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Patrick S. De Walt, M.B.A., Ph.D.

~ Communal Conversations for the Promotion of Active Critical Engagement

Patrick S. De Walt, M.B.A., Ph.D.

Tag Archives: Teacher influence

Crossed Among A Heart, Head, and Hard Place

11 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry

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Art, expression, Motivation, Performance, poetry, Streams of consciousness, Teacher influence

The lives that we live can shape our thoughts and dreams
Deterring us from our destinies and obligations
Between a rock and a hard place
When taken at face value
places us in between only two possibilities
A duality that offers us little recourse
Between a rock and a hard place
Paints a portrait of helplessness and desperation
Yet, I ask how many of us have found ourselves there?
How many of us saw no conceivable way out?
How many us were ready to fail before we even considered our ability to succeed?
Between rock and a hard place is not the end all be all
It is only a place that we, if not diligent, will remain waiting for another to rescue us
Between a rock and a hard place
Is not a natural place for human beings to
Be
Exist
Thrive
Between a rock and a hard place
Limits our free movement which so many us needed as children and as adults still need
Between a rock in a hard place is
Where we may find our enemy
Of many forms
Between a rock and a hard place
Is not to be ignored as a figment of our imaginations
It is real and harming so many bright futures and minds
Breaking spirits
Creating a sense of languish
Eroding our abilities to rise to the occasion
Between a rock and a hard place
You will find people like me
Those who seek to enter the most challenging of places because we know that we must
Because some of us know that we were and remain only a few choices and/or chances of fate from being there as well
Because at some point in time,
We’ve realized that we are not between a rock and hard place
Instead
We are crossed among a heart, head, and hard place
Our hearts extend out to those who are in all sorts of circumstances
Our heads are constantly seeking remedies and solutions for those who
suffer,
have suffered,
or will suffer in the future
And as a result of each,
We are fixtures within this space
Between a rock and a hard place
Because we believe that by us being there
If only for a moment
We’ve created a softer space that was not there before…

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Honoring Home

22 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Poetry, PSDW Reflective Journal

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Art, expression, Family, Higher Education, Identity, Motivation, Passion, pedagogy, Performance, poetry, Purpose, Reflective Practice, Streams of consciousness, Teacher influence

Over the course of roughly eleven years
a journey has been embarked upon
In search of a means to make a difference within the communities that our children grow
While all of our children matter to educators who have a love and appreciation for the responsibilities that our profession demands
There are many examples of the contrary…
Yet, this is not the purpose of this conversation,
For that,
I have to look before that fateful day in 2003 when I tearfully left my safety net as a first grade teacher.
I have to look before my years teaching while simultaneously attending graduate schools in pursuit of master’s degrees in business administration and elementary education/curriculum instruction.
I have to look even further back during my wonderful years as a Panther at my alma mater, Prairie View A&M University, in which I still struggled with some of my childhood limitations and expressions of immaturity
But more importantly, I have to dig deeper into the recesses of my memories of lessons and struggles that preceded even these valuable moments in the shaping of the person who I am…
Honoring home is what I’d like to call my current entry
Honoring the wonderful efforts of a mother who always sacrificed for not only me but all of those whom she loved
A woman who instilled a “country-type” set of values for a son who connects more with the big city
Honoring a father whose focus was leading a business that has endured many seasons and weathered a multitude of torrential storms, with some being self-inflicted.
Honoring home is reflecting on my collection of brothers who in their own ways served as models for me even though they did this from considerable distances
Honoring home is remembering the sisterly influences that I have had the privilege of receiving from a collection of remarkable women who still inspire and advise me today in my most important life decisions
Honoring home is reflecting
Honoring home is an ongoing part of my every day
It is presenting myself with dignity, respect, professionalism, honesty, integrity, sensitivity, thoughtfulness, and pride as instilled into me by my family, extended family, friends, mentors, teachers, and yes, even my students.
Honoring home is living up to charge that I have been given as a future and current elder
Honoring home is being a person who elicits pride from those who I have been inspired by
Honoring home is demonstrating a desire to grow which ultimately is one of the true measures validating that the seeds that were planted within me have actually taken root and flourished
Honoring home is being a role model to my nieces and nephews who I love dearly
Honoring home is being the man that honors my ancestors who sacrificed for others who then ultimately sacrificed for me
Honoring home means that I live up to the standards and expectations that this path requires no matter the costs
Honoring home means embracing the inner beauty and drive that is the essence of who I am.
Honoring home is offering through dedication a legacy that fortifies the true essence of all of what I’ve stated above—love…
Honoring home is loving myself for no other reason than there was a community of love invested within me so that I could know how to love myself
Honoring home is a process that I seek to do one step at a time
So as I seek to honor home, I seek to offer the best that I can in the situations that I may find myself
whether the situations are in classrooms, meetings, and/or other social settings.
Honoring home is honoring the mission that home has essentially aided in me pursuing
Each time that I teach, I am honoring home near and far
Each time that I teach I am:
Honoring my ancestors
Honoring my family
Honoring my teachers
Honoring my mentors
Honoring my friends
Honoring my community
Honoring my students’ futures
Honoring the lives of the people who my students will touch
Honoring the love that I have for learning
Honoring what calls on me to pray and give thanks
Honoring home is why I am often so excited when I teach or talk about teaching
Honoring home provides me with the motivation and passion for how I do what I do
Honoring home is what you make it
Honoring home is what makes you…

So my question for you is, “How are you honoring your home?”

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The Perils of Educational Patience

08 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Educational Trenches, PSDW Reflective Journal

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Education, Educational Patience, expression, Higher Education, K-12, pedagogy, Public Education, Self-reflection, social critique, Student Behavior, student centered approaches, Student influences on teachers, Teacher Education, Teacher influence, underrepresented groups

Classic denial of exceptional promise: Origins of the journey

Over the years that I have taught and learned, I have always struggled with or been the cause of struggle for others when it came to the notion of patience. Whether this was as a fifth grader who was gifted but was easily influenced by his peers to deny his gifts. Or when I was a high schooler who made all types of wrong decisions related to learning and my giftedness. I did not understand what or why I was doing what I was doing beyond the limited vision that I had with the coinciding age. Yet, those who were  charged with educating me both as a student and young man of African descent knew better. They, in retrospect, exhibited what I’m now calling “educational patience”. They hung in there with me by calling my parents, with mainly my mom visiting, to hear the latest development in my misguided decisions. They always talked in terms of my potential and promise with her which made their disappointment with me during those mishaps even more striking and pertinent to this post.

I can so clearly see their faces and recall their names as if I were still in their respective classes doing whatever I was doing as I exemplified denial or the outcomes of stereotype threat, which I would learn about during my graduate experience. I can remember how their demeanors changed or were influenced by the things that I did that were not of their approval. My justifiable excuse, if those are truly possible, is that I was a young person who really did not understand what he was gifted with in terms of intellect, creativity, and character. As a result, I saw those qualities as deficits to who I thought I should be in order to be viewed as one of the “cool kids”. In every case and interaction, my teachers were exuding to the highest degree, educational patience.  And with each enactment, they paid an internal price that I would not myself understand until I shared the role of teacher educator.

Roles reversed: Claiming the Mantle for Educational Patience

Years later, my first encounter with educational patience met me in Houston, Texas while teaching the first grade. I inherited a group of children who I grew to love for so many reasons. They were students who, like me, developed reputations that did not always mirror who they really were. Working through personality conflicts and the normal activities of 6 year olds should not be thought of lightly, and I know any parents of this age group can attest to this statement easily. The energy that they expended through questioning and the need of repetition of educational tasks was something, as a new teacher, that I was not prepared for. Fortunately for me, I was a young tall man with a powerful voice and stern demeanor, I truly thank my father for modeling facial expressions that set definitive tones (I say that kindly, LMBO). Yet, to help my students develop, I often had to forget about where I wanted them to be in order to understand and support where they actually were. As many teachers often remind me, even now at the university level, that we often plant the seeds in students that we very rarely get to see grow.

As a first grade teacher, watching my students grow or at least seeing their seeds take root was the greatest experience for me outside of seeing them physically change and grow. I must admit that I was always moved when my students lost their first tooth then proceeded to give me that open door smile, LMBO. Educational patience always took its toll on me, like my own teachers, yet in its own way. It hurt to see some of the situations and circumstances that my students were in. It hurt to see that sometimes I was one of the only adults who was invested in them. Sometimes my enactments of educational patience, resulted in additional roles beyond the one I was hired for as a self-contained teacher. Sacrifice is the name of the game when it comes to teaching students who may not have all of the world at their finger tips. Sacrifice can amount to spending your lunch break working on additional activities for students later that afternoon. Sacrifice could mean earlier morning check-ins in your classroom or late evening check-outs right before the janitorial staff/or principal makes the last call to go home for the day. Let us not forget the many weekends that are logged to complete grading and course development.

Upholding the mantle in a different space: A university setting in Florida

Much of what my experiences as an elementary teacher taught me about education still reside in me as I now work with university students. Just as I did then, I struggled. I struggled with adjusting to the new context, the different students, and, more importantly, who I wanted to now be at this stage of my life. As a semi-newly minted PhD who had all of these aspirations and knowledge, at least in my mind, to achieve great things within the field of education.  I was both so wrong and so right. I was wrong in that I made some mistakes that ultimately resulted from my unwillingness to be authentic with my students. I did not fully commit to being present with my students as I now know that I must always do. I must make myself both vulnerable and human in the eyes of my students. Not in a way that is forced but in ways that simply mean just being me. I was right in my belief that my students deserve and require so much from us as well as the requirement that they are also to bring all that they have to the task. I was right to believe that my students are knowledge holders and able constructors who have every right to be at this educational table with me. I was right in my belief that enabling learning is a harmful thing if you don’t provide them with the means and opportunities to develop independence and self-efficacy. I was right in my belief that their futures and the futures of the students who they will one day teacher are the most important outcomes in my role as an educator. I was right in my belief that I am a more than capable and passionate educator who wishes to impact the lives of those who I meet as I continue my journey.

Educational Patience: Bearing its fruits

Ironically, as I confess to all of those who have taken the interest and time to read my thoughts reflected within these words, I am forever grateful to all of those who evoked educational patience at their own peril. That young 5th grader and high schooler has embarked on a lifelong quest to better himself and hopefully others through the valuable lessons that were afforded to him by each and every one of you. That first grade teacher who was the inheritor of such wonderful and promising young people is now a developing scholar and intellectual who cherishes the bonds that were forged so long ago. So I hope to be a testament to other educators who are also demonstrating educational patience. There are many more like me who are forever thankful for all that you have done. Please know that we attempt to pay it forward in our own unique ways with your influence in mind.

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Tangible Rewards of Teaching

30 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Educational Trenches, Live In The Discomfort

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Education, expression, Higher Education, pedagogy, Public Education, Reflective Practice, Streams of consciousness, student centered approaches, Student influences on teachers, Student success, Students as teachers, Teacher Education, Teacher influence, w

As I continue to talk about what I find the PROFESSION of teaching requires–living in the discomfort–I had the pleasure of having a conversation with a former student that has led me to this current entry.
Some back story…

My evolution as a teacher continues to occur in which I honestly have to say has been shaped by many of my former students’ impacts on me and my thinking over the years. They have challenged me in ways that I never thought that they would or even could. One of those areas is being more patient with them and their development and/or perceived needs. I must be the first to admit that while I love teaching and learning, I have noticed that I have more patience with learners in the primary grades. My expectations of my adult students and what they brought with them to the learning space was constantly at odds with most of what they actively would show. Sometimes what I thought that they should or would know, as undergraduates, was not always the case. Sometimes the amount of effort or passion that I assumed them to have was not the case either.

Now as I say that, there were plenty of students who were amazing and demonstrated vast amounts of intelligence, creativity, dedication, motivation, and the like. As a teacher, we sometimes take those students for granted and expect them to grace our classrooms with all of their potential and abilities. But when those gifted students’ gifts don’t appear as I expect them to, I now realize that those situations were my greatest challenges. This disconnect was painful for me to realize and accept: Why can’t they _______? Why won’t they _________? Why haven’t they ______? These are questions that I found myself reflecting on and asking my mentors periodically. I kept thinking that my students could do this or that. I never saw them as having deficits, but instead I saw that as not reaching or maximizing their potentials. What I failed to realize in that line of thinking was that while they had the potential, I often didn’t scaffold to the degree in which they may have needed. This realization meant that I had to relearn the level of variance within them regarding things that I considered to be foundational to undergraduate students (i.e., writing and critical thinking).

Now back to the conversation with my student…

In talking with my former student, I was pleasantly reminded of the student’s ability to actualize success. What I mean by that is even though I sought and often demanded a great deal from my students, their respective paths to success are as infinite as their minds, the context they’re in, and the varied supportive mechanisms afforded to them. As a result, I am now more aware of this part of my teaching identity–the critical idealist. And my former student’s current successes and the fond memories that I have during our time in the course have become even more powerful for me. For this was a student who I felt challenged my teaching in ways that made it better. The student’s persistence, creativity, and thoughtfulness during class assignments and discussions still appear in what my student is currently achieving. While, I speak of my student with some attempt of maintaining anonymity, if that student is currently reading; I would like to say I’m very proud of you. And more importantly, thank you!

As I have found to be true within the field of education, many times our students can be our best teachers when we’re willing to listen…

Until next time.

PSDW~

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The Struggles of Teaching

29 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Educational Trenches, Live In The Discomfort, Uncategorized

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Education, Educational Debate, expression, High Stakes Testing, Inequity, K-12, pedagogy, Public Education, Reflective Practice, social critique, Streams of consciousness, student centered approaches, Teacher Education, Teacher influence, Test Anxiety, Testing

The beauty found within teaching for me is something that has little to compare with. You see the growth, determination, creative, among other things of your students as they pursue their educational goals and dreams. These things are, at least for me, the most important aspects for why I do what I do. Seeing diamonds in the rough take shape and form all that you hope and more is so rewarding. I have had the privilege of seeing 6 years olds blossom into amazing teens, college undergraduates harness their abilities in ways that I wonder if they would have dared attempt during previous opportunities, and graduate students traverse the challenges of reclaiming their sense of direction within their educational journeys. All of this matters to me as an educator. There is nothing like it for me, even when many of my contemporaries deny our students the opportunities to flourish. The field of education requires remarkable women and men to serve as educational stewards for future generations of community members. No matter the background we have to safeguard ourselves from our own tendencies to undermine our expectations for and of the potentials of future generations. When I think of all of the students who I have taught, I find pride in the fact that, whether they realize it or not, I imparted at least a little wisdom and knowledge to them. 

The educational conundrum is one that most public educators have some level of familiarity with. Whether you were an elementary teacher, as I was, or a middle school/high school teacher, seeing your students become more of they were and are has to touch your heart. Why else would you become a teacher? 

Yet with all of this hope and promise, we find our schools and schools systems failing our kids in some form or fashion. The lack of support for our public schools, in certain areas of course, allows for others, who usually aren’t educational professionals to make decisions that are often uninformed yet have dramatic effects of the lives of young learners. Standardized tests have become the archenemies of most educators who have experienced third person test anxiety—witnessing your students get scared while taking the test. 

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The Unheralded Rewards of Teaching

19 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by Patrick S. De Walt, MBA, PhD in Blog, Educational Trenches, PSDW Reflective Journal

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Tags

Education, expression, Higher Education, K-12, pedagogy, Performance, Reflective Practice, Streams of consciousness, Student leadership, Teacher Education, Teacher influence, unheralded rewards of teaching

I have spent so much of my time lately on my blog devoting it to my poetic side. I have enjoyed sharing that part of me with those of you who have honored me by continuing to follow my blog. I really appreciate this, but I must admit that I have denied a bigger part of who I am in the process–me the teacher.

Recently, I have been reminded that the vocation of teaching is a profession that has been neglected on so many levels for all sorts of reasons. I originally wanted to talk with other educators who, I had coined were “in the educational trenches,” which essentially is the title of this part of my blog. But I have been reminded recently that by stating this, I am guilty of forgetting what I had hoped to impart with my students– that the language that we use shapes our reality as well as the realities of those who we engage. This reminder makes me rethink what I currently have described regarding this aspect of my thought.

As a result, I am brought to this moment when I am touched by those who I work tirelessly to reach, motivate, inspire, encourage, protect, and empower in order for them to become the women and men that I so passionately believe that can be. I am a hopeless romantic when it comes to my belief that my students are the most precious responsibilities I have beyond my own family. They make me work harder, think more critically, and endure let down after let down with the hopes that one day that the educational opportunities that I know they deserve will be the educational opportunities that they actually experience.

All of these thoughts have streamed through my mind as I have just completed my last class for the semester, here at the university. I have come in contact with students who inspire me by their sheer energy and passion for their respective beliefs when it comes to education and other aspects of the world. They may never know how much they truly mean to me beyond the hard lessons that I have them endure during my class in hopes that they’re better prepared for when those situations present themselves down the road. They are our future leaders and many are currently honing their skills to step into their important roles.

I feel as if they are my responsibilities and I can never let that feeling go because if I did, I would feel like a failure to my calling. My calling is not found in a script or set location. It is more likely as eclectic as my imagination allows me to be through the lives that I am fortunate to encounter each and every semester that I work within the academy.

And as long as I’m fortunate to have students who are willing and able to meet me somewhere in the middle, I will do all that I can to help them get wherever their dreams will take them…

I am honored to have been thought of in any significant way by any of my current or former students. I am glad that I have been, even to a small degree, a positive influence on the lives of such amazing young people. While the job is tough and the hours are often long and lonely, every once in a while something special happens and, for me, it happened when the words of a former student spoke of my influence on her as she presented me with the award below…

SAM_0321

While most of the rewards of teaching remain unheralded, I am glad for each and every opportunity that I have to give my best and my all. For all I know, at the time, is that the potentials found within the hearts, minds, and lives of our young people require such sacrifice and patience…

PSDW~

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dewalt@patricksdewaltmbaphd.com

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