Membership, Membership, Membership

by Jim Cope

Scribbles 'n Bits, March 2006

Before I begin my first column as president, I would like to thank Alan Perry for his exemplary service as GCTE President for the last four years.  Alan will be a hard act to follow, but I’m encouraged that he will continue to serve on the executive board as conference coordinator.  This means that we will not lose his wisdom and insights.  That makes my job seem a lot less daunting. Thanks Alan.

As president, I have one major mission: increase our membership.  Obviously, I’m preaching to the choir here, but I’m going to continue with the sermon because I need your help.  If you visit “GCTE: A Photo History” on our website (www.gcte.net), you’ll find a stunning statistic.  For the academic year 1966-67, our membership was 779.  Forty years later, we have approximately 1000 members. When you consider how many more English/Language Arts teachers we have now, this modest increase in membership is depressing. It’s my goal to improve this situation, and that is where I need your help.  I know many of you, to no avail, put GCTE Membership Forms in your colleagues’ mailboxes every year.  I’m going to ask you to keep doing that. In addition, I’m going to ask you to try a few other things.  T hings that won’t take too much of your time. 

For example, the next time you hear a colleague lamenting that there isn’t enough money in the school budget for an in-class library, class sets of a particular book, art supplies, computer software, or anything else that would help students learn, tell her about GCTE Teacher Mini-grants.  Grants are awarded in amounts of $50.00 to $500.00 for innovative classroom-based projects that demonstrate potential for improvement in the English curriculum/ classroom. Grants can be used to buy classroom supplies and/or software, to attend a workshop or take a college/ university course, to finance a student field trip, etc.  When you get through telling her about the grants, hand her a membership form.

The next time a colleague talks about the difficulty in finding audiences for students’ writing, take him to the GCTE website and show him the information on GCTE’s Student Writing Awards Contest and NCTE’s Promising Young Writers’ Contest.  When you get through sharing the information, hand him a membership form.

The next time a colleague asks you for good online resources for a unit on American, British, or World literature or for the best sites for information on Shakespeare, take her to the GCTE website and click on the “Teacher Resources” link.  After the two of you have explored all of the excellent resources on that page, hand her a membership form.

The next time a colleague seems discouraged about teaching and wonders if there is a way to get back the passion he once had, tell him about the last GCTE conference you attended and about all of the excited, passionate teachers you met there.  Take him to the website and show him the information about next year’s GCTE conference and other conferences being held in the state.  Encourage him to break out of his rut by attending a good conference, then hand him a membership form.

The next time a student teacher in your department complains about the financial burden of student teaching, tell her about GCTE’s W. Geiger Ellis Student Teaching Scholarship.  Explain that the scholarship awards $1000 to an outstanding student teacher every year and take her to the website so that she can download the application materials. Then, hand her a membership form.

Finally, if you have an outstanding colleague who has taught year-after-year at a high level, nominate him for the GCTE Teacher of the Year Award.  Too seldom do good teachers receive the recognition they deserve.  After you tell him that you’ve nominated him, hand him a membership form.  I’m betting that, like you, he’s already a member, but hand him a form anyway.  Maybe he’ll hand it to another colleague. That’s how movements get started.