Why Education?

I think my best answer comes from where I grew up. Merkel, Texas is a farming community about 25 miles west of Abilene on I-20. My dad owned the town newspaper and was involved in city government and served as the mayor and city manager at different points of his career. Merkel was largely an agrarian community that farmed cotton as their major cash crop. It was and is a fairly poor town. During my upbringing I noticed that the people I respected and admired most, and really the most respected people in my community were the coaches and teachers at the school. Outside of the town doctor, Dr. Tran, and the local pharmacist, Mr. Woodall the school officials were the wealthiest people in our area. Their life was very appealing. They lived in the nicest houses in town. They took vacations, sometimes even out of the state! It seemed like their world was the most desirable of any that were in grasp of my limited scope. As a kid, I was picking from a handful of occupations that all looked like there was not just a whole lot of separation from the haves and the have-nots. Many of my friends chose to be firemen, one or two became farmers, a couple of policemen, and several have become teachers or coaches. We did not have access to occupations that I now consider “professional” occupations. I picked teaching because it was available and seemed obtainable. I had a few teachers that made their discipline interesting and even enjoyable and I thought that they would be good models for my teaching. Through many painful hours of teaching world history and geography I decided it was pretty tough to make these subjects enjoyable – even though I enjoyed them, the looks on the faces of my students did not reflect my own countenance. So I continued in my education and determined that teaching computer application classes would be more fun to teach and I noticed that the students were beginning to spend so much time on their computers and were speaking almost exclusively about their lives “online”. I thought that I could engage kids in the world of computing by teaching them a skill that I had acquired in my time at my dad’s newspaper and our subsequent family photography business in teaching them Adobe Photoshop. I learned so much about teaching once I found students that were interested in the topic I was teaching. I had a natural hook with the fact that they were working on computers and also had knowledge above what they knew themselves. I had something they wanted, and they wanted me to give it to them. They were allowed to guide the instruction, they helped make decisions on what we would study next. It was practical, it was fun, it had meaning to them and they loved it! I really first explored administration at the prodding of my building principal, Judy Senter at Cleburne High School. She was trying to cultivate young, excited teachers to continue their education and try mid-management. I took the idea very seriously and began to think back on my childhood experience and thought that I could make a lot of money if I were an administrator! Again, the two nicest houses in my town were owned by the superintendent and the high school principal. So I received a master’s in education from Tarleton State University. I began interning as an assistant principal at Cleburne High School in 2005 and spent a lot of time in the office helping kids change behavior and dealing with TAKS testing. In the Spring of 2006 I helped coordinate the TAKS testing for Cleburne High School and began to wonder if this test was what the spirit of education was all about. The fact that the state was not going to allow students to be promoted because of there inability to test well did not seem right, and from what I was seeing, the blame could be placed on so many other sources that the actual students that were being punished for not performing well. It did not seem right. I was presented with another option. Southwest Christian School was looking for an assistant high school principal and I was looking for a change. I was offered a job by Cleburne High School as an assistant principal and it was just not appealing to me. The position at SCS was under Dr. Penny Armstrong, who I felt had amazing insight on the future of education and how it should be delivered. She emphasized the impact of teachers and the role of kids and parents on education. She made learning the central theme of a school, and it was the first time I had seen such an idea. It seemed so inspiring and new. I found myself saying yes to a paycut and the elimination of a state pension. In the process, I was also saying yes to a new life as someone who was interested in learning about education and how it can be done. I am in the middle of this experiment and have really fallen in love with what I see being done in my small sphere of influence and see a future as a leader in private, Christian education.