I have never, and will never, pass up a free meal.

So there I was, sitting in the bleachers at a high school about 30 miles away from the reservation.  All the while I was thinking to myself, “Really, Anna?  A windbreaker?”  The weatherman said it would be a cool 55 degrees with a light breeze.  Nonetheless, I was there for the day to offer support and encouragement to the small group that comprised the track team.

There are about 25 kids on the team, a good majority of them are good competitors.  There were a few kids who knew they would be missing a day of school for the meet and thus showed up and were unwilling to try very hard.  And of course there were the kids who were not particularly great at any event but were anxious to try everything.  These are the kids I love the best.

As a student at a small Catholic grade school outside of Chicago, I was never really very good at sports.  I tried them all– thanks to my mother– but never really got the hang of anything.  So I’ve got a soft spot for the kids who try their hardest but come up short.

Two team members stuck out to me the most at the meet.  One was a fifth grader who was at his very first meet.  He signed up for every running event.  I was corralled in to being a timer at the finish line so I got to see him run all his races.  Each time he came around the track towards the finish line, dead last, he had a huge smile on his face.  He was looking from side to side, as if to say, “Why are all these kids running so fast?”  Each time he came in last I patted him on the back and said, good job! and he was off to his next event.

The other student was a seventh grader who played every other sport at school as well.  He also placed last in all his events.  Now, I was always a little bit of a sore loser.  Not this kid.  He came right up to me at the end of each race and told me that he had beat his time from the last meet and that he would work on beating it again at the next meet.  He would also then go find every other kid in the race and shake their hand or give them a high-five.  I almost cried when he told me how much he loved running track.

As the school year comes to an end, I’m starting to think about how much I will miss these kids.  Things like these track meets make me think about how upset I get over something small and how ridiculous it seems later on.  It’s inspiring to see a kid who comes in last in every race trying harder and harder each time to improve.

After his last race, he came over to me and said, “You know what?  It’s better to come in last place than not to place at all.”

It’s little things like these that make me glad to have picked the profession I did.  It’s hard to imagine so much inspiration coming from any other job.

The Hero Teacher in Perspective

By Matt Parlow, Associate Professor of Law

Prologue:  I’d like to thank Dean Bill Henk for inviting me to blog about a terrific project on which we collaborated.  On Tuesday, the College of Education, the Office of the Provost’s Social Entrepreneurship Initiative, and the MU Law School sponsored a conference entitled “Urban Education Innovation and Reform Programs: High Success for High-Need Kids.” The event began with an engaging talk by Raj Vinnakota, Marquette’s 2010 Social Entrepreneur in Residence and the founder of The SEED Foundation (Schools for Educational Evolution and Development), and its nationally acclaimed boarding schools.  A panel with local urban innovators and reformers next discussed their pathways to high success with high-needs students here in Milwaukee.

Over the lunch hour, National Teacher of the Year Rafe Esquith talked about his experience working with inner-city kids in Los Angeles, and some of his fifth grade students — the Hobart Shakespeareans — performed Shakespearean scenes and a couple of rock n’ roll songs.  And, in the evening, Rafe and the Hobart Shakespeareans spoke to, and performed for,  an audience of education students, faculty, local educators, and interested community members (thanks to all of those at the College of Education for making the evening such a great success).

——————–

I thought I would focus my blog post on the topic of the “hero teacher,“ particularly as it relates to Rafe.

For you see, I was one of Rafe’s students twenty-seven years ago.  And during my introduction, I labeled him “my hero.” I stand by those words, and one only need peruse the Hobart Shakespeareans’ Web site — in particular, the links on the “Press” page — to understand why.

The concept of the “hero teacher” has received much critical analysis in education scholarship…and for good reason.  Indeed, I think it is a fruitful subject for future teachers and current educators to reflect on and discuss.

The topic raises important questions: Should aspiring or current teachers emulate hero teachers?  Should we view people like Rafe as a hero?  What are the dangers in this elevated status of being a hero teacher?

For anyone who attended Rafe’s talk last Tuesday evening, you’ll know that he provides answers to all these questions.  Rafe told those in attendance that they shouldn’t do exactly what he does.  Teachers don’t need to teach Shakespeare to their students (unless, of course, it interests them to do so).  Instead, Rafe explains, teachers should take their own passions — poetry, baseball, music, etc. — and use those interests to inspire their students and instill a love of learning in them.

Listening to a hero teacher like Rafe can be overwhelming to an aspiring (or even current) teacher.  But it needn’t be.  His message to teachers is one of inspiration, not a cause for paralysis.  Indeed, in an era obsessed with standardization, Rafe’s call for creativity, passion, and authenticity in the classroom should be a freeing message to teachers.

NOTE: The entire day was a great success and furthered important discussions about education reform.  My colleague, Alan Borsuk — Senior Fellow in Law and Public Policy at the Law School — has a more detailed blog post about the event that you can read by clicking here.

A Tribute to Jaime Escalante (1930-2010)

By Bill Henk — On Tuesday, March 30th, the individual some called the greatest teacher in America could “stand and deliver” no more.    Jaime Escalante lost his battle with bladder cancer, but not before making an indelible impression on the educational landscape in our country.  He was 79.

Thanks to our Lori Fredrich, I have two articles about him to share with you here, and there’s several more links within them.   The first is an obituary of his life and teaching career and the second notes the tribute paid to him at the high school where he made history.

So  I won’t say much more than Jaime Escalante became famous for helping Hispanic students demonstrate their mastery of complex math  concepts — so well, in fact, that they passed the very challenging Advanced Placement Calculus examination.   The first year this milestone  achievement occurred, the scores were challenged as cheating, but a retest proved the scores were valid.  Ironically, these events set the stage for Garfield High School in Los Angles becoming renowned for its AP programs.   The story was so compelling that it was made into the movie “Stand and Deliver.”