EDUCATI N
Being There: How to Advocate for Bullied Students
Educators can be difference-making—even life-saving—advocates for bullied students and potential bullying victims.
UPFRONT
4-7 This month: Five essential questions, giggles, dual enrollment, pausing, and more.
FEATURES
12 ‘Benefits Across the Board’ Falls Church members sign on the dotted line.
14 There Oughta be a Law
An attorney-turned-teacher offers some recommendations gleaned from the ups and downs of his four-year stint in a high school English classroom.
18 Setting Your Students Up for Success Success skills young people will need to thrive in the world of work.
19 Put this on Your Calendar! Educators create new school holidays.
DEPARTMENTS
20 Membership Matters Read Across America; a ‘solidarity grant.’
24 Insight on Instruction Memoirs and personal stories can be excellent teaching tools.
30 First Person Be proud of what you’re teaching your students.
“It’s
Editor
Tom Allen
VEA President
Carol Bauer
Interim VEA Executive Director
Dr. Earl Wiman
Communications Director
Kevin J. Rogers
Graphic Designer
Lisa Sale
Editorial Assistant/Advertising Representative
Kate O’Grady
Contributors
D. Edgar Collins III
Bruce Ingram
Kasey Short
Ben Cornatzer
Vol. 117, No.4
Copyright © 2025 by the Virginia Education Association
The Virginia Journal of Education (ISSN 0270-837X) is published six times a year (October, November, December, February, April and June) by the Virginia Education Association, 8001 Franklin Farms Drive, Suite 200, Richmond, VA 23229.
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Postmaster: Send address changes to Virginia Journal of Education, 8001 Franklin Farms Drive, Suite 200, Richmond, VA 23229.
Article proposals, comments or questions may be sent to the editor at tallen@veanea.org or Tom Allen, 8001 Franklin Farms Drive, Suite 200 Richmond, VA 23229 800-552-9554.
Member: State Education Association Communicators
VEA Vision:
A great public school for every child in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
VEA Mission:
The mission of the Virginia Education Association is to unite our members and local communities across the Commonwealth in fulfilling the promise of a high quality public education that successfully prepares every single student to realize his or her full potential. We believe this can be accomplished by advocating for students, education professionals, and support professionals.
Cover illustration by Ben Cornatzer.
one of my chores at home and I abhor it, too!”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t bother to fact-check.”
Getting the Ax: Book Bans On the Rise
Giggles from the Classroom
“What should I do with my other foot?”
There were more than 10,000 instances of books being banned in American public schools during the 2023-24 academic year, an increase of a full 200 percent over the previous school year. Bans affected 4,231 titles, with the most commonly banned book being Nineteen Minutes by bestselling author Jodi Picoult, which was among 19 books tossed out in 50 or more school districts. Next on the most-banned list were Looking for Alaska by John Green; The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky; Sold by Patricia McCormick, and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.
Nearly half (43 percent) of book ban cases, or 4,295 bans, were books that were completely prohibited from access—not with a review pending nor with newly-imposed restrictions. That represents an increase of 16 percentage points (43 percent compared to 27 percent in prior years). Here in Virginia, we ranked fifth in the nation in book ban instances in schools, and more than half of them came from Hanover County.
PEN America, a nonprofit organization that promotes literature and defends free expression, describes book bans as when titles selected by teachers, librarians, and others with reading and content expertise are overridden by school boards, administrators, and even politicians.l
Source: Banned in the USA: Beyond the Shelves, a report by PEN America
Scanning the Horizon
An elementary school student, after being encouraged by a teacher to ‘put your best foot forward’
“A word you use when you can’t spell the other one.”
Student, when asked to define ‘synonym’
“Who got the other two points?”
Mother, when her son reported that he’d gotten a 98 in math
“Without ginger ale.”
Student, when asked to define ‘straight’
“Pretty old. They say he used to teach Shakespeare.”
One student to another, when asked a teacher’s age
“Imprisonment for life.”
Student, when asked to write the longest sentence he could writel
Source: Teachers: Jokes, Quotes, and Anecdotes, edited by Patrick Regan
Take a Pause
A year after implementation, school security investments seem to be paying off in Prince William County. At the end of September of the current school year, new weapon-detecting scanners had reported zero firearms and six weapons in the “other” category: knives, box cutters, and a pneumatic gun similar to a paintball gun, which was actually discovered in a student’s vehicle. During all of the 2023-24 school year, the scanners also found zero firearms and reported a decrease of “other” weapons of 72 percent. The school division also says that 92 percent of students walk through the scanners without incident, above the national average, which is in the mid-80s. The scanners have also been used at varsity football and basketball games in the county this year.l
“I have also witnessed how crucial it is to be able to take a step back and say ‘let’s pause on our work’ to a student who is having a behavioral challenge in the classroom, and to take the time to actually get to the bottom of what feelings they’re having and where the behavior is coming from. To do my job well, I need to be able to step away from the work sometimes — to have space to just talk and connect with the student I’m supporting. When I am able to connect with a student and understand what is causing a certain behavior, I can better support them. And most of the time, I’ve found that moments outside of school, maybe something that happened at home the night before or on their way to school earlier in the morning, are contributing to student behavior in class.” l
— James Parra, an elementary school paraprofessional in Brooklyn, New York
ON THE AIR. Richmond Education Association member and longtime VEA leader Charlotte Hayer was featured on the CBS Evening News nationwide in a story about teaching financial literacy.
Everybody’s Doing It
The number of high school students who are also taking college classes continues to grow rapidly. In the 2022-23 academic year, almost 2.5 million high-schoolers were in dual enrollment programs, picking up both high school and college credits. That’s a marked increase from the approximately 1.5 million in 2021 and an estimated 300,000 in the early 2000s. Early figures also show a continuing increase in the fall of 2024.l
“This school apparently frowns on being fashionably late.”
Some of What’s On the Minds of Teachers and ESPs
Nationwide
A sampling of results from NEA’s 2024 Omnibus Survey, which was conducted nationwide in May, June, and July:
• The top two “big” concerns identified by P-12 teachers are student behavior and low pay, mentioned by 67 and 63 percent of survey respondents, respectively. The top two priorities for educator unions chosen by survey participants are “making schools safe for students and staff” and “ending childhood poverty,” coming in at 90 and 67 percent.
• Forty percent (2 in 5) of P-12 teachers hold at least one extra job outside of the classroom. The vast majority of those with a second job or more (88 percent) work it during the academic year. More than a third of education support professionals (37 percent) also work a job outside of their primary role in schools. Among ESPs working multiple jobs, more than half (57 percent) work a position outside of education and most (91percent) work an additional position during the academic year.
• Very nearly all (95 percent) of P-12 teachers spend money from their personal funds to cover student needs. The mean amount is $385 annually. Two-thirds of ESPs open their wallets for student needs, too, spending a mean amount of $196.
• Most educators do not use artificial intelligence tools on a regular basis in their work: 30 percent say they use AI “regularly or occasionally,” 70 percent say they’ve used it once/twice or never.l
Five Essential Questions
Recommended during a graduation speech by James Ryan, president of the University of Virginia, when he was dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education:
1. “Wait—what?” An excellent way to slow down and seek clarification.
2. “I wonder why?/I wonder if?” Remain curious and to seek ways to change the world around you.
3. “Couldn’t we at least?” A jumpstart to consensus and a good way to start part of a conversation.
4. “How can I help?” How you help matters as much as that we do help.
5. “What truly matters?” A way to get to the heart of your convictions.l
“They said I couldn’t take a gap year between elementary and middle school.”
Hang ‘Em Up!
From a joint letter to Arlington Public Schools from the Arlington Education Association and Arlington Parents for Education:
A division-wide full day, bell-to-bell “Away for the Day” policy for personal devices, with appropriate exceptions through IEP and 504 plans, has the support of many teachers and parents, and the benefits far outweigh any costs. The proposed J-30 policy is also in the best interest of our hardworking educators as it enables them to focus on instruction, rather than managing the personal devices of students. When personal devices are away for the school day, the burden of policy reinforcement and execution is removed from the teacher’s role, allowing them to focus on academics and student well-being.l
Stepping In Stepping Up,
Educators can be difference-making—even life-saving—advocates for bullied students and potential bullying victims.
No one deserves to be bullied,” says former President Barack Obama. “Each of us deserves the freedom to pursue our own version of happiness.”
Unfortunately, there are still so many who need to hear and absorb that message. Bullying is an age-old and sad symptom of human behavior, in both young people and adults. Those who want to perceive themselves as strong mistreat those they perceive as weak, and it can leave lasting emotional scars on everyone—victims, bystanders, and the bullies themselves. Bullying goes on in a multitude of ways in and around our schools: Kids make fun of their peers, call them names, and insult them; they spread rumors about them; they get physical and shove, hit, and do other forms of violence to them; they purposefully exclude them from activities; they damage their property; and they misrepresent or attack them in cyberspace, to name a few.
Whatever the method, it’s scary, it does significant damage—and, as educators and human beings, we must do everything we can to stop it.
One of the best ways school staff members can do that is to become known as an advocate for students who are bullied or seem especially susceptible to being victims. If students know that teachers and ESPs in their school are there for them, it can go a long way toward changing key areas of a building’s climate for everyone.
Here are some suggestions for being the kind of advocate that can make that change a reality, adapted from material created by researchers at the National Education Association:
Be Present
and
Available to Observe and Listen
Bullying can happen anywhere, but we know that it commonly takes place in areas on school grounds with little or no supervision, such as in the hallways between classes or before or after school. Making your presence known in areas where students are during transition times can make a huge difference. Just by being there, you change the dynamics. And, if an incident does happen, you are there to see it with your own eyes and intervene immediately.
Students Can’t Learn in Fear
Would you be able to do your school-based job effectively if you were nervous or frightened about your safety? To learn well, students must be provided with a safe school climate that is conducive to learning. Bullying is a huge deterrent to that kind of climate. In education, we sometimes feel that there are many things that impact student learning that are out of our control, but bullying is not one of those things. A student who is being bullied at school is being denied an opportunity to learn. We have a unique ability to change this, to stop the negative effects on students’ well-being and their ability to learn, and ultimately, in some cases, to save their lives. Let’s not waste this opportunity.
Model the Behavior You Expect
Educators may feel a need to establish and command authority; however, there is a way to do this while modeling the behavior you expect from your students. By scolding,
yelling, or demanding things, you’re exhibiting behaviors that you don’t want your students to emulate. Being self-aware and exuding a positive, respectful tone is essential in showing children how they should treat others.
Language Matters
When intervening in a situation or talking about bullying, the words you use are extremely important. Labels such as “bully” and “victim” can be harmful, and may leave both parties feeling helpless. By labeling students, you send a message that their behaviors can’t be changed over time. Instead, StopBullying.gov suggests terms such as “the child who bullied” and “the child who was bullied.” Instead of telling a child that they are a bully, make them understand that their actions in that moment are harmful and inappropriate—and could eventually put them in serious situations that lead to extreme consequences.
Bullying is a Solvable Problem
Expand your advocacy for bullied students by ensuring that your school has established a comprehensive bullying prevention plan. Such a plan should enable educators to have a process in place for learning how to recognize bullying behaviors, how to intervene appropriately when they witness an incident happening, and how to promote prevention so incidents don’t happen in the first place.
Educate Students
Students have plenty of insight: Involve them as peer advocates. Get their input when developing a bullying prevention plan. Integrate the topic of bullying and how to deal with it into your curriculum.
Photo by iStock
To raise their awareness, consider having students engage in role-plays on defusing a bullying situation and engaging bystanders. Create opportunities for students to work together, such as assignments that require sharing and collaboration. An anti-bullying curriculum should encourage students to report bullying and harassment to an adult.
Where and When Do Students Feel Unsafe?
Find and use school climate surveys with staff and students. Such information-gathering can help identify areas for improvement. A positive school climate is conducive to less bullying and more learning. You can also conduct a mapping activity. This involves making copies of the school map and asking all staff to indicate where they think students do and do not feel safe. The same activity should be done with students. Mapping these “hot spots” is a very effective indicator of where bullying could be occurring. Strategies must be implemented to remedy these “hot spots,” such as more adult supervision on the stairwells or better lighting in
darker hallways.
Bullying is most likely to occur in schools where there is a lack of adult supervision during the day, so let’s make wise changes to staff assignments and keep students safe.
Encourage Bystanders
If you witness a bullying incident in which bystanders stood up, reinforce their efforts. Let them know that you admire their courage and thank them for speaking up, which helps themselves and other students. If the bystanders did not intervene, give them examples of how to intervene appropriately the next time that they see bullying (e.g., get help from an adult, tell the person to stop).
Research points to the important role bystanders can play during a bullying incident and in changing the school climate.
Stand Up
Let your voice be heard with a call to action. Organize your local union members, as well as non-members and parents, around bullying prevention. Get bullying on the map; ensure that space is carved out to address the topic at local meetings and state conferences. Track changes to your state’s anti-bullying law. Also, review state education agency and district policies related to bullying and seek revisions when you think they’re necessary. Remember that parents of bullied students can be strong allies and advocates.
Continue to make sure the bullied students are supported well beyond an incident. Make sure they have the resources they need. Reach out to other staff members who can provide guidance and emotional support to students.
Zero Out Zero Tolerance
Zero tolerance policies hinder bullying prevention efforts. Such policies generally involve suspension or exclusion from school and are related to increased dropout rates and discriminatory application of school discipline practices. Also, there is no evidence that removing students from school makes a positive contribution to school safety. We do know that students who bully need pro-social models. We can advocate for bullied students by working to develop and/or utilize bullying prevention programs that do work, such as:
• Targeted behavioral support programs for at-risk students
• Character education and social-emotional learning programs
• School-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports
• Early intervention strategies
If It’s Broken, It Does Need Fixing
A large part of being an advocate for bullied students is to not accept the status quo. Be informed about measures you and/or your school may be using that are known not to work, or that make a situation worse. For example, peer mediation and conflict resolution are valuable strategies that do work in other instances, but they are not the right fit for dealing with bullying. The message that both parties are partly
right and partly wrong is inappropriate. Students who bully must receive the message that their behavior is wrong and won’t be tolerated. The fact that peer mediation exacerbates the imbalance of power between the student who bullies and their target also cannot be ignored. Speak up for changing your school’s current way of addressing bullying if you believe it could be done better. The research is out there; encourage your colleagues to be open to change.
Develop ESP-Specific Strategies
ESPs, such as bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and paraeducators, are likely to be present where bullying tends to happen, so they need concrete strategies to use during an incident. Be sure to involve all school staff in the development of a comprehensive school-wide prevention plan as well as in all training. ESP-specific resources are also needed.
Evaluate Annually and Sustain Efforts Over Time
Monitor classrooms and school grounds to be sure that bullying policies are being followed. Consistency of effort is essential, and preventing bullying requires a long-term commitment.
Bullying is a Social Justice Issue
Both VEA and NEA’s vision and mission statements are rooted in social justice. Social justice includes a vision of society in which all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure. Bullying is a behavior designed to oppress another person, and it’s our duty to do everything we possible can to assure a safe learning environment and social justice for all students.l
There are Better Ways
Avoid these common mistakes:
• Don’t ignore bullying. Don’t think kids can work it out without adult help.
• Don’t immediately try to sort out the facts.
• Don’t force other kids to say publicly what they saw.
• Don’t question the children involved in front of other kids.
• Don’t talk to the kids involved together, only separately.
• Don’t make the kids involved apologize or patch up relations on the spot.l
Source: : stopbullying.gov.
Some Bullying Facts and Figuress
• Teenagers who were bullied were nearly twice as likely to report experiencing symptoms of anxiety (29.8%) or depression (28.5%) in the last 2 weeks when compared with teenagers who were not bullied, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
• One out of every five (20.2%) students report being bullied, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, which also noted that 41% of students who report being bullied at school think it will happen again.
• CDC research also shows that students who experience bullying are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, sleep difficulties, lower academic achievement, and dropping out of school.
• In a survey done by the Pew Research Center, nearly half (46%) of American teens reported being victims of cyberbullying.l
‘Benefits Across the Board’
Falls Church members sign on the dotted line.
By Tom Allen
when you get into how to share or give up power, not just talk about it.”
The first hurdle was working with the school board to create a bargaining resolution FCCEA felt was workable and fair, and it was a challenging one to get over. The board, which had created a collective bargaining committee, at first tried to strictly limit the topics that were open for negotiation.
It wasn’t an easy road to a collective bargaining agreement for members of the Falls Church City Education Association, but staying on it led to reaping some significant benefits. Their newly negotiated contract, which took effect July 1, 2024, included, among other benefits, guaranteed step raises and cost of living adjustments; the return of a city retirement match school staff lost in 2008; monthly meet-andconfer type sessions with central office and school board personnel; and “long step” raises for educators who reach the top of the pay scale.
There were intangible benefits, too, says FCCEA President Pam Mahony: “The School Board now
recognizes FCCEA as the voice for staff, and both parties are striving to move forward. Falls Church City has always had a strong appreciation for education staff, but entering into a contract with us means that we’re formally allowed a voice in what we know best—how schools work.”
Farrell Kelly, FCCEA’s immediate past president, who was in office when bargaining was first introduced, points to a change in members’ attitudes leading up to, during, and after the negotiations.
“The collective bargaining process,” he says, “made many of our members feel like they had a strong voice, not just in the negotiations, but in other issues, too, like school and student
safety. What was wonderful is that many of those members were ones who have not traditionally felt like they had that voice. They were empowered, both as individuals and as a group.”
FCCEA began to explore bargaining with the school division in the aftermath of COVID which, in an odd way, may have been helpful. As decisions were being made about when and how to continue instruction, “we had a lot of practice having difficult conversations,” says Kelly. They needed that practice, as it turned out. “We had largely friendly conversations with the school board leading up to negotiations,” Kelly says, “but it always gets a little harder
easily won the right to represent both the certified and non-certified bargaining staff, getting over 90 percent of the votes from members of both units.
“We felt the first version of a resolution wasn’t acceptable, and negotiations stalled,” says Mahony. “We got together again later, after some backchannel conversations, and the next version was more reasonable. There were still some things in it we didn’t agree with, but we could live with it.”
As that document was being hammered out, FCCEA was already well into a card campaign, and members were able to present the required percentage of signed cards only about two weeks after the resolution was set. Once the cards were in place, FCCEA launched its campaign in the exclusive bargaining representative election.
“Our members had lots of enthusiasm leading up to voting,” says Mahony. “We had ‘I voted’ stickers and other items on hand and we spread the word.” That election, held in May 2023, was no contest. FCCEA
By that July, the union was at the table with a carefully chosen bargaining team. “It’s very helpful, especially in a small locality, to have team members who aren’t just school employees, but also residents of the community,” says Mahony. “We weren’t ‘greedy teachers’ to most of the community, we were neighbors. Several of us had been nominated for local awards or were parents in the community, so they knew we were deeply invested in Falls Church.”
While that may, indeed, have helped, it certainly didn’t guarantee that time at the table would run smoothly. “We had two or three meetings behind closed doors, and they didn’t go well,” Mahony says. “The board almost immediately refused to bargain over any official school division policies, using a clause they’d inserted into the resolution without discussion immediately before voting on it. Because most wages, benefits, and working conditions were tied to some sort of board policy, it greatly limited the scope of our bargaining and brought negotiations to a standstill.”
Clearly, that wasn’t going to work for FCCEA members, so they organized some resistance, which took several forms. They turned out crowds at school board meetings to create public pressure, they passed out information at a local farmer’s market for more outreach, and the local Democratic Party chipped in by issuing a statement of support.
There was a lot of internal communication, too. “Throughout the conflict, we kept FCCEA members
and staff who had signed authorization cards informed on how we were fighting for them,” Mahony says, “and support for collective bargaining grew. Members were riled up and paying a lot of attention.”
There was even this: School board members had a “chat with students” session scheduled at a school where FCCEA members worked with the staff of the student newspaper. Suffice it to say that the school board representatives in attendance were asked some questions by students that they likely had not seen coming.
In the end, FCCEA and the school system turned to federal mediation to help break the deadlock. With the mediator’s services for three full days, and the school board’s new willingness to negotiate matters connected to policy, tentative agreements were reached in late November 2023, just before a December 1 deadline. Quick and easy ratification followed on both sides, and FCCEA members had a new contract. It’s a two-year deal for the non-certified unit and three years for certified staff, set up that way so that future negotiations can be staggered.
“It was very stressful, but worth it!” says Mahony, who’s proud not only of the contracts that came out of bargaining process but of the resulting almost 20 percent growth in FCCEA membership.
Kelly shares those sentiments. “Figuring out how all this works has been good for Falls Church schools in general,” he says. “It’s been very positive for morale and inspired our staff. There are benefits across the board.”l
Tom Allen is editor of the Virginia Journal of Education.
The member-negotiator teams that went to the table for FCCEA’s certified and non-certified bargaining units.
You Can Teach Online without
An attorney-turned-teacher offers some recommendations gleaned from the ups and downs of his four-year stint as a high school English teacher.
By D. Edgar Collins III
In the midst of the global pandemic that turned life upside down in 2020, I traded law books for textbooks. After 30 years of practicing law, I pursued a dream of teaching high school. Four years later, I’m once again a lawyer. We’ll get to that; for now, here are several recommendations I’ve arrived at based on my time as a high school English teacher:
• Cell phones and other electronic devices of distraction need to be banned from schools (headphones, earbuds, Air Pods, etc.).
Teachers, individually, are powerless to keep phones from being used. A total school ban with complete administrative support is needed.
• Administrators must be given a reason to support their teachers. As near as I can tell, they currently have no incentive to do so. If
something goes wrong, they just write up a teacher. Teachers could complete a survey each year (or even biannually) on whether they feel supported by the administration; the surveys would be reviewed by someone the administration answers to and those superiors could take appropriate action. The easy way to effect this is to have the result of teachers’ surveys put into administrators’ performance appraisals. Right now, there is almost no support for teachers. Inadequate admin support of teachers is a major reason teachers continue to leave the profession. Teachers support students, but need, in turn, support from the administration to work effectively. When admin fails to support teachers in student discipline problems, other
students realize they can act up without consequence, taking away from learning and hurting other students. Another way to provide meaningful support would be for a team of people to come into the school and do short interviews with teachers to gauge workplace problems, including administrative support for teachers. This would be an easy and cost-effective measure that could change a school’s culture.
• Administrators should refuse to deal with parental complaints until the parent has spoken with the teacher about the situation. The current fashion is to go over a teacher’s head before the teacher knows anything about the problem or has had time to address the problem. Adminis-
trators would simply ask if the parent had spoken to the teacher about the problem first and given the teacher an opportunity to resolve the issue.
• A teacher advisory panel, perhaps comprised of department chairs or a department designee, at each school would be another simple fix. Give the panel some agency and power to advise on big school decisions. A rule such as “Students don’t need to show their face for a Zoom class” wouldn’t have existed if there had been a teacher advisory panel. The more teachers are included in the decision-making process, the better.
• We should rethink suspension and school discipline. Suspension is often just a vacation from school for bad actors, since students rarely make up missed work (I never saw a 10day suspension student do any missed schoolwork). The policy in my school was that teachers only grade suspended students on “core assignments,” which means the work missed during the suspension doesn’t count against them. A more effective punishment would be in-school suspension, where students are in a separate classroom and must do their schoolwork.
• Teacher performance appraisal needs to be revamped. The current system is untenable, as no teacher can meet the numerous and outrageous requirements. In my last performance appraisal, I was nominally graded on 64 different criteria–64! That is 64 ways for things to go wrong.
• If anyone needs a union, it’s teachers.
These recommendations (at least the first six) are easy to execute, could make a clear difference in the lives of teachers, and can be easily implemented by any school division or individual school, with little or no cost. I believe they can be game-changers.
Now, moving on to how I arrived at them: I started substitute teaching in 2020 for $88 per day. Schools closed in March and in August I found a high school looking for an English teacher. Administrators would observe me for six to eight weeks and then decide if I could continue on a provisional license. Things got off to a rough start: After one teacher work week I was nominally ready to conduct classes via Zoom for my 10th- and 12th-grade students. But I had no curriculum to teach. It was the Friday of teacher work week, and I had no content to teach my students on Monday. A 3 p.m. department meeting had me hopeful that I would get some direction. However, no one had any content for me. So, I was introduced to the bane of teachers everywhere: uncompensated weekend work. I worked all weekend to come up with something for the first week of school.
YEAR ONE: ‘Zooming’ Along
Covid wreaked havoc with instruction. During Zoom classes, students were not required to show their faces so as to avoid any embarrassment that might come if others saw their homes. They could simply turn off their cameras and “attend” class, showing up as a black screen. A background picture would have solved this problem. If a student showed their face (and there were precious few of them), I could confirm their attendance and see whether they were comprehending the lesson. With a black screen I could do neither.
Often, I called on students showing a black screen and got silence in response. Were they avoiding participating, sleeping, or not even present? Later, the school acknowledged this problem and changed the rule, but students simply continued not to show their faces.
That year, I was appointed boys’ JV soccer coach and having the opportunity to work with those students saved the year for me. It was wonderful to get back to some level of normalcy. Coaching is a specialized type of teaching, for an extended period of time (two hours a day for practice), in a concentrated subject. One very rewarding aspect was seeing Latino, Black, and White players come together as a team and play the “beautiful game.” Life is a team sport, and it was wonderful to instruct these young men in a game for which we shared a passion.
YEAR TWO: Great and Terrifying Moments
Year two was my best year of teaching, as the first-year jitters were over and I felt like I was just hitting my stride. Students were back in school but required to wear masks. It was the teachers’ job to ensure those masks were worn properly, covering nose and mouth. Droopy masks, like droopy pants, were verboten. The students wore their masks in ways, though, that had me fully expecting COVID-19 to wipe us out.
In was also in year two that I was also introduced to the darkest side of teaching. I’ll never forget the Sunday afternoon saw an alert for a student email on my phone. His message said he wouldn’t be in class Monday because he was going to kill himself. For 30 seconds I froze. Then I responded, pleading with him not to end his life, that he might not
know it, but he had so much to live for. I called 911 and asked for a welfare check on him. I had his first and last names but because he was a minor, he wasn’t in any directory the dispatcher could find, and I didn’t know his address. Eventually, the dispatcher told me she thought they’d found him and were sending help. I may have helped save a life that day. Later, a school counselor confirmed that first responders got there in time and that the student would be missing school for a while. After that, I made sure to carry my school laptop at all times so that I could look up a student’s home address, if needed. find it curious that the email popped up on my cell phone alerts, since it came from my school email address, and I don’t recall such an email popping up before or since. Divine intervention? Later in the year, another of my students attempted suicide. Although he physically recovered, he never returned to school. I had no inkling that either of these students would try to take their lives.
YEAR THREE: Zoology
My third year seemed promising, as I’d been invited to teach in the school’s specialty Medical Program. I designed a curriculum focusing on medical and life issues that included taking students to a working courthouse, where we put Dr. Frankenstein on trial for the crimes of his creature. (The estates of the murdered characters sued Dr. Frankenstein in civil court for wrongful death). Students were attorneys, witnesses, and jury members, and all testimony had to come straight out of Mary Shelley’s novel. They loved it. We also studied a novel by Virginia
author Beth Macy, called Dopesick, based on the opioid epidemic that ruined so many lives in southwest Virginia. I brought in guest speakers from local support groups, including recovering addicts, to put a human face on the problem. Much to my surprise, no parents objected to this and, in fact, many thanked me for my efforts.
I had three preps that year—Clevel freshman, honors juniors, and Medical Program. My C-level freshmen were a nightmare. In any classroom, there’s a primal struggle for control. In soccer, the referee has a whistle and cards; as I found out, the teacher has none of these tools. At my school, there was a two-step process to address behavioral problems. The first, called “curbside,” is where an administrator comes to the classroom to address a situation. Half the time no administrator would show up. When they did, it was an exercise in futility. If you’d told a student to put their phone away for the 237th time, and they have refused, having an administrator come tell them the same thing is useless. The second step was an “administrative referral,” an amorphous concept where, in theory, an administrator would assign a punishment for bad behavior. In my four years of teaching, I was never given any information about the results of an administrative referral. It appeared students were given privacy about their punishment.
The worst class of my C-level freshman was fourth period, where I had six students who were totally out of control. After the first day, I texted all six of these students’ parents, begging for assistance and/or advice on how to handle them. Not a single parent responded. I nicknamed this group “Zoology.” At one point when
the class was out of control, a student looked me in the eye and asked why I hadn’t quit yet. On another occasion, I was sitting on top of a student desk reading a novel to them. As I read, something hit my leg, then rolled on top of the desk. It was a tampon. It lay there on the desk looking at me and seeming to ask, “Now what are you going to do, Collins?” I took one deep breath and continued reading.
A colleague called Zoology the worst class she’d seen in 25 years of teaching. Our new department chair decided to use the following technique: I would split up my six offending students and send them, with their assignments, to other teachers for the period. This worked marvelously and actually allowed me to teach; it also meant that the six students were actually doing their work as they had no classmates to act up for. However, the assistant principal demanded that I stop this practice, noting that those students “had a right to learn.” I wondered about the rights of the other 24 students in that class, whose learning was harmed by the disruptions.
YEAR FOUR: The Journey Grinds to a Halt
I started my fourth year with high hopes, but it actually became my final year in the classroom. My Medical Program classes, which had been my savior the year before, became my undoing. Just before Thanksgiving, a student asked me if she could serve apple pie to the class and sing “a song of Thanksgiving,” which she assured me was “school appropriate.” She arrived with the pie, then sang to the class using a hand-held microphone that distorted her voice. She made up lyrics to insult a boy in class who had spurned her advances. She received a
three-day suspension and I naively believed the matter was over. But I was written up because I should have “appropriately vetted” the offending song. The student knew she had other plans and used the song as a ruse to ad-lib lyrics. And was held responsible for student speech. Where does that duty end? Did I have to vet every student comment made in class ahead of time to make sure it’s not offensive? How can you have the kind of class interaction all good teachers seek—a free-flowing discussion between students and teacher? I felt scapegoated.
Also in my Medical Program class was a student with special needs whose file noted that he purposely annoyed other students and would lie to get out of work. I found these comments extraordinary, but they turned out to be very true. He was grossly immature, had a pathological need to be the center of attention at all times, and was routinely defiant. He’d grab other students’ Chromebooks, often watch sports highlights on his, and frequently refused to put his phone away during class.
ued to attack me, none of the other participants came to my defense. I was also accused of failing to meet the student’s IEP because I did not provide “back up notes.”
Though I was in my fourth year of teaching, I’d never heard of back up notes. This is because, as noted by my SPED co-teacher, back up notes don’t really apply to English instruction. None of my colleagues had ever done back up notes for students. Nonetheless, it was determined that I failed
“My experience was both painful and joyful… I felt I made a positive difference.”
His mother called for a meeting with several administrators and me and, despite never having spoken to me, announced that she had a problem with every aspect of my teaching. In particular, she objected to my writing instruction, which I’d begun to help students prepare for the Writing SOL test. As she contin-
to provide them. It became clear that this was a ruse by the mother to inflate her son’s grades, which the administration demanded I do.
As a result, I was asked to leave the Medical Program which I had worked hard to design and lead. I was also placed on a performance improvement plan (PIP), because I’d failed to provide back up notes. The PIP had a long list of requirements, none of which included anything about back up notes. It was just a vehicle to document my alleged problems as a teacher, which, incidentally, had not shown up until my fourth year of teaching.
I’m embarrassed to say I did not see the concomitant poor evaluation
coming. I was rated “needs improvement” and “unsatisfactory” after proficient ratings the previous three years. This year, though, I had an unhappy parent criticizing me at every turn. During the school year, I was praised for my professionalism in dealing with her, but then given a “needs improvement” evaluation. One last thing: My problem student passed his Writing SOL, thanks to my Herculean efforts. In the end, I traded in my textbooks, dusted off my law books, and went back to being an attorney. Nonetheless, I’m glad I taught. It felt like a noble quest, trying to lead youth in a positive direction. I worked with many excellent students, and I felt I made a positive difference. If the only difference I made was to be there for that one young man during his suicidal ideation, then it was worth it. As a soccer coach, I felt I helped students grow as players and people. I connected with numerous students. It is a powerful experience to observe a student have an “aha moment” and to know you helped them get there. My experience was both painful and joyful, and I appreciate the school being willing to take a chance on me.l
D. Edgar Collins is a pseudonym for the author, a lawyer who taught in a Virginia high school for four years and was a VEA member. A book about his experience, tentatively titled Schooled is in the works.
Setting Your Students Up for Success
Research points to ‘success skills’ young people will need to thrive in the world of work.
Success on the job, both in positions that exist now and ones yet to be created in a changing economic and technological environment, will demand a set of skills that may not only be academic, but also are heavy on personal qualities and well-developed cognitive abilities.
In its report, “The Skills Employers Demand,” the Southern Regional Education Board draws a distinction between “hard skills” and what it refers to as “success skills.” Hard skills, SREB says, are often academic or technical, specific to the job, and measurable in a way such that a candidate’s ability to do the job can be gauged objectively. They’re typically gained through education, training, or onthe-job experience.
A solid set of hard skills, while very reassuring to employers, doesn’t necessarily guarantee workplace success.
For that, employers are on the lookout for interpersonal skills and personal attributes that lead to harmonious and effective professional environments. Unlike hard skills, these strengths are often useful in a wide variety of jobs and industries and are
critical to positive working relationships and teamwork. The increase in the use of artificial intelligence and automation make these kinds of skills even more important, notes SREB researchers, who turned their attention, in this report, to success skills. They reviewed the research on workplace skills over the last decade, narrowing their focus to “influential or innovative” studies that appeared in academic papers and done by industry experts. These studies included surveys of leaders in the business world and current jobholders, along with analyses of job postings. Here are what their report identified as the most sought-after success skills:
• Communication skills, oral and written
• Teamwork/collaboration
• Problem-solving/critical thinking
• Self-motivation
• Professionalism/conscientiousness/work ethic
• Customer service/service orientation
• Leadership/people management
• Integrity
• Critical thinking
• Creativity
The Southern Regional Education Board is a nonpartisan, nonprofit interstate compact headquartered in Atlanta. It works with educators and policymakers in member states, including Virginia, to improve public education.l
Making It Happen
Some tips to help both you and your students develop skills for success in and beyond the classroom, from the Indiana University School of Public Health’s Office of Career Services: Communication skills: Practice active listening in conversations, seek feedback on your written communication, and engage in public speaking opportunities to hone your verbal communication skills.
Teamwork and collaboration: Learn to value and incorporate others’ ideas, and practice resolving conflicts in a constructive manner.
Problem-solving: Engage in activities that require strategic thinking, such as puzzles or project management tasks; reflect on past experiences where you successfully resolved a problem and consider how you approached it.
Put this on Your Calendar!
Educators create school holidays to celebrate now that the traditional holiday season has wound down.
As the holiday season approached, education nonprofit and innovator Edutopia asked its online community this question: “If you could create a wacky school holiday, what would it be called and how would it be celebrated?” Some interesting responses came back, so we thought we’d share a few of them:
• Gratitude Day. To celebrate, teachers share gratitude for their students, colleagues, administrators, and others. Students are also encouraged to say what they’re grateful for in their fellow students, teachers, custodians, and other school staff members.
• Crazy Curriculum Break Day. On this day, students are allowed to wear pajamas to school, and teachers are liberated from their normal lesson plans, free to create humorous and fictitious lessons instead. Other possible celebrations include a school-wide curriculum cook-off, in which students and teachers
create dishes inspired by different school subjects.
• School Board Day. Every member of the local and state board of education would be required to teach a day of state- and locally-dictated academic standards, using best practices and accomplished in line with accepted academic expectations. Students would not be penalized for mild acts of misbehavior.
• Teach the Teachers Day and Expert Day. We’re combining two very similar ideas here that were suggested. Kids take over instruction, teaching mini-lessons of 1520 minutes on something they’re experts in (dinosaurs, Disney, anime, a favorite book/movie etc.) to their peers and their teachers. One person pointed out that not only would this give students a chance to share their knowledge, but also a look at how much work goes into managing and teaching.
• Legislators As Substitute Teachers Week. Like School Board Day, this would be an opportunity for some of our elected leaders, who have a great deal of influence on education policy, to get a taste of the everyday classroom life.
• Teachers’ Paid Spa Week. During this week, parents spend two hours a day in their child’s classroom, teaching the lesson plans, maintaining order and time on task, and dispensing discipline. They must also document every assignment’s scores for the lesson, all while at least three additional parents are there to observer, take notes, and create evaluations using the school division’s rubric. Further, participating parents must submit documentation to the teacher at the end of the week to support their performance. Of course, while this is going on, teachers will be enduring massages, mud baths, and other spa treatments.
• Board Games to Prevent Boredom Day. This one is pretty self-explanatory: board games all day long!
• Wear a Balloon Day. Everyone in the school wears a single helium balloon tied to them. The hallways would be a scene of (at least somewhat) delightful confusion. Could be a very amusing day.
• Day After Parent-Teacher Conferences Day. A day off for all concerned. Celebrate by sleeping in. Same goes for Day After Halloween Day.l
Get in on Read Across America!
NEA’s Read Across America is our nation’s biggest and proudest celebration of the joy of reading, and it’s no longer an event held every spring—it’s now a year-round party! The idea is to foster a love of reading and build the motivation of children and adolescents to read, because not only is reading the key to success, it’s a great and lifelong pleasure.
NEA launched RAA in 1998 and the program has evolved into an effort to not only promote reading, but also to expose young people to a wide range of books in which they can see both themselves and characters that resemble them and stories and characters that will be completely new in their experience. Readers who feel included and recognized are engaged and enthusiastic readers.
RAA succeeds, in part, because of the partnerships and events that educators create around it. Many invite guest readers, including local leaders and celebrities, to visit schools and classrooms. Use NEA’s book and activity suggestions to bring Read Across America to your students, and consider contacting local libraries or bookstores about planning or participating in an event. Here are some great ideas for events that will get students and the community involved in Read Across America:
• Book scavenger hunt: Challenge students to search for books that provide mirrors (stories that reflect their own culture and help build identity) and windows (stories that offer a view into someone else’s experience and the range of possibilities in the world). Take a trip to your school or public library and have students identify titles that are mirrors and windows. Make sure that students actually read and rely on text rather than images to understand gender, languages, cultural identities, etc., presented in the titles.
• Promote kindness: Words of caring and kindness can help people know they have value and that someone cares. Get students thinking about why small kindnesses matter and how to make them happen. Share books like Lubna and Pebble by Wendy Meddour and I Walk with Vanessa by Kerascoët that show students that their compassion really can make a difference.
• Little Free Library: Bring communities together through reading! Work with students, parents, and community groups to create an action plan to open or revitalize a Little Free Library in your community.
Access VRS’ Retirement Readiness Resources to Help You Plan Your Next Chapter
VEA to Elect NEA Board Member at Convention
• Guest readers: Parents, members of your community, and local celebrities who make time to read at monthly or annual Read Across America celebrations help motivate kids to read and celebrate the diversity in their community and our country.
To get more ideas and information, including how you might get some free books for your event, visit NEA’s RAA website at nea.org/readacross. You can also get great ideas by becoming part of the national RAA community. Join the Read Across America—A Nation of Diverse Readers Facebook group; more than 5,000 already have. You can find the group at facebook.com/ groups/ReadAcrossAmerica ll
Whether your retirement is on the horizon or down the road, the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) can help you plan.
When you’re ready to retire, most members can apply online and complete the process in just 30 minutes through myVRS at varetire.org/myVRS. This retirement application includes informative videos and step-by-step guidance through major decision points, such as choosing a benefit payout option and managing beneficiaries. You also bypass paper forms.
Apply online at least 60-90 days before you want to retire to allow for processing time. If you need support filling out the application, you can stop at any point, save your work and contact VRS at varetire.org/contact for assistance.
While many members are eligible to retire online, there are some exceptions that will require completing a paper form, including those with previous long-term disability or retiring on disability; those with an Approved Domestic Relations Order (ADRO) on file; and those with an ongoing purchase of prior service agreement.
Visit the Getting Ready to Retire webpage at varetire.org/milestones for essential resources, including:
• Getting Ready to Retire Guide. This offers details about your planning resources, VRS benefits in retirement, and decisions you’ll need to make.
• Retirement Readiness Checklist. Print or save this checklist to track steps as you move toward retirement.
• Member education sessions. Join a session tailored to your questions and VRS plan. Topics range from general retirement planning to the health insurance credit and more. Visit varetire.org/ education for a full list.
• One-on-one counseling: For personalized help, schedule a session with a VRS counselor – either in person or virtually – who can answer your specific retirement questions.
• Application instructions. If you are not eligible to retire online, watch step-by-step instructions for submitting paper forms in the video tutorial under Applying for Retirement.
• myVRS. Log in to estimate your retirement income and expenses, then apply online if eligible.
Learn more ways to prepare and what to expect in retirement by logging in to myVRS Financial Wellness at varetire.org/financial-wellness ll
VEA members will elect a new member to the NEA Board of Directors in April, who will begin a three-year term on September 1. The vote will take place at the convention in Abingdon, and information on the only candidate on the ballot is below.
Alynn Parham (above) has been an active VEA member since her days in the SVEA chapter at Virginia State University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in history, followed by a master’s in education from William & Mary, and her subsequent membership in the Williamsburg-James City Education Association. She’s now in her seventh year in that school division, where she teaches subjects such as World History II, World Geography, African American History, and the new AP African American Studies course. In 2024, she was selected to participate in the Virginia K-12 Education Humanities Fellowship, which supports the planning of two comprehensive learning experiences with lesson plans.
Parham has held various union positions, including WJCEA president, VEA District P President, and member of the VEA Board of Directors, where she represented 25 locals. She currently chairs the VEA’s Women’s Caucus and serves on the Colonial UniServ Council and the WJCEA Executive Board.l Photo by iStock
VEA Welcomes Two New Staff Members
Dr. Carl Howard a Southwest Virginia native, a new UniServ Director for the Prince William Education Association, has more than 20 years of experience in public education and has also held numerous union positions, including UniServ Council Chair. Most recently, he’s been a field representative for the Oregon School Employees Association, where he provided direct representation support, both in bargaining and advocacy, for education support professionals in 22 Oregon school districts.
Bridget Seery, a native of Arlington and a 17-year classroom teacher, is a new UniServ Director for the Prince William Education Association. Her teaching experience was in Pennsylvania and primarily in special education, and she served in numerous capacities with both her local association and PSEA, including three years as local president, as well as being elected to her local school board. Bridget also has experience working for the United Steel Workers of America as a field organizer.l
People are Noticing
As more and more Virginia school employees begin working with bargained contracts in place, the education world is taking notice. Great things are happening at the table for our students, educators, and schools— read about some of them in this article in NEA Today, celebrating collective bargaining wins in our state: vea.link/VEW l
FEA Creates ‘Solidarity Grant’
Members of the Fairfax Education Association, in the interest of supporting fellow union members around the state, have created the Fairfax Education Association Solidarity Grant program. The grants will make funds available for members in locals that don’t have the financial resources to send delegates to important decision-making events like the VEA Delegate Assembly and the NEA Representative Assembly, boosting equitable access to these essential gatherings.
“Virginia’s educators are stronger together,” says FEA Treasurer Matthew Wallace. “We are fortunate to have the resources to fully support our members, and we see it as our responsibility to extend that support to colleagues across the state.”
Details on the program and how to apply for grants for the VEA convention can be found here: vea.link/FEAAID l
VEA District Election Notice
District elections to held this year:l
DISTRICT/ROLE TERM DATES
A - President August 1, 2025- July 31, 2027
C - President August 1, 2025- July 31, 2027
D - President August 1, 2025- July 31, 2027
E - Director August 1, 2025- July 31, 2027
F - President* August 1, 2024- July 31, 2026
I - President August 1, 2025- July 31, 2027
J - President August 1, 2025- July 31, 2027
M - President August 1, 2025- July 31, 2027
N - President August 1, 2025- July 31, 2027
Q - President August 1, 2025- July 31, 2027
Q - Director August 1, 2025- July 31, 2027
*to fill vacancy
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Seen, Safe, and Supported
If I were to create a mission statement as VEA president, it might be this: Our members will be seen, safe, and supported.
For too long, many educators have not felt seen. Sometimes they’re regarded as interchangeable cogs in a machine; sometimes even as villains in attacks on public education. Our members are, in reality, trained professionals equipped with unique skills to prepare young people for productive and meaningful futures. They deserve to be recognized as such.
We all know that their safety is at risk, from disruptions in the classroom to disrespect and threats outside of it. Our members have given their careers to our young people—at the very least, they deserve to feel safe.
And our members don’t get the support they’ve earned. They deserve more of it, financially and emotionally, from local governing bodies, legislators, students, parents, and communities.
I see you, long for your safety, and I will always support you—and I pledge to work long and hard to get as many people as I can to join me. We will get better all the time at doing these things for each other, too.
We can see, protect, and support each other in hundreds of small ways
every day, and we’ve got two excellent, once-a-year events coming that offer us tangible ways to do it, too. First is the General Assembly, which is underway as you read this. Our elected leaders are in Richmond making decisions that affect us going forward. If you’re reading this before VEA’s 2025 Lobby Day on January 31st, I strongly encourage you to find a way to be at the Capitol that day to tell legislators the real story about our public schools and what they need. If you’re not seeing this until after Lobby Day, your voice can still be heard. Follow the action in Richmond on VEA’s Daily Reports Blog on our website (veanea.org) and sign up to be an online advocate.
Click “Take Action” and then “Advocacy and Action Center” on our site to get started.
Another key way to be there for each other and for our union is to be part of our annual convention. Come on out to beautiful Abingdon April 3-5 as a delegate representing your colleagues! It’s a time to be seen and work together for safety, support, and more.
Let’s stand up for each other and for public education!l
FEA’s Soldan Honored with Languages Award
Fairfax Education Association member
Lauren Paz Soldan a Spanish teacher at Annandale High School, has been named the recipient of the David Cox Award for Excellence in World Language Teaching by the Foreign Language Association of Virginia. The annual award salutes a K-12 educator for their outstanding contributions to language education, their innovative teaching practices, and their commitment to student success in language learning.
Jauan M. Brooks, who teaches visual arts at Harrisonburg High School and is a Harrisonburg Education Association member, has been named a Virginia Art Education Association Distinguished Fellow, an honor recognizing her extraordinary service and contributions to VAEA and art education in the Commonwealth.
Two members of the Education Association of Alexandria have been selected as Teacher Ambassadors in Amazon’s Future Engineer program. Essie Jones and Jacci Erney will be among 2024’s Ambassadors and receive a two-year, paid fellowship to promote access to STEM topics like computer science and technology. Each year, Amazon chooses 50 teachers nationally from different grade levels.
Two VEA members have been honored by the Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics with 2024 William C. Lowry Educator of the Year Awards. Culpeper County Education Association member Ashley Elkins earned the award for Virginia high school teachers and Loudoun Education Association member Shirley Fortenbaugh was recognized at the elementary school level.l
— Carol Bauer
Memoirs and Personal Stories
Can be Excellent Teaching Tools
In a world where many beliefs and ideas divide us, creating space to develop understanding and compassion for others is more important than ever. As students learn to understand their identities and values, exploring human experiences through personal stories can promote thoughtful discourse that focuses on facts and individual realities rather than generalizations and stereotypes.
Reading memoirs and personal narratives connects students with real faces and stories behind larger social, historical, and cultural issues. This connection to another person’s experience can help break down biases, encourage readers to consider alternate perspectives, and develop a deeper understanding of humanity.
Discussion and Reflection
As students read these memoirs and narratives, they need time for reflection and sharing their ideas. Reflection can be done in a journal, making concept maps, creating art, or simply jotting down ideas as they read. After reflecting, moving to small or whole class discussions encourages students to share their insights while also listening to the diverse ideas and perspectives of their peers.
As with all discussions, it’s important to make norms for a safe and respectful environment. Encourage students to lead with facts, disagree with compassion, and make it a goal to learn from each other.
Writing and Discussion Prompt Suggestions
1. What do you think are the benefits of sharing personal stories and experiences and listening to the stories and experiences of others?
2. What surprised you from the personal story/memoir? Why did it surprise you, and what did you learn?
3. Reflect on a time when you felt misunderstood by others. What do you wish they would have known? What is a story you could tell about yourself to help others better understand you?
4. Have you ever read or heard a personal story that changed your mind about a topic? Explain.
5. What are some misunderstandings that someone might have about you based on where you are from, your family, and/or your interests? How would you correct those assumptions?
6. After reading the memoir/personal story, what new perspectives did you gain about identity?
7. What questions would you ask someone to better understand their story?
8. How did the author’s background shape their identity? Consider culture, family, community, and conflict.
9. How did the memoir make you feel, and why do you think it had that effect?
10. How did reading this memoir change your understanding of a particular issue or topic?
Personal Story Activities
Journals: Students write journal entries throughout the year that share significant and mundane personal experiences. This allows them to reflect on who they are and what has shaped their identity so far in life. It also reinforces the idea that their stories are valuable and important to record.
Sharing Circles: Students share brief stories about themselves in small groups or in a large classroom circle. Starting with less personal stories and moving to more meaningful experiences allow students to build trust, share about themselves, and learn from each other.
Story Gallery Walk: Students choose a journal entry or short story they have written about themselves that they are willing to share with their classmates anonymously. Post the stories around the room and allow students to travel around the classroom to read and respond to each other’s stories. Provide specific guidelines for how to appropriately respond to peers in this situation.
Interview Project: Students interview an adult about a meaningful experience in their lives and present the interview as a narrative or through multimedia formats.l
Kasey Short (@shortisweet3) is a Middle School Director of Studies and an 8th grade English teacher and advisor in Charlotte, North Carolina. This article is a shortened version of one that recently appeared on Middleweb.com. To read the entire piece, and to see her recommendations for memoir books for middle-grade students, go to https://www.middleweb.com/51484/inspiring-understanding-using-personal-stories/.
Two Artificial Intelligence Resources
• The U.S. Department of Education has created a toolkit to help in the process of bringing artificial intelligence into public school classrooms. It’s called “Empowering Education Leaders: A Toolkit for Safe, Ethical, and Equitable AI Integration,” and it offers guidance, examples, and considerations for educators , focusing on areas such as safeguarding student privacy, ensuring non-discrimination, understanding effective uses of AI in instructional settings, building AI literacy, and evaluating usage of AI to ensure best practices and effective implementation. You can download the toolkit at tech.ed.gov/education-leaders-ai-toolkit/.
• Educators can take a free online course on possible AI classroom uses, created by a partnership between Common Sense Media, a nonprofit provider of entertainment and technology recommendations for families, and AI research and development company OpenAI. The one-hour, nine-lesson course, called ChatGPT Foundations for K-12 Educators, addresses some AI fundamentals, including data privacy, ethical use guidelines, student safety, and ideas for AI use. You can take the course here: commonsense.org/education/training/ chatgpt-k12-foundations.l
By Kasey Short
The approximate percentage of surveyed schools that reported special education teacher vacancies in the 2023-24 school year.l
Source: National Center for Education Statistics
Mentorship Has Kept Me in the Classroom
Reflecting on what has kept me going when so many others have left, I realize that it is the relationships I’ve built with other teachers that have sustained me. While the importance of teacher-student relationships is often emphasized, it is the bonds I’ve formed with fellow educators that have sustained my commitment to teaching. These teacher-to-teacher relationships— through mentorship, collegial support, and friendship—have kept me grounded and motivated.l
Edgar Miguel Grajeda, an elementary school art teacher in Washington, DC
Invest Now!
Since the 2008 recession, state funding has stagnated, leaving local school divisions severely underfunded. While other industries often see increases, Virginia’s education system has seen stark decreases…The reductions following 2008 were caused by a downturn in the economy and were projected to be “temporary.” However, that has not been the case, as many of those cuts remain in place. Investing in Virginia’s education system today will draw more qualified individuals to the profession, reduce turnover, lower recruitment costs, and mitigate the need for remedial education caused by teacher shortages. To ensure Virginia’s education system is strong and that we remain economically competitive by producing a well-educated workforce, we must increase pay for teachers and reduce other pressures driving prospective and current educators from the profession. The future of the commonwealth is in the hands of the teachers who educate our children.l
— James T. Roberts, retired superintendent of Chesapeake Public Schools, and Tammi F. Dice, dean of the Darden College of Education and Professional Studies at Old Dominion University, writing in the (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot and (Newport News) Daily Press
Words of Wisdom from the Past
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
— Aristotle
“If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”l
— Thomas Edison
Resources Created by Members
Teacher Travel Opportunities and More.
Interested in designing an opportunity to learn that is also aligned with your personal and professional goals? It might involve activities such as exploring Germany, studying the Amazon Rainforest, participating in an international exchange, attending a conference, or working alongside biologists on a fisheries ship, to name a few. This resource, created by Arlington Education Association member Dr. Andi Webb, contains information on over 350 grants, fellowships, conferences, and various types of professional learning. Check out this link for options, descriptions, and timing: www.teachingtraveling.com/teacher-appreciationtravel-opportunities/
Black Teachers and Their Experiences During Massive Resistance in Virginia 1956 -1973. This book, by Chesapeake Education Association member Sandra Pierce Mathis, discusses historical reflections and contemporary implications of eight trailblazing educators who paved the way for Black children to receive an education during Massive Resistance. You’ll learn more about the important contributions Black teachers made to American public education. Available through major bookselling websites, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.l
Be Proud of What You’re Teaching Your Students
Afterfinishing a recent day at Lord Botetourt High School, I stopped at the local YMCA to donate for a local blood drive. Afterward, I sat in the recovery area for the required 10 minutes or so. There the attendant introduced me to a woman sitting there, saying, “Mr. Ingram taught my daughter when she was at LB.”
The lady immediately asked, “What are you having your students read?”
Immediately likewise, I went on the proverbial red alert. Counties all over Virginia and, of course, the country, are seeing books challenged and banned. As primarily an English 10 Advanced Studies teacher, I am proud of the strength of my syllabus. Indeed, our principal, Beth Mast, has stressed that academic rigor is a major focus for this school year. Was this woman wishing to attack what I was doing and report me to who knows who? So, took a deep breath and gave her an overview of my course.
I explained that the initial novel students read is John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. With a theme of the loneliness of mankind, the book examines the wretched lives of a series of characters on a California ranch during the Great Depression. The brutal realism of Steinbeck’s work, as well as the profanity and racism, has caused the book to be banned in many places since its 1937 publication. But I see it as a clarion call for society to recognize mankind’s striving for self-respect and dignity, as well as the American Dream. Next, we read Eli Wiesel’s Night, which is the true story
of the Jewish author’s time, as a teenager, in Nazi concentration camps. Night has also been recently banned in places like Texas and North Carolina because it “could disturb or trigger any negative responses from students.” But see Wiesel’s memoir as a warning against both fascism and authoritarianism. I think students, properly prepared, can handle—and need to be aware of—the horrors of the Holocaust, as well as the other incidences of genocide (which are also briefly covered) of the past 125 years.
Then we peruse William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, which appeared in 1954.The American Library Association lists it as the eighth most banned book in America. Set on an uninhabited Pacific island during World War III, a group of boys between the ages of 5 and 12 try to form a functional society—and fail miserably as most of them descend into savagery.
When introducing this classic, I tell my students believe the theme to be good versus evil. I ask them, “Which is stronger?” and “Which is the essential nature of humans?” This always leads to vigorous discussion and debate, before we even begin reading. The discussions intensify as the book unfolds and as the boys begin battling each other—at the same time that their adult counterparts are in the process of nuking and destroying each other.
The last major work we read is the one I believe to be the premier example of literature that Western society has produced: William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet. The play is replete with controversial elements: incest, fratricide, patricide, suicide, insanity, murders, violence, and the Oedipus complex—plus every major character except one dies by the end.
At the same time we are reading and discussing Hamlet, we view Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho…another telling, I believe, of Prince Hamlet’s story. The culminating activity is for the students to write an SOL-style essay comparing and contrasting Prince Hamlet and Norman Bates.
I finished my explanation to the lady by telling her that students write papers on these works (and others) that will help prepare them for the SOLs, college, and life. My young people also create PowerPoints on historical and cultural events when we study literature and culture of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. And, if time permits, the final activity of the year is for my students to do genealogical research on their family tree.
I nervously waited for what I feared was coming—an attack on public schools. Instead, the woman said, “I love what you’re doing! I wish I could be in your class.”
Don’t hesitate to share with individuals and the public all the wonderful things we do to teach Virginia’s children.l
Bruce Ingram (bruceingramoutdoors@gmail.com), a member of the Botetourt Education Association and a veteran educator, teaches English and Creative Writing at Lord Botetourt High School. He’s also the author of more than 2,700 magazine/web articles and 11 books.
— Bruce Ingram
