Messages

So let's think back a bit:  We've talked a lot about the messages we're sending to students.  What messages are they sending us?  I think about this today, as I read Justin's post from yesterday and about the journeys we take and the meals we eat together.  

My student A is an athlete.  She presents herself as one.  I was quite surprised recently when she was talking with one of the students in her group and said, "Yeah, M, but you're smart.  I'm not smart!"  I let the comment go at the time, but caught her after class.  "Is that really what you believe?" I asked her.  We had a long discussion about this, and she pointed out that she has been carefully molded into being an Athlete type. For a while she tried to fight it, and show she had other talents, but she kept getting forced into the Athlete hole.  "It's really uncomfortable!" she told me.  

At a teacher meeting recently, my student D came up.  He is a "bad, lazy child" teachers said. "Oh, he has an A in my class.  He works really hard for me!" I told his teachers.  They stared at me.  After making sure we really were talking about the same student, I pointed out that he didn't work for me at the beginning of the year either.  Then, we had a chat.  I told him I believed in him, and I knew he could do better.  I let him talk about his learning and how he works best.  We made a pact that he would try his best. We haven't had an issue since.  

Students send US messages all the time--messages about how they feel, how they want to be treated, how they can be helped.  These messages are largely ignored.  Sometimes they are verbal.  Sometimes not.  What if we stopped ignoring them?  What if we actually took the time to have conversations with our students and let them have conversations with each other?  

We teachers have to remember that to do what we do effectively, we cannot see it as "buffet style" either.  How do we listen to those voices and foster those conversations?