Interview with an educator The morning class that changed everything Alhassan Susso
I learned my third year of teaching that
only 28% of my students
were going to college, and out of that,
50% would drop out within a year.
When I dig deeper, I discovered that
the rest of them were going to work
at minimum wage jobs.
I knew that was going to lead to a cycle
of intergenerational poverty,
and I knew something had to be done, so I
decided to do something about this,
and went on a quest to figure out
how to help my students
live meaningful lives beyond the
classroom.
What I have learned led to the creation
of the morning class.
Why is it called the morning class?
Because when I came up
with the concept, I had no name.
Teachers. We know how that works.
One of the students said, “Well since
it’s going to happen in the morning,
let’s just call it the morning class.”
The morning class is a before-school
program
that empowers kids to live a
meaningful life in the world
socially, professionally,
academically. and economically.
It is built on five essential skills:
developing the right attitude and
mindset,
creating a clear goals and
vision for the future,
communication skills, leadership, and
financial management.
My idea is that teaching is all about
cultivating and nurturing relationships.
It doesn’t matter how great
our lessons are,
or how skilled we are at delivering
those lessons,
or how knowledgeable we are of our
content area,
if the students we are teaching do not
feel how much we care about them.
Every student in our classroom is asking
three questions:
Do you see me? Do you hear me?
Does what I say mean anything to you?
When students are able to feel “yes”
to these answers,
that’s when they are fully present and
engaged with us
throughout the school year.
While I was jumping up and down about
the importance of the French Revolution,
the child in front of me did not eat
breakfast that morning.
While I was raving about the importance
of passing the standardized exams,
the child in the back of the room slept
in a homeless shelter the night before.
Did I know any of this?
No, because my focus was
helping them to understand the curriculum,
instead of taking the time to learn
their hopes, their dreams, and their fears.
But I started to shift my approach
during my second year of teaching.
It was this moment when I realized
that in order for us
to inspire our students to achieve
greatness,
we first have to take the time to learn
their stories.
We need to help our students to develop
the right attitude and mindset.
And I started to implement those
elements in my classroom,
during my second year of teaching.
I taught my students about growth mindset,
I taught them about the importance of
having certain goals,
I taught them about the importance of
developing the confidence
and the belief that they matter.
And one of the things I discovered
at the end of that year
was that when students' personal lives
develop,
their academic will follow.
Because I had the same cohort my
first year like my second year,
but the first year, their standardized
test scores was 29%,
and then the second year
it went up to 69%.
That, however, while it was impressive,
it’s not necessarily unique
because in a 2012 Loyola University
study, which analyzed over 213 schools,
concluded that schools with strong
social and emotional learning curriculum
on average outperforms their counterparts
by 11 points on the standardized exams,
which goes to demonstrate that when we
focus on meeting the needs of our students,
we could ensure their
academic success.
During my first year of teaching,
I had this student who would
come in every day at 9:15.
Our school starts at 9:00 a.m
And he did this purposefully.
He would come in and he would go to
every table to shake his friends' hands.
And as a first year teacher, I would stop
in the middle of my lesson
and yell at him for distracting
my class.
And we would go back and forth.
This went on, believe it
or not, for an entire year.
The following year, when I changed my
approach,
and my focus became meeting the needs of
my students,
there was a day I was teaching this
lesson on human needs psychology,
helping my students to understand why
people do what they do,
what is the driving force behind human
behavior,
and how could they uncover what drives
them.
One of the things he realized that
there was that his top two needs
are significance, and love and connection.
That’s what he valued the most in life.
So in the middle of that lesson, he
raised his hand and said,
“Mister,” I said, “Yes?”
“Well do you know why I gave you
such a hard time last year?”
I said, “Ah no.” He paused and said,
“All I wanted was to connect with you,
and I couldn’t.
But when I disrupt your classroom, you
had no choice but to pay attention to me.”
And that was another turning
point for me,
because at that moment I realized that
there is always a story behind the story.
When we are seeing students misbehaving
in our classrooms,
while it’s important to look at the behavior,
I think it’s far more crucial
to inquire about the reason or reasons
behind that behavior
because behind every behavior, there’s an
underlying cause,
and if we could uncover that cause,
we could help our students
to meet their objectives
in a positive manner,
just as I was able to do with that
student.
Because in that second year,
he became my assistant,
and in that process he was able to meet
the top two needs that drive him the most,
which are, he felt significant
because he was my assistant,
but more importantly he was able to get
the connection that he craved so much,
not only from me but also from his
classmates,
because they saw him as a leader,
and in that process,
he thrived and became one of our top
students by the time he graduated.
If somebody is interested in starting
the morning class program,
I think what I would advise is it started,
for me, it started in my classroom,
but it first started with taking the time
to learn and understand my students' stories.
The most important ability that a teacher
can have is the ability to influence.
When you are able to influence
your students,
you can help them to achieve
almost anything.
But how can you influence somebody,
if you don’t know what influences
that person?
During my second year of teaching
and beyond,
I start every school year with this activity
called, “Begin with the end in mind.”
I ask my students to write letters
to their future selves about their hopes,
their fears, and their aspirations,
and I ask them to write a letter that
they will be proud to read
at the end, on the
last day of the school year.
When they write those letters, that’s–
that goes on to become my guiding principle
in how I engage with that particular student
because I know that student’s hope and
fears,
I know what motivates the students,
and I know what they are aiming for.
But I also know what they are worried about.
So that is one activity that I always do
with my students.
The second, another one would be, I always
start every class with an affirmation
because whatever you say to yourself
over time, you tend to believe it,
and we start every class with an
affirmation to instill in my students
that they matter,
and then we end the class with gratitude
and appreciation.
And in that process, it’s not only about
me, but it’s we,
what can you appreciate about what happened
in this class over the past 60 minutes?
And through that organic process,
I was able to build,
I was starting to personally
building meaningful relationships with
my students,
but also fostering a community
whereby they could feel safe
to share some of their vulnerabilities.
Every Wednesday, I ask my students,
what have you done in the past seven
days to improve the human condition?
It is extremely important for teachers
to share their ideas with the world.
Teachers are professionals, and in order
for us to be treated as professionals,
we need to strive for collective
autonomy.
And collective autonomy would depend us
willing to share with each other
our best practices.
You know, our stories are our most prized
possession
and the most valuable gift
that we can give to each other.
An idea that you might be doing in your
class that you feel is insignificant,
that could end up being transformative for
another educator somewhere in the world.
For example, I always give my students
this prompt
whenever we read a text or watch a
documentary
or analyze a historical document,
whenever we are done with those
activities, I always ask my students,
“What did this author overlook
in their argument?”
I’ve been asking that question for years,
never thought it would mean anything,
never thought much about it,
but then couple of years ago,
I had an educator
who was visiting my classroom,
and I asked that question and
my students were able
to look at what that person overlooked.
Because what I tried my, what I attempt
for my students to understand
is that no matter how
compelling somebody’s argument is,
there’s always something they might be
missing in there
or they might not even thought about,
and for that teacher, that
became a game changer for him,
because what he struggled with the most
with his students
was to help them with their analytical skills,
and he told me that by asking that
question,
his students analytical abilities were
able to expand,
and he is able to see more growth in
that area of their academic development
than in previous years.
That’s something I would have never
thought about sharing,
because it’s like that’s not a big deal
at all, but it actually is.
Not all teachers want to become an
administrator, but all teachers are leaders,
and we are the first example to show
our students how to use their voice.
We need to model what we expect of our
students,
and the best way to do that is to put
ourselves out there and share best practices
so that together, we could finally achieve
that collective autonomy
and be treated as the professionals
that we are.