<p>Jon Rombach</p>

Ive been trying my hand lately at lending a hand to teachers. Any classroom can get to be a handful, so Ive got to hand it to our teachers that handle it so well.

Amy Busch runs the outdoor education branch of Wallowa Resources and I talked her into letting me assist with some programs for students to get outside and learn stuff. Jennifer Gibbs and her 5th grade students in Wallowa, with help from other classes, are spiffing up the elementary school entrance with a garden. The students have been researching what grows good where. What the soils made up of. Drought resistance. Which plants draw what creatures. I had to rub my temples when we calculated the area and volume of the garden and had to switch three feet and 11 inches into some kind of number I could put in my calculator while the kids penciled it out the hard way. Its 3.92, by the way, according to the 5th graders paper I glanced at.

Looks to me like Mrs. Gibbs has a crop of up-and-coming engineers in her class. We set out to design a rain barrel system for collecting water to give these plants a drink and those youngsters were just gushing innovations. It was a genuine pleasure to see and hear gears turn so fast in young minds. We hardly noticed we were learning things, what with being interested and all. Thanks to the parents who sent seeds, Dave Clough and Valley Bronze for the barrels, Alder Slope Nursery for expertise, Ram Auto and Hardware in Wallowa for helping with materials. I look forward to seeing that project bloom.

Jacquie Medina, professor of Outdoor Recreation Leadership and Management, lived here in Wallowa County before her current job at Northern Michigan University. Jacquie came back to town for a workshop last week with local teachers, hosted by Wallowa Resources. For an old guy who thought he was done with new tricks, I gotta tell you this interactive learning is good stuff.

When I started this education assistant job I got on the phone with my longtime friend Darryl Coppedge. Darryl and I taught together in Taiwan, from basic English up to junior college courses. I replaced the generic textbook fodder with a Nez Perce history section in my cross-cultural studies class and that opened some of the best discussions Ive had while teaching.

Darryl has tapped into an innovation thats raising a lot of eyebrows and test scores. He studies martial arts himself and was taking his son to Taekwondo class when he looked around one day, noticed an orderly process of different skill levels teaching each other and had himself an epiphany. Boom. Enter Mathkwondo.

I used to practice Taekwondo with Wallowa County legend Dean Metcalf and can vouch for the system of higher belts helping lower belts. Darryl adapted this and other martial arts teaching techniques to 3rd grade math. Kids started training together to fight the math monsters and test scores for his class went from n-o-o-o-t so good to such drastic improvement there were questions about whether he was falsifying test results. He isnt falsifying anything. He and his students learned how to learn better. Mathkwondo has even been making the news, drawing reporters and TV crews curious to see they system in action. Teachers are also interested, so Darryl has been teaching workshops and spreading the curriculum. He told me about parent teacher conferences where parents described the change from kids who dreaded going to school at all, who now talk about math around the kitchen table and are excited to get back in class. Remarkable.

My head doesnt even swim, it treads water when I try to make sense of Common Core and the various standards teachers have to navigate. High-five the next teacher you see. Or, if you think teaching is easy, see about volunteering for the day. Ask for one of the days when teachers are working on curriculum, grading papers or getting lessons ready at home or after school, volunteering their own time.

Jon Rombach is a local columnist for the Chieftain.