In a rare opportunity to learn from several of the country’s prominent experts on classroom education, administrators and teachers from V.I. public schools will gather at Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort and Spa Thursday for a full day of motivational workshops and seminars.
The teachers’ sessions are part of a two-day, system-wide professional development event that will also include training for all school personnel — from cooks and custodians, to hall monitors and school nurses — in both of the territory’s public school districts.
Headlining Thursday’s teaching seminars at the Wydham are Harry and Rosemary Wong, whose practical classroom management strategies have influenced a new generation of American educators.
“He has really motivated many thousands of teachers to really try to make a difference in the classroom,” said Insular Superintendant Jeannette Smith-Barry, who spoke to the Source Wednesday on the eve of the event.
Smith-Barry said most incoming teachers have studied Wong’s books in college, such as "The First Days of School," and are excited to hear directly from a well-known mentor. Across the country, school districts wait years for a chance to hear them speak, she said. Nearly a decade’s worth of the Wong’s monthly education columns is available on the Teachers.net website.
“We’re really fortunate to have him here to share his experience and ideas with us,” she said.
Following the Wongs’ four-hour workshop Thursday, teachers will focus on a challenge that Smith-Barry said continues to vex local teachers: how to motivate African-American boys in school.
“We know we have some real challenges in our middle schools and our high schools," she said. “We’re losing so many of our boys. Dropout rates are so high.”
An expert in that field, Baruti Kafele will lead the second half of the day with his seminar on “Motivating, educating and empowering black males.”
Kafele is also principal of Newark Tech High School in Newark, N.J., which was named by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best U.S. high schools for the last two years, according to the V.I. Department of Education. A recipient of the Milken Educator Award in 2009 from the Milken Family Foundation, Kafele led the turnaround of three middle schools and a high school in New Jersey.
“We’re all really fired up to have this truly dynamic speaker who is going to motivate us all," Smith-Barry said. “He’s already helped transform a number of the schools he’s worked with.”
She said the two-day training will benefit each and every student by giving the adults they encounter at school the latest tools they need.
“We all know that if we really want to make a difference, it has to be at the level of the classroom,” she said. “They say you have to reach them to teach them. So we’ll be working on strategies and ways to really engage the students in the classroom and make it real for them.”
