Passion.
After teaching Spanish at the same school for 36 years, Frank Watkins might reasonably be expected to lose at least a wee bit of enthusiasm for his job. Call it fatigue from familiarity.
Instead, as Mr. Watkins noted earlier this week: "When that (classroom) door closes, I get hyper-focused and psyched about the interaction I'm about to have with my students. That's never changed. It may even be more so now because I have a clue about what I'm doing."
If you want to know why the teacher that generations of McCallie students have long referred to as “Paco” was recently awarded the Hubert Smothers Award at the Tennessee Association of Independent Schools Biennial Conference, that attitude is a good place to start. Especially since the Smothers is presented to a teacher with 20 or more years of service who's had a positive impact on education beyond his or her school's community, as well as demonstrating expertise in students' needs and development, as well as their overall well-being.
Said Mr. Watkins of the moment last month when he first learned he'd been one of four teachers selected statewide to receive a Smothers: "I thought, 'Okay, this is nice. It's nice to know your work is not unnoticed.’"
Dean of Faculty and Curriculum Sumner McCallie has never failed to notice Paco's consistent grand work, which is what led him to nominate Mr. Watkins for the Sothers.
Wrote McCallie to the selection committee: “The number of alumni who return specifically to share how they use their content and skill knowledge in their daily lives gives evidence to the transformative impact this beloved teacher has had. Frank Watkins makes a difference in his students’ lives by raising them to be good men who also know his subject matter so well that they can use it to make a key difference in others’ lives.”
Details of this transformative impact?
For more than two decades, Paco, the department chair of McCallie’s World and Classical Language Department for over 25 years, has created opportunities for those in the school’s Spanish program to serve as translators at local public schools where the majority of the student population come from Spanish-speaking homes. He has allowed these parents to feel connected, supported, and valued as they work to help their kids have chances they did not.
Mr. Watkins also serves as the coordinator of a non-profit started by one of his own students, The Preface Project. He organizes the McCallie chapter, gathering high school students who set aside hours each week to help elementary school kids coming from bilingual homes to improve their reading.
Beyond that, Paco has been the central force in linking McCallie with a school in Colombia, arranging for extended travel exchanges, bringing students from vastly different cultures together to learn and grow from each other.
He’s even been known to don a cape and channel his inner Zoro - right down to writing a giant “Z” on his classroom grease board to encourage discussion while speaking Spanish.
And in attempting to frame all of this, or at least a good portion of it, McCallie wrote of Watkins: “He takes his mentoring seriously, spending time to not only show the day to day processes that can lead to more effective teaching, but also instilling a deeper purpose in younger teachers, helping them see the impact they can have that will last a student’s lifetime.”
Wes Spykerman, a senior boarder from Wayne, Pa., is taking Spanish from Mr. Watkins for a third straight year.
“There’s a respect he demands in the classroom, but he also has this ability to draw out the best in you,” Spykerman said. “He’s truly interested in who you are as a person. And his success rate in his AP Spanish classes is ridiculous. Out of 120 students, he might have two who don’t get a 5. His AP average is something like 4.9. Once you have Paco, the AP tests are a breeze.”
Senior day student and third-year Spanish student Jackson Cook is similarly impressed.
“His methods are incredibly effective,” said Cook. “Paco makes learning fun. He really challenges you.”
For those who know him best, keeping up with Mr. Watkins is the biggest challenge. His sons both McCallie grads and grown – Patton, class of 2010, is 31; Evan (‘12) is 28 – Paco and Ann now travel whenever possible. He loves anything to do with the outdoors, especially backpacking, fly fishing and cycling.
And then there’s the faculty band “The Introverts” that benefits from his guitar and vocal skills.
“It’s grassroots, organic,” saidMr. Watkins of the group that’s been around for 11 years. “It started with what we called ‘(Bob) Dylan Night.’ We’ll also play Neil Young, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, CCR (Creedence Clearwater Revival) and REM.
His personal favorites?
“Tweeter and the Monkey Man and Stuck Inside Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,” offered Watkins in listing both a Traveling Wilburys tune and a Dylan solo classic (Mobile). “And Jason Isbell and 400 Unit’s ‘Super 8.’”
It is all quite a life the 58-year-old Rhodes College grad has made for himself and his family while enriching the lives of thousands of McCallie young men.
Or as Sumner McCallie wrote of Paco’s wide-ranging teaching and mentoring skills: “In each of these areas, he has placed the boy at the center, trying to find ways to allow him to blossom as he finds his own passions and develops confidence through actual skill growth.”
In the years to come, that should be more than enough to make every McCallie student lucky enough to have Paco Watkins for Spanish feeling super-hyped and psyched to experience that interaction.