2006.12.18: December 18, 2006: Headlines: COS - Honduras: Secondary Education: The Brownsville Herald: Honduras RPCV Jack Tegarden pushes students to excel - and they do
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2006.12.18: December 18, 2006: Headlines: COS - Honduras: Secondary Education: The Brownsville Herald: Honduras RPCV Jack Tegarden pushes students to excel - and they do
Honduras RPCV Jack Tegarden pushes students to excel - and they do
Tegarden believes that the success his students have had has as much to do with the demands he places on them as it does his ability to sell them on his class. He pushes his classes to the brink, and then pushes them a little further. The class rules are simple; be on time and do your best work. His students learn how to draw up the plans for buildings and other complex projects, but they first have to learn the basics. Tegarden was named Hanna Teacher of the Year in 1996-1997 and Texas State Teacher of the Year in 1998-1999, but he deflects any praise bestowed on him to his students.
Honduras RPCV Jack Tegarden pushes students to excel - and they do
Championship atmosphere: Hanna teacher pushes students to excel ? and they do
Dec 18, 2006
The Brownsville Herald, Texas
Dec. 18--Champions surround Jack Tegarden. His classroom is a virtual shrine to state and national champions.
Students, who under his guidance have reached the top of Skills USA, a national organization dedicated to creating a skilled work force, for their architectural and technical drafting performance.
"They're really good kids," Tegarden said recently, looking around the room. "They believe they can win and they win."
He teaches technical drafting and architectural drafting for trade and industry. Most of his kids go on to college, according to Tegarden, and some of those have gone to the best universities in the nation, including Rice and Harvard.
But that might never have happened if not for a little bad luck, and perfect timing.
A Brownsville native, Tegarden earned a bachelor's degree from the former Texas A&I in Kingsville and a master's from what was then Corpus Christi State University.
A couple of years out of graduate school he joined the Peace Corps and headed for Honduras where he was asked to instruct teachers how to develop their programs.
At the end of his yearlong stint he got typhoid and malaria at the same time, putting him back where he started.
"When I left Brownsville I was never coming back to this pee dunky town," Tegarden said with a smile. "Once you taste the muddy water of the Rio Grande you will always return."
While on the mend, Tegarden ran into a former teacher of his who informed him, as luck would have it, that Hanna High School was looking for a teacher, and wouldn't he consider applying.
He did, he got the job, and he's been at the school ever since.
Fast forward nearly 30 years and he stands in the middle of his classroom, hunched over a student's architectural draft, full of red marks he's made.
"I'm looking for certain things on this assignment, and the student did most of those things right, so that's why he got a 90 percent," Tegarden said. "But, I point out the other errors too. Eventually they pick up on it and stop making those same errors. It keeps them from getting discouraged so quickly."
From time to time he's even helped some of his students pay the fee for joining Skills USA. It's a nominal fee, but not all students have the extra cash.
"I'll let them work it off," he said. "It's better than if you just give it to them. And, once they get invested they tend to work a little harder."
Tegarden believes that the success his students have had has as much to do with the demands he places on them as it does his ability to sell them on his class.
He pushes his classes to the brink, and then pushes them a little further. The class rules are simple; be on time and do your best work.
His students learn how to draw up the plans for buildings and other complex projects, but they first have to learn the basics.
Tegarden was named Hanna Teacher of the Year in 1996-1997 and Texas State Teacher of the Year in 1998-1999, but he deflects any praise bestowed on him to his students.
He enjoys helping students work through the complications of the trade, and he revels in their successes.
"I want them at a higher level than if they took a technical course at one of the colleges," he said. "I treat it like a job. If they were out in the industry this is what they'd be doing."
anelsen@brownsvilleherald.com
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: December, 2006; Peace Corps Honduras; Directory of Honduras RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Honduras RPCVs; Secondary Education; Texas
When this story was posted in March 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: The Brownsville Herald
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Honduras; Secondary Education
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