reach for the stars...
though i initially agreed with this blog (http://garyrubinstein.teachfor.us/2009/08/30/high-expectations-not-so-fast/), when i linked to the post he referenced, i rethought my stance.
while i do definitely agree that you can't put too much pressure on your students by having unreasonably high expectations of them, i wonder what are "unreasonably high expectations?"
gary rubinstein says that "when you make things too complicated, students don't rise to your 'high expectations,' they lose confidence in themselves and, more importantly, they lose confidence in the ability of their teacher. once they decide that their teacher is not competent enough to make 'appropriate level' lessons, they stop listening, start talking, and make it impossible to teach."
this is where i stopped for a minute. though i think there are valid points raised in warning teachers not to teach "over" student's head, i think a lot things are being crossed here, as far as opinions and positions are concerned. i think there is a difference, and quite a sizable one, between teaching "over" students and having high expectations. as a ninth-grade teacher, it is teaching over a student's head to talk about slant and internal rhyme when i'm first introducing it as a stylistic device. they don't need that information for where they are, and it wouldn't make sense for me to impart that knowledge on them at that time. but it is an expectation of mine - unreasonable or not - that those same students would be able to pick up rhyme schemes in poetry ranging from anne bradstreet to emily dickinson to paul laurence dunbar; that they would be able to construct their own rhyme schemes, and that they can fully master the stylistic device that is rhyme - on a ninth-grade level.
the blog post that rubinstein links in his personal blog (http://theprojectionist.teachfor.us/2009/07/26/long-term-planning/) is, from the outside, not something i would identify as full of "unreasonable" expectations. perhaps the time frames for such works would be a little underestimated, but i really disagree with the points that rubinstein makes. i think it is important to expose children to literature of all time periods and cultures. though i have a student body that is 100% african-american, i have them read everything from j.k. rowling to tupac to ruby payne to john f. kennedy to malcolm x to maya angelou to darwin to toni morrison to stephen king.
by having expectations for children that "fit" their "circumstances" only put them more at a disadvantage. i do agree that you can over-extend children and burn them out.
but there is NOTHING that a child "can't" do, given the appropriate exposure, guidance, and attention.
i get really upset with my kids sometimes because they don't hit the bar that i set, but at the end of the day, i set the bar higher than anything they've had before. and they're reaching for it. and they keep reaching. and even if they don't hit it? they're stretching more than they ever have, they're growing as people and as students.
and, not to be rude, but how how can one single person say that they know what is unreasonable for a child to achieve? that seems a little presumptuous, doesn't it?
Comments
I completely agree with your conviction that "there is nothing a child can't do, given the appropriate exposure, guidance, and attention," no matter what that looks like for the teacher. For you, it looks like, flexibility, innovation, steadfastness, and risk-taking. I agree that, as long as we are grounded in an awareness of the reality of our students' basic capabilities, motivators-there is no saying (or point in saying) what a child can and cannot do. It then becomes a question of what they will or will not do.