As I begin to roust up my educational experiences I cannot help but to have a mixed set of memories; some amazing, some not so much. I am reminded that education didn’t only begin in kindergarten and through my schooling years but things taught on our eastern Colorado farm and ranch resonate in my mind. My elementary school was set up kindergarten to fifth grade and was filled with teachers that were extremely excited and willing to unconditionally love and try so hard for us even in our difficult times growing up. That was until Ms. Gottschky’s fifth grade class - more on that later. My first day of middle school is ingrained in my mind forever, and set a tone for the next three years that was condemning, confusing and all together led to a rebelling of all things school. My next four years saw me trying my hardest among doubters and adversity, because a select group of coaches and teachers saw more in me than I ever knew existed in my school career. It’s almost like someone wrote it that way, putting the right people in your life at the right time. As I left high school to follow my dreams of football, again, people entered and exited my life that pushed me and gave me the right motivation at the right time to guide me on my path leading me to this very moment. All the way through my education I never gave much thought to any of the pressures our teachers were under: standards, formative assessments, teacher evaluations, IEP’s, 504’s, SEL, ELL and the hundreds of other acronyms. A recent study by the University of Missouri found 93% of elementary teachers reported they are experiencing high stress levels (Walker, 2018). Maybe if I knew then what I know now I would’ve cut these remarkable people some slack.
I never realized as I was going through John and Georgia’s school of life, I was learning so much that I am truly thankful for. Responsibility, dependability, character, selflessness and hard work were just the tip of the iceberg of the “Jacoby Family” curriculum. The pedagogy that was used to teach these lessons might be considered simple or unrefined but was highly effective, and the discipline matrix used when errors were made or respect wasn’t shown to people, animals and machinery was unparalleled. One of those lessons I learned at an extremely young age was to why Dad always told us to check gates when we were done riding our horses before we did anything else. I had just put away my Appaloosa mare Rosey after “checking” cows and went to see what my older brother was working on in the shop. After helping him for an hour or two, Dad came in and asked why Rosey wasn’t in her pen, we all three went to investigate and found her laying on her side kicking at her belly in pain. Because of my irresponsibility and not checking gates Rosey wandered into the area we kept grain for the cows, over-ate and got colic. This teaching moment allowed my father to educate me on respect and how to deal with the immediate problem. After tubing Rosey to relieve gas, I set out on four straight hours of walking her in a circle to prevent her twisting her intestine, which can be fatal to horses.
As I reached school age, those life lessons on the farm didn’t stop but I was introduced to formal schooling. As mentioned in my DF 1 post, I started my schooling under Mrs. McConnell and she would actually stay as my teacher from kindergarten through third grade. I was an eager kid that grew up experiencing things rather than sitting down, reading and listening. This resulted in many check marks by my name on the chalkboard and many missed recess opportunities with my friends. I received good grades, but seemed to really excel in P.E., art and recess. Elementary school was a pretty great experience I never met so many kids and adults that were so excited to see me every single day, even when I had to skip lunch, recess, and football time to bang dust out of erasers. Everything seemed to be flying by until fifth grade. I was put into Ms. Gottschky’s fifth grade class and it was amazing because all of my friends were in there. We were all beasts of the same nature and looking back now I have to wonder what she did to upset the principal to have us all smashed into her class. She was a young teacher in her second year and didn’t have all of the classroom management skills that Mrs. McConnell had to deal with overactive children. I remember class starting with getting reminded of yesterday’s behavior, being yelled at for ten minutes due to yesterday’s behavior, starting today’s lesson until someone got out of their seat or snickered and laughed, getting yelled at some more and finally watching Ms. Gottschky give up for the day, that was always prime time and when marshal law took over. The last day of class she broke down, told us she was quitting teaching, that she had some many hopes and dreams for us and her biggest fear was that she was going to visit us in prison someday! Well despite Ms. G’s forecast I inevitably passed fifth grade with high marks and was excited to move onto the big time “middle school”, the place all our dreams would come true, freedom, oh and we got a locker.
Walking through the front doors of our middle school with my small pack of friends I was ready to set the world on fire, that is until I heard our Principal Mr. Purslow say “Mr. Jacoby, come into my office.” Being the youngest of three children that all went through the same school with primarily the same teachers left me in conundrum. My older brother was incredibly smart, one of those kids that was too smart for their own good and was often unchallenged academically which resulted in many discipline issues. Many is an understatement; I believe my poor mother spent more time in school than I did. On the flip-side of the coin, you had my older sister, little Miss Perfect, she was in all the clubs, had a 4.0 and was valedictorian of her class. In Mr. Purslow’s office with him, the office staff and several teachers lingering I was asked, “are you more like John or Jodi?” I answered with an unsure “somewhere in the middle,” to the muttering of everyone saying “he’s a Johnny”, “oh did you see his elementary records”, and “yeah we will see.” As I left the office and headed to my first period class I couldn’t get that out of my head and that stuck with me over the next three years. These people didn’t even know me yet and had already condemned me as “one of those” students. In my fully developed eleven-year-old brain I thought well I’ll show them, the teachers that gave me a chance I would die trying to be the model student for them and the teachers that tagged me as my brother I set on a rebellion to which Billy Idol himself would be proud of. I remember at parent teacher conferences my seventh grade year, Mrs. Moler in front of me told my mother “I would never be a good student because I was hormonally imbalanced.” Good thing Georgia was as hard headed as the rest of our clan and told Mrs. Moler to get the scales out and balance those hormones because math was important and I’d never struggled in it before her class.
Moving into high school, I continued to carry my tag as if it was embroidered on my shirt as “that student.” That was until I started high school football for Mr. Joe Stemo. I excelled in the sport as a freshman and made starting varsity. Joe had many one on one conversations with me, invited me into his home and preached to me if I buckled down, beyond everyone else’s expectations that I could earn a college scholarship and change my path if I wanted to. This was driven home by my agriculture teachers Mr. Mitch Miller and Mr. Greg Ditter, who pushed me and held me accountable in not only their classes, but in all my classes throughout high school.
(I got the honor to coach in the Colorado All State Football game in 2015 and was able to nominate my assistant and my former head coach Joe Stemo to coach in the game as well. Pictured are Alejandro Garcia (former player), Myself, Coach Stemo, Kory Hudson (former Player) Back Row Coach Scott Andrews (former player).)
They showed me what success looks like, opened the doors and even kicked me in the backside through it. These two gentlemen were extremely goal oriented people that showed me how to set short term and long term goals for my education, athletics and in agriculture. In the book, The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching, Goodwin and Hubbell state that it’s important to help students set short-term and long-term goals so they understand that conquering the smaller objectives leads to the broader learning goal (Goodwin, Hubbell, 2013). I do remember the first day of my senior year, Mr. Borenstein, the upper level math teacher asked me why I wasn’t in his pre-calculus class and I stated I have my credits and I’m done with math, he fired back with “I guess you won’t be going to college” and stated that “football and agriculture wouldn’t get me anywhere in life.” January of my senior year my dad passed away and I resorted to the train of thought that I would stay on the farm and run the family business. Between Mr. Ditter, Mr. Stemo and my mother they were not going to let that happen as we all worked too hard to not “see it through, as Dad would have wanted.” I’m not saying it was easy and I only graduated high school with a dismal 2.31 grade point average, but I scored a 22 on my ACT which gave a few colleges a reason to give me a shot.
This lead me to my first college coach, Mr. Joe Glenn, as I was offered a scholarship to play football, the excitement was immeasurable until the day I got my college acceptance letter. I was eager to open up the letter and got through a lot of stuff that didn’t make sense to me until I read conditional acceptance. Then I read on to see I was to take a semester of courses to ready me for college level classes, deeming me ineligible for NCAA athletics and any scholarships to be awarded. I was in shock, called Coach Glenn and he told me to find a fax machine, give him the number and wait. The only fax machine I knew of was at the local grocery store and I waited for about an hour and received my new acceptance letter welcoming me to the Class of 2000. As I finished my undergraduate degree in Agriculture Education, I couldn’t help but count my blessings ending my undergraduate career with a 3.65 grade point average. One of my most satisfying moments was sending that college graduation announcement to Mr. Borenstein that said football got me in and agriculture is what my degrees in, signed your colleague in academia.
As I have had the pleasure of teaching at my former district I have had the opportunity to run into many of these motivating people. Whether they pushed me to success or pushed me to prove them wrong. I took over the football program from my former coach as he became an assistant and continued to be a confidant and cheerleader for me in another role. I can only hope that over the years I have not been negative motivation for any of my students or athletes and that I have been a positive influence and motivator for students that have passed through my doors. A good coach and teacher can change a child’s perception of hard work, of competition and most importantly of themselves (Donaldson, 2015). I know these individuals did this for me. I do feel truly blessed to have climbed the ranks in education and moving into the new administrative role in this school. Who would have thought “one of those kids” could do so much?
References:
Donaldson, A. (2015, August 10). Coaches have the power to inspire, influence in ways parents can't. Retrieved March 25, 2020, from https://www.deseret.com/2015/8/10/
20569833/coaches-have-the-power-to-inspire-influence-in-ways-parents-can-t
Goodwin, B., & Hubbell, E. (2013). The 12 touchstones of good teaching: a checklist for staying focused every day. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Walker, T. (2018, July 30). How Many Teachers Are Highly-Stressed? Maybe More Than People Think. Retrieved March 25, 2020, from http://neatoday.org/2018/05/11/study- high-teacher-stress-levels/
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