A teacher of history to Russellville junior high and high school students said as he starts his seventh year that he’s never had a bad day. Is he: (A) Delirious; or (B) A regional finalist for Arkansas Teacher of the Year?
The answer is B for Brandon Cooper.
“It’s one of those things where every once in a while I look around and say, ‘Is this actually happening? Is this real?’ It’s not something you think about.”
He was “very pleasantly surprised” to win the high school honor. “That was a very humbling experience. … From there, it’s just gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. It was a total shock to get the District of the Year position. This next step as a regional finalist, I’m kind of dumbfounded. It’s really kind of surreal.”
He was not one of the four finalists named at the recognition event Thursday at the state Capitol in Little Rock.
“It was a great experience, though,” he said.
It is surprising that Cooper, 37, was one of the 15 regional finalists for Arkansas Teacher of the Year, given his track record in school.
“I took a very nontraditional route” to becoming a teacher, he said. “That was not on my radar when I finished high school here. My initial plan coming out of school was to go to dental school and work with my grandfather, Dr. Doffie Jarvis, until he retired and take over his practice. That was a pie in the sky.”
Despite being a good student in high school, “I was not prepared for that college setting. I didn’t do well in classes; I shuffled around,” Cooper said. “I dropped out for a while, went back, didn’t have a good plan and dropped out again.”
When he started back to Arkansas Tech University in Russellville the third time, he knew he had to finish, “or it’s over for me.”
It really was just beginning.
“I always had an interest in two things, history and science,” he said. Cooper said he worked as a pharmacy technician for about 10 years while he buckled down and got his degree in history and education. “That turned out to be a good experience for me because I got a lot of knowledge, got to meet a lot of people.” His wife is a pharmacist, and he “flirted with” the idea of going to pharmacy school before deciding to become a teacher, he said.
“I have to give the majority of the credit of going that direction to my wife. She saw something in me that said this field would be something I could do well in and make a difference in and have a positive impact on young people.”
They have four teenage daughters, so Cooper knows more than a little bit about the patience needed to deal with adolescent hormones.
“By nature, I’m a very laid-back person, which has come in handy with four daughters and all that comes along with that,” he said. “It transfers well to the classroom; it really does.”
His first job after graduating from Arkansas Tech University in 2008 was in the Russellville School District, where he is starting his seventh year. He has taught geography, but the past five years, he has primarily taught world history and Advanced Placement world history to students in grades 10-12.
He had no illusions that the subject matter is compelling to his students.
“I would say 90-plus percent of my students have zero interest in the subject matter; it’s just not on their radar,” he said.
Zero interest until they get in his class, maybe, but his
goal is to awaken something within them.
“That’s the challenge I take, is to try to take all this important stuff but make it relevant to what’s going on now so they see it’s important,” he said. “They can not be interested in the material and get a lot out of it, but they need to be interested in coming to my class … and what I’m doing.” Cooper said teaching history isn’t about memorization. “The whole names and dates and that kind of thing is not important — we’ve got Google. We look at things from a real thematic sense in that we’re looking at social issues and political issues and economic issues, but how can we connect those from hundreds of years ago to today?”
He said his classroom buzzes with discussions.
“I try to create a very student-centered classroom. They’re the ones that are getting involved in the material — writing about it, talking about it. Everything for me revolves around the students,” Cooper said.
“My first objective is to build strong, positive relationships with my students. The old saying is, ‘They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.’ I kind of use that as a guiding philosophy. I know a lot of teachers do that to varying degrees, but really, that’s where it all starts for me. I want to make sure every student feels valued in my classroom, that they are worth something, that if nobody else does, that I’m going to give a darn about them. They know pretty early on that I’m going to accept them for who they are, no matter what their history is. I give them all a blank slate.”
Cooper also gets involved with student organizations and co-sponsors the Outdoor Club, People Encouraging Active Change and Exchange, or the PEACE Club, and the Quiz Bowl. He coaches the Quiz Bowl with Paul Gray, chairman of the social sciences and humanities department at Russellville High School.
Gray, the 2008 Arkansas Teacher of the Year, is also one of Cooper’s former teachers. He said Cooper was a student of his in honors world geography.
“He was a good student, and he has this wonderful temperament and still does,” Gray said. “He just kind of lets things come to him, but at the same time, he’s a really hard worker.”
Gray said he nominated Cooper for the school honor because he has “all the right stuff.”
“He has all the intangibles of a great teacher — caring, respectful and reflective,” Gray said. However, Gray said he and Sheila Jacobs, Russellville High School’s principal, had to talk Cooper into applying. “He was very reticent; he did not want to do it. He just didn’t think that was what he needed to do. I said, ‘Well, think about it.’ I would not have been surprised if he had not turned it in.”
Cooper said he’s not in teaching for winning awards, although he’s happy about his honor.
“It’s very cool,” Cooper said.
Some people have asked if he wants to go into administration, but Cooper said he is happy where he is.
“My place is in that classroom; that’s the place I feel l can have the biggest impact on my students,” he said.
“There are a lot of other things I could be doing and certainly making more money, … but I wouldn’t get the completely fulfilling sense that I get from what I do now and waking up every day and not dreading going to work — that’s a great feeling. You know there’s going to be a lot of positive energy between you and the students. I absolutely would not trade it for anything. “
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.