Why Are You Here?

I began my teaching career in the fall of 1973 at Cedar Bluff Middle School in Knoxville, Tennessee.  Many of my views about teaching and learning were influenced by my colleagues and administrators at Cedar Bluff, which included Brenda Yarnell, Jean Wolfe, Catherine Gettys, Barbara Kelly, Linda Pinkstaff, Fred Neidiffer, and George Perry.  I have worked in teacher education since 1986 in Texas and Tennessee.  On several occasions I have been confronted by a similar question: "How can you with a clear conscience encourage students to become teachers?  These students could make much more money in another profession, they will not have any respect in the community, and some fool may come into their classroom and kill every student and teacher in the room."

Every teacher reading this blog has faced similar questions.  When I get up in the morning and look into the mirror, and begin my day as a teacher educator, do I have a clear conscience?  Yes! I believe teaching is a noble and rewarding profession as well as essential for the progress of our nation.  But first, let me deal with violence.  I believe we can agree that we are not safe anywhere, including restaurants, shopping centers, military bases, movie theatres, and church.  As long as a critical and vocal group in this country believes that the country must be awash in guns in order to be safe, this is not going to change.  Our country is the most Christian and the most violent country in the western world.  What a paradox! Regardless, research is clear on the topic of children and violence.  The most dangerous place for a child to be is in the home, and the safest place for a child to be is at school. As you began another school year, renew your commitment to make your classroom a safe place for all children.

I clearly understand the financial limits placed upon your future (based on your decision to be a teacher).  I worked extra jobs during many summers to pay the bills.  I have had students in our teacher licensure program come to my office and withdraw from the program because they do not want to spend the rest of their lives living on the limited teacher’s salary.  I have had former students find me at Homecoming (and in Cracker Barrel) and apologize as they tell me they are leaving the teaching profession in order to make more money in another profession.  During a Meet Maryville on a Saturday a mother asked me, “Why should my daughter pay the tuition at Maryville College and work on a teacher’s salary for the rest of her life?”  These and other questions do not have one simple answer, and each individual teacher must arrive at his/her own answer.

The answer starts with a very important question.  Why are you here?  What is your purpose on this planet?  You could take the existentialist approach to this question and argue that our universe is filled with chaos, and we do not have a master plan or a God who is in control.  We are thrust into this chaos, and each individual must make his/her own order and/or meaning in our existence.      

Of course, one could also take the opposite approach and argue that a sovereign God is in complete control of the events on this planet.  He reveals a plan for each individual who believes. Several years ago I was studying the philosopher, Friedrich Hegel, and I ran across the following quote, “History is God thinking.”   

Regardless, of your approach, I have found that teachers who remain effective in our profession year after year have a powerful sense that teaching is my niche in life, teaching is my calling from God, or teaching is how I make sense of the chaos around me.  In my personal library I have a book entitled The First Principles: A Scientist’s Guide to the Spiritual by John J. Petrovic, retired Fellow of Los Alamos National Laboratory.  In this book he quotes William James, “The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”  As a teacher pouring your soul into the lives of your students, which includes your passion for learning, your ethic of fairness and justice, and the essential value of hard work, this means these values will be passed down from generation to generation. In this sense your impact is eternal**.

For all teachers who read this blog, as you prepare for a new year, may this be the most rewarding year in your professional career.  Our children need you.

Bless You My Children,
Dr. Terry L. Simpson

              

**Last spring, one of our math licensure students was asked to calculate the number of K-12 students impacted by Dr. Simpson's 25 years as an educator. It was determined that ~750 MC graduates in the last 25 years directly impacted over 552,000 K-12 students. Eternal impact? You better believe it! 552,000 K-12 students touched by the ideals and philosophies of 1 man. Why are you here?

B.Lucas

RENEWAL

July 13, 2015 / Simpson's Summer Blog Series

Life is tough.  Any vocation or profession which requires interacting with people for hours each day often brings folks to the point of throwing up their hands and screaming, “I quit!”  Individuals in most professions at some point find a need to express a recommitment to the goals of their profession.  The citizens of a nation at some point in their history realize they need to experience a rebirth in the founding principles of their nation.  Athletes, during a long season, may have to schedule a team meeting to restore the importance of the team rather than placing the emphasis on a few individuals.  Religious folks find the need of revival on a regular basis. 

Being a teacher in K-12 education is a daily emotional, intellectual, and physical drain.  A few years ago, one of our graduates and a first-year teacher emailed me right after school one day with the following message: “Dr. Simpson, remind me why I wanted to be a teacher.”  The following spring when one of her classes filled with low level students made the most academic growth in several years, I received a very different email.  She remembered why she became a teacher.  However, be it the first semester of the first year, the third year, the fifth year, or the twentieth year, most teachers hit a point in which they are in desperate need of renewal. 

If you are at a low point in your professional career as a teacher, the first step you must first take is to realize you are in need of renewal and you are not alone.  Take a critical look at your diet, regular exercise routine, and rest.  Eating an entire family bag of Hersey Chocolate Nuggets may not be the best approach, but I have tried it once or twice.  I addressed “rest” several weeks back, and you may want to find that blog. 

However, in my 42+ years as a teacher, one significant factor stands out in my observations of other teachers and my self-analysis of the ups and downs of my own professional career.  Teachers who attend conferences, especially conferences in their academic disciplines, tend to experience less burn-out than other teachers.  From 2008 through 2012, I had the privilege of being the Director of the Maryville College East Tennessee Math/Science Partnership.  The impact of this experience on many middle school and high school teachers was profound.   

I emphasize your academic discipline, because outside a desire to make a positive difference in the lives of children, your love of the content in your academic discipline played a significant role in your decision to be a teacher.  Gaining new information and a deeper understanding of your academic discipline is a powerful motivational factor.  You may want to start by joining the Tennessee association of your academic discipline and attending their yearly conference.  

The list below may help you get started: 

•  Tennessee Council for the Teachers of English  
•  Tennessee Mathematics Teachers Association  
•  Tennessee Council for the Social Studies  
•  Tennessee Science Teachers Association   
•  Tennessee Reading Association   

I am well aware that many school districts will not reimburse you for your membership fee or for the expenses of attending a conference.  However, I think this personal investment in your own professional development and renewal is well worth the personal cost. 

Bless you my children, Terry L. Simpson

(Image by B. Lucas)

Thoughts After the Tragic Event in Charleston

June 24, 2015 / Simpson's Summer Blog Series

If the murders had taken place in Iraq with a radical Sunni Muslim walking into a Mosque filled with Shi’a Muslims praying and the radical Sunni shot to death nine Shi’a while they were praying, we would dismiss the murders with a thoughtless comment, “They have been killing each other for hundreds of years.”  But it wasn’t in Iraq.  It was another country, another religion.  It is our country, it is Christianity, but with the same hatred, bigotry and pure evil.  How long have we been stereotyping and killing others who are racially and religiously different from us?      

Another question about this event troubles me greatly.  How does a person build up so much hatred toward another race of people in just 21 years?  Hate is learned, so who was his teacher?  Although racist sites on the internet give bigots a free public platform and place, all of them in the same room so they can feed off each other’s hate, the total blame cannot not be placed on these sites.  When did Dylann Roof develop the predisposition to go to these sites and start to believe their hate-filled lies?  Did a teacher somewhere miss an opportunity to point this young man in a different direction? 

I must be honest.  Since last Thursday the faces of children who once sat in my classes, but in later years committed serious crimes, have been passing through my mind.  I have often wondered if I could have done more to touch their young and impressionable souls and point them in a different direction.   

Teachers today are under constant pressure, I believe too much pressure, to solve all the academic, economic, social, and negative family issues that face our children. This pressure has caused many of our best and most creative teachers to throw up their hands and leave teaching because we are too often asking the impossible.   

However, over the past 43 years I have come to hold several beliefs about the role of teachers in our public schools, and the tragedy in Charleston has intensified my commitment to those beliefs.   First, you may have a license to teach math, biology, history or English, but first and foremost you teach children.  There may be days when something other than the planned math lesson takes priority. 

Second, we neglect addressing the great moral issues of life in our democratic society to our own detriment.  In the early twentieth century, progressive educators viewed the school as a place where students practiced living in a democracy by addressing the responsibilities as well as the freedoms of living in that democracy.    

Third, we are witnessing the largest migration of people to different countries and regions in recorded history in order to escape famine, poverty, wars, and genocide.  Consequently, I believe the most important moral value that must be taught to all our children is a sincere respect for all people who inhabit our planet.  Furthermore, one of the most effective forms of teaching and learning is when the teacher models the learning.  Modeling is especially powerful when teaching moral values.  We must recommit to teaching and modeling respect for all, including my people and especially those people.  This moral value is more important than STEM, Common Core, IPads, and standardized tests.  Do my views constitute heresy?  I am beginning my 43rd year as a teacher; I have been around the block more than once.  I have no apology for this view.   

When I was a child attending a little rural church across the country road from my home, I was taught a song the words of which I will never forget.  These words, referring to children, are, “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.”  As a teacher, I want to ask you a very important question.  When you stop and consider the students who will be in your classes in just over a month from now, will all those students be precious in your sight?  You do not have to say to your students, “You are precious.”  They will know by your actions.  Model the learning. 

Bless you my children, Terry L. Simpson

REST!

June 11, 2015 / Simpson's Summer Blog Series

REST!

In my opinion, one of the most important activities for teachers is the deliberate effort to take a break from school and your students over the weekend.  I am not saying an effective teacher never brings school work home.  Teachers always have to grade those essays or exams over the weekend, but this does not happen every weekend.  Use the weekend to pursue activities you enjoy that will take your mind off issues with your students at school. 

The weekend is the time to focus on your family.  My precious daughter, Jennifer, was born on November 5, 1972, and I completed student teaching during the 1973 spring semester. I was hired to teach in the same school the next fall.  I remember bringing school work home too often.  One evening I was at the kitchen table in our apartment, and Jennifer, as a toddler, made her way to the table.  Her little fingers barely reached the table, and her eyes were just over the edge of the table.  I looked up, and she was desperately trying to make eye contact with me.  I never felt so guilty in all my life.  I realized at that point I cannot neglect my own child for my students at school.  However, I have constantly fought this battle.  I can remember coming home after dealing with 130 eighth graders all day, and Jennifer would meet me at the door ready to spend time with me.  I would have to take 30 minutes or so to unwind from school before I could give her all my attention.  

Many of our graduates at Maryville College are very involved in their respective faith communities.  If you teach eighth grade at the middle school, why not teach eighth graders in Sunday School (beloved church leaders might ask)?  No! No! No!  Several years ago I shared this warning with our student teachers.  Two of those student teachers, who would be married after graduation, planned to teach high school and work with the youth in their church.  They were shocked that I warned them not to work with youth in their church if they taught teens in school.  I think it was two years after their graduation that they found me at Homecoming.  Their first statement was, “You were right!”  Instead of working with the youth in church, one was working in the nursery and the other was teaching a Sunday School class for the oldest men in the church.  

Being a teacher, especially an effective teacher, is intense and stressful.  If you cannot walk away from your school and students to find much needed rest, you are setting yourself up for becoming a burned-out teacher.  We need you in the classroom, and your students need you at your best every day. 

As I write this blog, I am well aware that I have trouble practicing what I have just encouraged you to do.  A few years ago, Maryville College started administering a series of tests to incoming first year students to help them clearly understand their strengths and weaknesses in order to plan and prepare for their futures.  They invited faculty to drop by the Learning Center and take the same tests.  I said to myself, “Why not?”  I was classified as an introverted workaholic.  I go home and tell my wife, “Baby, I just finished a series of tests at the College, and I now know who I am.  I am an introverted workaholic!”  She glared at me with fire in her eyes and responded, “You didn’t have to take a damn test for me to know that!”  She was right and she usually is.

Bless you my children, 

Terry L. Simpson

Keeping a Positive Attitude as a Teacher in the Midst of the Negative Attitude toward Schools and Teachers

MAY 28, 2015 / Simpson's Summer Blog Series

Keeping a Positive Attitude as a Teacher in the Midst of the Negative Attitude toward Schools and Teachers

Usually at the midpoint in the student teaching semester, one or more of our student teachers will ask, “How do I keep from becoming a burned-out teacher like so many of the teachers in my school?”  Furthermore, over the past few years I have received numerous emails or phone calls from graduates who were exhausted as teachers.  After a few minutes of encouragement, they have often responded, “Dr. Simpson, thank you for reminding me why I wanted to be a teacher.” 

This summer I want to address this topic.  Some of my suggestions come from others and my observations of teachers in general. Other suggestions come from those periods of darkness during my 43 years of teaching at various levels, and the actions that helped pull me out of those times.   

My first suggestion is to maintain a positive attitude.  In order to remain effective as a teacher, one must keep a positive attitude toward students, parents, and the political realities of education.  You must separate your students from the politics surrounding teaching.  The County Commission may have voted down a budget increase, which means another year without a pay increase for teachers.  Please don’t resort to what I have heard many times, “Since the County Commission refuses to pay me what I am worth, I will work less as a teacher.” I understand this reaction.  Just remember that when a new governor and/or new Commissioner of Education take office, they will make changes that will revolutionize education.   

I also understand the necessity of working another job in the summer to supplement your salary as a teacher.  Over different summers, I worked at Elm Hill, waited tables in a family owned drive-in restaurant, and baled hay on a farm.  For a number of years, I officiated high school basketball mainly for extra income.   

Please don’t misinterpret what I am saying.  Stay involved in the demand for higher salaries and better benefits for teachers, but do not bring those battles into the classroom with your students. When you step into the classroom with those 32 students (I had 42 eighth-graders in my class one year), give those students your best effort each day.  I want to encourage you to take an hour or two this summer and make a list of the positive accomplishments that took place in your classroom this year.  I think you will be very surprised.

Bless you my children, 

Terry L. Simpson

Challenge to the 2015 Initiates into Kappa Delta Pi

 

April 9, 2015 / Kappa Delta Pi Initiation

Kappa Delta Pi – International Honor Society in Education

Kappa Delta Pi is committed to the pursuit of excellence in education—gathering elite educators and providing them with innovative resources to help them make a difference in the world.  Members commit to four ideals—Fidelity to Humanity, Science, Service and Toil.

Kappa Delta Pi was founded March 8, 1911, at the University of Illinois.  The Chi Iota Chapter at Ma was incorporated by Dr. Bernard Buell on April 20, 1996.

Members must have a 3.3 GPA and be nominated by a professor in the Maryville College Teacher Education Program.

 Watch the video or read Dr. Simpson's remarks to the 2015 initiates.

Dr. Simpson’s Challenge to the 2015 Initiates into Kappa Delta Pi

I want you to look closely at this group of students—top academic performers in majors across the various academic divisions on this campus with an average GPA of 3.64.  You have the potential to be successful in the profession of your choosing.  As highly motivated students, you have freely chosen to dedicate your professional lives to the education of our children.

The political pundits claim that our brightest students do not become teachers.  I don’t think so!  Maybe they should visit our campus and talk to our teacher licensure students.

The naysayers argue that today’s students are self-centered and concerned only with the material things they will acquire in life.  I don’t think so!  They should ask these students about their values and goals.

The doomsday prophets lament about the failure of our schools, especially our public schools.  I don’t think so!  These men and women will be successful wherever they teach, and their students will be successful.

A few months back we reached a number in this country that should have caused alarm, but it did not.  For the first time in our nation, the majority of American children live in poverty.  But we must remember, your role as a teacher is even more critical.  Research has consistently demonstrated that children from poor families must have effective and creative teachers or they will fail.

Yet, we know that our schools lose a significant number of our brightest and most creative teachers within the first three years of their teaching experience.  Don’t forget that our schools desperately need you.  They need your knowledge, your creativity, and most of all your idealism. 

However, I must remind you that many schools have a very powerful, self- appointed committee—the Water Bucket Brigade.  It is the task of this brigade, much like pouring water on a campfire, to stamp out the fires of enthusiasm in new teachers.  They want to destroy your idealism in the name of their real life “realism” and “I don’t care anymore” attitudes. However, they understand neither idealism nor realism. 

Don’t let anyone, including burned out teachers and principals, destroy your idealism.  Stay out of the teachers’ lounge! Without high ideals and the struggle for perfection, a society is doomed to failure.  I am here to reaffirm your idealism.  You must never quit. You will earn the respect of those in you community; you will make a difference in the lives of children; you will have a positive and lasting influence on American society. And, when you are named teacher of the year, you must call us before you call your mother.

Several months ago, I viewed an interview with a former Tennessee Commissioner of Education.  She spoke of a meeting that she had with a group of very successful entrepreneurs each of whom had risen from poverty to success.  She said that each of the entrepreneurs could immediately tell you the teacher that made the difference in his or her life.

I am finishing my 25^th year at Maryville College and 42^nd year as a teacher, and at this point in my life, I often reflect on my success and failure.  I am old enough to have that privilege and you have to listen.

Although I have no idea how it will happen, in my faith community we believe that we will give a final account of how we lived during this brief time on earth.  The Holy Scripture that I read has a letter from the Apostle Paul to Christians at Thessalonica.  Paul had taught and poured his soul into these individuals.  He wrote “For who is our hope or joy or crown of exultation?  Is it not even you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus at his coming?  For you are my glory and joy.”

Just thinking about giving a final account of my life gives me great pause.  When I contemplate on my many failures, I can only appeal for mercy and forgiveness.  This is the very reason I refrain from judging others.  This may seem selfish, but I am too concerned about my own accountability to worry about others.

                           

 However, when I think of you and the time we have spent pouring our souls into your development as teachers of our children, with boldness and confidence on that day of final accounting I will present you to our Lord.  For you are my hope, my joy and my crown of exultation. 

In this my 25^th year at Maryville College, I never cease to be amazed at the quality of students who enter our teacher education program.  I surely have the best job on this planet.  I consider it an honor and privilege to work with you.  You make us very proud.

New Theories, Innovation and Experience in the Classroom

Have you ever heard of Edwards Deming?  He is remembered in his role as adviser, consultant, author, and teacher to some of the most influential businessmen, corporations, and scientific pioneers of quality control. He is the most widely known proponent of statistical quality control. 

In 1942, while at the Bureau of the Census, Deming was retained as a consultant to the Secretary of War and was asked by W. Allen Wallis, a statistician at Stanford University, for ideas on ways to aid the war effort.  Deming suggested a short course in Shewhart methods to teach the basics of applied statistics to engineers and others.  The idea was adopted, and the first course was held in the summer of 1942.  The courses were repeated many times with Deming as the instructor.  The influences of these courses on the individuals who formed the core of the statistical quality control are well known.

Because of his work at the USDA and his experience in statistics, Deming was sent to Japan in 1946 by the Economic and Scientific Section of the War Department to study agricultural production and related problems in the war-damaged nation.  He returned to Japan in 1948 to conduct more studies for the occupational forces. 

Deming convinced Kenichi Koyanagi, one of the founding members of the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE), of the potential of statistical methods in the rebuilding of Japanese industry.  Koyanagi, in turn, suggested the idea to JUSE, which invited Deming to teach courses in statistical methods to Japanese industry.  Under the auspices of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, Deming arrived in Japan to teach in June 1950.  He returned five times as teacher and consultant to Japanese industry.

Deming gave his Japanese students not only statistical theory, but also confidence.  “I told [Japanese industrialists] Japanese quality could be the best in the world, instead of the worst,” he said.  Still, many were skeptical.  “I was the only man in Japan who believed that Japanese industry could do that.”  Deming made a prophetic statement that the Japanese could capture world markets within five years if they followed his advice.  “They beat my prediction.  I had said it would take five years.  It took four.” 

During the period of his activities in Japan, Deming pursued a similar mission in the United States.  However, it has taken the United States much longer to pay attention to his teachings.  As I became aware of the economic competition between American and Japanese industries during the 1970s/80s, it seemed as if the Japanese always won the competition.  Everyone was taking about the Japanese management style, which was actually the teaching of Deming.  Japanese corporate leaders bought into his theory, but American corporate leaders did not.  You know the result.  (ASQ)

Around the time of Deming’s death in 1993, I watched an extended interview with him on TV.  The topic of “new theories” came up during the interview.  He said that “experience is the best teacher” is an interesting concept; however, if experience is the only teacher, society is in trouble because nothing will change.  Society must have the constant infusion of new theories; some will be rejected while others will become a significant part of the economic/social structure.   

This very issue of how a profession or society reacts to new theories is at the heart of the educational battle in the United States.  Teachers often respond to new theories by saying, “Oh, that’s a theory you learned at the college/university; it will never work in the classroom” (I have been known to make that statement myself).  However, not having the development of new theories in teaching and learning would be like not having new theories in the treatment of disease in medical science.  Yes, it is essential that all new medical theories be tested, and some will be effective while others will not.  Yet, if new theories are not introduced into a profession, field of science/technology, or society, that entity or organization is in a state of dying. 

One of the significant barriers to change in education is that teachers have the tendency to teach the way they were taught.  In other words, we use those teaching methods/strategies that match our learning preferences.   I have a series of questions that must be asked:  Are the students in my eight-grade class just like me when I was in the eighth grade?  Has the field of neurological research given us new understandings about the function of the brain which impacts how we learn?

Where do we find the source of new theories in teaching and learning?  Often an innovative school system led by a dynamic director of schools (superintendent) may develop and test new theories.  These school systems often attract creative and dynamic teachers. 

I have seen occasions where classroom teachers are the source of new theories.  However, in the United States this is rare because teachers are responsible for numerous other tasks other than teaching.  Teachers in other countries are given more time to plan and develop new strategies than are teachers in the United States.

Finally, colleges/universities are often the source of new theories in teaching and learning.  The very structure and reward system in higher education lends itself to developing and testing new theories.  However, there are those who want to remove the preparation of new teachers from higher education and place it in the school district and classroom because they feel that instructors in education courses are out of touch with the K-12 classroom. I find it amazing that we expect institutions of higher education to develop and test new theories in all academic fields except in teacher education.  If these critics get their way, an essential source for new theories in teaching and learning will be silenced, and the real losers will be our children.

As Director of Teacher Education at Maryville College, I cannot guarantee that each new theory in teaching and learning that we share with our students will be effective with every child in every classroom, but neither can the medical scientist guarantee that each new drug developed from research will be effective in the war against cancer.  But medical scientists keep developing new theories and testing those theories just as educational researchers should keep developing and testing new theories in teaching and learning.  The status quo in the war against cancer is not acceptable; neither should the status quo in teaching and learning be acceptable.

“No one has to change.  Survival is optional.”  Dr. W. Edwards Deming

Bless you my children,

Terry Simpson

Reference:
http://asq.org/about-asq/who-we-are/bio_deming.html