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
Washington Elementary, Richmond
After just two years at Dover, Ms. Kaye Burnside, a new principal at Washington Elementary School in Pt. Richmond, talked her principal friend Ana Souza at Dover into letting me come to Washington to work in 1996.
The job at Washington was teaching 4Cs physical education to five upper grade classes for 50-minutes a week. It would also include seeing each class for another 50-minute period for literacy support. Title 1 Funds payed more preparation time for teachers, and I gave 100 minutes a week to each 4th-6th grade teacher.
Washington was a challenge the first year. In low-income neighborhoods, the first year for a new teacher can be tough. You need to prove you are real, and prove you are going to stay around and stick with them. Turmoil at home and troubled relationships in families lead to distrust, so trust must be earned by teachers.
The I Am Somebody poem was a big first step in the right direction. Each of the six classes learned the poem, and we started each class with it. I told students that it was the most important thing they would learn from me. When 33 voices joined in an I Am Somebody chant some of the energy created at Kennedy High with Jesse Jackson back in 1991 would rise again. We were all “standing on the shoulders of giants” and honoring ourselves with the chant.
I Am Somebody! I am somebody! My heart is a diamond shining bright My spirit is an eagle taking flight My mind is a pearl strong and bold My body can travel the roughest road I am somebody! I can be what I want to be I can learn what I need to know I can always try to do my best I am somebody! I am somebody! I am somebody! by Calvin Trampleasure (1991) Inspired by civil rights history and written during district bankruptcy crisis West Contra Costa Unified School District
I taught at Washington, two days a week, for 13 years. By the second and third years I felt at home there. Ms. Burnside was a leader whose tough love, a firmness guided by love, was always apparent. Students thrived in this environment. Excellent and caring teachers were hired, and it was a pleasure to be part of such a dedicated team.
“Mr. T,” Ms. Burnside said to me in the hallway one day, “I need to see you in my office.”
At the first recess, I headed to Ms. Burnside’s office.
“Rohnesha told me you were using the ‘N word’ today in class,” Ms. Burnside said. “I just wanted to hear what happened.”
“What happened,” I replied, “was that Rohnesha got upset about something and told me in front of her classmates that her daddy was going to come down to this school and shoot my white ass.”
“Hmmm,” Ms. Burnside replied. “I will talk to Rohnesha right away.”
Riding home on my bike that day, I rode as fast as I ever had, and kept my eyes open for any suspicious-looking men drivers. Later, I found out Rohnesha’s daddy was in jail, and I didn’t have anything to worry about.
The next day, all students in the school gathered in the MP room for the opening meeting. Ms. Burnside called me up to the stage. Rohnesha was there too. Many of the students had heard the news of the day before.
In front of friends and classmates, Rohnesha said, “I am sorry about what I said yesterday, Mr. Trampleasure.” She looked me right in the eyes, with hands behind her back, and respectfully added, “I will never make that mistake again.”
She never did. The rest of the year went smoothly.
Once at Washington a boy came to physical education class. I didn’t know this boy. His “anger management” therapy was at the same time I taught his class, so I rarely saw him. The boy got upset about something and gave me the middle finger when I turned my back. Many of his classmates erupted with, “Mr. T., Tyrone gave you the finger!”
I turned toward the class slowly and said, “Oh, no, he did not.”
“Yes he did Mr. T., you turned away and he flipped you off,” many of the students insisted.
“Oh, no, he would never do that,” I said, “Tyrone is a good kid.”
“Mr. T, we are not kidding you, he really did do it,” everyone insisted.
Tyrone stood rock solid, waiting for a response from me.
I walked up to Tyrone, close but not too close, and said, “Tyrone said I was number one!” I held my index finger up high enough for everyone to see. “Didn’t you, Tyrone?”
Everyone smiled and laughed, Tyrone looked startled. The bell rang, and Tyrone and his classmates headed back to class.
I had waited nearly 10 years to use that one-finger trick. Mrs. Dyes at King Elementary had shared the story with teachers in the lunch room when she got “the finger” once from a 5th grader.
Mr. Henderson, back at Lincoln in 1987, was the master of disengaging conflict with humor, a smile, a joke or a clever twist of words. He would find a side-window or a back-door to a problem and approach it in a non-confrontational way. I learned so much from him.
During my final years as a I teacher, I wrote WWBHD (What Would Bill Henderson Do?) on my kindergarten lesson plans. I always aspired to use humor and wit with students.
Steve Seskin, a Richmond native, wrote a song called Don’t Laugh at Me in 1993. It was the song central to Operation Respect, a pro-social skills program based in NYC. I used the song to help students feel a connection to others and to be kind.
Steve Seskin came to perform in the Washington MP room in 1998. After he sang Don’t Laugh at Me he asked all two-hundred 4th-6th graders in the assembly, “Why do you think some people are mean to others?” “Because they are jealous,” was a student reply from the audience. “Because sometimes kids get treated bad at home and they think it is OK to act bad at school,” was another answer. “Because sometimes we have had our spirits crushed,” said a 5th grade boy.
Music and play help students learn to get to the heart of discussions about caring and respect. The song Don’t Laugh at Me was an example!
Stories also add a depth of learning! At Washington, for literacy support, Ms. Burnside let me pick any books I wanted to read with the 4th-6th grade classes.
- J.T. is a story about a young boy in Harlem who adopts a stray cat, but the cat gets hit by a car and dies. Mamma Melcy, the boy’s grandma, comes to visit J.T. in NYC from “down south.” It is a story about loss, resilience, and the power of words and love. It is about “keep on keeping on” in all situations.
- Bridge to Terebithia is a Newberry Award book about some of the same things. The power of friendship and imagination are important in the book too. Stories helped create connections and understandings at deep levels in young Washington students.
- Dear Mr. Henshaw was another book we read at Washington. A young boy’s truck-driving dad is rarely home. The power of writing helps the boy learn about himself, his father, and understand the world.
- The Shimmershine Queens is a book about elementary age girls learning about the “shimmershine” that slaves used long ago to lift up their spirits.
The money for the literacy prep teaching dried up a few years later. I continued to teach 4Cs Physical Education at Sheldon, Castro, Washington and Madera Elementary Schools through June 2009. By June 2009, I had taught at Sheldon 17 years, Washington 13 years, and Castro and Madera 7 years. On Mondays I taught at Castro, Tuesdays at Washington, Madera on Wednesdays and Sheldon on Thursdays and Fridays.
But the physical education preparation time jobs in WCCUSD disappeared in 2009. The district showed little regard or understanding of the importance of physical education with this decision. The prep teacher positions that existed since 1977 were gone.
Kindergarten teachers were now required to do the physical education prep-time for upper grade classes, since they taught just “half-day” (3 hours and 15 minutes) kindergarten. This was a disaster waiting to happen, and it did. The program lasted just one year. Kindergarten teachers were not happy at all having to teach upper grade class outside in a subject they knew little about. The next year Kindergarten teachers taught a variety of subjects including art, computers, and physical education for preparation time release for upper grade teachers.
All my years as a physical education prep teacher at Sheldon, Castro, Washington, Tara Hills, El Sobrante, Lincoln, Stege, Coronado, King, Dover and Kensington Schools were history. In those years I had freedom to teach a subject I loved and was shaped by teachers, parents, principals and, especially, students. Don Novak was right, back in the interview of August 1987; it was the perfect job for me. Due to circumstance, I moved on, and found another niche in WCCUSD.