In a day of laughter and lessons Thursday, more than 800 teachers and school administrators from the St. Thomas–St. John School District learned classroom-management skills from several of the nation’s preeminent educators, kicking off a two-day professional development workshop at Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort and Spa.
“We, too, have to be learning and growing and understanding what we need to do to educate this generation of children for today and for the future,” said Insular Superintendent Jeannette Smith-Barry, as she introduced the headlining guests, Harry and Rosemary Wong.
“We are just two plain classroom teachers,” Wong said humbly after introducing his wife and animated co-speaker, Rosemary Wong, marking an enthusiastic start to the day.
“Two Wongs don’t make a wight,” he said, provoking a burst of laughter and setting the tone for the first four-hour session.
The Wongs’ workshop centered on their influential book, “The First Days of School,” which they said has sold more than 3.5 million copies in 120 countries. About half of the 800-plus-member audience raised their hands when Harry Wong asked if they had read it or had a copy themselves.
Smith-Barry said schools across the country sometimes have to wait for years to be graced with a visit from the Wongs.
Their nuts-and-bolts approach to the classroom literally starts with the first day of school, and the first few minutes of each class, which they said should begin with “bell work” to get students working right away.
“You botch up the first day, and you are dead meat for the rest of the year,” Harry Wong said in his animated and euphemistic style. “How you begin in the beginning will determine your success.”
They urged the teachers to have a plan, to follow a script and to establish clear procedures for the classroom; and that they teach, rehearse and reinforce until the students know exactly what to expect—no matter what the subject or lesson. If that structure is followed by multiple teachers in multiple classrooms—or throughout an entire school or district—student achievement levels rise exponentially, they said.
Set clear objectives, provide structured feedback according to clear expectations, and teachers can expect students to succeed, they said—even those students labeled as problems by the system.
"’At risk’ has nothing to do with intelligence. These are not dumb kids," Harry Wong said.
“A kid from a dysfunctional family comes into your classroom as a dysfunctional student,” he said. “But woe to you if he walks into a dysfunctional classroom.”
He said such problem students come to school needing structure and consistency as a matter of survival.
Harry Wong said students fail in school the same way people fail at other life tasks: they don’t know what they are supposed to do and aren’t sure what is expected.
“Students get more done when they see where they are going and what they are doing,” he said. “Don’t just tell them, ‘Do chapter seven!’”
Teachers laughed, clapped, nodded and furiously took notes as the Wongs laid out their inspiring common-sense approach to the classroom.
“Sticking to procedures was a good reminder,” said one teacher from Charlotte Amalie High School who preferred not to be named.
“If you have set procedures, then the kids know what to do,” said C. Howard, a teacher since 1996 who is teaching her first year at Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School. She said it was the second time she’d heard Harry Wong speak, adding that the message motivated her to try even harder in her own sixth-grade class.
“It’s what I try to do with my kids so that nobody has to ask. They know what to do. They know what to expect,” she said. “This [seminar] was good because the administrators and the teachers all heard the same message at the same time. So now when we start all over again, we’re all on the same page.”
The conference continued Thursday afternoon with a talk by Baruti Kafele, principal of Newark Tech High School in Newark, N.J., who is credited with turning that once-troubled school around and shaping it into a model for the nation. He spoke on “Motivating, Educating and Empowering Black Males.”
The audience seemed serious and engaged by the speakers and hurried back to their seats after each break. Administrators reminded them that they have a chance to start all over when students walk back into their classrooms later this month.
“Once we gain this knowledge, it’s important that we act on that knowledge,” Sarah Mahurt said early on Thursday, speaking on behalf of the education commissioner.
“Go home on the weekend,” Harry Wong concluded, “and ask yourself, ‘What is the one thing I can have my students do on Monday when they walk into that classroom.”
Smith-Barry reminded them all of the importance of their task.
“We care. We love our children, and we love what we do because we know it makes a difference,” she said. “We still have a lot to do bringing everyone up to par, but I pray we don’t grow weary doing what we have to do.”