In preparation for my Bloomsbury Books reading I contacted the local newspaper, the Medford Mail Tribune. I was hoping they would run and ad at the least about the reading and maybe do a small story since local author/local teacher seems like a pretty good human interest topic.
Well, last Friday was a Teacher Work Day at school, and I was working away on report cards in a t-shirt and jeans when the phone rings. It's our secretary calling to let me know a reporter from the Tribune is on the line wanting to talk to me. Good thing there are no kids. She gets transfered over and we have a nice 20 talk. By, "nice 20 minute talk" I mean she asked one question, "Tell me a little about the book and what weird things you do," and I talked for fifteen minutes. When I stopped to ask if she had other questions she said no, if she had anything else she would have stopped me and I was doing fine. Oh no, I thought. I'm not sure exactly what I said though.
She wanted to come take pictures and I said that's fine today because there are no kids. She replied that kids make the pictures more interesting. "I've never worked at a school that was ok with the news taking photos or video of students," I told her. "I'll call the superintendent and see what I can do," she replied.
Of course. Call Cynda, the superintendent, to talk about the story you're doing on the teacher she hired three months ago. I am Low Profile Man.
It turns out Cynda was very excited by the idea of the story and photos, gave the ok for the paper to come to school Tuesday, the next day we had students. Schools have been getting a lot fo negative press recently and Cynda figured any positive press was a good thing.
So Tuesday during language arts the reporter and a photographer came in and did their thing. I warned my kids ahead of time and they were as no distracted as a group of students could be by the giant camera and guy walking around taking pictures.
The story ran the next day, too late to help bring people to the reading, but hopefully will still lead to book sales. My only complaint about the article is that she doesn't mention where to find the book or the book very much at all. A few mentions would have been nicer. Oh well, can't really complain.
I've included the links below and the full text of the article as well. Many thanks to Sanne and the Mail Tribune for their support.
Links:
Article
Pictures
Video
Teacher is Proud to be Weird
White City Elementary School's self-admitted
"weird teacher" flourishes his short yellow wand, using the tip of its
little, white-gloved hand to emphasize the syllables in the day's
vocabulary lesson.
"Cau-tious-ly," Doug
Robertson says, flailing his arms. "You don't just hold scissors and
wave them around. You handle them cau-tious-ly."
Next word — Ap-pre-ci-ate.
"Use it in a sentence," Robertson challenges his charges, in a booming voice.
Robertson's
theater arts minor stands him in good stead as he deftly trades his
wand for a mustachioed yardstick and wanders between aisles in his
third-grade class.
"I appreciate your smile," says 8-year-old Katheryne Galea.
Robertson cracks a faux scowl and immediately denies smiling. Ever.
"I never smile," he says, with a twinkle in his eye. "I don't know what you guys are talking about."
Indeed, several scowling images of Robertson are plastered high on the classroom walls, staring down on the 20 students.
"Children
are ridiculous and fantastic," Robertson says. "I tell them I'm mean
and that I never smile. And, of course, I do, so it cracks them up."
Robertson's
teaching philosophy for keeping students engaged in a carefully
controlled-yet-chaotic classroom is laid out in his self-published book,
"He's the Weird Teacher ... and other things students whisper about
me."
"You need to be kind of an actor. You need to make it better, make it interesting. Fractions are not necessarily fun," he says.
In
his 259-page primer, Robertson, now in his eighth year in education,
mixes schoolhouse stories, positive teaching methods, thoughts on
handling parents and administrators, and taking responsibility for
student learning.
"I feel I have something to
say to the profession as a whole," Robertson says. "Children are in a
classroom 180 days a year. That shouldn't suck. It should be fun and
interesting. This book is an inside view of what my classroom is like
from an inside perspective."
Robertson says it's a rare week that doesn't find him climbing up on a desk and waving his yardstick around.
I
don't believe you should just 'park and bark,' " he says. "Everyone
knows emotions are contagious. I want my kids to feel this is an
exciting place to be."
He's also known to mix
things up in the schoolyard in hopes of getting younger students
intrigued with the goings-on in the "weird teacher's classroom," he
says.
He randomly disrupts orderly lines of kindergartners by offering up high-fives.
"Everyone
knows if you put your hand out, it shall be fived," Robertson says.
"And the kindergarten teacher is too nice to yell at me. But I'm
building that culture. 'He's the weird teacher.' Kids who are in
kindergarten are excited to be in my class. When I finally get them,
that (playground high-five) has already done part of my job for me."
Robertson says becoming a weird teacher was in the stars.
"I was the weird kid, too," Robertson says.
But it's not all "laughing and rainbows every day," he says.
"I need to be able to take them from silly to serious in two seconds," Robertson says. "The goal, after all, is education."
Standardized
teaching is "where the pendulum of education is right now," he says.
But that doesn't mean kids shouldn't learn how to be critical thinkers.
Keeping students on their toes with seemingly silly nonsense is a good
way to create "thinking, productive members of society," he says.
Robertson
knows some of his high-energy teaching methods are not for every
teacher — and perhaps not for every student. Empathy is important, too,
he says.
"Empathy is one of the themes that
runs through the book that I hope people take away from it," Robertson
says. "A lot of these kids have things going on in their homes I don't
want to think about."
Lowering his energy,
Robertson slips onto a tall stool in the front of the class. The
students snack quietly on grapefruit slices as Robertson cracks open a
well-worn copy of "Charlotte's Web" and reads to them the last word the
wise spider will spin above Wilber's pen at the fair.
"The word 'humble' was neatly woven in the center ..."
Reach reporter Sanne Specht at 541-776-4497 or sspecht@mailtribune.com.
This is my favorite picture from the online gallery:
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