Teachers Change Lives 24/7:150 Ways to Do It Right

TEACHERS CHANGE LIVES 24/7

150 ways to do it right…

Jim Burgett

The purpose of this manual is to educate and entertain. The author and Education Communication Unlimited shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.

Teachers Change Lives 24/7: 150 ways to do it right…

Published by Education Communication Unlimited

at Smashwords

Copyright © 2010 by Jim Burgett

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. To contact the author: Education Communication Unlimited, P.O. Box 845, Novato, CA 94948 / (800) 563-1454 / www.superintendents-and-principals.com.

First printing, March 2007

Second printing, April 2007

Fourth printing, February 2008

Cover by Douglas Burgett

ISBN 0910167109

Table of Contents

Introduction

1 The Journey

2 Mr. Ruggles

3 Home Management

4 Be Careful How You Criticize

5 Trees and Kids

6 You Walk. They Follow.

7 Mr. B

8 The Secret of PILY

9 Testing and Learning

10 Expectations and Environment

11 The Fun Police

12 The Cast of Characters

13 Love It or Leave It

14 Be Unforgettable

Author’s Biography

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Other Books by Jim Burgett

Bibliography

Index

Introduction

I knew Jim before he knew himself. The first time I saw him he was naked, puckered, and wailing. With an appearance and temperament like that, I figured he’d survive about two miserable years. I was eight and he was my kid brother.

Now he’s written his own book, every last word. Go figure.

It’s a good book, too. He’s a funny guy and that seeps through on every page. But mostly Jim is a teacher, and by extension a storyteller. So, on these pages Jim mainly tells stories. He tells about Mr. Ruggles, Mr. B, Mike Klippert, Paula Shea, and a dozen or two more. His heroes, who turn out to be remarkably like Jim himself.

They are all excellent teachers and great leaders, champions to kids and blessings to parents. They are the prototypes of what Jim wants all teachers to see and emulate because, as his title says, Teachers Change Lives 24/7—and that’s too big a responsibility to give to anybody who doesn’t flat-out love kids and want to help open up an exciting new world to them.

In fact, Jim says it best in one of the 175 ways by which teachers might excel in their life-changing quest:

If you don’t love kids, love your job, and love

the field of education, quit. Liking isn’t good

enough when it comes to children’s lives.

I became involved in Jim’s literary pursuits nearly five years ago when he and two of his cronies, Drs. Max McGee and Jim Rosborg (themselves top leaders in Illinois education) asked me a question about publishing a book they were writing together. I so liked the idea and the wisdom the three imparted, my publishing firm bid on their brainchild, and that became What Every Superintendent and Principal Needs to Know. It rightly became a best seller (with the second, revised edition being released in 2007). The same three are presently finishing another dandy book on educational administration called The Perfect School.

All along, Jim has been wooing educational audiences with speeches, keynotes, and strategic planning sessions, and in the process has created his own, unique pool of wisdom, laced with laughter and more than a few tears, all told through stories about the best teachers, how to solve problems immediately, and how to make the school a hallowed hall from which only good things emerge.

So I asked the kid when I could share that information with you too, so many more of you could hear his words and thoughts. This book is the result.

It’s a grand offering and he’s done the odd Burgett family proud again. But you decide…

(If you want to see what others think of the book, check www.superintendents-and-principals.com).

Gordon Burgett, Publisher, E.C.U

Chapter One

The Journey

Why don’t we take a journey together? Let’s travel, through this book, into many hamlets of education. There will even be a prize at the end—you will have new tools to help you become a more effective teacher, a better person, and a stronger, positive influence on others.

These pages are written as much from my heart as my head. It’s not a research manual so it won’t quote a score of famous authors, nor will it give you a rigid or even exact formula for teaching success. What it will do is suggest a useful mix of ideas, thoughts, experiences, and tools.

It’s based on actual happenings, shared processes, witnessed successes (and failures), readings, and other sources. And it’s really not my book, but our book. I say that because teachers are bound together by commonly-shared elements, one of which is a desire to make a difference in this world.

Still, it starts with me and the 61 years I have been preparing the mix. That’s how long I’ve been in education.

Before you panic and think I’m a Geritol-guggling senior citizen writing from the sunroom of a rest home, let me add some additional facts to consider. My involvement in education began at birth. From the outset I was the recipient of non-stop education: how to eat, when to sleep, how to laugh (my brothers were tickle freaks), what to wear (mostly cloth diapers), how to communicate when Dad would accidentally poke me with a diaper pin, and lots more.

In year two, give or take a few months, I learned how to walk, talk, express my thoughts, and try new things. I figured out when to please and when to agitate. I even learned new ways of communication, with crayons and letters and books.

From then on, I was on a ballistic learning curve: running in circles, reading, riding bikes, adding and subtracting, singing songs, swinging a bat, swimming...

There was always someone there to teach me something—one of my two older brothers (twins, who were eight when I was born), my dad, my mom, a neighbor, or a friend. Sometimes what I learned was inappropriate, at which point I learned what inappropriate meant and I had to decide whether I wanted to continue to be inappropriate (with its consequences) or not. That’s all part of it.

By five, I was in kindergarten. Many think that learning begins when we enter school. Research tells us that we have learned a high percentage of what we will ever learn before we walk through those magic doors on that fateful first day (watched by a weeping or joyful Mom). All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten shares the importance of those first few years.

I learned that being cute with big brown eyes and an angelic smile got me more favors than some of my friends, who were loud, obnoxious, or even evil.

In my youth, preschool meant staying at home with a mom who didn’t have a job. Still to be invented were multi-folded, plastic, high tech diapers with Velcro and pictures of action figures. We suffered through Dreft and a pail filled with obnoxiously smelly, used cotton squares.

We didn’t wash our hands as often as we do now and we probably didn’t know all the correct ways to prepare food. We drank thick, cream-laden milk (sometimes mixed with chocolate powder) and we ate real butter, not It’s Almost Butter or Fooled You—This Really is Plastic Butter! And white bread. We would never pay for water when it came free from the tap.

We let our marshmallows get crispy black at the campfire and never once thought about carcinogens. Fiber was what they used to make rope, and we pulled apples off trees and ate them regardless of their color or cleanliness. I’m not sure if those were the good old days, but, for good or bad, we survived.

We even sat two feet away from the television set. Of course the screen was 12 across and had a strange circle-like shape. What we saw was black and white and, at best, fuzzy. Howdy Doody came on at 4:30. The Friday Night Fights" were a big attraction. There were no computers, no cell phones, no digital cameras, no air conditioning in cars (except lowered windows), no fast foods, and no microwaves. Your head was your calculator. Your dictionary was your spell checker. The Encyclopedia Britannica, sold by a guy who came door-to-door, was your reference source. (Some bought their encyclopedias at the grocery store one volume a week.) Your bike had one gear, fat tires, a big seat, and it came with fenders that most boys removed within minutes. And everything you did had to do with education. Every experience, every communication, every relationship added to your kit of knowledge.

In school I learned so much I couldn’t begin to write it down, nor did I know I should. But here, five or six decades later, I will share some of those school-related stories that changed my life and modeled the way I have hopefully changed the lives of others. I’m sharing them now because I suspect that some of these examples still work today.

My education was more formal from about five to twenty two. I breezed through the first twelve years in about twelve years. I wasn’t the valedictorian, but I did make it to the National Honor Society. I don’t recall being named student of the day, student of the week, student of the month, or student of the year. But then again, I don’t remember spending any days in detention, suspended, expelled, or sentenced for anything. (I did get my share of speeding tickets, but that’s another story.)

Nonetheless, I managed to escape juvenile saintliness. There was that time in junior high when I was a guest of the principal—but it wasn’t my fault! And the time I kicked my fifth grade teacher—once. My mom then kicked me full of instant respect, took away about every privilege I thought I had, and made me pay a big price for my behavior. I learned a lot from that one kick.

Life in school was full of learning, but unlike most other kids, from sixth grade on that learning expanded to new fronts with a suddenly mixed up, challenging, and confusing home life.

I was learning how to process what a wide variety of teachers were teaching me, including coaches, mentors, Sunday School teachers, Boy Scout leaders, and anybody who was so inclined to help me grow intellectually, physically, and spiritually. Unknowingly, I was also learning how to teach. From the day I met Mr. Ruggles I studied teachers as much as what they taught. Mr. Ruggles made me want to teach. (Let’s save Mr. Ruggles for the next chapter.)

From high school I went directly to the University of Illinois. I used to visit my brother Gordon who was a student there. He was 22 then and I was about 14. I loved the visits and the Champaign-Urbana campus. It was at the U. of I. that I planned to become a teacher, or so I thought.

But, like lots of other students, I had to work a lot when I got there and, while I was smart enough, my time management skills were pretty dumb. So at the end of three semesters I had exactly a C average. Decision time: my GPA was too low for admission into the College of Education. I could either change majors or change my life. I chose the later.

For one semester I went to work in a factory. I scored too high on the application exams to do piecework in the big building so they put me in the office—as a time management specialist. Me, a time management specialist? Didn’t they know it was my lack of time management skills that got me to the factory in the first place! I had to wear a tie and jacket and I earned less than the guys in the factory. Yet in other ways I learned many of life’s most profound lessons. One, I saw first hand the difference between those who were dedicated to their work versus those solely dedicated to a paycheck. Two, I couldn’t wait to get back to becoming a teacher.

With new vigor and a bit of my newly-found time management specialization, the next three years were super. I transferred to the University of Wisconsin, in Platteville. I married the girl I fell in love with during eighth grade but didn’t seriously date until college. I learned how to juggle 40 to 60 hours of work each week on top of my schooling, and I discovered a new work ethic: I never earned less than an A from then until I had finished my third degree.

I grew up. I put into place what others had shared with me. I was serious about a career, a marriage, and my life.

I still have the same wonderful wife and I’m just retired from education as a teacher, principal, and superintendent, taking the last position in my early thirties. I’ve continued to provide professional development for educators, something I have been doing for about 20 years. And I’ve miraculously become an author. I’ve been blessed in many, many ways, and I’m still learning…

A couple more thoughts before we start our journey. My experience as an educator has allowed me to teach students from fifth grade to graduate school. I spent the majority of my years teaching the hormonally-challenged middle schoolers. Many suggest that you need a lobotomy to teach this age group. If I had one, I can’t remember it. I actually love that age and still teach fifteen students each week from grades 7-12 in a Sunday School class.

I have also worked in districts with thousands of kids, and some with only a few hundred. I have worked with national leaders and local councils; I’ve witnessed poverty and affluence. I have fought for adequate resources, built new schools, and watched students become exceptional contributors to society.