All Kids Can Learn...BUT

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Instead of being born like most babies, I decided to try to come into this world breech. It didn't work and nearly cost my life and that of my mother's. According to the medical practice of the time, a C-section was not a common option. I was pushed back, turned around, and pulled out with a pair of forceps. (I can't even imagine the pain that my mom was forced to endure.) We both survived this ordeal, but life didn't get any easier. My two younger brothers and I grew up in situational poverty. By the time I was almost five, my mom had divorced, and we were on our own. Alcohol, physical and mental abuse and all of the insecurities and problems that come with poverty impacted my life at an early age.

Life hasn't been easy, but the challenges that I've had to overcome have made me who I am today. I've learned a lot about resilience, grit, perseverance, and hard work. I've also learned about the impact teachers can have on student lives. Although many kids who grow up in poverty struggle in school, I was on the opposite end of the spectrum in a lot of ways. (I was a teacher pleaser and hard worker- not gifted.) Once the keys of reading were unlocked, I became a voracious reader! Not only did I read, but I wrote, illustrated, and told my own stories. My teachers took a personal interest in me and kept me challenged. I loved school! I loved my teachers! I loved learning!

Maybe with a little bit of my personal background now, you'll understand why my heart aches when I hear teachers say something like, "All kids can learn..but" and then continue with any number of assumptions about kids growing up in poverty and outright excuses for not having higher expectations. More often than not, words don't have to be spoken because their actions speak even louder. 

I wholeheartedly believe that kids can learn at high levels despite the challenges that they may face! The teacher may have to provide more background knowledge, more scaffolding, more time, and more practice with specific feedback. But, it's doable! We must keep the bar high! Perhaps, we should even make the shift from conveying high expectations to inspiring aspirations. Kids will rise to the occasion! Over and over again throughout my career, I've witnessed my students overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and learn at high levels. They've even surpassed MY high expectations for learning! Kids thrive when they are challenged. They can and want to accomplish hard things. Students are engaged and motivated to learn when they have teachers who believe in them, when they have opportunities to ask questions, create and collaborate with their peers, and when what they're asked to do has a purpose.

Meeting the needs of so many diverse learners is not easy! Please, don't give up. Just one more try, one more attempt, one more time of thinking about how to inspire a specific learner can change a life. We can't afford to not do everything possible to help our kids engage in relevant learning. "We're in the life-changing business!" as Dave Burgess often says. Lives will not be changed if we play the blame game if we fail to see strengths and only see deficits if we are unwilling to be reflective of our teaching practices and strive to improve and if we get bogged down in old mindsets. We have to believe with 100% assurance that our students, despite the challenges, can learn and that we can make a difference. We have to have a growth mindset, a positive attitude, and hope.

We know what we need to do as educators. There is no shortage of information explaining the hows and whys of how to help kids learn and be successful. If you're not sure, get educated. Every teacher should read, Poor Students, Rich Teaching, Poor Students, Richer Teaching by Eric Jensen and Helping Children to Succeed by Paul Tough at a minimum. Are we willing to do what needs to be done? No one said it would be easy. It will be worth it! Encourage kids to dream big, really big, and then help make their dreams come true.

All kids can learn...AND will! 

Efficacy

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Academic Optimism: A school with high academic optimism is a collectivity in which the faculty believes that it can make a difference, that students can learn, and academic performance can be achieved. Wayne Hoy et al.

Three years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled Urgency. This is how it began.

Have you ever really thought about the time that educators have to change the life of their students? Eric Jensen did in his book, Teaching With Poverty In Mind. Here’s the thinking.

1. Every student in your classroom gets 168 hours each week. (7 days x 24 hours)

2. Subtract the time kids have for sleeping, eating, grooming, and their busy lives. (12-13 hours per day x 7 days= 84-91 hours)

3. That leaves each child with a maximum of 84 hours each week, or 4,368 hours each year. Out of that block, you get at most 30 school hours each week (6 hours x 5 days) for 36 to 42 weeks a year. At the high end, you get 1,260 hours each year (30 hours per week x 42 weeks) for changing a student's life.

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Here's the key ratio: 1,260 hours out of a possible 4,368. You have 28 percent of a student's waking time. You are outnumbered by more than two to one. "With the small proportion of their lives that you do have access to, you cannot afford to waste a single class or school day. " Eric Jensen

Three years later, and the sense of urgency is even greater! A million kids will drop out of high school this year. That's unacceptable! It's frightening to me that so many kids are finding school so disengaging or that they lack so many skills that they lose hope and choose to drop out. This decision is one that will negatively affect the rest of their lives and future generations.

Teachers alone can't solve all of the causes of so many students dropping out. But they can make the decision to do all that's within their sphere of influence and control. Teachers can change what they do in their classrooms to have even better outcomes. To impact student lives, teachers may have to change some of their mindsets and practices. It may be uncomfortable. The journey may not be easy, but it'll be worth it.

So let's cut to the chase. At this time of year, there's plenty of data- sometimes more than we can use. Data tells part of a story. It should inspire us to take action!

What happens when the data isn't as favorable as we'd like? When students don't learn what we teach, it's easy to play the blame game. The easy way out is to blame the student's parents, last year's teacher, the district benchmark, test anxiety, the student, or a whole host of other excuses. Teachers also get caught explaining a student's failure to learn by reasoning that the student has too many barriers to learn, that he's unmotivated, or even that he's just not capable. Too many educators simply believe that they are not accountable to all students. It's easier to play the blame game rather than holding up a mirror and holding ourselves accountable for learning (our student's learning and our own).

I'm as guilty as the next person and have fallen into that trap. No teacher wants to feel or look incompetent. So after trying multiple strategies and feeling frustrated with the lack of progress, it's easier to play the blame game. "Teachers may feel forced into choosing, albeit many times unconsciously, between defining themselves as inadequate or the children as lacking" (Haberman, 1995)

The antidote for blame is building self-efficacy. Guskey and Passaro (1994) define self-efficacy as "teachers' belief or conviction that they can influence how well students learn, even those who may be difficult or unmotivated." Teachers with more self-efficacy see the strengths and potential of each child despite the barriers. They have high expectations, encourage students to learn challenging content, differentiate instruction to meet students' needs, and engage students in relevant learning. They teach with greater enthusiasm, are less negative, are willing to innovate, and are persistent. Teachers with a strong sense of self-efficacy are more resilient and are continually learning. They are reflective- both while teaching and before or after teaching.

"Reflection can be difficult, even threatening, because it forces us to be honest with ourselves and recognize not only our successes but areas where we need to improve. It makes us take responsibility for our teaching and learning." (Scales, 2013)

Teaching is too difficult of a job to do in isolation. Teachers working alone cannot meet all of the needs of a diverse classroom. Sarason shared an idea in many schools, "These are my kids, my room, and my materials." There needs to be a shift of thinking to "These are our kids and we cannot help all of them learn what they must learn without a collective effort." We must rely on our PLCs to clarify priorities, to set common goals, to work together, to hold each other accountable, to support, and to learn together with a focus on student learning. We must switch our focus "from inputs to outcomes and from activities to results."

Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave. (Bandura) There is a strong relationship between self-efficacy and work-related performance. A teacher with more self-efficacy will most likely have students engaged at a higher level. A teacher with lower self-efficacy will most likely have classroom management issues because they lack the belief in themselves to be change agents. Great school leaders understand the link between self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and student achievement.

Collective teacher efficacy according to Tschannen-Moran and Barr (2004) is defined as "the collective self-perception that teachers in a given school make an educational difference to their students over and above the educational impact of their homes and communities."

Success breeds more success. The expectation of success is confidence. As teachers work and accomplish goals together, collective efficacy builds momentum to set even more ambitious goals.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. We must move past indecision to action. Now let us begin. The choice is ours, and though we may prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

Now is the time! Our students deserve to have teachers that are reflective practitioners who continually learn, improve, and are results oriented. It's not about perfection, it's about taking action. It's making those first steps on a journey that may require teachers to ask more questions, better questions, and to change traditional mindsets and practices.