THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 6, 1996 TAG: 9606040084
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 254 lines
IF ANYBODY WONDERED why Pamela Slobe was chosen Norfolk public schools' teacher of the year, the answer could be found on a classroom chalkboard at Northside Middle School.
It came in the form of a ``name'' poem that Slobe's seventh-grade students penned for her - evidence, too, that they had absorbed a recent English lesson on poetry. For each letter of ``Mrs. Slobe,'' the children picked a word or phrase to describe her. They wrote the poem down one section of the board:
M. Multi-talented
R. Revelling with enthusiasm
S. Soft-hearted
S. Sensationally outstanding
L. Loving and hugging
O. Obviously caring
B. Beautiful.
E. Exceptionally patient
Still wondering? Then listen to what colleagues who work with her on Northside's ``S.W.A.T.'' teaching cluster - Students With Awesome Talent - have to say. Slobe chairs the school's special education department and is a S.W.A.T. resource teacher for students with learning disabilities.
``Probably the thing that impresses me most is the energy she has,'' said science teacher Judy Gulledge, a 10-year co-worker. ``She has the enthusiasm of a first-year teacher.''
Social studies teacher Sheri Mendenhall, another 10-year S.W.A.T. partner said:
``She looks at children as something other than a label. The tolerance that she has helped our children learn is not going to be left at the schoolhouse door - and that's a life lesson.''
Then there are the parents.
``Every child needs an advocate,'' said Linda McCreadie, whose son was in Slobe's resource class last year. ``If you're really lucky, you get one in the school system - and that's the bottom line with Pam. She looks out for what's best for the children. To me, she really epitomizes what is best about the public school system.''
Finally, Slobe has her own views about why fellow teachers at Northside nominated her. She will represent Norfolk as a candidate for the top teacher in Virginia this year.
``I think teaching is probably the most important thing I will ever do in my life,'' Slobe said. ``When you think of how much time we spend with these children and being a role model for them, this is an awesome responsibility, never to be taken lightly.''
Slobe was hired a decade ago at Northside. Her influence was felt almost immediately. At the time, many of her learning disabled students - called ``LD'' - had limited contact with regular education students. Those who were ``mainstreamed'' - placed in regular ed classes for some subjects - were spread among as many as 15 teachers throughout the building.
She had two problems with that arrangement: It limited the amount of time she could spend with each child and isolated them from their regular ed peers, contact she felt was essential.
Her solution seemed radical to some educators and parents in 1986: Why not group her LD students with a small team of teachers, place them in regular academic classes and let her work alongside the regular ed teachers?
Then Principal Frank Steadman, now at Norview Middle, agreed to the education experiment. Its success, many local educators say, was the birth of ``inclusion'' in the city's schools.
With inclusion, special ed students are integrated into regular ed classrooms. Now, Slobe said, she works closely with five teachers in the S.W.A.T. cluster, and the LD children are treated just like everybody else by other teachers and students.
Slobe refers to LD not as ``learning disabled'' but as ``learning differently.''
``Inclusion allows for a special ed teacher to work hand-in-hand with a regular educator for the benefit of all children - not just special ed children,'' Slobe said. ``I'm not seen as Pam Slobe, the special education teacher, I'm just seen as Pam Slobe, teacher.''
Her work has changed perceptions about learning disabled children, Northside Principal Timothy M. Sweeney says. He calls the transformation Slobe's ``quiet revolution.''
``Northside's teachers now recognize the true abilities of their students with special needs,'' Sweeney wrote in support of her nomination. ``They expect to see their names on the honor roll and in membership in the National Junior Honor Society. They expect that learning disabled students will often be recognized as students of the month and even as students of the year.''
In fact, four of Slobe's 10 students this year have been tapped for the honor society.
``The trick,'' she said, ``is finding out how they learn and what their strengths are and then building on that.''
Slobe, who grew up in Arlington, didn't become a special ed teacher by design. She earned an English degree from Bridgewater College in 1967, and landed her first job teaching seventh-grade English and Virginia history in Fairfax County public schools.
Two weeks after college graduation, she had married a military man, Alan Slobe, a retired Air Force pilot who now flies for a commercial airline. When her husband was transferred to Tampa, she learned the public school system had an abundance of English teachers.
What they needed were special ed teachers. She got a job teaching mentally retarded teenagers.
``Truly, I had no experience working with special needs children,'' Slobe said. ``It was wonderful. I can still see that classroom and their faces. I learned a great deal.''
Slobe quit teaching the next year, after the birth of her first child - she has two grown children. She stayed home 10 years to raise a family.
In 1981, after her husband was moved to Langley Air Force Base, she took a job teaching LD children in Hampton. Along the way, she picked up a master's degree in education.
In 1986, she moved to Northside Middle.
Working with LD children is a challenge, she said, in part because educators and medical science don't have all the answers to explain learning disabilities. While not every LD child is a candidate for inclusion, the majority are, she said.
``You don't necessarily outgrow a learning disability,'' Slobe said. ``What you do is compensate for it - you build on your strengths to overcome your weaknesses. LD children can be very talented. There are LD doctors and lawyers and scientists.''
Most LD children, Slobe said, have average to above-average intelligence. But for whatever reason, there's a discrepancy between their ability and their achievement. Many LD children, for example, have problems decoding words or understanding what they've read.
``LD is interesting because on Monday you feel a child knows a concept, and then on Wednesday they can't utilize what they learned,'' Slobe said.
Her goal is to help the child become an independent learner. Some children need her to read their tests to them, which is OK, she said.
``Just as a child may require eyeglasses, that's what you provide for them to be successful,'' Slobe said. ``You wouldn't deny a child eyeglasses would you?''
With her work, Slobe has become a nationally recognized expert on learning disabilities. An accomplished public speaker, she has lectured at national education forums on LD, been published in educational journals and produced an audiotape on LD distributed through the National Middle School Association.
Former Northside Principal William T. Delk, now director of pupil personnel for the city's schools, said Slobe had helped LD students gain an average of 2.5 years in reading ability during a school year.
On a card her LD students gave her on Teacher Appreciation Day this year, a girl named Rebecca wrote: ``I want to thank you for making my parents happy by me being on the honor roll.''
On a recent morning at Northside, Slobe was in Opal Brown's class, S.W.A.T.'s English teacher, reviewing vocabulary for an upcoming test.
``If something is audible, what does it mean?'' she asked.
An arm shot up.
``You can hear it,'' a boy said.
``Yes, Derrick, good for you!''
She paced in front of the class, punctuating her questions with gestures, bringing to mind a symphony conductor signaling musicians through a critical passage.
When a student sneezes, Slobe interjects ``God bless you!'' without losing stride. She calls her students ``doll,'' as in ``Yes, doll?''
``It's the everyday one-on-one that fulfills you as a teacher,'' Slobe said. ``You've got to engage children. You must reach their heart before you reach their mind.''
When working the classroom with S.W.A.T. teachers, Slobe wanders from child to child - special ed and regular ed, it doesn't matter - putting an arm on their shoulder, making sure they understand.
``Children look to you for approval,'' Slobe said. ``We all need to know we're OK.''
Her students give her an unconditional thumbs up.
``She's caring and kind, but on the other hand she's very hard; she pushes us,'' a boy named Steve said.
``She makes learning fun,'' Crystal said.
Fellow S.W.A.T. teacher Gulledge says:
``Her success rate is absolutely amazing. We have children who come to us having little experience with success in school and leave after one year believing in themselves and knowing what they have to do to meet with success.''
Other teachers are impressed that Slobe gives her students her home phone number.
Slobe explained:
``I don't see teaching as a 7-to-4 job. Those children need to know somebody is there for them, and, more important, their parents need to know that they can call me.''
She added, laughing:
``Some of my children need phone skills. It's interesting, but they rarely identify themselves. They'll start talking and I'll ask, `Is this Brandon?' and it's like, `Well, yes, who else could it be?' '' MEMO: IN HER WORDS...
As a teacher-of-the-year nominee, Pam Slobe was asked to describe the
biggest challenges facing teachers and her most successful teaching
experience. Below are excerpts from Slobe's application:
Biggest challenges
Slobe said she first asked her students for their views. They
responded: Getting students to come to school prepared to learn; dealing
with disruption and disrespect; settling arguments; eliminating
horseplay and fighting; getting students to do homework; getting
students to stop talking in class; and getting students to spit out
their gum. Slobe said she agreed - except maybe for the gum problem.
She wrote:
``The challenge is to motivate each child to want to be a life-long
learner. . . . I must create an environment that encourages creativity,
celebrates divergent or unusual reasoning and advocates initiative and
independence. . . .
``Many special needs children question their ability to achieve in
academic pursuits. . . . I must help them understand that some academic
pursuits may result in failure, but that the true measure of success may
have been in their effort. . . .
``If I can create an atmosphere of acceptance where students are
validated as learners, where effort is acknowledged, rewarded and
celebrated, if I can act as a facilitator who allows children to be
academic risk-takers, then I will meet the challenge.
``Then my students' attendance and their seriousness of purpose will
be exemplary. Disruption and disrespect will be replaced by discovery
and development of decision-making skills. Horseplay and fighting will
be superseded by experimentation and exploration. Homework will be a
true extension of their discoveries. Talking in class will be replaced
with talking about class. . . .''
Most successful teaching experience
Slobe said her success story involved a learning disabled student
named Dwayne, now a student at Norfolk State University. But her story
goes beyond a single student: Dwayne's success occurred after Slobe
convinced the staff at Northside to integrate special ed students into
regular ed academic classes, a practice called inclusion.
One of the biggest changes involved co-teaching, or collaborative
teaching. Under this team approach, a special ed teacher works alongside
regular ed teachers in the classroom.
Slobe wrote about that experience:
``I knew what it was like to teach self-contained learning disabled
students in a remote area of the building. . . . Dwayne was headed for
this class. His pronounced perceptual motor delay, his severe reading
deficit and his extremely poor attendance predetermined school failure.
``I knew that being isolated from his peer group, that being in a
special wing of the building, and that his frustration with all things
academic would be impossible hurdles to surmount if the status quo were
allowed to continue. . . .
``I suggested that my students and I become members of an
interdisciplinary team. . . . This new placement allowed my children to
understand that being labeled exceptional and being successful
academically were not mutually exclusive but could go hand in hand. I,
in turn, could instruct and assist a wider group of students.
``Assisting all students in a co-teaching class has helped to erase
special needs children's feeling of inadequacy, and broadened an
understanding and acceptance among their peer group. . . .
``Teaming with incredibly gifted cluster teachers helped me to reach
and develop Dwayne's heretofore hidden potential. They shared my vision
of teaching to the whole child, my belief that all children can learn,
that we must modify instruction not curriculum, that we must allow for -
and even celebrate - individual differences.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
AWESOME EDUCATOR
Staff photos, cover and inside, by HUY NGUYEN
Pam Slobe goes over vocabulary for an upcoming English test. One
student at Northside Middle School is eager to answer a review
question.
One of Northside's seventh-grade classes uses the chalkboard to
write a ``name'' poem about Pam Slobe.
Pam Slobe, left, and Melanie Rathburn rejoice over improved results
on recent testing of students.
Pam Slobe
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB