Top Notch 1 Teacher Book

[Recaredo Latreche]

Melbelieves teaching is a journey. It can be rewarding, inspiring, funny, hard work, and sometimes overwhelming. She will help you navigate your journey as a teacher by providing resources that save time, inspire, and motivate.

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When I visited Brentano Math and Science Academy last month for their first annual all school egg drop challenge, I was struck by the level of differentiation that allowed students across grade levels, from Kindergarten through 8th grade, to participate in the same activity with equal levels of both engagement and learning. Creating a protective container into which an egg can be safely dropped is one of the activities that STEM Institute facilitates in Advanced Inquiry to familiarize teachers with how to make engineering an integral part of their science curriculum in the age of the NGSS. Brentano did a variation on this by having students design a vehicle to protect the egg on its descent. But how can one activity fit so many grade levels of students?

Spending a little time after school with teacher Kelly Harris-Preston gave me a glimpse into how a clever teacher can adapt an activity to make it more challenging for older students, while still being essentially the same activity that the primary grades students are doing.

As had the other grades teachers, Kelly had her students working in design teams to create a receptacle for an egg that would allow the egg to survive intact when dropped from the auditorium balcony to the main floor. But Kelly had kicked it up a notch and in doing so helped her students connect the engineering design challenge to a real world scenario.

Kudos to Kelly Harris-Preston for her commitment to her students in going the extra mile to select those library books, in addition to all the other work she did to creatively adapt this into a great eighth-grade activity. Kelly Harris-Preston, YOU ROCK!

COHASSET -- Like a lot of teachers on summer break, Ray Whitehouse enjoys swimming in the ocean, sometimes with his son, John, of Norwell, a nurse anesthetist. Unlike the others, however, Whitehouse swims one-and-a-half to two-miles three or four times a week for 50-minutes, all year long. The regular exercise and the coldest swims when the water temperature has dropped as low as 36 degrees help keep him in top form for the science teaching he loves so much.

"It's a joy," he says of his position as a science teacher and science department head at Archbishop Williams High School in Braintree. "I love the school and the kids. Working with the freshmen and getting them to love science . . . as long as I can still get that response, I will keep going."

Whitehouse, who has more than 40 years experience as an educator, grew up swimming "a lot" in the Houghs Neck neighborhood of Quincy and played sports throughout his life. Several years ago, he became interested in new research and theories about how the body deals with the effects of stress, which he sees "as a bad guy inside your body." He read up on how exercise can reduce the effects of stress and how being in cold water can affect stress hormones. Cold water swimmers have described many benefits, from getting fewer colds to dealing with anxiety, grief and depression and finding comfort, stamina and even joy in the water.

In recent years, Whitehouse had two major shoulder surgeries and two knee surgeries, so running and other vigorous exercise are not possible. Two winters ago, he began going down to Sandy Beach in Cohasset near the condominium he shares with his wife, Gail, to swim in the ocean several times a week. He liked how swimming made him feel and has continued year-round.

"I go to school and I can almost keep up with some of the freshmen in the halls," he says. In addition to his responsibilities at Archbishop Williams, he also teaches nutrition at UMass-Boston, where his students have praised him in online ratings as "a great guy," dedicated, funny, interesting, very helpful and respectful of hard work. He also keeps a very busy lifestyle, and enjoys many activities with family, friends and community groups. He and his wife also have a daughter, Katy, and four grandchildren.

On the coldest winter days, he says, "the biggest challenge is walking down to the beach and not giving it up and coming back" when the water temperature is 50 degrees or below. In February and March, the average temperature is 37 or 38 degree Fahrenheit. (An indoor pool is typically 80 or 81 degrees in comparison and even a one-degree change can bring protests.) Going into the water on those coldest days is "not easy to do and that's when it can be all about discipline," he says.

On Monday, he arrived at the beach at 9 a.m. and headed right into the water, past a lone sunbather, put on his flippers and began the swim in water he said was probably in the 60s. He swims in a partial or full wet suit; in winter he can endure the 50-minute immersions but his face and hands do get cold and his skin itches when he gets out of the water and the blood begins to come back into his limbs. His family has made him "more conscious" of the possibility of sharks in the water; one advantage of water below 50 degrees is that sharks probably are not around.

Whitehouse taught high school biology and environmental science in the Quincy schools for nearly 30 years. He helped develop the Advanced Placement and the environmental studies curriculum; he and teacher Matt Croft were co-winners of the Quincy Environmental Networks' Quincy Environmental Teacher of the Year award. They were known for getting students out of the classroom and into the field, studying erosion at Wollaston Beach, the Boston Big Dig runoff into Black's Creek, and other topics.

"In our modern world - where genuinely life-threatening situations are usually rare - our primitive stress systems often over-react, launching anxious fight or flight responses to low-level stressors such as traffic jams, work deadlines, a full inbox, or funny looks from others," Sarah Gingell Ph.D. wrote from Scotland. "It's as if they are not properly calibrated." Anything that reduces the tendency to see neutral situations as threatening, or to overreact to threats, and "instead helps us to get back to a calm baseline faster will reduce stress and anxiety on a day to day basis," she reported.

If teacher training transforms the classroom, then better training will certainly lead to even better results. Now, thanks to the Lubavitch Chinuch Organization Igud Hamelamdim, over 200 new and returning teachers have undergone superior training by experts in chinuch.

The course has earned the praise of teachers and principals for its time-honored methods, lucid delivery, and down-to-earth guidance. Numerous graduates of the course have already been placed in schools around the country.

Notable among the attendees was a group of mechanchim from Melbourne, Australia, and a group from Baltimore, MD. These mechanchim who had already been teaching in the classroom for several years, decided to improve their teaching by joining the course, and they were astounded by its clarity and practicality.

The popular course covers the fundamentals that every teacher should know, such as preparing and presenting an engaging and comprehensible lesson, motivating students to love learning, and creating a positive and productive school atmosphere.

Graduate Rabbi Avrohom Cadaner spoke at the siyum on behalf of all the other graduates. He noted that although many of the topics are familiar to one who is involved in chinuch, the fresh perspective and tools gained at the course were exceptional.

The 5783 course graduates are Rabbis: Menachem Marmulszteyn, Menachem Cadaner, Yehuda Gorkin, Naftali Salzman, Yossef Milan, Levi Shuchat, Yehoshua Korenblit, Yisroel Haller, Avraham Kroll, Yechiel Schanowitz, Eliezer Wulliger, Menachem chazan, Menachem Pinson, Yisrael Menachem Mendel Eliashiv, Menachem Sufrin, Yudi Green, Levi Morozow, Levik Gourarie, Menachem Namirovski, Yisrael MM Eliyashiv, Menachem Sorkin, Reuven Mizrachi, Menachem Cohen, Yehoshua Laufer, Yitzchak Rahav, Yanky Werner, Levi Zirkind, Menachem Mendel Wolowick, Moshe Teitelbaum.

Teachers who love what they do and experience immense satisfaction in helping students learn often demonstrate superior performance. For top-notch teachers, teaching isn't just a job; it's personal fulfillment that builds character and transforms lives.

Finding applicants and hiring teachers with this passion for education can increase the potential to develop a sense of community in their classrooms. On top of that, teachers with this quality can encourage joy and intrinsically motivate the students during the learning process.

When hiring a new teacher, school administrators must ensure that the person is qualified to meet the students' needs. One of the most important aspects to consider is a teacher's presentation and communication skills. Teachers who are highly skilled in this area can provide an excellent and effective platform where students can understand the lessons in the classroom and apply them in more advanced classes later.

When hiring teachers, the first impression is everything during the teaching demonstration. A teacher whose work is impeccable and has outstanding presentation skills can design lessons and teaching materials that effectively communicate the subject's curriculum to the students.

In addition to being a good communicator and presenter, a teacher must also be able to navigate the21st-century learning environment. Whether in front of a class or in the virtual world, finding the right teacher who is well-versed with technology is critical.

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