Mahoning Valley teachers share Ron Clark experience
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HUBBARD -- Josh MacMillan admitted he was aware of a partnership's plan to send Mahoning Valley Educator of the Year award winners to Georgia, but he never expected to be along for the ride.
"I was just there initially to -- I wanted to see those teachers; I was very emotional about it, because I didn't expect it," said MacMillan, a Hubbard Exempted Village School District art educator. "In the back of my mind, I was kind of hopeful, like, 'Man, I'd really like to go experience that, too.' When they said I could go, I was just kind of like over the moon and back with it."
MacMillan, founder of the Mahoning Valley Educator of the Year awards, said Huntington Bank has been working with the Ron Clark Academy, a nonprofit middle school and educator professional development center in Atlanta for several years, and the bank has brought its methods and strategies to the Mahoning Valley.
MacMillan said Guy Coviello, president and CEO of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber; Sam Houston, Huntington Bank's community president and others visited the academy in January.
MacMillan said he, Coviello and Houston spoke for a while, and Houston suggested sending MacMillan's award winners to the academy.
MacMillan said he later attended a dinner in April, "Ignite the Classroom," where he and the award winners heard Clark speak.
They were setting it (the trip) up kind of like, 'We're going to have some scholarships for people and send them down,' and they called a couple of teachers. "Then they were like, "Oh, thank you so much,'" MacMillan said. "And Ron Clark jumps up, and he goes, 'Well, wait a minute! You know what? I love that group back there; they're just so -- they've been on fire this whole time. I think we can do more, can we do more?'
"They kind of huddled up and pretended like they didn't already know what they were doing. And I knew they were sending everybody. So, you know, they turn, and they go, 'You're all going!' And everyone's like, 'Oh, my God,' because you don't hear the words 'all-expenses-paid trip' as a teacher."
MacMillan said attending the academy was the greatest experience of his teaching life.
"What Huntington is doing is going to change our schools. I can't put into words how excited I am to start the school year," he said.
Carol Pantelis, a Niles City Schools kindergarten teacher, said her experience was both insightful and educational.
"One strategy that really stuck out to me was that when they teach a class, they teach as if all the students were gifted -- and everybody rises to the occasion, so that everybody's learning at a high level," Pantelis said. "In education, we don't usually do that; we supplement the gifted students. We teach to the on-level students. The above-levels don't get as much as the on-levels and below."
"The whole Tier 1 instruction, which is teaching to the whole class, is always at the on-level students and not the high-achieving students, which I'm a firm believer of, so that was a good takeaway."
Pantelis said the academy's teachers also practice that once a skill is taught, the students take over teaching it so they can explain and know the material, and the teacher can know whether the students understand the concept.
"If the students made a mistake, the other students were very supportive; they explained why they made a mistake," Pantelis said. "If the teacher called on a student and the student didn't know the answer, the other students would question the student, so that it would jar his mind to get the answer."
Pantelis said the students are encouraged to think and are very supportive of each other.
Jennifer Gaydosh, a third-grade teacher at Valley Christian Schools, said she plans to incorporate her takeaways from the trip into the classroom this school year.
"Every single one of their classrooms had a stage that the teacher stood on, so I will be having a stage at the front of my class," Gaydosh said. "I have always incorporated sign language into my lessons, but I'm going to do it even more now."
Gaydosh expressed thanks to Huntington Bank for sending them to the academy.
"I was one of the few that actually had my administration there with me, showing that they believe in this," Gaydosh said. "For teachers who were just there by themselves, I think it's a little harder to incorporate things when you don't have your administration behind you."
"Having the admin behind me, it made me very happy," she added.