Friday was a great day for one of my eighth graders, y’all.
Let’s call him Arturo. That’s not his real name, but he’s a very real student in my class this year.
He’s got a long history of struggling in school — and, as a result, he’s kind of given up. He comes into class and sits quietly, but rarely attempts any of the work that I assign unless I stand over the top of him and hold him accountable for working question-by-question.
Our task in class Friday required students to look at chemical symbols and identify things like the number of elements, molecules and atoms in the symbol. It required students to have an understanding of both coefficients and subscripts and how they work together — a topic that we had reviewed together in class on Thursday.
Arturo started our task in the same way that he usually did: Sitting quietly and killing time.
So, I called him over and coached him through the first problem.
He picked up on the process and finished the next three questions on his own. When he had them done, he came over to me without prompting and asked whether or not he’d gotten them right.
I bragged over his work for two of the problems. He’d aced them. I let him know that was proof that he could do this work. But I told him that his third answer was incorrect and asked him if he could figure out why. He thought for a few minutes and then picked out his mistake. “Oh — I know what I did wrong!” he said excitedly as he corrected his answer.
Then he did something I would have never expected the day before.
He asked me if he could do MORE problems.
“Sure,” I replied. “Try these two.”
He returned to his seat, worked quietly for a few minutes, and came back to have his worked checked.
He’d nailed both answers.
“You know what you are doing, Kiddo!” I said.
“Do you think so?” he asked?
“If you want to prove it to yourself, you have to teach someone else what you’ve learned,” I said.
“Can I help Donnie?” he asked.
That’s when the magic REALLY began. Arturo took not only his friend Donnie out in the hallway for some extra coaching. He grabbed two other kids who were struggling and coached ’em up.
All four would come to my desk a few questions at a time to get their worked checked. Each time, they were surprised to find out that they were getting questions right. And each time, they would correct mistakes on their own.
And all four came to my room during our enrichment period to try even more problems. It was as motivated as I have ever seen them — and when I added 100s to their average for acing the assignment, their faces lit up with pride.
Later, I asked Arturo a question. “You seem like the kind of kid who worries about trying something if you aren’t sure how to do it. Am I right?”
“I don’t try things, Mr. Ferriter, because I never get them right,” he replied.
Stew in that for a minute, would you?
Oftentimes, we assume that the kids who aren’t working in our rooms are lazy or disrespectful or rude. We write them off with phrases like, “I can’t help him if he’s not even willing to try.” We give them zeros, thinking that somehow we can punish them into performing.
For Arturo, avoiding work wasn’t a function of poor behavior or a bad work ethic.
It was a function of YEARS of struggling with assignments in school and never seeing himself as a capable and competent learner. In his mind, trying something new was pointless. Why try when you “know” in advance that you aren’t going to succeed?
THAT’s why building confident learners is such a big deal, y’all.
A student who has tangible evidence that they CAN be successful is far more likely to persist in the face of a new challenge than a student who has never experienced success.
So, what are you doing to ensure that EVERY kid in your classroom experiences some measure of success on tasks that you assign?
Worth asking, right?
