Feature Article

Stress-Filled Folly

The one thing that each of these "prescriptions" for success have in common is that the desired result is opposite the intention, and that these suggestions are counter-productive.

The other thing that unifies these "strategies" is that stress for both students and teachers is the natural result of forcing learning into an "unnatural" process.

Memory, creativity, practical application, and the integration of knowledge each suffer when stress is poured into the learning environment.

Sure, a bit of stress at the time of a performance, heightens perceptions and pumps energy into a person's system. But, the systematic over-straining of our physical and emotional machinery leads to mistakes, errors, hypertension, obesity and a host of ills.

But, maybe it would be worth the effort if students' instructional outcomes, performance results, produced and measured artifacts…even test scores…met higher standards of proficiency and knowledge. But these indicators don't demonstrate higher levels of learning productivity, accomplishment or achievement.

"Catching Up" Takes Time

One source of the dismal results from teaching children from low-income families stems from believing that these children are not ready to learn.

When these children start kindergarten or first grade, their teachers believe…

• The children are "behind"


• Drill and practice is needed to help the students "catch up"


• The children are deficient in personal experiences that ready them for learning at the appropriate pace


• The teacher has to work harder to achieve even meager results from this "unmotivated, unprepared" group of kids


• That is isn't fair that a teacher of these kids is compared to a teacher of children from middle class families using the same test

These are all myths could be dispelled with evidence. And, all these "obstacles" could be overcome with patience.

Dispelling the Myths

Here are some learning myths that are easily dispelled. (We wish that it were this easy to oust these methods from our school environment.)

Myth: The children are behind.

Fact: The children are where they are. It is the assumption of the "factory school theory" that every student needs to be learning the "exact same thing at the exact same time" that is the error.

Myth: These children lack experiences.

Fact: Unless the child was in a coma for an extended period of time, if the child is five years old, the child has five years of experiences.

Myth: These children are unmotivated to learn. Their lack of intrinsic motivation requires that they receive lots of drill to catch them up, and tangible rewards to bribe them into compliance.

Fact: Mastery and achievement are innate. And, these children have mastered their environment.

Myth: These children don't know how to learn.

Fact: These children are more honest about how little value teacher "lecturing" adds to the learning ledger. Really the middle class children are only pretending that the "talking teacher" is responsible for the learning that they demonstrate.

Myth: Drill and practice are needed to help these students catch up.

Fact: Drill and practice is great for subversive control, but lousy for learning. These children need practice communicating, talking, expressing, describing what they are doing as they participate in stimulating, richly rewarding experiences.

Myth: Teachers have to work harder to teach these children.

Fact: Teachers need to work differently, but not "harder" to teach children from low socio-economic households. Mainly, teachers need to exercise active patience, believe in the innate abilities of children, and provide a "rich environment." Providing opportunities for learning

Myth: These students have to work hard to catch up.

Fact: Students from low socio-economic homes catch up, even outdistance some of the children from middle class homes if they start with their own life experiences, communicate and explore in an engaged, hands-on environment.

Myth: Drill and practice accelerated remedial learning for students of low socio-economic homes.

Fact: Drill and practice comprise the most sterile, lifeless methods of instruction. Drill and practice competes with "teacher talk" for the title of the "most boring" and ineffective school day strategy.

One Size Fits One Student

As far as learning is concerned, every student requires a "tailor-made," "designed-only-for-me" course of study.

But how is a teacher to create 22 to 35 tailor-made programs (in an elementary classroom); double that for team teaching), or 180 to 220 individual programs (in a secondary classroom)?

Here are the steps: (Note: Of course this process requires patience.)

• Communicate with each student on a personal level


• Ask questions about the process that the student uses to think


• Pay attention to the senses that the student uses, i.e., the relationship of thinking to "Multiple Intelligences"


• Categorize each student (in your mind) in terms of primary and secondary learning styles


• Begin to create personas (stereotypes/ characters/ story plots) of the top patterns


• Check these patterns in particular…
• Hands-On/ Visual


• Visual/ Hands-On


• Hands-On/ Auditory


• Visual/ Auditory


• Auditory/ Hands-On


• Auditory/ Visual
• Enrich the classroom environment with hands-on and visual materials


• Enrich the time that the teacher talks with hands-on, visual and auditory descriptions


• Make these story-like, if possible use stories and dialogue to share lessons…


• Use language that is tailored for multiple learning styles
• Hands-On: Get the feel for, get in touch with, get in contact with, get a sense of…


• Visual: See what the information is about, see the relationship, look at the big picture…


• Auditory: Hear what this is about, talk it out, debate the issue, describe in detail…
• Group students by major processing preference to start


• Later, group students by mixing (integrating) students into groups so that the major patterns are available for each group
• Come to see each particular processing pattern as a resource for the others
• Focus on project assignments that require multiple patterns

Case Studies

Case studies demonstrate that many methods are capable of taking students that arrive "behind and not ready" and bring them to "catch up, mastery and accelerated" levels in a couple of years.

But the components of each of these successful systems include:

• Children are prized and respected


• Teachers are confident that learning will "catch on"


• Students are encouraged and their self-esteem is nurtured


• The environment is kept "stress free"


• Teachers are patient, and let the learning happen

The message for teachers to share with the forces of ignorance that want to drive classroom management into a stress-filled frenzy is, "Our students have abilities, intelligences and motivations that surpass our expectations of them. If we start from where our students are and if we help each student achieve in their own way, our students will outdistance the students who are yoked to the "factory school model" curriculum. In fact, they will "skate rings" around the lock-step students because they won't be shackled into learning in a way that does not match their learning style.

There is a wisdom in taking our cue to how we deliver instruction from each student. And a road map of how that instruction is implemented is "patience."