Aim high: time to raise our expectations

As much as they may disagree, students have it pretty easy in school. It’s easy for them because we (teachers) have made it easy for them…too easy. For many teachers, their goal is to make sure students don’t fail. This means their mission is to get their class to at least a 50% in the class. This is backwards thinking. Teachers’ goals for their class need to be high. Very high.

When we start with low expectations for our students, we automatically lower our teaching expectations. We’re no longer teaching to ensure students have as much knowledge as they can handle, we’re teaching to ensure we don’t have to see them again.

That’s pretty twisted.

Kids see this. They see that you’re leaving out certain questions. They see that you’re giving too much work time in class. They see you’re not giving any homework…ever. They see all the things you’re doing to make life easy for them…but this is not what we should be doing.

By making life and class easy for students, they develop bad/lazy habits. The odd day you assign questions for homework, good luck getting any of them to do them. They are used to no extra work or practice. When you give them only one day to work on an assignment, don’t let it surprise you when they ask why you are moving on the next day…because they aren’t done yet. When you tell them that the class will be having a quiz on X topic, watch their faces turn to anger because you so rarely challenge them with mid unit evaluations. And when you tell them, “no rewrites” on an exam, expect a call from a parent.

These habits are developed early, and reinforced often…like…every year of school, often. It’s because we seem to have permanently lowered our expectations for students simply because, “they can’t handle it.”

How do you know they can’t handle it when you won’t give them a chance to try?! It will blow your mind how much kids actually already know, or how capable of learning something they truly are. They are young! They are sponges! They want to learn! Even though they will never admit it, they want to be challenged!

Raise your expectations. Please (Ha-Ha! I said please, so now you have to). Not only will your students benefit, but you will as well. You’ll see that you find yourself putting in just that little bit of extra prep time, honing your skills to make sure you know what you’re doing. This will make you feel a helluva lot more confident in front of the class. As a result, students will feed off of the energy, positivity, confidence, and knowledge you’re exuding.

You are the Leader. They are the Followers. Lead them somewhere that will make them better. Lead them somewhere that will push them to shake bad habits. Lead them somewhere you would like to go. Lead them to success.

Sure, you may lose a few followers along the way, but at least you’ve showed them another way of doing things. This will most definitely be something that happens. Not all students are able and/or willing to rise up to your expectations…even when you had none, they weren’t able/willing. You’re always going to have that student. The hope would be that those students see how successful their classmates are being with these raised expectations, and soon realize they may very well be capable, after all.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again…success (in math) is a mentality. Believe you will succeed, you will. Believe you will fail, you will.

Some students may feel discouraged at times because they just aren’t “getting it” with these new, higher expectations. They need to know that you win some, you lose some. Take the good with the bad. Not all students are going to be experts at this, but they can’t let one tough concept get them down.

Encourage them. Let them know how well they’ve done, and how well they will do in the near future. Give them extra attention and instruction to help them out. If all else fails, try to write it off as a fluke. It was one bad day, the next will be great. You need to keep that positivity train rolling, or you’ll lose more of your followers.

As for the rest of them, this new level they are reaching is making them realize how much they can actually do. They’ve never been challenged to push themselves before, so they just assumed that what they were doing academically was their ceiling…but you’ve just blasted them through that ceiling.

Give them the full lesson. Assign all the questions, especially the ones that require them to really think. Keep the schedule you want. Tell them, “This is due tomorrow, because we’re moving on”, then actually move on. Take a phone away if it’s becoming a distraction. Do the things that SHOULD be happening in a learning environment, because that’s what it is…an environment in which learning takes place. Once you’ve established this, sit back and watch the students impress you.

You’ve now created an eager, ambition, explorative group of students who can’t wait for the next challenge you’ve got for them. These students will now regularly strive for better, because they know they can achieve better…and this is because you’ve showed them that their better is well within reach.

It’s going to take a lot of time, effort, and patience, but please… raise your expectations for students. They will rise up to meet them.

You got dis. I believe in you. You're all Rock-stars and Legends and I love you.​

#Math #mathematics #teaching #teacher #goals #achieve