As a recent graduate of the Curry School and a second-year teacher, I am still very much learning the craft of teaching. I cannot speak about teaching with the authority of a veteran teacher or a Curry professor, but I can try to share insights that have been developed during my graduate career and initial teaching experience.

I teach at a privileged, all-boys, K-12 private school. Obviously, the student demographics, school and family resources are substantially different from most public schools in this country. Certainly, the issues facing teachers and students are not exactly the same as those facing teachers in many public schools. However, I believe some fundamental issues of teaching are common in all schools and for all students.

Specifically, I believe four factors are important for any teacher in any school: building on success, confronting challenges and fears, inspiring passion, and the importance of role models. I have discovered that each of these ideas is relevant to my work with students, but also to my own development as a teacher.

Building on Success

All students and teachers have the capability to be good at something. If you ask students what they are good at, they will inevitably give you an interesting answer. Sometimes the success is something others would judge significant, but often these successes are small in the scheme of things. In all cases, students believe they were successful because they realized some accomplishment, and most often, someone was there—a teacher, coach or parent—who acknowledged progress that gave them a sense of pride. Those smaller successes are motivating, they build confidence, and they set the stage for future success.

As a beginning teacher, it is important to recognize those successes as well. Certainly, there will be plenty of missteps, and many situations that could be improved upon. It is imperative to dissect the successes you have, not only the problems. Successes will vary from individual to individual and day to day, but we need to understand that at some point, there was a leap, a step, a jump toward the direction of getting better.

When the crucial successful steps were taken, think about what was happening mentally to you as a teacher, as well as to your students, that clicked? It is important to acknowledge those early successes—the things that worked—and use them to build your own confidence and effectiveness. As teachers, our job is to help students continually improve and develop and to understand that with hard work, they can make progress and have more and better positive experiences than they have had in the past.

Confronting Challenges and Fears

Being responsible for the education of young people is not only challenging, it can induce fear in a novice teacher. Certainly, I had days during my student teaching where I felt overwhelmed and anxious. Were my lessons well planned? Would I lose the students? Would the students be set back in their academic progress? Challenges will always be there, and fears are natural. The way we confront those fears and challenges, and the way we help students do the same, is what can make or break a new teacher.

For me, two experiences have been instrumental in helping me deal with the challenges and fears that come with being a teacher. The first situation took place in a conversation with the very approachable headmaster of my school. I confessed it was scary being a new teacher, and I wasn’t sure how I would do. He then proceeded to give me a huge boost of confidence in a matter of one sentence.

He said, “As long as you are teaching the boys to grow as human beings, we can always adjust and work to make the content and material aspect better.”

This was huge! I knew I could have a great influence on these young men.

The second experience has been the mentoring I have received from veteran colleagues on a daily basis. Throughout the first few weeks of my first year of teaching, I observed a successful veteran on a daily basis. I continue to go into his classroom to observe and see methods that apply to my teaching.

I would watch this teacher in the morning on my off-period, and then I taught the same lesson later that day. If you want to become good at something, observing an expert do what you hope to do is essential. I realize how fortunate I am to have had this opportunity and wish that this experience was commonplace for all new teachers, not only those in settings like my school. Having such good models of instruction helped in ways that not only helped the students, but boosted my confidence in ways I needed desperately.

I felt good. I felt confident. Most of all, I felt relaxed.

Inspiring Passion

Students get it. They intuitively know, with incredible accuracy, whether a teacher is committed to them as students and to the subjects being taught. Deep down, students want to be inspired and in order for this to happen, the teacher needs to understand the students, and as important, the students need to feel they are understood.

Understanding your students is undoubtedly challenging. Each individual is different. Listening to and challenging your students will reveal important aspects of each student that will help you understand their individual strengths and weaknesses. With that fundamental understanding you can inspire students. Students trust teachers who truly understand and empathize with them.

Curry gave me the tools for managing classrooms and learning how to be an effective instructor. That was all part of the explicit teacher education curriculum. But what I also saw, in abundance, was the passion and trust-building skills that professors, university supervisors and clinical instructors all brought to their respective tasks. Their values and commitment to my fellow graduate students and me were not only obvious, but also infectious.

Importance of Role Models

Finally, students and new teachers need role models, not icons. Students need to see people who are successful, but to understand that their role models had to overcome challenges and build on successes just as they have. They need to know that their struggles are not unique to them, but that through hard work and perseverance they can achieve the success of their mentors. Curry and my professional colleagues provide that for me, and I try to do this for my students.

While confidence in the classroom was an issue before, being a positive role model for my students has not. For example, I was a competitive wrestler at U.Va., and my goal was to be an NCAA champion. I fell short.

It was difficult to realize I did not reach my goal; however, it did not mean that I was a failure or that I did not have significant success. (I won the ACCs and finished my senior year one round away from being an All-American. I came to value these achievements, even if they were not the goals I originally anticipated). More importantly, I could argue that I grew more from working through this realization than I did working toward it (at the very least, I learned another important set of lessons).

I hope that sharing this and similar experiences with my students will help them see adults who have worked hard, suffered setbacks, enjoyed success, and ultimately, inspire them to grow and push themselves.

I have found that the lessons I have learned in working through the challenges of being a new teacher are sometimes oddly similar to the lessons I try to impart on my students. In struggling through the first two years of teaching, I must remind myself to celebrate my small successes, not just focus on the tough stuff. Likewise, I must help students recognize their value and acknowledge their small successes in an effort to further develop their passions.

When I confront my fears of not being a perfect teacher in my first two years, I must also consider my students’ fears and push them to work through their hesitance. Although I want to always bring passion to the classroom in order to best connect with my students, I have realized my most important task is to inspire that same passion in each of them.

Finally, as I have learned from more experienced teachers and appreciated the importance of role models as I develop into my own mold of teacher, I have realized how important my actions are in becoming a positive and influential role model to my students.

Teaching is a learning process; everyone in a school is constantly learning, constantly growing, and constantly adapting to be the best version of themselves that they know how. My journey, with obstacles along the way, has been more rewarding than I could have imagined, and from the professors at Curry, to teachers who have been my mentors, to the students I have worked with every day, I have become a better learner and a better teacher.

Ross was named the Virginia Assistant Coach of the Year award by the National Wrestling Coaches Association in 2012. He teaches math and coaches wrestling at St. Christopher’s School in Richmond.

What support do teachers need so they can promote changes for students with challenging behaviors?

Ann Lhospital
(PhD ’11 Clin & School Psych), LCP,
Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning

I developed an interest in teacher stress and the benefits of consultation in Curry’s Clinical and School psychology program, including my dissertation work with the MyTeachingParter-Secondary project (a coaching model for middle and high school teachers). Now with the LOOK project (Learning to Objectively Observe Kids), I’m applying my clinical and research skills to developing a new mental health consultation model for a new population: Head Start teachers and their students with disruptive, aggressive, and impulsive behaviors.

Consultation that supports Head Start teachers has the potential to reduce problem behaviors and improve social-emotional and academic outcomes, not only for the children most at-risk, but classroom-wide as well. These improvements may result in less stress and a greater sense of competence for teachers.

As a researcher and teacher consultant on LOOK, a 3-year IES-funded project, I am helping to develop and pilot-test our consultation model, first, locally, and then in Miami, Florida.

More information about the LOOK Project

I earned an undergraduate degree and two graduate degrees from the University of Virginia, the most recent in 1995. My learning hasn’t stopped, though.

Since the time I was a beginning counselor, I have studied various theories and techniques about the counseling process. My own approach has evolved over the years, and I recently recognized (again!) how learning—even for experienced counselors—never really ends. In order to be truly authentic in my work and in my life, I see that my personal growth is in itself a constant and my work as a counselor an ongoing process of becoming.

While I was working in my first job as a career counselor at Washington University, I took a T’ai Chi class at the campus YMCA during fall of 1986. I fell in love with the calming movements of the form as well as the gentle philosophical underpinnings of the Taoist approach. I lived in St. Louis for three years. My T’ai Chi instructor gathered committed students at her house weekly for practice and a tea ceremony. I found community in the connection with people and with the movement of the form.

In the intervening years, I’ve moved many times, but have not kept my T’ai Chi practice. I’ve found other means of quiet contemplation and of creating connections.

Just about a year ago, I was introduced to the Buddhist-derived Japanese philosophy, wabi sabi. The phrase has many definitions and interpretations, but the one that resonates most for me is by Robert R. Powell, who said, “[Wabi sabi] nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect.” Add an element of finding the mystery and magic in everyday life, and it’s right up my alley in my work as a counselor and counselor educator.

This Japanese art form seeks to honor and celebrate the beauty and perfection in what’s natural in pottery – drips, cracks, flaws and all. So, what if we learned to prize the imperfections, cracks and mistakes in our own messy lives?

When I was in my doctoral internship, my supervisor and mentor (and now friend), suggested a way of viewing counseling that has served as a foundation for all I’ve done in my work and in my life. The idea my mentor shared was that counseling is a process by which we ultimately learn and grow from the experiences that have been most difficult for us. (And this was before Positive Psychology hit the market!)

Although I had already been in the field for five years, I learned from my supervisor how to see that our struggles sow the seeds of clarity about what is most important—if we take the time to cultivate a new perception of reality so we can discover and explore the mystery, meaning and significance of the events. Without realizing it then, I was introduced to the essence of wabi sabi.

Nothing lasts. Even the most challenging events end at some point. To view life through a wabi sabi lens offers a perspective, a focus on gleaning something good from the messiness and imperfections of our experiences.

Later in my career, I learned how the critical inner voice we all have can hold the keys to where we most need to heal. I understand now that the inner critic gives us a hint about what is imperfect inside us and what we need to gently pay attention to and honor. For example, my inner critic that is a perfectionist shows me that at my core, I’m ignoring a message from the part of me that wants to be in control.

It’s not bad to want to be in control—we all have to take steps to manage and control parts of our lives—but when we become a tyrant because we really feel out of control, it’s time for a little wabi sabi. When I can remember that nothing is perfect and that those imperfections are actually beautiful reminders of just how human I really am, I feel more calm and at peace.

Nothing stays the same. I have a wabi sabi approach to counseling now. I’ve taught my clients to shift their awareness from the inner critic to its message: listen to the inner dialog more closely in order to find a whole new understanding and appreciation of needs and desires. There’s something magical about seeing old experiences in a whole new way. It gives our lives new meaning and a new focus.

Nothing is perfect. Another application of wabi sabi is the tea ceremony – a Buddhist ritual of purity and simplicity – masters prized bowls that were handmade and irregularly shaped, with uneven glaze, cracks, and beauty in their deliberate imperfection.

Most recently, I’m learning to apply wabi sabi to more areas of my life. I teach master’s and doctoral students in a graduate counseling program. I had noticed that when I coached students in learning new skills, I unintentionally expected perfection and I had been lacking empathy for what it takes to learn a whole new way of interacting with others. I’m now encouraging students to be gentle with themselves, to be ok with making mistakes. The process of striving for excellence most important. I’m reminding them that there is beauty and mastery in imperfection.

My wabi sabi counseling message here is that life is full of irregularities—unexpected events. The ones that tend to be most challenging can offer the greatest sense of grace and beauty if we take the time to shine the light of awareness on them. It is through the ongoing practice of wabi sabi that our lives can be filled with joy, wonder and authenticity.

What helps Black Male student-athletes be successful academically as well as athletically?

Paul Harris,
Counselor Education.

Sports have such potential for promoting healthy development among youth – physically, personally, socially, and academically. While involvement in a sport does produce such positive outcomes for most groups, it does not appear to have the same effects for Black males.

The answers to this question will provide critical information for all educators, coaches, parents, and anyone vested in youth sports being a positive force in children’s lives. We will better understand how the context through which sports are delivered can make a difference in helping Black males thrive.

Interviews are being conducted with teachers, student-athletes, school counselors, principals, parents, and coaches. We hope the interview responses will uncover common perceptions about practices that lead to Black male student-athletes excelling academically as well as athletically.

Learn more about Paul’s work.

(Ed.D. ’13 Admin & Supv)
Director, Charlottesville-Albemarle Technical Education Center

Since 1995, online learning has exploded into public education across the United States.  Today in 2013, students in more than half of our 50 states have the opportunity to enroll in full-time online high schools.  Think about that for a moment:  students have the option to elect out of crowded cafeterias and one-size-fits-all instruction.  That is quite a change to the usual business of schools!

A 2006 CATO Education Market Index report gives a great perspective for those of us at UVA: “The last dramatic instructional innovation occurred while Thomas Jefferson was president: the introduction of the chalkboard, around 1801” (Coulson, p. 5).  That sounds like a harsh criticism.  After all, schools have been using all new kinds of gadgets and devices to change schooling…or have they?  Did the Apple II, or the Scantron machine, or a student’s iPhone really transform instruction?  Or, were these just new tools to facilitate instruction?  As online learning grows, more and more students nationwide are engaging in an instructional medium that transforming the traditional roles of students and teachers—and leaders—within public schools.

In the Commonwealth of Virginia, the growth of online learning has been bolstered by legislation through the General Assembly.  After legislating the creation of “multi-division online providers” (HB1388, SB738), the General Assembly in 2012 required the completion of one online course for all graduates in the class of 2017 and beyond (HB1061, SB489).  For the first time in the history of schooling within the Commonwealth, students are required, by law, to engage in a medium for teaching and learning that no longer employs the traditional roles and responsibilities of teachers and students present in all other brick-and-mortar instructional scenarios.

What does this have to do with leadership?  Why should principals be concerned?  The answer lies in the numbers.  In SY2011-12, Virtual Virginia—the state-run online learning program within the Commonwealth—reported 6,352 enrollments.  Consider the projected membership of Virginia’s freshman class in SY2013-14:  nearly 95,000 students; compound that number by four years, and over 375,000 students will be required to complete at least one online course in order to earn a standard or advanced studies diploma.

With demand outpacing supply by more than fifty times over, school leaders are faced with myriad decisions ranging from “What program do we choose?” to “How do I evaluate online instruction?” to “What resources are needed?”  Compounding the issue is the fact that most leaders have little or no experience with online learning or with leading it.  Moreover, the state provides no policy guidance on the implementation of online learning or evaluating its effectiveness.

As school level leaders, we need to accelerate our own learning about online instruction and leadership.  As a state, we must make policy development and direction for online learning a top priority.  The students are coming next year whether schools and their leaders are prepared, or not.  From Highland High to T.C. Williams, principals from the smallest to the largest schools will be faced with a new instructional paradigm:  online learning, and they’ll be required to make it happen.  We must adapt with great haste—over 375,000 students will be counting on us in four short years.

What are the most important early cognitive skills young children should learn to improve their later reading, math, and science achievement?

David Grissmer,
Research Professor,
Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning.

Strong differences tend to exist between policy makers and practitioners that affect the choice of curriculum for young children. Policymakers maintain a strong focus on math and reading skills, while practitioners may focus on a broader range of skills, including self-regulation, fine motor, and skills learned in music, arts, physical education, science, and social science.

Preliminary research suggests that a wider set of skills may be critical to children’s later academic success. The more we learn through research about the effects of these skills, the better decisions educators can make about the importance of curriculum diversity.

We are using data collected from about 20,000 children starting at kindergarten entry through eighth grade to assess the importance of their early self-regulation, fine motor, and attentional skills to their later academic achievement in reading, mathematics, and science.

Read more about Dave’s research 

For the past 35 years, the Curry School has hosted the Summer Enrichment Program, a residential camp for gifted and talented students rising into grades 5-11.

The application process for this two-week camp is competitive. The program attracts students mainly from Virginia, but includes students from other states and from around the world. Tuition is kept purposefully low to reduce barriers to all students, and scholarships are awarded to many in need.

SEP students are smart and are intensely interested in learning, which can sometimes set them apart from others their age in an uncomfortable way. At SEP, though, campers come together in a supportive atmosphere, and they love it. After their first summer, they usually apply again and again until they are too old to attend, then they return as counselors.

For many, SEP becomes a place where students look forward to spending time, a sort of home-away-from-home. Students live in U.Va. dormitories, eat at the U.Va. dining hall, and take two classes every day in advanced topics in their areas of interest, such as architectural history, engineering physics, and music technology.

When not in class, campers are supervised by college students from U.Va. and other universities, many of whom were former SEP campers. These counselors are an important part of the SEP experience for kids. They mentor students and share with them their own academic interests, their experiences, and also lots of fun games and activities, many unique to SEP. Traditions abound and are closely guarded and passed down from SEP generation to SEP generation.

Several times a year I receive email, letters, songs, and gifts of all manner from campers and from counselors, each with a similar message:

“SEP changed my life.”

“SEP is important to me.”

“I love SEP.”

An SEP alum who will return as a counselor this coming summer wrote to us,

I attended SEP from 8^th-11^th grade. It was a life-changing experience that gave me knowledge, memories, and friends that I still treasure today. This program shows children the benefit of getting good grades and working hard, especially since within this age group children are most likely to discourage one another from academic achievement.

One young woman wrote to us recently that she wants to donate her earnings from last summer’s job to provide a scholarship for an SEP student this summer. “Although I’m sad I won’t be able to attend this summer,” Bel wrote, “I am so happy to be able to look back on the past five summers with great memories that made me the person I am today.”

She wants to name the scholarship in honor of her sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Rohlfs, who introduced Bel to SEP and later died of cancer.  “She was my favorite teacher and if it had not been for her I would never have been able to experience SEP,” Bel explained.

For these messages and for all the previous ones, the staff at SEP says, “Thank you for allowing us to work with the greatest kids ever!”

Read more about SEP.

How do we help students become more proficient writers by writing across the curriculum?

Jane Hansen,
Reading Education.

As co-director of the Central Virginia Writing Project, I am personally intrigued by this issue. Writing is a mode of learning. When students write across the curriculum, not only in isolated writing classes, they may be more likely to retain information and deepen their understanding of a topic.

What we learn benefits teachers and their students. The teachers become aware of additional ways to engage their students in writing as a mode of learning. Their students, by becoming writers, become more articulate. They become more fully aware of what they know and believe.

A team of six of us (mostly classroom teachers) studies students in classrooms as they write. We meet weekly and discuss students’ work, looking for their learning and growth as a writers and for what their work represents in relation to what the teacher is trying to teach.

Herb Richards circa 1974

I couldn’t fit in all the anecdotes, though—especially those told by Herb Richards, who seems to remember everything through the lens of his quirky sense of humor. Herb technically retired last year, but honestly, they gave him some office space in Bavaro Hall, and I see him around more often than ever.

Herb told me that in the summer of ’73 he and Harry Strang (Professor Emeritus of Education) were charged with hosting Carolyn Callahan when she came to interview at Curry. The two gentlemen had not dined often at the Colonnade Club, where they decided to take her for lunch, so they had trouble locating it. Once they finally arrived, Herb says, “It was clear that not many women had been in there. It was very awkward. We were awkward.”

The clocks seem to have been a great source of amusement for Herb and some of his colleagues. He says there were 28 of them total in Ruffner—14 pairs mounted back to back in the hallways.

“Not long after the move in, the times on the clocks began to diverge,” Herb says. “It was rumored that no two clocks told the same story.” He remembers one professor’s wry comment, “There would be no point having so many clocks if they all said the same thing.”

Herb often worked on the weekends. One autumn Sunday he entered the building on the Emmet Street side to find the nearest clock dangling from its wire and shattered glass on the floor underneath. The damaged clock just so happened to synchronize exactly with Herb’s watch—8:35—while the clock down the hall did not. Someone had put a sign on the broken clock that said, “Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”  (For those of who aren’t old enough to remember, that used to be the slogan for Timex watches.)

Herb also remembers that eventually someone put up a poster with four different clock faces drawn, each showing a different time. Underneath, the caption read, “Ruffner Standard Time.”

He doesn’t remember when or why the clocks eventually disappeared. I wondered if any of you alumni remembered the clocks at all. I did find a Corks & Curls photo that shows one clock in a Ruffner corridor.

Please use the comments box to send us your memories of Ruffner when it was new!

Check out photos showing the progress of the Ruffner Renovation on the Curry School Facebook page.

Update 4/1/13 from Kay Buchanan, the Curry Librarian:

Here is a photo of the Education Library in 2009. Note the clock hanging from the ceiling (upper left). It was the last of the working back-to-back clocks that Dr. Richards mentioned. I am not sure if this is clock 29 or one of the 28 mentioned by Dr. Richards, but I do know it was the last of the clocks that worked.  That said, only one side was working, so we put up a smiley face on the other side that read, “There’s still time!” I’m betting the clock was removed during the 2013 renovation of Ruffner Hall.

What can students tell us about their classrooms that can help teachers develop better learning environments?

Jason Downer,
Director,
Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning.

We still have much to learn about what happens in classrooms and how this helps (or hinders) student learning and development. Given how much time they spend with teachers and classmates, students’ perspectives can be a powerful, untapped resource for understanding classroom processes.  Their impressions of a classroom experience could also provide valuable information to teachers looking for feedback to fine-tune and enhance their practice.

We are constructing surveys for upper elementary school students and asking them to tell us about their experience in the classroom. These surveys will then be compared to observations of the classroom by independent, trained observers, as well as self-ratings by teachers and reviews by school administrators.

Learn more about the Learning About Teacher-Student Interactions project.

Learn more about Jason’s work at CASTL.