Colorado Springs
It’s science time in Sgt. Sam Scott’s third-grade class at Evans Elementary School, and Styrofoam flakes float to the floor faster than snow in a blizzard. Scott, a retired sergeant first class, moves among his 24 students, as he once moved among his troops. He encourages them but pushes the task at hand.
“Don’t just put them all in a line,” Scott urges his 8- and 9-year-old charges as they color, cut and paste pieces of foam on sheets of black construction paper to demonstrate their understanding of the solar system.
“You spelled Earth with a little ‘e,”‘ he reminds a girl, looking over her shoulder. “We’re talking about a proper noun.”
“Remember the order of the planets,” he emphasizes again and again.
The noise reaches a distracting din. Scott claps his hands rhythmically. The kids immediately drop what they’re doing and answer with an identical clap.
If things don’t calm to his satisfaction, Scott will issue a verbal command:
“One, two, three, eyes on me,” he’ll bark.
“One, two,” comes the response of two dozen third-graders, “eyes on you.”
This is how an Army-lifer turned teacher plans to win the war in America’s schools. He’ll do it the way he did it for 22 years in the military: He’ll teach about respect, about actions and consequences and, above all, about focus.
Scott spent seven years of his military career providing telecommunications support for Green Berets at Fort Carson. He served four months in Iraq. He had a top-secret clearance long before he had a teaching certificate. He embodies the promise to public education of America’s “Troops to Teachers” movement.
“I wasn’t the kind of NCO who just issued orders,” Scott said. “I showed my troops I wasn’t afraid to get my hands dirty.”
Scott, who has four grown children, holds his students accountable. “I tell them consequences can be good and bad,” he said. That can mean a behavior contract that makes a child sit alone in the lunchroom, or it can mean a congratulatory phone call to parents after a child has a couple of good days in class. It can mean having your name go up on the board for bad acts, or it can mean having your teacher show up to cheer at your weekend rec-league basketball game.
“Mr. Scott attends after- school activities,” said Evans principal Amber Whetstine. “He jokes with the children. The firmness is balanced with a loving side.”
Scott’s students taste his wrath occasionally. What they never question is his compassion.
“He’s honest to the students,” said 9-year-old Cordell Cheeks. “If he says something, he means it.”
What the 41-year-old second- year teacher says most is “focus.” He issues the command dozens of times each day.
“I need your best work,” he will say. “Let’s stay focused.”
His latest troops get the message.
“Focus,” explains 9-year-old Justin Stewart, “means you should work harder, do less talking and listen more.”
That, of course, is never easy for third-graders. They can fidget faster than upset electrons and, as Scott sometimes tells them, still “be as slow as dial- up” computer modems. Still, Scott’s kids realize they’re never going to break the spirit of a guy who may have just two years in an elementary classroom but who spent an entire career in a school of hard knocks.
“He’s the only teacher I know who fought in war,” said 8-year- old Jonathan Harrison.
He is probably the only teacher who ever asked any of these kids to “stand down” or walk the halls with the quiet stealth of “little ninjas.” He’s certainly the only one to count cadence while marching students from the playground to the cafeteria, which Scott used to call “the mess hall.”
“To be able to teach children, you first have to be able to manage them,” said Whetstine, who has three Troops-to- Teachers in her school and would take more. “The management skills (of military veterans) are far beyond what a teacher coming out of college would have.”
Patience is something else. Scott says most of his Army pals want no part of managing kids in a classroom.
The sergeant, on the other hand, loves his new job.
He will relocate from Colorado to Alabama next year to be near his extended family. But he’ll travel to a job fair next week to make sure he has a teaching job when he moves.
If he has his way, he’ll be working with third-, fifth- or ninth-graders.
“I’ve heard those are the most impressionable grades,” said Scott. “And I want to make an impression.”
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-954-1771, jspencer@denverpost.com or blogs.denverpost.com/spencer.
