The Secrets of a Good Teacher: How to Create an Educational Team in Your Classroom

By Mathew Savage

Teaching can be a nightmare you cant wake up from, or it can be one of the most wonderful experiences you can imagine. Whether it is a nightmare or a wonderful experience all depends on the educational tools you use.
Mathew Savage shares the methods and strategies hes found to be most effective in this guide, drawing on his two separate careers in education.
Having been a teacher for almost seven years before working in the corporate world, he found behavioral changes that were significant when he returned twenty-two years later.
The changes were not so much in the students as they were in the teachers and parents. He reveals what he witnessed as well as how teachers can eradicate many bad behaviors that have become commonplace in education.
He also examines the growing problem of teachers who have been seduced by the government to raise test scoreseven if it means cheating.
Whether youre a new teacher fresh out of college, a veteran teacher, a school administrator, or someone starting a second career as an educator, youll be poised to help students succeed with The Secrets of a Good Teacher.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Jul 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781489717696

Mathew Savage

Mathew Savage got his start in education in a small farm community in the San Joaquin valley in California. After getting involved in the politics of the school, he resigned. He was out of education for twenty-two years before returning to the classroom. Four years later, he was nominated for Teacher of the Year for the Fresno/Tulare county. He recalls his educational journey in this book. Mathew currently lives in San Luis Obispo, California.

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Copyright © 2018 Mathew Savage.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-1768-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-1770-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-1769-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018947284

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 7/26/2018

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 Student Teaching—A Unique Experience

Chapter 2 My First Year of Teaching

Chapter 3 Year Two—The Year of Awakening as an Educator

Chapter 4 Year Three—The Winds of Change

Chapter 5 Year Four—The School Board Alienates the Teaching Staff

Chapter 6 Year Five—Struggling in a Hostile Environment

Chapter 7 Year Six—The Year of Hanging On

Chapter 8 Year Seven—Out of Teaching

PART TWO

The School Board

Chapter 9 Trying to Make Things Right Again

Chapter 10 Becoming a Homeschool Teacher

PART THREE

The Teacher/Manager

Chapter 11 Becoming a Manager—A Teacher Is a Manager

PART FOUR

My Second Chance at Teaching

Chapter 12 Starting My Second Teaching Career at a Junior High School

Chapter 13 Back to Teaching High School

Chapter 14 Second Year at the High School—Good Changes

Chapter 15 Year Three at the High School— Creating Good Educational Teams

Chapter 16 Year Four—My Teaching Career Comes to an End

Chapter 17 No Child Left Behind and the New PBIS Discipline Program

Conclusion

A Weight-Gain/-Loss Program

Dedication

My parents taught me all of their beliefs that they received from their parents. Many of those beliefs and behaviors were beneficial to me navigating life, and some were not. Even though my parents were strict, they always gave me unconditional love. My perception of giving someone unconditional love means that you love someone more than you love yourself. That was the gift my parents gave me. This love got me through some very difficult times.

The real heroine in the creation of this book was my wife, Andrea. After leaving education, I was an operations manager for a branch of a food-service corporation. After twenty-two years, the corporation closed our branch. I got tunnel vision. I just thought I would go back into the business world. My wife encouraged me to go back to the profession of education now that this opportunity presented itself. She had patiently listened to all of my stories involving teaching. She reminded me that my first love was teaching. At the time our branch closed, I was offered a job as a manager for another company. My wife talked me out of accepting the position. You told me how much you loved teaching. With all your experience you have accumulated, you’ll do better the second time. I did not accept the warehouse position. Instead, I went to several interviews before I was offered a teaching job. I understood that a teacher who had been out of teaching for twenty-two years and was fifty-three years old wasn’t most schools’ first choice. During the time I was off, my father had a heart attack. As I was sitting in the waiting room during my father’s surgery, I got a call from one of the schools I had interviewed with. The school principal asked if I would take a job as an opportunity teacher at their junior high. I accepted the position. I remember my wife saying, Just don’t get involved in the politics of the school. She was right on both counts. Thanks, Andrea.

Foreword

I first met Matt Savage when I was a freshman in high school in 1974. Mr. Savage was coaching track and teaching science. Even as a naïve fourteen-year-old, I became aware that he was not the normal coach and teacher. He had the ability to reach students in a way that was a step ahead of most of his coworkers. It was easy to see that he had a sincere love for students and for his profession. Through Mr. Savage, students quickly learned that discipline was important in their ability to be successful in the classroom and on the athletic field. Because of his great ability to teach, Mr. Savage was given responsibility to work with students who were struggling. I remember as a student wanting to get into one of Mr. Savage’s science classes. Because there was a greater need for him in the other areas, I was never able to be in this class.

After I graduated high school, Matt and I became lifelong friends. I only spent one year in college and ended up making agriculture my career at the age of nineteen and have been farming ever since. For many years, Matt and I often spoke of education and of coaching young people.

Moving forward to 2004, I had five children, all in school in the Selma Unified School District, and of course I was very interested in the school district. Matt and I talked about the importance of a local school board. With his support, I decided to run for the school board. I’ve been on the board for fourteen years, and I am still a trustee to this day. As a trustee and a father of five, I see every day the important role a teacher plays in educating students. Along with parent involvement, teachers are the backbone of education in America. It’s becoming more difficult each year for teachers to teach. The evolution of education in the classroom has gone from No Child Left Behind to Common Core in technological advancement issues. Teachers are having to spend more time learning new methods of teaching, which is causing them to spend less time with their students.

That brings us back to Matt Savage and the book he has written about his knowledge of teaching students and teachers to succeed. I believe this book can help all teachers and coaches become more successful.

—Paul Green

Preface

After I retired from teaching, because of health issues, I considered writing a book about my experiences as a teacher. I recognize many of the failures of my profession, which over the years have gotten worse. When I first started teaching, I was held in high esteem, just because I was a teacher. Now, the respect from the students and parents has to be earned.

As I will explain later in the book, I had two separate careers in education. My first teaching experience lasted for about six and a half years. The next twenty-two years, I was out of education. During that time, I worked for a corporation. My second career in teaching lasted five years. What I saw were behavioral changes in the students, but especially changes the parents’ attitude toward the educational system. I always felt that many educators had been their own worst enemy. Some teachers humiliate and intimidate their students. Then those humiliated students become parents. The parents then feel they need to protect their children from the schools that failed them. I don’t totally blame teachers. In many cases, teachers are not given the educational tools they need to survive in their classrooms. My first year of teaching, I tried to control my students, because that’s what was emphasized in student teaching. Control is an illusion. Some teachers comprehend the material they are trying to teach; unfortunately, they don’t have the educational tools to allow them to pass their knowledge on to their students. Additionally, government attempts to improve education have made things worse. One example is No Child Left Behind. It is a catastrophe. I believe this program has truly damaged children’s chance for success in the classroom and the educational Institutions it was supposed to be helping. With an emphasis on test scores, it helped cause cheating to become acceptable, not only among the students but among the teachers. No real learning can take place in an environment where cheating is considered acceptable. When No Child Left Behind was introduced, some school boards in Texas and other states this tried to remove critical thinking from their curriculum. This doesn’t make educational sense. If children can’t think critically, they will make bad decisions based on bad information. This is especially true now that misinformation has become so commonplace on the internet. That those school districts would try to dumb down their own students makes no sense. We as educators wouldn’t want to create puppets as adults, would we?

I just watched a television show called XQ Super Schools. The show was inspirational and had many famous people participating in promoting better schools. It was gratifying to see so many people in positions of authority interested in education in the United States. Some schools that were mentioned have had success in improving education for the students. One school that was mentioned was Furr School in Houston. The other school was Hume Fogg High School. The message from these two schools was, We did it. It was emphasized that these schools were provided funding from businesses to create curriculum that met the daily needs and concerns of the students.

Thirty years ago, many schools created regional occupational programs (ROP). These regional programs focused on teaching usable skills related to employment needs of the area and the state. Four or more schools in the area came together and shared the expenses to create classes that gave the participants in the program a chance for a job when they graduated high school. These ROP programs taught usable skills related to employment needs of their community. Most of these programs have gone by the wayside in the last twenty years. Most of the schools that had these programs did not have the financing to keep them going. Many schools that are succeeding in education are subsidized by corporations or businesses. The problem is most schools don’t have the finances for innovative education.

I’m hoping that XQ Super Schools will continue to promote better education in the United States. During the presentation, teachers were encouraged to get involved in the administrative positions in education. They even introduced an XQ school board kit for anyone who is interested in getting involved in the policymaking at their school. Since funding is not available for most school districts, teachers need educational tools that will help them create educational teams in their classrooms.

The main premise of XQ Super Schools is that we, as a population of the United States, can improve our schools and make the US schools number one again. There were many phrases in the presentation, including Teachers have to care, talk to the students, not at them, and set the bar high. The problem that became obvious to me was, how do you do these things? How can teachers be successful in their classrooms? That is why I wrote this book.

Incoming teachers need some real educational tools. Then new teachers can start, on day one, with a workable long-term plan and execute that plan. Without educational tools and a process to use these tools, teachers will have difficulty being successful. Almost all teachers entering the field of education want to help young people Without some educational tools some teachers do whatever they have to do to survive. As a teacher, I have observed questionable behavior that my fellow teachers have resorted to so they can just get through the day. I have observed a teacher standing on her desk, singing to her students for forty minutes of the class period. Teachers grading by behavior or intimidating their students to get what they believe is control. I began my career trying to intimidate students, with mixed results. Some teachers resort to using drugs to medicate themselves to get through the day. Many teachers can navigate the problems they encounter in their classrooms, but there needs to be more of them.

Even though I started out with the wrong behavior in my classes, I have laid out a sequence of how I was able to reorganize my classes into educational teams. The professionals who influence my behavioral changes are also revealed in the book. I’m not saying that this is the only way to create educational teams; I’m saying this is a way to create educational teams. If you as a teacher don’t have a good plan to create a learning environment, I have tried to give you those tools in this book.

Introduction

Teaching can be a nightmare you can’t wake up