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Pick-N-Choose Your Chapters
At-Risk Students helps teachers in Teacher Study Groups, or as individuals. reflect on their experiences with “troublemakers” who can’t, don’t, or won’t learn—“ The Nation’s #1 problem.
And, it offers 31 different dimensions of the at-risk problem with a descriptive statement to allow readers to pick and choose among them:Here are the 31 choices:
Annotated Book Contents, 31 Chapters
- Teaching: An Awesome Responsibility.................................................................33 I make the decisions in my classroom—all of them, always. Whether I have a “good” class depends on me, not on my students. Whether the at-risk kids get involved, learn and enjoy my class depends on what I do. How they behave depends on how I behave. I am 100 percent responsible for my teaching.
- At-Risk Students: A Point of Viewing..............................................37 A summative position on the reasons and remedies for at-risk problems At-risk students cannot be expected to increase their achievement unless teachers improve their effectiveness. Teachers cannot improve their effectiveness unless they are willing to abandon teaching procedures that have failed and adopt strategies that take into account that at-risk students begin their schooling with different experiences and different perception of themselves, school, and the world.
- Wealth Accounts for Achievement Gap.............................................45 I respond to an Alfie Kohn article. “Wealth accounts for differences in test scores” so says Alfie Kohn, who goes on to show, “We’ve got proof.” I agree and offer responses and explanations. Since poverty correlates to differences in test scores, it follows that poverty needs to be “fixed” before worrying about test scores, but schools do not have that option.
- Take a Seat at the Bottom of the Class..............................................53 But don’t plan to stay too long; it will be too painful. Fifty percent of the students in class are below average, and there is a bottom ten percent in every class. Consider what it might be like for students who spend day after day at the bottom in boredom, condescension, low scores, in competition with the rest of the class— especially the top ten percent—and in fear of being ridiculed and appearing stupid.
- “We Get What We Get”……………………………..............................59 The bottom line in parent accountability and teacher responsibility. A blunt, undesirable, but definitive answer to the dilemma of teachers’ expectation of parental cooperation in their child’s schooling, plus the problem of parents who refuse to take responsibility for assignments, homework, and participation in their child’s learning. The bottom line: Teachers must teach unconditionally—no excuses, no exceptions.
- Successfully Teaching At-Risk Students……………........................ 65 Understanding, accepting and repairing the damage. An estimated twenty-five percent of children arrive at school having been reared in poverty and undesirable conditions all their lives. It is not their fault. The children were okay when they were born. They were “damaged by an adult created-managed world.” The “at-risk” label is pinned on them by schools, indicating that they are at risk of not being taught. It is an insidious means of blaming the victim.
- Failure Is Never an Option……………………………........................79 The alternative to flunking students is teaching them. Students do not just flunk—they flunk something, and the “something” they flunk is what I, as the teacher, am in charge of. It takes two to “tango.” You can’t have a “flunkee” without having a “flunker.” So long as teachers are in charge of teaching, testing, and evaluating, they choose whether students learn or flunk.
- Discrimination against Low Achievers……………….........................85 Powerful, proven research that shows pervasive injustice. A short, meaningful article from the London Times grabbed my attention and, to this day, has never let go. The writer of the article asks, “How many of us really do try to give an equal chance to all members of the class?” Incredibly, a federal project modified teacher techniques so that discrimination against low achievers could be eliminated.
- Remediation Doesn’t Work..............................................................89 The remedial concept, not just the procedures, does not work. If remediation works, why not take students who are behind and catch them up? Why is it that schools keep remediating the same students year after year? And they do, sometimes for their entire aborted career! The fact that schools are still remediating them shows that the concept doesn’t work. In fact, if remediation works, why not use the techniques in the first place rather than after a student has encountered difficulty? Why not have all teachers use the procedures instead of just remedial teachers?
- Teacher Characteristics for Student Achievement....................................97 Three characteristics of a “good” teacher. A teacher is a human being with unique characteristics, personality, interests, differences, abilities, and knowledge. In reflecting on the three best teachers I ever had, I note that they were not alike; they did not have the same, or even similar, teaching characteristics; each teacher was unique. Here are three characteristics that “good teachers” possess.
- Student Self-Concept and Achievement.............................................101 Do we really believe in the importance of self-esteem? Each day, a number of unfortunate students are told in many ways that they are inadequate. The most basic elements of school structure from the lockstep grade levels, to the formal, informal, and subtle evaluations, to the competition, and constant comparisons are inescapable. Once a student hits the slippery slope toward failure, the only teachers who could help are often the ones who hasten the slide.
- A Remarkably Successful Program for At-Risk Students....................................................................109 How a self-contained class of the lowest achieving seventh-graders in a large school gained three to four years in achievement scores. Class members, themselves poor students, became tutors, helping elementary students rather than being the ones tutored. Not only was the aphorism “The best way to learn something is to teach it” applicable, but the self-concept of being “a teacher” was an obvious personal gain.
- Murphy, the Tutor........................................................117 The wondrous story of a changed life. Murphy had been in special education in inner-city St. Louis schools all his life. At 19 years of age, with good attendance but with no high school credits, he moved to a suburb that had no special education program. Becoming a part of an at-risk group of junior high students involved in tutoring elementary-level students transformed his life.
- Labels Are for Jelly Jars................................................121 Labels have many uses, but not for pinning on students. Labels can be useful in communicating information about a student, but they are useless, even detrimental, in working with a student. I’ve never used a label of any kind to help change a student’s behavior. Instead, I use an accurate, detailed description that produces an accurate specific plan of action.
- The Teacher Is the Difference.....................................129 Many factors make a difference, but the teacher is the difference. Whether students learn a little or a lot, whether they have a good day or bad, whether they improve their achievement depends on the teacher. Textbooks, classroom conditions, and administrative policy can make a difference, but the teacher IS the difference.
- Kids are Never NOT Learning...................................133 Only nine percent of a kid’s life is spent in school, but s/he is always learning. Every kid can learn is not accurate. It should read, every kid does learn. What they learn is what they experience. If they live on a farm they learn about farms; if they live in the ghetto they learn about ghettos. I’ve noticed that kids who come from Catholic homes are usually Catholics and those from Baptist homes are usually Baptists.
- My Teaching Credo......................................................143 My credo is a public announcement and application of my beliefs. My credo serves as a summative part of my beliefs, experiences, knowledge, and expectations. I developed it as a statement by which all of my classroom behavior could be measured and understood. My beliefs determine my actions. Upon examining my beliefs, I then make a commitment to my behavior as a teacher.
- Teachers Are Individuals Too....................................149 Neither students nor teachers can be standardized. In teacher training, they forgot to allow for individual differences in teachers. They seem to assume that all teachers have the same abilities, personalities, interpersonal skills, competencies, and teaching styles. In my twentieth year of teaching, it struck me that the school system did not regard me differently from a first-year teacher. I had the same number of kids, same supervision, same preparation time, and same faculty meetings as though there was no difference.
- Marching to a Different Paradigm.........................157 Student achievement is via teacher effectiveness. Teacher effectiveness is through a relationship that acknowledges the independence of both the teacher and the student. Each functions independently, yet both are responsible and accountable to each other. The result of the merger of the teacher and student as autonomous learners is like a hybrid interaction and interrelation, creating an Interdependent Paradigm.
- School Learning Occurs in School...........................165 Children learn all their lives, but the learning for which school is responsible, occurs in school. Teachers don’t just make a difference; they are the difference in student learning. And the keys to improving their effectiveness in increasing student achievement is first, teacher empowerment and second, embedded staff development provided by building administrators as instructional leaders.
- My Reaction to a School Incident Reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch...................................................173 Maybe the problems are really just symptoms. “Mobs of students in the halls being disruptive and refusing to go to class” is a problem at Vashon, an inner-city high school in St. Louis, Mo. The problem made the front page, feature page, pictures, columns, editorials and letters to the editor in the newspaper. What they call problems, I call symptoms.
- A Great Model of Differentiation..............................177 To find motivated kids, individualized learning, success with at-risk kids and differentiation too—check out the extracurricular activities. No two students are alike, learning is personal and learning is individual. So how do teachers go about teaching lessons for a group? This chapter offers a list of the characteristics of differentiation and how it works for all students, including those at risk.
- “Florida Tries to Avoid Flunking 50,000 Third-Graders”...............................................185 More than 50 ideas as alternatives to flunking 50,000 third-graders. These nine-year-olds were okay when they came into the world. Whatever happened to them since then is not their fault. Don’t blame and punish the victim. The least the schools could do is not to diminish their lives by declaring them failures.
- If You Ask the Wrong Question, You Get the Wrong Answer...............................................195 The question frames the answer and so always constrains the answer. Every question contains a set of assumptions with built-in limitations in the parameters of our thinking about the answers. Therefore, we should always “question the question before we answer the answer.”
- Kids Are Always Learning...........................................203 There are seven categories of learning, which every kid experiences continuously. All seven categories of learning are a continuous part of every kid’s learning experiences. The influence of the seven categories varies, but it is never zero and is an integral part of the school context, climate, and culture.
- Teacher Self-Reflection..............................................211 I am the only one who can change me. That is not an easy task, but it can be done. Self-reflection is the most powerful behavior-changer teachers can use. It requires teachers being able to “step outside themselves”—becoming objective observers, seeing themselves from a new perspective.
- How to get kids to sit down, shut up, pay attention, follow directions, and want to learn...............................215 Schools still struggle with the failed stick-and-carrot method. There are only two ways to control kids or to make them behave—and one of them doesn’t work. Schools use the one that doesn’t work. If reward-punishment worked, there would be no discipline problems in school. Yet, year after year, discipline is still the number-one problem.
- Mandating vs. Teaching—People vs. Products......221 Running schools like “bottom-line businesses” won’t, and can’t, work. The analogy that equates the worker to the teacher and the product to the student is asinine. Kids are not products; they are human beings and, contrary to school policies, they act like humans—there’s the problem. The goal is to teach students to behave, not to make them behave. Behavior cannot be mandated.
- Insights Strategies, and Rules for Parents of At-Risk Kids...................................................................227 Troubled students mean troubled parents; if kids have a good year, parents have a good year. You must support your child. What could be worse for kids than to have every authority they know banding together against them?
- Just Ask the Kids..........................................................243 Do students have a voice? Do they evaluate their teachers? Are they consulted? One of the most powerful devices for gaining the cooperation of students and developing responsibility and motivation is getting the kids involved in feedback and decision-making. At least they can talk about it!
- What I Know I Know About Teaching.................249
The absolute certainties of my beliefs about teaching. After four decades of teaching, I have discovered that at-risk students are not teaching problems, they are victims of a one-size-fits-all educational system that imposes predestined failure on them.
--Harry K. Wong, Author, The First Days of School