← Speeches & Workshops

Feb 2012

WIU Student Teachers (park east of Union)

I don’t want to give a speech. I drove up here for nothing this morning….Got to hurry back to teach…. I’m not a professional speaker.. I’m a teacher, Now in my 40th year of teaching.

Simply because…Tuesday I performed with a Symphony Orchestra…kids concert….about a thousand 5th and 6th graders….smiling anxious faces… And by the time they graduate…if there were a thousand…

350 live in one-parent homes 300 of them won’t graduate 80 of them will drop out because they have learning disabilities & they will just get discouraged If half are girls, then 122 of them will be pregnant before they graduate 110 will have been bullied this week… 80 will have been bullied in P.E. class alone 130 will have bullied others… 90 will have been bullied in P.E. class 200 will suffer depression before they’re 20 2 will kill themselves And YOU….You will decide who lives and who dies…who is successful and who is a failure. I’m not kidding. I’m not exaggerating. I don’t know why you’re going in to teaching…But this is why you SHOULD go into teaching.. And it has nothing to do with your students test scores or No Child Left Behind All I want to do today is to help you do that.

Beginning a speech: Bummy

Teen Prostitution..selling yourself.

1.----First, a warning…Your students are hearing you, but most of all, your students are watching you.

My teachers: Piano…Mildred, finger Trumpet: Jimmy Zimmerman You’re being watched every moment.

Our head football coach..former student. Running back: two state championships.

Biggest shock of his life. First year..tough guy..chewed kids out… Then the day when he divided the frosh up among the seniors..same attitude.

You’ve no doubt been lectured to about the problem of bullying. What they may not have told you is that some of the worst bullies are teachers. Teachers who don’t have it together so they end up using intimidation Teacher who don’t prepare so they take it out on their students

Doing a show in Greene County on Bullying…audience on floor…One little boy couldn’t see…got up to knees…His teacher went crazy. Chewed him out in front of the others, made him sit by her. I wanted to cry. The kid missed the rest of the show….thinking, “I’m no good.”

Teachers who don’t plan well, then get the pressure put of them to perform, end up bullying the students. Lazy teachers often become bullying teachers. ….they demand things of kids without preparing them. I have taught with teachers who are bullies. In every single case, the teacher was poorly prepared. And in doing so, they have taught their lesson of the day.

You may have heard this saying:..Maya Angelou.. “I may not remember what you did or a single thing you said, but I remember exactly how you made me feel.”

So number 1: If you have 25 students, then you will have 25 mirrors of your attitude.

2. Stay away from the gripers and bitchers…they’re poison You’ll find them in every school

Our teacher’s lounge For once, don’t get if off your chest Teacher I know..kids drive her crazy.. ..meet her in IGA...guess what she talks about...

Corrie Ten Boom “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorry, It empties today of its strength.” To lose weight, skip your morning calisthenics. Some teacher do early morning calesthentics in the shower

2. Realize that YOU are the boss, and if you’re not, you’re a failure as a teacher.

My last senior class who had been the terror of our school ever since Jr High. I saw the list and it looked like a prison break. I never dreamed they’d make it this far alive. And when class begins, I was still the main determining factor of how that class goes.

YOUR STUDENTS WANT A LEADER…Not a best friend, not a Facebook buddy…a leader…University of Minnesota…Video-taped new playground…First: No fences.

Kids not only need firm boundaries, they WANT them.

I played athletics under two coaches…one in high school and one in college. High school coach was everybody’s buddy. He’d believe any excuse you gave him for missing a practice, you’d laugh on the bus returning from losing ballgames…a genuinely nice guy…and a string of losing teams. College…baseball….tough. You did a month of conditioning before you ever saw a baseball. He’d call each team member at 10 o’clock on the nights before games.

When I went into the ballgame for the high school coach, I didn’t feel safe. He wasn’t in control. I didn’t always like the college coach, but I felt safe….He cared enough about me and my team to be a leader. He knew what was coming and he’d prepared us for it.

A good friend…Teach for America… inner-city Washington D.C. Knew knew many of her kids had been abused at home so she decided let them make lots of their own decisions in her first year of teaching. She came home in tears every night.

If you are not a firm leader in your class then you are abusing children. And there’s a easy way to do this…Treat your students as if they were your own children.

3. THIS MAY BE THE MOST SHOCKING ADVICE I GIVE YOU, but if you’re going to make a difference in kids’ lives, you’ll have to give up a lot of your own life. Teaching is 24-7. It’s not fair, you won’t be paid for it, but that’s too bad…That’s being a good teacher. My brother is a bank president…at night he never thinks about work. My sister-in-law is a tech expert…she never mentions her job at home. I’m a teacher…I can never stop thinking about it.

Self-help books: take care of your inner child. BULL. He’s a spoiled brat. Keep focused on your kids.

You’ve had teachers who spend a good deal of the class time talking about themselves. Get a clue. We’re not interested, you’re wasting time, and you’re telling me that you’re not interested in me.

A good teacher never has a bad day. I’m serious. If you’re sick, get over it. Like having a doctor do surgery on you when he’s having a bad day. Like have a Delta Airlines pilot fly you to Japan when he just doesn’t feel like it.

And that includes not having time to prepare for class. If you don’t have time, please…please…get a good job selling insurance or Mary Kay. Stay away from kids. They’re too important.

Current student: Billie. Extremely talented…and currently extremely worthless. He’s never made a mistake that was his fault. He missed a performance yesterday.. Why? “Because it was February 1st and it was on the next screen of his IPad and so I didn’t see it coming.”

The secret: Getting more concerned with your kids than your own problems..

Becky...funeral... Carl Menninger JHS girl: CFS

A. Sweitzer: “The only ones among you who will be truly happy as those who will have sought and found out how to serve.” If life is bumming you out because you’re asked to give so much, give more.

4. Collect colleagues fellow teachers….who encourage one another… They’re out there in every school…find them.

As a profession, we are terrible about validating each other.. pumping each other up. So often, our teaching is judged by popularity …thus: jealousies. Ed A: constant validation….

Collect interesting and enthusiastic people. Marie...salt and pepper shakers.

Not among your students…dangerous. Our Green Pastures Workshop….

Nuture friends who encourage you. Who take joy in your joy. Even if you must go outside your own faculty.

Tony Compello “Five years from now you’ll be pretty much the same as you are now except for two things: The books you’ve read and the people you’ve met.

And the best way to do this is to become an encourager yourself. My schedule… Teach at Lincoln Land College in a few hours, currently have four plays in production at once, columns for 14 Midwest newspapers, I spend four months entertaining on a Peoria riverboat. What do I need? Encouragers! People who tell me how we CAN get a job accomplished, not those who tell me why it won’t work.

architect Johnstone: (Charlie Rose show) 90 years old. Hottest place in hell for whiners and complainers ..... “If life were 100 times longer, there would still excuse for every getting bored by it.” Cultivate friends who are not bored by life.

5---Your toughest job will have nothing to do with math or science or P.E., but to simply teach kids to be human. If you do no more than teach your students how to be civil…be human.. then you will have had a successful year.

James Dobson..monopoly Dad...hay ...rain.... Brian…Nursing Homes

6. Choose carefully whom you try to please. Many choices: the principal, the parents, the school board….the fans. Who are you teaching to please? Quest...Inner-Outer Self HINEY THE MULE

 Many are trying to make teaching a science. If you do steps 1,2,3,4, your students will succeed. It’s more than that. It’s an art. Think of the best teachers you’ve had…They weren’t the best because they followed each of the state regulations. They were the best because they cared very deeply about your education…They cared perhaps more than you did.

7. Lighten Up……Stop taking yourself so seriously because if you look around you’ll notice that no one else is. If you truly enjoy teaching, then your class will often be a room of joy.

And many times it can be a whole lot of fun….Matt…baritone Jim Kern...MRS. BROWN

LIGHTEN UP.... ....go barefoot more often ...eat nothing but ice cream for a whole day. ...wear underwear backwards...will break into uncontrollable giggles for no reason every time you think about it. ....walk up to biggest grouch you know and say “I just want you to know that I feel great!” It’ll throw them off all day. ...do some serious coloring ...start teaching to succeed instead of fearing failure... ...break the dress code occasionally. Your own, not the schools. .....McDonnald’s “Have a nice Day” Why? … plan an all-out attack on your most serious behavior problem..bother them ….A problem student…attack them with affection, with attention, with love.. cause some real trouble in their life. (Kidnapping kids at camp)

3 things in life are real...WHEN YOU’RE BORN, WHEN YOU DIE WHEN YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN A CHILD’S LIFE.. in everything else...LIGHTEN UP.

Chillochothe...”probably dead” Lincoln Museum…piano..wax figures Church lady...music at her funeral. Jeff W...Free Spirit..Robbed and tied.

I stood in the back of the auditorium Tuesday and slapped each hand as they left the concert…. I slapped the hand of 350 who live in one-parent homes 300 of them who won’t graduate 80 of them who will drop out because they have learning disabilities & they will just get discouraged 122 girls who will be pregnant before they graduate 110 will have been bullied this week… 80 will have been bullied in P.E. class alone 130 will have bullied others… 90 will have been bullied in P.E. class 200 will suffer depression before they’re 20 2 will kill themselves

And while I was touching each hand, I was thinking of coming to Macomb this morning….knowing that YOU might save them. This is not a speech I go around the country giving…I’m giving it one place: right here, to you.

Once a year..my college fraternity meets.2 bankers, 1 builder, 1 prison warden, 2 Insurance executives, one lawyer, 1 impliment dealer, one state worker.. I am by far the lowest paid diner at the table…and the happiest.

You are entering the world’s most powerful profession….the world’s most important profession….

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