"No One Rises to Low Expectations"

     I am rarely motivated by motivational speakers.  I usually just sit there appreciating their comments but wondering if they really buy their own spiel.  This morning Stephen G. Peters changed that.  Maybe it is because he gave it to us straight, without fancy words or pompous attitude.  (I actually had to Google a word used by the assistant superintendent when she welcomed us.) Maybe it is because his humble beginnings and career in education made his message authentic.   Or maybe it is because for the first time one of these school district-sponsored programs directly related to my job.  For fifteen years I have listened to professional development programs on reading, differentiated instruction, instructional strategies for higher math...you name it.  There wasn't much offered for the lowly art teacher.  But today I listened as a "new teacher"...one who will have my first class of 20 students who have no idea what to expect of me and I in return am not quite as confident as they need me to be.

     I took away a lot of important concepts from Dr. Peters' message, but the line that stuck in my head is the one at the top of this post.  He addressed the burnt-out teachers and acknowledged that today's kids are nothing like the ones they taught 30 years ago.  But he stressed that teachers have to adapt their methods in order to reach this new generation and inspire them to aim high and try to reach their goals.   A lot of teachers give up and decide that these kids don't want to learn so they aren't going to expect much of them.  If the expectation is a low as their current level, then what is there to gain?  Each generation needs to be greater than the last and if we don't train these kids to think ahead, want to be smarter and work harder then we as a species get weaker.  OK, he didn't say species but that is what he was talking about.

     When I went into the community and visited my students last week, I looked into a lot of bright and beautiful eyeballs filled with wonder and realized that I have been charged with an enormous task.  Not only do I have to teach them to write their name, hold a fork, learn to share and wait their turn, but I have to show them that knowledge is good and inspire them to want to learn more and more.  This is their first step into the world of education and I need to make sure that it is jam packed with one positive experience after another.  I have had a bad teacher or two in my educational history and I remember them as much as the countless wonderful ones.  I won't allow myself to be in that category.  These kids are going to be hugging Miss Boykin in the grocery store for years!

     Teaching is a relationship.  I learned this in my art classroom.  I didn't have much trouble with the "bad" kids because I had a relaxed atmosphere and treated them like kids instead of the thugs that some of them pretended to be. Apparently they appreciated that.  My Little Ones are coming to me as blank slates....they have no reputation or behavioral history that I need to be aware of, therefore I shall treat them thusly.   Everyone will begin as a distinguished scholar and add to their list of accomplishments by Graduation time in May.  This first year I might not cover everything in the curriculum in the order in which it is intended and I may screw up the lunch and attendance reports on occasion, but gosh-darnit these kids are going to be learning something good everyday.  And they will know their teacher believes in them.  Having seen where some of these babies come from, that alone will take them farther than we can imagine.