At a recent meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Pike County, Dr. Sharon Slater-Smith, principal of McComb High School, spoke about her vision for this coming school year.
Her first goal is to increase overall student performance. Referring to the state tests that measure students’ achievement, Slater said, “It is my position with my students that we are to exceed the limit set on us by the state tests. I don’t want us wondering when our scores will be back and crossing our fingers until they come in July. I said to my teachers, ‘If you are actively engaging children in the learning process, you don’t have to worry about it—you will see the results.” As a personal example, Slater mentioned that her son, who is taking Spanish at MHS, recently came home and excitedly spoke some Spanish for her. “Half his words were messed up, but what I heard behind those messed up words was a passion for learning Spanish. If we can create a passion for learning something, the learning will take care of itself.”
Slater’s second goal is an increase in parental involvement. “We need our parents to become involved so we’re going to them first. I’m starting in the churches and in the community events that take place. Everywhere I go I say to them, ‘I need you to be involved with your children. Make sure you’re asking them, ‘Did you do your homework? What did you learn today?’’”
Her third goal is an increase in community involvement. “McComb High School is a phenomenal school, made of phenomenal children. You all can help us with your words. Words have power. When someone asks you about McComb High School, you sell us big, and we will live up to it!” Slater’s humorous nature showed itself as she said, “Sell us in the best way you can—sell the principal like she is the Queen—‘You know I heard they’ve got this outstanding, intelligent, beautiful principal up there!’”
“Whenever people ask me what I do,” Slater said, “I tell them I work for McComb High School. When they ask me what I teach, I tell them I’m the principal, and they say, ‘Oooohhh; I sure hate that you got that job!’ That shouldn’t be. The minute I tell people I’m the principal, they should say, ‘I wish had your job!’ We’ve got to get the community thinking that way. Teaching is not the worst profession in the world—it’s the greatest! And being the principal is just wonderful, because I get a chance to develop teachers, and teachers then get the opportunity and the tools and the resources to develop children. What better job is there than to develop children? They’re not our future—they’re our ‘right now.’”
One area Dr. Slater wants to decrease is the achievement gap. “It once was a race thing, but now it’s more of a poverty gap, where our low-resource children score lower, and our high-resource children score higher. But that just shouldn’t be. Our children at McComb High School are going to receive quality instruction—I don’t care what their background is. I don’t care if they come from the old projects, new projects, or the future development projects--they’re not project children when they come to McComb High School, they’re just children. Yes, they think they’re half-grown, but to me, they’re children. And one of the ways out of poverty is to become educated. I tell people I’m proud of the fact that we were just dirt poor when I came up in Bogue Chitto. I know the reason I made it from poverty to where I am now--which I call a huge success because I get to work with kids--is education. Teachers never saw me as this little poor kid. ‘Sharon, you can read this book. Now you’ve got ten minutes, and then I’ve got another book for you to read!’ And I was like, ‘Bring ‘em on, bring ‘em on—I’ll read ‘em, then!’ So education makes a difference in a lot of our children who are impoverished, and we are seeing a gap based on their resources; not everyone has the Internet, or laptops, or a computer. I want to decrease that gap by what we do at the school. When they come to school, they are all even to us, and we’re going to make sure that they receive an even education. Impoverished students, the affluent—everybody’s going to get the best that we have.”
Slater told of her method of educating each child to the fullest through rigor, relevance, and building relationships. “Rigor means we’re going to involve the children and raise their level of engagement. Teach for a while and then ask the kids questions. Slater engaged the club members by asking them to give as many uses they could think of for a big book. Responses ranged from becoming more knowledgeable to using a book to stand on to reach a cookie jar! The more a child understands the ‘why,’ he’ll always remember the ‘how.’ The next time a child wants to get cookies out of a jar, he’s going to know just how to do it. At McComb High School, we’re not just teaching on a surface level; we’re digging a little bit deeper. When children are forced to make something relevant to their lives, they never, ever forget it.”
Teachers at MHS are going to make sure that what they teach is relevant--something they can use in their lives. “Not just ‘Memorize the 27 prepositions; you may never need this in your lifetime—memorize them, anyway, because you’ve got nothing better to do.’ We’re not teaching that way anymore. If it’s not relevant—who cares? Kids today are smart enough to just ask, ‘Why do I have to learn this?’” Both teachers and students are instructed to not only identify the learning material, but also the ‘why.’ “We put this in the teacher’s handbook,” Slater said.
Slater and other administrators are also trying to build better relationships with children. “Administrators now have appointment forms. If a child wants to see us, they fill out an appointment form, and we sit with them one-on-one. You would be amazed what that does for a student, to know that he or she just had a one-on-one conversation with the principal, talking around the table, not across the desk from each other. That’s building relationships.”
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