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Educators get summertime pep talk at New Teacher Academy
Posted: 8/6/2009 6:29:50 PM
Jackie Drummer, a South Milwaukee Education
Association member and president of the Wisconsin
Association for Talented & Gifted, gives a talk about
student engagement at the New Teacher Academy.
Melissa Germain is entering her second year teaching high school English at Saint Croix Falls, and her fourth year overall as a teacher, but she feels like a rookie.
“I still feel new – plain and simple,” Germain said during a break from seminars at the third annual New Teacher Academy held at UW-Baraboo/Sauk County. Germain, one of more than 80 attendees to the two-day summer conference, said she signed up to listen to experts on teaching and to talk to other educators. And she found a wealth of knowledge, as well as kinship.
“You’re always a new teacher,” said Sally Antoine, answering Germain and saying she feels the same way as she enters the Baraboo School District for the first time even after teaching for seven years. “You never learn it all.”
For experienced teachers looking for innovative ideas to novice teachers looking for a bridge to their new profession to those yet to lock down a teaching job for the next school year the New Teacher Academy – a program organized by the Baraboo School District, UW-Baraboo/Sauk County and UW-Platteville – offers tricks, tips and tools to engage students and get motivated for the school year.
For Germain, attending a talk by Paul Gasser – a marriage and family therapist in Tomah and an instructor for UW-Platteville – was a way to look at her classroom in new ways. How can she get better at handling disruptive students? How can she adjust her personality to best reach her students?
“That challenge is sort of fun for me,” Germain said, detailing some tips she plans to bring into her classroom. “I can’t wait to see what tricks I can do for classroom management.”
Those offering advice included Jackie Drummer, a South Milwaukee Education Association member and president of the Wisconsin Association for Talented & Gifted. Drummer encouraged the teachers attending the academy to engage students on their level.
“Did you ever notice the word ‘encourage’ has the word ‘courage’ in it,” Drummer said. “When you encourage someone you give them courage to take the next step.”
Drummer outlined a list of tips to engage modern learners, including reinforcing how knowledge learned today will help students when their adults (answering the “Why do I have to learn this” question) and creating a “trust fund” with students so that they feel free to ask questions whenever they need help.
In her work with students, Drummer said today’s learners want their teachers to have a deep knowledge of what they’re teaching or the resources to find that knowledge. Students also want an emotionally and physically safe place in which to learn and lessons relevant to their lives. Reaching kids sometimes means thinking like one, Drummer added.
“Think of goals as wishes and dreams,” Drummer said. “Because kids don’t think about goals, they think about wishes and dreams.”
Just like the students they teach, educators need resources to succeed, and WEAC President Mary Bell told teachers entering the profession that teachers unions are working to ensure quality education and furthering great schools.
“We do need to have a way to lift the profession so everyone knows the license you carry into the classroom has value,” Bell said.
Bell outlined several of WEAC’s strategic priorities and how they fit into advancing public instruction. One of the priorities, closing achievement gaps, is critical to WEAC’s mission to engage all students in education success, Bell said.
“If our students don’t succeed, public schools won’t be successful,” Bell said.
Bell urged new teachers to seek out professional development opportunities organized by WEAC and the NEA, some of which can be found online and free to users. That professional development will continue to give educators the tools they need to teach well into their careers, Bell said.
The advice and wisdom were welcome words to Maggie Schumacher, a teacher for three years in Arcadia who is about to enter her first year in the special education department of the Baraboo School District.
“It’s nice to have new ideas and get re-excited about strategies for teaching,” Schumacher said. “It gets me motivated.”
That motivation was at the heart of Baraboo school officials who started the academy three years to serve as a bridge from college to the classroom.
“We wanted to give them a seamless transition,” said Teresa Lien of the Baraboo district. “This is full of practical tools they can use.”
