In my many years as an educator
I've been afforded the opportunity to work with a variety of students.
They have all come from varying backgrounds,
single and two parent homes, middle class and impoverished homes,
monolingual and bilingual homes.
I regard each of those students in the same way:
as children who come into a school with an expectation to learn.
And I view my role with each of these children
as a conduit to whatever goals and dreams
they and their parents have ascribed to themselves.
And I, knowing the difficulties and opportunities that this world holds,
know that it is my job, along with their parents and caregivers,
to prepare them as best possible
to meet any challenge or opportunity that they may face.
With this idea in mind, I go about my work.
Although I claim to be a superhero at times,
I realize that there are things that exist in the lives of my students
that I cannot control.
I have no control over the income level of their parents.
I have no say in where they live or how their non-school hours are spent.
I cannot be sure that they always have the best nutritional choices
or the finest role models,
or the mulitple enrichment opportunities that come through travel.
I can't be certain that there's always someone available to read to them
or help them with their homework.
I can't control all of the exterior forces
that have an impact on the lives of my students.
As an empath, who sees so much of myself in many of my students,
and a control freak, which I'm sometimes known to be,
this fact created a paradox for me in my early career.
How can I fix it all for them?
I'm reminded of one particular student in my past that I'll call Jessica.
She was a feisty 11 year-old girl
who had already experienced more than her share of life's challenges.
She was being raised by her grandmother,
after her parents were unable to care for her appropriately.
She had a 19 year-old sister, who was a single mom and on her own,
who also tried to help with her upbringing.
Her family was poor, and she was a struggling student academically,
but she was always willing to try.
Unfortunately during that school year, her grandmother became ill.
So ill, in fact, that she died.
And Jessica lost the one adult outside of school who was responsible for her.
She was placed with her sister
who was struggling to survive and raise a young child of her own,
and I as her teacher empathized with her situation greatly.
So much so that the high expectations that I held for all of my students everyday,
became optional for Jessica.
After all, how could I expect her to learn at this high level,
when her world had fallen apart?
My initial empathy grew into long term sympathy, which morphed into pity,
and I allowed Jessica to flounder and miss assignments
and come to class unprepared and read less
and turn in incomplete work and the like.
I compromised on curricular expectations for her
to make sure that in a world where she was already so hurt so much,
that I didn't hurt her anymore by giving her something else to do
that was too challenging for her.
I limited my expectations for her in a way that I had never for any other student.
And in doing so, I began to see the effort that Jessica so willingly gave before,
that productive challenge that led to her learning and growth as a student,
began to fade.
And she became content to do just enough to get by.
Well I knew for a student like Jessica,
"just enough to get by" was a recipe for disaster in her future.
Where other students would have their parents
to hold them up into early adulthood,
she would not have that.
She needed a quality education more than anyone,
because there would be no support system for her in the real world.
I was doing her a disservice as an educator,
through my overcompensation for her situation,
that could have a profound effect on outcomes for her future.
Carter G. Woodson, a black historian and author, once stated
that "real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly,
to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better."
As educators it's our job to meet students where they are,
not to decide what their ultimate destination is
based on where they're started.
Often times the students we serve as educators in urban public school settings
are those students who naturally illicit the empathetic nature of most teachers.
After all, most of us are in education
because of our innate desire to help others.
But I challenge you to consider whether in our attempt to control
for the variables that often occur in these students' lives outside school,
we are doing them a further disservice instead of helping them.
Are we deciding to limit their challenges in schools,
and masking that as a means of making things easier for them
when in reality we're making things easier for ourselves?
Are we absolving ourselves from the requirement of
and work involved in providing scaffolded supports
that would allow all students to access the most rigorous curriculum,
by reducing cognitive demand,
and claiming it's for the sake of attending to cultural relevance
or student interest?
For educators that are on the front lines, leaders, principals and teachers,
there is a real world mindset shift that must occur,
in order for us to implement strategies that will work
with students in urban public school classrooms.
Because we don't have the luxury of waiting
until all societal ills that effect children in these areas are remedied,
educators must adopt strategies to support the whole child
socially, emotionally, physically, and mentally,
to ensure that attainment of knowledge at the highest academic levels
is not beyond their grasp.
According to Ruby Payne,
who is highly regarded as a foremost expert
on the subject of educating students in impoverished settings,
we can neither excuse them nor scold them for not knowing.
We must teach them and provide support, insistence, and expectations for learning
and functioning within societal norms.
The first step for doing this is to reject the longstanding idea
that students in urban school settings
are a monolithic population that can only be reached
through mimicking the cultures that they come from.
The diversity of the student population
in impoverished primarily minority urban public schools
can be as diverse as any other organized body in the world.
And although being conscious of
and acknowledging the backgrounds of all students
is an extremely important step
in building the relationships that are necessary
to begin to impart knowledge to students,
the assumption that producing every lesson as a rap song,
or learning and performing the hottest hip hop dance moves while doing so,
is an affront to the capacity of students in these settings
to learn or receive anything different.
We as educators must first become conscious
of the unconscious biases that we prescribe to entire groups of students,
and make every effort to resist our human nature to do so.
The next step to ensuring that we are of assistance
and not hindrance to our students in less than ideal settings
is to be courageous in confronting both the biases that I previously spoke of,
and in approaching the most rigorous curriculum for our students.
We as educators must not let our fears of the time commitment
or preparation necessary to build background knowledge,
or academic vocabulary,
or offer exposure opportunities to limit what we present to our students,
no matter what their background is.
We must determine their starting point,
and then go about the business of charting a course for success
towards the desired ending point for our students,
no matter how challenging it will be to get to that point.
We have to map out the necessary rest points
and refueling locations along the way
to ensure that we support them along the journey toward self-actualization.
Not by removing every obstacle or challenge,
but by supporting them through those challenges,
all while teaching them how to deal with the next challenge that is sure to come.
And finally, as educators in urban public school settings,
we must be consistent in two ways:
first, we must consistently demand and pursue excellence
for our students at school,
in the same way that we do for our own children at home.
We have the capacity to be a North Star for our students,
illuminating a pathway that will create an opportunity for them
to improve the conditions of their lives,
and potentially the lives of their children and grandchildren.
We must steadfastly improve our efforts.
And secondly, we must be consistent in our commitment to educating students
in urban settings.
There are easier jobs in schools where students have greater access
to many of the things as a result of their backgrounds.
But I promise you there is no job as fulfilling as watching students succeed
in ways that the world has said they cannot,
and knowing that you had a part in that student's ascent,
however large or small that part was.
I know you're wondering about whatever happened to the student Jessica
that I spoke of earlier.
Well, I wonder too.
Jessica went on to complete that school year successfully,
passing all the required assessments
with a little extra tutoring and nurturing from her teacher,
I raised my level of expectation for her,
while still providing the assistance that she needed to be successful,
and she flourished the following year as well.
I lost track of her after middle school,
and often think of her, and wonder what opportunities she pursued,
and whether she became a teacher, like she told me she would.
What I don't wonder about however,
is whether I challenged her enough or supported her enough
to help her take the necessary steps towards the goals she had for herself
or her capacity to achieve them.