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gia. He attended his first GCSS conference in 1991, and since that time has participated in 25-30 of these meetings. The GCSS annual conferences provide dozens of workshops focused on strategies and resources for teaching history, political science, economics, government and geography — the gamut of the social studies content. It also offers a way for hundreds of social studies instructors from across Georgia to network and share information.
Parker served as a member of the GCSS’s Board of Trustees from 2005-2011, which afforded opportunities for participation in the group’s leadership structure. “This allowed me to go to national social studies conferences and meet with social studies teachers from around the country.” He also served as GCSS president from 2007 until 2008.
The award that Parker recently received was especially meaningful for him because he actually knew the late Gwen Hutcheson for whom the award was named. “She was a renowned social studies teacher in metro Atlanta and was instrumental in forming the organization.” The award is presented annually to one middle school and one high school instructor.
Winning the award will offer Parker opportunities for further professional development. He avowed, “There is so much room every day to get better. No matter how long you have been teaching, if you are not moving forward, you are not only standing still, you are moving backward. So, I push myself. I am keen on picking up new strategies.”
Recently, he tried out ideas gleaned from a CGSS conference in his Government and U.S. History classes. The Government students were assigned the project of creating a welcome poster for new arrivals to America who had attained U.S. citizenship. The posters were to focus on the naturalization process, rights and responsibilities of citizens, and the meanings of observances such as Labor Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Juneteeth. The posters were to also include references to American symbols with which every American needs to be familiar. “It was a great creative project for them. They were given parameters but had a lot of flexibility in their interpretation.”
The U.S. History students were each assigned a decade, from the 1760s to the1980s. “They were expected to determine the four most important events that happened in that decade, justify their decisions, and discuss a fifth item that did not make the top four list and why it did not make the list,” Parker explained. His objective was to start a dialogue that not only called on students to explore the decade, but to state and defend their perspective on this decade. He noted, “A lot of people think that history is ‘let’s memorize who did what when,’ but it is a much richer story than that,” he said.
The perspective of today’s high school students is much different from that of their parents or grandparents. “How they receive news is different,” he said, noting that more information is accessible more immediately, “but social media has its share of pitfalls. It is increasingly difficult for young people to sort out what is accurate.”
That is why it is essential that students learn how to work out problems for themselves. “It’s not my job to teach students what to think, but how to think, to build their skills to interpret,” Parker explained, noting he tries to bring in multiple perspectives because “in many cases, history has been somewhat one-sided.” He noted that in understanding history, it is important to understand the collective story beyond a list of factoids, “the challenges, struggles, flaws, and the process. History is messy. It is not a nice, clean slate of events in perfect order. How we collectively deal with those messy edges is what shapes us.”
He said, “I try to steer students toward the idea that we need to know where we have been in order to know where we are now and how to plan for future. If we don’t know how we got to present, how can we understand this process?” He added, “It is not only about preparing the next generation to have skills to analyze and interpret, but to build empathy and character and be engaged — not to sit by and do nothing.”
Parker sponsors the high school BETA club, a service organization founded on the four pillars of achievement, service, leadership and character. He said, “I try to stress community involvement and service. We can sit back and ignore and complain about community issues, or address them.”
Parker hopes he has communicated his passion for the subjects he teaches to his students. He likes to bring in his own real life experiences to make his lessons come alive. When he was teaching students about the Civil Rights movement, he referenced his talk with famous Civil Rights leader Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. He also tells his students about meeting and talking with former President Jimmy Carter. He takes his students on field trips to places like Plains, Carter’s hometown, and to Andersonville, the site of a Civil War prison. “I want the students to see these places and think of the real people who shaped our society. I want them to see battlefields and feel a connection with people who sacrificed to bring about change.”
Parker believes every student has the potential to learn. “I firmly believe that instructors have to have to have high expectations of students and the rigor to support them along the way. I do push my students. I hope they recognize the passion that I and others have to see them succeed. The reward is seeing that spark in their eyes, when they relate. Those are the success stories that count,” he reflected.
A native of Athens, Parker grew up there and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UGA. He has spent his entire teaching career in a community he had never heard of before he received a phone call after he graduated in the summer of 1993. He got recruitment call from the curriculum director in Wheeler County, and laughs when he recalls his that initial reaction was, “Where?” He visited the community and it was a kind of love at first sight. “I know in history we talk about turning points. I don’t think anybody would have believed when I hung up the phone after that conversation that I would spend the next three decades plus teaching in Wheeler County,” he recalled.
The sense of family within the school and community and the small school setting he discovered in Wheeler County appealed to him. “A small school gives you opportunities you might not have in a big school. You can’t get lost in the crowd or fall under the radar. We look out for each other. In a large school the students may not even know the people they graduate with.”
Bill Black was first principal with whom Parker worked in Wheeler County. In the last 30 years, he has worked for five principals and many superintendents. He has always taught Social Studies and although he is eligible, has never retired to come back as a “49%’er,” or part-time, as many instructors do under the Teachers Retirement System. He is adamant that he is just not ready to go; there is more to do and he sees his role as a full-time commitment.
He gets regular affirmation that he has had an impact on students he has taught. From time to time, Parker runs into his former students at places like a gas station or grocery store, and he sometimes struggles to connect a face with a name because he has taught so many students in 30 years and because the students have grown up and changed; but the students always recognize him. “I see they are glad to see me, and I am hopeful I have had some kind of positive impact in their lives.” It’s like seeing the light bulb go on in the classroom when students grasp an idea; those are the moments of affirmation.
