Seattle Schools are closing its “Highly Capable Cohort” (Gifted & Talented) program because the claim is that too many of the participants are white or Asian…. “in an effort to make the program more equitable and to better serve all students, the district is phasing out highly capable cohort schools. In their place, SPS is offering a whole-classroom model where all students are in the same classroom and the teacher individualizes learning plans for each student.” Think about what that means for each classroom teacher.
Our local schools had a GT program called “Project Challenge”, involving our sons …. until the system abruptly ended the program, leaving stranded students who were taking classes 2+yrs ahead of grade level. We fought the repercussions until we found an advocate who enabled one son to commute daily from middle to high school for math, to skip multiple years of Spanish and to take advanced classes at the university. Those programs are more common now, but they were not at the time we were involved. I wrote about it here: https://www.virtualmusicoffice.com/the-system-worked-for…/
We wrestled with teachers who wanted to use our sons as tutors (noble and helpful, but does not address their “special needs”) or to do individual study in the back of the classroom (like what could happen in a discipline situation).
We are seeing some of the results of closing most mental institutions and “mainstreaming”. How many tragedies are blamed on “mental health” issues? If people need help, let’s help.
And here’s another problem I have with the “too many whites and Asians” racist argument….. Which pro sports teams, such as NFL, NBA, MLB “mainstream” players to ensure they have a balance of ethnicities and abilities? No! We want to win, right? Olympic teams are not balanced per quotas. We want to win, right?
I won’t argue that DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion), which sounds wonderful is the new AA (Affirmative Action), but it all seems so similar, aka fad trend of the era.
Yes, let’s work to benefit those with “special needs”, but special needs at both ends. Let’s NOT label people ‘insane’, but also, let’s not ignore them. We NEED GT graduates coming into our society, even if they are white or Asian.
March is both “Women’s History” and “Disabilities Awareness” month. My hero, in both those categories, was my polio-inflicted mother.
Beulah McCormick was born in 1922 in a house (not a hospital) with an outside toilet. Her dad was a mean, verbally and physically abusive Irishman (McCormick) who was in the trenches of France during World War I. Growing up during the great depression, one of Mom’s journal entries stated, “There were no toys”.
At 12 yrs old, she was inflicted with one of the most cruel diseases ever…..polio.
In a 1935 pic taken 1 year after her infection, you can see that her legs are different sizes. She is likely bracing herself with her left arm (good arm).
Iron lungs enabling many polio survivors to breathe
She wasn’t as bad as some, who had to spend the rest of their lives in “iron lungs“, but her body was infected as if there were a vertical divide between left and right. Her right arm and leg were smaller, shorter, and weaker than her left. She had to buy two pairs of shoes because her feet were different sizes. She could write right-handed but picked things up with her left.
She refused to allow her disability to handicap life, evidenced by her high school class of 1940 1/2 voting her “most athletic”.
Hobbies included hunting, fishing, horseback riding, swimming, and gardening. She was a proficient typist and avid reader. She walked with a significant limp until her last four years when her back and knees just couldn’t do it anymore.
Her teenage friendship with Betty Swindler was so strong the Swindler family wanted to pay Mom’s way to go to college, but the proud papa wouldn’t allow it.
She thrived despite her parents.
Her childhood included going with parents (no choice) to area saloons to watch them drink and dance.
Somehow she got involved in a local church where she met her future husband. They had 5 children before divorcing affecting siblings from age 1 to 12.
So how does a divorced, polio survivor without a car, find a job and raise five children?
She was qualified, but never accepted welfare. Eventually, she took a job and spent about 25 yrs as an Activities Director at the Nursing Home she would retire from, move in to, and die in …. only two blocks from our house so she (and we) could walk to and from. I used to tease her for getting paid to play games all day.
My sisters had to experience daycare in a home nearby. Mom cried about that.
Life was plain, but she didn’t complain.
She paid her debts. Thankfully, the pediatrician allowed her to make $5/month payments.
We walked two blocks to a small neighborhood church my father’s parents helped start. She put a dollar in the plate and, when someone complained about the six of us for her dollar a week, swallowed her pride so we could have a better upbringing than she did. Kudos to the church for installing a handrail on the two steps going into the sanctuary. They did try.
She encouraged us to sell lemonade to the golfers at the course down the street. Those lemonade sales paid for a bicycle I wanted and then for my part of a new clarinet.
Sometimes she got some extra sugar for her lemonade. Mom’s Aunt Georgia passed away and I distinctly remember walking with her and her uncle to the kitchen door that went into their garage.
“Beulah. Georgia wanted you to have her car. Here are the keys.”
Chores were a reality. She organized us in rotations for dish washing, providing a step stool until we were each tall enough to reach into the sink. Until I left for college, it was mostly my job to push the non-motorized mower, and I was not always the compliant, cooperative teen.
There was one episode where she was following me back and forth over the lawn convincing me with her belt that I should continue.
Another job I loathed was cleaning the dog pen. Grass and hedge trimming, leaf raking, and garbage taking were regular chores. The Christmas decorations weren’t so bad and I liked putting the flag out….but had to take it down at night.
As much as we didn’t have, Mom always helped us understand that there were other people worse off and that they needed our help. At Christmastime, she would ask us to give up a toy to be donated to a “needy” family.
When someone would knock at our back door asking for food, she would fix a fried egg or peanut butter sandwich.
Both parents were hunters, and when dad left, she kept her little (she couldn’t hold a full-sized rifle) “over/under” gun; a combination 22 rifle and 410 shotgun. I got to watch her use it once. There was a bad flood and the water from the river about a mile away covered the golf course, came up over the 4-foot wall at the end of our street and stopped about two houses from ours. In the aftermath, there was a terrible, thankfully temporary neighborhood rat infestation. She instructed us to get into the house when she saw a huge rat on our side yard sidewalk. From the bedroom window, we heard the ‘pop’ and saw the rat briefly stand up on its hind legs before tottering over.
Good shot, Mom.
I’m not sure how I got started in 5th-grade band. With all the other bills, I have no idea how Mom managed to pay off that rent-to-own clarinet that I played at Tenth District School. Seems the band teacher, James Copenhaver, in his very first year of teaching, convinced her that my aural testing was so high that she really needed to get me involved in band.
Another of her favorite stories was during my high school band time. Watching the end of a rehearsal, she heard Mr. Copenhaver say, “Gardner, you march like a cow.” She went up to him afterward and went, “Moooooo” and then identified herself with, “I’m the cow’s mother.”
Mom who taught me to drive, to shave, to do my laundry (for college), to polish my shoes, and to type. She made me take piano lessons, allowed me to take clarinet lessons and somehow managed to be there for most major events. She taught me conservation techniques; the thermostat seldom went above 60 in the winter. There was no air conditioning and the summer window fan had to be turned off before bedtime.
I learned the difference between a need and a want. She took care of my needs.
She wasn’t able to buy many gifts. One year, I had asked for a clock-radio. To make the gift opening last longer, she hid it and placed clues all around the property to help me find it. Like most teens, I wanted a car….so on my 16th birthday, she gave me a little battery operated VW bug and made it clear that would be the only car she would ever buy me.
There was an extended episode where her back was really messed up from her years of walking with legs of different lengths. There was a really hard-core brace that she had to wear for a while and I had to help her get it on and off every day. By the grace of God, she improved and was able to get rid of it. She confessed years later that she was afraid she was losing her ability to walk, which would have cost her the job she had….and she feared not being able to raise us.
We didn’t wear the latest fashions, but always had something respectable to wear.
My brothers always got my hand-me-downs. Sorry. We were all in band and had instruments and everything we needed for that. Three of us used my beginning clarinet and the pro-level horn I bought in high school.
Grandpa McCormick moved in for several of his later years. After living alone for several years (Grandma Mamie died my high school freshman year), he married a lady who stole nearly everything he owned. Terrified and trounced, he came to live with Mom.
So after all the terrible things she had endured over the years, she would be his care-provider.
I was off to college and then away, so I didn’t have to deal with him much. On visits, at least, he seemed to have mellowed, although he could still unleash a verbal barrage on occasion. I hope he paid some rent to help with the finances, but I never heard and never asked.
Mom did well raising the five of us. No one is rich, but all five are self-sufficient and raising (or raised) a pretty good next generation.
Mom paid for all of her wedding because her parents would not.
In a 2001, handwritten letter, she wrote,
“my life has been very fulfilling and rewarding. Sometimes I am confined to “cell 423” (house number), but this week I went to the Reds ballgame (via radio) and “watched a horse race (TV) at Churchill Downs, tearing at the playing of ‘My Old Kentucky Home and ended in a “musical production in Branson, Missouri, where I had no parking hassels and had the best seat in the house.”
That was Mom, always finding the best in everybody, finding good in her situations and being thankful for what she did have instead of complaining about what she didn’t.
She used life’s sour lemons to make the best, sweetest lemonade.
Love you and miss you Mom…..and will see you soon.
PS Over the last several years, Mom always accused me of bringing the cold, nasty weather of Northern Indiana with me when I would come to visit. She would have said that again about her own funeral with the dismal driving rain that prevented the graveside ceremony.
“I know, Mom….. but I wanted you to know I was there.”
Beulah celebrating her 85th birthday, the last she would celebrate at her Baltimore Ave home.
I was working for the national fundraising company and in my first few years as a full-time product fundraiser. I spent most of my time calling on larger groups such as total elementary and middle schools, bands, choirs, leagues.
It was a time when you could still walk into an elementary school, go to the office and ask the secretary if you can see the principal — and have at least some chance that you might. No security cameras, buzzing in, showing id and such.
It was almost always okay to leave product samples. I would often leave something in the office for the secretary because everyone knows secretaries know everything about what is going on and have the power to get you (or prevent you from) the decision-makers. When I had chocolates available, those were especially appreciated. Principals and group decision-makers would usually accept chocolate samples.
Other gifts were sometimes problematic. There was a choir director I had worked with for several years. At the time, I was working with a prize vendor who offered novelty phones (land-line, of course). I especially liked the coke phone as a student/seller prize. But I wanted to give this director a piano phone and he wouldn’t accept it — until he was in his last year ready to retire. It wasn’t a matter of “buying” his business (the phone cost @$20) but of genuinely showing appreciation to a long-loyal customer.
Samples and small gifts were one thing. This story is about something else. I am not including the name of the town, school corporation, school, or individual. I want to emphasize that school teachers, sponsors and administrators are overwhelmingly highly-ethical people with a real desire to help students.
This visit was at a medium-sized elementary school with a principal I had yet to meet. He invited me into his office, closed the door, and sat behind his desk. He was an older guy who appeared to have put in enough time to retire.
I was immediately shocked when he started telling me how he hated children, hated his faculty and staff….and, well, everything about his job. As a former teacher, I was simultaneously uncomfortable and angry as he continued. But then it got worse.
After what was supposed to be ice-breaking information gathering prior to giving me details to include or address in my “sales presentation”, he asked me a bizarre question that caught me totally off guard;
“If I sign up to do a fundraiser with you, what is in it for me?”
He couldn’t be asking what I thought he was, and I didn’t want to assume, so I implemented my excellent sales training by asking questions.
“You mean what is in it for your school? [Immediately continuing]….your school should earn about $xxx which will help fund some of the needs you already mentioned.”
“Well, yes…..but what about ME? This is going to be a sizable sale with a good amount of commission for you and I want to know what you would provide me in appreciation.”
At that point, I started putting my materials away, stood up, thanked him for his time, and told him I couldn’t work with him.
As I made my way to open the office door, he mentioned something about confidentiality, and when I glanced back his facial expression was something in between anger and fear.
Summer Band went along the schedule of Summer School; 8am-noon daily. There was a 15 minute break in the middle of the day that you could buy pop or snacks, or just rest up, or do something stupid and get in trouble.
The new Science Building (which also housed the gymnasium and the band room) had been opened only a couple years earlier. It had a new type of light switch throughout — that required a key, but would also work with a properly inserted fingernail file.
One one of those mid morning breaks, a small group of us were going through the building with a fingernail file. If the light was on, we turned it off. If off, we turned it on. Nothing damaging.
I even remember exactly where the light switch was that I was operating the file. It had become stuck and I was trying to get it out. Someone behind me said, “Copenhaver’s coming”. Yeah, sure, right?
I finally got it out and, as I turned around, standing completely inside my comfort zone, was Mr. Copenhaver. No one else in sight.
“Go wait for me in my office”, he said calmly.
I hadn’t spent much time in his office. I could see his large Phi Mu Alpha paddle hanging next to his desk. He did use that. Sometimes in inspection practice (inspection was part of some competitions), he would carry that paddle as he walked in front of the line. If your instrument didn’t pass the white glove test or if you moved, he would say, “That’s one.” That meant that an eternity later when he was on the next line behind, he would whack you with that left-handed paddle. And if the paddle made you move — he’d do it again. For the record, I never got the paddle in inspection.
Sitting in his office, I fully expected at least one of those whacks.
He left me there for an uncomfortably long time — on purpose, I’m sure.
Eventually, he came into the office, closed the door, and sat in his desk chair facing me.
He looked at me and calmly said,
“I’m disappointed, John. That’s all. You can go.”
The paddle would have hurt me less than that.
I spent the rest of my high school career trying to make him proud. I think I did.
I didn’t get in a lot of trouble in school, and never for anything disrespectful, hurtful or damaging. I was never “sent to the office” because of behavior in a classroom. But I did get at least three days of detention that I recall. I’m not sure detention straightened me out because I don’t think my mischievousness caused any long-term harm.
…
The Worship Ensemble in son’s church this morning included one American, one American-born Armenian…. and the rest all Ukranian — from the church’s Russian-speaking Ukranian Growth Group. That is genuine outreach. btw…I couldn’t pick up on the Ukranian vocalist’s accent….but Joan did… Don’t say anything political, because this is not.
The starfish story (not my original) is about someone trying to make a difference and I think of it periodically when I find myself trying to balance that healthy, professional detachment from the lives of individual students with the reality and significance of those lives and my desire to make a difference by being more than “just” a classroom teacher.
Working with students is not a life or death proposition, of course, but some seem to get washed up on the beach. Here’s the story and 10 ways to make a difference. Those 10 ways represent my core beliefs in teaching and working with teens.
The man was out for a walk on the beach when he noticed a boy frantically picking things up and throwing them into the ocean. Curious, he approached the boy to discover that he was picking up starfish that had washed up on to the beach — and was throwing them back into the water.
“Son, what are you doing?” the man asked.
“The tide is going out and these starfish got left behind. I’m throwing them back into the water to save them.”
“But son, there are hundreds of miles of beach. You can’t possibly make a difference.”
As the boy picked up another starfish, he threw it into the water and then turned and said to the man,
“I made a difference to THAT one.”
———————————
Teen years can be trying times. Parents may be fighting, separating, dating and remarrying, which means the teen now has to not only deal with a break up of a foundation in his/her life, but often now has to live in multiple households. Some have to adjust to step-siblings, job losses, financial struggles and more. Then, there are the complexities of school with seemingly unending pressures to perform, trying to get through the dating games, often without an anchor or example to follow. Influenced by increasingly negative social standards, or lack of standards….. teens can get caught in the rise and falling tides. Most learn how to negotiate life’s trying currents, but can turn the wrong way, make a miscalculation or poor decision — and find themselves high and dry on the beach…..and they need help. Not every student needs, wants or will accept a teacher’s help. Sometimes the teacher’s effort is both unappreciated and unsuccessful.
But try we must…because we CAN make a difference “to THAT one”.
Ten ways to make a difference:
Be real. You can’t fake it with teens, they will see right through you. If you can’t be real, you should not be there. Please leave education.
Be available. How easy is it for a teen to say to YOU, “Can I talk to you?”? What if it is not during class or immediately after school? In how many different ways are you available and do students know and understand that? Do they know if it is ok to email, call, text or instant message you? When a teen says they need to talk, somebody needs be available. Be that person. Consider your use of texting and social media.
Be there. Yes, you’re “on duty” at school. What about when a student is in the hospital, at the funeral home, pitching in the softball/baseball game, getting baptized, being awarded Eagle Scout status, or when their garage-type band is playing at the coffee shop? Take your spouse or your kids and just be where you can when you can. They will notice.
Trust them. If you want trust, you need to give some. I have a periodic discussion about trust, abusing it, losing it and the difficulty in earning it a second time. Read: “I WANT To Trust You“. Teens make mistakes and the trust area is one of those places where they can mess up. But help them learn. Take a reasonable chance. Yes, you’ll get burned some….but you will also empower leaders to rise up.
Respect them. There is a good chance they will recognize and return it.
Advocate for them. Of course you have students who are financially challenged and could benefit from music lessons, a better instrument, participation in a select ensemble or some other training. You won’t always succeed, but try to find funding to help. Call the employer to help him get that job. Write a letter to help her get that scholarship. Help them with college applications their parents can’t (or won’t).
Listen, really listen. Teens typically think that people don’t listen. They think adults are quick to lecture, criticize and correct, but are slow to listen. You don’t always have to have the answer. Sometimes there isn’t an obvious answer. Sometimes listening is the answer, because in allowing them to share, you enable them to find their own answer. Unless they are sharing something illegal, dangerous, hear them out. Don’t argue. Don’t interrupt. Don’t pre-judge. And when you can, share your wisdom, experience, expertise and advice.
Expect and Encourage Excellence. Students will complain when the load is heavy and the challenge is significant, but they know, even when they won’t admit, that achieving excellence requires work. They want to achieve and succeed. Being there for them doesn’t mean lowering your standards. Make them stretch. They’ll appreciate you eventually, even if not today.
Don’t assume. A question I ask often is, “You okay?” Simple question….and sometimes they shrug it off, but there have been many times for me that this gives them the opening to ask for help.
Don’t give up. It can be difficult, disappointing and even deflating when teens mess up. Don’t give up on them. That’s what the rest of society wants to do sometimes…. They will be disappointed that they disappointed you, but your unconditional support (not approving what they do) is vitally important to them.
This time of year can be stressful for those romantically attached, hoping to become, casually dating, good plutonic friends or single not by preference. I understand widowed or divorced, too…. but this post targets mostly high schoolers. If you have it all figured out, STOP HERE!
The director had been out for a few days, so I ran the rehearsals….and organized this prank. I wish I had zeroed on facial expressions. NOTE: No harm was done. Students exited one door, walked around and came back in another. We lost about 2-3 minutes of rehearsal. I wonder what it looked like on the CCTV monitors in the admin offices.
These have happened in the last few days, so it merits a post, imo.
YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING OLDER WHEN…..
— you realize that the clarinet you are using to demo for the student is older than the student’s mother who brought student to the lesson.
— a friend posts about being in a type of medical office of a type you’ve never heard. …. but then that friend’s friends are talking about their experiences with that type of doctor.
— you make a pot of coffee and forget to go back and get a cup.
The new Science Building (which also housed the gymnasium and the band room) had been opened only a couple years earlier. It had a new type of light switch throughout — that required a key, but would also work with a properly inserted fingernail file. 
