{"id":18654,"date":"2010-06-17T17:44:24","date_gmt":"2010-06-18T00:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/kent-teacher-sees-state-award-thanks-his-grandmas\/"},"modified":"2016-10-22T18:45:30","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T01:45:30","slug":"kent-teacher-sees-state-award-thanks-his-grandmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/news\/kent-teacher-sees-state-award-thanks-his-grandmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Kent teacher sees state award; thanks his grandmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mill Creek Middle School<\/a> teacher J.P. Frame may have won a state award for his dedication to teaching history, but aside from his students and colleagues, there are two people to whom he feels a special sense of gratitude:<\/p>\n

His grandmothers, Sis and Dorothy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey taught me a lot about what it means to be an American,\u201d said Frame, who learned last month he was the state\u2019s Outstanding Teacher of American History Award, an honor he received through the Daughters of the American Revolution.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey had a lot to do with me turning out the way I did,\u201d he said of the two women who helped to raise him.<\/p>\n

Frame, at one point, may not have seemed like college material, given his knack for questioning authority and getting into trouble in his younger years.<\/p>\n

But through both grandmothers, who are now deceased, he learned the hard way about being responsible and owning up to his mistakes.<\/p>\n

Case in point: he was one of three boys sent home from school in fourth grade for putting rubber snakes in girls\u2019 desks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back,\u201d Frame said, of his reputation for being a troublemaker all year long.<\/p>\n

Frames\u2019 buddies got to spend their day off riding bikes and eating pizza. Frame, on the other hand, got to spend his day with Grandma Sis, who didn\u2019t put up with that kind of nonsense.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe made me write \u2018I will not disrupt class\u2019 100 times,\u201d Frame said.<\/p>\n

Grandma Sis was a lover of American history, and as the wife of a Navy serviceman, was highly patriotic. She regularly brought Frame history books she\u2019d pick up at yard sales, and took him, as a youngster, on a trip back East. Frame got to see Valley Forge (the place where George Washington and the American revolutionary soldiers spent their first, bitter winter), Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n

For Frame, those historical icons became a life experience, instead of just footnotes in a textbook.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d been there and it was real for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Grandma Dorothy, on the other hand, was a tough old sharecropper from the South, and no fan of Big Government.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe would often sit and rail about the government,\u201d Frame said. \u201cShe taught me to question authority and to debate respectfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also taught him about hard work, getting him his first job at age 11.<\/p>\n

So years later, when Frame finally did embark on that college career, it was his two grandmothers who kept him going, even when that going was difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were the reason I was there,\u201d Frame said. \u201cMany nights when I wanted to quit, I would just think of what my grandmas would say and keep on going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dorothy and Sis were foremost in Frame\u2019s mind when, as a seasoned veteran of the classroom, he stepped up to the podium last month during an awards luncheon from the DAR and spoke, before accepting his award.<\/p>\n

His speech, not surprisingly, described his grandmothers, as well as his love for introducing middle schoolers to the world of civics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to dedicate that honor to my grandmothers,\u201d Frame said of his award. \u201cThey both saw me graduate from college.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talk to Frame for a few minutes and it becomes evident what teaching history means to him. It\u2019s more than memorizing dates. It\u2019s about understanding what it means to be an American.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think civic instruction is the most important class students can take,\u201d Frame said. \u201cI agree reading and math are absolutely necessary classes. But even if you can\u2019t read or write, you still have a voice in government.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur system is only as good as the participants. With fewer and fewer people getting involved, it\u2019s getting harder for our government to do what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frame said his course is set up to emphasize civics, with historical events introduced as real-life outcomes of political-science concepts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe emphasize civics and pepper it with history throughout,\u201d Frame said. \u201cOnce kids understand the reasoning behind the Declaration of Independence, then it makes more sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ditto that for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe point is to have involved and engaged citizens,\u201d Frame said. \u201cUsually by the springtime when we wrap up the curriculum, I have students come up to me and say they understand the news, which is critical for them to be learning for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the past three years, Frame also has brought the \u201cWe The People\u201d curriculum to Mill Creek Middle School. What started out as a competition between Frame\u2019s seventh-grade classes to learn the most about the Constitution has now turned into a schoolwide contest for seventh graders.<\/p>\n

Frame was a natural to receive the DAR award, said Gayle Butcher, a member of the Lakota Chapter<\/a> of the DAR, which is the local branch of the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe swept everybody off their feet – he spoke from the heart,\u201d Butcher said, of Frame\u2019s presentation competing for the award.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith his speech, he became your brother,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was so passionate and his words were so heartfelt about teaching. He brought tears to everyone\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese students he\u2019s teaching are so lucky\u2013 he has a passion about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butcher said Frame\u2019s nomination also was an honor for the Lakota Chapter, as it was the first they had ever done. They completed a healthy amount of paperwork nominating Frame, through their regent Hilda Merryhew.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great honor, as far as our chapter is concerned, to get such an award,\u201d Butcher said.<\/p>\n

Frame, for his part, is just going to keep on teaching.<\/p>\n

Watching his students develop as citizens over each school year is an ever-fascinating process to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor at least 182 days, I had a hand in it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to learn more about We the People.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to learn more about the Lakota Chapter of the DAR.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mill Creek Middle School teacher J.P. Frame may have won a state award for his dedication to teaching history, but aside from his students and colleagues, there are two people to whom he feels a special sense of gratitude:
\nHis grandmothers, Sis and Dorothy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":18655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18654"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}