Expectations

Yesterday, I assigned a difficult poetry explication to my AP Lit students.  It is May, and they have three classes until the AP test (block scheduling makes counting off days much more optimistic).  After that, they will be working on a cutting edge iPad pilot project.  In short, they all see the finish line and are becoming restless with any and all work.  A bright young lady was struggling to understand both her poem and the assignment, and as she spoke with me, I asked her some clarifying questions.  As she began to understand what she needed to do, she starting making some very astute, academic observations about her poem.  I am a rather excitable lady, and because her intellectual prowess impressed me, I shrieked  calmly said "Yes!  That's it!  See...you can do this assignment."  She stepped back, shaking her head furiously.  "No! No!  Don't do that," she said.  "Don't have high expectations for me.  I don't like that."

We both laughed, she went back to work, and I turned to help another student.  I retold that story to my best friend, and we had another good laugh.  But I totally understood what this student was saying.  She wanted my expectations lowered so she would be assured of a good grade or, at the very least, an easy last few classes.  She wanted my expectations lowered because mediocrity is easier than excellence.  She wanted my expectations lowered because if my standards are low, failure isn't possible.

I teach in a public high school, and contrary to what way too many politicians, pundits, and lobbyists might be saying, teachers' expectations are NOT too low.  What we have, though, is a shifting cultural norm.  Paper and pencil has been replaced by tablet and laptop.  The idea of "reading, writing, 'rithmetic," of specific norms by which we quantify and qualify our successes needs to remain, but the dissemination of information needs to change.  Adding technology without shifting our pedagogical approach is ridiculous.  We cannot just hand students tablets or laptops or the gadget of the week and expect new outcomes.

As a teacher, I must shift my expectations.  I have expected myself to be the proverbial "sage on the stage."  I need to expect my students to shoulder a vast majority of the learning while I shoulder the responsibility of facilitator.  It is going to be a drastic change for me: in 13 years, I have developed some good, entertaining, captivating lectures.  I will miss having 35 eager diligent faces looking at me, responding to my jokes, writing down my words.  Letting go of the control of my classroom worries me, and I know I will spend hours I don't have building lessons based upon the Universal Design for Learning.  But I have to expect this because this is an inevitable change.

Like my students, it would be easier for me to beg for lowered expectations.  I am already tired thinking of the work that lies in wait for me and my school district.  Still, like my student, if the expectations were lowered, I would be disappointed.  Like her, I am kinda proud that somebody expects excellence from me.  It makes this job hard, and like Tom Hanks so astutely asserted in A League of Their Own, "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."