The Real Teachers of Harford County (RTOHC) Summer Edition 

This summer, I taught in the HCPS Summer Learning Program at the Aberdeen High School site. I was excited to meet students from Aberdeen, Havre de Grace, Joppatowne, and Edgewood in my 9^th grade class. At the end of the 4 week program, I chatted with one of my students who said, “I thought you would be mean, since you are the best teacher of the year.” PAUSE. I knew that I needed to understand two key ideas about this statement:

1. Why did she think I would be mean?
2. Why was she calling me “the best teacher of the year”?  

To the first question, she explained in a matter-of-fact way, that she thought the "best teacher of the year" would be mean. What I gathered from this was that good teachers are firm and may make decisions that are unpopular with some students, but those same students come to appreciate this firmness over time. Some of our students confuse firmness, fairness, and consistency with meanness. In the past, I was concerned when students would share with me that they had heard I was mean, so a couple of years ago, I asked a few of them to explain. Here are the reasons they gave:

• Reason 1: I have students call their parents/guardians when they don’t have their homework. The purpose of this call is to ask the parent/guardian to help remind the student that he/she needs to turn the homework in the next day. This call also keeps families aware of students who are falling behind on work.
• Reason 2: Sometimes, I require students to re-submit work that they have already completed. I do this because I have high expectations and I don’t want them to be in the habit of being satisfied with work that does not represent their best effort.

Once they get to know me, my students realize that I don’t do this to be mean; I DO IT FOR LOVE. I love them enough to be firm, to push hard, and to hold them accountable. This past year, one of my students summed it up best when he said, “I know now that you just wanted us to do well.”

To the second question about being the “best teacher of the year,” she simply thought the title, Teacher of the Year meant that I was the best teacher. FALSE! I explained to her that I am NOT the best teacher of the year. I REPRESENT all of highly effective, hardworking teachers in Harford County whose stories need to be shared with other teachers across the county, state, and nation in support of a high quality education for all. I was fortunate to work with some of these high quality teachers this summer in my Education That is Multicultural class. I was blown away by their thoughtful conversations about race, culture, poverty, learning styles, intelligences, differentiation, family structures, data, language, etc. As a culminating activity, they worked in groups to develop action plans related to aspects of multicultural education. Our students are in for an extraordinary school year with this talented bunch, and HCPS is lucky to have them!