Let 'Em Go Pee: Practical Advice for Those who Dare to Teach

By Paul Swisher

Let 'Em Go Pee: Practical Advice for Those Who Dare to Teach is a delightful must-read for teachers and aspiring educators! Chock-full of inspirational stories and commonsense guidelines for building and managing a successful career, Let 'Em Go Pee provides a fail-safe recipe for teachers who strive to create a vibrant, productive, and controlled learning environment. Drawing on thirty-two years of experience as a secondary education science teacher, Paul Swisher shares his list of "secret ingredients" necessary for achieving and maintaining classroom management, communicating effectively with students, parents, and peers, and skillfully blending academic rigor and responsibility with enthusiasm, goodwill, and fun! As the cocreator of Kan-Jam and a professionally recognized singer-songwriter, Swisher adds to his flavorful concoction by mixing in pinches of appetizing spices related to achieving success as an entrepreneur and artist. For those who dare to teach, this debut offering from the mind of Paul Swisher will undoubtedly provide a delicious bite of sustenance!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642148886

Book preview

cover.jpg

Let 'Em Go Pee

Practical Advice for Those who Dare to Teach

Paul Swisher

Copyright © 2018 Paul Swisher

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64214-887-9 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64214-888-6 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

It is with great joy and utmost sincerity that I dedicate this book about teaching to a man whom I believe was the greatest teacher of all time, Mr. Norman A. Schoell.

Norman Schoell was truly a master teacher and was the creator of Major Progress Program (MPP), an educational juggernaut designed to challenge high-performing, creative young minds. Originally designed for fifth- and sixth-grade elementary school students, MPP immersed selected participants in a college-type atmosphere where expectations were high and where students were encouraged to push themselves to their academic and creative limits. Mr. Schoell’s innovative program stretched the boundaries of conventional elementary school curricula and allowed fast learners to step beyond the confines of traditional textbooks and lesson plans.

I entered Mr. Schoell’s classroom as a ten-year-old boy in 1970. I was selected to attend MPP along with twenty-three other elementary school students plucked from various schools across the North Tonawanda, New York, school district. I distinctly remember having reservations about leaving my neighborhood school, Spruce Elementary, to venture all the way across town to Meadow Elementary, home of MPP. I was leaving behind my friends and comfort zone to try something new and experimental. As a prepubescent human, this was a genuinely traumatic event. Fortunately, my parents coaxed me through my insecurities (and resistance) and persuaded me to give it a try.

My initial apprehensions about entering the program were quickly alleviated after participating in an orientation session at Mr. Schoell’s educational camp in Franklinville, New York. Mr. Schoell’s camp was a sprawling estate tucked away in the magical forests of Western New York’s Southern Tier. He affectionately dubbed his getaway in the rolling hills Rocky Ridge and lovingly shared his magnificent property with his wide-eyed, appreciative students. The orientation session was the first of many memorable visits to Rocky Ridge, where learning often took place subliminally beneath a comfortable layer of joy, awe, and discovery. I became fast friends with my fellow MPPers, and many of those friendships have endured the test of time. To this day, many of my closest friends are kids whom I met in MPP nearly fifty years ago.

Norman Schoell’s effectiveness as an educator was not limited to field trip excursions to Rocky Ridge. Day in and day out, Mr. Schoell demonstrated an obvious love for teaching and academics. He combined those traits with a nurturing demeanor wrought with compassion and love that was obvious even to kids our age. We knew that he truly cared about us and that he wanted us to succeed as students and to grow as human beings. Character education was a subliminal staple in Mr. Schoell’s class, and there was never a single instance when classroom management was compromised. This was a remarkable achievement considering the out of the box nature of his instruction, along with the group of inquisitive challengers who sat before him each day. Mr. Schoell extolled the virtues of patience and tolerance as he encouraged us to experiment and learn about ourselves with new ideas and advanced projects. Group work was a common component in the MPP model, and this mode of instruction helped us develop leadership skills along with the ability to compromise.

Mr. Schoell had it all. He was a master of curriculum and blended intelligence with confidence, trust, and integrity. He excelled at classroom management by combining a firm, no-nonsense approach to discipline with an empathetic, nurturing disposition. As preteens we were wary of Mr. Schoell’s potential rebukes while simultaneously doing our best to not disappoint him. The gravity of Mr. Schoell’s impact on his students grew after leaving his purview. Each year we received handwritten birthday cards from Mr. Schoell that arrived promptly on the dates of our births. This continued until we were eighteen years old. In an age when computers did not exist, this daunting task was an obvious labor of love that demanded persistence and attention to detail.

Norman Schoell entered the teaching profession at a relatively old age after running a photography business with his brother throughout his twenties and thirties. Despite his late start, Mr. Schoell taught MPP for four decades before retiring in 1999 at the age of eighty-three. There was never a hint of scandal in this wonderful man’s life, and he succeeded in living up to the banner that hung prominently above his blackboard throughout his career. The banner read, Our goal is to become people of integrity. Mr. Schoell certainly led by example in this regard.

Many years after graduating from MPP, two classmates and I contacted Norman Schoell and asked him to join us for dinner. He accepted our invitation, and we met at a local restaurant. We all had a wonderful time talking about the good old days, and Mr. Schoell listened intently as we answered his questions about how we were faring in life and what we were up to professionally and personally. He was as sharp and as engaging as he was when we were students in his classroom some twenty years earlier. Norman Schoell was in his midseventies at the time of our meeting and would go on to teach nearly ten more years before retiring. I never had the opportunity to speak to him again and was saddened to learn that he passed away in 2005 at the age of eighty-nine. It was comforting to read, however, that he died at his beloved Rocky Ridge, and I was subsequently warmed by the many tributes written by his former students.

One such tribute was penned by Keith M., who wrote, "What a wonderful man! Mr. Schoell probably was more of an influence on me and the way I’ve lived my life than any other person I’ve known. My MPP experience was not only truly unique but intense in such a way that my time spent with Mr. Schoell, as well as with every one of my classmates, is permanently etched in my conscious memory. Having always been a bit of a behavioral challenge, I got more than my share of hallway ‘lectures’ from Mr. Schoell. We feared those lectures far more than belts or paddles because Mr. Schoell loved us enough to say things in such a straightforward manner that we were incapable of pretending that we didn’t know what we had done or why we had done it. I thank him every week for one lesson or another learned under his tutelage, most of all that with God’s help, nothing is impossible. In 1999, my two youngest sons had the privilege of meeting Mr. Schoell, just retired, and spending the day with him at Niagara Falls. In 2005, we were to travel from our home in Western Pennsylvania to Rocky Ridge to spend a few days with Mr. Schoell. He stopped answering emails, though, so I hesitated to embark on the trip, finding out a couple days later that he’d been found there, having passed away at his favorite place on Earth. We just missed Mr. Schoell at that place, but I’ll be forever blessed for having spent two solid years with him in the mid-1960’s in what had to have been his second favorite place—his classroom!"

God bless Norman A. Schoell! I felt it was perfectly fitting to dedicate this book to the most dedicated, talented teacher I have ever known!

Norman Schoell was a remarkable teacher and an exemplary human being. His influence on students was profound and was appreciated by all who had the good fortune of learning under his tutelage. Norman Schoell gets my vote as the best teacher ever!

Prologue

Iremember the first time I looked at my retirement projection statement. It was 1985, and I was twenty-five years old. I had just secured full-time employment as a secondary education science teacher in a blue-collar suburb of Buffalo, New York. In thirty years, I would be eligible for retirement. Hmmm. Thirty years. 2015. Wow! I couldn’t wrap my head around it. It seemed like an eternity away. I recalled an Albert Einstein quote, Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity. Well, relatively speaking, those thirty years passed in a flash!

It was truly an honor and a privilege to work with hundreds of colleagues and thousands of students along the way. Throughout my career, I was often asked, How can you put up with those kids? There seemed to be an omnipresent public perception that most high school students were villains. I was always happy to respond that in my personal experience, 95 percent of the students I encountered were genuinely nice human beings. They were not necessarily academic, but they certainly were not malicious. They were generally sweet, lovable kids who were trying to find their way in the world. It was an awesome opportunity to get up every morning and go to work in an atmosphere that was challenging, vibrant, and full of life. As an upstart teacher, I remember a legendary veteran colleague telling me that teaching is noble profession. In retrospect, I believe he was right on the money. For those who have the proper disposition, teaching can be an extremely rewarding career.

My intention in putting this book together is to share three decades’ worth of personal experiences, stories, and strategies with current and future teachers that will help them improve their performance and become excellent educators. Becoming a master teacher does not happen overnight. It certainly didn’t happen that way with me. It took years of hard work, continual self-assessment, and a burning desire to improve with each passing day. Somewhere along the line, I realized that I was actually pretty good. Master Teacher was a moniker bestowed upon me by some of the administrators I worked for. It was based on many evaluative criteria, but I never thought that I was the best teacher in my building or even the best teacher that I could be. I challenged myself each fall to be better than I was the previous year. Now that I am officially retired, I can say with a straight face (and a smile) that I believe I accomplished my annual goals for self-improvement.

My entrance into the teaching profession was somewhat unusual. I had never intended to become an educator. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1982, I ran into a few of my old high school teachers at a local watering hole. They suggested I work as a substitute teacher until I found my muse. At that time, teachers in New York State were vastly underpaid, and after a swell of retirements, school districts were finding it difficult to fill teaching positions. This was especially true in the areas of math and science. To address the teacher shortage, New York State created a fellowship program that paid for prospective teachers with four-year degrees to go back to school to become certified as math and science educators. Despite my background and interest in social science, I applied for and received a fellowship grant to work toward certification in earth science. Within a short time, I achieved such status as a secondary education (high school) science teacher and started my career. The rest, they say, is history.

This book will not rely on deep analysis of psychological theories or educational philosophies. Those topics are best reserved for every teacher’s required rite of passage—graduate school (ugh!). This book will instead focus on what I believe to be the most important tools in any effective teacher’s arsenal—the application of common sense and the dissemination of goodwill. It is my sincere hope that this project will help education professionals thoroughly enjoy their time in the classroom and thus avoid the uncomfortable feeling of sitting on a hot stove—for thirty years.

As for the title of this book, Let ’Em Go Pee was actual advice I offered to a rookie colleague as an established veteran teacher. It was, in fact, the impetus that inspired me to write this book. As a precursor to part 1 of this book, The Application of Common Sense and Goodwill to Effective Classroom Management, I will share this legendary tale of an unyielding first-year teacher and his stubborn, risk-taking student.

This story should be required reading for anybody brave enough to enter the world of teaching.

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity had many applications outside of the realm of science. Even a genius like Albert would have been ineffective as a teacher if he lacked classroom management skills. Relatively speaking, Mr. Einstein’s time spent as a teacher would have been an uncomfortably perplexing experience.

Why Let ’Em Go Pee?

Rule number one for a secondary education teacher (or any teacher for that matter) is to never engage in verbal combat with a student in front of his or her peers. The student will feel compelled to not back down from a public confrontation, and suddenly the teacher will find himself in what the old-timers called a classic pissing match (no pun intended). I recall having a conversation with a first-year teacher who had not yet mastered this nonconfrontational skill. I’ll refer to him as Mr. P (pun intended). Mr. P was having issues with a female freshman student. She had developed a habit of talking to her friends before the bell rang and then asking for permission to use the bathroom once the class had officially begun. This annoyed Mr. P, and he vented his displeasure during daily teacher lunches held in my classroom. I advised him that regardless of circumstance, it was always the best advice to allow a student to use the bathroom upon request. This approach was based on the old adage, When you gotta go, you gotta go.

I learned this lesson the hard way as a kindergarten student in the very district in which I spent my entire teaching career. Our teacher, a sweet, motherly sort, was leading my class in a sing-along rendition of Old MacDonald Had a Farm. We stood in a circle holding hands and sang the E-I-E-I-O chorus response to her delivery of verses.

Toward the end of the song, I felt an immediate urgency to relieve my bladder. Like most six-year-olds, I was very shy and reluctant to speak up. I was hoping I could make it to the end of the song and not have to interrupt the activity. No such luck. By the time I asked my teacher if I could use the bathroom, I was already close to the point of no return. When she quickly interjected, We’re almost done, Paul, hold on for just a minute, it was only a matter of seconds before my personal chorus became E-I-E-I oh nooo!