Name: Kim Poore
BrainSMART program: Finished MS in BrainSMART, starting EdS
School: Lancaster County PS District, South Carolina - Title I school
Grade/s taught: K-5, self-contained behaviorally and emotionally disordered class
Years teaching: 8 years in above, total years 11
1. What grade level to you teach, how long have you been teaching what is the name of your school?
I’ve been teaching eleven years, eight of them in a self-contained class for behaviorally and emotionally disordered children K through fifth grade. I reach in South Carolina’s Lancaster County Public School district. Our school is a Title I school, with a diverse population of African-American, Caucasian and Hispanic children. I have a Master’s degree with a concentration in BrainSMART and will soon start the Educational Specialist program.
2. Has the content been useful to you in your work as a classroom teacher?
Definitely, yes. I was able to take what I learned in just one lesson and use it in my class the next day. I love using 10 pegs, and the teaching strategies like snowballs where we would ball up paper and write a test review question, throw it out to the kids, they open the paper wad, read it, respond, and throw it back to the teacher. It is a fresh and effective way to reach these kids.
Our entire school does BrainObics every morning with my special ed class leading over closed-circuit TV. It awakens the kids brain for a day of learning. Our special ed class created a character called Nancy Neuron who helps them understand how to rewire the brain and teaches them very advanced concepts of brain architecture and functioning like brain synapses. These are children who are typically very hard to handle and this sharing has really transformed my classroom and helped them as individuals.
I’ve been exposed to a lot of workshop material and the theory of the day when it comes to educational theory and practice. I‘ve done a tough kids toolbox and other things for behaviorally challenged kids and I’ve never found anything that works like this. The administration sends regular education kids to me with challenges, and this just works. I think this program ought to be mandated for new teachers. It is that important to your sanity as a teacher, you shed the battles with the help of these powerful tools. It becomes a joy again to teach these kids. And originally that is why I got into BrainSMART. I had pulled the last rabbit out of the hat. But BrainSMART really inspired me and gave me a renewed joy for teaching again. I had been completely burned out.
3. What do you like about earning your degree 100% online?
Teaching special ed takes a lot out of me. I do a lot after school work, and also teach homebound students and am very busy during the day and up to the evening plus I have my own family. Going to a physical campus was impossible for me. The ability to talk to other teachers and administrators gave me a more global classroom, I was able to share thoughts and strategies with a much broader cohort rather than just a handful of people who happened to sign up for the class in my small town. Interacting with professionals from other states gave me a broader picture of what education was in other regions of the country. The online forums were eye-openers and very interesting to do. You don’t get that kind of interaction in a small town campus classroom.
4. How does this degree compare with other higher education programs you have studied?
I have done online classes at Liberty University and a couple through Converse College and that was all more of a philosophy-driven type of study. It was reading and regurgitate the answers, it didn’t give the opportunity to expand one’s own thinking, critical thinking or expansion of creativity. I think the requirement of writing skills, really tuning up writing was great because we are required to write at the graduate level. One professor would specifically pick at the grammar. Many think the curriculum might be mickey-mouse because it is online or that it is more akin to buying the credits. It is not. This program holds us accountable. It is so practical and it is required to implement these strategies in the classroom and report back results. There’s nothing like real live hands-on experience and this program requires that.
5. Would you recommend this program to other teachers?
Oh, definitely and I have. I talk it up quite a bit. Right now I am working to try and get more awareness of BrainSMART in the Charlotte-Meckinburg area and will try to promote it for the good of the students and teachers.
6. What would you say to other teachers about the program?
I can’t imagine walking into the classroom without the knowledge and strategies that I’ve learned. It makes my teaching and learning experience more rewarding. They should give this a try.
I decided to try to do my national boards at the same time and what I learned in BrainSMART so closely paralleled the national board standards that I passed easily. I attribute it to working the BrainSMART program simultaneously. I think this is a wonderful thing to do at the same time as trying for the national board.
7. What would you say to an administrator about the program?
I talk to my own administrator quite a bit and she’s very interested in brain-based strategies. I’m going to do a professional development before school begins, this is something every teacher - novice or seasoned- it will revitalize you, give you energy and encouragement, but you will see immediate results form your students, it is so positive it will give even a tired teacher energy and joy as they see their students gaining academically and socially from this new way of learning. And I can guarantee test scores will rise. I’ve seen it with my special ed classes and I know they will see it with on-level students if my challenged students are performing this well.
8. What would you say to parents?
I would tell them it is important that we all learn how the brain learns so we can all be better equipped to teach. Every brain is capable of learning but I have seen even my most limited students with IQs in the 70s make considerable gains using BrainSMART strategies and parents would really benefit form learning these techniques to supplement the learning in the home. It’s not so much what curriculum we’re using, it’s how we get through to these children and this program meets the individual learning style needs for a whole classroom full of children. We are bound to hit on something one of the kids needs when we are focusing and touching on all the learning styles.
9. What have you enjoyed the most about the content?
The knowledge I have gained, there were times I felt I was not doing a good job as a teacher because I didn’t have the tools I needed. I haven’t arrived but I have come a long way in this program and it has give me drive to continue to learn about the brain, how it learns, gender differences, and I am a better teacher for the whole child than I used to be. It made me realize I really am a good teacher but needed more tools to reach my teaching potential.
10. Did you have a friend or colleague who took the program? What did they say about the program?
One of the fourth grade teachers is going through the program and at least two or three other teachers in our district who are now going through the program. They should be close to finishing their masters. Everyone I’ve spoken with loves it and puts it in practice in their classroom. One colleague religiously does the Brainobics and pulls out the toolbox and uses the strategies there. I see a difference in her confidence level and now she’s quite confident. The district has named me as a mentor special education teacher for others to come observe my classroom. I know this works.
