By Mark
I was flipping through an old notebook of mine and found a doodle I had drawn during a summer inservice after my very first year of teaching. Since the original had real people's names on it, I recreated that doodle here (click on it to see the text). As soon as I saw it in that notebook, I instantly remembered everything about the situation which prompted that drawing.
When I drew that, I was thinking of one kid in particular for whom I had attended several staffing meetings the previous year. At nearly all of these meetings were all the kid's teachers, her mom, an administrator, and a counselor. The child's social worker and parole officer had also been in touch with some of us. We were all strategizing with the kid about how she could be more successful in school.
What are your goals? Where do you see yourself after high school? What do you want in life to be happy?
We peppered the child with questions, all valid.
What can we do to help you learn? What can we do to help you get your homework finished on time?
Some decisions were made and commitments established.
I'll be here every day after school for you. I'll accept that missing work even though it is late. I'll set up a schedule to email you reminders about homework. I'll let you retake the last test. I'll give you more time on the next test.
The future looked bright: everyone was saying and hearing all the right things.
Yes, I'll make sure she has a ride after school. I'll check her homework calendar every night, and sign it to show you I did. We'll call you the first time she misses an assignment, and mail progress reports each week. We'll arrange for a tutor and work one-on-one with her after school.
Teachers, counselors, administrators, parents, social workers, coaches, advisors: they all care about the success of the child. They create systems of support and build ladders up which the child can climb to achieve success. This is how a school system ought to work to support kids toward a bright future. This is what we should do, and should keep doing.
But notice whose voice is missing.
In the case above, the kid ended up leaving our school and was, last I heard, in prison.
From what I've seen in my career since that first year, staffings like the one above often net fantastic results. The kid follows through and comes in for help after school.The parents abide by the agreement to check homework every night. The teachers focus on learning rather than deadlines, and bend a few rules to let the kid catch up before the weight of missing work buries him. Effort is invested, learning progresses, and progress is made up the ladder toward student success.
However, it all works because of the partnership. Not the partnership between counselors and administrators and teachers and parents, but the partnership between the child and the adults.
So who is really to blame when none of this works? I guess that is the root of the question I wrote next to that doodle:
How many people should it take to climb this ladder?
Really enjoyed reading this post (and the comments!) as I’m about to teach Locus of Control to my Psychology class…
I would have to agree that ultimately, without the students realising that they need to take responsibility for their own learning, all the hard work done by the adults would be wasted.
Just been watching “Dream School” here on British TV (have a look if you can, available on youtube I think) and it’s amazing to see what goes on in the mind of students that have been “failed by the education system”.
I guess we’ll just have agree to disagree.
Though I just wish you could agree that there has to be a place where a reasonable person can look at a situation and say that all options have been exhausted and we must admit that there are forces–including the will of others–which steers a course beyond our control. It happens in war. It happens in medicine. It happens in our personal relationships. Anyone who has had a friend or loved one battle through addiction or depression knows the importance of acknowledging just how little control we ultimately have over others…and how true it is that only we can save ourselves, by our resolve and our choices.
I’m glad that your position still includes accountability on the part of the student, but saddened that no matter what, the teacher is still to blame.
To face a teacher who has sacrificed her own life, health, marriage, and other students in order to seek, craft, and implement interventions for a student who ultimately still drops out–to face the teacher who feeds her students and clothes them at the expense of her own family–and say to that teacher “The kid dropped out because you didn’t do enough” is likely a sample of the reason so many teachers with big hearts don’t last in this profession–and we end up having debates about how “tenure” protects an indifferent, ineffective veteran when a motivated, effective younger is teetering on the brink of both a RIF and a breakdown. Maybe we ought to let those young fire-driven teachers know that it is okay that they don’t save them all–if they did all they could, that it is not their fault. At least that’s what I’ll keep telling them.
my main point is a lot less convoluted than I think you image.
“so when does responsibility finally shift to the student?”
it’s never ‘shifted’ to the student because it’s always the responsibility of the student.
just as it is and remains the responsibility of the ADULTS.
“When should the student stop blaming the broken system”
The broken system SHOULD be blamed because otherwise no one will ever take action to fix it.
“and take responsibility for his own actions?”
See the answer to the first question.
“Aren’t we handing the kid a cop-out when we say “it’s okay if you didn’t try, the system didn’t work hard enough to make you want to try.”
Yes. And I agree that this is a very real problem. It just seems that your reaction is to go to the very other end of the spectrum. Put all the blame and responsibility on the student.
Responsibility lies with everyone, students and adults alike. Why should we not be okay with absolving the adults of their responsibilities? Because at the end of the day we’re talking about kids.
What I propose is simple. What you propose is easy.
@Eddie… so when does responsibility finally shift to the student? When should the student stop blaming the broken system and take responsibility for his own actions? Aren’t we handing the kid a cop-out when we say “it’s okay if you didn’t try, the system didn’t work hard enough to make you want to try.”
I agree that there are many broken systems. I agree that interventions fail (most often) because of the adults who don’t implement them well. I agree that “effort is not enough,” but also beleive that without effort nothing will happen.
I’m not even suggesting that most interventions are the “perfect” mix of adults and strategies.
What I’m talking about is the simple fact: the student will always be the one who makes the choices. When the intervention works, it is because the student chose to take advantage of the opportunities and support.
There are situations where even the experts (who Jason acknowledges are themselves not 100% effective) have exhausted their expertise. Those experts probably lie awake at night wondering what else they could have done.
You bring up the idea of the cop-out “Well, we’ve done all we can do.” That phrase is not something that I think ought to be tossed about lightly…this is serious business. That phrase, though, has a place–and it’s place is after long, dedicated effort where resources, time, and people are devoted to the intervention. But isn’t it also a cop-out to say to a kid that it doesn’t matter what the kid does, it only matters what the system around him does?
Why are we not okay with absolving teachers of responsibility (even if all efforts have been exhausted; research, time, blood, sweat and tears have been invested in that intervention even at the expense of the teacher’s health, life, and other students–and sure you can say that this isn’t how most people approach interventions, but I’m talking about the some who do) when we have no problem absolving students of responsibility?
We want to delude ourselves into thinking we can build a system where no one can fail. (Before you jump on me for that, realize I did not say that kids do not all have the potential for success–I believe they do..but that this success might not always be realized by age 18.) The only way to create a system where no wan can fail is to lower expectations horribly. We ought to take the blame when the system doesn’t do what it should and the stakeholders are ineffective. But we have to realize that no matter what we do, sometimes the student has to be his own savior…and that his timeline and our timeline are not always the same.
wow so much misunderstanding.
we’re all “sort of” saying the same thing.
@Mark/Tom We seem to have read Jason’s comment quite differently.
We all agree that the responsibility for a student’s success lies with everyone, student included. However, I don’t agree with the assumption that the kinds of things that Mark describes adults doing is truly happening. At least not with the students who are at high risk for things like ending up in jail. Even when adults feel like they are doing all these things that are supposed to set up a failing student for success, they may not be the RIGHT things (Jason’s point?). And it’s at THIS point that Mark suggests that it’s then the responsibility of the student, whereas I think it’s still in part the responsibility of the adults.
I basically think that the adults should not be absolved from the responsibility so easily. I find blaming the student when adult interventions don’t work really problematic. It screams cop-out. It’s precisely this kind of thinking that makes progress in low achieving schools so hard to come by. You’ll be hard-pressed to find any adult in that kind of setting not saying that they’ve done it all to help students.
Jason seems to be saying the same thing Mark says. Except Jason doesn’t seem to really want to be saying it.
They’re both saying that the adults in the system bear a tremendous responsibility to do everything in their power to help students succeed at school.
But ultimately it’s the students who need to do the actual work.
You simply can’t argue with a fact so obvious.
Jason, the way you truncated my statement totally changes its meaning. Seems like a dirty trick to me. In context, I’m stating that when the adults do all they can and the student still does not succeed, the student ought to bear some responsibility–not that the students are to blame even if adults don’t fulfill our part of their duty.
@Rob D., I agree, even one weak link makes for a tenuous support structure prone to collapse. And as Jason points out, we should expect that all those on the support team are experts at what they do. Unfortunately, that isn’t reality, which is part of why many kids end up in that pit: some element of their support system has not been there to help them climb or enable them to be as successful as they could be.
I teach in an intervention program and have spent my whole career working with kids who often (not always) have some gaps in that support structure (to say truth, it is usually a family gap, but sometimes it can be traced to past teachers as well). I’m not in the business of “letting kids fail.” However, there will always be an eventual limit to what I can do for a child if the child doesn’t take some action of their own. The hardest lesson I’ve every had to swallow as a teacher is that I cannot actually control my students’ choices. I can create an environment and create opportunity and seek the right buttons to push to motivate, but I cannot ever control their choices.
Back to Jason… I don’t think I understand this:
“Also, it doesn’t all all boil down to the student. For someone who is willing to admit systemic failures and willing to seek systemic solutions, how can you abandon this approach at the last stage? The adults and experts are supposed to be able to identify the real root problems and the actual supports and interventions that will be effective. No one is 100%, but some people are a lot better at setting up the RIGHT changes for a student to help them succeed.”
You’re contradicting yourself. You claim that no one is 100%, yet you suggest that anyone who does not achieve 100% success has “abandoned [the] approach at the last stage,” again shifting blame away from the student. There will always be the segment of the population whose only savior will be himself, no matter how many people rally around him. Besides that: it does boil down to the student. Who is it who must act in order for success to be achieved? The student. Period.
There has to be a point where the student takes action, and then they ought to be credited for taking that action. In those successful situations–and yes, there are many, we just don’t always hear about the happy endings–the student HAS taken action because of the environment and opportunities the supporters have created.
And again: if we don’t let the accountability fall eventually on the student, then it only teaches them to shift the locus of control and blame the world before taking responsibility for their own actions.
“However, I still believe that it all boils down to the student.
If the adults aren’t investing support…”
Newsflash– there’s tons of evidence out there to demonstrate the the support is lacking, and it’s not always, or even often, just because of money.
Also, it doesn’t all all boil down to the student. For someone who is willing to admit systemic failures and willing to seek systemic solutions, how can you abandon this approach at the last stage? The adults and experts are supposed to be able to identify the real root problems and the actual supports and interventions that will be effective. No one is 100%, but some people are a lot better at setting up the RIGHT changes for a student to help them succeed.
Effort is not enough in a system so chronically devoid of efficacy.
Of course students always take on some blame– I believe a huge portion of the test score “problem” stems from exams which have little consequence or meaning to students, particularly those that are not intrinsically motivated to do well. But I also believe it is major responsibility of the adults to motivate that student, provide opportunities for success, and be great for that kid.
I read something in another blog today that I really liked– somewhere in this equation has to be the expectation that all of these adults are good to great at what they do.
Who’s to blame when none of this works? The teacher, the parent, the student, the counselor, the administrator, the social worker, (the stake holders)…yes. Each individual in this coalition has responsibilities.
But, each individual is limited in the change they can affect. The parent, should not be expected to explain the quadratic equation. The teacher does not dictate bedtime and home life structure. etc.
To me this post illustrates the fragility of this coalition. i.e. If the parent, student, counselor, administrator, social worker all fulfill their responsibility and the teacher doesn’t then we won’t see a positive outcome. If any one person in this coalition doesn’t fulfill their duty then we’ve lost.
Unfortunately the ability of stakeholders to affect change is being diminished by the current economic conditions: Inhumane cuts to social programs harms social workers, lowered staffing and increased caseloads impacts counselors, higher class sizes for teachers, loss of employment and/or home for families, and maybe an over emphasis on testing & the narrowing of curriculum disenfranchises students.
My apologies Eddie… I do see now that you DID include the student in who should bear responsibility. However, I still believe that it all boils down to the student.
If the adults aren’t investing support, then it’s a different ball game. I always tell my students, I can write you a check for million dollars, but if you don’t take the initiative to cash it, whose fault is that?
The student has no control?
You’re right that I’ve been in more successful situations than unsuccessful ones…and I do acknolwedge that above… most of the time the student figures out a way to make it work, but ultimately, no matter what the rest of us do, it ONLY works when the student makes the choice to take control.
But what about those kids who climb the ladder themselves? Would we take away their accomplishment and instead credit the teachers, administrators, parents, and social workers?
My point is that all the adults DO have an obligation to do everything within their power to help a kid succeed. Ultimately, though, it is the kid’s choice to accept the help. With this support, do more succeed than fail? Definitely. Is it 100% success? Nope. When it doesn’t work, I don’t think it is fair to levy blame only on the adults in the situation. A huge societal problem is that we are unwilling to demand accountability from students–and instead punish all those around the student when the student isn’t successful–even if all those around the student worked tirelessly, day and night, and exhausted every resource available.
There has to come a point where that committee of adults can sit down and say “We’ve done everything we know how to do” and let the student take responsibility for the rest. If the student still doesn’t make it and we persist in blaming the adults, then we’re teaching that kid that failure is always someone else’s fault.
The answer to both of these questions?
“So who is really to blame when none of this works?”
“How many people should it take to climb this ladder?”
The teacher, the parent, the student, the counselor, the administrator, the social worker.
And I hope you weren’t implying otherwise.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
You’re absolutely right that for it all to work, it needs to be a partnership between the adults and the child. I’m sorry that in this one incidence the efforts of the adults didn’t materialize into something positive and productive. If it were the case that most (heck I’ll be an optimist and say ALL) kids got the kind of support you describe here, I’m positive that you’ll see more success than failures. But maybe I’m being too much of an optimist here too.