K-12 teachers have the most important jobs around. UT Tyler recognized that in early August with a special event for more than a thousand educators. Wesley Hickey, with the UT Tyler School of Education, says teachers find ways to succeed in the midst of many challenges.
MIKE LANDESS: For UT Tyler Radio, I’m Mike Landess. Not long ago, UT Tyler hosted a back-to-school bash for more than 1,300 educators from 10 independent school districts in East Texas. The event provided local teachers an opportunity to gear up for the new school year with motivation and encouragement. With us to discuss that event and the direction of public school education in general, is Dr. Wesley Hickey. He’s a professor in the School of Education at UT Tyler. Welcome.
WESLEY HICKEY: Thank you, Mike.
MIKE LANDESS: Tell us a little bit about the “Back-to-School Bash” event. You had a powerful lineup, that’s for sure.
WESLEY HICKEY: We had a great speaker lineup. To kind of give a little bit of background on it is that a superintendent who is now retired in Quitman ISD had contacted me and said, “We would love to bring our faculty to UT Tyler to hear some of these people.” So, we began to set it up. I like to give her credit, her vision. We kind of put some things together from that. So, we had the first one last year. We had Flip Flippin, well-known guy, and Rick Rigsby last year, who are great motivational speakers. So, we came into this year very similar type situation: a lot of schools, some different, some the same as last year, and brought in Hal Bowman, very well thought of motivational speaker in educational circles, and Leslie Milder, who is one of the co-founders of Friends of Texas Public Schools.
LANDESS: I love the items that Hal Bowman has come up with: “Teach like a rock star,” “Be the one,” “Change a kid’s life,” “Culture shock.” I mean, he’s definitely covering all the bases.
HICKEY: Right. Well, I tell you he is, you know, again we talk about the idea of being motivational. But he is a high energy guy, really encourages teachers to recognize the impact they have with students, go into work every day with a passion to really make a difference in the lives of kids, and that’s really a message that he brings home. And after the, after his presentation, I had several teachers come up, and he had to run off to do another presentation, so he didn’t get to spend very long, but they just wanted to impart to him how impactful his message was to them.
LANDESS: Give me an example of the kinds of things that he might talk about.
HICKEY: Well, he talks a lot about just simply that we deal with a lot of students that are, you know, not your ideal students, but these are individuals who really, we have an opportunity to impact in a very positive way. One of the messages that really kind of comes out is that if a lot of these kids are going to get out of the whatever type of tough situation they’re in, and we have a lot of in East Texas, a lot of kids with low social economic status, if they’re going to be able to climb out of that, education is likely going to be a key component in that. Now, when we talk about education, a lot of times we can talk about, you know, your traditional degrees and various things like that, but there are a number of ways, but just ending with a high school diploma is probably not going to be enough for a kid. They’re going to need to figure out what they want to do next and take the appropriate action to get there.
LANDESS: Well, and that educator is a key factor too, because that’s life lessons that come along with that teaching lessons out of a book?
HICKEY: Oh, absolutely your best educators know how to connect well with students, know how to motivate. Plenty of research goes into the idea that to the extent that a teacher connects well in the classroom, that student’s going to work that much harder and do that much more for them. And also, you know, the modeling component can’t be overlooked either. Is that many times, we have teachers that we look at, and we say we aspire to be like them at some point because of their, they model the behaviors that we really, that really resonate with us and really will kind of lead us to be better people down the road.
LANDESS: And the teachers have got so many pressures on them, whether that’s psychological pressure, the whole thing we went through with the pandemic, where it didn’t know whether you were going to be in class or out of class, and trying, and then trying to teach, trying to teach online, which was a whole other smoke, all to itself. But tell me a little bit about the teachers themselves, as they are, or they’re, imparting these life lessons and trying to engage these kids, how do they find the time for the outliers?
HICKEY: Well, so one, they’re, you know, I guess both, you’re kind of taught how to differentiate instruction so that you can try to meet all the students in the classroom where they are. And so, that’s going to be one important area. But experience certainly helps with that too, and, frankly, a passion for what you do, and you know many of these teachers. You know, as you said, even during COVID, where it was really difficult moving, if you weren’t accustomed to an online environment, having to flip that switch in a week or two is just very, very difficult to do and you don’t have a feel for it. If you’ve ever done both of them, and I have, is that in a face-to-face class you kind of get a feel for whether kids are learning, and online it feels like crickets everywhere, and so you have to find other ways to determine if the students are getting the information that they need. And it certainly can be done, but it doesn’t lend itself. You know, obviously technology is a little bit impersonal. So, you look for a little bit of what I would call a high-tech, high-touch type situation. You want to be able to connect well with them there, too, and there are ways to do that. But if you’ve never done it, that was very difficult. And that’s one of the things that if you, whether you’re the top student in the class, or whether you’re struggling, you know teachers really value the opportunity to be able to make a difference with all the students. And so, and I’ll tell you too, Mike, is that our teachers in East Texas are phenomenal. If you spend any times in the schools, they just do a great job going out there and reaching out to the students and connecting in well and meaningful ways.
LANDESS: I saw a meme the other day with a picture of a Super Bowl ring, and it said, “What if pro players had to buy their own footballs and teachers got diamond-studded rings for their efforts?” Right, that speaks to a lot of things, doesn’t it?
HICKEY: Well, it definitely does, and one of the things you know that we often talk about is teachers, because they don’t have very large budgets to be able to get supplies in their classroom, are going out and trying to find other things. If you look on Facebook now, a lot of teachers say, “here’s my supply wish list” and ask their friends on Facebook if they’ll come in and, you know, buy a couple of things here and there to help supply their classroom. You know it’s, you know, adds difficulty to it all, but teachers are very resilient, and they find ways to get it done one way or another. So you know, again, it doesn’t make it right, it just means that they find a way to make that difference.
LANDESS: Resilient and resourceful, have to be.
HICKEY: Absolutely.
LANDESS: Well, how important is the private sector, local businesses and service groups that get involved in helping the mission of teachers? Backpacks, school supplies, that sort of thing.
HICKEY: Always good. I mentioned earlier that in East Texas, we have a lot of our schools have high levels of kids that are in poverty, and anything we can do to provide, you know, the types of supplies that those students need when they come in, without harming the family or without hurting the family financially in any kind of way, is always very positive. The other thing, when it comes to a lot of the private businesses when they do that, that’s obviously great, too, but at the high school level, a lot of schools look to them for internships for students, and so having the opportunity to connect well with these private businesses, uh, have students that can step in, learn a little bit what’s going on, you know, and learning is not only just finding what you really want to do. Sometimes you get into something, you find out this is not what I want to do at all, and that helps along the way as well, and so businesses have a big role in our schools.
LANDESS: Our guest has been UT Tyler’s Wesley Hickey. To hear this conversation again or to share it, go to KVUT.org. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio.
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