At the school where I work, we are continuously attempting to balance high standards with helping all kids to succeed. Yet, try as we may, we will occasionally compromise by either lowering our standards or by allowing some students to slip through the cracks. These compromises may have the effect of lowering learning expectations and morale. Teachers stop assigning homework, since “most students don’t do it anyway” and students stop trying to produce quality work since good enough will do. In more extreme cases, some students completely check out of school. These students may occupy seats but repeated failures have led them towards seemingly irreversible apathy. In short, I believe that student motivation comes from the opportunity to truly succeed at meaningful tasks and student motivation leads to teacher invigoration. Failure, even at the fringes, can lead to student apathy and student apathy can drain the lifeblood out of a teacher.
At the moment we are attempting to solve this problem so that not even a small minority of students are allowed to fail. We have formed an intervention deep dive committee. We are investigating the factors that lead students towards failure and experimenting with interventions to avoid this from happening. One intervention that we are currently trying is an online behavior management system, Yooply. Yooply allows us to monitor assignment completion and give students lunch detention in the event of missing work. We have named our lunch detention ZAP, which is an acronym for Zeroes Aren’t Permitted. We have also based our grading philosophy on Effort, Growth, and Mastery. We believe that any student who is at the very least putting forth effort should not fail a class. As we move more towards competency based learning, we’ve decided that an A student should be able to demonstrate effort, growth and mastery. Whereas a student who can only demonstrate effort, and who in spite of his or her best intentions can’t quite reach growth or mastery, should not fail but at least receive a C to recognize their work. Still, as aforementioned, students have found the failure option. Students may produce substandard writing or leave after their eighth grade year reading at the 5th grade reading level. They may also leave my school with plenty of Fs on their transcripts. So we have recognized the need to do a better job at keeping students engaged with school and with the skills necessary for them to be successful in high school. As a school leader, I would ask teachers to be prepared to provide clear rationales for why they chose to assign either F or A grades. I would also ask that there be documentation of interventions attempted prior to giving an F grade. I would also encourage teachers to give incompletes rather than Fs with students required to attend an after/before/during vacation school in order convert that incomplete grade into a passing grade. In my present position, I will continue to support the use of our online behavior management system so that students can receive the additional help that they need in order to pass their classes. I will also continue to seek out colleagues who can provide this support either during lunch or before/after school. Students need to be able to find personalized help from a teacher outside of the classroom setting. I will continue to advocate for a system that provides this. I am also advancing competency based learning wherein students are graded not on the basis of how well they can jump through hoops but rather their demonstration of subject/skill based mastery. Five things that I am willing to do this semester that will make my school increase learning opportunities are:
Schools have a crucial role to play in regards to a student’s sense of identity and agency. Traditionally, we have not taken on this role to build the confidence of our students. I believe that we have been caught up in a power struggle too often so we belittle, intentionally or otherwise, our students in a way that is detrimental to the identity that is being formed. This power struggle also leads us to strip away most hints of student agency. We, as teacher want to be in control, dictate the direction of lessons and units, and assure that students arrive at the conclusion we have predetermined for them. A friend recently commented about the verb “schooled.” He defined this verb as, “being put in one’s place by another with superior abilities.” I believe that this definition embodies the problem with identities/agency supported or quashed in school settings. If we approach teaching as an opportunity to “school” our students then we are telling them that they are subordinates to the learning process. Students’ actions have little bearing on anything but the final grade their given, which only further ingrains an identity. We obviously need to be much more careful about how we shape students’ perceptions of themselves.
I’m not sure that many of my colleagues are hyper aware of how their words may impact developing students’ agency and identity. I don’t believe that any of us are intentionally belittling children in order to destroy their self-confidence. However, I do believe that we do unintentionally inflict damage on students’ developing agency and identity. For example, some of us have debated the ultimate outcome and purpose of grades. Grades are an ultimate source of identity that we can carry with us for our entire lives. If we’re a good student who gets straight As then we’ll most likely believe that we are intelligent and capable individuals. If we struggle to get Cs then we’ll probably think that we’re intellectually deficient and generally speaking, not a good student. And if we get Ds or Fs what does that say about us? As a high school teacher, I used to be someone who thought that Fs and Ds were deserved at times and could be used to motivate students into action. I was dismayed when students were complacent with low grades and wondered why students didn’t use these indicators as a wake up call. Then I moved to middle school. In middle school, students are still optimistic and open minded to the identity and agency that is being formed. Initially, I thought that there was still a place for Ds and Fs. Then I spoke with a colleague who explained that she only gave Fs in rare circumstances. She questioned what we were doing to a student’s sense of identity and confidence when we gave them an F, even when students are putting forth effort. We were labeling them and shutting them down. I had seen the completely shut down student at my high school. I wanted to make sure I didn’t contribute to the shut down. So I was convinced to re-think the language, label, and consequence of giving Fs. I don’t want my students to create an identity around Failure. I don’t want them to feel like their actions are futile in producing positive results. It’s been quite a while since I have given a student an F As a current and future leader, I would like to emphasize to my colleagues how our words and actions have the potential to mold a very malleable sense of student identity and agency, especially at the middle school level. While many of us enjoy giving praise and constructive feedback, we may be unaware of the multiple layers and interpretations of the language we use. I believe that it would be beneficial for staff members to reflect on the manner in which they use language. Furthermore, I think we should be provided with student testimonials/surveys which help provided insight into how they feel about their identity and agency. I think we may be surprised to learn how our actions and words may inadvertently impact our students. Finally, I would like to provide examples and practice of both “Choice Words” and not-so-choice-words and actions. Staff should choose words while more conscious of their repercussions. We can’t afford to be careless with words and actions that have the potential to shape an individual’s lifelong sense of self. Five Things I'm Willing to Do to Encourage Choice Words
When it comes to the concept of Do No Harm, I believe that this concept precisely boils down what rules should embody. I do not believe in rules existing merely for the sake of establishing or maintaining structures of authority. Rules should teach students how to participate independently and positively within society. What this means to me is that students, and eventually adults, should seek to live lives in which they “Do no harm to themselves, to others, or to the environment.” This approach to teaching, learning, and living may, when practiced in earnest, take us a long way in creating a more harmonious world in which people act not out of fear or thoughtless compliance but rather out of thoughtful concern for others.
A do no harm approach to rules forces us to look beyond the minutiae that too many school rules emphasize. It encourages us to look at our ultimate objectives and how to teach students to reflect on their actions. It encourages teachers and administrators to seek the root causes of behaviors. Locking a student out of class for being tardy neither accomplishes the objective of getting students more learning time nor does it seek to understand the cause for the tardiness. While tardiness is a problem which one should seek to correct, one will have much better luck doing so when an attempt is made to get students to realize how these actions may be causing harm to themselves and others. Though I have much to learn, I aim to be a teacher and school leader who seeks to understand every student’s underlying story. In order to arrive at the best solution for each student, I believe that it is crucial to get to know students not simply as subordinates but as individuals. I seek to have regular conversations with students which allow me to better understand their motives. By doing so, I can better help them them when addressing a behavioral problem. I would encourage other teachers to do the same. An initiative that I would structure at my school would be requiring meetings with counselors and teachers in order share what is known about the student. Rather than jump towards a punitive action in the event of misbehavior, I would ask students to explain, what happened, how their behaviors might have affected others, and what they think they could do to make it right. I would also ask the affected person to reflect on the action using a similar line of questioning. I would also teach my staff the restorative practice approach to solving problems in professional development. I would ask all teachers to reflect on their own classroom rules and consequences in order to assure that these align with our school philosophy and ultimate objectives. When I think about the rules and student handbook at my school site, I notice that even though restorative practices and do no harm is not explicitly stated, it is implicitly understood. At my school, we ask all students to consider how their actions reflect, or don’t reflect, our GILLS (school values). We ask students to persevere, innovate, show empathy, and lead with integrity in all of their interactions on campus. These values can be interpreted in many different ways. I believe that these values ask students to do no harm. However, from there we do have other, more explicit rules such as requiring students to wear their lanyards and collared shirts, to come to school on time, to do their homework, etc. What I am not familiar with is how consequences are meted by our administration out in the event of rule breaking. When I think about how our GILLS are continuously reinforced as the overarching principles guiding all student behavior and teacher systems, I think that we have chosen great guiding values that are in harmony with “do no harm.” However, when I think about how consequences are meted out, I realize that I should do some further investigation before determining whether students are being “taught” how to behave appropriately using systems of high support and high control. Five things that I will do in order to make my school a more restorative place this semester:
I would like to believe that my school provides a welcoming environment to students, parents, and other stakeholders alike. Students seem to enjoy coming to school and parents echo their sentiment. Yet every school has the potential to improve itself and we are no exception to this.
One of our core values that students can recite from memory states that we promote, “Learning about empathy. We seek to understand the viewpoints of others.” Upon closer examination it may seem that we can still improve so that they can feel even more welcomed. With as many moving pieces as a school may have, I sometimes get a general sense of confusion that emanates from students and parents alike. As I observed these stakeholders more closely I begin to wonder if students and parents are aware and taking charge of the opportunities we offer to them or whether they are just going with the overwhelming flow. To borrow the Ritz-Carlton analogy from How to Create a Culture of Achievement in Your School and Classroom book, at times I get the impression that we offer Ritz-Carlton amenities but may be needing to train the valet, doorman, and concierge to help our clientele maximize their use of our amenities. As a dad of a student at my school I’m uniquely situated to be a stakeholder with various interests. As a 6th grader student, my daughter just started to attend my middle school. She is fortunate that her dad is valet, doorman, and concierge all in one for her. I drive her to school, park the car, open the door to my classroom for her, and then make sure she is able to take advantage of all the opportunities my school has to offer. Her 6th grade peers are not as fortunate to have access to the same level of service. I wonder if they are welcomed as well as she is and whether all students should at least come close to receiving the same degree of service. This has definitely assisted my daughter in her transition to middle school. So I decided to ask a few friends who also sent their children to our school about their perceptions of our welcome. What I learned was that overall they were very satisfied with the educational opportunities that we have provided. They have found the teachers and other staff members to be extremely friendly. I knew there had to be some constructive criticism they could offer so I probed a little deeper. I asked them if they felt comfortable visiting the school and talking with teachers. I also asked them if they felt informed about all of the opportunities offered at school. They responded that they didn’t feel the need to visit the school on a regular basis, as they did when volunteering in elementary school. Also, they were surprised to learn that there were more extracurricular activities than they were aware of. When I asked them if they thought their sons’ and daughters’ had made new friends they replied that they thought they were just sticking with their elementary school friends for the most part. This led me to the conclusion that, (understanding though these were just friends and not a representative sample) we should still strive to better inform parents and students about extracurricular activities, to encourage parents to stay more integrated within the school, and to help their children make friends from a wider array to avoid forming smaller cliques. This work is especially crucial at 6th grade when students are making an important transition from elementary to middle school. As a school leader in the future, I would take the following steps in order to help 6th grade students transition, integrate, and take advantage of middle school opportunities:
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