Spending Time with Students

This past week several of my activities involved me talking and speaking to students.  Without a doubt this is my favorite part of what I get to do as a board member.  Students will always make you remember what it is that is really most important in life and the work we do in education.  Those of us who have children in our lives, or work with them, know that you never ask a student a question that you are not prepared to hear their truth.

On Tuesday I was at Citrus High School and spent three block periods with Ms. Kathleen Oliver’s students.  Ms. Oliver teaches Learning Strategies classes.  Students in these classes often have learning challenges like me.  Once or more a year, I try to go in to the classroom and share with the students about my own learning challenges as a person with Dyslexia.   I share with them how I have learned to deal with it and what tools I use to overcome the daily challenges which come with it.

I enjoy sharing how the use of technology helps me.  I explain to them how, as a dyslexic, I benefit from using my iPod to listen to audio books, for reading documents and other books to me, and how I use my SmartPhone and iPad to speak into to help me with correct spelling and writing.  I also explained what reading can looks like to a dyslexic when they read and why it can be so challenging to read, write and work with letters, words and numbers.  I explained that math can be challenging, not because of lack of the ability to understand the formulas or how to do it, but because dyslexics might be asked to give the answer for “232 x 41” and instead our brains might inadvertently mix the numbers up and write down “323 x 41”..  I shared that when I do write hand notes I use long hand and write capital letters in different situations where they really don’t belong.  For example I may write a sentence, “The Boy went to the door”, because my mind finds it easier to know that a capital “B” is a “b” instead of an “d”, whereas my mind gets confused and mixes up the small “b” and “d”.

I want to share with you that recently Jerry Swiatek who is one of our District Instructional Technology Specialist shared with me a new font called, “Dyslexie” which is a typeface for dyslexics. It’s based on the 26 letters in the standard alphabet used in English, many of the letters look similar – such as “v/w”, “i/j” and “m/n” – thus people with dyslexia often confuse these letters. So by creating a new typeface where the differences in these letters are emphasized, it was found that dyslexic people made fewer errors.

I shared with the students that to say I found reading and spelling quite difficult is an understatement. I told them that when I was a high school student, like them, that my own reading level was middle school reading level and that “I HATED TO READ”, “I HATED TO WRITE”!   The funny thing now is when I ask myself what I find myself doing in my life much of the time, it is READING!!!!  The reason I do so much reading now is to learn more about educational issues that I may be voting on, and writing letters, speeches, emails, blogs and more.  I also have always been a very inquisitive person in general and interested in a wide variety of subjects to do with life, our country, and so many other things. This, of course, puts me in a position of needing and “wanting” to read all kinds of material to constantly learn, not because I HAVE to but because I WANT to!

I wanted the students to understand that I know what it is like for people to not understand who you really are and to, perhaps at times, think less of you. I have had to deal with people who would read what I wrote and jump to the conclusion that I was not smart and didn’t know anything. I want them to know that I understand how that makes them feel and reassure them that I know that is not the case at all!

I want students to have, a dream and to work to achieve that dream.  No matter what that dream is, they will need to obtain knowledge and skills from what you are learning right now, in high school and then in college. The trick is to always keep learning and finding a way to use those skills because you never know when they will come in handy again. Like many they will probably hold many different positions as an adult in the work world and never know when something you learned in a previous career will give you the edge in your next job.

Nothing is insurmountable!  An intelligent person once said, “Start working to fulfill your dreams today… because if not, someone will put you to work fulfilling their dream.”

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Supporting Stars

Citrus County School District support workers have the make difference and our schools and district— doing their best to help educate students. Support persons are custodians, mechanics, bus drivers and secretaries. Every year the district names its support person of the year and announces the winner the same night as the teacher of the year.  Here are this year’s support persons of the year from their schools or work places:

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Who Packed Your Parachute?

Last week, while on my school visits, I visited CREST School.  CREST provides a learning environment for both intellectually challenged and emotionally challenged students.  Before bringing me around the school, Principal Rich Hilgert and I met in his office where he looked at my identification badge and my lanyard which has a number of pins on it which represent school programs, memberships and our U.S. Flag at the top.  Mr. Hilgert looked at the pins and told me that I needed another. He then handed me a “parachute pin” and began telling me the story of former U.S. Navy Captain and P.O.W. Charles Plumb.

Capt. Plumb was a Navy Aviator jet pilot in Vietnam and after 75 combat missions his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison in Hanoi. One day after Plumb was released and returned to the U S, he and his wife were sitting in a restaurant when a man at another table came up to him and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.

“I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said Good Morning, how are you or anything, because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was “just a sailor”.

Plumb thought of the man hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Mr. Hilgert shared that each CREST staff member was given the same pin he handed me.  Mr. Hilgert said,  “at CREST we work hard to honor all our “parachute packers” every day.

Mr. Hilgert’s story of Capt. Plumb really got me reflecting more than ever about how critical each and every person in our districts plays a vital role in educating our students.  Our school district is filled with so many “parachute packers”, from our teacher aides, to our bus drivers, food service staff, maintenance staff, custodial staff, secretaries, district staff and many more.

Every student and teacher has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Mr. Hilgert told me how Capt. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory. He needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.

At times in the daily challenges of life, we fail to realize what is really important. We may sometimes forget to say “hello”, “please”, or “thank you”, congratulate someone about something wonderful that has happened to them, give a deserved compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

As you go through your day, your week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachute.

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