They have lied to me; all of my teachers have lied to me.

I have taught middle school social studies, high school American history and world history, and American history in two different community colleges in two states: Tennessee and Texas.  On May 20, 2018, after completing 28 years at Maryville College, I retired as Director of Teacher Education.  Deborah and I moved to Tyler, Texas to be closer to our children and grandchildren.  I have rediscovered that public education in both states face similar issues in their history and social studies curricula regarding state required standards, historical content, and the strongly held views of various community and political groups.

A few weeks back, a short paragraph in the Tyler newspaper caught my eye.  It reported an argument over history standards in Texas.  One of those arguments seemed to basically boil down to this:  Should all of those Americans/Texans who died at the Alamo be considered heroes?  If I have misrepresented this issue, please let me know.  After all, it was a very short article.   

Being from Tennessee and growing up less than 100 hundred miles from the birthplace of Davy Crockett, I will never forget when I read for the first time that several historians had concluded that Davy Crockett may not have died like a hero at the Alamo. Some recent documentation they had read seemed to suggest he died more like a coward begging for his life. My reaction was explosive. What is this?  It must be some of those communist college professors incorporating revisionist theory to destroy our country and its values.  Please remember this was a few years after the McCarthy era.   

But the real shocker to everything I believed took place in 1971 in a graduate history course I was taking at Middle Tennessee State University.  The event under investigation was The Boston Massacre.  I was taking this course several years before the internet, websites, and email made a dramatic change in the availability of primary sources.  However, the library had copies of historical documents on microfiche.  I had the opportunity to read accounts of this event in colonial newspapers as well as accounts in newspapers in England.  In colonial newspapers this event was called The Boston Massacre, but in English newspapers it was called The Boston Riot.  But which description was more accurate?  These differing accounts put me in a real moral dilemma over patriotism and truth.  

This was the first time in my young academic career that I examined a controversial historical event in  detail from various viewpoints.  Who were the Americans in the crowd that confronted a single British soldier and later the soldiers who came to protect him?  Were they average citizens of Boston coming out for an evening stroll? Not really.  They were mainly sailors recruited from a local tavern.  During what time of the day did this event take place?  During the night.  Did the soldiers attack these Americans without cause?  Not really.  The colonists first attacked the lone sentry and later the other soldiers who came to protect him by screaming at the soldiers and throwing ice and rocks.  In this state of mass confusion, the soldiers fired on the Americans killing five.  Were any legal actions taken against these soldiers?  Yes, they were put on trial.  Where, in London?  No, in Boston.  I have read transcripts of testimonies given by several soldiers at the trial.  The soldiers were defended by John Adams who later served as President of the United States.  Captain Preston, the officer in charge of the soldiers, was found not guilty of murder.  Only two of the soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and were branded on their thumbs.   

After completing this research, I left and while walking down the library steps, I kept saying to myself, “They have lied to me; my teachers have lied to me.”  My conclusion was that this event should more correctly be described as The Boston Riot.  If the history teacher includes both versions as he/she describes this event (a pivotal event in the American myth), Does this make the teacher unpatriotic or unamerican?  I hope not, but in the real world, I know this is possible in many communities.   

We live in a climate where politicians and community leaders at the highest levels often confuse myth with truth.  When we allow history to distort the truth for propaganda purposes, the end result is down right scary.   

Bless You My Children,
tls 

Dr. Terry L. Simpson 

Professor Emeritus 

Maryville College Educator Preparation Program 

Faith and Professionalism: The Molding of a Teacher ... Dr. Terry L. Simpson

FAITH & PROFESSIONALISM:

The Molding of a Teacher

Dr. Terry L. Simpson

Dr. Simpson will retire at the close of the 2018 Spring Semester. He will have completed 28 years at Maryville College and 44 years as a teacher.

Click here to watch Dr. Simpson's "Last Lecture"

What Kind of World are we Leaving to our Children?

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I came across this quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer several years ago.  As a father, grandfather, teacher, and teacher educator, this quote haunts me more each time I read it.  I am concerned that we are leaving our children an ethical tsunami. 

I was awarded a Fulbright Lecturer Award to Estonia during the 2000 Fall Semester.  A year later, we brought a group of Estonian students with one of their professors to Maryville College to visit our public schools.  On the first morning, I met with the students before they were taken to the schools, and they seemed very nervous.  As I quizzed the students, one student finally asked, “Will we see any guns?”  How do people from other countries view us? ...as drunken cowboys shooting everyone who makes them mad?

Thirty years ago I had never dreamed that our children would be facing the following issues:

• Many of our children do not want to go to school because they are afraid that they may be shot and killed.
• We have children as young as 12 years-old who are kidnapped from our communities and forced into the sexual slavery world. This human trafficking is happening in our country and communities and is not isolated to third world countries.
• We live in a society where many advocate that we arm first-grade teachers to stop the slaughter of children in our schools.
• I never thought I would live to see the day that we would need more than one armed guard to protect our children. This is not Iraq, Pakistan, or Afghanistan but the United States. Are we becoming the land of the enslaved to fear instead of the land of the free?
• It is quite troubling how often in our local paper I read stories of children who have been sexually abused by family members.
• We do not seemed to be appalled that many children who live in poor families do not have adequate healthcare.

Children have become a liability instead of a blessing.

I return to the quote, “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”  Savannah, Victoria, Daniel, and Isabella, I must confess that I have let you down.  I request that somehow you may find the grace to forgive me.  

Bless you my children,

Dr. Terry L. Simpson

(Image URL: http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/16300000/Children-s-wonderful-world-childrens-world-16382708-464-368.jpg)
We invite you to... 

Honor Dr. Terry L. Simpson by contributing to the newly established endowed scholarship fund. Info here.

Visit our "Thank You, Dr. Simpson" website to post your own 2 minute "thank you" video for Dr. Simpson's Video Project.

Courage

Dr. Terry L. Simpson
Director of Teacher Education
Maryville College
February 16, 2018

Bless You My Children Blog

Courage

Courage is a virtue that most people wish to have, not cowardice or foolhardiness, but genuine courage.  It is often used to describe the actions of one in a struggle against overwhelming odds.  Most of the people I know hope they can demonstrate courage at the appropriate time, but deep down inside they fear that their actions will turn out to be cowardice rather than courage.

As a college professor, I am like most professors in that I encourage my students to stand up for their beliefs in spite of the strength of those who oppose them.  I have often told my students that as their professor, I try not to be a hypocrite and ask them to take a stand on controversial issues, which I avoid.  I have found that professors often talk about displaying courage in the classroom, but outside the classroom we become weak, spineless cowards.

When it comes to responding to school shootings, I have been a hypocrite and coward.  I have asked for a moment of silence in my classes the day after school shootings.  I have asked my students to pray for the families of students who have been killed, which is often a copout that leads to doing  nothing meaningful.  I do not want to hear another politician asking me to pray for those impacted by one of these vicious actions.  It is time to act.

I contend that the overwhelming majority of politicians, law enforcement personnel and educators are well aware of the one action that would stop these mass shootings of our children.  We must ban automatic assault rifles.  No one outside the military needs these weapons.  However, one of the significant reasons for the Republic take-over of Congress in the 1994 elections was a response against the ban on assault weapons.  Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress are well aware of the reaction to this ban led by the NRA.  As a result, they are going to sit on their hands and do nothing.  We should not expect any meaningful action until the members of Congress believe that the NRA block has been broken.

As an educator, but more importantly, as a citizen who loves this country, I make one vow on this Friday morning. I will never vote for another politician who receives money from the NRA.  I am well aware that “most” of my extended family, high school and college classmates, and members of my church family will oppose this decision to the point of anger.  I cannot control what others think and believe.  I came to this decision from convictions deep within my soul.  I must do my duty, as God has given me the light, regardless of the consequences.  To do otherwise would make me a coward.

“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

An American Education Tragedy: Death of the Affective Domain

A few years after I began teaching, I became serious about instructional design so that effective teaching and learning would take place in my classroom. Yes, you read the first sentence correctly. For the first one/three years of teaching, I was just trying to survive. I am sure; well somewhat sure, that I was exposed to Bloom's Taxonomy and instructional objectives in my initial professional development courses. However, trying to design lessons without a textbook for all of my students forced me into the survival mode of just finding “stuff” to keep my students busy.  My existence was like the test pilot in a new jet plane who radioed to the tower and said, “I’m going faster than I have ever gone before, but I don’t know where I’m going.”

At some point in my professional development as a teacher, I began to understand the significance of valid instructional objectives and the domains of learning. I will concede the point that the cognitive domain is the most important domain in the educational process. Objectives written in this domain specify what students will be able to do intellectually as a result of instruction. These instructional results range from the memorization of facts to the most complex processes of evaluation and assessment (Gunter).  We can measure these results with multiple-choice items on standardized tests. Numerous educators and politicians believe these tests enable us to rate the effectiveness of schools and teachers in most levels of the cognitive domain.

My concern is that in order to satisfy those who want a significant portion of teachers’ assessment based on the academic achievement of their students, we feel obligated to spend all of the instructional time in the cognitive domain. In the affective domain, we wrestle with attitudes, feelings, and values.  At the highest level of the affective domain, the students internalize the values being taught and behave consistently with their personal values set.  You are correct; a multiple choice standardized test cannot correctly assess whether the students have internalized a set of values.  This assessment takes place over a lifetime and therein lies the assessment problem.   

I recently began surveying textbooks on instructional strategies used in professional development courses. I have found that the affective domain receives very scant attention. In one textbook we have used at Maryville College, in the most recent edition the affective domain is never mentioned (Estes).

What type of impact do we want the schools to have on our children? Is there any time left for developing “the good person” in our educational system. We live in a country, notwithstanding the world, where we desperately need a critical mass of adults who are morally strong. If schools shirk the responsibility of developing moral individuals, who will teach and model moral values to our children?  The family structure is in such disarray we can no longer rely on the family to teach and more importantly model appropriate values.  Fewer and fewer of our children, especially our children who live in poverty, are active in a faith community.  As a result our children become easy prey for the demagogues that fill the internet.

Our country once championed the ideal of always being on the high moral ground. Have we as a society sacrificed this noble cause to a weak pragmatism that permits us to do whatever we want to do in order to get what we want? Have we given in to the ideal that those with the rawest power always win regardless of their virtue?

It has been the death of idealism over the last several decades that troubles me the most.  It has been the searching and striving for those noble ideals that have historically given us the high moral ground. If as a society we have rejected the notion of striving for these ideals, which include justice and fairness, we are doomed as a society never to be better than we are at this moment in time.

Deborah and I have four grandchildren, and we plan to spend a lot more time with them in the next few years. However, I would be less than honest with you if I did not admit that I am greatly concerned about the kind of world we are leaving them.  As teachers, we should demand a more balanced curriculum integrating the affective domain in our state mandated curriculum standards.

Bless you my children,

Dr. Terry L. Simpson

Estes, T. H. & Mintz, S. L. (2016).  Instruction: A Models Approach. 7^th ed. Boston: Pearson.

Honor our favorite educator of educators by contributing to the newly established endowed scholarship fund. Info here.

Terry and Deborah Ready for Retirement

Terry and Deborah Ready for Retirement

As I finish 28 years at Maryville College, I have been reflecting on the personal cost of being Director of Teacher Education, Chair of the Division of Education, classroom teacher, and supervisor of student teachers all at the same time. I have realized that my choices did take a toll. Deborah has been the one that has sacrificed the most. I recall many decisions that I have made, and I would like a redo on several of those decisions, but life does not work that way.

Deborah has three daughters; Anna, Meg, and Trisha. One lives here, another lives in Texas, and Trisha and her daughter, Victoria, live in Phoenix. Deborah is excited about living closer to her granddaughter, Victoria. My daughter, Jennifer, lives in Houston with her husband and my three grandchildren; Savannah, Daniel, and Isabella. We are eager to be closer to our grandchildren so we can be more involved in their activities and daily lives.
Deborah and I want to spend time investigating Western and Native American culture, especially art. Deborah is very knowledgeable in this field, but I do not know enough to even be classified as a novice. We are trying to find a way to purchase an RV in order to spend extended time at specific sites in the West. Both of us enjoy learning and plan to spend retirement being active.

As I often tell my students, when the train of opportunity comes by, get on board because it may not come by again. Deborah and I are ready to board that train.

Bless you my children,

Terry L. Simpson

...a bittersweet post

This is a difficult blog for us to post and will not be an easy read for many of you. I can assure you that those of us who have had the pleasure of working with Terry Simpson everyday are trying to soak up all of his wit and wisdom before he calls it a day. Please follow our Maryville College Teacher Licensure Facebook page to monitor the events being planned to celebrate the man, the myth, the legend, but most importantly, our friend...Dr. Terry L. Simpson.       BL, AO, and BW

Dr. Barbara Wells

Vice President and Dean of the College  

Maryville College 

Dr. Wells: 

I have always told my faculty in the Maryville College Teacher Licensure Program that when I am no longer an asset to the program, I do not want to stay in my position.  It seems that I have reached that point.  For this reason, I will retire at the end of the 2017-2018 academic year. 

If I may quote the Holy Scriptures that I read, “I have finished my course.”  At the close of the 2017-2018 academic year, I will have completed 44 years as a teacher.  This pilgrimage began in 1973 in Knox County Schools as a teacher at Cedar Bluff Middle School.  It was the realization of my dreams as a 7th grader.   

At the close of this academic year, I will have completed 28 years at Maryville College.  When I came to Maryville College, the Tennessee Department of Education was restructuring teacher education in the state.  Few people have the opportunity to play a critical role in the initial development of a new program.  I was given that opportunity.  I have given Maryville College a small amount of knowledge with a tremendous amount of passion as we developed a program that gained a local, regional, and national reputation.  We have realized every goal that I had for this program.  

As a 7th grader growing up in rural East Tennessee, I could never have dreamed in a million years the experiences teaching would give me.  I have taught at the middle school, high school, community college, and college/university levels.  I have taught in public, private, and religious education institutions.  I have lectured/taught in Haiti, Brazil, the Philippines, Estonia, and Saudi Arabia.  To be honest, on many occasions I was scared out of my mind. 

However, I must thank numerous individuals for my successful tenure at Maryville College.  First, Marcia Keith took a risk and hired someone the polar opposite of her to be her closest colleague.  She gave me lots of freedom to develop certain aspects of the new licensure program.   

Second, it is impossible to find adequate words to express my gratitude to Alesia Orren, Becky Lucas, and Bonnie West.  Each of these individuals brought different skills and expertise to our program.  We have had tremendous success and program recognition over the past 10 years, and Alesia, Becky, and Bonnie should receive the proper recognition for this success. 

Furthermore, adjunct instructors played a significant role in our program.  There were too many to list them all, but three adjuncts played a critical role.  The work and expertise of Steve Fugate, Evelyn Homan, and Joe Malloy were essential in the development of our program.   

Finally, the Maryville College Teacher Licensure Program would not exist without the students.  Some of the most outstanding young men and women that I have ever known have graduated from our licensure program.  They embraced our vision of teaching and did the hard work that resulted in the positive recognition that we have received.   

A friend once told me that I was the luckiest person on this earth because I have always enjoyed my work.  I do consider myself fortunate. I have given Maryville College 28 of the most productive years of my professional life.  I do not have any regrets. 

Sincerely, 

Terry L. Simpson, EdD 

Director of Teacher Education 

Professor of Secondary Education 

Director, Maryville College East Tennessee Math/Science Partnership 2008-2012 

Fulbright Awards -  Estonia 2000 and Saudi Arabia 2002