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Ohio's public schools serve 1.6 million children - 90 percent of students in the state! What happens in the classroom has impacts far beyond the walls of the K-12 school building or higher ed lecture hall. So, on behalf of the 115,000 members of the Ohio Education Association, we're taking a deeper dive into some of the many education issues facing our students, educators, and communities. Originally launched in 2021 as Education Matters, Public Education Matters is your source for insightful conversations with the people who shape the education landscape in Ohio. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on Public Education Matters? Email us at educationmatters@ohea.org
Ben Purdy 0:00
My dream is that someone maybe someday will find out that they were celebrated in a random classroom in Northeast Ohio, and so yeah, we we invented a holiday.
Various student voices 0:20
Public education matters. Public education matters. Public education matters.
Jeff Wensing 0:26
This is Public Education Matters, brought to you by the Ohio Education Association.
Katie Olmsted 0:37
Thanks for joining us for Public Education Matters. I'm your host, Katie Olmsted, and I'm part of the communications team for the Ohio Education Association, which means I get to help lift up the voices of the nearly 115,000 public school educators that make up the OEA all across the state. Every single one has an important story to tell. They all make a tremendous impact on their students every single day, and while they may not have statues built for them or buildings named after them, they are famous in their schools, their communities, and in their students' lives. Case in point, just listen to a few parts of what was written about a Rocky River Middle School teacher in a submission to OEA's Teacher Appreciation Week prize drawing back in May. If you talk to anyone in River, Mr. Purdy is beyond adored around town. He goes on to say he doesn't just teach; he inspires. And then there was one more part in that submission that really caught my eye. It says Mr. Purdy is a highly acclaimed history teacher. He even has his own holiday, TUFPOH, which stands for The Unfamous People of History. The kids get so excited for this, and the entire school gets pumped for it. Honestly, reading that got me really pumped too. That sounds so cool, and it turns out it is one of many ways Ben Purdy gets creative to get his students excited about learning. We had the chance to sit down with him over the summer as he was getting ready to welcome a new class of students into his classroom, which is honestly a living history museum in itself, and you can check it out in some bonus video with this episode. More on that a little later. But first, take a listen to our conversation with the unfamous inventor of the unfamous people of history holiday, an educator who, if you ask me, should be celebrated along with all of the other unfamous people remembered on that day every spring in his classroom because of the remarkable impact he is clearly making on his students.
Ben Purdy 2:58
Hi, my name is Ben Purdy. I am a social studies teacher at the middle school in Rocky River, Ohio.
Katie Olmsted 3:05
And you are the founder of a holiday that you invented for your students called the Unfamous People of History. What is that all about?
Ben Purdy 3:16
All right, so TUFPOH, as it's called, the Unfamous People of History is a holiday, and we did invent it 26 years ago. It was my first year teaching, and we were right in between a long stretch of days between President's Day and spring break. And every teacher knows March is a tough month. There are no holidays in March, and if spring break is late in April, it's going to be it's going to be a long stretch there, especially coming off of a winter in Ohio. So we we needed something to break up the days, and and so I said, well, we you know we can't. They're like, oh, let's just let's take a nap. No, let's go outside. Too cold. Let's do nothing. Nah, we're not. We we we love our subject. We love history, and so so someone said, "Well, why can't there be a holiday? And we said, "Well, you know, for every American history holiday, we don't have school that day. So if we had a you know if if we had President's Day celebration, we're not there. If we have a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration, we're not there. Even Labor Day, Memorial Day, nothing. Certainly not Independence Day. It's summer, and so someone, and it wasn't me. I don't even remember the name. Said, "What if we made up our own holiday?" And of course, there were some jeers at that, where kids said, "Well, what about you?" And they're like, no, no, no, like a real holiday that you could make up and celebrate someone. And we said, well, who do you celebrate if everyone in the textbook we already know them, they're already celebrated, and someone suggested, what if we celebrated all the unfamous people in history? And again, it came up to this. There, there was this discussion in class. They said, "Well, then, how do you know them? And the idea was, come up with the product or the invention, and then do a kind of a back research, a backstory on who invented that invention. Then we celebrate the name that we never knew, but the product that we have always used, and we're going to make a big holiday out of it. So I'll talk about the holiday in a second. But the the finding the people was the most fun. It became a research project, and it's something that we've done every year now for decades. And the kids just get so excited, knowing they they all know. Like every kid, are we doing TUFPOH this year? Yeah, we're doing TUFPOH this year, and and they would look up someone like, for example, Ruth Wakefield. You probably don't know Ruth Wakefield, but we would celebrate Ruth Wakefield, and we would talk about her, and we would put her on the board, and we would there we we dressed in certain colors and themes and different things like that. And Ruth Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie.
Katie Olmsted 6:06
Oh, my hero then!
Ben Purdy 6:07
Where would we be today without the chocolate chip cookie? But all of these inventions that they found either happened by accident or they they happen due to necessity, like the old Ben Franklin quote. So, so hers was by accident. She was making cookies, and one day she accidentally spilled. I suppose I think she was worked in desserts, and she accidentally spilled a bag of chocolate morsels into the cookie batter, and she was trying to pick them out one by one, and it was just a futile effort, and she said, "Well, the heck with this! I'm just going to bake them, and they'll be terrible". And they came out of the oven, and it changed changed dessert. And but everyone loves the cookie, but no one knows about Ruth Wakefield. So finally, on TUFPOH, she gets her day. And then there was a guy named Leo Gerstenzang, who again no one's heard of Leo Gerstenzang, right? Not not a household name, but everyone knows what a Q-tip is, and so someone came up with this the idea. Well, I'll look up the inventor of a Q-tip, and it turns out to be a fascinating story. So Q-tips, until the 1920s, were a toothpick. So they were toothpicks and cotton balls.
Katie Olmsted 7:24
I don't think you can put a Q-tip in your ear.
Ben Purdy 7:26
More than one right. And it happened on more than one occasion that that poor little baby got stuck by the toothpick because it went through the cotton ball. Oh no! And Leo Gerstenzang was probably one of those guys that was unfortunately, you know, had to to get rid of a little blood from his newborn's ear, and said, "There's got to be a better way. And he invented the Q-tip, and so now Leo Gerstenzang gets his special day. So I could go on and on, but that's the premise of TUFPOH, and it it turned out that we got to celebrate. We got to enjoy the the inventions. the The kids ended up. It really evolved over the years, where there were colors, and there was a pledge, and there was a song, and there was a because you would sing. There was a salutation.
Katie Olmsted 8:15
I need to hear the song. I need the salutation. Let's hear it!
Ben Purdy 8:18
Yeah. Yep. So it was jolly TUFPOH, because merry is taken by Christmas, happy is taken by birthday. So they had to come up with other things, and every year the class got to decide the color scheme. They would bring in snacks. They would have if they decorated their shirts in the with the name and the invention on it, or even have like people would would tape or or paper clip Q-tips all over their shirts, and you know they'd come in, and you you all knew who who that student was supporting that day, and so so it really I I don't know I think my dream now I'm I'm 29 years into my teaching career, so it it's on the way out, but my dream is that someday someone will find out. You know, I don't think Leo Gerstenzang is around anymore, as he invented this in the 1920s. But someone maybe someday will find out that they were celebrated in a random classroom in Northeast Ohio. But boy, we we did them good. They we've really enjoyed doing this over the years, and so yeah, we we invented a holiday. It it hasn't reached outside of Northeast Ohio. I've had several student teachers over the years that have taken that idea and have applied it into their classrooms. So there's more than one, but but we we do enjoy it, and it was a great way to break up that monotony of days in March.
Katie Olmsted 9:47
So is it is it one unfamous person per year, or is it all of the unfamous people, including our girl Ruth and our our our guy Leo? Yep.
Ben Purdy 9:59
Yeah. Yep, it it turned out it to be a an annual research project for the sixth. Well, it was eighth grade. Now I teach sixth grade, so it's become a sixth grade research project. And every student researches his or her own invention, and they try to get obscure as they can because the idea is we don't want any repeats. Obviously, they'll repeat year to year, but but in the actual calendar year on March 27th, which is TUFPOH, we will we all come in and and we present and celebrate our unfamous people. So that's that's how it's done. So there's if I have 30 in a class, I'll have 30 people being celebrated.
Katie Olmsted 10:43
Have you gotten some surprising, unfamous people brought up in your in your classrooms?
Ben Purdy 10:50
There are a lot of kids who are very proud of some of their family members. So there are a few people that have have done research on like a grandpa or a grandma or an aunt or an uncle that did something pretty cool, and I always like that. Or they look up, you know, my name online, and they're trying to find my family members, and like, oh, your grandpa. I know your grandpa did this. Yeah, he he actually did. And so.
Katie Olmsted 11:16
What did he do? What did your grandpa do? I have to know.
Ben Purdy 11:18
Yeah. Okay. Well, this is wild. So, my grandpa on my mom's side-it's actually my great grandfather. So, it's my grandma who just passed away a few years ago at 100. It was her father. They lived out on the east side of Cleveland and had lived there since the turn of the century, 100 years ago, and his last name-he was from Germany. His last name was Eickhoff, Theodore Eickhoff. If you look up the name Theodore Eickhoff, and it's E I C K H O F F, he is the inventor of the Tommy gun, the Thompson submachine gun. So General Thompson in World War One commissioned my great grandfather to create a multiple firing weapon that could be used in war because just you know the the single shot wasn't wasn't doing it and so he he was a genius apparently it skips a few generations but he he was a genius and and the guy and a pretty high up in in the army, and that became his work. And he and his team created the the Tommy gun on the property that my grandma lived on for the rest of her life. And sometimes we would find shells when we went and looked around, and it just had a an amazing history. He always regretted the fact that the after like the Saint Valentine's Day massacre, and when Al Capone and the other gangsters started to to use it, that that was never what it was intended for. It was a weapon of war, and and I. But we've always been proud of what he did. Without you know getting into the details of the and the specifics.
Katie Olmsted 12:52
He invented something. He he changed the course of history with an invention.
Ben Purdy 13:12
Yeah, yeah, and it wasn't all the things around that Q tip.
Katie Olmsted 13:15
Although you know that probably changed the course of history too, because like who could have been stabbed in the ear with a toothpick, who couldn't have gone on to invent whatever they invented, who's now being celebrated in your class.
Ben Purdy 13:25
There you go.
Katie Olmsted 13:26
Like the butterfly wings effect and all of that.
Ben Purdy 13:28
Yeah, that's a great point. So yeah, this has been a fun project for us over the years.
Katie Olmsted 13:34
And I mean, I'm excited about the history I'm learning right now. This has to get your students so excited.
Ben Purdy 13:40
It does any time, and I think that's the reason that I'm so excited to get back into this school year again. There's nothing like that first couple weeks of school when you get to start over again, and all those mistakes you made last year, you you get to start fresh. All the things that you didn't get to last year, you get to implement them this year, and and you get new faces that that are excited, and if you can get them early and and really inspire them, they they will they give it back to you, and and so they do get excited about this and all the things we do. There's I got some really good advice my first year of teaching from my unofficial mentor teacher. It was my first year. He was probably my age, and I was in my 23 years old. And he told me, "You are at the beginning of your career, and you can do things this year that you will do 30 years from now. Don't miss out on that opportunity to create some things that can stand the test of time in your classroom". And so that's really something that inspired me. And TUFPOH was one of those things. I have every class list I've ever had posted on my wall, so you can go back through 28 years of students' names, and it's gotten to the point now. It used to be they would look for their brothers and sisters in on my wall, but now they're finding their moms and dads on my wall, and it's that the first time that happened, it was a little weird for me. Yeah
Katie Olmsted 15:13
Yeah, feel a little old when that happens.
Ben Purdy 15:15
Yeah, for for sure. But you go back and you would you wouldn't believe how many times other teachers would come in my room and say, "Hey, what was the name of that student we had 10 years ago? I saw them at the you know downtown, and they were working at this place. I forgot their name, and I look at oh, there it is, right there. And so, like that was fun. We do lots of things with like the we apply the NCAA basketball tournament with like the Sweet 16, and we put the first 16 presidents, and then we play off against them. and And you could do that with anything. You could do that with Disney characters and who's the best Disney character. But instead of just choosing, you you put it in a in a grid like the NCAA tournament, and then you play off. And I mean, we do things like that. We do fantasy history league instead of fantasy football league. So everybody, when we do our project on Africa, we everybody drafts. Like we even have the ESPN sound in the background, and like with the first pick in the 2026 Africa draft, Roger selects and he looks over at the wall with the big map. He goes, "Cote d'Ivoire". I'm like, "All right, Cote d'Ivoire going first". And I got to be honest, usually Djibouti is the first one. You do work with middle schoolers, yeah. Yep, it is middle school after all, right? Or Chad, they love Chad. Yeah, but yeah, or if Nigeria gets picked first, then then that student, then on the day of our on on the day that we do our competition, they're researching as much as they can about Chad and about Nigeria and and about Kenya and whatever one they chose, and then they they get points much like you would get points for a touchdown or an interception or 100 yard you know day as a running back, you would get points for that too. So so we try to apply everything that makes them want to do it and get get excited about it, and then in the meantime you're also learning some things, and we we so so that's something we did early on, and and and have just continued those things. It's like it kind of runs itself now, and and it's been it's just been a wonderful career. Rocky River Schools have been incredible, and I I feel I'm just home here, and and and I've I know it's my my time is is winding down here in my career, and I I just wanted to go on forever. I'm excited about another year.
Katie Olmsted 17:46
So talking to some other veteran teachers nearing the end of their career, one of the themes that I hear kind of often is that the kids just aren't the same as they used to be. It's so hard to get them excited with those same projects we did 20 years ago, TUFPOH seems to not to fall into that same category. They seem to be really excited about
Ben Purdy 18:07
it. I would hope so. I I think that we don't give them enough credit. I think maybe in two ways. In one way, in middle school, they are way more knowledgeable, intelligent, and and they have they have really good ideas more than many would think. Every time I go anywhere and someone asks, "What do you do for a living? and I say, "Well, I teach middle school. They always say, "Oh, I'm I'm sorry, and I say, "Oh no, you wouldn't. You you. It's amazing. These kids are incredible. You have this perfect balance between this eagerness to want to. They're a sponge, and they just want to know more and more and more because they realize their limitations being 12 or 13. But at the same time, they have a lot they want to say too, and they their voice needs to be heard, and and sometimes their voice is heard, and they're talking. Want to talk about Djibouti, but other times their their voice is heard, and they have real concerns, real questions, really interesting facts or or scenarios that they want to go over as that applies to our class. And I've been very pleased. I have not seen that decline, and maybe we're lucky in this little bubble, you know, of our town. But I have been really pleased with how well how well spoken and educated that these kids are today. And I think usually we we typecast them because they their face is buried in their phone, and they want to say all the modern slang, and so and that that makes them seem simple, and and and that's not the case. You just have to you have to dig. You have to get past that surfacey area, and and I think when you project a a unit of study, and you're like, okay, read this and answer the questions at the end of the section, and then you'll have learned something. I'm going to be at my desk grading papers. Like that will never happen in our class because that's not where the learning happens. It has to happen through dialog and through storytelling and through artifacts and holding and touching the history. It has to happen through the communication between student to student and student to teacher, and and and then you get the real kid behind the phone, behind the slang, and behind the silliness. And we we've been very pleased with the future of our of this state and and this country is is going to be okay.
Katie Olmsted 20:49
The kids are all right.
Ben Purdy 20:56
The kids are all right. That's right.
Katie Olmsted 21:05
Well, do you see? I mean, that's such an important conversation to highlight about how these kids have a profound understanding of the world around them that we don't give them credit for.
Speaker 1 21:18
Right.
Katie Olmsted 21:19
Do you see that in their TUFPOH choices? Do they surprise you with the things that they say? I wonder who did that. Why?
Ben Purdy 21:26
It does. They they do stay away. At the beginning, it was all you know: the garbage bag, the pop can top, the the the plastic bottle, or whatever the the Q-tip and the chocolate chip cookie.
Katie Olmsted 21:42
Yeah, I still want to know those. Yeah.
Ben Purdy 21:44
Oh yeah, and and they're great, but but they also realize that if if that's if that's all there was and and there wasn't a really good story behind it, they want to go to the next level, and so I I have seen that. And and at first, when they're you'd say, "Yeah, I have a research project for you" and they go, "Uh", and then you tell them what it is. They forgot that it was a research project. That most of them, you know, obviously we didn't have Chromebooks when I started my career, but now, as the second I start talking about it, every Chromebook already starts opening. I have to say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, because they're they can't wait to to look that up. Now remember, this is that generation that loves research. Now they generally research Instagram and you know and and TikTok and they're but they're looking they want to see they want the depth they want more and so they they are the research generation. We just have to kind of point them in the direction that we want them to research, and they they have found some incredible things over the years that that really get the class talking.
Katie Olmsted 22:52
Any examples?
Ben Purdy 22:55
A lot of technology. Technology is probably the one that that I couldn't think of anything off the top of my head, but you obviously have the computer and other, you know, the video camera. Now, a lot of kids did know they they do understand that you're not allowed to bring names like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell.
Katie Olmsted 23:15
If I've heard of them, they're too famous, right?
Ben Purdy 23:17
Yeah, right. They're too famous. They get there. They they're they're living. You know, they had their their time, so they sometimes they'll they'll bring names that are famous, and I'm like, okay, let's try. How about like a parallel one? You know, okay, you did the video camera. Can you think of something else that would have been recording people in a certain way that would, or a lens that did this, or you know, we know the name Kodak. Although anymore, a lot of kids probably don't know the name Kodak, and that'll be another circular thing that will that kids will come in. There's a guy is you know his last name's Kodak, and I'm like, oh, I know, and they're and not not a single kid in the in the room would know, but yeah, they they do want to get they they started off getting simple inventions and now they want the more complex ones. And the way this has really inspired them is they thought you know you don't have to be in honors to be able to invent something. You don't have to be someone who's going to an Ivy League school to make an impact. I I guess I could do this. What if we did that? And so we kind of piggyback TUFPOH with our Shark Tank unit for economics, and then they get.
Katie Olmsted 24:33
I want to be in your class so bad.
Ben Purdy 24:36
Thank you. Come on, you can come to Rocky River anytime you want. Yeah. So that's what we'll do. We'll we'll we'll do it with Shark Tank, and then they create their own inventions. And sometimes they'll even create it in a model themselves and and bring it in. Other times, it's that's not possible. But they've done that over the years too. So it really has branched out and has become probably something that when I retire. That will be one of the things that I was known for was TUFPOH, and it just started out as a day in March in 2000 when some kids said, "I'm tired. It's March. I don't want to learn today". And we said, "Well, let's change it up a little bit". And you know, 30 years later, here we are.
Katie Olmsted 25:20
And not that far from now. Instead of talking about what your grandfather invented, they're going to be celebrating on TUFPOH Day, Mr. Ben Purdy, who invented TUFPOH.
Ben Purdy 25:31
The inventor of TUFPOH. I'll I'll take it.
Katie Olmsted 25:35
Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us, and thanks for getting students excited about history and learning and and being the next generation of inventors and leaders and all of the things that start right there in your classroom.
Ben Purdy 25:49
Thank you, Katie, and thank you to the OEA too for everything you guys do and every way you support us as teachers.
Katie Olmsted 25:58
Now, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that Mr. Purdy's classroom in Rocky River is really a history museum in its own right, and there are some incredible things in there that his students can see and touch and connect with, so they can be inspired and excited and ready to learn in his classroom and beyond. It is really hard to show all of that in an audio-only podcast, obviously, but we have some of the highlights in a bonus video for you to check out if you'd like to. Just go to the show notes for this episode to find the link. And while you're there, subscribe to Public Education Matters wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode in the future. New episodes drop every Thursday this season as we continue our conversations with the people who are shaping the public education landscape in our state, and writing themselves and their students into the history books of tomorrow, because in Ohio, public education matters.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai