As I was driving in my car one of my favorite songs, The River by Garth Brooks came on. It reminded me a lot of the challenges that we have to face every day in education. The part of the song that really hit home with me was, "So don't you sit upon the shoreline and say you're satisfied". Translated in to relevance to me this summed up the fact that for the most part, society is satisfied with what is in place and few "choose to chance the rapids or dare to dance the tide". In other words they don't want to go through the difficulties of change. I've been struggling this past week trying to understand why setting high expectations has so many frazzled. Don't we want our children to perform at their highest potential? And wouldn't the students have the intrinsic motivation required to absorb the importance of stepping their game up in the classroom? I tossed many ideas around in my head until I finally came to rest on two very powerful buzz words...
1. Learned Helplessness
2. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
In my classroom, which is a world history class integrated with English, the standard at which I expect my students to perform is high. I'll make no sugar coating of the fact. For some reason, the students have done everything in their power to attempt to convince myself and April that this bar should be lowered. "It was too hard", "It made their head hurt", "It was the hardest assignment ever". All lines from the student's mouths that we heard frequently. We heard their cries and we weren't ignoring them. At first, we couldn't figure out why we were getting this reaction from the students. Once we sat down and started to assess the students and how they learn, we realized that they suffered from learned helplessness. Learned helplessness refers to the expectation, based on previous experience, that one's actions cannot possibly lead to success (Dweck, 1975, 1978). Performance goals are much more likely than learning goals to lead to ability rather than effort attributions and to result in feelings of learned helplessness. Heyman & Dweck (1992) recommend encouraging students to focus primarily on learning goals, while keeping performance goals in perspective by enjoying recognition without letting it become an overriding concern. Teachers can accomplish this by focusing on learning rather than normative comparisons when reinforcing students, by modeling the use of learning goals, and by using the scaffolding strategies. So, to bring this back to our class, we realized that based upon the student's previous experiences in public education, they were certain that these "challenging assignments", would not permit for them to reach success. They had never seen this type of rigor before. Using scaffolding strategies, such as drilling down guiding questions for inquiry based discussion was a great start for us in reversing this learned helplessness. It's quite the process when attempting to break old habits, however, the students have been amazingly responsive to the drilled down scaffolding. Their analyzing skills and connection to the modern day world have sky rocketed! So, as far as the student's go, it's not the fact that the bar is too high or that they don't want to perform at their highest levels, it's simply placing new learning goals and performance expectations into their idea of education.
The second problem that was holding our student's back in excelling in the classroom was self fulfilling prophecy. Self-fulfilling prophecy is a phenomenon by which people’s expectations about the future events lead them to behave in particular ways that, on occasion, can cause the expected event to occur. People tend to find what they are looking for. More than that, they may even tend, unwittingly, to create what they seek. How does this relate to the classroom and education? Simply put, our student's were only performing at the levels in which they had always been expected to perfrom at in the past. Basically, this means that to be an "A" student, it was expected that student be able to master the firs tlevel of Blooms taxonomy, and recall. Memorizing vocabulary words, recognizing key terms, etc. If a student could carry this tasks out in the classroom then they successfully met the expectation and were considered an "A" student. When we set our expectations of an "A" student at the level of Bloom's taxonomy, which is evaluation and anyalzation, student's didn't believe that this was something attainable to them. The reason was because it had never been expected of them before! We were asking them to provide us with demonstration of their knowledge rather than memorization. Much like the learned helplessness, self-fulfilling prophecy is a tough guy to tackle! It's hard to erase pre-concieved notions and replace them with new ones. I think a great example of this change starting to take place in our classroom was the OUTSTANDING essays that have been turned in the last few days! At first, the student's were in a "shock and awe" momement! They could not believe that we were actually asking them to write 6 whole paragraphs and then the next night 8! They couldn't do it and they were sure of it! When we showed them how their scaffolding questions and inquiry during discussion would serve as fantastic guides for this writing, they were a little less uneasy about the task. They still didn't think that they could do it. We reassured them over, and over, and over, and over, that we were positive that they could do it. That we believed in them. Guess what? The essays came, almost all 115 students turned them in and they were jaw droppers! The students had not only written the paragraphs, but they had achieved demonstration of their knowledge! They were writing about Persia, Human Rights, the United States, Iraq, Germany, Lybia, the institution of slavery in the U.S., the holocaust, Hitler, Goddaffi, Saddam Huessien, Cyrus, Assyria, Schennarib, Elenor Rosevelt, Martin Luther King JR, and so on. Wow! What a list! Our main content was Cyrus and Persia but these children amazingly associated Cyrus and Persia in a comparing and constrasting manner to all of the above listed! And much to amazement, some students were even using prior knowledge from the ancient river valley civilizations pbl and inserting it into their essay! Simply amazing for freshman! An example of prior knowledge, they compared the importance of Cryus putting the first human rights on something tangible like the cylinder to Hammurabi doing the same with Hammurabi's code!
The next night the wrote more! Only this time they brought the information that they had demonstrated above to an issue closer to home for them. They wrote about all of the above in connection to the bullying/cyber bullying issues that exist today in our world. They drew from the accomplishments of Cryus and his human rights as well as the failures and tortuous methods of the Assyrians, Hitler, Saddam, and Goddaffi! Again, simply amazing!
Since we are using human rights as topic in my classroom right now, I'll stick with that in closing! In just a little less than three months these students have grown intellectually and socially! They began to take their learning to the demonstration stage and make connections with relevance of what we learn in class to their world! They have started to gain and develop the vital 21st century skills that are needed to survive in the world we live in today! So, is it hard for them, you bet! But to deny them this opportunity to grow and showcase their true potential and abilities would be a violoation of their human right to education! To lower the bar for these students would be doing them such an injustice! Each time April and I observe a step that they take on the their ladder, we are truely moved and profoundly affected by just how much a teacher can shape the minds the world!
1. Learned Helplessness
2. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
In my classroom, which is a world history class integrated with English, the standard at which I expect my students to perform is high. I'll make no sugar coating of the fact. For some reason, the students have done everything in their power to attempt to convince myself and April that this bar should be lowered. "It was too hard", "It made their head hurt", "It was the hardest assignment ever". All lines from the student's mouths that we heard frequently. We heard their cries and we weren't ignoring them. At first, we couldn't figure out why we were getting this reaction from the students. Once we sat down and started to assess the students and how they learn, we realized that they suffered from learned helplessness. Learned helplessness refers to the expectation, based on previous experience, that one's actions cannot possibly lead to success (Dweck, 1975, 1978). Performance goals are much more likely than learning goals to lead to ability rather than effort attributions and to result in feelings of learned helplessness. Heyman & Dweck (1992) recommend encouraging students to focus primarily on learning goals, while keeping performance goals in perspective by enjoying recognition without letting it become an overriding concern. Teachers can accomplish this by focusing on learning rather than normative comparisons when reinforcing students, by modeling the use of learning goals, and by using the scaffolding strategies. So, to bring this back to our class, we realized that based upon the student's previous experiences in public education, they were certain that these "challenging assignments", would not permit for them to reach success. They had never seen this type of rigor before. Using scaffolding strategies, such as drilling down guiding questions for inquiry based discussion was a great start for us in reversing this learned helplessness. It's quite the process when attempting to break old habits, however, the students have been amazingly responsive to the drilled down scaffolding. Their analyzing skills and connection to the modern day world have sky rocketed! So, as far as the student's go, it's not the fact that the bar is too high or that they don't want to perform at their highest levels, it's simply placing new learning goals and performance expectations into their idea of education.
The second problem that was holding our student's back in excelling in the classroom was self fulfilling prophecy. Self-fulfilling prophecy is a phenomenon by which people’s expectations about the future events lead them to behave in particular ways that, on occasion, can cause the expected event to occur. People tend to find what they are looking for. More than that, they may even tend, unwittingly, to create what they seek. How does this relate to the classroom and education? Simply put, our student's were only performing at the levels in which they had always been expected to perfrom at in the past. Basically, this means that to be an "A" student, it was expected that student be able to master the firs tlevel of Blooms taxonomy, and recall. Memorizing vocabulary words, recognizing key terms, etc. If a student could carry this tasks out in the classroom then they successfully met the expectation and were considered an "A" student. When we set our expectations of an "A" student at the level of Bloom's taxonomy, which is evaluation and anyalzation, student's didn't believe that this was something attainable to them. The reason was because it had never been expected of them before! We were asking them to provide us with demonstration of their knowledge rather than memorization. Much like the learned helplessness, self-fulfilling prophecy is a tough guy to tackle! It's hard to erase pre-concieved notions and replace them with new ones. I think a great example of this change starting to take place in our classroom was the OUTSTANDING essays that have been turned in the last few days! At first, the student's were in a "shock and awe" momement! They could not believe that we were actually asking them to write 6 whole paragraphs and then the next night 8! They couldn't do it and they were sure of it! When we showed them how their scaffolding questions and inquiry during discussion would serve as fantastic guides for this writing, they were a little less uneasy about the task. They still didn't think that they could do it. We reassured them over, and over, and over, and over, that we were positive that they could do it. That we believed in them. Guess what? The essays came, almost all 115 students turned them in and they were jaw droppers! The students had not only written the paragraphs, but they had achieved demonstration of their knowledge! They were writing about Persia, Human Rights, the United States, Iraq, Germany, Lybia, the institution of slavery in the U.S., the holocaust, Hitler, Goddaffi, Saddam Huessien, Cyrus, Assyria, Schennarib, Elenor Rosevelt, Martin Luther King JR, and so on. Wow! What a list! Our main content was Cyrus and Persia but these children amazingly associated Cyrus and Persia in a comparing and constrasting manner to all of the above listed! And much to amazement, some students were even using prior knowledge from the ancient river valley civilizations pbl and inserting it into their essay! Simply amazing for freshman! An example of prior knowledge, they compared the importance of Cryus putting the first human rights on something tangible like the cylinder to Hammurabi doing the same with Hammurabi's code!
The next night the wrote more! Only this time they brought the information that they had demonstrated above to an issue closer to home for them. They wrote about all of the above in connection to the bullying/cyber bullying issues that exist today in our world. They drew from the accomplishments of Cryus and his human rights as well as the failures and tortuous methods of the Assyrians, Hitler, Saddam, and Goddaffi! Again, simply amazing!
Since we are using human rights as topic in my classroom right now, I'll stick with that in closing! In just a little less than three months these students have grown intellectually and socially! They began to take their learning to the demonstration stage and make connections with relevance of what we learn in class to their world! They have started to gain and develop the vital 21st century skills that are needed to survive in the world we live in today! So, is it hard for them, you bet! But to deny them this opportunity to grow and showcase their true potential and abilities would be a violoation of their human right to education! To lower the bar for these students would be doing them such an injustice! Each time April and I observe a step that they take on the their ladder, we are truely moved and profoundly affected by just how much a teacher can shape the minds the world!
There are 4 important things that must be mentioned here for everyone to understand how this level of demonstration is working for these students. I feel that some people might read this and think, "How in the world are they getting these FRESHMEN to write such compelling essays?"
ReplyDelete1) Reassuring the students and continuous encouragement that they are able to do this because their learned helplessness and self-fulfilling prophecies tell them they can't.
2) The way we are connecting to the students - the 'buy-in' portion of PBL. (Projects that relate directly to them on a personal level, i.e. human rights, not just another glorified project)
3) Building relationships with ALL students. Rapport is crucial!
4) Drilling down information for/with them so they are able to A) focus on what is important and leave out all the "fluff" and B) eventually drill down topics on their own.
I think another good thing to do with the students is help them anticipate difficulty and be prepared to "not succeed" the first time. Discuss the learning process they are going through. Talk with them about how true learning occurs through trial and error, and that the end result will be sweeter because of the difficulty they've overcome. Discuss with them that this is the opposite of the immediate gratification that we are sometimes used to in this country. Help them understand that this is good for them. Gently.
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