Like many teachers, I come from a long line of educators.
My grandmother began her career in a one-room schoolhouse.
She coached a girl's basketball team.
Now this was a fairly new concept back in the 1920s,
but she just figured they didn't know how well girls could play.
Later, when my uncle was born with an intellectual disability,
my grandparents found there were just no educational opportunities for him.
So they started schools in both Portland and LA
for kids just like Stanley.
They would be thrilled to know
these schools have now impacted thousands of students
over the course of the past 60 years.
The Portland site even offers job training and placements.
That would really make them very proud.
My grandma always taught in the schools
and she often had students who had previously been deemed unteachable
or even who had been recommended for state institutions.
It was common back in those days and hard to imagine today.
But her determination to educate every child
taught me the valuable lesson:
never underestimate what a student is truly capable of
because every student has untapped potential.
My mum also echoed this theme.
She spent 20 years as a resource and special day class teacher.
She often taught students
who had not been successful in typical classrooms,
but they thrived in a smaller environment with one-on-one help
and, like my grandma, she saw many students go far beyond
what others had thought they were capable of.
Of course it isn't just your family that can inspire you.
I was young when I saw the movie "Chariots of Fire",
and I never forgot the tenacity of Eric Liddell, the Scottish runner.
He competed in the 1924 Olympics in Paris,
but not in his favoured event, the Men's 100m,
because the qualifying heats were on a Sunday.
Instead, he ran in the Men's 400m in which he won gold against all odds
despite his unique running style.
But it was really what Liddell did after the Olympics
that inspired me the most.
He returned to China where he'd spent his childhood
to teach high school chemistry.
He spent many years teaching
and he is acclaimed by most of his students today,
some of whom are in very big positions in Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and Beijing.
Liddell had an interesting story.
When the Japanese invaded, he sent his wife and daughters to Canada,
but he decided to stay to help care for the northern Chinese
because they were just in bleak circumstances.
He rode a bicycle all over the countryside helping them.
Well, eventually, he was put into an internment camp
with 2,000 other westerners
and many people felt incredibly sorry for themselves.
Liddell decided he would go ahead and busy himself
by organising sporting events for the kids,
and he taught chemistry to some of the older kids.
It was a unique circumstance.
He had no text books so he found an empty notebook,
and he rewrote his entire chemistry curriculum from memory,
including lab set-ups,
so the kids could see the results of experiments.
Impressive, as far as I'm concerned.
This is how determined he was to the pursuit of education for these kids.
He didn't want them to lose these precious years.
Sadly, Liddell died of a brain tumour just five months before liberation.
They say all of Scotland mourned,
but I wonder if it was most keenly by some of these students
many of whom were separated from their families,
and who really had him as a mentor.
Many of these students went on
to become the leaders of the next generation after the war.
I also had some great teachers, but I really struggled in school.
In third grade they figured out that I had a learning disability
and although I was bright and capable,
I was below grade level in several subjects.
So I spent a lot of time with tutors and special-ed teachers for many years,
improving my skills and learning how to compensate in the classroom.
I admire the same determination in my students
who have learning disabilities today.
I'm really grateful for the many teachers
who helped me think of ways to be successful in their classrooms.
They gave me mnemonic devices and hands-on labs.
They even did re-enactments of their classes to help me,
and I'm really grateful.
I really appreciate this quote from Edison.
It is believed that he also had a learning disability.
He was basically discounted by his teacher
and was not successful in a typical classroom.
Well, of course, he went on to invent the phonograph,
the practical incandescent light bulb and motion picture cameras
which have ushered in much of the technology that we use today.
Clearly we should never underestimate the capabilities of a student.
People invest in a lot of things.
Darwin would say, "Have a lot of offspring and invest in them.
They carry on your DNA."
He had ten kids.
That's how committed he was to this concept!
(Laughter)
Now, as a single woman with no children
my years in the classroom investing in other people's kids
apparently, have been a complete waste of time.
Now, I would disagree with Darwin even though I'm a biology teacher.
On this issue, I think he's wrong.
I think teaching's the smartest decision I ever made.
When the kids come back, and tell us what they go on to do,
it is such a blessing in my life.
They have gone on to become the next generation
of firemen, and teachers, and engineers, and chefs,
and I can think of no greater thing to invest my time and energy in.
When I look at students,
I know that they aren't just unique here in the US.
The idea that this generation of students will become the next generation of leaders
is a global one.
I've visited a variety of schools as I've traveled overseas,
and when I go to schools, kids are kids are kids.
The girls always seem to chit-chat in the corner with their friends,
and the boys always seem to be causing some kind of mischief.
But we know that in some countries a school is a luxury,
and sometimes the students I see in the classrooms are the lucky ones.
They have made a total commitment to their education,
and they and their families are willing to put in endless amounts of effort
to make them be successful.
But when I talk to their teachers, in a major city like Delhi,
or even in a small village in Kenya, they believe, just like my grandma did,
that their students have untapped potential,
and they are the future leaders of their nations.
My trips have taken me to places
that I could only dream of while looking at National Geographics as a kid.
Our principal agreed to allow me
to extend my Christmas break several years back
to go to Antarctica on an ice breaker.
It was an amazing experience, one I'll never forget.
But, as with all of my trips,
it was the surprises that I talk about most in my classroom.
I could walk through a penguin colony, and they could not have cared less.
Sometimes, they even got curious, but the second I stepped into the ocean
they all panicked and ran around like I'd killed somebody
thinking I was a seal.
I thought the whole thing was pretty funny,
but I didn't really get it until the end of the trip.
I was in a Zodiac boat going by a coastline,
and a little rockhopper penguin came swimming out to me,
and he began to squawk at me as if he were saying,
"Hey, you're disturbing the fish. Get the heck out of here!"
So I leaned down to the little penguin and explained to him that I was a teacher,
and I would be using the experience to inspire the next generation
to survive his species.
Well, all of a sudden he just disappeared.
It was as if he'd been sucked from below the water.
I looked over the edge of the boat to figure out what had happened
and he popped back up in the mouth of a fur seal
who began to beat him back and forth on the surface of the water
tearing him into pieces and eating him.
The whole thing happened so fast
you won't even see the penguin in the picture.
He just disappeared.
Well, we were shocked,
including the marine biologist who was in our boat.
Fur seals normally eat fish and squid.
Clearly this fur seal had not gotten this message.
He thought penguins were fair game.
Well, I was a little embarrassed at how I'd probably misunderstood
what the penguin was probably trying to say to me,
"Put me in the boat! Put me in the boat!"
Somehow, I missed all of that, and it made me wonder,
"I wonder how many times a student has said something to me
and I've missed that."
Good idea; be a better listener.
I think teaching is a lot like advertising
You have to sell education like Apple sells its next iPhone.
Every day when the kids come in to my classroom, I try to convince them
whatever we're learning is the best thing they've ever heard.
Well, in order to get kids to use their untapped potential
you have to get creative.
I've tried a lot of different angles: hand lotions, chants,
have them pretend to be deer and mount lions and chase each other.
Even running over tubs of oobleck to experience magma.
It's what I like about ninth and tenth graders.
You can convince them to do anything as long as you sell it the right way.
Don't tell them that! (Laughter)
When I look at teaching,
I know that what we have now is not what we'll have in the future
and to improve, we experienced teachers can not just do what we've always done.
We need an influx of new teachers to bring fresh, creative ideas into our schools.
My first classroom had a chalkboard
not unlike my grandma's slates from the 1920s.
We used microscopes with mirrors
and we'd all line up against the window to get the sunlight through our slides.
Well, the microscopes were from the 1950s.
In fact, they were from the school's original yearbook;
I found pictures of them.
My favourite though was a warm spring day. I was in my classroom.
And a kid in the back row said, "Miss Cochrane, there's a bug on my desk."
I said, "Oh well, it's a bug."
Another kid said, "Yeah, there's a bug on my desk."
And then a whole bunch of kids, "Yeah, there's bugs galore."
"Oh, for crying out loud! Enough of the bugs, we've got learning to do!"
All of a sudden, thousands of termites dropped out of the ceiling
and swarmed at the room.
You've never seen kids run so fast! It was like a bad horror movie!
I thought the whole thing was kinda funny
until we were picking termites out of our hair.
Well, thanks to our beloved community
we now have a beautiful new science building
with brand new modern equipment.
And I work with great people
who have helped me learn the technology to renovate the way I teach.
Now I post vodcasts so the kids can review difficult concepts at home.
And we go with the kids down to the television studio
and film on a green screen for their weather reports,
and they can be real weathermen instead of using a dumb paper poster.
I have integrated labs that other teachers have shown me
that have really changed the way I teach.
I can't believe what a different it's made in my students' comprehension.
We need one another with each of our areas of expertise.
One thing I have learned in 22 years of teaching
is that you improve your students, but they also improve you.
Neither one of you is the same at the end of the year.
Who they are the first day walking in
is not who they will be on the last day walking out.
That is good news for freshmen!
(Laughter)
But what I do know is that you have to give kids an opportunity.
And one of the opportunities I give them, and I'm sure they would define it this way
is the very last test essay I have in biology.
It's called "Johnny eats a cheeseburger. Tell me everything that happens."
And the kids hear the original assignment, they all panic and freak out,
they're going to fail and there's no hope.
It's a multi-step process with digestive chemicals and enzymes
and after weeks of practising, outlines, and prewrites,
and having me grade it, they come in really solid.
In fact, the room is dead silent, they're all writing frantically.
The majority of the kids do incredibly well,
but what makes my day,
is when I have a kid who has really struggled
sometimes all semester, sometimes all year,
and they study hard, and they ace that essay.
And to see the triumph on their face when I hand it back to them.
That's why I teach. I think it's why all of us teach.
It's an opportunity to show them their untapped potential
and when they can believe that, then we have the future in our hands.
Back at high school: I had one teacher, only one, who ever said,
"You're not going to pass my class
and you're never going to be accepted into the college.
Quit wasting everyone's time."
I went home totally defeated and told my mum
who was a teacher in the same district
and she said, "Well, you have a choice.
Prove him right and go ahead and fail the class
or prove him wrong, pass the class, go on to college
and you determine what your future looks like."
Well, that was great motivation.
I used it when I took organic chemistry in college
every time I thought, ugh, I don't want to study something,
"Oh no no! I have to prove this guy wrong!"
Well, fast forward many years, and I became a teacher,
and I found out how easy it is to misjudge a student.
I had a junior in a biology class composed primarily of freshmen.
And he had a D minus.
He hadn't done his homework. He wasn't studying for tests.
He wouldn't turn his labs in. It was a mess.
And it came time to do disease reports, and he wanted to do the STD herpes.
I recommended chickenpox or dengue fever, he would have none of it.
He assured me it would be appropriate and well done.
So, eventually I relented against my better judgement.
They needed to have a visual aid on the day of their presentation.
So when he walked in for his presentation he had a paper bag.
I immediately demanded to know what was in the bag.
And he pulled out Ken and Barbie. "No. Absolutely not."
He goes, "No Miss Cochrane, you misunderstand.
I'll show all the ways Ken and Barbie can't give each other herpes.
They'll give each other a hug and share a cup of coffee.
It's going to be great."
I assured him
that if he failed this project he would fail the semester.
"One breath out of line", I said, "and you will fail. Do you understand?"
And he said, "Yeah. I got it."
So I pulled out a referral just to show him I really meant business
and laid it on my desk!
(Laughter)
I walked to the back of the room with my grading clipboard
and a couple of little freshmen went, yeah, and they were great,
and it came his turn and he said,
"This is Malibu Ken and Fornication Barbie."
"That's it, you're done."
I threw my clipboard, stormed to the front of the room.
"Fornication Barbie? You must be kidding me."
In the meantime, a kid grabbed the dictionary off my desk
and looked up the new vocabulary word he'd just heard, "Oooo, here it is!"
And all of the kids went crazy.
I grabbed that referral in a bitter rage, began to angrily fill out this kid's name
and the junior, of course, said, "What did I do?"
I said, "I won't discuss this with you. I clearly warned you. You are done."
And I continued to fill it out.
And he goes, "Miss Cochrane, I don't know what I did.
Just tell me what I did. I'll take the grade."
And I thought, "Oh don't get emotional with me.
I'm not a sissy woman. Fornication Barbie?"
And he goes, "Forna ... forna ... what?"
And I thought, "Uh-oh. Why does he look so genuinely confused?"
I said, "What was Barbie's name?"
He said, "Florida Vacation Barbie."
And I thought, "Oh, oh, oh!"
He goes, "What do you think I said?"
But before I could respond the kid with the dictionary showed him.
He goes, "Miss Cochrane!"
So I go, "I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
Well, a very long story short, he eventually started the speech again.
He did a great job. I couldn't have asked for anything more.
It encouraged him as it raised his grade.
He started studying for tests, he turned in his homework.
and he ended up with a C minus at the end of the semester.
People had misjudged my Uncle Stanley,
and here I had turned around
and expected less out of this kid than I should have, and I knew better.
Yet again, one of the most important things I've learned
in 22 years of teaching, is just like my grandma said,
"Never underestimate what a student is truly capable of
because every student has untapped potential.
Thank you.
(Applause)