MTR Remembers MLK

On the 82nd anniversary of his birth, MTR remembers Martin Luther King, Jr. ...

The Seattle Times writes this of MLK: "Martin Luther King Jr. has now been dead longer than he lived. But what an extraordinary life it was. At 33, he was pressing the case of civil rights with President John Kennedy. At 34, he galvanized the nation with his "I Have a Dream" speech. At 35, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. At 39, he was assassinated, but he left a legacy of hope and inspiration that continues today."

He spoke not only to our President, but also to our children and our students. On October 26, 1967, six months before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia. His speech was titled, "What is Your Life's Blueprint?"

What Is Your Life's Blueprint?

I want to ask you a question, and that is: What is your life's blueprint?

Whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint, and that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, and a building is not well erected without a good, solid blueprint.

Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint.

I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life's blueprint.

Number one in your life's blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth and your own somebodiness. Don't allow anybody to make you fell that you're nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.

Secondly, in your life's blueprint you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor. You're going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life — what your life's work will be. Set out to do it well.

And I say to you, my young friends, doors are opening to you--doors of opportunities that were not open to your mothers and your fathers — and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to face these doors as they open.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great essayist, said in a lecture in 1871, "If a man can write a better book or preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, even if he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."

This hasn't always been true — but it will become increasingly true, and so I would urge you to study hard, to burn the midnight oil; I would say to you, don't drop out of school. I understand all the sociological reasons, but I urge you that in spite of your economic plight, in spite of the situation that you're forced to live in — stay in school.

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don't just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

Dr. King called us to live life (and therefore teach) within this great Christian context... even as he spoke to young children. See his message:

1. You are SOMEBODY. YOU have worth and significance... because you were created by God and for God. And nothing man can say or do can ever take that away.

2. Be EXCELLENT... because you work for God and not for man. Determine to be great for Him.

3. Be HUMBLE (implied)... enough to know that dignity and excellence are determined not by the size of your wealth, status and power. Dignity and greatness are bestowed upon those who take their greatness from God's definition and not the world's. Therefore, live with dignity and give dignity on His terms, not man's.

We recognized MLK's brilliance and contribution to our nation by honoring him with a national holiday in 1986. He is the only non-U.S. president honored in this way. I suggest we take note of his words and pass them on to our students.

Enjoy Monday by remembering the spirit of the holiday.

Improving Teachers, Lessons Learned

See this week's (January 6, 2011) issue of The Economist, "Improving Teachers, Lessons Learned".

http://www.economist.com/node/17851511?story_id=17851511

Focusing on teachers as the leverage point for learning and residency models as the format for training great teachers is gaining traction nationally. See the following quotes:

"BUDGET, curriculum, class size—none has a greater effect on a student than his or her teacher."

"The Academy of Urban School Leadership in Chicago (a UTRU network partner, mine) trains teachers in a programme modelled after a medical residency—part traditional coursework, part training in a classroom. Such models may become more common; in November the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education recommended that residency-style programmes become the norm."

Jim Crow, M.D.

First for context, Dr. Bill Frist is a former US Senator from Tennessee, was the Senate majority leader and was an often mentioned potential candidate for President. He held true to his self-imposed two-term limit and did not run for senate reelection in 2008. Prior to his political career, Dr. Frist was a highly regarded heart surgeon in Nashville, TN.

For his post-political career, Dr. Frist was convinced of the need (and of his opportunity) to positively impact health care. Interestingly, as he researched the most effective strategies in solving the health care issues in America, Dr. Frist determined that the single greatest leverage point in health care is .... EDUCATION. As a result, Dr. Frist founded SCORE in an effort to lead and promote an aggressive urban education reform agenda for the state of Tennessee. Education, in Dr. Frist's mind, is the key driver for improving health care. Now that's leverage.

Second, to compliment that thought, please see this article from Sunday's Memphis Commercial Appeal on Jim Crow, M.D. and the health care gap between rich and poor / black and white (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/jan/09/jim-crow-md-choosing-not-to-know/). I found this quote interesting and in line with Dr. Frist's thought on education's impact on health care.

"All the diseases disproportionately affect the poor: chiefly African-Americans and Latinos, in inner cities and rural areas, especially in the South, Appalachia and along the Mexican border. 'You show me poor people in Memphis, and I'll show you these diseases,' said Hotez. He called them 'living legacies of slavery.' And they perpetuate a cycle of poverty."

Lack of education leads to poverty which translates into poor health and health care. Poor health and health care leads to poverty which leads to poor education.

You teach kids and you have the opportunity to change lives. In many ways.

Former TN Senator Dr. Bill Frist's editorial on TN education

Dr. Bill Frist is a former U.S. Senate majority leader and is currently chairman of the nonprofit Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE).

During my years of public service, there has been no more exciting year for education in Tennessee than 2010. Last year, state and local leaders joined together, across party lines, to commit to reforming our state’s education system and improving education for every Tennessean.

The list of accomplishments is long — winning a $500 million federal Race to the Top grant to support innovative K-12 education reforms; attracting the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to invest more than $90 million in the state to improve teacher effectiveness; and passing historic education legislation in the state legislature, Tennessee’s largest piece of education reform legislation since 1992. 2010 will be remembered as the year Tennessee leaped to the forefront of the national education reform movement.

This commitment to reform could come at no better time. As statistics show, producing an educated work force is critical to creating jobs. Seven of the 10 fastest-growing occupations in our state require some type of postsecondary degree. Many of the state’s newest employers — including Hemlock Semiconductor in Clarksville and Volkswagen in Chattanooga — require at least some type of postsecondary training for their employees. And estimates have shown that over the course of a lifetime, a college graduate makes nearly $1 million more than a worker with only a high school diploma. Improving our state’s education system means attracting more and better-paying jobs for Tennesseans.

But while 2010 was a banner year for education reform, we are just getting started. The first step to achieving more is expecting more, and new data released this week reflect that this is exactly what Tennessee is doing. For the first time, the state Department of Education is publishing yearly achievement data on individual schools and school districts based on new, rigorous academic benchmarks implemented just last year, benchmarks that raise the bar and more accurately reflect how Tennessee students perform relative to their peers nationally. In Tennessee, we are now asking more from our principals, teachers and, most importantly, our students.

Math, reading work needed

While we now know where Tennessee students stand, the data released this week also show how much work we have left to do. Only 26 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in math, and only 42 percent are proficient in reading. Other recent studies have shown that only 16 percent of 11th-graders are prepared to enter college without taking remedial coursework, and only 2.9 percent of Tennessee students scored “advanced” on international math tests, ranking Tennessee students behind students from Russia, Germany, Turkey and 36 other nations.

2011, therefore, will be a critical year for education in Tennessee as the work of implementing the reforms of 2010 begins. For policymakers, this means demanding timely and successful execution of key reforms, especially the development of a new teacher evaluation system that can help improve the effectiveness of principals and teachers across the state. For educators, this means rising to the challenge of teaching to higher standards and using new data about student progress to ensure every child’s achievement improves. And for communities and parents, this means expecting more from our children and providing them with the support they need to succeed.

So while we should applaud our many accomplishments from 2010, we must redouble our efforts in 2011. Our work as a state will remain unfinished until every Tennessee child graduates high school prepared for college or the work force.

My thoughts:

1. "2010 will be remembered as the year Tennessee leaped to the forefront of the national education reform movement."

We (Tennessee) really is leading the urban education reform movement. And MEMPHIS is leading

Tennessee. Therefore, Memphis is leading the nation in urban education reform.

2. "For educators, this means rising to the challenge of teaching to higher standards and using new data about student progress to ensure every child’s achievement improves."

Dr. Frist's call to teachers, at this critical time, is to RISE TO THE CHALLENGE (read: work hard, work smart, be relentless and unwavering, taking personal responsibility) by being Standards-Based and Data-Driven (SBDD) to positively impact student achievement.

Right down our alley. It's as though Dr. Frist graduated from MTR... we've got the right idea, the right model. Let's stay at it for the long haul.

Lessons from Nate Saint on the 55th anniversary of his death

January 8th is the 55th anniversary of the killing of five American missionaries near Quita, Ecuador by the Auca Indians. The most famous of those missionaries is Jim Elliot. A summary of their story (Operation Auca) can be found at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/marchweb-only/110-52.0.html.

Nate Saint, the team's pilot, was also one of those martyred. A few weeks before his death, Nate Saint wrote this Christmas Letter to his friends and family:

Nate Saint's Christmas Letter (December 18, 1955)

“As we weigh the future and seek the will of God, does it seem right that we should hazard our lives for just a few savages? As we ask ourselves this question, we realize that it is not the call of the needy thousands, rather it is the simple intimation of the prophetic Word that there shall be some from every tribe in His presence in the last day and in our hearts we feel that it is pleasing to Him that we should interest ourselves in making an opening into the Auca prison for Christ.

As we have a high old time this Christmas, may we who know Christ hear the cry of the damned as they hurtle headlong into the Christless night without ever a chance. May we be moved with compassion as our Lord was. May we shed tears of repentance for these we have failed to bring out of darkness. Beyond the smiling scenes of Bethlehem may we see the crushing agony of Golgotha. May God give us a new vision of His will concerning the lost and our responsibility.

Would that we could comprehend the lot of these stone-age people who live in mortal fear of ambush on the jungle trail . . . those to whom the bark of a gun means sudden, mysterious death . . . those who think all men in all the world are killers like themselves. If God would grant us the vision, the word sacrifice would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would hate the things that seem now so dear to us; our lives would suddenly be too short, we would despise time-robbing distractions and charge the enemy with all our energies in the name of Christ. May God help us to judge ourselves by the eternities that separate the Aucas from a comprehension of Christmas and Him, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor so that we might, through His poverty, be made rich.”


My thoughts:
1. I want to be a Nate Saint.
2. I want MTR filled with Nate Saint's.
3. That in comparison to our unwavering passion for displaying God's greatness to the world through an authentic response to the gospel in urban education, the "word sacrifice would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would hate the things that seem now so dear to us; and our lives would suddenly be too short; and we would despise time-robbing distractions"... What a privilege and honor to serve in this way for our 20 seconds on earth.

Please pray that God might choose to reveal Himself as good and powerful and faithful to His promises to those in need by raising up a generation to positively impact student achievement in Memphis schools.

Teaching and PRESTIGE

Last month, in a cover story on urban education as a run-up to Waiting for Superman, TIME Magazine tackled the idea of "what makes a school great". As is becoming the norm, TIME concluded that great teachers are the backbone of great schools. TIME believes that money is not the primary issue for difficulties in attracting top candidates: "But as a whole, the profession lacks something almost as precious as money: PRESTIGE." Lack of prestige... a disregard for the "profession" of teaching... a stigma of a low-performing profession... a culture that is building teaching around a "public service / volunteerism" mindset... all of this creates a void of prestige, says TIME. In America, for example, only 23% of teachers come from the top third of their college class while 47% come from the bottom third. So, they asked, how do you recruit great teachers?

So if it’s more prestige than money... what's the answer to the "prestige" issue?

My answer is quite simple. In fact, it's not my answer at all. It's God's. You want prestige in teaching, He'll give you prestige: "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" "The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." "And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." "Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all."

There's no lack of prestige in teaching. The "lack" is in the definition of prestige, not in the location of it.

REFLECTIONS FROM DAY ONE...

"I got to help with bathroom lines both times went, and I found that I incorporated some of the KIPP training techniques we learned. You can definitely say I’ve been “KIPP-notized”!! I had the students stand in one square tile, with one tile in between each person. "

"Secondly, I noticed the importance of calling students by their names. After I called one student by name, he responded with a smile, "Oh, you know my name? I didn't know you knew my name." He was glad I knew his name. I want to make it a point to learn a few names each day until I can call every student by name. I practice the students' names silently to myself as I circulate the room during class."

"Students perked up when I greeted them at the door with a handshake and a smile. I couldn't believe it. They would be strolling in, blank faces, pretty nervous, and then I would stop them at the door, ask for their names, and then just say, "It's nice to meet you." They're faces completely changed! "

"Finally, I am happy to report that my lesson plan (the first I ever wrote) went smoothly and that it was the part of today I absolutely enjoyed the most. The students seemed to be engaged, enjoy the story, meet the objective, and enjoy the activity."

"As I always do first thing in the morning, I went to fix my pot of coffee. My beautiful, awesome wife had left a note for me for my first big day. The Lord, without a doubt, used this not to refocus me. The card Courtney picked out had Colossians 3:12 as its verse: " clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.."Are you kidding me- what an awesome verse to set the tone for the day, for the year, for life. What if I went into every day and every conversation striving for these ideals. As if that were not convicting enough, Courtney gave me one more verse to reflect on, Ephesians 5:1-12: "Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children. And, walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.." To me, that is perfect for what we teachers are to do. As we see Christ's perfect example of how to live life. He led by being a sacrifice. He modeled for us what we are to do for our students- give them our all-"

"I am so thankful for today. I'm thankful to be in Memphis and working in Memphis City Schools. I'm thankful for supportive friends and family. I'm thankful for all the things I have learned this summer that made today a successful first day."