Classrooms need to be places of hope
I had a conversation a couple weeks ago that upset me. A woman who graduated from a large Milwaukee high school — not the best, not the worst — asked me what I thought of something one of her teachers told her class last year.
The teacher said only people who are going to be failures go to that school.
I told her that the facts about success for Milwaukee students overall are important and that the facts are that we need a lot more educational success for Milwaukee students as a whole.
That said, I told her I thought this was one of the worst things I’d ever heard a teacher tell students.
Teachers play a lot of roles — in fact, often too many roles, given their basic duties, plus responding to the great needs of so many kids, plus demands coming from all directions. But among the most important roles teachers can and should play is this: Agents of hope.
Hope doesn’t come easy in many children’s lives. And realistic hopes vary. Maybe it’s a Harvard degree. Maybe it’s food and a safe place to sleep tonight. Or a million things in between.
But hope of some kind is a crucial ingredient in any recipe for a good future for a child.
Parents and families are, ideally, the biggest sources of hope, inspiration and vision of the future for kids. But we all know that’s not happening for thousands of kids in our midst and changing home life is not easy.
So kids who are in tough situations — in fact, the same is true generally for kids who are not in tough situations — show up in school, where teachers can at least try to help hope grow.
Tina Owen-Moore was a longtime high school teacher in Milwaukee and founded the Alliance School, a small MPS high school with a goal of serving kids who have been bullied elsewhere. Owen-Moore recently got a doctorate in education leadership from Harvard and is working for Chicago Public Schools. Her book, “The Alliance Way: The Making of a Bully-Free School,” was published this year.
Owen-Moore recalls in the book when she was a young teacher at a large MPS high school. She wanted her classroom to convey positive messages to students and, before school started, she did some decorating. One thing she did was to take five large pieces of paper.
“I spray-painted the words, ‘Let this be your place of hope,’ and I hung those words on the wall above the bulletin board,” she wrote.
For many years after that, former students she met reminded of her of those words “and how much it meant to them to read that every day.”
One of the hotter ideas in education in the last several years has been promoting “growth mindsets.” In short, advocates favor motivating students (and teachers) to think that they will learn more and gain in the long run from doing challenging things, working harder, stretching themselves intellectually, asking questions, risking failure, and aiming higher. It contrasts with a “fixed mindset” that you’re as smart as you’re going to be, nothing’s going to change that, and you should stick to doing things you know you can succeed at. One view is hopeful, one not so hopeful about engaging in learning.
Education Week reported Wednesday on results of a study in which students going into ninth grade at 76 schools nationwide were split randomly into two groups. As part of their orientation, some were given talks totaling less than an hour that encouraged growth mindset attributes. The others heard talks that encouraged them to take more cautious “fixed mindset” approaches.
At the end of freshman year, the “growth” students had better grades in math and science (the two subjects that were measured) than the “fixed” students, not by a huge amount, but enough to be significant. Researchers said the growth approach appeared to be the difference.
Broadly speaking, there are a lot of reasons not to be hopeful these days, both for kids and adults. This past week, with two horrifying mass murders, underscores that. And do I need to say that safety concerns and fear have become a part of the emotional mix around schooling anywhere these days? Or to mention the toll that the divisiveness and hate all around us can take on hopefulness? I won’t go on.
The student I met told me that the teacher who bad-mouthed the students left at the end of last school year, apparently encouraged to do so by administrators. Maybe the school will be a notch more hopeful this year.
Indeed, a new school year is already upon us — MPS high schools and a few other schools open Monday.
Kids now deal with a lot of tough things. Teachers do, too. But what’s the alternative to moving forward in pursuit of positive goals? What’s the reason not to promote grit, determination, resilience, and other character traits as part of building commitment to the future?
“Let this be your place of hope.” It’s a challenging goal for every classroom — and a really valuable one.
Alan J. Borsuk is senior fellow in law and public policy at Marquette Law School. Reach him at alan.borsuk@marquette.edu