THE WAY WE SEE IT:
WHAT MAKES A TEACHER WORTH LISTENING TO?

TRANSCRIPT

Hosts

Sean

Hi, I’m Sean.

Rhea

And I’m Rhea.

Sean

Let’s face it, Physics, Poetry, History, and other classes like these, they can be pretty boring if they’re not your thing. So what can teachers do to make class more exciting?

Rhea

Well, youth filmmakers from Listen Up, the youth media network that gives teens a voice, set out to answer this really tough question. They shot, edited, and produced short documentaries that explored what makes a teacher worth listening to.

Rhea

Today, we’ll visit four high schools across the country where teachers go above and beyond to make their classes effective and enjoyable. First, we’ll go to Skyline High School in Oakland, California where a physics and a dance teacher have a really interesting way of teaching.

Sean

Now, these teachers are actually cool. Get this: Mr. Sears is a physics teacher. Mr. Sears also wears leather pants and rides a motorcycle to school. One way that he teaches, uh, physics principles to his class is by standing in the middle of a field and allowing them to launch rockets at him.

Rhea

Wow, physics is a really tough course, and by making it more hands-on, he makes it easier to understand. Miss James is a really tough dance instructor. But she knows when to loosen up and have fun.

Skyline High

Oakland, CA

Vicki Chan

Imagine a school where racial minorities are the majority and the district faces a hundred million dollar deficit. Skyline High and Oakland fits this troubled description but I choose to see the beautifully diverse people and the teachers that really do care. But what makes these teachers worth paying attention to? Meet Ms. James. She’s cool, she’s hip and she’s as tough as the rest of us.

Ms. James

Point the feet! Don’t let them get lazy. Yes!

Student 1

For me, when I first met her I thought she was very scary. I did. I was just like, ‘This lady is going to kill me.’

Ms. James

Melissa, Faye, you’re doing this. And you want…This hand has to go right to the floor. You’ve got to get there right there. Five, six, seven, and…

Student 2

When music comes on that she’s feeling she’ll just come out of nowhere with some kind of dance movement that’s just…and it’s so effective.

Student 3

But she makes you feel so comfortable cause she’ll she’ll make fun of your mistakes to a point where everybody is laughing and its it’s a learning experience and you can internalize that and make it better.

Vicki Chan

So what do you see in your students? Do you see them…Do you see these bonds forming between them and with yourself and the students definitely?

Ms. James

Yea. You know dance, dance is very personal. And the students dance out their frustrations, their experiences, their relationships. In the process they learn a lot about not only about life but about themselves and how they are in the world and how the world sees them so it becomes a very personal experience.

Ms. James

Now the last “ba ba ba.” Where’s the focus? So show me that. Everybody do that section. Five six seven and. Ba ba ba. More Sierra. Ready five six seven eight And one two three four and five six and seven eight. Yes that was it. So it’s on seven, it’s on seven. Hot dog, that was good.

Ms. James

I got into teaching because I wanted to make a difference and dance is something that I love to do. It’s not so much that I’m, that my goal is to teach dance. My goal is to teach them respect and responsibility and um discipline and commitment and dance is the vehicle that I use.

Vicki Chan

If you think Ms. James has some mad skills, check out our physics teacher in action.

Student4

When I first saw him, I saw him wearing leathers. What he’s wearing today, but with leather pants and um.

Student5

That’s kind of restraint for him.

Student 4

Yeah that’s restraint.

Student 5

I don’t know, just casual right. It’s casual Friday.

Student 4

When I first saw him I knew that this year was gonna be fun-packed.

Patrick Sears

Everything I do is physics. Whether it’s hanging lights up in the air or riding my motorcycle or sailing my sailboat. It’s all directly connected to basic laws of the world. If I’m laying down this blanket and hush and I’m going that way, which direction is the force of friction gonna be? It’s gonna be that way. Ok.. There are two things that friction depends on. What are they? Ok. Mue. Mue and that force that force that’s always perpendicular to the surface. What do you call that force? Normal force. Ok. Which clearly I am out of contact with. We’re trying to see how hard it is. Alright. Can they, can they do it? Alright, let’s go guys. Let’s see. Oh. Not bad, alright. Alright, how can we increase the normal force and therefore make more friction? Someone sit on my chest. Oh go! Oh! Alright, gentleman. Ok. Can they do it? Alright let’s try it. Ok. That was clearly harder. You could see how much strain he put and how injured he is and how much I’m gonna regret this tomorrow. Ok so what are we gonna do. So, so clearly, clearly when we increase the force pushing down, Newton’s first law says that the force pushing back up the balance it has to be more. The normal force is bigger.

Student 4

He’s raw and uncut. He makes learning fun.

Student 6

Literally he always gives us a physical example of uh the lab we’re supposed to do.

Patrick Sears

Oh. Jam it on there. Oh yeah. Alright come on.

Vicki Chan

What do you find most rewarding in teaching?

Patrick Sears

When seniors come up to me at the end of the year and say “I wanna be a physics major.” Um last year, probably the smartest girl in the whole school turned into a physics major and this year one of the, one of the strongest student athletes here at school has said to me that she wants to be a physics major.

Vicki Chan

Oh wow.

Nowadays what many teachers are forced to teach out of their field, it is inspirational to see Mr. Sears and Ms. James employ their expertise in their classrooms. We pay attention to them because they’re passionate and fun but we don’t realize that these lessons will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

Hosts

Rhea

Bonjour, como tale vous!

Sean

What did you say?

Rhea

Yeah, French can be really hard. What keeps the students at Baltimore School for the Arts awake when it comes to French? Well, Monsieur Tabegna. He’s a really tough French instructor who cuts his students no slack, but is able to connect with them on an amazing level.

Sean

The students really enjoy the way that he challenges them, but he’s also a good friend. He’s one of their favorite teachers. Let’s see why.

Le Professeur

Baltimore School of the Arts

Baltimore, MD

Michael Tabegna

She was flat like a pancake in the street. (Spoken in French)

Samantha Boyd

Monsieur is a teacher worth listening to and I don’t listen to a lot of my teachers.

Michael Tabegna

It’s my chance! (Spoken in French)

Dominic Angelella

You look forward to going to his class but at the same time you sort of don’t because you know that he’s a really tough teacher.

Michael Tabegna

I have three pit bulls: Assassin, Terrorist, and Sniper. (Spoken in French)

Johnathan Burke

He cares about the students and he cares that you do well. And he makes sure that you do well. Even though he might give you a lot of work but that’s necessary.

Michael Tabegna

My real name is Michael Tabegna and I’m a French teacher at the School for the Arts in Baltimore, Maryland. I knew that I wanted to be a French teacher the first day that I walked into my French class in eighth grade. I had a really good teacher, Mr. Shalomburger and just the first day I knew I wanted to learn this I wanted to learn every detail of this absolutely perfectly because I’m going to teach this and this is what I’m gonna be doing.

Samantha Boyd

He enjoys teaching and he likes to make us learn. He goes out for us. He plays songs and he has his little characters.

He claims to be the nephew of Jaques Chirac, the French president. And we all know it’s a lie but it’s cool. He also claims to be nineteen years old and we know that’s a lie because he’s been claiming to be nineteen years old for three years. But it’s very cool.

Johnathan Burke

Although he’s a you know fun-loving guy, he can also be you know strict and serious about you know the work, which is the most important thing.

Michael Tabegna

The feminine form of ‘lequel’ is…’laquelle.’ (Spoken in French)

I don’t try to hide from students, because it can’t be hidden the fact that it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of memorization. Memorization is unpleasant at the time you’re working on it for some people.

Dominic Angellela

He’s taught everybody that you need to pay attention. You know like you know when anyone talks he just zeros right in on them and makes sure they’re not talking.

Samantha Boyd

Monsieur keeps the class under control and there’s not usually much of a need for discipline that I see.

Michael Tabegna

If discipline is done correctly I think it should be invisible. I think if you, if you if you’re waiting till a kid falls asleep before you tell him to wake up you didn’t do you’re job right in my opinion. When he starts to slouch…then you kind of walk towards him and he’ll sit up straight or you tell him to sit up straight then he won’t be in a position where he would fall asleep.

Dominic Angellela

He would be doing something and I’d be zoning out really bad like I just I there were a lot of things on my mind and I was just not really feeling like paying attention in French class and he would come with like this really really extremely easy like problem and he would call on me because he knew I wasn’t paying attention.

Michael Tabegna

If you stop little things when they right at the beginning of the year and September is always a hard month with the incoming freshmen because you have to train them and you feel like a police officer and just any little thing they do you snap at them and you you make em stop.

No drawing! Stop! I’m sorry. It’s all done. Do you have any other questions? (spoken in French)

By the end of the school year really discipline is invisible. I try to at least show them that that learning a language can be exciting so that if they decide to continue they they they can. Or if they decide to choose a different language they’re not they don’t have a bad experience behind them learning a language.

Samantha Boyd

Monsieur has helped me get motivated to actually learn Japanese. Before I was just picking up random words from subtitled videos but because of French class I’;ve learned a lot about grammar.

Michael Tabegna

The test will also include questions from your reading. (Spoken in French)

Dominic Angelella

Like he’s on like a, a weird teaching level you know like his just enthusiasm and like the weird things he talks about you know you don’t get that from any other teacher.

Johnathan Burke

If they have a good relationship with the students and they make it lively it’s something that you can relate to then it’s easier to learn and do well.

Michael Tabegna

As I said, I’ve been here for twenty one years it’s just uh it just is a charmed career that I’m just so happy to be here that I would suggest if there’s one important thing I could say to to all young people is find what you’re passionate about and make it your work. Think something that you would do even if you, you know even if you weren’t paid for it. Something that you would want to spend your life doing and then when you go to work every day it’s not a job. It’s something that you do because it’s your life.

Hosts

Sean

This next piece is really cool. The student filmmakers used editing effects throughout the film to show how different teachers have varying ways of explaining things to their students. For example, one teacher said that poetry is very much like music, where you can use the voice to make the poem more melodic.

Rhea

Yeah, bringing poetry into art is another way of making poems easier to understand. Also, when poems are presented as an image, it helps the students visualize the poem better. Or, one teacher uses poems as dance, to help connect students to the emotions of the word on the page.

8:21 am-English Class

Anytown, USA

Copper Hills High School, St. Marks High School, West High School

Salt Lake City, UT

Teacher

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head; I’ve seen roses damask’d, red and white; But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

Shane Minkley

Poetry oh I hate poetry.

Ben Pacini

When you dissect something it normally doesn’t remain alive and I think it’s the same way with poetry.

Sabrina King

I mean I’ve never had a really good poetry class.

Anna Hansen

I like poetry units where you’re exploring different kinds.

Davi Davis

Um one of my teachers ruined Shakespeare for me.

Emily Lynch

I think most teachers have killed poetry to the point where it’s not enjoyable anymore.

Shane Minkley

How would I explore poetry? With a lighter.

Joel Long

When you bring up poetry mostly you get groans.

Stephanie Bernritter

No way. We hate poetry.

Chris Arigo

It looks like I am physically torturing them, you know as, as I’m teaching this. Uhhh.

Joel Long

You know I hope I can make some of them stop groaning by the end of the semester.

Chris Arigo

A lot of the alienation between students and literature, in general, whether it be poetry or whatever, is this feeling that this has nothing to do with me.

Stephanie Bernritter

I really work to eliminate the pressure because I want everyone to share.

Joel Long

Every kid has his own particular approach to language.

Chris Arigo

Poetry is such a a concentrated form of language you know that it it its almost like a nuclear reaction you know, where it’s a chain reaction. Once one word hits the other and then it hits the other there’s an explosion. You know, and and that’s the beauty of it.

Joel Long

Part of teaching is a performance. I play in the classroom. I have fun in front of my students. I show my passion for the language and for the ideas.

But all drafts have to be burned. That’s why we set them on fire. The neighbor’s cat looks for birds pouring slow through dark ivy for the shade thinks of winter. How long your bones have grown.

Beth Ranschau

Joel’s definitely set apart from all of the other teachers I’ve ever had. He really does um diversify the learning experience for everyone.

Joel Long

You you wanna be able to capture them. And I think part of the way that you do that is is using your voice as as an instrument, I guess, of performance uh to get them excited.

Holy donut hold back there. Great…but could I put that? Let’s see. Holy donut hold…

Jake Lindsay

I think he’s a musician first and he’s incorporated that in poetry.

Joel Long

All those teeth shine in the mouths of dreams. They break china in headlights in the last nights of jazz.

The rhythmic qualities, the melodic quality of the tone of voice that you use. Now I think I teach that way um because I know that that’s the way I’m gonna be able to get my meaning across.

Beth Ranschau

He really turns us into poets. People who quote unquote see with their nerves.

Joel Long

Poetry is a sacred act um. I don’t pray but I write poems, you know and and I try to show them what a crucial act that can be.

Chris Arigo

Bringing the visual element to the classroom is critical. It’s not just important, it’s absolutely a necessity. They need to see it and hear it, you know, to fully wrap their head around you know whatever they material is, you know, um, particularly poetry. I, I do this poem by Joshua Clover called the Nevada Glassworks, which is all about atomic bomb testing and I couple that with a video of atomic bomb testing footage.

Jared Ruga

Kablam. They’re blowing peacock tinted new world glass in Southern Nevada. The alchemists and architects of mom’s duck and covered adolescence.

Lauren Wood

And it really helped all of us understand more about the poem.

Chris Arigo

You have such an interplay of, you know, sound and then the imagery, you know and to , that all needs to coalesce.

Jared Ruga

He has also had us do things like the rance mill poetry, where the poetry, itself is visual.

Chris Arigo

Presented as an image, something that can be you know just easily assimilated into into their, you know, into their intellectual realm.

Stephanie Bernritter

Today they’re gonna be dancing the poem. And we’re integrating 4 elements this time. Um motion, images, symbols, and meanings.

Jessica Greenbaum

I think what we’re doing with the colors and the dancing is really effective with teaching poetry because you, students actually feel the poetry and have to move with it instead of just reading it and hearing it.

Stephanie Bernritter

Poetry is in the spoken word, as well as the living word, through movement and dance.

Andreas Peterson

Even though it’s just creative writing, it isn’t just writing. She tries to incorporate movement and energy in the class so we all really like that.

Stephanie Bernritter

We’re creating new ways to communicate that don’t necessarily always have to be just pencil to the paper.

Shantell Lopez

Just want to be around her more makes us actually want to come to class.

Stephanie Bernritter

Keep it fresh. Keep it alive. Keep it flowing.

Chaz Judd

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head; I’ve seen roses damask’d, red and white; But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound…

Hosts

Rhea

I think it’s really important to consider your teachers your mentors.

Sean

Yeah, it makes you want to learn more and really who them what you can do. At Satellite Academy in New York, Promise did just that. He was a gang member and a High School dropout who went to this alternative school to try to beat life on the streets.

Because Satellite Academy is such a small school, Promise was able to be on a first name basis with all of his teachers. They became like his best friends, and helped give him a second chance.

Satellite Academy

New York, NY

Geraldo “Promise” Vargas

In the schools I was in it was horrible. There were feces in the stairwells, fights and stabbings daily. In an environment like my former school you either had to adapt to the animalistic ways of the other students or become their prey. And me, I could never be any man’s victim. I fed into the violence and started not to care about my environment, my school, myself, or others. Tradition schools trained me to be numb to my emotions.

I’m Geraldo Vargas, also known as Promise, and I go to Satellite Academy in the Bronx. Before Satellite I went to Evander Child’s High School. It was a terrible experience. I didn’t go to school or quote unquote drop out because, all honesty, I was involved in a lot of gang activity and things like that. I was kinda scared for myself and my well-being. I mean in that school I felt like everybody was against me and I felt I wasn’t learning anything important. If I’m not learning, what’s the point of being in school? I mean everything we say that’s wrong with schools is exactly why I didn’t want to go back. I left Evander and I went to Satellite. I had heard about Satellite through one of my counselors and he told me about this wonderful place where everybody is family and, you know, all that good stuff in an alternative school so I decided to go to Satellite, give it a shot and I’m graduating in June from there.

Gillian Smith

The foundation to truly be an alternative school is the same. You know and that is that is to be student centered. It should be if not advisory group, but sort of student-teacher contact because we’ve found that students that are at risk need that.

Norman Fruchter

So these alternative high schools developed to second chance schools to take on kids and to try to help them finish their high school education when they had not been successful in regular high schools. Given that these were students who had dropped out of regular high schools, their graduation rate was quite good. These were, these were students who would never have graduated if there hadn’t been alternative high schools.

Geraldo “Promise” Vargas

At Satellite, you know, the most kids I have in a class is maybe fifteen and, once again, the teacher are able to walk around, you know, help the students. Yea but isn’t twenty one with with the files…The students who do know what they’re doing and don’t need the extra help the teachers do, they go around to help the other fellow students. You know it’s just a the whole situation is just a family atmosphere and the smaller class sizes just it kinda shows that even more. They’re not teachers, they’re friends. I look at them more as like peer role models like they they are my authority figures to a certain degree but they don’t act like it. They don’t play on that.

Evana Espinet

I hear you and that’s exa….it was funny cause…

Geraldo “Promise” Vargas

The teachers in my school they you know we know them by a first name basis I mean, I can, they tell us things about their their personal life. Like I said it’s more like they want to be your big brothers and sisters. It got to the point now at vacation time when I’m not in school I miss school, I want to go to school. I don’t like being home now. I like being in my uh Satellite. They actually care about me, they put me in internships, they they they listen to what I want to learn, what I want to do. Satellite had been such a a amazing help in my life. It just, it change my whole outlook on a lot of things. I actually enjoy coming here every day.

The future of Promise? I mean, I thought being a rapper was my only way out of the ghetto, that I was gonna spit my way to the top, you know but Satellite showed me there’s other alternatives that I could still do and still have a chance into getting into the hip hop field, you know, which was like you know starting your own label, doing maybe doing production for music, video editing among other things. So I mean honestly I can’t tell you exactly what my career will be but rest assured I’m gonna be successful whatever I do.

Hosts

Rhea

It’s really important that teachers keep subjects alive in the classroom. It can be so hard to pay attention, especially when the subject matter is very tough.

Sean

These teachers make it a lot easier to learn the material, because they involve the students in what they are learning.

Rhea

I’m glad the students chose these teachers to highlight in their videos.

Sean

Me too. You can also check out what makes a school stand out in our program, “What Makes A School Worth Going To?” Check our website for the program schedule.