Comments by Karrie Musgrove, 2006 Teacher of the Year 

Good morning!  I want to speak to you briefly today about the enormous power of a teacher on the life of a child.  I’d like to begin by sharing some of my personal experiences with some powerful teachers in my life.

When I was in elementary school, our librarian had the power to inspire me to read everything I could get my hands on.  Mrs. Cotton was a powerhouse when it came to opening up my world  to a variety of print.  My second grade teacher, Mrs. Fleming, taught me to have pride in my school in such a powerful way that to this day I know every word of my elementary school alma mater!

In junior high, I had a tremendous teacher, Mr. Wise.  He was a quiet little man with the power to instill in me the love of music and taught me to play two instruments.  He gave me the courage to risk trying out for drum major and then to lead our band.

I would never have done those things without the encouragement of those powerful individuals.  They had the power to make me  love my school and to become a life-long learner.  You and I have that power too!

When I got to high school, I had some wonderful adults in my life, but also some who abused their power.  One of those was a very charismatic band director who promoted racism.  He eventually helped me make up my mind to leave band, which had been a joyful part of my school career.

I had another teacher that also had great power.  In fact he inspired me to become a high school teacher in a round about way.  He was so unfair and disrespectful to young women that I dropped out of high school.  But I vowed to finish at adult ed, go to college and become a responsible high school teacher.  Well here I am, and now guess what?  I have the power!  You can bet I am aware of how powerful a person can be in someone else’s life, especially if you are a teacher.  A fellow teacher, author and child psychologist, Dr. Haim Ginott put it this way:

“I have come to a frightening conclusion, I am the decisive element in the classroom.  It is my personal approach that creates the climate.  It is my daily mood that makes the weather.  As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.  I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.  I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.  In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crises will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”

When I committed to speaking this morning I knew that I wanted to talk about the power of the people right here in this room.  We have the power to influence so many lives.  We have the power to boost our kids up enough to feel that success is within their reach.  We have the power to celebrate their successes in such a way to make them hungry for more.  We have the power to inspire not just mediocrity, but greatness.

And not only do we have the power with our students, but we have the power with one another.  When we work together in our school communities we increase the power.  When we confer with one another and work together to support the needs of our students, we magnify our power.  In fact, research shows that the number one factor for closing the gap between our low-performing students and their higher-performing peers is the power of  teacher collaboration.  We have the power to change lives.  We have the power to get our students and each other energized for maximum success.  I’d like to challenge everyone in this room to maximize your power this year by working with your peers in order to increase our student successes.  We have such awesome power to share with so many of our wonderful kids and the potentially wonderful ones too.   I’d like to close now with a quote from fellow educator, Larry Bell. He reminds us that  “On your worst day on the job, you are still some child’s best hope.”  Thank you for listening and have a powerful year.

Originally published on August 24, 2006.

Written by :

mkwestmark