steep slopes even over high points
In my experience as a teacher and school administrator, I found that the greatest growth impediment for a student who has typically not succeeded in school before is thinking about the rut they are in.
The antidote is easy: celebrate not where they are but the rate of their progress—prefer steep slopes even to high points.
That’s why in breakthrough classrooms, you’ll typically see lists on the wall not of kids with the highest grades, but of those who’ve grown the most since the last test or project. You could have a C and a B student, if they’ve worked hard to pull up from the D they started with. Not only do students escape feeling like “F students”, but they have a shot at beating the so-called “A students” on a daily basis.
Before you get tangled in worries that this lowers the bar, or say, “Are you kidding me? So is a kid penalized for coming in strong?” think about something you struggled with and abandoned.
When naming something you believe you could never do—speak Mandarin, ride a unicycle, pass AP calculus—look at the first time you decided you’d failed and ask, “Instead of saying I’m still not good at this, what if I’d said, ‘ok, 18% better than yesterday.’”
In the “new normal,” even A students will have to learn at an increased pace—and shouldn’t they be expected to anyway?
If you’re a school, start considering honoring and incentivizing students’ growth rather than their current status. Think about what this might change about how you grade or communicate grades. Start thinking of classroom routines and moves with parents that reinforce them.
If you’re a parent, you can start acclimating your kids to this even now. Ask yourself this question every day: “What has my child improved at that I’m unlikely to notice because it’s still not what I expect?”
This works to build pace and momentum in anything. Like it or not, telling your kid they dropped only four F-bombs today instead of the five they dropped yesterday is going to get them to zero F-bombs much faster than withholding your recognition until they do.
-ben
