We sit down with our 2022-23 Teacher of the Year, James Gambone. He tells us how he happened upon a MAJOR shift in careers as he was wrapping up college. And he tells us that yes, you CAN go home again.
We sit down with our 2022-23 Teacher of the Year, James Gambone. He tells us how he happened upon a MAJOR shift in careers as he was wrapping up college. And he tells us that yes, you CAN go home again.
A funny thing happened on the way to being a jurist. We'll let our Teacher of the Year explain. This is Focused on Flagler Schools and I'm Jason Wheeler, Community Information Specialist with Flagler Schools and want to share the achievements and challenges facing our students, teachers and staff right here in Flagler County, Florida. So let's dive right in. We are sitting in James Gambone's classroom here at Flagler-Palm Coast High School. He is our Teacher of the Year. A 1990 graduate of FPC. Jim, first off, congratulations on becoming the Teacher of the Year for Flagler County.
James Gambone:Thank you very much.
Jason Wheeler:What brought you to Flagler County and Flagler Schools...back in the day.
James Gambone:Alright, so when I was nine years old, I moved here from Ohio. My mom was selling real estate for ITT, and she was selling lots in in Florida and they'd always had a Sheraton that you'd have to ride a boat over to go to the beach. And we came on vacation. I remember sitting on the beach and like hey, would you guys like to live here? And like Yeah, cuz you know, it's snowing up in Ohio at the time. I'm from Cleveland. And so we moved here. My mom was a realtor here. And my dad an electrician so he got an electrical job here and and then I started started but no elementary school because it was only Bunnell Elementary and FPC at the time, FPC was seven through 12. And then the year I was in fourth grade, the very next year Buddy Taylor Middle School was Belle Terre Middle School at the time. They that was their first year. So I was the first class of grades five through eight. So we went five through eight there and then then went to FPC in ninth grade. So I've been here a long time.
Jason Wheeler:You've seen a lot over the years. It's changed a Island Walk. lot.
James Gambone:I moved here. There wasn't even a stoplight. Yeah, Island Walk. So it was like the there Wow. And there was there was one gas station no convenience stores. Benvenuto's Pizza was the place to go if you want to was a post office said it's the only way to get your mail. And I food. And you had to like go to the post office at where the Publix is on Island.... Something on the worked for Benvenuto's at a time he said it was great, because everybody had to walk right by the pizza place. And they all buy pizza, you know, and it was like, but that was like a thing here and everybody knew everybody. It was totally different.
Jason Wheeler:Wow. Your journey into a teaching career? Not exactly textbook. How did you get here?
James Gambone:Oh, so I originally there was a bunch of times I changed my major bu, I was going to school for criminal justice as a minor in Political Science as a major, I was looking to go to law school after I went to University in North Florida. And I was almost done. And I took a Minorities in Crime class. And in the first day of class, the professor said, you're going to have to go work five hours a week, at an inner city school at West Jacksonville Elementary. And at first I was like, I gotta drive all that way and five hours. And that's not even my class time, I still had to go to class and all that. And I was like, dreading it. But then once I started, it was like eye opening. First, I loved helping the kids. It was like, you know, because it was like, I would tutor two different kids in math and reading. And then I was shocked at like, how how little they knew compared to like, when I grew up, you know, so I was like, Okay, so, you know, for me, I was like, everything's perfect. I grew up in Palm Coast, you know, and then I'm like, going, Wow, it's a totally different environment. I'm like, I want to help these kids out. And so I went and got it, I changed my major to Elementary Ed, because I thought I'd be an elementary school teacher.
Jason Wheeler:I'm sure your folks enjoyed that, oh,
James Gambone:I put myself through college. So it didn't matter. It was it was like, and I didn't have any loans out at the time. But then when I changed my major, I took out a little bit of loans. And but it was at a time unlike now where I could get a job and pay as I go. Where now it's about impossible to do that because tuitions gone up so much. No, so I changed my major to Elementary Ed and I was like, I'm gonna be an elementary school teacher. And then, so I did all that did all the coursework. And then my internship, I realized how, how difficult is to be in elementary. I was like, good, gosh, these people work. So so I assumed Elementary Ed and I was like, wow, this is really, you know, it's a little bit tougher than what I thought I was like, because the kids they don't listen very well. And so you know, and I was like, I don't know, I kind of need older kids. And so I I found out that with my elementary ed degree, I could teach sixth grade middle schools and coach football, they have a middle school football there and as I always love football, so that's how I got started in teaching middle school in Jacksonville.
Jason Wheeler:Going back a couple of weeks when your name was called out as district Teacher of the Year, what went through your head?
James Gambone:Shock. I never thought I'd win District Teacher of the Year. I was like there's so many great teachers here. I mean, even on our building, you know, I was like just so many great to have like, Why me, you know, I'm like I just come here and do my job. So I was like, Yeah, I was I was pretty surprised. I didn't think I'd win. I didn't think I'd be Teacher of the Year in this in the school, let alone the whole county. So it was pretty shocking.
Jason Wheeler:I read the story. And so, but he got a letter mail sent on this after you won. What do you do to celebrate? You went out to eat with a family? You partied? And what did you do?
James Gambone:Well, um a little secret. One of the reasons I think that I'm a really good teacher and my grades, my scores are so good on tests because I, you know, kids I teach do really well compared to the other kids like I'm on test is I tutor four nights a week. So I do the online tutoring, through Flagler County Schools. And I tutor every night from eight to 10. And I do not like to miss because the kids count on it so much. And this was a Thursday, and we had a test the next day on Friday. So I told the kids in school I said, I said I'm going to be doing my my Teacher of the Year thing, but I will be on tutoring. So if it's past eight o'clock, wait for me, I'll be on and so and then when I won, I was like, Oh crap, I'm going to miss some tutoring. And so so I ended up getting on at 8:30. So I went home straight home and tutored from like 830 to 1030. Just so they get the kids ready for the thing.
Jason Wheeler:Because you're thinking I'll be out there, they'll be interviewing the Teacher of the Year. And I'll be back doing my tutoring.
James Gambone: I was like 5:30 to 7:30 I'll be on my way back by eight but just in case when and I had a bunch of kids got on they were really excited for me. So yeah, I went home rushed, changed because you know, I'm videoing I won't be sitting in a suit for two hours. So I rushed home and changed and I jumped on the tutor and got started tutoring
Jason Wheeler:Your students reaction the next day, here in class? I know you we handed out capes because there's a superhero theme. And and I saw a picture of you with the cape on, still teaching?
James Gambone:Yeah.
Jason Wheeler:What was the reaction of these kids here?
James Gambone:They they really were happy for me. I mean, I, I would say, you know, a lot of kids were like, you know, said well deserved and things like that. And I was like, thank you very much. But it was, it was nice. I mean, I'm not a attention getter. So like wearing the cape, I did it because I told someone I would. I was like, you know, because I'm not one I don't post a lot of social media. I don't I don't put a lot of stuff out there. I just kind of like just want to do my job and do the best I can. And that's it, you know, so like, for me, I was like, but I did wear the cape, I was pretty happy about it. So I did wear that.
Jason Wheeler:It was a great moment. You teach a lot of students who may or may not have been told sometimes often that they can't do the work and some may have even begun believing that. How do you reach these kids?
James Gambone:It's great question. I actually talked about that with kids in my first and second block a couple about a week ago, because they're new to us, because we get new kids in January. And I'm big time on self fulfilling prophecies. And I talk about, I use personal experiences like like, first of all, I let the kids know, on day one, I make mistakes. And I say tell me if I make a mistake. I mean, let me know I I'm not get offended. I mean, we're human. You know, I mean, I don't act like you know, I've seen some teachers that are like, they get upset. Like if a kid corrects them on something that they made a mistake on, or they make a mistake. I'm like is I will make mistakes. Because I want them to know in my classroom, it's okay to make mistakes. It's not okay to not try. But it's okay to make mistakes. How you learn? Yeah. And I was like, I tell if you already knew all this stuff. Why would you be in here? You know, so yes, you're going to do things wrong and make mistakes. So I tell them about when I was in geometry, you know, like for me, I I had a rough time in 10th grade geometry here at FPC and in math always came easy for me. But for some reason, geometry was difficult. I think a lot of it was my fault. Because I don't know why I always tried not to sleep anything in class, but for some reason. I think it was because after lunch and I'd play basketball during lunch, I'd have a hard time staying awake in class. And so my first nine weeks, I got a D in geometry. And for me that was like no, because I just show up and get in a math class. So I was like, no, no this is crazy. So I tried really hard. And I brought my grade up to a C, which was horrible for myself, you know, so I was like, I always felt like I couldn't do geometry. And so I tell them this story. So when I got my job at FPC, Larry Hutnsinger was the principal. And it was a full block schedule. And it was algebra, which I was always really good at. And he said when the interview is like so in January, you're gonna teach geometry classes, is that okay, I was like, yeah, no problem. But in my mind, I was like, oh, no, I don't know geometry. And so I am like, I'm sweating. So in around Thanksgiving, I'm like, I better open up the book and start learning this stuff. So I open the book, and I'm like, I can't do it. I can't do it. I'm like, Who am I going to talk to him? New Teacher and fire county here. And I'm going to start saying, I don't know, geometry. I'm like, I can't do that. And it's not it was before the internet was around where I could just watch YouTube videos. So I was going, what do I do? So then I then I thought about a psychology class I had, and I shut the book and open up a week later and I sit and I remember self fulfilling prophecies where you can convince yourself of things. And I said, Wait a minute, you got an A in calculus, you got A in trigonometry. You got an A in trig, and you can't do high school geometry for real? So I opened up the book again with a totally different mindset. And everything was easy. Yeah. And then So I tell them this story because I want them to realize, you're going to be told you can't do something. But if you start believing that you won't be able to do it, but if you let go, No, it's only numbers and letters, it's not that big a deal. And if I just listen and do the practice, I can do it. It totally changes the way kids thinks. And kids have told me years later that that made a big difference with them.
Jason Wheeler:Talk a little bit about what you do beyond the eight to four day or seven to seven to four day you've been a coach and a tutor been a mentor?
James Gambone:Detention.
Jason Wheeler:Where does this passion come from?
James Gambone:Um, well, I I've always, I swear, I have ADHD, I never sit down. I don't even have a desk in my classroom. I don't ever sit and I have a lot of energy. So I was just go from one thing to another, you know, so I just go right from school, when school was over, just go coach. And at one time I was coaching football, basketball and flag football. So it was like, and they overlap. So it was like one sport right to the other. And as soon as summer hit, I do Driver's Ed. And then I do summer school. So I have about two weeks off in the summer, which to me was a lot, you know, because it was like, you know, a week off and Thanksgiving, two weeks and Christmas. And that two weeks in the summer. I was like, that's, that's enough for me. You know, I mean, because, you know, part of it, I wanted to make extra money, you know, but the the coaching was really, it's not for money, because you don't make much coaching. But um, I just I just love the competition. And you know, getting to know the kids becuase you get you get to know kids on a totally different level right coach, or teach him in the summer, you know, because it's a lot more laid back in the summer. Like, if I'm doing driver's ed, and we're riding around for two hours in a car, you can have conversations that are not math, you know, so you can find out different things, you know, and, you know, and help them in different ways than is opposed in a math class.
Jason Wheeler:When you graduated from FPC. Way back then, did you in your wildest dreams think you'd be walking through these doors again? 10, some 10 years later, as a teacher?
James Gambone:No, I mean, my original hope and I was to be an NFL broadcaster, but I was like, I know, but I'm going well, you know, the only way is to play in the NFL or be super lucky. You know, I was like so I know, it's like that was like a pipe dream. And so no, I was like, my original thing was, you know, get get a degree in law, you know, be a lawyer. And then you know, from there, you know, do whatever. But when I became a teacher, I wasn't planning on coming back to Flagler because I was in Jacksonville. When I became a teacher, it just some things happened. And it made me back in Flagler, which worked out good because I love this school.
Jason Wheeler:The last couple years, and we talked a little bit out about this before we went on the air here, the last couple of years have not been easy for anyone, not only in education, but practically every aspect of, of life, in our county, in our state in our country in the world. What motivates you to get up and keep doing the things you do, despite all these challenges we've seen the last couple of years.
James Gambone:Well, I mean, life must go on, you know, I mean, so I mean, yeah, I've always felt like I've been that way. I mean, yeah, you're gonna have hurdles, things are gonna happen. But you can't just quit. You know, you just you just got to do it, you know. So, like, it was kind of, I'm kind of at an advantage because I've been doing online tutoring for over I think like 10 years, I've I don't know exactly how many years. So when we switched over to online, it was easy for me, right? Like I wasn't intimidated by a microphone, I wasn't intimidated by being on video, it was it was pretty simple is like, Okay, I'm gonna use same platform I used before. It's just seamless transition for me, and a lot of my students, because this at this time, I was getting almost about half my students were getting on tutoring anyway. So they already knew how to get on tutoring. So it wasn't as bad for me as it was for other people. Other people had had a rough time with it, because it's not easy for some people to be on camera. And you know, and then to know that everybody in the rooms on all these houses are going to be listening to you. You know, and and some people don't want people in their room. I am I'd love parents to come in my room and say like, come sit, I don't care. You know, I mean, you know, because because when I'm, you know, when I'm tutoring, they're all listening to me. And I've had parents email me go and thanking me like, I went to some math lesson. Because, you know, they can hear me when I'm talking on the thing. So for me, it wasn't that part wasn't bad. The hard part was the stress that the kids were feeling. Yeah, you know, and that that's the only thing. I didn't feel the stress for me, I felt it for them, you know, because it was stressful. And there, there is a big difference now for these kids. And I do feel bad about that. Because they're, they're behind in where they were before the pandemic, you know, because of the online school isn't the same for them.
Jason Wheeler:Because you can't take them aside and say, Hey, let's go what's going on? No, it's no and then distance is huge.
James Gambone:Yeah. And there's there's so many times in, in my career that I've I've seen some kids and they just weren't looking right. And I was like, Hey, what's wrong and they can tell you you know, but here you're just on a camera with 25 other kids you can't really get that right you know, and you can't where you gonna pull them into you know, I mean, you're not you're not you know, I'm not gonna broadcast the news, everybody You know, but it just made me think of something to be one of my proudest things that I accomplished as a teacher, and might not be a big deal to many people. But like, I remember, like my second year of teaching here, my, my mother in law died from lung cancer. And I had to miss some school. And I talked to the students about that. And, you know, and I talk to him about, you know, yeah, about the effects of smoking, everything like that, and how my children lost their grandmother, you know, before they even got to know and all that stuff. And two girls came up to me at the end of the class and said, I quit smoking because of that. And I was like, that was a big deal to me. And I was bigger than a Matthew, you know, math, like, you know, cuz I told him, you know, cuz I said, you know, this, you know, this is what happened. And, you know, and I didn't tell him what to do. I'm just saying, I just told the class, you know, and, and it was nice to hear that, you know, that I was able to help him other ways besides math.
Jason Wheeler:Cause and effect. For those not familiar with the process, our Teacher of the Year must they must fill out an application, you did that. There's a lot of numbers, a lot of data you have to record. It's similar to the application you've got to do now for the State Teacher of the Year, right. When putting this together, how easy is it to forget that these data points are kids that kids are with outside influence in their lives? That may not be able to be captured in a spreadsheet or run on something like this?
James Gambone:Yeah, some of the stuff you can't measure? If that was your question, like, you can't really, you can't measure the, the things like that, all you can measure is did they pass a test? You know, it's like, okay, did they pass this test? And I don't know, the numbers. I never really, questions. I never really cared about the data, to be honest with you. I just said, I'm gonna do the best of my abilities to get these kids to learn what they need to learn. And the data will take care of itself. Like, I don't, I don't let it drive me. Like, I don't go okay. Um, let me look at the data and see what was going on. Like, I know, I gotta teach where I'm supposed to teach. And then if they, if they do what they're supposed to do, they're gonna most likely pass this test, you know, your class. Yeah, I know, my class, you know, so I'm not gonna, I love. What I do love about the data is when I tell a kid, they passed the EOC, after they failed it like six times, and they're like, they're finally know, they're gonna graduate. That's, that's huge data. Yeah. You know, that's a big deal. You know, but as far as like, looking at the data, like separated, I'm like, I never been a big data person like that. I think, you know, am I doing what I can do everything in my power to get these kids that graduate? And that's what's the most important is to me.
Jason Wheeler:Alright, you've done good so far. We have two questions left, is what I asked the same, the same two questions of everybody. First one is what makes you sad?
James Gambone:Well, right now, is there's a lot I mean, like, when when you talk to kids, and you hear about some of their home lives, that they go through. And, I mean, it's, it's, there's a lot going, especially now, I mean, because in Palm Coast, the real estate market is out of control. You know, so you got a lot of homelessness and things like that, where schools not even on the top five of their priority list. You know, and it's sad, because, you know, sad, it has to be that way, in a country like ours, that we have people homeless right now, you know, there's nothing they can do about it. I mean, they even say a lot of people are, like, two paychecks away from being homeless. I mean, it's just, it is the way it is. I mean, you know, when you look at how much a place to rent is in, in Palm Coast, I mean, it's 1200...$1,500 went to places like, that's a lot of money. You know, so some kids, they suffer from, you know, they don't have enough money in their, in their household, do, they, you know, be able to not have to worry about those things. And then so that, because that takes a front, you know, stepped as opposed to algebra, you know, then that said, you know, that they have to go through that. I, I've been lucky, I didn't have to go through that, you know, and that's pure luck. I mean, you know, just just luck, you know, but, you know, you have a health health scare, something happens with your health, you could be there in a second. And that that's what makes me the most sad when things like that.
Jason Wheeler:Other side of things, what makes you happy.
James Gambone:Ummm...the happiest is when I I can see a kid's...that'swhy I like teaching, like kids that then aren't like, um, you know, 1500 SAT. I like when I'm when I see a kid that never was good at math or felt like they were never good at math. Never liked math. And now they like math. And they realize that they are good at math, and you can see it in their face, you know, and they start, they get it they get excited in class. Like I have a noisy classroom. Like if you walked in my classroom, it's usually I'm, I want it to be noisy. Some classes are just quiet, but I want it to be noisy, but it's got to be the right noise. Like I want them yelling out answers to me and yell and question me if I do something wrong, or if I do it, right. And if they question me, I'm like, Nope, I got it right. You know, I mean, but like, but I want to have that dialogue, you know where they can talk to me and not be afraid to say something, you know, and And it just the happiest I get is when I can see it in their face that they're they're. Like, you know, now they understand. I get it. I am good at math. And you know, and I'm a much better student and I think it goes a long way in the other classes as well. Because I think confidence so much like I tell kids like, like, great basketball players. Are they great basketball player? Are they cocky? Because they're great basketball players? Or is their cockiness? What makes them great? You know, because like, my wife would tell me guys play a lot of basketball when I was younger, not anymore when I was younger, but my wife would tell me, she's like, and I shoot a lot of three point shots. And she'd say, like, I knew before you shot the ball, when you're gonna make it just by looking at your face. And like, if I saw the confidence in your face, you'd make it and I could tell when you weren't gonna, and I start thinking about like, Yes, pretty much true. And I would have my mindset is, yeah, I'm gonna make that shot. It's easy, you know? So, I try to get that in the math world. You know, if you're confident in your abilities in math, you're gonna do a whole lot better than if you're like going, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this.
Jason Wheeler:James Gambone, Teacher of the Year for Flagler Schools, you're on a pretty good hot streak right now. Keep on shooting threes, my friend.
James Gambone:All right, thank you very much.
Jason Wheeler:Thank you. And we want to thank you for listening to Focused on Flagler Schools, a production of the Flagler County School District. New episodes are released every other Thursday. If you like what you hear, subscribe, and check out Flagler Schools at www.flaglerschools.com or on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we're there at Flagler Schools. Thanks for listening. And remember, let's keep Focused on Flagler Schools.