Dec. 19, 2024
From Immigrant Roots to Educational Advocate
Keith Haber shares his compelling journey from Connecticut to Georgia, illustrating his transformation from a second-career educator to a prominent figure in Henry County. Discover how his upbringing as the son of immigrants ignited a passion for education and a mission to ensure all students have access to high-quality learning experiences. He discusses the challenges and triumphs of supporting teachers with diverse needs, aiming to create an inclusive environment where every student can succeed regardless of their background.
00:00 - Spotlight on Success in Education
05:16 - Emphasizing Critical Thinking in Education
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This podcast spotlight for success is our way of highlighting the incredible success stories happening and education right here in our home state of Georgia.
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Today, we're thrilled to be joined by Keith Haber, who has made a significant impact in the field of social studies education.
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We'll explore his journeys, insights and the positive changes he's creating for students and teachers.
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So let's get started.
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Keith, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what your current role is?
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Okay.
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So first of all, thank you for having me here today.
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It's a pleasure.
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I'm happy that you said significant impact.
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I'm not sure if I'd say that, but I actually started my education journey in Connecticut.
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It was a second career for me, so I went to graduate school, got my degree, got my teaching certificate and then, after living in Connecticut for a number of years, decided to move to Georgia to be close to the family, worked in Gwinnett County as a teacher leader at two different high schools, both Title I, for about nine years and then, after being told by a number of assistants and principals that I should probably look at something in the administration area, I'd become a department chair for social studies.
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I'd been an AP coordinator it's advanced placement coordinator at the high school.
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Finally, I bit the bullet and said you know what, let me go ahead and do that and look at it.
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So I looked for a few years, became an assistant principal in Fayette County and about four years ago moved to Henry County where I'm now the coordinator for Humanities, Social Studies and Advanced Learning.
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And a lot of it's been just this desire, this push to sort of do the best I can to provide opportunities for students.
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I grew up the son of an immigrant.
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My mom was from Italy, and my stepfather, my dad, died when I was very young, my stepfather didn't attend college.
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He actually didn't even graduate high school.
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My mom only has a high school diploma.
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So for me I was very lucky because I had teachers who kind of noticed that I was good at school or that I should probably think about college and when I decided to go to college I went to a college that didn't have a teaching program.
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and
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So I ended up going back to school because I realized I had gotten lucky and I felt that I wanted to give back.
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And so as a teacher, that kind of always compelled me to try to do a little bit more volunteer for different committees, for different organizational things, and of course, after a while kept getting pushed, pushed, pushed to do more.
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And I enjoy the fact that I'm able to have an effect on multiple students' lives, hopefully in a positive way.
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And I enjoy the fact that I'm able to have an effect on multiple students' lives, hopefully in a positive way, and hopefully kind of reduce that chance of kids having to get lucky to have a high quality education.
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That is absolutely wonderful.
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Let me ask you, what are some of the like?
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Do you have a key milestone moment or something, an aha moment that your students had had in the past that you're like, wow, that was amazing, really appreciated that.
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Right.
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I think the biggest thing for me when I was in the classroom was recognizing that it wasn't the content or information the students were going to kind of grasp onto the most.
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They remember a lot of the odd things, but it's the students contacting me afterwards through Facebook, through some of social media and I'm not a huge user of social media, but I'm on there and letting me know that it was those thinking skills and that my belief in them being successful made a big difference.
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I tell people all the time I wish I had some magic formula, that I had done something special with my pedagogical practices and I'm not to say that those aren't strong, but it wasn't the pedagogy as much as it was also the relationship building I had with students and getting them to be convinced that they are deserving of a high quality education and to sort of embrace that and work extra hard at that and then helping them with those thinking skills, study skills, time management, but also just that critical thinking piece, evaluating multiple sources, being able to sort of do the things they need to do to be highly functioning citizens and that's what a lot of them come back and tell me about like Oh Mr.
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Haber i saw this thing on the news and made me think about something you had mentioned.
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So I went and did some additional research and found out that what they were saying wasn't really exactly what may have happened, and I'm looking at different sources and it's that thinking process.
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That was kind of an aha and I've taken that with me ever since.
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Oh, that is wonderful, Keith.
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Let me ask you, what else have you been able to glean in your role?
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Now you're Curriculum Coordinator for Humanities and Social Studies in Henry County role.
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Do you have a special moment from there as well?
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um, I think the biggest thing is just that the the balance.
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We have teachers who some of them are not first-time program completers they're, you know, brand new to the field and finding that try to balance and knowing that each of them has different needs.
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So it's that sort of the 10,000 foot view.
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But then also thinking about how do you personalize for the individual teacher, because some of them are very experienced, they have content, knowledge, but they may need some pedagogical assistance.
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Some of them are great with pedagogy but they may not have that content and some of them have neither.
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And kind of finding that right balance and finding the right mixture of how to gain some of that formative data from them to figure out what to do.
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So I think that's one thing I've taken is just trying to always be mindful of what it is that the teachers need.
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And then the sort of separation the things I do affect the teachers, affects the school leadership, affects coaches in the building and ultimately provides opportunities for students.
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But it's not a direct connection, so very different than being in a school setting where I could, you know, have an idea on a Monday with a team of people by Tuesday we're planning that more.
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By Friday we may be implementing, or the following week, and then seeing the implementation in action.
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Now it's the.
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There's a lot of planning, there's still those meetings, but it takes a lot longer.
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And then, more importantly, I don't make, may not see, the end result until months and months later, when we finally start getting data, for instance, of the number of students and how well they've done on an assessment or on the EOC or the EOG, or even for the advanced learning, how many students have completed an AP exam or an AP course.
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Okay, makes good sense there.
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So now, if you're here at GCSS, what are your key takeaways, or what are the key things you're learning or the things that you want to impart while you're?
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here.
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I think for the sessions I've seen it's a lot of the cognitive engagement piece, that shift away from the stage on the stage.
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You know, for much of our history we as educators have been sort of the holders of knowledge, and over my career and maybe I'm fortunate that I've had a teaching career in the time that I have I've seen that shift anyway, where you can Google anything, you can look up anything, there's books aplenty, there's written words all over the place and there's things you can find online and some of it's not accurate and some of it's phenomenal.
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And that for us it's not so much giving students the information, but it's more how do they decipher that information, how do they make sense of it?
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How do they understand what an economist thinks like, or the psychologist thinks like, or a sociologist or even a historian?
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How do they do that craft and those thinking skills?
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That's the biggest thing I've taken away thus far.
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And then just that relationship piece.
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I was at a luncheon earlier and a person said or it was Randall Trammell said every student is going to be a citizen.
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And that's that relationship piece knowing that what we do is so vitally important, that's the application of the foundational skills.
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Literacy for us is not about just getting the main idea.
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It's about understanding the context, the subtext, what it is that was going on historically when something was written or something was produced whether it's a painting or a photograph, whether it's an etching and understanding that aspect of it becomes vitally important because students are so used to just whatever I've heard.
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That must be true, and I'm taking information versus the real thinking process, process which is can I really make sense of what I'm taking in and interpreting?
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You know, I tell students all the time, I tell others.
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No one's hired me because of all the stuff I know and I know.
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I've gone to a lot of college, I have a very expensive brain, apparently.
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But it's not the information, it's my ability to problem solve to make sense of things, yes, to do things that are based on critical thinking, and that's what social studies teaches.
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That's why I drew me to it when I was in school, when I became a social studies teacher.
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It's what I love about the discipline is it's such a varied way to think about the world around you, and I take that a lot from GCSS is that's what we should be emphasizing a lot, so that students are prepared.
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That is wonderful.
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Is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience about anything related with what you do?
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Really.
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Just the biggest thing is just how important it is that social studies is for the life of students and just for the world in general and especially for our nation.
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You know there's a lot that's going on and it's important for students to be able to make sense of that and for people to make sense of that, and you see it a lot of times in some of the ways that people think and come to conclusions.
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Yes.
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And you know a lot of it, I think, is because, unfortunately, we have not given the same level of heft to social studies, thinking and social studies that we need to.
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So I would just say just, you know, for social studies teachers, stay the course, focus on those thinking skills In Georgia it's the information processing skills, mapping globe skills and to focus on, you know, getting students to really take on that cognitive demand and, if you're not a social studies teacher, to appreciate the social studies teachers around you, because they are applying the things that we learn in some of those other courses, like you know, literacy and in writing, and you know that's vitally important for us to have a thriving society.
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That is wonderful, Keith.
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Well, thank you so much for being part of this and part of GCSS and part of ABC's Spotlight for Success, and we really appreciate having you on and we wish you the best in your in your instructional career and hope it goes very well.
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Okay, thank you.
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Thank you very much you.
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