By
Bruce Hartner
In May, our
students from third to 12th grade were invited
to complete a survey about their experiences and
perceptions about their schools. One of the items
asked our students to tell us what they planned
to do after high school and allowed them to give
more than one response. Seventy-eight percent of
our high school students said they planned to go
to a two- or four-year college. Yet, fewer than
50 percent actually do — more than a third
of our students fall short of their desire to attend
college after high school.
This is a problem that impacts
us all. In May, the California Economic Policy Institute
published a study that demonstrated how California
has historically depended on getting nearly two-thirds
of its collegeeducated workforce from either out of
state or from out of the country. With the sharp decline
in immigration, we won’t have enough college-educated
workers to keep pace with the demand for them — unless
we can prepare our own students for college. That’s
another compelling reason to set our sights, in the
West Contra Costa Unified School District, on preparing
all our students for post-secondary education.
As we
begin another school year, we need to turn up not only
the volume on the messages we send to our young people
but we also must step up the support we’re providing.
There are three messages that all of us — parents,
staff and community members — need to deliver.
This is important
Learning is important; school is
important. It seems so obvious. Yet, some young people
get the opposite message — from our society,
from peers and even in school. When I was in Ft. Myers,
Florida, one church, St. John’s Missionary Baptist,
stood above all the rest of the faith community in
providing afterschool tutoring for not only students
who were members of the church but for all students
in the area of town around the church.
The pastor and
the youth minister at that parish relentlessly recruited
adults to volunteer four to 10 hours a week during
the school year to tutor and mentor the children and
young people. They both read to children and listened
to them read; they supported children in doing their
homework; they proofed papers and made suggestions
for improving them. These tutors used the textbooks
to re-teach themselves how to do the math and then
showed the children how to do it. They donated their
most precious resource, their time, to give children
and young people the message, “this is important.”
You
can do it
From a very young age, children begin to
get the message that they have limitations. My 3-yearold
grandson this summer would come to a task — even
one that involved playing with his toys — and
say, “I can’t do that.” In a world
where everyone wants to push the “easy button,” some
children get the message that if they can’t do
it easily, they can’t do it at all. As adults,
we have to do everything in our power to overcome this
reluctance to work hard and persist — especially
when the task isn’t easy.
In the 1980s, we’d
progressed to include more students in eight-grade
algebra, but we still had a long way to go. Those placed
in algebra were still the students who’d always
been the best in the math classes. Lucille Bethel was
an algebra teacher whose students excelled in math.
One of Mrs. Bethel’s students, Sheila Brown,
had never experienced frustration in math before algebra
class. Because Sheila’s grades and test scores
had always been at the top, she was shocked when she
began failing tests, particularly because she always
did her homework. She had hoped to be the first ever
in her family to finish high school, and she had her
heart set on going to college as well. Sheila was humiliated
because Mrs. Bethel kept Sheila after school one day
to put together the “Sheila can do algebra plan” — things
both she and Sheila would do to ensure Sheila’s
success. As a result of that plan, Sheila did get the
message that she could do algebra.
Mrs. Bethel was
a skilled teacher and she kept the “you can do
it” message out in front of her students all
the time. Sheila went on to take geometry and algebra
II in high school and fulfill her dream of graduating
from high school and going to college.
Today, we call
this “you can do it” spirit by another
name: efficacy. What Mrs. Bethel did was “lend
confidence” to Sheila and tell her in both verbal
and nonverbal communications, “I believe in you.” This
efficacy approach is one reason that student learning
is rapidly improving at Peres, Stege, Riverside and
Nystrom elementary schools.
I won’t give up on
you
When Kevin Renton was placed at Adams
City Middle School, he came with a list of things he
couldn’t do. Confined to a wheelchair and unable
to speak very well, Kevin had degenerative multiple
sclerosis. He’d been in a special school and
away from contact with typical children for several
years. The staff at Adams City didn’t see it
that way. The P.E. teacher used his planning time three
days a week to work with Kevin on the mat, and Kevin’s
strength and agility improved.
The staff had been told
that Kevin couldn’t eat by himself and certainly
couldn’t be with others in a noisy cafeteria.
Yet, after a few months, Kevin was for the most part
a self-feeder who ate in the cafeteria with his peers,
both disabled and typical. Kevin’s ability to
speak improved, as did his overall academic performance.
The reason for all this improvement is simple — no
one at that school was willing to give up on Kevin
or let him give up on himself.
Learning isn’t
a linear process. Few students ever make continuous
progress. There are lots of ups and downs. Set backs
are common. Students can do something one day that
they can’t do the next. Our young people don’t
always act the way we want them to behave. At times,
they can be very difficult. Some tell us they don’t
care in both words and deeds.
So, this is the most
difficult of the three messages. Yet, it’s vital
to our students’ success. It’s crucial
that we — teachers, parents, community members — don’t
give up on them. We have to consistently and persistently
give them the message “I won’t give up
on you” in what we say and all we do.
As we start
the 2007-2008 school year, the key messages are the
same as last year and will be the same next year:
• This
is important.
• You can do it.
• I won’t
give up on you.
Bruce Harter is the
superintendent of the West Contra Costa Unified School
District.
