Tag: athens

Things I Know 204 of 365: I went to a rural school

I think maybe the rural influence in my life helped me in a sense, of knowing how to get close to people and talk to them and get my work done.

– Gordon Parks

Somewhere between eighth and ninth grade, they tore down a portion of my high school. It was the oldest part of the building, and a local bond had passed for the construction of a new wing.

As it turned out, my grandfather had attended classes in the old wing.

After it was torn down and the new edifice was erected, I was invited, as a student council representative, to the installation of the commemorative stone denoting all the school board members of the time.

This was nothing compared to the excitement surrounding the opening of the Casey’s General Store. We could walk their after school, before practices.

You could buy pizza there.

Up until that point, you could only really buy food from the IGA, and that was at least six blocks away.

Casey’s was more convenient. It sat directly across from the bus barn.

Well, it did until someone burned the bus barn down.

My bus was driven by a man named Charlie who farmed when he wasn’t driving his route.

Since I’ve been gone, I’m told my alma mater’s archery team has taken the state championships a few times.

When I was in school, our claim to fame was being home to the FFA National Meat Judging Champion. I’m pretty sure that kid won the title more than once.

I drove by my old high school today. Consequently, the building also houses my old middle school.

Earlier this summer, I’d happened by and noted the school sign’s recognition of students’ placement in the state bass fishing tournament.

I was hoping to snap a picture, but the sign had been changed in the intervening months.

It struck me, as I turned the car around in the old bus loop, that my old school, and other rural schools like it, aren’t what we’re talking about when we talk about school reform. At least, I’m fairly certain their not the schools people are picturing when they make decrees or talk about the future of education. The voices of teachers from small schools in small towns aren’t the ones being featured in EdWeek or the New York Times education section.

What a shame. Many of those voices are the ones that helped me learn some of the most treasured pieces of information I carry around with me.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 2007-08 school year, approximately 23 percent of U.S. public school students were enrolled in a rural school. Include students enrolled in towns and the percent moves to almost 36 percents.

One in three public school students was enrolled in a town or rural school.

Look at the news coverage of education at the time, and it read as though every student America educated or teacher who led a classroom was located in the heart of an urban environment.

I realize the numbers are nothing when compared the monolithic concentrations of students in urban and suburban public schools, but that doesn’t mean they have any less stake in the game when talking about what it means to teach the students they serve.

It’s also precisely what makes the drafting of a standardized test such a ridiculous endeavor. By the time you’ve written a test item that lowers the cultural threshold sufficiently enough to allow students from all environments access, you end up with an item no one would have any interest in answering. (I’d imagine you’d be hard-pressed to find someone with much intrinsic motivation for writing such an item in the first place.)

The national educational landscape is as varied as the actual national landscape.

As I pulled out of the bus loop today, I realized exactly how much we’re not talking about when we talk about teaching and learning in America.

Things I Know 59 of 365: I want to be Mr. Curry

I never realized I had that much influence on anyone. I hope you enjoy your teaching career as much as I did mine.

– John Curry

My senior year of high school, I took AP Calculus. In my rural school of fewer than 400 students, 5 of us took the class.

When spring arrived, we sat in the conference room, #2 pencils in hand, and attacked the AP A/B Calculus exam.

Well, 4 of us attacked it.

I held on as long as I could. Through the bubble and grid section, I played it cool.

Arriving at the open answer section, I froze.

My mind was a blank. Not a blank as in something had been their and was erased by anxiety, but blank in the sense that I had no idea what was being asked of me.

I looked around the room and surmised I was the only one. Throughout the room, pencils were scribbling.

In that moment, I wanted to quit even more than I had wanted to quit when my third grade T-Ball team lost every game. Every. Game.

John Curry taught me math each year from eighth through twelfth grade, save one.

He wasn’t looping with my class. It was a small school with two math teachers.

If, on my best days, I am half the teacher Mr. Curry was, I have made something of myself.

He was as traditional and by-the-book a teacher as you’re likely to meet. It is entirely possible our pedagogies are somewhat divergent at this point. We are products of different eras.

Still, I remember he cared.

When a student earned a B or above on a test, Mr. Curry would place a sticker on the paper before handing it back. As we moved to higher math, got our driver’s licenses and first jobs, we continued to treasure those stickers. The covers of our TI-83s were laden with stickers like fighter pilots noting our kills.

For a score of 90% or above, students received certificates congratulating them on showing their ability to master the content of the chapter. Mine hung in my locker.

Perhaps best were the letters. At the close of each unit, after the tests and quizzes were graded, Mr. Curry would send letters to the parents of those students earning Bs or higher, congratulating them on their students’ successes.

I remember seeing the letters as I pulled the mail from the mailbox. It wasn’t the handwriting which gave it away (Mr. Curry was mail merging before it was cool). It was the stationary. Out of his own pocket, Mr. Curry purchased stationary in our school colors watermarked with our mascot. When a Kelly green envelope showed up in the mail, you knew what was inside.

The letters did more than offer congratulations to my parents, they also explained what concepts and material I had shown mastery of. Dinner on letter nights was always interesting, “So, Zachary, explain the slope-intercept formula to me.”

Mr. Curry made me care about math because he showed he cared about me.

Sitting in the conference room, my blank drawn with amazing detail, I knew I could not quit. I could not fail Mr. Curry.

Realizing any attempt at calculus would be a mockery of the mathematics he held so dear, I played to my strengths.

I remember the first lines of the essay I wrote, “If you saw my answers in the previous section of the test, you know I’ve been holding on by a thread. Rather than waste both of our time, let me tell you why I needed to take this test and how great my math teacher is. No matter what you think of my math skills, please, don’t take them as a reflection of his teaching.”

Though I’d struggle if you put a factorial in front of me today, I learned the value of more than I can ever say from Mr. Curry.