Teachers Do So Much More than Teach!

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How One Chalkboard Champion Created A Second Chalkboard Champion

Here is an amazing video I found on You Tube which shows the tremendous impact of a caring teacher. One chalkboard champion created a second chalkboard champion. Just watch!

Harry Dame: Veteran Educator and Talented Coach

In American history, there are many notable examples of talented and dedicated educators who make their mark on the profession. This is certainly the case of Harry Dame, a public high school teacher who made his biggest mark as an athletic coach.

Harry Dame was born in Lynn, Massachusetts. As a youngster, he attended Lynn Classical High School, graduating in 1898. After his graduation, he enrolled in Springfield Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he played quarterback for the football team. Harry completed his college studies in 1900, and then he enrolled in courses at both Tufts College in Medford, Massachusetts, and Boston University.

After earning his college degree, Harry accepted his first teaching position as an athletic director at Waltham High School, in Waltham, Massachusets. Four years later Harry transferred to  the Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts, where he coached football and baseball. Some time later, he was hired to teach mathematics at nearby Everett High School. In 1909, Harry left Everett to return Waltham High School. In addition to serving as the athletic director, the veteran educator coached football and basketball.

Under Harry's expert coaching, Waltham High's football team finished the season undefeated in 1915. Imagine his amazement when the team was pitted against Harry's former school, Everett High School, for the right to play Central High School in Detroit for the National Scholastic Football Championship. Unfortunately, Everett defeated Waltham 6–0 before a crowd of 12,000 spectators, an record for attendance at a high school football game in Massachusetts at the time.

Later that same year, Harry accepted a position as physical education teacher at Lynn English High School in Lynn, Massachusetts. There Harry led his football team in play against an All-Stars team composed of college and former high school players. To Harry's dismay, the Waltham team won the game with a score of 24–6.

In the summer of 1917, when World War I was in full swing, Harry took a group of students from Lynn English to work on Sorosis Military Farm in Marblehead, Massachusetts, as part of an on-the-job program developed by an executive from the A. E. Little Co., who was also the owner of the farm. The program combined farm work with military training in an effort to increase the boys' interest in farm work, provide them with military instruction, and assist in war production. Harry resigned from Lynn English on September 25, 1917.

From 1919 to 1922, Harry was employed as the athletic director and a coach at Western Reserve University. In addition, the veteran educator coached baseball from 1919 to 1920, basketball from 1919 to 1922, football from 1919 to 1921, and track from 1919 to 1920. 

Harry later worked at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, until his retirement in 1928.

This chalkboard champion passed away in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 7, 1933.

Jose Ferrer Canales: Educator, Political Activist, Journalist, and Essayist

The teaching profession abounds with talented and dedicated educators who have devoted their entire lives to their practice. Such is certainly the case with Jose Ferrer Canales, a high school Spanish teacher from Puerto Rico who was also an accomplished journalist, essayist, and political activist.

Jose was born in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico, on September 18, 1913, into an impoverished, working-class family. As a youngster, he attended Pedro G. Boyco Elementary School, and as a teenager, he graduated from Central Superior High School. Because of his family's poverty, Jose worked to help support his family, even though he was still in school.

After his high school graduation, Jose enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico, completing the requirements for his bachelor's degree in 1937. In 1944, he earned his MA in Arts. Jose accepted his first teaching position at a high school in Humacao, where he taught Spanish from 1937 to 1943. Once he earned his master's degree, Jose was awarded a grant to continue his studies in Spanish and Latin American literature at Columbia University in New York City. While in New York, Jose taught Spanish at Hunter College.

In 1946, the veteran educator returned to his home island where he accepted a position in the Department of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico. There he became actively involved in the island's pro-independence movement. In 1949, when he was fired from the university because of his political activities, he relocated to the United States, where he taught at universities in Louisiana, Texas, and Washington, DC. After some years, Jose moved to Mexico, where he attended the National Autonomous University of Mexico, earning his PhD in Letters in 1952. In 1963, Jose was able to once again return to his home island and his position at the University of Puerto Rico. He pursued contributions to the field of education and the publication of numerous essays and journal articles until his retirement in 1983.

Because of his lengthy and distinguished career, Jose earned several prestigious honors. He was given the Journalist Prize from the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in 1990. He was honored with the Prize of Honor from the Puerto Rican Athenaeum in 1994. He was also named the Humanist of the Year by the Puerto Rican Humanities Foundation in 1997.

This chalkboard champion passed away of natural causes on July 20, 2005, in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. He was 91 years old. He is interred at Villa Palmaeras Cemetery in Puerto Rico.

Chalkboard Champion Leonard Covello Offers Relevant Lessons About Pluralism in Education

Here's a great book for anyone who is interested in progressive education or pluralism in education: Leonard Covello and the making of Benjamin Franklin High School: Education as if Citizenship Mattered. The authors are Michael C. Johanek and John L. Puckett.

Leonard Covello came to the United States in 1896 as a nine-year-old Italian immigrant. Despite immense cultural and economic pressures at home, Leonard wanted to get an education. As an adult, he analyzed the cultural and economic pressures he faced as a child and teen, which were common in Italian immigrant households at that time. He realized that Italian parents viewed the school as a wedge between their children and the family. He recognized the pressure even the youngest Italian children faced to go out and get a job rather than succeed in school. His answer? Involve the parents in the school, and involve the students in the community. The result was New York's Benjamin Franklin High School, a truly innovative marriage of school and home. Lots of lessons in this story are relevant even in today's times, especially for school personnel who are clamoring for more involvement from parents in the school system.

You can find this eye-opening book on amazon.com at the Leonard Covello link. You can also read the abbreviated version of Leonard Covello's life story in my first book Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Remarkable Teachers Who Educated America's Disenfranchised Students.

Thank a Teacher!

When we're feeling criticized, frustrated, or spent, it's difficult to remember how important the job of teaching is. Here is a wonderful two-minute YouTube video about the impact teachers have on their students that you can use as a pick-me-up. Enjoy!

Chalkboard Champion Aki Kurose: Civil Rights Activist and Tireless Advocate for Minority Students

American history yields numerous examples of inspirational teachers who have devoted their talents to important social causes, including advocating for better conditions for the poor and promoting racial equality. One such teacher is Akiko Kato Kurose, an elementary school teacher from Seattle, Washington, who was also an nationally-recognized social activist who worked tirelessly to increase access to education and affordable housing for low-income and minority families.

Akiko, who was always known by the name Aki, was born in Seattle, Washington, on February 11, 1925. She was the third of four children born to Japanese immigrants Harutoshi and Murako Kato. Aki’s father was a railroad station porter, and her mother was the manager of an apartment building. In the Kato home, traditional gender roles were reversed: Aki’s mother studied engineering, learned how to operate the building's boiler room and furnace, and served as the building's handyman, while her father enjoyed baking jelly rolls which were served to friends and neighbors at social gatherings he organized every Friday evening.

As a young girl, Aki was active in Girl Scouts, and was also active in her high school band and drama club. She also attended Japanese language school once a week. The Kato family's typical American middle-class home life was dramatically altered when the Empire of Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Aki was a high school senior at the time. In February, 1942, when President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, the Kato family was among the 112,000 Japanese Americans who were forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to internment camps throughout the United States. The Katos were sent first to Puyallup Assembly Center at the Washinton fairgrounds, and were eventually consigned to the internment camp set up in Minidoka, Idaho.

Aki completed the requirements for her high school diploma at Minidoka, where the plucky teenager became actively involved with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, which donated books to camp schools and helped college-age internees obtain permission to enroll in universities outside of the camps. She was able to gain permission to enroll in the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, but shortly after her arrival there transferred to nearby LDS Business College. At the conclusion of WWII, the Aki pursued her college education at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas. In 1981, she earned a master’s degree in Early Childhood Education.

After her graduation from Friends University in 1948, Aki married Junelow Kurose, the brother of her best friend. Junelow had been recently discharged from the United States Army. After their marriage, Aki and Junelow settled in Chicago, where her husband’s parents had moved following their release from internment. Junelow was an accomplished electrician, but due to discrimination against Japanese American citizens, he was unable to find work in that field, even though he was a veteran who had been honorably discharged. Returning to Seattle in 1950, Junelow was eventually hired as a machinist at Boeing, while Aki found employment as a secretary for the railroad porter’s union. Influenced by the discrimination she and her husband faced in their search for a home, Aki became involved in the open housing movement in the 1950s, working first with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and later, in the 1960s, joining the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Over the years, the couple enlarged their family to include six children, which Aki enrolled in Seattle Freedom School, an offshoot of the Mississippi Freedom Schools established as part of the Civil Rights Movement. When she participated in CORE civil rights marches and anti-war demonstrations, she took her children along. She was also active in the Women's International League for Freace and Freedom and the activist branches of the YWCA.

Aki possessed a lifelong passion for education, so she began taking courses in early childhood education and development and devoted her talents to working in preschool programs. In 1965, she collaborated with a group of neighborhood parents to form Washington State’s first Head Start program.

Aki began her career as a professional educator by teaching for Seattle Public Schools through the Head Start program, eventually accepting a job at a local elementary school in 1974. Two years later, as part of the city's move to desegregate its public schools, she was transferred from Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, an urban, predominantly African-American school, to Laurelhurst Elementary School, an affluent, predominately white school located in suburban North Seattle. Because of strong anti-Japanese sentiment, Aki had to work hard to overcome opposition to her transfer there, but she eventually won over the parents. When the first students of color were bused to the campus, Aki worked hard to ease their integration and also advocated strongly for the adoption of a multi-cultural curriculum for the school.

In the classroom, Aki emphasized collaborative learning and encouraged her students to learn through hands-on experience instead of rote memorization, and she received numerous awards for her innovative teaching style. She taught principals of peaceful co-existence to even the youngest of students, her first graders, telling them, "If you're not at peace with yourself, with your neighbor, with your community, you can't really learn very much. We have to get rid of all this garbage, this angry, competitive feeling. Then we'll all get along."

Over time, Aki became one of the schools most beloved and respected teachers. In 1980 she was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Advisory Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children. In 1985 she was honored as Seattle Teacher of the Year, and in 1990 she was awsarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics. Because of her innovative work to integrate peace advocacy with education, she was awarded the United Nations Human Rights Award in 1992. The Seattle Times said of Aki that she had "touched thousands of children, drew parents into the district, inspired many into public service, set an example for many teachers; she personified the best of what happens inside a classroom."

This talented and dedicated educator retired in 1997 after 25 years of service in Seattle public school. to honor her, students and parents from Laurelhurst school build and dedicated the Aki Kurose Peace Garden on the school campus. This Chalkboard Champion passed away the following year, on May 24, in Madrona, Washington, following a sixteen-year battle with cancer. She was 73 years old.

Telling Stories about Talented Teachers

I love to tell stories about talented, outstanding teachers. There are so many phenomenal stories that could be told! I believe that teachers represent the best our country has to offer, and, as a group, they are among the most dedicated, hardworking, and talented individuals anyone can know. It fills me with joy to be able to describe myself as an educator.  I love to share these inspirational stories in my blog, on my website, and in my books. These are stories of truly amazing individuals who have made significant contributions to the lives of so many, and it fills me with pride to know that, every day, talented educators all over the country are continuing to influence the lives of their students in such positive ways.

You can preview and purchase my first book, Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Remarkable Teachers who Educated America's Disenfranchised Students, at amazon.com at this link:  Chalkboard Champions. You can preview and purchase my second book,Chalkboard Heroes: Twelve Courageous Teachers and their Deeds Valor, at amazon.com at this link: Chalkboard Heroes. Both books are available in ebook and print versions. 

For more about remarkable teachers, visit my website at www.chalkboardchampions.org. There you will find a blog, a page about best practices, a suggested professional reading list for teachers, press releases about my upcoming appearances, and my author bio.

Enjoy!