The Relationship Behind Education

March 22, 2010 • By Jeff Wade,
Print This Post
Email This Post

Frank Charles Winstead Promotes Personal Student-Teacher Connections

Teaching embodies more than a lecture. It’s a concept guest speaker Frank Charles Winstead stressed when he kicked off a weekend of events on Friday, which served as a platform to teach future educators.

Houston-based Winstead calls himself a true “Son of the South,” and the way he carries himself makes it hard to argue. With a characteristic and charismatic Southern drawl, he spoke at length and shared a collection of experiences, histories and anecdotes that ran through a spectrum of emotion for both himself and the audience of about 100.

Through the course of his nearly two-hour discussion, Winstead’s biggest focus was on Wayside Teaching, an idea he attributed to author John Lounsbury. Winstead stressed that education is more than just institutionalized learning, and advocated the need for personable and one-on-one relationships. He stated that these relationships are some of the most crucial aspects of primary school, and that the value of developing meaningful relationships with students is one of the most important things a teacher can do.

This thought was mirrored in the adornments serving as his backdrop. A self-professed pack rat, Winstead took great pride in showing his memorabilia.

The items in Winstead’s collection were far from trinkets. This “hall of fame” contained portraits and articles displaying the massive impact he and other like-minded teachers engaging in Wayside Teaching have had on student development.

His collector’s tendencies also carried over to his craft, as Winstead bounced between projected slides throughout the talk, displaying a collection of wisdom about potential teaching styles and methodology accumulated in his decades of experience.

It might have been easy to cast himself on the role of shaping and fixing students, yet he instead focused on his personal experience with his own teachers. This played out well, especially in an emotive and evocative tale about a fifth grade teacher who helped him through a difficult childhood.

Winstead’s elegance and charisma made his ensuing tangent about moral degradation stick out unintentionally.

This rally against a changing set of moral standards seemed misguided and out of place. Especially because it occurred after his exposé of the hypocrisy of pundits who wish for a return to old style of teaching via a 1950s “Life” magazine cover story. The problem for Winstead came down to a lack of perspective. Next though, was his account of his harrowing time as a youth. It was a strange moment for a speaker who rejected cynicism and defeatist tendencies so strongly.

Winstead’s talk served as the keynote to start the weekend’s Teachers of Promise Institute. The TOP Institute, now in its seventh year, serves to prime selected future educators with top quality educators before entering the workforce. A series of special panels and workshops all culminated in a gala banquet to honor the brightest of potential teachers.

Contact Jeff Wade at wadeja@jmu.edu

Filed Under Life