{"id":516,"date":"2018-11-14T14:44:56","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T14:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=516"},"modified":"2023-08-21T15:52:02","modified_gmt":"2023-08-21T15:52:02","slug":"at-forest-view-elementary-a-teacher-who-has-seen-it-all-but-isnt-ready-to-retire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2018\/11\/14\/at-forest-view-elementary-a-teacher-who-has-seen-it-all-but-isnt-ready-to-retire\/","title":{"rendered":"At Forest View Elementary, a teacher who has seen it all but isn’t ready to retire"},"content":{"rendered":"
She\u2019s still asking her question when the first hand shoots up. Within seconds, every student at the table has a hand in the air.<\/span><\/p>\n Sylvia Perry, 59, is used to this excitement from her students. She raises her eyebrows and nods to a girl in pink. The girl starts to reply, her voice a soft murmur. Then, questioning herself, she pauses. <\/span><\/p>\n Perry leans into the table, stretches her arm across it and gently pokes the girl\u2019s forehead with a pencil. \u201cI know you know this in that smart, pretty head of yours,\u201d she says. <\/span><\/p>\n Speaking up this time, the girl says she lives with her parents and one sister, which is different from the many Pilgrims who formed larger families during the colonial period. Perry flashes a smile and tells her that\u2019s a good answer.<\/span><\/p>\n The assignment this Monday morning is simple. The handful of students still in the classroom \u2014 those who haven\u2019t been pulled for English as a Second Language tutoring or another related program \u2014 are instructed to read an original colonial text and look for ways the Pilgrims\u2019 lives were like or unlike their own.<\/span><\/p>\n Perry, who\u2019s been teaching for 38 years, says colonial lessons are always a favorite for the fifth-graders at Forest View Elementary School, a K-5 school south of Duke Forest on Mount Sinai Road. Many of them don\u2019t know how the United States got started. <\/span><\/p>\n The student body is 36 percent Hispanic, 30 percent white, 21 percent black and 7 percent Asian, according to school statistics. Perry says her classroom last year represented 18 different countries.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are a very diverse school,\u201d says Linda Foreman, an administrative specialist. \u201cThere is no racial or ethnic majority.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n By state standards, Forest View is an average school. In 2017-18, it met growth status and received a \u201cC\u201d for school performance. But the grades don\u2019t tell the full story. <\/span>The school is a melting pot of cultures with a distinctly large refugee population. It\u2019s a unique spot with a young teaching staff.<\/span><\/p>\n Perry, who came out of retirement to join the staff six years ago, is the elder of the group \u2014 the veteran social studies teacher who has seen it all.<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/p>\n Perry speaks in a gentle tone and a southern accent that gives away her Memphis, Tennessee, upbringing. She\u2019s petite, with glasses and blonde hair cut just short of her shoulders, but even the tallest children in her classroom seem to look up to her. <\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s 42 of them in total \u2014 two groups of 21 \u2014 and Perry says she knows them well by now. On a board on the wall, there\u2019s a class contract she\u2019s had her students create every year. It says teachers and students are expected to treat each other maturely, lovingly and patiently.<\/span><\/p>\n Perry was born into education, her mother an American history teacher and her father a professor of philosophy, but she found her own way into the profession when a college work study placed her in a teaching role for the first time. <\/span><\/p>\n By the time she arrived in Durham, she had earned a degree in special education and a masters in elementary education and spent 32 years teaching the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth grades in Tennessee. \u201cI\u2019ve taught in almost every concept,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n Over the years, she has learned what works in the classroom. As her students return to her room after lunch, she greets each of them with a fist-bump-turned-peace-sign, a years-old move she calls the \u201cPerry pound.\u201d Even some of her first students, who have stayed in touch through Facebook, have told her they remember this move. <\/span><\/p>\n For the most part, she sticks to the basics. \u201cMy whole thing is kind,\u201d she says. \u201cI tell [my students] when they show up everyday that it\u2019s a great day to be kind.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t fight the small battles, either. When students forget to return a pencil, she doesn\u2019t mind. When a child gets upset with her, she connects that child to a counselor so he or she can air frustrations in private. But even that doesn\u2019t happen often, she says.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs long as you don\u2019t lie to me and as long as you\u2019re not mean-spirited, we\u2019re going to get along fine,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n Since coming to Forest View, Perry has taught exclusively fifth-graders. \u201cThis is kind of the year of organization before they go off and switch classes,\u201d she says. Middle school is a big leap for some children, so she focuses on building good reading and working habits.<\/span><\/p>\n At one point during an individual reading assignment, a small boy in a thick Navy sweatshirt and jean shorts looks up from his reading. His hands tucked into his sleeves and his body slouched, he is evidently distracted. <\/span><\/p>\n Perry leans over his shoulder, her hands crossed behind her back. \u201cI think a good strategy would be to go chapter by chapter and try to take two minutes for each one,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n Later, another student raises his hand. \u201cDo I have to read this part?\u201d he asks, pointing to a line in his book.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYes, you always want to read the captions because that\u2019s an important text feature.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Perry worries that reading is becoming \u201ca dying art,\u201d so she reads out loud to her students at least once each day. In a typical year, her curriculum covers American history from the colonial period through the Civil Rights movement. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI always do a huge Civil Rights unit,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/p>\n Perry can remember exactly where she was in Memphis when, as a fifth-grader, she learned that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cCivil rights was always a part of my life,\u201d she says. \u201cMy father was one of the people who headed up the Sanitation Strike in Memphis. There were people in our basement making signs, and our house got egged all the time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That historical footing is important, she says, because so many of her students, including many African-American children, are getting their first exposure to American history from her.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSo many kids who, if they don\u2019t have that heritage, or if the heritage is painful and they don\u2019t talk about it \u2014 it amazes me how little is known about that struggle, when for people like me, that\u2019s a huge part of my life,\u201d she says. \u201cI think sometimes they don\u2019t realize their strong heritage and what was overcome, and the fact that it really wasn\u2019t that long ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf they don\u2019t know their history, it might repeat, and I don\u2019t want that because I tend to believe that each generation should make it better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Perry doesn\u2019t soften the horrors of slavery, either. Every year, she assigns readings from slave diaries and takes her students to the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro. \u201cI learned the whitewashed history,\u201d she says, but her students get the full picture.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNow we study the American revolution, but we read a book that talks about how the Patriots weren\u2019t so nice to their Tory neighbors,\u201d she says. \u201c\u2018Nothing is all good and all bad,\u2019 I tell them. Nobody is all right or all wrong, and there all some sadder things about our country.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Sometimes, this history is hard to make sense of, especially for her refugee students who are still new to the country. But she tries to learn about their home cultures too so she can compare and contrast. The fact that some students may struggle is no reason to lower the bar, she says. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI hold the bar high even for the kids that come from disadvantaged backgrounds,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen we lower the bar, what we\u2019re telling them is, \u2018You can\u2019t get there.\u2019 I always tell them that I\u2019ll scaffold, I\u2019ll build, I\u2019ll put in supports and we\u2019ll get you there, but we won\u2019t lower the bar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/p>\n Others at Forest View have taken a liking to Perry\u2019s progressive lesson plans and age-old tactics. Administrators don\u2019t shy away from giving her tough assignments. \u201cShe\u2019s a veteran who can roll with the punches,\u201d says Forest View Principal Neil Clay.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe diversity of this building is a unique experience for almost everyone, and of course what she brings \u2026 is experience,\u201d adds Foreman, the school\u2019s administrative specialist. \u201cShe\u2019s just seen so much and been through so much. She\u2019s a really good role model for younger teachers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Perry knows this. She says it\u2019s part of what made her jump back into education in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m kind of like a mother to the teachers,\u201d she says. \u201cI really kind of want to use all my expertise now, because I see so many young teachers who seem overwhelmed when they come in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cClearly I could retire, and I don\u2019t, because I like it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" She\u2019s still asking her question when the first hand shoots up. Within seconds, every student at the table has a hand in the air. Sylvia…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[250],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-schools","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n