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Believing in Students: The Power to Make a Difference
December 26, 2012 | Dr. Richard Curwin
After a morning Discipline With Dignity training, the high school principal and I walked to the cafeteria to eat lunch. He said, "I love your session, but it's not practical." I responded with my view that it was practical because it works -- but it’s just not easy.
He pointed to a girl sitting alone at a table and said, "Do you think it would work with her?” She looked like she was a character from the Mad Max movies. She had just been released from federal prison. Her look was extreme (maybe not so much today) with spiked orange and purple hair, tattoos, all black makeup including black lipstick and black rouge, and severe body piercings. The principal looked at me and said, "So what would you do?" I asked back, "What about you? How do you handle her?" He said that he would draw a line and tell her she'd better not cross it. I responded, "What if she says, 'I’ll kill you?' Which one of you will be more afraid, her because she crossed the line you drew, or you because she threatened you with death?" The truth is that if she's been to prison, nothing that can be done in a school would frighten her. Detention? Calling her mother?
So he again asked what I would do. I said, "Talk to her." And he invited me to go over and try it right then. So I did. Dressed in my three-piece suit, I sat down at her table. She looked at me for a minute and said, "Who the f**k are you, a***ole?" I was a little stunned and didn't have time to read a book or check my notes. So I relied on two strategies I had just taught the teachers in my morning session: meet the real needs of students and use challenge instead of threat.
I said, "I'm someone writing a book on teenage violence, and I think you know better about it than me. If you have the courage to tell the truth and answer one question (challenge), I'll put your name in my book (need to be noticed)." She asked what the question was, so I replied, "Are there any teachers who you listen to, follow directions, show respect and learn from?" She said she had one like that, and I asked her what made that teacher different from the others.
Her answer is one that I will never forget and has been one of the constants in my work ever since. It's a movie scene that replays over and over in my mind. Right before my eyes, her answer transformed her from a tough, hardened criminal to a frightened little girl.
Because she's stupid. She thinks I can get a job someday, that I may even be able to go to college, or be a good mother because I know all the things not to do.
Then she started crying. The tears streaked down her black make-up and made her look like a zebra with black drops falling on her white top.
I ain't going to college and I ain't getting a job. I'll never be a mother. I'm a dead girl. In prison when they write your name on the wall, you die, and my name is there. I know I'm going back. But that teacher believes in me, and man, it really, really matters.
Later I put her name, Roxanne, in my book and tried to find her to give her a copy, but nobody knew where she was or how to find her.
Sometime later, I traveled the country doing trainings. I asked administrators if I could meet with about ten of their most troubled students. I did this for grades K-12, in urban, rural and all economic areas. I did it on two Indian reservations. I asked two questions: "Who is your favorite teacher and why?" I expected most to say they had no teacher who was a favorite. But they all did. Among the top reasons was, "They believe in me."
Five Ways to Reach Out
Believing in students is not simply telling them that you believe in them. These words matter only if they are true and if you demonstrate them by your actions. There is no way to fake it, because kids have built in crap detectors (a phrase taken from Neil Postman, and Charles Weingartner, in Teaching As a Subversive Activity), and they can tell if you don't mean it. Here are some ways to express it.
1. Stop Using Rewards
Rewards are not needed if you believe in a student. The reward implies to them that they only way you can get them to do something is to pay them. That is the opposite of believing.
2. Encourage Effort More Than Achievement
Not every child can meet the unrealistic goals of a test-mad curriculum. Every child can try to do his or her best. Ironically, the harder students are encouraged to try, the better they do on our crazy high-stakes testing.
3. Give Second, Third and Fourth Chances
In many states, the law says, "Three strikes and you're out." In most schools, the most troubled kids get only one strike. The message is, "Be the way we want or we don't want you." School is for all children and mistakes are part of the learning process, not just for academics, but also for behavior. Rather than strike them out, teach them the skills they need to overcome their deficiencies.
4. Don't Say "You Failed" - Say "You Haven’t Done It Yet"
Encourage hope by letting students know that, no matter what they do, they can still do better. Safety always comes first in a school environment, of course. Sometimes safety concerns override points 3 and 4, but not as often as we think.
5. Increase Opportunities to Learn
The children who need recess the most are the first ones to lose it. Being removed from field trips, the cafeteria, library and all other learning opportunities only makes students less able to handle them in the future. No one would say to a basketball player, "You missed too many foul shots. You can’t practice until you get better." It is time to stop giving more opportunities to those who have already proven they are successful while denying opportunities to those who need them the most.
If we can start reaching kids like Roxanne sooner rather than later, who knows how many lives could change?
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Comments (21)
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Faced with
Faced with challenges..
Student's today are faced with more challenges than when our grandparents were children. Society is more vulnerable and access to means of doing the wrong thing are readily available. We as educators should want to come up with the times to reach out to student's. This does not mean that we compromise the main principle for teaching and educating. We have to utilize all resources to keep students engaged in learning and in getting them to value their own self worth. Going to school for our grandparents or great grandparents was an honor. Many students know that many great leaders of the past had a limited education and were successful. With that in mind, some students feel they can make it without having twelve years of education and beyond. So taking the notion that we as educators only need to cater to the students that can comprehend the lesson easily and want to learn is closing the door on those that are struggling to learn.
I tend to agree that we as
I tend to agree that we as educators need to do more to reach students. I have found that taking the time out to speak with students on a one on one can make a huge difference in what is happening in that students life. Yes, we as parents should be more actively involved in our children's lives. However, with the demands that are placed on many parents at their jobs, they are unable to give more of themselves to their children's education, which is sad. Yet, as educator's we should want to reach the student that seems to be unreachable. Our jobs are to develop, educate and we have to always keep in mind that all students are able to learn.
Agreed!
Having someone believe that you are able to succeed, matters in so many ways..
Absolutely!
Absolutely!
This is not a quick fix!
This article inculcates the idea educators must meet the student where he or she is currently, then teach- which is what we SHOULD be doing. I think we as a society do not see our students as 'whole people', but rather an assembly line. Teaching and learning is a process, not a checklist. We are charged with developing our students, but we are failing, especially as parents of these kids and who are the first in line to be charged with this huge responsibility. As an educator in a public school system, the challenge is not the student, but uninvolved and unmotivated parents- there is no excuse because these are our kids.
The Bigotry of Lowered Expectations?
I am in this profession to improve the lives of children as well. However, I wish to dispel the notion that educational policy in America doesn't have to comport to only serve the needs of underachieving urban students. There are millions of kids out in the cities, suburbs, and rural areas who are achieving and getting along very well with the models contributors to this blog routinely impugn. Why should they be ignored simply because they are able to prosper?
I'll again reiterate an ugly reality of the American political scene that few wish to acknowledge ... dependent underclasses exist because certain politicians need them to remain in power. Intact family units, the core of any strong society, have been allowed to disintegrate because so-called "progressive" social policies have made it easy to do so. Irresponsibility is encouraged.
If you want to save children, save families first. Restore mother AND father head of households. Then you wouldn't need to have teachers play parents all day.
I don't need research to back that up. I see it play out every single day.
The posts I write are
The posts I write are hopefully entertaining and helpful to educators, but my real motivation to write is to shed a light that will eventually make an improvement in the lives of children. That has been the theme of my life's work. I encourage and welcome all feedback and discussion, even disagreement, because that is how we all learn. Ideas need to be shared, challenged and examined through the lens of what is best for children. What is not welcome or acceptable, in my view, is name calling, assumptions made about contributors or anything that is unprofessional. I really enjoy Edutopia for the professionalism in its members. So let's put all ideas on the table and leave insulting and personal remarks to faculty rooms where they seem to flourish.
Thank you
Seriously....?
This is not the America that my forefathers fought and died for. That's not the America my relatives risked their lives to escape to during times of war, either.Your approach only weakens and softens the minds and bodies of youth, invariably killing the spirit that made America, its citizens, and its culture, exceptional.
Mr. Hauck- your comments do not surprise me at all. Such comments are not supported by current research nor my own experiences in the classroom w/o walls. I just read a good book called Stratosphere by Michael Fullan which addresses several principles related to creating an environment in which creativity and innovation can take place. Fullen addresses Teesa Amabile's and Steven Kramer's idea called the "Progress Principle." The foundation of this principle is that creating an environment which fosters joy in learning through engagement and creative work. "Workers who produced more were intrinsically motivated when small progress was reported and not extrinsically motivated by recognitions or reward systems."
Like Dr. Curwin, I'm not here to convince you of my choice in instructional pedagogy. Using ineffective methods based on OLD education models doesn't work for me personally. If they work for you GREAT!
Your comment on how your education model "Made America" is a matter of perspective. Indigenous peoples have a different perspective related to the government educational system which was imposed on them, denied them of their history, and culture. I could share more details on the impact Native American Boarding Schools sponsored by the U.S Government but that would ruin the purpose of this discussion.
I chose to use a pedagogy that values the culture, heritage, and practices of my students. Imposing Western models of education and ineffective business strategies from the 1960's would dishonor the history of my students, be irresponsible, and ineffective. Sure there was progress as a result of these models but progress for WHO?
My students do well in balancing the needs of the modern world with the responsibility they have to their community. This is what I love teaching population of students who have been historically oppressed by the models you shared with us. Don't teach a student about plants, teach them how to grow the plants so they can feed themselves. They take pride in this learning because it is purposeful and challenging work that supports creativity and innovation. There is no need to "bait" them with paper that contains the faces of dead presidents; they will learn when they find the experience to be an extension of themselves.
Well done, Mario, you've done
Well done, Mario, you've done an excellent job at summarizing the trendy nouveau philosophy of the Daniel Pinks and the Seth Godins of the world. I'm still puzzled over why people continue to bow at the altar of those pop culture hucksters, who have never taught in K-12 classrooms. I believe if people are going to publish critiques about K-12 education, they should be at least licensed, formally educated, or extensively experienced in teaching at the K-12 level.
You, like Dr. Curwin, obviously prefer the egalitarian approach to education that, to this practitioner, favors the "dumbing down" of regular education curricula by lowering the bar for under-achievers so they appear to be on a equitable plane with those who possess superior skills. Egalitarians in my view reason like immature children. They don't want to be told what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. They do not show enough respect for authority or those who have lived longer and have acquired more life knowledge. They believe they should exist on the same plane as their elders despite not having paid their dues.
"Paying your dues" was an over-riding principle growing up in an immigrant working class world that embraced and overcame harsh realities without so-called "progressive" socio/economic engineering.
You want to stand with your elders and be respected? Earn it! Prove to them that you can!
Apparently, the same egalitarian approach is being applied to behavior management in schools. Let's punish those who respond to rewards, because it doesn't work for ALL students, despite the reality that we live in a rewards based society where inequities exist and will continue to exist, no matter how much progressive social engineering is attempted.
Hierarchies, rules, regulations, and structure are what most human beings need and best respond to. Without them, there is anarchy. We do not (or can not) live in fantasy egalitarian constructs devised by members of academe. They sound good in the university classroom but that's where it ends.
Remember, Mario, that the 1960s model that you deride worked very well in America when it was the undisputed number one world superpower. Now so-called "progressives" are doing everything they can to degrade American exceptionalism using the same "dumbed down" approach mentioned previously.
This is not the America that my forefathers fought and died for. That's not the America my relatives risked their lives to escape to during times of war, either.
Your approach only weakens and softens the minds and bodies of youth, invariably killing the spirit that made America, its citizens, and its culture, exceptional.
It is true that "love" and
It is true that "love" and "caring" are different and that there are lines that teachers cannot cross. We can never be "friends" no matter how friendly we are. There must be some judgment in teaching, the less the better. But judgment is a part of the job, and true friends don't judge. Believing in students is different from both and a part of each. Believing in students does not mean or imply that inappropriate love is involved. The analogy is false and in some cases dangerous.
The reward issue has been debated many times from different points of view both in education in general and in my postings specifically. Educators can debate whether rewards work or not, but the debate only has meaning if the argument is fact and logic based. Overheated rhetoric helps the speaker get something off his chest but does little to add to expanding knowledge and more importantly, helping children.
No one needs to reward a child for doing something they love. The only time we reward is to get a child to do something that they don't want to do. Children learn that we do not believe in them if we are forced to give rewards, because it implicitly implies that we believe they won't do a task without getting something in return. This is insulting and ineffective.
I have heard the belief that salary and rewards in school are the same for over 30 years. Careful analysis shows they have nothing in common and it is a false comparison. Without writing a new book on the subject, I'll briefly give two reasons why the comparison fails. The most important is choice. All people have a choice where to work and what they do. Economics plays an important part of the decision, but it is still a decision. No one is forced by law to work at something they don't want or believe in. In school children are forced to work at things they do not want to and do not believe in. They have no choice, and must compete with others with different skill levels whether they want to or not. In the world of work doctors do not compete with salespeople, accountants or construction workers. In school they do.
The second difference is that salary is a fee for service. Employers pay and get something in return. The end helps the one who pays. In school, children do not work for teachers. They receive no material gain from student work. It is not a fee for service arrangement in any way. Let's stop comparing salary and reward once and for all.