I encourage you to examine the paradigms to which you and other individuals in your school are clinging. And now she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. At the end of each day, she got on a walkie-talkie and called students for the car-rider line. By fourth grade, when I met her, she shook my hand, introduced herself, and told me about her leadership role in the school. However, her teachers saw her through a paradigm of “she can,” and they formulated a plan to persuade her into speaking to her teacher and then to her classmates. No one heard her voice at all for the first year. In one school I had the privilege of visiting a few years ago, some parents told me about their daughter entering kindergarten as a selective mute, meaning she could speak, but chose not to speak at school. When they change, students may respond in different ways, which can lead to more positive results. Notice each of the statements begins with “the teacher.” Todd Whitaker comments in his book What Great Teachers Do Differently that effective teachers know they are the variable in the classroom. The teacher has a healthy dose of self-efficacy, believing that his or her actions can positively impact the students.The teacher does not restate the content louder but rather teaches it with different strategies. The teacher responds quickly to feedback from students indicating misconceptions or confusion concerning content.The teacher works to create a classroom environment that is respectful and trusting for all students.The teacher maintains a deep belief that students can learn and communicates this belief through words and actions.What does a classroom look like with a teacher who has the paradigm of “you can,” despite all of the excuses listed in Hattie’s quote? Here is a quick snapshot… How does your perception of students impact your behavior toward them?Ĥ Ways to Create a “You Can” Classroom Environment Or perhaps because of cultural and societal expectations, and varied learning disabilities or home life circumstances, you may believe there is no way certain children can be successful leaders. Does this preconceived idea influence the way you treat this student? Have you ever had a child come into your class with a “reputation that precedes him or her”? You’ve heard about his or her behavior from other teachers, and you’ve formed an idea of what teaching this student will be like. Students’ self-efficacy (a belief that “they can”) is deeply impacted by their teachers’ paradigms. What teachers “do” in the classroom flows from the paradigms they have about their students and affects the paradigms students have of themselves. My point is that teachers’ beliefs and commitments are the greatest influence on student achievement over which we have some control…” but the underlying premise of most of these claims is the belief that we, as educators, cannot change the student…. It is not that the explanations are wrong…. “We invent so many ways in which to explain why students cannot learn: it is their learning styles it is right or left brain strengths or deficits it is lack of attention it is their refusal to take their medication it is their lack of motivation it is their parents not being supportive it is because they do not do their work, and so on. John Hattie, author of Visible Learning for Teachers, writes on why a teacher’s paradigms matter in student success. A critical question for every educator is “What is my honest paradigm of the worth and potential of each student in my care?”ĭr. Ultimately, these behaviors will yield effective or ineffective results. An Ephiphany.Īs educators, the paradigms through which we view our students each day determine our behaviors toward them. So, a paradigm shift is just a fancy term for saying, “I see things differently now”. Paradigms (how we see things) drive our behaviors (what we do, our habits), and what we do drives the results we get. But how does one shift their paradigms? Where does one start? For teachers, a paradigm shift can be as simple as changing how one sees a student’s behavior. A paradigm shift is something we all struggle with at one point or another.
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