By Calvin Trampleasure, 2023
- Chapter 1: New Ways and Big Days
- Chapter 2: RUSD Becomes WCCUSD
- Chapter 3: 4 Cs Adventure in Physical Education
- Chapter 4: The 4 Cs and 101 Ways to Praise
- Chapter 5: Washington Elementary, Richmond
- Chapter 6: Kindergarten Fire and Love
- Chapter 7: Kindergarten Years, Extended Day K
- Afterword: Something Unpredictable
4 Cs Adventures in Physical Education, Cooperation/ Camaraderie/ Challenge/ Choice, 1993-2009
King Elementary School, Richmond
Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School is in Richmond, California, across Cutting Blvd from Kennedy High School. It was in the Kennedy High gym that Jesse Jackson appeared at a May 1991 rally. He led an “I Am Somebody” chant for hundreds of Richmond Unified School District (RUSD) parents, students and teachers. After the rally, I went home and wrote my own version of “I Am Somebody.”
After the “year off” to get my mental bearings and physical energy back, I returned to the renamed RUSD, now WCCUSD (West Contra Costa Unified School District) for an elementary physical education prep job in August of 1993. One of my four assigned schools was King School.
“If you are a street sweeper, sweep the streets so well that the hosts of heaven look down and say, ‘there lives a great street sweeper.’” Martin Luther King, Jr. said.
Mrs. Lee was the community liaison at King Elementary. If a child had emotional outbursts or was being disruptive in class, the child was sent to Mrs. Lee’s room to talk it out. The “hosts of heaven” were surely looking down and saying, “There lives a great community liaison.” She did her job with commitment and heart, and students loved her.
The King neighborhood had a small liquor store just a block away from the school. Drinking and drug problems plagued this part of Richmond in the mid-1990s, unemployment and family turmoil added to the daily upheaval many kids experienced. Mrs. Lee had her work cut out for her. She offered peaceful words and caring listening to moody King students, and contacted parents when helpful.
In August 1993, I arrived to teach five upper-grade classes 50-minutes of physical education each Friday. I was introduced to Mrs. Lee, and we realized we knew each other from the past. One of her sons, Kevin Lee, was my age. We were in Cub Scout “Pack 96” in Berkeley in the late 1960s. Her family had lived on Ada Court, just around the corner from my childhood home on Sacramento Street.
Mr. Lee, Kevin’s dad, was coach of Pack 96’s baseball team. On Thursday April 4, 1968, Coach Lee called his players in from the field during practice at Garfield School. I was 9 and ¾ years old. I wore a baseball jersey with number 24, the same number as the “Say Hey Kid” Willie Mays of the SF Giants, and I ran in from center field.
“Boys, take a knee,” Coach Lee told us. “Something horrible has happened.”
He held a small transistor radio, and before he turned up the volume, he said, “Dr. Martin Luther King was just shot and killed.”
The Pack 96 baseball team, and a couple coaches, listened to the news report of the assassination. Then, with heads down, we all prayed. Practice was cancelled and we all walked home to be with our families.
Every time I told this story to 4th-6th grade classes at King Elementary and other schools, I would get a lump in my throat and my voice would quiver a bit. I would pause, regain composure, and finish the story.
At Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School, with Mrs. Lee as community liaison, the story had the most poignancy.
Personal stories that have real meaning can connect teachers to students. Stories bridge a gap of generations and make genuine connections. Once these connections are made, learning that cannot be measured is realized.
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted,” Albert Einstein said.
That year, along with King Elementary, I was assigned to teach at Dover, Tara Hills and Sheldon Elementary Schools. They were located in Richmond, San Pablo, and Pinole.
Dover Elementary School, San Pablo
At Dover School during physical education time, a 4th grade class played parachute games. Squealing brakes sounded near-by, and an armed man hopped out of a car. He shot at another man who had jumped the school fence. The man ran across the Dover play yard, maybe a drug deal gone bad? Five to ten shots were fired and students ran to the safety of Mr. Castillo’s classroom. Gunfire in this Richmond neighborhood was common, the kids heard it often. It was my only experience seeing guns and bullets while teaching in WCCUSD.
Ms. Ana Souza was Dover’s principal, she was a great soul who supported her teachers. The upper grade teachers were a pleasure work with, and the behavior at Dover was solid and civil due to caring teachers who knew how to work with children. It was a drab-looking school, yet inside the classroom teachers and students learned in colorful ways.
One day, a 5th grade Laotian boy was meditating quietly near a tree. He and his grandfather meditated daily at home. I asked if he wanted to teach his class, and he did. The 33 students in his class all sat quietly in the warm sun, on the quiet school yard and kept still and quiet for 2-3 minutes. I would go on to teach meditation to many classes. Phil Jackson, the 1990s Chicago Bulls coach taught his players to meditate as well. I would say, “If Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippin are doing it, let’s give it a try.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk used the term “mindfulness” in the 1970s. He introduced thousands of people to the idea world-wide. At Dover School, in 1994, a Laotian boy introduced it to me.
During my 1992-93 year-off to recover my spirit, I completed a master’s degree in education at Cal State Hayward. My thesis was “Student-Centered Curriculum.” Taking the interest of the Laotian boy at Dover and adding it to my teaching was just what the thesis was about.
I taught one 6th grade class at Tara Hills Elementary that year. It was a memorable, caring class, in Pinole. From Dover, I would ride my bike to teach there. My cycling distance from home to Dover to Tara Hills and home was about 20 miles. If it rained I would drive; otherwise, I would ride to all my schools. It was good for my physical and mental health, and a good example for my students.
Sheldon Elementary, El Sobrante/Richmond
Sheldon School is on the Richmond/El Sobrante border. Its students are an ethnically and economically diverse group. The school reminded me of Jefferson Elementary, the Berkeley school I attended in the 1960s, with many ethnic groups. The Sheldon 4th-6th grade classes were full of open, appreciative and kind kids.
Sheldon students took to my 4Cs (Cooperation, Camaraderie, Challenge and Choice) program with interest and enthusiasm. 4Cs Adventures included Human Ladder, Big Blue, Strong and Smart, Parachute, Human Pyramids, Crazy Soccer, and Doctor Tag. Dances like the Chicken Dance, Cha Cha Slide and Hokey Pokey with added calisthenics were greeted with smiles and laughs. I noticed what kids enjoyed and molded the curriculum to suit their interests. We added new rules and interesting twists to many games.
The amount of cooperation and caring I witnessed among Sheldon students fueled my hope for humanity. In the midst of a violent, rat-race society there was something amazingly positive with Sheldon students. I was given hundreds of kind notes and many small gifts of appreciation during 17 years at Sheldon. These kids were a mini-United Nations that really worked. Year after year, I witnessed kindness, communication and fun between Sheldon students. Camaraderie was not just a word, but experienced through learning and play.
“I never have to worry about getting him out the door on Mondays; he tells me to ‘hurry up’ because he doesn’t want to be late for P.E.,” a Sheldon mother of a 4th grader told me one day. TGIM (Monday)…play is the exultation of the possible.
Sheldon teachers were firm, creative and caring people who enjoyed working together. They helped each other and principal “Buddy” Phillips let them shape required curriculum in unique ways. “Social/emotional learning” were not buzz words then, and neither was “equity,” yet Sheldon teachers met each child as a special human being. Common basic rules and kindness expectations guided school life, along with a dose of teacher tough love when needed.