Today I was at an in-service meeting at my school. The purpose of an in-service is to provide various resources for teachers to inspire, support, and assist students to achieve success in the classroom. Meetings vary depending on the day and the input from the district, but overall they are intended to bring teachers together to increase success at school.
The opening of our in-service began with a video of Dalton Sherman, from Dallas, Texas, asking educators to believe in him and his classmates. Here is a link to the video. Dalton asks that we believe in him and other students not only to NOT FAIL, but to succeed.
At the end of the day we had grade level meetings in order to confer about end-of-year activities. While discussing our trip to Cliff’s Amusement Park, the topic of student grades came up. I asked that students be expected to pass ALL classes in order to be eligible to attend the trip. The overwhelming response from teachers was that this was unrealistic, and students should be allowed to fail at least one class in order to attend. As the voice of dissent I could not help but find it ironic that we were sitting in an in-service all day, listening to new ways to help teachers achieve success in the classroom, only to learn that some teachers did not believe in the ability of our students to succeed.
Teachers often talk about parents not supporting their own children, lack of consequences, accountability, etc., yet we are unwilling to do the same, and it’s our job! What message does it send to students to tell them they are allowed to fail a class? “Hey kids, go ahead and leave one subject behind, your choice!” I have decided that the second I begin to believe that my students cannot succeed, I will quit teaching. My students do not deserve to be told they cannot do better than failure, perhaps our next in-service needs to discuss our perceptions of our students, because before we can help them we must believe in them and ourselves. If we are in a profession that asks us to help students learn but we don’t believe they can actually achieve this goal, then more than our students are being left behind.
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2 comments:
April,
I agree with you so much. Mediocrity shouldn't be rewarded as it won't be rewarded in the real world. Even though our students are kids, they need to learn sometimes tough lessons that success/rewards aren't easily attained. I look at other nation's school systems and their expectations for their students and I look at ours. The ponderance: in ten year, where will we be in comparison to the rest of the world? U.S. kids take for granted the free public education every student is given and dismiss it while students/teachers are risking lives across the globe for an education. Fight the system even if you get dirty looks in the teacher's lounge or cafeteria.
True. True.
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