Teaching Tip #177

Teacherscribe's Teaching Tip #177

I came across this interesting read on Twitter last week: 8 Pathways to Every Student’s Success.

5.  Integrity

This has to be Coach Mumm’s territory right here.  The author defines integrity as “Integrity is the ability to act consistently with the values, beliefs, and principles that we claim to hold. It's about courage, honesty, and respect in one’s daily interactions -- and doing the right thing even when no one is watching.”

In College Comp II, I used to have students do a remarkable assignment.  Students simply had to do one thing (and they determined what that one thing was) that was ‘remarkable.’

My two favorite examples were from Kylie Lehrer and Jorde Hutton, respectively.

Kylie - totally unbeknownst to me - took it upon herself to write a thank you note to every teacher, secretary, assistant, cook, and janitor at LHS.  One just showed up for me in my mailbox one day, and I thought, wow.  How nice is this?  And it made my day.  Then H asked me if I knew who had done it.  I did not.  Then I noticed that many teachers, like me, hung the note up somewhere by their desk.  It wasn’t until Kylie wrote about it in her final paper that I realized what she had done.  She never signed any of the notes either.  She didn’t do it to receive any thanks.  She did it to give thanks.  That is an amazing example of integrity.  And I bet if you were here during that time and got a note from Kylie, you can locate it in a matter of sixty seconds.  Mine is hanging right on my bulletin board.

Jorde - to offer a safer alternative to the senior party - went around town and raised money from businesses and community members to rent out the movie theatre for students who didn’t want to attend the senior party.  Every senior got a free ticket, a free pop, and free candy or popcorn.  How amazing is that?  That is integrity personified.

And it does my heart good to know both Kylie and Jorde are going to be teachers.  There is hope!