An Interview with Bill Cecil: Best Year Ever!!

Bill Cecil is the author of " Best Year Ever"- Winning Strategies to Thrive in Today's Classroom. He was Michigan Teacher of the Year for 2003-2004 and has been a teacher for more than 20 years.He graduated with honors from Western Michigan University with a Bachelor of Science Degree. While there he earned 4 varsity letters for soccer and has also coached soccer. He currently conducts a number of workshops and in-services for teachers and school systems and his workshops are dynamic, energetic and enthusiastic and empower and motivate teachers across the U.S.

In this interview, he reflects on the art and craft of teaching and hopes to encourage teachers to have their "Best Year Ever"!

1. How would a first year teacher go about having his or her "Best Year Ever!"?

There are four things I believe every teacher should do to better prepare their students and themselves to have their B.Y.E!I call these four strategies "Setting the Table for Success."I believe that by investing time at the beginning of the year to "set the table" -- create a positive, safe learning environment -- teachers will have more time to teach throughout the school year and students will have more time to learn.

The four strategies are:

1. Creating a Shared Vision
2. Team Building
3. Teach, Model, and Practice Team Procedures
4. Establish and Consistently Enforce Team Rules and Consequences

I would encourage new teachers to give each one of these strategies some serious thought and think of ways they can invest time the first two weeks of school to inject these four strategies into their lesson plans as they work to review the previous year's learning.

2. How would a veteran teacher who has been teaching for 10 years go about preparing to have their B.Y.E!?

I have been teaching for just over 20 years, and I still prepare the same way each year which is to revisit the four strategies I mentioned above.However, for veteran teachers, my guess is that they already have strategies 2-4 mastered.They know how to set-up and run their classrooms so they run smoothly.

I would encourage them to go back and spend some time reflecting on their vision for the upcoming year.The two questions I would ask them to consider are 1) Do you know where you are going to lead your team this upcoming school year, and 2) Are you excited about where you are planning to lead them?

As a leader with a team to lead, every teacher must know where they are going. If a teacher hopes to get their students excited about where they are headed as a team than that teacher must also be excited.

3. You often post things on your bulletin board at school.What kinds of things seem to get the best responses?

Each morning I share a famous, inspiring quote with the kids I call "Quote of the Day."My students will write the quote down in their Agenda Books and then as a class we will discuss what we think the quote means and how it applies to us working to have our B.Y.E! – individually and as a team.Once the brief discussion is over, we take a few minutes to write a reflection in our Agenda Books on what the quote means personally to us.The last thing we do is to each read our reflection to at least one other person in the room.

This is a great way to start each day and to help us refocus on our year long goal to work as a team to have our B.Y.E!

4. How does a really good teacher recover from having a pretty bad year, with unhappy parents, a lot of paperwork, and some disappointments?

I believe this teacher must do what any great, winning coach or leader must do, and that is to take responsibility for the team's results and use it to motivate him or herself to have a better year. By using the unfortunate events of the previous year as a learning tool helps that teacher to grow. At some point, I believe a good teacher, after reflecting on the previous year, tucks it away and starts focusing on the upcoming year anxious to get into the classroom and win again.

This would be a good time to go back and refocus on the four strategies I call "Setting the Table for Success" to see if any adjustments need to be made to the overall game plan.

5. Who is teaching what is important? And how do we correct the T.V. stations?

I believe television/video games have become a very scary addiction for too many of my students (and their parents in some cases).I don't waste my time talking about the images they may see on television.I encourage my students to at least find a balance between watching others live out their dreams, goals, and lives on T.V. and living their own lives.

I ask my students to think about something they would really like to accomplish in their lives within the next year.I ask them to think how good they would get at something if they invested 365 hours of their time into it.I then challenge them to watch one less hour of T.V. a night and use that time to work on the thing they said they really want to accomplish.We even set mini-goals that we will work on for a month at a time throughout the year.We take time to write these goals down and the action steps we will follow to make them a reality.We then write that goal down each day in our Agenda Books and share the outcome at the end of the month before setting new goals.

6. Who is this Chick Moorman guy and what is he all about?

I really don't know much about him.He asked if he could post an article I once wrote about how my class dealt with the aftermath of 9/11.

7. What does it take to be Michigan Teacher of the Year?

The main thing it takes to be Michigan Teacher of the Year is someone taking the time to nominate you.In my case, I was lucky enough to have two students nominate me.There are so many deserving teachers that never get nominated -- which is a shame because it is easy to do and takes so little time.In Michigan, you can nominate your favorite teacher on the Michigan Department of Education's website (www.michigan.gov/mde).The process only takes a few minutes.

8.

Playing college soccer at Western Michigan University, serving as Michigan Teacher of the Year, meeting the President in the Oval Office, and writing my book are all things I am very proud about, but the thing I am most proud about in my life is that I have been a teacher for twenty years.

I can't think of any other profession that would have brought me as much joy and satisfaction as this one.Yes, teaching is incredibly challenging and demanding at times – actually much of the time – but the rewards are well worth it.I still get excited when I see my students come together each year and start working together as a winning team while building a strong belief in themselves as individuals with lots of potential to achieve big goals in their own lives.

I think that is why I am so disturbed by the fact that so many novice teachers are leaving within five years of entering this noble profession.They are leaving before getting a chance to really taste the sweet success of teaching and feeling the incredible sense of pride that comes with it.They are cheating themselves out of something very special.

9. Who has influenced you and why?

I have been blessed to have so many great role models and mentors throughout my life.Napoleon Hill, the author of the business classic "Think and Grow Rich," has been a major influence in my life and has had a major impact on my teaching. His message to live your life with purpose has had great meaning for me and is a message that I try to pass on to every student I work with.

He has taught me to believe that "whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve."It has definitely worked for me, and I want to see it work for all my students as well.You will hear a lot of his influence in my book because it makes up a huge part of my teaching.

10. Who is the best teacher that you ever had?

The best teacher I ever had was my 6^th grade teacher named Mr. Trecki.He made school interesting and fun.Up until then, school wasn't one of my favorite places to have to go everyday. However, he made me want to go.He made us work hard, but he made it exciting.I just remember thinking that he made school seem kind of cool.

Most importantly, Mr. Trecki seemed to believe in me and urged me to start believing more in myself.I liked Mr. Trecki and didn't want to let him down, so I started to push myself a little more that year than any other year up to that point.Sure enough, I started seeing better results in my studies and felt maybe I wasn't as dumb as I had originally thought.

I hope Mr. Trecki knows how much he made a difference in the lives of some of his students – especially this one.

11. Tell us about your B.Y.E!

Just as I have encouraged other veteran teachers to revisit their vision each year, I must do the same in order to have my B.Y.E!Teaching the curriculum is not my vision.It is what I am paid to do, and I work hard to do it well each year.However, it is not my vision.It is not what gets me out of bed each day fired up and ready to go.

My vision – or what I love most about teaching – is that, each year, I get to create, lead and be a member of a winning team.I don't get to choose my team, but I do get to build my team.I get to lead my team and be a member of that winning team for the entire school year.Each day, I get to look at where we currently are and find new ways to increase our productivity.

12. How do we encourage kids to have their "Best Year Ever!" in their first, or ninth, or twelfth grade?

Regardless of their grade level, I would ask these students to concentrate on mastering three words throughout the year.These three words will act as their success formula or doable plan to have their Best Year Ever!The three words are Attendance, Attitude, and Effort.

I would ask them to commit to coming to school on a regular basis and to be present (or engaged) in their learning.I would ask them to come to school each day with a positive "can do" attitude looking for things to get excited about and to believe in themselves.By doing so, they will find plenty of things that will excite them and they will most likely astound themselves.Finally, I would ask them to come to school each day ready to roll up their sleeves and put forth the sustained effort needed to start seeing positive results.

I would share success stories of many others that have followed these three words and encourage them to stick with them long enough to create their own success stories.

13. What have I neglected to ask?

I'd like to mention one of the main reasons I wrote Best Year Ever! -- Winning Strategies to Thrive in the Classroom.While serving as Michigan Teacher of the Year in 2003-2004, I came across a startling statistic that continues to haunt me.It stated that we are losing somewhere between 30-50 percent of our novice teachers (0-5 years) within their first five years of teaching.

This is tragic!And not only for those unfortunate teachers that leave the profession before giving themselves a chance to taste success in the classroom, but for everyone involved.

The Chicago Tribune (2/4/07) reported that "The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future calculated that when a teacher leaves a Chicago school, the district spends $17,000 to $22,000 to recruit and train a replacement.That means teacher attrition costs Chicago $83 million to $106 million a year."

Besides being very expensive, what about the toll it takes on the many millions of students that must try to find a way to thrive in those classrooms where their teachers are barely surviving – if that!Simply put, we just can't afford to continue to lose this large group of teachers.

We need to provide training wheels for our young teachers so they can gain confidence in their abilities while they work to master the basics.Training in classroom management and relationship building should be the two main themes of professional development provided during the first years of teaching.

Even though I strongly believe that the material covered in my book can help everyone involved in education, I am targeting this book specifically to the novice teachers who are beginning their careers.I am writing this book to act as a mentor and a set of training wheels for each new teacher who is just starting out.I will show how to build positive relationships with students and provide effective techniques to better manage students in the classroom.Thus, a teacher can spend more time stoking the flames of enthusiasm for learning, rather than wasting precious time and energy continually trying to put out brush fires of chaos and disorder.

Thanks for the chance to share my thoughts and information about my book. Bill

Published March 20, 2007