I'm Taking the Challenge!

"What Are Your Expectations: The Challenge of Keeping Classrooms Fair" by Caralee Adams, does a great job bringing up to surface one of the reasons for the existing academic gap we see in African American students. Teachers' Attitude. This article provides research and statistics that proves that these students are feeling the teacher's rejection and perhaps that is why they lack the motivations to do better. When it comes to school suspension due to behavior I never thought about them missing out on instruction and therefore increasing their academic gap. This article does a great job giving educators ideas on ways to handle our students' behaviour instead of school suspension. Hence, students are not missing out nor falling behind.  It also makes us realize that our students' personal life is to concern us in order to get through them and be able to provide the resources they need to achieve the academic goal.

     After reading this article I examined myself, and realized that at some point in my teaching career I have had higher expectations from one student than another. I also realized that I have judged my students because of their behaviour and failed to get to know the reason behind it. I also failed to provide support. Through this article I've learned that my academic expectations are to be equal all the way through. I also learned that my students need to be told about my high expectations, and need see that I care for them. I am taking the challenge this article offers: "select a student about whom you've formed a negative opinion, and for 21 consecutive school days, force yourself to view and treat this student as if he or she were the brightest student in your class", "If you do this experiment, even once, it just might change your teaching forever". I accept it! I'll start Monday...I don't intend to change the world, but if by taking this challenge I can change one students and close one gap...it would be amazing!