Cathy Bishop captures the title BHS Sweetheart

Business teacher Cathy Bishop has effectively earned the adoration of teachers and students at Bartlett High School. Her business-style classes have become the favorite of many students. As the founder of the school’s bookstore, sponsor of DECA, and also a full-time business teacher, Bishop has a hand in many students’ lives. Because her classes have stolen the hearts of many at Bartlett, she takes the title of BHS Sweetheart this month.

“I love Mrs. Bishop’s class, it’s so much more interesting than some of the other classes I’ve taken at Bartlett,” said senior Parker Bryan.

A thriving and lively teacher at school, Bishop also has a rewarding home life. She has a sweetheart of her own, husband of 33 years named Tom. He supported her as she went through school to become a teacher, and her friends jokingly call him “the perfect man.” Her son Justin deserves the thanks for inspiring her to leave her job of thirteen years in sales and marketing to become a teacher. She knew the day he started kindergarten she wanted to be able to be home when he was, so she went back to school to earn a master’s degree in education.

When Bishop is done with school work and DECA, she enjoys gardening, and Saturday night trivia games with friends. She also enjoys music of all varieties, her small dog Betty White, and shopping, even though her favorite shopping buddy, her daughter Caroline, has gone off to college.

From the outside, a life balancing so many tasks and responsibilities can seem stressful, but Bishop loves what she does. As the teacher to dream up the idea of a school bookstore her previous knowledge of sales and marketing showed through. Though Bishop began in marketing some years ago, she was inspired to become a teacher when her son Justin began school. She has even admitted to trying to persuade some of her students to become teachers, but many prefer marketing careers.

“I’m always trying to talk my students into teaching someday, but many of them go into marketing careers.  Maybe someday they will come around!” said Bishop.

DECA has become more than a club at school for Bishop; not only does she run the organization at Bartlett High but she is also the district coordinator. She feels that DECA has become as much a part of her job as teaching is. She also insisted that it wasn’t a club but a co-curricular student organization with a demanding amount of attention needed. Even though she can’t tell which way is up sometimes, Bishop loves what she does.

“Mrs. Bishop is an amazing teacher, and person. She has taught me so much in class and in DECA,” said senior Elizabeth Reed.

Bishop loves building relationships with her students and giving them opportunities to lead, and has captured the hearts of students and teachers alike.

Teachers get the blame

No Child Left Behind, an act passed in 2001 by the Bush Administration, was supposed to be a cure-all; it would ensure that no child would get stuck in a failing school, and that no school would inhibit them from reaching their goals. Who knew this act would lead to an entire school of teachers and administrators getting fired in Rhode Island, and to countless cases of teachers being blamed for the failures of students?

Bartlett is no exception to this trend. Some administrators and teachers have seen a passing of the buck in recent times.

“What I’ve noticed over the course of many years is the gradual shift from shared accountability, ‘shared’ meaning the teacher, the

student, and the parent accountability . . . to exclusive accountability being on the teachers,” said Jane Gatewood, Vice Principal.

NCLB did do some good, however, by implementing annual testing for grades 3-8 and yearly objectives to help a child reach proficiency by grade 12. The act also gives states the flexibility to use certain strategies to meet their needs for their students to achieve more. In return, local education agencies have to show that their teachers are helping their students make progress. However, what if the students are dead set against being taught?

Teachers are there to support children as they make their way through their 12 years of education. They are put in place to bring out the best in their students and to work with them to reach their full potential. However, the old adage about leading a horse to water applies here: Some students just don’t want to drink, won’t be persuaded to drink, and flat out refuse to listen to any encouragement to drink what teachers make available to them.

Teachers are often blamed for their students’ lack of progress and low test scores. An entire school of administrators and teachers were fired in Rhode Island largely due to such issues.

“Students are free to choose to learn or not to learn,” said Paula McCalla, English teacher.

Sure, some teachers simply do not do the job. But often teachers who actively try to engage their students receive the same blame for low scores or even low grades. Many teachers have complained about parents jumping down their throats for their child’s low grades or low test scores, when in fact it is the student’s lack of effort that is to blame.

A teacher’s objective is never to make life hard, or to fail a student; they are there to push students harder and help them become more successful. This leads to the question of who is to blame.

Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education states that it is well-documented and practically common sense that parental involvement in a child’s education enhances student learning, and behavior.

“Parents will always be a child’s first and most important teacher,” said Duncan.

Students, parents, and teachers should be able to work together for the good of the student, and should be in contact if the student is struggling and do what they can to help.

Parents have a simple job: Just stay in the loop by contacting a teacher of the student, or even contacting a guidance counselor when concerns arise. Teachers have to keep the parents updated on the student’s grades, and they accomplish this by updating PowerSchool, sending interim reports home, and reporting grades on report cards. If parents are even remotely interested in their child’s progress, they have many ways to keep up with it.

Students have to remember to stay engaged, even if it is early in the morning. Students should push themselves to achieve more as well. They should realize that teachers are there to push them to do better and better, they’re not there to make life harder. Their goal is for a student to become more successful and reach new heights.

Teachers can suggest to parents through emails, or through a conference ways to help their student get a leg up in class; like helping them study for a test, help them do a bit of homework, or ask them what they’re struggling with and see if they can help.

Through this contact, the student and parent can come up with a good way to solve this problem.

Leave the blame game for the playground, and let’s reach higher together.

Lawyers don’t get trophies, but Phillips does

Nationally certified English teacher Caroline Phillips never wanted to be a teacher. Ever.

But that’s what she did.

The daughter of a teacher and a professor, Phillips grew up in Austin, Texas. For a while, Phillips was unsure of what she wanted to do for her career. All she knew was that, because of her familial background in education, she definitely did not want to teach.

“So many people in my family did it, I never, ever wanted to do it,” Phillips said.

After graduating high school in 1967, Phillips attended California State University at Northridge, where she studied rhetoric, the art of debate. Afterwards, she attended and graduated from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

However, instead of becoming a lawyer after graduation, Phillips took a position at an all-girls Catholic school.

“Lawyers don’t get trophies,” Phillips said. “I was a debater and [my partner and I] got trophies all the time. [Being a lawyer] just didn’t seem like it would be very interesting.”

Phillips’ coaching job at the Catholic school in Los Angeles, however, had nothing to do with sports.

“[The school] hired me to coach the debate team,” Phillips said. “In those days we didn’t have very many woman debaters, so I thought it would be a challenge to go to this all-girls school and turn the students into vicious debaters.”

Shortly after her employment, Phillips found herself enjoying the atmosphere at the school and decided to teach.

“To stay on and make more money, I had to teach more stuff,” Phillips said. “And [the school] wanted all their teachers to have California certification, and they paid for me to do that.”

In the 1980s, Phillips returned to Texas for three or four years to be with her parents. At this time she developed an interest in journalism.

After a second stay in California from 1985 to 1998, Phillips relocated to Chicago, Illinois, and opened an interior design business called Phillips Group, which she ran from 1998 to 2004.

“I have no background in interior design,” Phillips said, “but it was just something that I wanted to do.”

Not long after closing the business, Phillips thought of returning to California. However, when she discovered that she would not be able to get her old job back for the same salary, she decided to stay in Illinois as a teacher. Two years later she moved to Tennessee and has been with Bartlett ever since.

“I moved to Tennessee because of my husband’s job,” Phillips said. “I got interviewed and hired at Bartlett on the same day.”

Here, Phillips teaches junior and senior English and sponsors the Panther Parade yearbook staff. Her students attest both to Phillips’ can-do attitude and to her ability to coax grade A work from her students.

“She practically lets us learn at our own pace,” senior Kiara Johnson, one of Phillips’ English students, said. “We’re doing ‘Macbeth’ now. She explains scenes in words we know so we can understand it.”

Senior yearbook staff member Meghan Hawkins agrees.

“She’s very on-task, and she knows what she wants,” Hawkins said. “She’s like a mother, but she’s also got the teacher attitude. She takes care of us, but she also expects great things from us in return.”

Phillips expects greatness not only from her students, but also from herself. Recently, Phillips received National Teacher Certification.

“National Teacher Certification is the highest designation a teacher can get,” Phillips said.

To qualify, Phillips had to compile a portfolio almost 300 pages in length, analyze the progress made in two of her students’ work, and record two videos of herself teaching one large group and one small group of students.

“I can’t tell you which classes I picked for liability reasons,” Phillips said. “But I can tell you that they were very enthusiastic about helping me and getting recorded.”

In addition to national certification, Phillips also has state certifications in Texas, California, Illinois, and Tennessee.

With a degree from law school and experience in interior design, journalism, and debate, Phillips could probably do just about anything she chose. However, she ultimately decided to teach at Bartlett and “fell in love” with the school. How lucky are we?