User Posts : The Southwest Voice

Music Works Magic at School

Watching more than 1000 kids march at Stockdale High School’s Band Spectacular kept me enthralled, laughing, and entertained nearly all day recently. Watching my junior high students carry themselves with pride using their music skills to perform filled my heart with joy. Later, watching area high schools compete left me with one thought: incredible.

I required all three of my own children to participate in band or choir right from the beginning of high school so they would have a safe-haven in a foreign, huge, sometimes overwhelming place. (Two of them were NOT pleased with their parents’ decision!) Without a doubt, their memories of their experiences on the field and on stage are the highlights of high school for them.

All three made countless friends, grew their appreciation for the arts, and all three found a caring instructor who found the best in them. The added benefit is that a music education is so powerfully beneficial to a child. UCLA’s Dr. James Catterall writes, “A ten-year study indicates that students who study music achieve higher test scores, regardless of socioeconomic background.”

According to The Arts Education Partnership, “In a 1999 Columbia University study, students in the arts are found to be more cooperative with teachers and peers, more self-confident, and better able to express their ideas.” Additional studies show a music education improves math and reading abilities as well as provides discipline, focus, and an ability to better plan, sequence, and coordinate actions in children’s daily lives. What’s not to love about that?

Whether it’s kindergarten music time, choir or band pull-out programs in the intermediate years, or band or choir in high school, all children benefit from experience in the arts. There is nothing like the joy of music.

— Peggy Dewane-Pope is an eighth grade teacher at Stonecreek Junior High School in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District. Learn more about the benefits of music at childrensmusicworkshop.com.

Why fists fly

My high school aged daughter could hardly tolerate it when a fist-fight broke out on the field during her soccer game. She couldn’t believe how rough the game played out, complaining, “We’re supposed to be out here for fun!”

Why do children bring up their fists? Chances are it has to do with the child’s socio-economic upbringing. Framework for Understanding Poverty, by Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D., helps clarify why people of different classes do the things they do. It’s especially helpful to teachers because most of us are from middle-class households yet many teach children in the low socio-economic strata. We learn that money is to be used or spent, a sense of humor is highly valued, clothing is valued for individual style and expression of personality, and the present is the most important because there is no telling what the future will bring. Those in a lower socio-economic group tend to settle conflict with fists rather than words.

Payne goes on to describe the differences between generational and situational poverty as well as the traits that go with them. She notes that poverty occurs in all races and in all countries. There are four reasons one leaves poverty including that it’s too painful to stay, a vision or goal, a key relationship, or a special talent or skill. The two things that help one move out of poverty are education and relationships.

To be the best teachers we can be we must understand our students. In society, a better understanding of cultures, classes, and faiths will make us better neighbors, friends, and citizens.

Peggy Dewane-Pope is an eighth grade teacher at Stonecreek Junior High School in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District.

AVID students set goal to aid Relay For Life

It is an amazing sight to see people lined up in front of a junior high at 5 a.m. The AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) rummage sale, not school, drew hundreds of people September 27, 2008. Weeks before it, our AVID students worked to get the rummage sale set up. A week before the sale a trailer full of items arrived to be sorted. Our donations consisted of clothes, toys, electronics, books, and more. Some people stopped by our school just to drop off a check to help us. How generous!

Throughout the day lots of people walked in and out of the full multi-purpose room and rarely did we have a moment with no one there. We even had staff members that are not involved with AVID come to support us. Our whole reason for doing this was, and still is, to help with The American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. It is a program to help raise funds to research a cure for cancer. Our school wide goal is to raise a minimum of $10,000 to put towards our Relay for Life team.

Our school’s fund raisers take place every month until the Relay in April. Our school is holding monthly coin drives which involve every kind of American coin, and rummage sales that have, so far, raised about $1600. Relay for Life is a good cause and we are grateful to anyone who helps us meet our goal. We will hold another sale mid-spring and welcome donations and shoppers! Better yet, feel free to drop a check by like some of our other customers!

— Kenneth Dollar is an eighth grade student in the AVID program at Stonecreek Junior High School in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District.

Keep It Positive

I think it is safe to say that most people believe they learn from their mistakes. I know I have had more than a few lessons from mistakes. I think it is also safe to say that positive feedback feels pretty empowering.

According to a recent article in The Journal of Neuroscience, adults and children strongly respond in the brain—specifically in the basal ganglia, just outside the cerebral cortex-- when we get positive remarks like, “Great job!,” and “You got it!”

As it turns out, however, not everyone learns from their mistakes. Developmental psychologist Dr. Eveline Crone and her colleagues from the Leiden Brain and Cognition Lab suggest that children under 12 are not processing negative input to the degree they process positive input. So when parents or teachers tell youngsters about the deficiencies in a project or paper the brain does not respond. Comments like, “Got that wrong,” and “You’re not doing this right,” fall on deaf ears essentially. Tell them what they did right, however, and the brain lights up!

According to a ScienceDaily.com article on the study, the brains’ 'control centres' of children of 12 and 13 (and also adults’) are more strongly activated by negative feedback and much less by positive feedback.

What that means to me as a junior high English teacher is that I will continue to closely edit my students’ papers and continue to require them to rewrite with corrections while also giving them plenty of comments about what they do right daily in class. It also means my colleagues in the younger grades and loads of parents are doing a great job focusing on the positive with their little ones.

Peggy Dewane-Pope is an eighth grade teacher at Stonecreek Junior High School in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District.

Don’t tell a child, “You’re smart!”

I am not gifted. Face it; 90 percent of us aren’t. I have however, experienced great fortune and success in my life. One of the reasons I may be successful is that I was never told as a child that I was smart. I experienced success as a child and my parents loved me dearly but, “You’re so smart,” and “Brilliant!” never came out of my parent’s mouths. Instead, they said things like, “Good work,” “Try harder,” “More effort and you’ll get it.”

Psychologically there may be a reason for my success and the lack of someone urging me on with statements of my intelligence. Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck does research on motivation, personality, and development and short of summarizing her studies, finds it just may be detrimental for children to be told they are smart. My understanding is that Dweck finds that children who grow up believing they are inherently bright sometimes fear taking risks and trying new things because they might find they are not brilliant at them at first and quit the effort before going any further. Dweck calls this a fixed intelligence.

Contrarily, people with growth intelligence believe that they can learn and eventually excel in things they take on. This is where the concept of work ethic and practice makes perfect comes in. A child told that success comes through effort just may find more of it.

The ironic angle of all this is according to a survey conducted by Columbia University, 85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart. In essence, and I’m at fault here too, our kids are better off being encouraged to work than being encouraged that they are naturally bright.

I’m sure you readers have brilliant children but you might just think about keeping that to yourself and encouraging them to try a bit harder and trust their luck. I am reminded of Thomas Jefferson’s statement, “I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

Peggy Dewane-Pope is an eighth grade teacher at Stonecreek Junior High School in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District. Learn more in Self-theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development (Essays in Social Psychology)by Carol Dweck.

Mind Shift to Help Young Minds

Education needs to be shaken up a bit. We look at headlines that tell us roughly a quarter of our students are not graduating from high school, according to the state Department of Education. Eeeek! That is frightening!

I am excited that Panama-Buena Vista Union School District is ready to explore an interesting shift in mindset. We teachers need to switch from concerning ourselves with “teaching children” to “children learning.” Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? The whole philosophy incorporates many components: regular common assessments among grade level teachers, constant teacher collaboration, and embracing our content standards by not only TEACHING them, but having students LEARN them.

Scores of books address the concepts so obviously I can’t adequately tackle them in this column but upon learning about more I realize we do some things very well where I work and that involves celebrating sustained effort.

We celebrate our academic successes, our team efforts, our athletic endeavors, and our artistic excellence and at Stonecreek Junior High School we depend on community support to make that happen. Help in the form of cold hard cash, discounts, and a venue for community gathering have been generously provided by J’s Place, Daddy O’s, Taco Bell, and even The Way Fellowship, the church that meets in our multipurpose room on Sundays.

J’s Place specializes in Southern cooking providing foods for some celebrations and also gives our Stonecreek families a 10 percent discount on food. (I know J’s Place also hosted fundraisers for both a Ridgeview student and the Bakersfield High School Winds Orchestra.) Daddy O’s kicked back a percentage of every purchase on Stonecreek Junior High Night while providing a community celebration for a great year. Taco Bell provided discounted food for our teamwork celebrations while The Way Fellowship provides gifts to not only students but also to teachers who show exceptional sustained effort.

We are ready to embark on some amazing, gradual changes to guarantee that children learn before leaving us and that will take time and support. It is comforting to know we have such fabulous support.

Peggy Dewane-Pope is an eighth grade teacher at Stonecreek Junior High in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District.

High Suspension Rates Communicate Safety

Nearly every child who competed to be an eighth grade graduation speaker for Stonecreek Junior High mentioned how safe he or she felt on our campus. That’s notable in this world of mass communicated violence at schools and among students. I think it is because of the high percentage of drug/violence suspensions that occur at our school. A couple weeks ago Robert Price, associate editorial page editor of The Bakersfield Californian reported that Panama-Buena Vista Union School District suspension rate comes in at a healthy 12 percent which tops the Kern High School’s 11 percent rate and Bakersfield City School’s 8.5 percent. That does not mean our kids are into drugs and hurting each other more than other areas of town but indicates to me a lack of tolerance for that type of behavior. Our administrative team does not put up with much.

On one of his last day’s of school a student came up to Vice Principal Brian Malavar and said, “I don’t know why people don’t like you; I think you’re a nice man.” We all chuckled but really, many students at our school dread the call slip from Mr. Malavar. He is a man who doesn’t tolerate gang behavior, rule breaking, or intimidation and we staffers love him. Principal Darryl Johnson says he would rather sweat the small infractions and communicate to all that our school will not put up with lousy behavior and that seems to be the philosophy of many PBVUSD administrators. We have had parents pull their children out of our school because of the tight rein but the bottom line is that we have kids who feel safe at school when many across our nation live in fear. Our district is not one that fears the suspensions we have on record; we fear kids having to attend class in an environment where they do not feel safe. I like teaching at a school with a high percentage of suspensions because I feel safe too!

Peggy Dewane-Pope is a teacher at Stonecreek Junior High School in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District. Brian Malavar is the new principal at Panama School and he (and his suspensions at SJHS) will be missed.

Support staff is more than worthy of our appreciation

A parent walked into our school a couple weeks ago and started yelling at our secretary, Becky Burgy. What was he thinking? Does he have any idea who he was talking to?!? Hello! It’s the SECRETARY! She, as well as the clerks, runs the place. Becky makes sure everyone there has what they need. She makes sure the students who are sick contact parents or get their medications if they are on site. She’s the one who makes sure everything runs smoothly and fortunately it does even when things are so busy. Becky has no problem handling a crabby parent—she’s wildly professional. In fact, we staffers probably get more defensive about someone yelling at her than she does. Does that parent think he endears himself to anyone when he gets so angry? Nope!

Another pet peeve of mine is how some students view custodial staff. I require my floors be “spitty spot” before I release my students after the bell rings. Sometimes a child will ask why they have to do it and mumble, “That’s the janitor’s job.” Carlos Dedios, our head custodian, says students and teachers are the first line of defense against trash, and I’m with him on that concept. Carlos and his team make sure the school is clean, equipment is where it should be, and that everything is ready and raring to go when our kids arrive.

Some people think it is the administration that runs schools and to some degree it is, but it’s the secretaries, clerks, and custodians who make sure schools runs smoothly!

— Peggy Dewane-Pope is a teacher at Stonecreek Junior High School in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District.

Love Those Teenagers!

Some people show horror when I tell them I teach junior high school. They just cannot imagine someone choosing to spend their day with a bunch of eighth graders. I have a friend, Craig Holland, who teaches at Stockdale High School whose son teaches junior high. Craig figures his son is going straight to heaven when he dies because he’s lived the alternative in the classroom every day. Kidding aside, I really do love my job and yearly I have about 80 really good reasons why that is so.

I’ll never forget the witty poetry students have written about friends and what it means to grow up. Reading their weekly essays gives me insight into how they are figuring out how the world works whether the essay is about oil prices, inflation, or about how their junior high years are playing out. We laugh during discussions about irony, onomatopoeias, and idioms. They are shocked and horrified to hear how the Nazis treated the Jews. They show such compassion when other students are suffering tragedies and exhibit intolerance when others are bullied.

I love the young teens in my classes—don’t get me wrong, sometimes they drive me cuckoo. Chances are when I call the parents of kids who push my limits I end up loving their parents because for the most part, they are wildly supportive of me and my efforts to get their children to perform.

Struggling students give me all they have sometimes even though reading is so difficult for them. Gifted children question the outrageous greed people exhibit in books. My students show such enthusiasm following standardized testing when they tell me, “I used process-of-elimination on the test and I think I did well!”

I have had so many riotous laughing sessions with my students and more than a few tears. Students have urged me on and written poetry about how much they have grown. They have seen me through more family deaths than anyone should experience showing me love, compassion, and many kindnesses. It is great to be with the adults of the future every school day. I have great hopes for them and they know it.