Last week, in The Great Rift Part 3, we argued that high schools do not need to resort to carrots to pull or punishments to push students in positive directions. When students and teachers break down the traditional adversarial roles, and build relationships as allies working towards common goals, everyone wins.
So how can this be done? How can the average teacher move away from the “Learn or I’ll hurt you” threats of failing scores, summer classes, and bleak futures, to motivate students to perform? This blog will illustrate 5 simple strategies teachers and schools can implement right away to begin building new and positive relationships with their students.
5 Strategies for meeting teens on the edge:
1. Be Transparent. Explicitly tell students, “These are the 25 things you will need to know and the 15 skills you must demonstrate on the next exam. If you know and can do all of them, you will ace the test.”
Often students feel their teachers are out to trick them. They are not clear on exactly what they are expected to know or be able to do. This creates the impression that the teacher is not on their side.
To be transparent teachers must resist the urge to sort, select, and differentiate between students. If every student learns everything they were asked to learn, the teacher must have the courage to give everyone of them an A. This is not grade inflation. This is learning inflation!
When a student fails to earn that ‘A’ it is not because the teacher tricked them or did not tell them what they needed to learn. The responsibility is theirs. Before the test students can identify what they do not know and still need to learn and can ask the teacher or other students for help. When students have ownership of their results and will not blame the teacher or the system.
2. Communicate Desire to Help. Teachers must communicate repeatedly that their goal is to help students succeed from the first day of school.
Teachers should spend time expressing their desire that each of their students learn everything they need to know and that every student earns an ‘A’. The mark of an effective teacher is how much their students learn and retain, not how many ‘C’s or failing grades they give proving their class is difficult. Low scores are not proof of rigor, but of a breakdown in teaching and learning.
This strategy goes hand in hand with strategy #1. Teachers must communicate, “Here is what you need to learn, and my job and desire is to help you learn these things!”
When students feel the teacher genuinely wants them to learn, they tend to work harder and will be more likely to ask for help when they need it.
3. Change the Teacher Role from “Authority” to “Advisor” High school teachers must treat students as adults and as intellectuals with a valuable voice.
Young children need to be told what to do. They are not ready to make wise choices for themselves and most of the time do not resent having their lives managed without much explanation.
Teens are different. They at least THINK they’re ready to make decisions on their own and we have to positively coach their desire for independence. When they fall down, we pick them back up and ask them what’s been learned.
Teens have developed the ability to think critically and need to express their independence as thinkers and as people. They will resist and resent being told what to do without explanation. They will make their own choices whether adults like those choices or not.
The best thing teachers and adults can do with teens, is become trusted advisors who recognize their students have choices. Teachers can recommend students study, ask for help, come in for a review session, or a number of other behaviors outside of the classroom, but they cannot control their decisions. When a student understands that he or she is responsible for their decisions, they must take responsibility for the consequences.
The teacher told them everything they needed to know, (Transparency) expressed a desire for them to succeed, (Communicate Desire to Help) made themselves available for help and suggested a course of action. If students fail to do these things and fail, they will not resent the teacher, and will learn via natural consequences.
4. Help Students Set Goals. Give students an active voice in their learning by allowing them to set and share realistic goals.
Teachers are already being transparent, they have expressed their desire for their students to succeed, and are playing the role of advisor rather than authority by giving students ownership of their educations and behaviors. They are ready for strategy #4.
Students know the teachers want them to succeed, but success is different for every student. A student who struggles in math to get passing grades might set their sights on a B or even a C. The teacher can then help them get there. Many schools already use an individual learning plan (ILP – developed from the IEP in special education) to great success. This stimulates reflection and personal ownership. It also serves as a conversation starter throughout the year.
Together students and teachers can identify strategies to accomplish their goals like setting aside a certain amount of time for homework, advocating for help when needed, or asking for extra time, practice or even a redo.
When students reach their goals this is cause for a celebration (at minimum a high 5) and perhaps it is time to set new goals!
5. Get to Know Students as People: This is a huge part of meeting teens on the EDGE. Teachers should take the time to learn at least one unique thing about every student.
The message is, “I understand that you are a complete person who exists outside of my classroom.” Students need to feel valued and appreciated for who they are as people.
When a teacher takes the time (often 15 seconds) to ask a student how their softball game went last night, or to compliment them on their latest column in the school paper, or to ask what video game they are currently playing, or to burn a CD of the music they are listening to in their iPod, the student feels valued as a person beyond just a student. When the adult reaches out, the student is invited to reach back.
When this happens they are more likely to believe a teacher is sincere in their desire for student success, and it also enhanced their credibility as an adviser.
Each of the above 5 strategies are powerful on their own, but together can combine to make an incredible difference in how students and teachers relate and the results earned.
There are many more strategies for meeting teens on the EDGE and working as allies. In future blogs we will illustrate additional and related strategies teachers and schools can use to work along side students as allies rather than adversaries.
Filed under: Adolescents, High School, Learning, Student Voice, Teens Tagged: | Adversaries, Allies, Strategies, Students, Teachers, Teens
You guys are doing a great job. We definitely need a revolution in the relations between teens, parents, guardians and teachers. We have all been teens, and the one thing we all graved for was finding somebody who could understand us.
May I suggest that the first and most important “unique thing” a teacher needs to learn about each student is his or her name? I am truly stunned by the number of teachers I have encountered who go through the whole year without doing this. When you can address a student by name, it breaks down all kinds of barriers.
Also, you’re dead on with number one. I can’t remember which author it was now, but early on in my educational reading I laughed at the story of a professor who amazed all his colleagues when he told them he gave the students the answers to the test beforehand. That is, he told them exactly what they would be asked on the test (not the order of questions, of course). Knowing the prevailing culture of education, I was not surprised that his colleagues couldn’t believe that he would do such a thing, but that just shows the disconnect between most educational experiences and the working world. Can you imagine a corporate training program where they didn’t teach the employees exactly what they wanted them to know and do?!
“Adversaries to Allies” is my favorite article so far. There is so much wisdom in the five suggestions. As I read through the segments, these were some of my thoughts:
1. Transparency builds trust, the cornerstone of any relationship. Setting limits, however, is also an important part of the process as modeling boundaries illustrates respect for self and others. It”s not about rescuing, it’s about teaching.
2. A desire to help means being available. A teacher’s actions speak much louder than words! Reliability and trust are crucial elements to someone struggling to learn a perplexing concept.
3. Becoming an advisor instead of an authority figure whose role may likely be perceived as punitive, indicates respect for the learner.
4. Setting goals is a life-skill for success. What better way to learn something so valuable than from a trusted advisor?
5. Hooray for reminding us that a student is a person first. This is a topic for a lot of discussion!
The five strategies for meeting teens on the edge are similar to what we strive to do in adult education (college and other higher education). As an instructor of adults in a variety of learning situations, my role is not to be the “expert” but to help guide or facilitate each individual adult’s learning. This is done by making clear what is expected and have learners accept responsibility (often through learning contracts) at the beginning of the class; helping to set goals and arrange learning experiences/opportunities that foster learning; showing a committment to learners by being open, willing, and available to assist and provide resources when asked; and accepting that each student is different – from different backgrounds and situations, or even that they simply they differ in learning styles. Important in adult education is the understanding that each learner is unique, bringing his/her prior knowledge and experience to the current learning experience. As an instructor I need to recognize and accept that the learners are more than just students and that creating a connection with each learner will increase learning and make it a positive and meaningful experience for both the learner and instructor.