We owe all students high expectations Shemeka MillnerWilliams
In my many years as an educator
I’ve been afforded the opportunity to
work with a variety of students.
They have all come from varying
backgrounds,
single and two parent homes, middle
class and impoverished homes,
monolingual and bilingual homes.
I regard each of those students in the
same way:
as children who come into a school with
an expectation to learn.
And I view my role with each
of these children
as a conduit to whatever goals and dreams
they and their parents have
ascribed to themselves.
And I, knowing the difficulties and
opportunities that this world holds,
know that it is my job, along with their
parents and caregivers,
to prepare them as best possible
to meet any challenge or opportunity
that they may face.
With this idea in mind,
I go about my work.
Although I claim to be a
superhero at times,
I realize that there are things that exist
in the lives of my students
that I cannot control.
I have no control over the income level
of their parents.
I have no say in where they live or how
their non-school hours are spent.
I cannot be sure that they always have the
best nutritional choices
or the finest role models,
or the mulitple enrichment opportunities
that come through travel.
I can’t be certain that there’s always
someone available to read to them
or help them with their homework.
I can’t control all of the exterior forces
that have an impact on
the lives of my students.
As an empath, who sees so much of myself
in many of my students,
and a control freak, which I’m sometimes
known to be,
this fact created a paradox for
me in my early career.
How can I fix it all for them?
I’m reminded of one particular student in
my past that I’ll call Jessica.
She was a feisty 11 year-old girl
who had already experienced more
than her share of life’s challenges.
She was being raised by her grandmother,
after her parents were unable to care
for her appropriately.
She had a 19 year-old sister, who was
a single mom and on her own,
who also tried to help
with her upbringing.
Her family was poor, and she was a
struggling student academically,
but she was always willing to try.
Unfortunately during that school year,
her grandmother became ill.
So ill, in fact, that she died.
And Jessica lost the one adult outside of
school who was responsible for her.
She was placed with her sister
who was struggling to survive and
raise a young child of her own,
and I as her teacher empathized with her
situation greatly.
So much so that the high expectations that
I held for all of my students everyday,
became optional for Jessica.
After all, how could I expect her to learn
at this high level,
when her world had fallen apart?
My initial empathy grew into long term
sympathy, which morphed into pity,
and I allowed Jessica to flounder
and miss assignments
and come to class unprepared
and read less
and turn in incomplete work and the like.
I compromised on curricular
expectations for her
to make sure that in a world where she
was already so hurt so much,
that I didn’t hurt her anymore by giving
her something else to do
that was too challenging for her.
I limited my expectations for her in a way
that I had never for any other student.
And in doing so, I began to see the effort
that Jessica so willingly gave before,
that productive challenge that led to her
learning and growth as a student,
began to fade.
And she became content to do
just enough to get by.
Well I knew for a student like Jessica,
“just enough to get by” was a recipe for
disaster in her future.
Where other students would have their
parents
to hold them up into early adulthood,
she would not have that.
She needed a quality education
more than anyone,
because there would be no support system
for her in the real world.
I was doing her a disservice
as an educator,
through my overcompensation
for her situation,
that could have a profound effect
on outcomes for her future.
Carter G. Woodson, a black historian
and author, once stated
that “real education means to inspire
people to live more abundantly,
to learn to begin with life as they
find it and make it better.”
As educators it’s our job to meet
students where they are,
not to decide what their ultimate
destination is
based on where they’re started.
Often times the students we serve as
educators in urban public school settings
are those students who naturally illicit
the empathetic nature of most teachers.
After all, most of us are in education
because of our innate
desire to help others.
But I challenge you to consider whether in
our attempt to control
for the variables that often occur in
these students' lives outside school,
we are doing them a further disservice
instead of helping them.
Are we deciding to limit their challenges
in schools,
and masking that as a means of
making things easier for them
when in reality we’re making
things easier for ourselves?
Are we absolving ourselves from the
requirement of
and work involved in providing
scaffolded supports
that would allow all students to
access the most rigorous curriculum,
by reducing cognitive demand,
and claiming it’s for the sake of
attending to cultural relevance
or student interest?
For educators that are on the front
lines, leaders, principals and teachers,
there is a real world mindset
shift that must occur,
in order for us to implement strategies
that will work
with students in urban public
school classrooms.
Because we don’t have the luxury of
waiting
until all societal ills that effect
children in these areas are remedied,
educators must adopt strategies to
support the whole child
socially, emotionally, physically,
and mentally,
to ensure that attainment of knowledge
at the highest academic levels
is not beyond their grasp.
According to Ruby Payne,
who is highly regarded as a foremost
expert
on the subject of educating students
in impoverished settings,
we can neither excuse them nor
scold them for not knowing.
We must teach them and provide support,
insistence, and expectations for learning
and functioning within societal norms.
The first step for doing this is to reject
the longstanding idea
that students in urban school settings
are a monolithic population that can
only be reached
through mimicking the cultures
that they come from.
The diversity of the student population
in impoverished primarily minority
urban public schools
can be as diverse as any other organized
body in the world.
And although being conscious of
and acknowledging the backgrounds
of all students
is an extremely important step
in building the relationships that are
necessary
to begin to impart knowledge
to students,
the assumption that producing every lesson
as a rap song,
or learning and performing the hottest
hip hop dance moves while doing so,
is an affront to the capacity of students
in these settings
to learn or receive anything different.
We as educators must first become
conscious
of the unconscious biases that we
prescribe to entire groups of students,
and make every effort to resist our human
nature to do so.
The next step to ensuring that we are of
assistance
and not hindrance to our students
in less than ideal settings
is to be courageous in confronting both
the biases that I previously spoke of,
and in approaching the most rigorous
curriculum for our students.
We as educators must not let our fears of
the time commitment
or preparation necessary
to build background knowledge,
or academic vocabulary,
or offer exposure opportunities
to limit what we present to our students,
no matter what their background is.
We must determine their starting point,
and then go about the business of
charting a course for success
towards the desired ending point
for our students,
no matter how challenging it will be
to get to that point.
We have to map out the necessary rest
points
and refueling locations along the way
to ensure that we support them along
the journey toward self-actualization.
Not by removing every obstacle
or challenge,
but by supporting them
through those challenges,
all while teaching them how to deal with
the next challenge that is sure to come.
And finally, as educators in urban public
school settings,
we must be consistent in two ways:
first, we must consistently demand and
pursue excellence
for our students at school,
in the same way that we do
for our own children at home.
We have the capacity to be a North Star
for our students,
illuminating a pathway that will create an
opportunity for them
to improve the conditions of their lives,
and potentially the lives of their
children and grandchildren.
We must steadfastly improve our efforts.
And secondly, we must be consistent in
our commitment to educating students
in urban settings.
There are easier jobs in schools where
students have greater access
to many of the things as a result of their
backgrounds.
But I promise you there is no job as
fulfilling as watching students succeed
in ways that the world
has said they cannot,
and knowing that you had a part in that
student’s ascent,
however large or small that part was.
I know you’re wondering about whatever
happened to the student Jessica
that I spoke of earlier.
Well, I wonder too.
Jessica went on to complete that
school year successfully,
passing all the required assessments
with a little extra tutoring and
nurturing from her teacher,
I raised my level of expectation for her,
while still providing the assistance that
she needed to be successful,
and she flourished the following
year as well.
I lost track of her after middle school,
and often think of her, and wonder what
opportunities she pursued,
and whether she became a teacher, like
she told me she would.
What I don’t wonder about however,
is whether I challenged her enough or
supported her enough
to help her take the necessary steps
towards the goals she had for herself
or her capacity to achieve them.