Inside the Classroom: Worthington Middle - Brian Bloss & Keeae Huggett

Inside the Classroom is a series that visits Northwest ISD campuses throughout the year and highlights the magical moments that happen between teachers and students each and every day across the entire 234 square miles of NISD.

“LET THE PIRATE SHENANIGANS BEGIN!!!” 

Those are the words displayed as sixth-grade students at Worthington Middle School enter their world culture and geography class. This isn’t breaking news though; they knew something special was happening when “Captain” Bloss and “Pirate Queen” Huggett greeted them at the door.

For this edition of Inside the Classroom, we’re visiting with Brian Bloss and Keeae Huggett, social studies teachers at Worthington Middle, on a day when they are going all out to teach their students latitude and longitude. 

At first glance, the most unique thing about this lesson will be Mr. Bloss and Ms. Huggett’s pirate-themed attire, but another distinctive feature of their classrooms is hiding in plain sight. As social studies teachers who teach the same course, they teach in neighboring classrooms that have a movable partition wall between them. 

About half way through last school year, their first time working together as teachers at the newly opened Worthington campus, Ms. Huggett and Mr. Bloss realized how similar their personalities are and how their teaching styles could benefit each other’s class. So, they had a simple solution that would change their classes for the better. Move the wall. 

Now, the movable partition is literally hidden in plain sight, behind a bookshelf, and it only comes out for STAAR testing days. It’s common for one teacher to address both classes while the other listens and adds in additional details and instructions. As students work on assignments at their tables, each teacher walks around their side of the now larger classroom and individually assists students.

“It allows us to be able to provide students with different explanations that might not be feasible in a normal class,” Mr. Bloss said. “Sometimes students on my side of the classroom will better understand an example that Ms. Huggett is giving them, or vice versa, so it helps us meet the needs of all students in our classes.”

“It also helps when we have kids that have higher needs in a particular lesson,” Ms. Huggett added. “We can have one teacher who manages the big picture while the other can work with a small group that needs more specific instruction.”

Each teacher came to Worthington from another NISD middle school when the campus first opened last year. Mr. Bloss joined the Tigers from Wilson Middle while Ms. Huggett came from Adams Middle, but they both share the same desire to commit to whatever it takes to help their students achieve their full potential, including personifying the characters of the cultures and time periods they are currently teaching.

This is where Captain Bloss and Pirate Queen Huggett come into the story. In a world where we all have cell phones equipped with GPS at our fingertips, explaining the significance of latitude and longitude to middle school students can be tough, and that is why Mr. Bloss and Ms. Huggett decided this is a perfect lesson to go the extra mile.

Also, this won’t be the only lesson in which they do so. They dress up multiple times throughout the year, but it’s always with the goal of helping their students better understand the concepts they are learning.

“We try to pick subjects that we know they may struggle with or get confused on,” Ms. Huggett said. “We try to bring real world applications to those lessons, and dressing up is just a fun way to add in an extra layer and make a connection.”

In addition to talking like pirates for large parts of the lesson, they also enlisted the help of Steve Sprowls, President of the NISD Board of Trustees, to really hammer home the real world application of latitude and longitude. Mr. Sprowls is a U.S. Air Force veteran and a current commercial airline pilot, and just like Mr. Bloss and Ms. Huggett, he’s not opposed to transforming from pilot to pirate if it will help NISD students.

Mr. Sprowls spent his entire day at Worthington and shared with every world cultures class about his experience as a pilot, the importance of latitude and longitude and how it impacts our everyday lives. 

After a brief introduction inside of their classroom, teachers brought students to the spectacular Worthington Middle library where they heard from Mr. Sprowls and completed the main portion of their in-class assignment.

After students finished their assignment, they headed back to their classroom and were able to choose from two different additional assignments that tested their latitude and longitude knowledge even more.

When the bell rang signaling the end of the period, Captain Bloss, Pirate Queen Huggett and Commodore Sprowls bid their students fair winds and eagerly awaited their next crew of first mates for a latitude and longitude expedition they would not soon forget.

Tomorrow when students return, Captain Bloss will again be Mr. Bloss and Pirate Queen Huggett will revert to Ms. Huggett, but the wall will still be hidden and the learning will still be top notch. Plus, you never know what characters will show up next week.

Check back regularly all year as we continue to visit students and teachers throughout Northwest ISD and offer a rarely seen look Inside the Classroom.