I'm Expecting!

MONDAY, MAY 2, 2011


After the Texas Commissioner of Ed. announced the new rules regarding our high stakes test on Easter weekend, I ranted appropriately. He is a wimp. So, doing the right thing by kids, teachers, schools and systems may trigger some public heat? Welcome to leadership.

As part of that rant, I suggested I would address the issue of expectations in contrast to standards. Here ‘tis! Aren’t you excited?

The most dangerous question a gentleman can ask a lady is, “Are you expecting?” Answer better be “yes.” Seems to me, however, we are all expecting all the time. I have a meeting to attend and I form pre-meeting mental images. I stand in line to buy a movie ticket and I have pre-movie expectations. I awake and think of my coming day and have expectations regarding that day. We are all expecting, all the time. There are things we dread, people we avoid, events we are excited about, plans that fill us with anticipation, all based on our expectations. My dog sits at the front window and awaits my arrival home, happily wagging her tail as her expectations are met. So cool. Even dogs have expectations.

I love to fish. Fishing is the expectation sport. I do not suffer from the gambling addiction, but I think I understand that particular addiction as the expectation addiction. I enjoy rooting for the Houston Astros, the Houston Texans and the Texas Aggies. Clearly, I am an expectations fan – well, they could win, I want them to win, I want to be watching when they win, so I will watch today expecting them to win! (As an aside, isn’t it interesting that we collect a huge array of data on professional athletes and athletic teams, and yet the outcome of any given competition remains unpredictable? I think that is amazing. I also think we should use that observation to temper our use of data regarding kids, schools, etc., but that is fodder for another post.)

So, if you buy the notion (and no, I’m not asking for a monetary transaction here) that we all have expectations and are expecting all the time, then the fundamental issue about expectations is the nature of those expectations. I think of expectations as being positive, neutral, or negative, though most educators talk about “high expectations” as though it is something one can get like a new truck or Botox injections. “Yep, got me some high expectations for this year.” We could just as easily think of these pre-formed mental images regarding possible future outcomes as optimistic, realistic, or pessimistic. Regardless, we have expectations.

Those expectations are fluid, they are not black and white, they are not pass/fail, and you can’t buy them, though I do believe they can be contagious. We are not issued sanctions or rewards based on our expectations. Expectations are constantly evolving self-predictions. They come from within and are not imposed from without. As our futures unfold, we realize our expectations and/or modify our expectations based on new realities, new data sets, or changes in our circumstances. Expectations have virtually nothing in common with standards, though expectations can be influenced by standards as they can be influenced by a host of things.

When my son was young I expected him to learn how to tie his tennis shoes with a bow knot. I saw this as a critical skill for my child to master. I was a teacher, so, I sat him down, told him that today he would learn to tie his shoes. I grabbed each shoe string, verbally described the process while modeling the process, and finished with a flourish having successfully tied a bow. I untied the knot and asked him to tie the same knot. Brow furrowed in concentration, he began to twist the strings and form a bow. Suddenly it all fell apart and I could tell he was mad and frustrated by his icy, downward stare and arms folded across his chest.

I now had choices. I could have said, “I taught you and you failed to learn. You were given the opportunity to demonstrate your learning and you failed. By my standards, you are a failure not only as a tier of knots, but as a person. You will go without supper and I will buy you shoes with Velcro straps so that the entire world will know you are a failure.” I suppose were I the Commissioner of Education or the Texas State Legislature, that is what I would have done, and I would have had to label myself as an unacceptable parent from a long line of unacceptable parents because my son could not knot after instruction as demonstrated on the standardized knot test.

I could have walked away and hoped some future day would yield more success.

I could have sent him to his other unacceptable biological parent for remediation.

What I chose to do was to praise him for the steps that he did accomplish. I told him that he got the initial twist just right and that is a hard part. I pointed out that holding that initial loop while forming the actual bow is also tricky and is rarely accomplished on a first try. I told him I was proud of him and had every confidence he would master this in no time. I suggested he try again, taking each step in the process very slowly. I monitored, I coached, I lent a finger when needed, and low and behold, he tied the knot! Joy and celebration abounded. He did it again, and again with some assistance. He did it again. And again. And soon, he was tying his shoes all by himself just as I expected him to be able to do. My expectations became his expectations because my expectations included my own vision for his future success and that vision became contagious. He expected to master it because I expected him to master it and he knew I would not give up on him. My expectations were realized, but only because they were expectations, not standards, and because I was on his side all the way through the process.

Teachers gather before the school year and look at each other’s class rolls, review each student’s previous performance on a variety of measures, and form mental images of what they might be able to expect from each kid. In this moment is the opportunity to form positive expectations for the student’s learning. At this moment, the teacher may decide that he or she pictures the student successfully mastering all that is expected, and, the teacher can form an attitude that student failure to master something is really a teacher failure.

I knew this to be true as a teacher. At the beginning of each year I could quickly identify those students who were verbal, involved, polite and “teacher pleasers,” and I could quickly identify my thugs and thuglettes. Both ends of the spectrum self-identified early. It was oh so tempting to teach to the pleasers and ignore the thuglettes. If the pleasers looked lost, confused, concerned or disinterested, I quickly assumed the error must be mine and tried another approach. If the thuglettes looked lost, confused or disinterested, I left them alone for fear of arousing their acting out behaviors. For the “good” kids, I had very positive expectations and assumed the responsibility for their learning. For the not so good kids, I had very negative expectations and assumed they were responsible for not learning. In other words, regarding the notion of who is responsible for student learning, for the good kids, it was me. For the bad kids, it was them. I learned later what a difference I could make in the classroom if I assumed positive expectations for all my students and assumed personal and professional responsibility for their learning.

I remain convinced that where data indicate that private and charter schools appear to be performing at the same or even better levels than public schools, it is because of the parental and staff expectations. If I’m gonna pay money for you to go to school I expect you to learn. If I am only going to teach the kids who want to be here and they can get kicked out, then I expect them to learn. The private and charter schools practice expectations as well as they can refuse to allow some students to enter, and if once enrolled a student proves to be a thuglettes, they can be kicked out.

The feds and the state government don’t get this at all. They mandate higher standards, more rigorous tests, and more charter schools all the while sending the message to public education folks that you are losers and it takes a stick to get your attention. Raising standards will make more people fail. Having intentional positive expectations and consciously abandoning neutral or negative expectations will make more folks successful.

We are all expecting and we all get to consciously choose the nature of our expectations. If Legislators and administrators practiced positive expectations for schools, teachers and kids, we would be more successful. But the entire standards movement, a.k.a., accountability, charters, high stakes testing, etc., has evolved from low expectations regarding our schools and some of our kids.

You may have noticed my expectations for the Legislature is neither positive nor neutral. Thugs and thuglettes? Perhaps I should practice more of what I preach……

POSTED BY EILEEN GOOD AT 7:32 PM


1 COMMENTS:



Anonymous said...

Maybe as teachers we should learn to say "I have positive expectations for my students" instead of high expectations. Could that be the beginning of more students being successful?