Discovering the Wealth of Our Students!

Discovering the wealth of students has long been the cornerstone from which I’ve ordered my steps as a career educator. While this journey has taken me along various paths, I’ve always found it important to embrace the differences of those in my community. I believe being increasingly sensitive to the differences associated with learning preferences, economic class, and cultural backgrounds continue to enable me to make a positive difference. While Roanoke, Virginia is by no means a metropolis comparable to that of New York City, its rolling hills, quaint neighborhoods and busy downtown appears to a melting pot of cultural richness! While recent published statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau estimate Roanoke’s population to be comprised of approximately 70% Caucasian, 27% African-American, 2% Hispanic and approximately 1% Asian, one can experience cultures from over 70 countries each year during the Local Colors celebration, the culminating event of Roanoke’s year-long multi-cultural program which recognizes and embraces people of diverse origins, races and ethnic backgrounds. How can teachers build upon the cultural strengths of their students? The answer to this question continues to be researched by many. ASCD recently released Fisch and Trumbull’s “Managing Diverse Classrooms – How to Build on Students’ Cultural Strengths” to offer practical suggestions for doing just that. While this work is one of many, I particularly liked the strategy suggested for bridging between student stories and academic discourse. There is power in adding value to student voice and language! So, if you are seeking ways to become culturally competent to be progressively more effective, continue to be committed to self-awareness, build trust and listen to your students. Click on the picture below to enjoy the TeacherTube video, “Let Them Speak”!
Let Them Speak

I strongly agree with Ted Sizer’s quote which speaks to personalizing schools.  As an educational reformer, much of his work has been focused on shaping instructional environments that are engaging at all educational levels.  Most would agree that high-performing schools have healthy cultures. Many strategies can be used to diagnose a school’s culture. Simple unobtrusive strategies may involve walking the hallways, attending  PTA functions, and reviewing the master schedule.  Of course, it is always best practice to use objective data to make informed decisions. However, I would like to entertain the “out of the box” things that we do to build strong relationships between educators and students.

Although some students are able to navigate successfully through “developmentally challenging” school years without a personal connection to an adult in their school, many others are not as successful.  Therefore, a personalized school environment can provide an avenue that facilitates a smoother journey for all students.  After attending a “Breaking Ranks in the Middle” conference that was hosted by NASSP, the National Association for Secondary School Principals, I was inspired to assess the “health” of my school’s culture. During my drive home, I began to wonder how many of my students were not connected with a teacher/counselor/administrator/support staff mentor.  I wondered how many are, in so many words, invisible – whether successful or unsuccessful.  In a middle school of approximately 500 students with a healthy school culture as previously documented by surveys and other indicators, I suspected that there would be very few “invisible” students. 

Armed with new and not so new information, I set out to identify how well we personalized our school and how our efforts could be improved.  One strategy we used to analyze the level of student connectedness to an adult involved placing the names of every student on poster-board paper.  After having done that, every adult in the building was given a week to stop by the posters to place their initials beside the name of any and every student in which they had a genuine connection.  This activity yielded great information from which many conclusions were drawn and acted upon.  We were able to identify the core of adults that mentored many students above and beyond their ”caseload”.  We were able to see a clear relationship between the level of student success and the level of connectedness to an adult.

How personalized is your school community? Please share your best practice for facilitating an environment where a student’s motivation is enhanced by ongoing, positive relationships with peers and teachers.

As we move closer to the end of our first academic semester and into a new calendar year, we roll up our sleeves and continue to work toward achieving our goals.  Sometimes, the goals we set for ourselves seem impossible to achieve!  JFK once said, “We choose to go…not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to measure and organize the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one that we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”  Our profession can be emotionally and mentally exhausting yet rewarding and exciting at the very same time!  Collectively, as a focused professional learning community, we can create safe, intellectually stimulating environments that nurture and shape our future.  Just think about the opportunities we have every day to make a difference in some young person’s life.  I really didn’t think much about this until one of my middle school students told me I was “like a mother” to him.  Truthfully, I felt like a mother to this student because I had been his elementary and middle school principal!  How rewarding it has been to watch this fourth grade child grow into a young man just two years away from graduation.

Together, we will face new and existing challenges as we journey through this academic year.  One of the goals of this blog is to stimulate discussions surrounding ways we can continue to “discover the wealth of all students”!  As the Executive for Student Support Services, my goal is to maximize coordinated efforts that will reduce barriers to learning and enable students to achieve in a safe and effective environment.  I invite you to blog along with me by sharing your thoughts to this and future posts.