​The Question of Expectations

Expectations have been a hot topic at our school recently. 
 
It is difficult for teachers in this unprecedented period of education, to truly determine what their expectations of students should be.  Teachers aim to hold “high expectations” for student learning, but the challenges of virtual instruction, illness, and economic crisis have called us to reexamine those expectations almost daily.
 
Among the staff of our school we have had discussions that go a lot like this:

1. We know high expectations are important to student learning, and we desire for everyone to be successful.
2. But I send students home with three days of remote work and very little is successfully completed.  
3. As the teacher, I cannot control for as many variables in the remote arena as I can at school.  There are so many reasons why my students might not achieve during virtual periods.  Should I adjust my expectations?

 
Dufour’s Models of Expectations
 
In his work around Professional Learning Communities Richard Dufour outlined the type of culture classrooms and even whole schools can have around expectations.  Those models are as follows:
 
Charles Darwin Expectations – The level of student learning is based on an innate ability or aptitude. Because ability is seen as fixed, teachers are mainly tasked with sorting students by ability – those who can and those who can’t. 
 
Pontius Pilate Expectations – All students can learn but the student is responsible for putting in the work and effort.  A teacher’s role is to create lessons that allow all who engage in them the opportunity to learn.  Failure is not only accepted, but the desired consequence of accountability for those who choose not to learn.  
 
The Chicago Cubs Fan Club Expectations – The most important thing is how all students feel.  Teachers teach lessons, and students should try to learn.  If learning doesn’t happen, we will lower the expectations so students can be successful.  
 
Henry Higgins Expectations – Teachers set learning expectations that are academically rigorous and which all students will be expected to master.  Understanding that all students can learn but each student’s pathway to learning may be different, teachers and students accept that different amounts of time and types of strategies may be necessary for different students to reach mastery.  What is not compromised is the ultimate expectation of mastery.
 
 
As we read these model descriptions, we know the first three describe the models we do not want to follow.   We have visions of being Henry Higgins for each of our students and singing happily in Broadway-choreographed synchrony as students master their learning.  
 
The system made me do it.
 
Yet, we find ourselves in a vicious cycle through the year, pulled by the structure of our educational system into each of the other three models. For example, our grading practices, standardized testing structures, and even highest honors like valedictorian support a Darwinian approach to education.  Students are sorted and graded (like meat) or rank ordered by percentiles (like lab specimens) due to these structures.  
 
We set arbitrary times for learning which force all stakeholders to accept a Chicago Cubs approach.  Age grouped classes mean students must master all the third-grade material in the 10 months Aug to May when they are 8 years old.  Graduation rates mean students must complete their high school courses in no more than 4 years.  In Chicago Cubs-fashion, we lower our expectations when mastery doesn’t happen “on time” by shepherding students along to the next level/course/semester regardless of learning gaps for the sake of “keeping pace”.  
 
We get tired and run out of ideas for how to meet the needs of students, and in a last resort of self-defense, turn to the Pilot approach.  We wield “accountability” as a punishment rather than as a means to grow students toward agency.  We remind students that they “earned” their F and suggest they will “learn their lesson” from failure and so work harder next time.   We taught the information, we did “everything they knew to do”, and other students did just fine.  These failing students just need to work harder.  
 
Then comes the change in a semester or school year.  Over the break we remember why we got into this wonderfully challenging career to begin with: to savor those beautiful moments when students truly “get it” and we see the way that mastery changes them for the better.  So, we start again – determined to be Henry Higgins.  And the cycle repeats.  
 
The pandemic world has only augmented the ethical crisis teachers and schools experience around expectations.  We see more clearly that time is less important that learning.  We see that each student’s home and personal experiences make the MOST important difference in their school experience, which we must often be flexible in accommodating.
 
But the system remains the same: semesters come and go, transcripts grow, grades are assigned, tests are given.  How are we, within this system designed to lead us into poor expectations, to maintain a Henry Higgins approach?
 
Be a Henry Higgins in any system.

I would like to propose four important strategies any teacher in any system can employ to set and maintain high expectations and most importantly work in a way that assures all students meet those expectations.

1. Avoid Chicago Cubs expectations by setting clear learning objectives that are worth learning.
Before any instructional planning begins the teacher must clearly define what it is the students will learn.  This learning should be aligned to the external forces that guide our planning: state standards, vertical alignment to next courses, and things students need for the real world.
 
Backwards design principles suggest we should then determine how it is that students will demonstrate that mastery of learning.  Having these stable bookends to our instruction, the learning goal and evidence of mastery, keeps the expectation of mastery high.  The teacher then accounts for student learning differences as they design the instruction to move students from their individual starting points to the ultimate learning goal.  The goal is consistent, which helps us avoid the Chicago Cubs expectations, but the instructional strategies can be differentiated.
 

2. Avoid Darwinian expectations by aligning instruction and grading practices directly with the learning objectives.  
It seems silly but so often true that we spend time having students do work that doesn’t actually help them master the learning objective.  More than just busy work, we often ask students to do work that they lack basic skills to carry out, or we design work that is mainly dependent on skills that aren’t part of the learning objective.  
 
An example would be the history teacher who has students write an essay to determine their knowledge about a specific historical period. It is possible that a student’s limited writing skills prevent them from sharing the depth of historical knowledge they actually command.  Conversely, a student’s strong writing skills could lead to a high grade even if their mastery of the history content isn’t strong.  Aligning both the work and the grading process with the objective is key to effort that yields learning and assures we aren’t acting as Darwinian rank and sorters in the classroom.

3. Avoid Pontius Pilot expectations by monitoring student performance and responding early with strategies you custom-build for those who aren’t progressing.    
When a student doesn’t submit work, which the teacher has diligently worked to design, it is easy to assume the student to be lazy or indifferent.  Exercising these Pontius Pilot expectations, a teacher would lecture the student about working or studying harder and tell them to just turn in the work.  
 
However, if we catch the student’s missing work or failure to master immediately and provide the student with individual attention, we can often find where the challenge lies.  Perhaps the student doesn’t understand how to use the technology to find or submit the work, their reading skills could be limited, or they could feel insecure using their research or writing skills.  When the teacher responds individually through empathy to learn more about students, they can tailor-make the response and intervention to build up the student rather than tear down.
 

4. Be a real-life Henry Higgins by using feedback to promote continuous growth of all students no matter what level at which they are performing.  
If there is one thing we could do to have the most positive impact on education, it would be to forego grades and instead provide feedback.  Rarely does an 83% tell a student how to get better, just as a B doesn’t help a student refine their skills.  Grades become a conclusion in the student-teacher conversation.                                       
 
However, feedback can be the introduction in the student-teacher conversation to deeper and more meaningful exchanges.  Feedback, unlike grades, can actually help students grow.  Feedback doesn’t always have to be long written statements. Our school has teachers who use voice memo, rubrics, and peer critiques to help students receive all levels of feedback.  Feedback is a coaching tool, whereas grading is a sorting tool. 
 
You can do it! We can do it!
 
Although we might not be able to change all the aspects of the 100+ year-old educational system that calls our expectations into question, we can change how we operate in that system.  Alignment with meaningful standards, differentiated instruction, early individualized intervention, and a constant flow of authentic feedback will affirm and demonstrate our commitment to have high expectations for all students and that in our classrooms or schools, all students can meet those expectations.