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Lisa Sanford's mantra for students: 'I can! I will! I must!'

Posted: 11/5/2009 3:17:05 PM

By Anne Egan-Waukau
WEAC Media Relations Specialist

An open house held in October for Milwaukee teacher Lisa Sanford was filled with people on hand to meet the person who coined the phrase “I can! I will! I must!” - a phrase she uses daily in her classroom.

In fact, the phrase caught the attention of best selling Freedom Writers Diary author Erin Gruwell who invited Sanford to write about the phrase and herself in Gruwell’s recently released book Teaching Hope.

“I had 10 seconds to tell Erin about my motto. She had tears in her eyes and she hugged me and said ‘You really get it,’” Sanford told about 35 people at the open house.

The event kicked off the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association’s month-long celebration of American Education Week festivities. American Education Week is November 15-21.

Why did Sanford, who is a Special Education Transition Coordinator at Northwest Secondary School, create this motto for her class?
She writes in the book, “My kids, like a lot of other students, carry personal doubts and fears. I quickly learned that a few of them didn’t believe in themselves or in their abilities to complete class work on any level…Even fewer thought they would ever graduate from high school.”

“I’m not special. I’m just me,” Sanford said before the event, hosted by MTEA and the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee School of Education at the university’s Hefter Center. But it was obvious the crowd thought she was.

“I work with special education students who always say, ‘I can’t do this,’” Sanford said. “I told them, I’m done being negative and we have a new motto and club. To join the club you have to repeat the motto: I can do the work. I will do the work. I must graduate from high school.”

She said the first volunteer to repeat the motto was a shy youth named Anthony. In fact, after a little encouragement, Anthony repeated the mantra with more confidence. Other students followed, one by one, until the entire class was standing with her after having recited their new class motto.

That was the start of a transformation in Sanford’s classroom that seemed to permeate the entire school. She said she heard students repeating the motto to one another when they were working on assignments, and in the hallways as they passed her during the day.
The class motto was her way of “challenging fate.”

She and her students embraced the spirit of the motto and despite the normal challenges and struggles teens face – teenage pregnancy, fights, jail time - every student in Sanford’s class improved his or her performance in school and graduated from high school. Even more extraordinary is that her students have special education needs. All of her students had to overcome significant academic and behavioral challenges to reach their dreams of graduating, she said.
Sanford is the only Wisconsin teacher featured in the book.

“I am honored to be selected to have a journal entry, said Sanford, who is the only Wisconsin teacher featured in the book. "It’s confidential, but I will tell you right now that I am entry one-hundred-thirty-two,” she said, which elicited chuckles from the crowd.

Sanford writes about her work in the classroom in Teaching Hope, which is compilation of 150 essays written by teachers throughout the United States and Canada who were trained by Erin Gruwell in the Freedom Writers method.

Also on hand for the open house was Maria Reyes, who was one of Gruwell’s students. She was featured on the cover of the Freedom Writers Diary, and is portrayed in the film as main character “Eva.”

The Freedom Writers Diary was a #1 New York Times best-seller and was made into a motion picture feature film, starring Hilary Swank as Erin Gruwell. Gruwell, after spending years in her Los Angeles classroom honing her techniques, started the Freedom Writers Foundation, which trains teachers on the unique journaling method and other innovative strategies.

Sanford was part of the first group of teachers trained in these methods and she has used the techniques she learned at the institute to great success in her classroom.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of Lisa Sanford and other teachers,” Reyes said.

“Education allowed me to open doors where only walls stood before,” she said. “At the age of 18 I was the first in my family to wear a cap and gown. I knew when I walked across the stage my life would never be the same. Education is truly the greatest equalizer. Thank you to every teacher in this room.”

Stories of great teaching - like Sanford’s – will be featured each week during the MTEA Celebration of Teaching campaign. Educators and members of the public are invited to join the campaign by going to www.mtea.org and submitting personal stories of experiences with great teaching in MPS.

The campaign will culminate with American Education Week.

Sanford read her book entry at the open house:

I wondered how I’d gotten this far in my life without really connecting.
Somehow I was 46-years-old, neither a wife nor a mother. I was strong and
independent, but my heart was wounded. Something was missing and I had
to keep searching to find it.

After college, I worked in restaurants and even owned a successful catering
business. I enjoyed the work, but somewhere deep inside of me, I heard a continual
murmur, What’s the point? Why am I doing this? I struggled with a sense of
purpose despite support from my mom, brother and friends. After my dad died, my anger and sadness seemed to distract me from feeling “normal.” For a long time I believed that my life too would be cut short by a heart attack. It was this thought that anchored my actions, yet eventually propelled me to change.

An acquaintance said to me, “You’d be a great teacher!” I’d never before thought
of teaching as a career, and I wasn’t sure I had the knowledge or experience. However,
these words were the spark that ignited my journey into the world of education.

Some called my special education students “different.” For years they had
been laughed at and labeled in school. Little did these teenagers know, but I also felt
different, labeled. As an adult, I was not invited to “couple” social functions,
and I was often quiet while friends discussed their children and parental responsibilities.

I felt as though people wondered if there was something “wrong” with me because I had not
participated in the traditional stages of a woman’s life. Our classroom was full
of “differences,” which brought us close together, freed us all to be
ourselves, and made everyone equal. Although I didn’t wear the label “special,” I realized that not judging one another united the students in my class in many ways.

It was what made me feel accepted.

My kids, like a lot of other students, carry personal doubts and fears. I quickly
learned that a few of them didn’t believe in themselves or in their abilities to complete
class work on any level, let alone class work similar to that of the “regular” education students. Even fewer thought they would ever graduate from high school.

Challenging fate with our class motto, “I can! I will! I must!” the class and I began a
dedicated effort to increase self-confidence and academic abilities. I realized
the motto wasn’t just about them. When I began teaching, the sadness and
meaninglessness I had experienced mirrored that of my students. But over time, it
was replaced with joy as we motivated one other, laughed, and even danced in celebration.

It hasn’t always been easy. There’s been heartbreak and struggle within our
class - teenage pregnancies, fights, jail time. My desire is to protect my students,
knowing that they are fearful as they change from teens to adults, wondering what
life will be like without the safety of school. As much as I am their cheerleader and
supporter, I know that I will not always be there to keep them going forward.

All is balanced in my mind by the happiness of this group of students. I beam with parental pride when I think of their discussions of grade-point averages, the class clown who earned a place on the honor roll, and their willingness to read Beowulf. This is our senior year, and I feel we are all graduating to new levels of pride and success.