Let Them Grow

“We want to be known but not to be memorized as though we cannot change.” 
- Beth Moore in All My Knotted Up Life: A Memoir

Once, I was making a seating chart for my physics class at the beginning of the year. One of our maintenance staff came in and saw what I was doing.  

• "Oh, it's so awful you have Seth Morris (fictional name). He's the worst!" he said.  
• I tried to ignore him, but he wasn't the kind of person who read social cues, so he kept talking, going on and on about this young man.  
• "I like him a lot," I replied. "He's bouncy, and that takes some energy to manage, but I'll take that over kids who won't participate."  

It turned out that the one experience this man had with Seth was when he trashed a bathroom during an extracurricular event when he in the 7th grade.  This kid was in my physics class his junior year, which means it had been four years since the event that this man was still holding against him.  

I think about that conversation sometimes, wishing I had handled it differently.  

• I wish I had said, "Yeah, he was a twerp in the 7th grade. We all were.  I'm glad no one holds my 7th grade twerp behavior against me now."  
• I wish I had said, "This kid is just trying to grow the heck up, and it would help if you got out of his way."  
• I wish I had confronted him in some way that might have prevented him from doing this in the future with other kids.  
• Alas, I did not do any of those things. Hindsight is always sharper.

One of the best parts of teaching in the school I was in was that I got to watch kids change as they grew. Because of my role as yearbook advisor, I often got to see kids from kindergarten through graduation.  I taught all 8th graders for 21 years.  For 11 years, I got them all again in 10th grade chemistry.  I often had 20-40 of them again in physics during their junior or senior years.  Let me tell you, the kid you know as an 8th grader is not the same young adult who graduates five years later.  Sometimes, they aren't the same at the end of the year as they were at the beginning.  Sometimes, I got the amazing experience of wondering how a kid was so different this week than he was last week.  Growth is not linear, so there are spurts and plateaus, and occasional regressions, followed by more spurts. 

In one of my favorite works by C.S. Lewis, Perelandra, the character known as The Green Lady describes learning in terms of agin. Every time Ransom explains something to her from Earth culture, she thanks him for making her older than she was before. We presume as people get older, they have experiences that teach them new things; her description was simply an alteration of that idea.  Seth, from my earlier story, had grown a lot between his 7th grade year and his junior year, and he was no longer a bathroom trasher.  In fact, he was likely the one who would have helped you clean up after an event.  

The reason this is on my mind today is that I had an interaction earlier this week.  There is a young man who comes into the Y every day.  I'll call him Kadeen. He's a handful, and he certainly hasn't been taught respectful interactions with adults, but I have seen him exhibit moments of kindness (like giving someone an extra bag of chips that came out of the vending machine).  I was mentioning something about finding an item for him in lost and found the day before, and one of the women I work with starting talking about what a horrible kid he was and how he would likely end up behind bars someday.  "I know I shouldn't think this way, but I do," she said.  I said, "I've seen him have some sweet moments, so there's some good in there somewhere.  We'll see what happens as he gets older"  She wasn't having it. Setting aside how annoying I find it when people can't agree that I have seen something if they weren't around to see it, I said, "I've known a lot of kids who seemed that way when they were young but changed a lot as they aged."  Long after we had ended this conversation, she brought it back up, saying he was one of those people who would have to hit rock bottom before anything changed.  This kid is 13 years old! Are we really writing his future off already?

If you know me, you know I am not saying some such nonsense as "There are no bad kids, only bad circumstances."  We are all sinners in need of grace and mercy.  (Even if you aren't a person of religious faith, you know that we are all more likely to do the wrong thing than the right thing if it serves us better.)  What I am saying is that people change, and kids are not yet who they will one day become.  I had a shorthand with the teacher next door to me. We used to look at each other and say, "Half baked."  It was our reminder that the kids weren't done yet. They wouldn't even be done when they graduated.  Just like no one would take a cake out of the oven half way through the baking process and toss it out because it was a mess.  Of course it's a mess; it isn't finished yet.  Of course your students are a mess; they aren't finished yet.  (Oh, man I just had the weirdest memory of a song from 80s kids' church - "Kids Under Construction")

There's a sentence that frequently pops up on social media - "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."  And I don't disagree with that statement if we are talking about an adult who has exhibited a pattern and shows no signs of remorse.  It is likely that person is acting out of his well-established character, and this is unlikely to change without a fairly large intervention involving repentance.  But when people show genuine signs of change, we should allow that, even if we are cautious in doing so.  

And when we are talking about kids, it's important to recognize that they are not just small adults; their character is being molded by every experience they have. We should be honored and humbled that we are part of that; it's an awesome responsibility.  While we hold kids accountable for their actions through discipline, we recognize that those very actions might help them to change (the root of discipline is disciple, so it should be teaching them something).  If we see a change in pattern, celebrate that as a success. Don't hold the action they've already been disciplined for against them months and years.  

One of the things I will miss this year about being in the classroom is that I won't have the opportunity to write college recommendation letters.  Writing those for kids I had known since middle school (and sometimes seen since elementary school) was an annual reminder of how God uses the process of maturing, learning, discipline, and experience to make us older, not only in the chronological sense but in the Green Lady sense.  

May we all be older at the end of the day than we were at the beginning.  

And recognizing that in ourselves, let us allow it in others too.

Stress - Don't Avoid It (Teach Students to Embrace It)

This time of year is often one of the most stressful in schools.  

It's usually a time with projects because you have learned enough to do something with your knowledge and far enough from the end of the school year to have time to grade them.  It's a time with yearbook deadlines, tech weeks, post-season games, and college acceptance/rejection letters.  For some reason, there is a week during this time of year when it seems kids are having a test in every one of their classes.  

Our impulse as adults is to alleviate all this stress in the name of mental health, but I would suggest instead that it is a time to teach coping mechanisms.  Removing stress may seems like it is good for them, but removing stress does not build strength. Coping with stress does.  It's focused on their future mental health.

In biology, we have learned that organism that don't experience stress die. Appropriate amounts of stress stimulate growth.  

Consider weight training.  You intentionally subject your muscles to a higher than normal load. The muscle fibers break down. But that causes them to rebuild with more dense connections. That increase in muscle density makes it less stressful the next time it experiences the same load, reducing future stress through response to current stress.  

Temporary life stress also causes us to respond. We develop coping mechanisms that we can employ in the future. We gain strength, knowledge, and skills that keep the same load in the future from being quite as stressful.

It's important to recognize the difference between stress and trauma.  Stress is an increase in load over your normal state.  Trauma is a load increase that is either high enough or comes on fast enough to break the dams of your coping mechanisms. 

Returning to the weight training metaphor - If you are at point where you normally bench press 50 pounds, and you put 60 pounds on the bar, you will likely struggle a bit, lift it with poor form for a while, and be rather sore at the end of your session. That's a stress that leads to growth and may eventually lead to ability to lift 100 pounds if you add to it incrementally as you adapt over time.  If, however, you put 100 pounds on your bar today, you will likely drop the bar on your chest and break your sternum or crush your lungs.  That's trauma - It's not possible for you to handle it with normal responses.

I'm not suggesting we subject kids to chronic stress all year in order to build strength. I'm suggesting that a week here and there of higher than normal stress need not be avoided.  They may look back at the end of it and recognize they are stronger than they thought.  They'll definitely learn to deal with future stress better.

Measurable Growth

Yesterday, I had an "off day" in my indoor cycling class.  It happens occasionally.  I just can't get my legs to go as fast as the instructor is cuing or push through a level that it could do earlier in the week.  Last Wednesday, I had a similar problem in my weightlifting class.  A weight that I have been putting on my back for several months using a clean and press simply refused to be lifted.  Even when I dropped down a bit, I tapped my forehead with the bar on my first attempt to pull it up and had to sit out a few reps during the set.  There are a lot of reasons for this.  Sometimes, I haven't eaten enough before going to class.  Other times I've been getting a cold that hasn't yet exhibited symptoms.  There have been times where I just haven't recovered from the previous day's class, and my legs, arms, shoulders, or core don't have more to give.  It can be discouraging if you are only comparing today to yesterday or this week to last week.  But, yesterday when I looked at my "off day" performance, I realized that a year ago, this would have been a very good day.  I was averaging just over a mile in four minutes.  That's lower than my current level of normal, but a year ago, it was my goal time for a mile, and four months before that, I hadn't even started cycling yet.  That weight I couldn't lift over my head last Wednesday was over 20 pounds heavier than what I was doing the same moves with a year ago.  In other words, I have made progress; and I know that because I have measurements.  

Recently, Adam Boxer posted this question on Twitter.  There were fifty replies directly to him and dozens more in conversations with the repliers, and it led to some interesting discussions.  My answer was that there wasn't enough information to tell, but that was largely because I don't understand the British system and how the curriculum is tested.  I would imagine a student or parent would look at this list and say they have regressed, but that is also a misrepresentation of the question.  After a few days of discussion, Adam gave his answer.  Each score showed that they had learned some of the content on that exam, almost none of which they had known before.  Therefore, the student had, in fact made progress.  I would also pose that (again, I don't know their system, so I could be wrong) the material probably increases in complexity and difficulty level as the year goes on, so having achieved competency on 40% of that content may be equal to or even better than knowing 80% of the material presented earlier in the year (more comparable to my "off day"after having progressed to a higher level).  

My point is this.  Growth is measurable.  Whether it is how much weight I can lift on an average day or the height of a plant, reading fluency, or how much a student has learned about math, there are ways to track it and observe progress.  It is not, however, always easy to measure.  In a different thread discussion on Twitter, a number of people replied to Greg Ashman's assertion about explicit and instruction and things that are measurable with some version of "really important parts of education are not measurable." I understand their point. Teachers teach a lot more than academic content, things like kindness, respect, teamwork, etc.  I would posit that a researcher running an experiment would be able to find a way to measure those things (How many times did a child smile at a classmate?  How often were kind words spoken?), and they would have people posted who jobs were to count those things.  But, the average teacher obviously cannot do that.  We have to base it more on general observations and "vibe," but that doesn't make growth in those areas immeasurable.  Growth can always be seen.

Grades are a piece of data, and I am not one of the people who think they should be abolished (I'm all for modifications to the way they are assigned, but one of the things pandemic lockdowns taught us was that students would not keep learning for intrinsic reasons if we got rid of them, as had been previously asserted).  I do think it is valuable to keep them in perspective.  Grades are A PIECE of data, but they are just one piece.  There are many formative assessments, checks for understanding, discussions with students about their learning, written work, and projects/labs which we put together in our understanding of student growth.  Teachers don't have time to consolidate those in a formal way, but over time, we grow our professional judgment to the point where we are able to develop a reasonable idea of growth from all of those inputs.  Grades matter; they just aren't the only things that matter.

It's summer, so none of this is helpful yet.  But when the school year begins next year, take in where your kids are.  You are taking in a constant stream of input.  You might be in a class where formal pretests are given, or you might just do some informal surveying of your class's knowledge.  You might even make it into a game that gives you actual information rather than icebreakers that 0.0% of people enjoy playing.  As the year goes on, you might repeat those questions (perhaps on one of those days that has a lot of interruptions where you have a hard time making forward progress).  This will give you a measurable way to track progress in your students.  Be sure to celebrate that growth with them, so when they have "an off day," they can recognize that they have grown to the point where what used to be out of their reach is now their norm.

Some of My Favorite Teachers (They Don't Teach in School)

When I joined the YMCA in March, I knew I was going to be a novice learner in a way I had not been in quite some time.  I've been teaching the same things for 25 years, and even the learning I've been doing about cognitive science was a form of learning with which I am quite familiar (academic learning from reading and listening).  Learning about physical things was going to be very different, and it's not an area in which my klutzy self has ever had much confidence.  I was excited to try new things and learn, but I also knew I was going to be pretty bad at things for quite a while.  (I will talk more about this in my  Thanksgiving post, but one of the great things was the first time I walked into Cardio Kickboxing and asked Matt if there was anything I needed to know.  His answer was "First of all, don't take yourself too seriously.  That was very helpful.)  

So, I knew this would be a learning challenge.  What I did not know was what an exceptional group of educators I was about to meet.  

As a person who reads educational research, listens to evidence-based education podcasts, attends Learning and the Brain conferences about cognitive science, and then teaches teachers how to improve their teaching, my brain is always noticing HOW I am being taught, not just WHAT I am being taught.  Seeing these concepts applied to non-academic teaching has been especially interesting, so let me tell you about those whose classes I take regularly.

 

Liz K - Meet the Queen of Clarity.  According to my friend John Amarode's book, Clarity for Learning, students should know three things at the outset of a learning activity - what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how they will know when they have achieved success.  I take Liz's spin class on Monday nights, and she tells us what each challenge will involve and how it will help us.  She gives feedback as we do it, so we know exactly where we are.  She explains where the pace is most important and where the tension is most important.  She uses the tools on the bikes to help us set a standard for ourselves and then match or beat it on the next challenge.  I always know exactly what benefit I will get from each thing Liz asks us to do, which is motivating because what she is asking us to do, climbing a hill on high tension or sprinting at over 100rpm, is usually kind of painful.

Liz also exhibits and instills a Growth Mindset.  Most of the instructors at the YMCA do, but I have noticed it in Liz's class at a particularly high level.  I even have her quoted on my classroom bulletin board.  She says, "Don't say, 'No, I can't,' until you have said, 'Yes, I'll try.'"  (By the way, teachers, if you want a great book on growth mindset, please pick up Andrew Watson's Learning Grows. He does a great job of making a readable summary of the history of this research;  it is more than just Carol Dweck.). Liz gives us a chance to beat our own best during each class, but she supports us even if we don't. She'll say, "Did you meet your goal?  If not, did you stay motivated the whole time?  That's what the goal is for."  Every class starts with the same speech, "If you've got something to sweat about, go ahead and crank up that level. Go for a PR. If, however, just getting here was a workout, guess what? You are already cycling. You've achieved that just by being here."  

I frequently think back to a day in May when I had experienced a particularly rough day as a yearbook advisor, and I came to Liz's class feeling pretty low. I beat the crap out of the bike that night, putting every frustration of my day into the pedals.  When I met her 4-minute challenge, I got to end a day where I felt like I had not done anything right with a serious win.  Since then, I have pushed myself harder in spin classes than I previously had because I realized what I could do when I really wanted to.  I think about that day frequently because it was so helpful to me, so I try to think of ways to provide my students with a way to win as well.   

Jay C - I don't have a book to recommend on the Communication of Care, not because there isn't a lot of research on this very human aspect of education, but because no one has written a very readable book on the subject.  We all know that it is important for teachers to care about their students, but not all teachers (particularly teachers of older students) know how to communicate it that well.  Those teachers should come to the Y and watch Jay. When Jay starts teaching, we know that he cares about us. We know it even more than we know what speed we should be pedaling. He calls us by name and asks about our lives.  I ran into him at the water fountain a couple of days ago, and he said "I've been thinking about you this week" and told me how glad he was that I was in his class.  He frequently tells the class, "You all inspire me."  He shares stories about the music he is playing, and the stories are all about the humanity of the artists.  While you are in the toughest part of the workout, he shouts, "You are strong.  You are healthy.  You are a gift."  I have often thought that people walking by in the hall would get contact encouragement from this man.  

In April, I was still experimenting with classes and trying to figure out whose I wanted to take regularly.  I had taken Jay's classes 3 or 4 times when I came one evening feeling a little emotionally raw from the events of the week.  Near the end of the class, Jay told us an incredibly touching story about his son, who had witnessed a car accident that week.  He then played "Bridge Over Troubled Water," a song that has a 97% likelihood of making me cry on a normal day.  So, I am pedaling and sobbing and wiping sweat and tears from my face simultaneously.  Then (I'm not done), he said, "You know, there are a lot of people who feel like they don't have a bridge.  If that's you and you need a bridge, come up after class and we'll exchange numbers.  I'll be honored to be a bridge for you."  I knew then this was someone whose class I would never leave.  One evening, I asked him if he would pray for me about something, and he said, "Yes, let's do it right now" and pulled me aside to pray with me. I'm not the only one he has this effect on; a couple walked into class one afternoon with t-shirts that said "Jay's Jammers" and said they had taken his class when he taught in another city.  Imagine loving your exercise instructor so much that you have shirts made and then, when you happen to be in his town, you come to his class.  That doesn't just happen because an instructor teaches the technical aspects well or plays good music.  That happens because he communicates how much he cares in a genuine way.

Stacey A - Stacey is an exercise machine.  I take her outdoor spin class every Saturday, but I have also taken her cardio step class a few times, and she teaches a strength training class.  Although she says this isn't true, I feel like she would work out in the red zone for an hour if she weren't teaching.  She is a force to be reckoned with, and so is her class.  Whether it is an endurance ride or a challenge ride, I know she is going take me right to my maximum ability.  Just when I think I can't take one more minute at this pace, she'll say, "20 more seconds until recovery."  To educators, this is known as Desirable Difficulty - keeping people in the sweet spot where it is difficult enough to be worth doing but not so difficult that they give up.

For those who take her class regularly, Stacey remembers what we have said and checks in.  If she knows a person's dog has been sick, she will ask about it the next time she sees them.  If they've been on a trip, she asks about it.  One day, I told her I would leave 5 minutes early because I was going to experiment with taking two classes back to back.  The next time I saw her, she asked me how it went and whether I thought I would do it again.  Two months later, she asked me how it was going.

Stacey's great strength as a teacher is, not only pushing us to a place of "desirable difficulty," but giving us an intuitive sense of what that is.  (Teachers, if you want to know more about desirable difficulties in the classroom, see this list of research articles by Robert and Elizbeth Bjork on Google Scholar.) Our bikes come with color zones that are meant to let us know how hard we are working out, but if we haven't set the numbers accurately or don't know what it should be, the colors won't mean anything.  She describes what we should be feeling at each stage.  Because of Stacey's descriptions (Green should feel like work, but you can still breathe; at yellow, your mouth will be open.  Red is all you've got; if you don't feel the need for a break, you weren't in your red zone), I could know how hard I was working on any bike, choreograph my own workout, or adjust my input number if I don't feel the way I should feel in each zone.  I have adjusted my input number twice as I've gotten stronger based on her descriptions.

Matt M - I don't have words to describe what an incredible teacher Matt is.  He has an extraordinary ability to accept me exactly where I am with whatever I have the ability to do (or not do) while simultaneously challenging me to do more.  That's a pretty special gift.  I also just enjoy watching him teach because he gets all lit up inside in a way that shines through his eyes, so it makes me feel happy, like I'm sitting in a window with sunlight coming through it.

I assume Matt doesn't spend his free time reading books about Cognitive Load and working memory (teachers, the best one you can read is Learning Begins by my friend, Andrew Watson), yet he manages cognitive load like a professional educator by teaching each part of a move in slow steps before speeding it up.  I'm willing to bet he hasn't studied up on the last decade of research into Modeling and Scaffolding, yet every kickboxing and weightlifting class is filled with those exact techniques. Every week, in his Cardio Kickboxing class, Matt stops and watches us do a combination without his cues, joking that we won't need him anymore.  He doesn't know it, but this is our most powerful educational tool, Active Retrieval Practice (teachers, pick up Pooja Agarwal's book Powerful Teaching or go to her website, for more on this important concept).  Matt is a joy to learn from, so I take his classes whenever I can, hoping he doesn't get tired of seeing me.

These four aren't the only teachers I have had at the YMCA who use sound educational practices.  Gwen tells us "Get your mind right" to remind us of the purpose of what we are doing.  Greg uses imagery like "your feet should feel like you're scraping gum off your shoe" and "it should feel like you've got half a Snickers bar under your tire" to make these abstract concepts into concrete thoughts in our minds.  Julie takes up space in our working memories by telling dad jokes, so we don't have room in it for thoughts of quitting (distraction is just filling working memory).  Thomas gets off his bike and walks around, an act of formative assessment. There are more, but I didn't want this post to be a mile long, so I only thoroughly discussed those whose classes I take every week.  These outstanding educators may not teach in school, but they are amazing and impactful teachers nonetheless.  

Want to Grow? Do the Harder Thing Now

In his excellent book, Why Don't Students Like School, Daniel Willingham discusses the difference between performance and growth.  A lot of students use study techniques that are ineffective for learning because they seem good at the moment.  As teachers, we all know that cramming is not good for keeping things in long-term memory, but students feel that it is effective because they do well in the short term (even though they know they have forgotten that information a few days later if you press them on it).  Parents have sometimes told me they didn't understand how their student performed poorly on a test because they went over their flashcards many times the night before, and they knew them by the end of the study session.  They don't realize that the student has recognized the material from seeing it a few minutes ago, and that they suffer from the "Illusion of Knowing." 

You can learn more about recognition/familiarity vs. knowing in Willingham's book Outsmart Your Brain.  In it, he uses an analogy from the world of fitness.  He asks the reader to consider a situation where your goal is to do as many pushups as possible.  He suggests that most people would be inclined to do the easiest pushups possible.  After all, you can do them relatively quickly, so it seems like you are reaching your goal, at least from a short-term performance standpoint.  What is not happening, however, is growth.  If you want to get stronger, you have to do the hardest pushups you can accomplish and then slowly make them even harder.  It will feel ineffective because you will end the session with jello arms, but it will help you accomplish your long-term goals in a way the easy thing won't.  You should do the harder thing.

I am in a class called Group Power at the YMCA.  It is a choreographed group weightlifting class, and I love it.  The first night I took it, I was afraid of injury, so I used the lightest weights I could, but for some of the moves, I realized I could do a lot more.  Over the next few weeks, I added more and now have "a normal weight factor" for each muscle group.  The instructor changes up the routine every six weeks or so, giving me the opportunity to experiment.  Right now, we are using an inclined bench.  During the core portion of the routine, we have the option to fight gravity or let it help us.  I thought of Daniel Willingham and chose to do situps and crunches against gravity, knowing it would help in the long run.  That long-run mindset is important because the first week, I looked like a dying cockroach, legs flailing everywhere.  Another member of the class showed me how to grip the bench risers with my feet, which helped a lot.  I still run out of core and leg strength a few reps before the end, but I feel stronger and can feel that I have improved.  Next week, I will talk about ways in which an understanding of cognitive science has helped me in group fitness classes, but the idea of doing the harder thing despite the feeling of ineffectiveness is definitely one of them.  I wouldn't be pushing myself as hard if not for Willingham's analogy.

Two weeks ago, in a parent-teacher conference, a mom came in and said, "My daughter has changed how she studies because of your advice."  I have spent a lot of time explaining effective study methods to my 8th graders.  Some of them neglect the advice, believing that they know what works for them in the face of contrary evidence.  ("No, listening to music doesn't affect my working memory," said one young lady as though she was qualified to know that.)  I want students to understand the reason for the advice we give them, so I have explained the difference between performance and learning.  Some continue with the ineffective strategies that make them comfortable, and some only care about performance (which is hard to change in our current culture).  But those who care about learning adapt, and I know they will find it satisfying at some point if they stick with it through the times when it feels ineffective.  

As teachers, it is easy to send mixed messages.  I know have been guilty of talking to them about keeping a long-term perspective on learning while also communicating with them more about their performance when grading them.  It's a tension I don't know we will ever fully reconcile, but we should be aware of it and try to keep them focused on growth over grades, learning over performance, and the important over the immediate.

Student Meetings - A Follow Up

Two weeks ago, I wrote about meetings I had been having with 8th-grade students about their study habits.  On Thursday, we had our first test since those meetings, so I thought it was a good idea to do a quick follow up.

At some point, I lost count of the meetings. Kids would show up unexpectedly, or two would show up when I was only expecting one.  I believe that I had about 20 meetings, roughly a quarter of my 8th-grade students.  I was able to personally advise them about note-taking, study, and test-taking.  It was encouraging to get emails from them with deeper questions than they had previously asked (and those emails started coming several days before the test, a good sign that they were spacing their study).  When I was passing out the tests, a few asked if they could have a blank sheet of paper, showing that they intended to apply one of the pieces of advice I had given them.  

In each of my classes, the average score went up.  In one, it was a moderate rise of 3 points.  Scrolling through that list, I realized that only two of them had come in for a meeting.  That class average was also affected by one student having a dramatic drop in score; I haven't worked out what the cause for that was yet.  The most impressive result is that my lowest-performing class from the last two tests improved their average score by almost 13 points!  Out of the 18 students in that class, 7 had come to meet with me.  I know this isn't scientific statistical analysis or a controlled experiment, but I'd say it is pretty strong evidence that these meetings are working.  There is a fair amount of time invested in these meetings, but they are clearly worth it.

By the way, this test was on chemical bonding, which is much harder material than the first two tests covered.  That makes their improvement all the more impressive.  When I return this test, I always say, "If you made an A on this test or improved your score, go home and hang it on the fridge.  If you made a 100, buy a frame."  (There are so many tiny ways to go wrong with this test that making a perfect score is exceptionally difficult.). 

My kids stepped up, and I'm proud of them.  I hope that success will breed more success.  I got to send some congratulatory emails last week, which is one of my favorite things to do.  To take advantage of growth mindset, I don't just congratulate them on getting a better score.  I point out the work that went into it and tell them to keep doing those things because they are paying off and they will get even better at them as they keep practicing.  

They Aren't the Same as Last Year

One of my first major rookie mistakes took place at the beginning of my second year.  I sent an email to the next level of teachers, offering my insight on the behavior of students I had the year before.  (I know. I am in the future also.)  It was not long before my principal came to my room for a chat.  Fortunately, he was a person who understood the difference between a wrong action taken out of malice and one made out of ignorance.  He very kindly said, "Listen, I know you meant well, but you can't do that.  Here's why."  Because of who he was, it was a great learning moment for me; but because of his role, he focused largely on the legal issues involved.  

I now understand the deeper reasons behind why that offer was a bad idea.  And it's simple. Those kids were not the same that year for those teachers that they had been the year before for me.  That understanding began that year and continued until last week and is likely to show up in my life until the day I die.  That year, I had a few students come back to visit.  I taught freshmen in a building that was separated from but adjacent to the rest of the high school (In fact, it wasn't just a different building, it was a separate school called the Freshman Academy.).  When these kids who were now sophomores would walk all the way across campus to visit, I was stunned by how much they had changed over the summer.  I remember saying to one of them, "Where were you last year?  You and I could have gotten some stuff done."  Then we laughed at some silly stories from the previous year.  We don't notice maturing while it's happening because they don't seem that different from one day to the next, but seeing them several months later, it was obvious that a lot of change had happened.

A few years ago, I was observing our 7th-grade science teacher.  I am not built to teach 7th-grade students.  It's just not a skill I possess, and the disastrous experiment of teaching 7th-grade health proved that beyond doubt.  This teacher, on the other hand, was a masterful manager of 7th-grade students.  She knew exactly what to respond to and what to ignore.  The period I was there happened to be one of her more energetic classes, and I was entertained as I sat in the back of the room while they calculate the air pressure on their hands.  One of the more insightful students, knowing I am the 8th-grade science teacher, turned to me and said, "Do you see what you'll have to deal with next year?"  I said, "I'm not worried. Y'all will be different next year."  Several kids were aghast.  They were a little horrified by the idea that they would change, and, even when I asked them if they were the same as they had been in fifth grade, didn't seem to recognize that they had already changed and would continue to as they matured.  The next year, I had a great time with that fun and energetic (but in a more measured way) group of 8th-graders; and they didn't seem to notice that they were different.

Note:  The following stories are about specific people, so I have changed their names.

Speaking of 7th graders, I had a conversation with a custodian a few years ago that made me grateful I am not still being judged on who I was in the 7th grade.  A friend was working on her seating chart for a sophomore class, and this custodian said, "It's a good thing you don't have Kyle Fern.  You'd be in real trouble."  She said, "Why would I be in trouble?  He's great and really fun to teach." The incredulous custodian told her about a time when he left a mess in the restroom (I believe he used the phrase "trashed the restroom") after a play rehearsal.  This event had happened three years before, but he was not ready ot let it go.  Then, he mentioned the same story to me a few days later.  I said, "Kyle's just trying to grow up, so maybe you should let go of what he did once in 7th grade." That boy matured into a delightful young man, who I taught physics during his junior year and who I am proud to have taught. 

Apparently, God wants me to keep this lesson at the front of my mind because He continues to put examples in front of me.  About two weeks into this school year, my math teacher friend said, "You know who I really enjoy this year?  Jack Hill."  I said, "Whew, I'm glad somebody does. He drove me bananas last year."  And he did.  He argued about everything and whined in a way a student should have grown out of by the 8th grade.  We had quite a bit of friction.  Last week, I stopped in her room while she was holding a help session, and he was thinking through a complex problem, answering her questions and just generally being a really great student.  I later said to her, "That is not the boy I knew last year."  Much like that first year, I thought about just how much we could have gotten done together if that had been the kid in my class.

They are not who they were.  They are not yet who they will be.  While you can get valuable insight from the previous year's teacher, you should also not assume that what they have said will be your experience with that student.  Their maturity level is different, and students interact with different teachers in different ways.  Let them show you who they are now.