Darren Bates seems to be a natural, someone who’s found his calling teaching seventh graders world history and geography at Paul Revere Charter Middle School. The fact that he’s won a 2011 Lori Petrick Excellence in Teaching Award is an honor, but it’s hard to imagine that it’s much of a surprise to the students, parents and colleagues who know him. The award was established in 2003 in memory of Lori Petrick, who made a profound impression while teaching at Marquez and Palisades Elementary schools. Bates was recognized for what the Petrick judge called ‘a phenomenal combination of high energy teaching with complete classroom management.’ That high energy was immediately evident on meeting Bates, who was supervising a ping-pong club meeting during this interview. Young and dressed in a pair of long shorts and a T-shirt, he was quick-witted and passionate about his job, even at the tail end of an unseasonably hot school day. ’I’m rarely sitting at my desk,’ Bates says. ‘I’m physically engaged, walking around, surveying the class to make sure everyone is on task.’ Sometimes when he’s asking his students a question, he’ll throw out a soft rubber Koosh ball to whoever has their hand up. It keeps everyone focused and even draws in some reluctant students. This is Bates’ sixth year of teaching at Revere, where he was hired immediately following his student teaching stint. He has two honors classes and three grade-level classes in world history and also teaches digital photography. Keeping middle schoolers engaged in history can be challenging. Bates’ approach is to keep things fresh. ’If I’m not innovating, they’ll see that,’ says Bates, 32. ‘The students are well aware when teachers are enthusiastic and when they’re mailing it in. They will match my energy.’ He recently asked students to write a poem or parody a song using facts about the medieval Crusades and then perform it for the class. This kind of creative approach ‘gets them into the assignment’ and tends to help the information stick, Bates says. The honors packet on the Crusades that Bates developed to supplement the textbook leads with a cartoon and ends with a long list of karaoke tracks Bates has made available online, but sandwiched in between is an historical map and loads of valuable information. Bates’ rules for the assignment include culling ideas from several parts of the lesson, to ensure that it’s not just fun and games. Which is an important part of his success’Bates is no pushover. He points out that great ideas are useless if you can’t control the class. He thinks his students would judge him ‘strict, but fair.’ The Petrick judge called the relationship one of ‘mutual respect.’ Collaboration among students is a favorite tool. A group dynamic is better suited to the middle schoolers’ energy level than a lecture, they learn from kids with different aptitudes and the lesson becomes about teamwork too. Technology also plays an integral part in Bates’ classroom. He uses laptops to create interactive group assignments, including a Jeopardy-like history game about Asian feudal systems. Even taking a quiz online is inherently more interesting to these kids, not to mention that it doesn’t waste paper and is more efficient to grade, so the students get quick feedback. Bates is fine-tuning a mobile software application he’s developed over the last two years and already uses to keep in touch with parents about homework and their child’s performance. But technology has its limitations, in part because the school district’s broadband speed is slow and subject to service interruptions. Bates fantasizes about being able to show video clips of historic events, like Russia’s launch of Sputnik in 1957 (readily available on YouTube). ‘If any place should have working high speed Internet, it’s a classroom,’ he says. Whatever the delivery system, Bates thinks good teaching is about ‘insuring that students are challenged daily and offering them a variety of ways to show their intelligence.’ He urges his students to develop their own opinions and a subjective view of what they are studying. One lesson involved writing President Barack Obama or a U.S. senator about the reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire and highlighting parallels to issues facing America today. Beyond connecting history to the students’ own reality, the responses some of them received from Washington, D.C. gave them a ‘sense of empowerment.’ That connection is the holy grail for Bates. ‘I want the students to leave this class with a greater appreciation of what’s going on in the world, to value the study of history and understand how it can impact their lives.’ He mentions a 2006 study by National Geographic that found that only 37 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 could find Iraq on a map, calling it ’embarrassing.’ He hopes to do his part to change that. As for his personal history, Bates went to public school in the San Fernando Valley and majored in history at UC San Diego, where some ‘fantastic’ teachers inspired him. He lives in Santa Monica and spends his summer and breaks working as a fine art photographer (his landscapes and other images can be found at darren-bates.com). ’I love what I do,’ Bates says of his teaching, calling himself ‘lucky.’ Sounds like some seventh graders at Paul Revere are pretty lucky too.
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