Mister! Teacher!
When all of your students need you at the same time.
Without fail, every single year, at least one student will accidently call me “Dad.” As a parent myself, hearing my students call me “Dad” always brings a smile to my face. I find it quite endearing, interpreting it to mean that they feel safe enough around me that I am now synonymous with a caring family member. While I’m still their teacher, I want my students to know that my care is as much paternal as it is academic.
However, the first time I heard a student blurt out, “Mister! I need some help!”, I thought it might be a joke. There was no obvious urgency to the request, but her tone indicated otherwise. I walked over and clarified her confusion. Then came a chorus of, “Teacher! Teacher!” from the back of the classroom. Why aren’t they calling me Mr. Neibauer? Is this some sort of TikTok challenge? No sooner than I addressed those students, did I hear “Mister! Mister! I need some help!” from another small group of students. I could definitely hear the panic in these students’ collective voices. They obviously needed my help, right away! “Mister” and “Teacher” are new epithets that I have not heard before, or in such number, so I started paying attention to when and how my students asked for help. I noticed an interesting pattern.
I avoid lecturing my students whenever possible. Yes, I give direct instruction, but I always try to limit my talking to under ten minutes. Any longer, I feel I’ve lost them. When I give directions, I make sure to keep them brief, and provide ample wait time for students to ask clarifying questions. When I’m met with silence, I often ask, What’s a question that someone else might have? What could another student be wondering right now? Sometimes this works; lately, it has not. After direct instruction, or a set of directions for a task students are going to complete, either individually or collaboratively, I ask if there are any questions. I wait, sometimes getting a few clarifying questions. Then, when I set my students to work, 15 hands will immediately shoot up, “Mister! Teacher!” Suddenly, my entire class needs my help at once.
In K-5 classrooms, the most popular strategy for addressing this issue is 3 Before Me. When students get stuck, they are to ask three other classmates before they approach the teacher for help. While I have seen this work, and I agree with the premise, in my own experience, many students either don’t know what to ask their peers, get caught socializing with their friends, or can’t find anyone in the room who can actually help. Since I’m not one for sitting still while my students work, I circulate the classroom many times, redirecting students and addressing questions along the way. Perhaps I’m not giving my students enough time to sit in their struggle before I come by and help. However, after six weeks of getting to know my students, I have noticed this particular group suffers from self-doubt, impeding them from completing basic tasks.
As I interact with my students, I find that while I may need to clarify my directions for some (or restate them for those who were not listening), mostly, I’m reassuring the majority of my students that they can do what I’ve asked them to do. This is possibly related to the makeup of my students this year. In the past, I’ve been assigned the ILC (Intensive Learning Classroom) cluster, which includes students with both academic gaps and severe behavior challenges. More recently, my classroom is now comprised of a combination of Multilingual Learners (MLL) and Gifted and Talented (GT)1 students. As such, I co-teach (and co-plan) with a MLL and GT teacher, both of whom provide intervention or enrichment support for my students. Having this particular mix of students, those on either end of the academic achievement spectrum, means that the majority of my students feel immense pressure and doubt (whether from personal insecurity and years of low expectations, or anxiety resulting from over-inflated expectations for perfection). When learning struggle occurs, they shut down, check out, or desperately seek help from the one in the room with the answers, Mister.
Patrick Carroll, an assistant professor of psychology at Ohio State University, says that most American students suffer from insecurity and self-doubt.
American culture places a premium on talent, which is rooted in the belief that success is a function of innate ability: Those born with natural talent are the select and privileged few. To gain favor, individuals have to demonstrate their innate competence.2
After years of having this fixed mindset reinforced, students experience what Carroll calls the “brain dump philosophy: Students cram their subjects for the sake of a grade, expel the information at the right time, and vow never to look at it again.”
Students are taught that everything in school is about finding the right answer. If you know the answer and show it to the teacher in their expected way, then you are smart. If not, you are dumb. Such is the transactional and scarcity nature of public education.
Self-doubt can especially occur in my highest-achieving students. They have years concerned with high academic performance, resulting in feelings that one’s success or failure reflects one’s abilities and value. I’ve seen students overachieve as a defensive strategy to prove their self-worth and avoid the negative implications of failing. Much of our students’ self-worth comes from parents’ and teachers’ expectations of them.
Pygmalion effect
In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a legendary figure of Cyprus. He is most familiar from Ovid's narrative poem Metamorphoses, in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who carved a statue of a beautiful woman. He wished that he could find and marry a woman as beautiful as his sculpture. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, granted his wish and transformed his sculpture into a living woman.
Inspired by this Greek myth, George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion explores how someone’s treatment can influence their development and performance. In the play, a Henry Higgins believes he can transform a poor flower girl into a refined lady simply by changing her speech. Sound familiar? My Fair Lady is based on Shaw’s play.
In 1968, Lenore Jacobson, an elementary school principal, and Robert Rosenthal, behavioral scientist, examined whether a teacher’s expectations of their students impacted their students’ academic performance. Despite initial criticism of having a small effect size, The Pygmalion Effect3 is now widely accepted; expectations matter. Students internalize their teacher’s positive or negative expectations. As such, I try to be a warm demander, expecting a great deal from my students while working to convince them of their inherent greatness and helping them reach their potential.
When I look out at my students and see 15 hands in the air, I’m reminded that I have a lot of repair and trust work to do. It doesn’t matter whether my students are insecure of their abilities because of low expectations from teachers, negative self-talk, imposter syndrome, or a fear of failure. What matters is how I address this phenomenon in my classroom now.
Process over Product
One way I am normalizing doubt and academic growth is by emphasizing the process of learning insteading the final product. For years, a culture of standardized testing and final test scores used for school funding and teacher evaluations, has created a blind obedience to any and all final products as the sole measures of learning. All of this despite overwhelming research on student motivation, mindset, and learning by Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. When students believe that there is only one correct path to academic success, they will either work to achieve that goal and then stop learning, or give up before ever reaching the goal. It both scenarios, having a fixed mindset means that learning stops. Since I want my students to focus more on the process of learning (both individual and collective), rather than the final product, I embed student reflection in multiple ways in my classroom. For example, I’ve modified Marcus Luther’s Two-Week Reading Reflection, and turned it into a weekly Reading Reflection. Instead of just summarizing what they read each week, students reflect on what they are learning from their book, how they connect to what they are reading, and their experience reading during the week. I use their answers in preparation for reading conferences. During these conferences, we discuss the how reading is a lifelong habit, starring now.
Another example is after every Math test, students have an opportunity to reflect on their errors, explain why they made mistakes, and make corrections. The time students take reflecting gives me an opportunity to meet with small groups of students to reteach missed concepts and clarify any misunderstanding. In my conversations with students, I tell them that not understanding something is never permanent and learning happens at different rates for different students. You may not understand a concept, yet, but that doesn’t mean you will never understand. It’s the process that matters. Learning will happen, if you trust the process and do the work.
Yes, I want students mastering academic standards, but more importantly, I want them to understand the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and habits of mind that help them successful in life. I want my students to see that struggle and doubt are normal responses to encountering challenges. Pausing while thinking does not indicate incompetence. When students slow down to make sure they process their thinking, that does not mean they are inadequate. It means they are human, and humans learn through mental struggle and uncertainty. Learning is messy. It takes time and effort. My job is to help students build these intellectual muscles so they have the mental stamina to continuously work through challenges both in the classroom and their life.
Operationalizing We Over Me
The quickest way I have found to create a positive classroom community is by using the ethos of We over Me: The needs of the classroom community supersede the wants of individual members. In our classroom, we work together to be successful students. I’ve learned, though, that it does not work to slap a poster on the wall with a clever slogan. If I want my students to truly internalize We Over Me, they must first understand our classroom’s origin story, my pedagogical foundation, what Simon Sinek calls a WHY statement. This is why my first week of school is filled with exploring our individual pasts, understanding our values, celebrating our identities, and building trust.
Only then, can I share with student my vision for our time together this school year. What type of classroom experience do we want to build? Once we build our classroom’s foundation, I share with students how we are going to get there, all of us, together.
Putting We Over Me into practice is challenging for young students. Everyone has their hand in the air because they want individual attention. Students are often taught that if they want help, the only way is to get the teacher’s attention. Only the teacher can help them. This is a scarcity mindset. There is only one teacher with one correct answer. Everyone then, must clamor for attention. So, when I see hands in the air and hear Mister! Mister! I realize that I haven’t done enough work to shift their scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. There is an abundance of collective wisdom in the room. The teacher isn’t the only one with the only answer or process for getting the answer. Everyone can learn. We can work together and succeed together. We Over Me.
Last week, as students were analyzing their first Math test of the school year and making the necessary corrections, I decided to structure the experience so that everyone had multiple opportunities to help others and get the help they needed. I facilitated test corrections in a small group in one corner of the room while the GT teacher ran an enrichment group at another table and the MLL teacher worked with a third group. It’s important to note that these groups will always be fluid, never fixed. If students (no matter their ability or language skills) want to join a group, they are always welcome. For students who had finished test corrections, they could choose to facilitate their own small group, helping their peers with their own test corrections.
At one point, I looked up and saw every single student engaged with either an adult or a peer. I even noticed a struggling student getting the help he needed from another struggling student who had just understood a specific problem on the test. I wanted to show students that every student has something to offer. Instead of me trying to address everyone’s needs, the class worked together to help each other. Helping others doesn’t take anything away from the individual. There is an abundance of learning in the classroom that can be shared with everyone. I hyped up everyone’s efforts, especially praising those who took time to facilitate a small group or help a classmate.
I still have much work to do with my students. Every year, in every classroom, it is always a challenge to meet everyone’s needs. However, as I continue to hold high expectations for my students while simultaneously scaffolding instruction and giving them opportunities to help each other, I anticipate that doubt and insecurities will slowly dissipate. Perhaps instead of hearing the panicked cries of “Mister!” or “Teacher!” and being called over to help, I will be invited to celebrate the collaborative learning that is happening all throughout the classroom.
Have a great week!
— Adrian
How do you address meeting individual students’ needs in your classroom? How do you encourage peer-to-peer teaching? I’d love to hear any suggestions!
Resources
How to Find Balance When Too Much Self-Doubt Gets in the Way | KQED
I loved the tips here for helping self-doubting kids improve their confidence.
In this podcast, Dr. Amanda Dettmer, a research scientist at the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center, speaks with Dr. Wendy Grolnick, Professor of Psychology at Clark University about their expertise on students experiencing low self-esteem or low perceptions of confidence.
How to Help Students Focus on What They’re Learning, Not the Grade | edutopia
Edutopia articles always have great suggestions that one can use in the classroom immediately. In this article, Associate Professor, Sarah Schroeder offers practical tips for emphasizes students’ developing skills over the final product.
I love watching teachers teach! This video shows real classroom examples of teachers using a growth mindset and turning it into a daily classroom practice.
This video is a great beginner explainer for The Pygmalion Effect and how it is related to having a growth versus fixed mindset. Trevor Ragan does an excellent job simplifying how high expectations are important for improving learning.
I’m not sure how I feel about students calling me by my first name. However, Thom Gibson, makes a compelling argument for being on a first-name basis with your students while still maintaining professional boundaries.
Now referred to as Neurodivergent students.
If you want to delve deeper into the history of The Pygmalion Effect, this 2015 article from Discover Magazine is very informative.
Lol; tell me what you think of this.
https://open.substack.com/pub/nealshultz1/p/the-everyone-counts-exam-the-best?r=k7ywv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
It starts with attitude. Spending time building relationships and trust will allow children to develop the ability to see themselves as valued members of the team. Kids who never do their work will happily do it for teachers they love. They love these teachers for seeing them as the magical forces they are in this world. Something as simple as greeting the kids in the hallway every morning does wonders inside the classroom and long after the children move on to the next learning adventure.