I love my job. I am so humbled and fortunate to have the opportunity to learn alongside countless inspirational educators who welcome me into their classrooms week after week. There are many days I sit in awe reflecting on the path that brought me to this phase in my career as an educator. I recall feeling so isolated in my own classroom, siloed by the closed door and the expectations of student performance. There were so few opportunities for collaborative learning amongst my colleagues that I wonder how much more I could have grown had I had the chance to observe my peers, engage in reflective discourse, and partake in generative knowledge sharing. My experiences as a coach have broadened my perspective, added to my pedagogical repertoire, and helped me establish critical relationships that hold me accountable as a lifelong learner.
As I reflect upon the myriad of experiences allotted to me as a coach, I realize that perhaps my most significant growth is within the realm of culturally responsive pedagogy. I am certain this is partly attributed to the depth of my dissertation research on culturally responsive practices, but the research has its limits. What I have found most valuable are the interactions I have with peers and colleagues, learning from them and broadening my perspective. As soon as I feel I understand something, someone makes a statement that sparks a sense of disequilibrium and catalyzes further inquiry to elevate my understanding. This reflective process truly began nearly five years ago when I was coaching in a school outside of Boston. I had been investigating the language surrounding culturally responsive pedagogy and speaking with teachers about the necessity of upholding rigorous expectations for all our students. This includes the language we use when interacting with our students. (*It is imperative to note that maintaining rigorous standards are critical to culturally responsive pedagogy. Although many schools tend to soften standards in an effort to be more nurturing and empathetic to students’ hardships. This creates a form of intellectual apartheid, which we will save for another Blog post…)
Many of us, myself included, have a tendency to gravitate towards nurturing, mothering language when working with students. It comes naturally and feels as though we are creating a family community within the classroom. While there is nothing wrong with striving for a warm, welcoming community – in fact, it should be a top priority! – a colleague of mine pointed out that some students do not well-receive such language from their teachers. There are genuine, kind-hearted and compassionate intentions behind the use of such warm language with students, but this colleague helped me to realize that students from diverse backgrounds crave a teacher, an authoritative figure. Someone who pushes them through tough love. I was uncertain at first, as I did not want to appear to be so authoritative, holding the power in the classroom, but further research from an inspirational scholar, Lisa Delpit and her article entitled “The Silent Dialogue” helped me to see how I was unintentionally separating myself from the students by subconsciously endeavoring to conceal my power in the class. Delpit maintains that this is actually culturally insensitive, as what culturally and linguistically diverse students need are teachers who are direct, honest, and hold them to high standards. The teacher whom first catalyzed this introspection into my own language always called her students “scholars”, indicating that she believes in them and their ability to learn and grow their brains. Even when students were not feeling very scholarly, she always referred to them as scholars and reminded them of their job as learners. This was just the start of my understanding of the importance of language in the classroom.
I began utilizing the term scholars and started to use it in every school in which I coached. The response was incredible! Students were curious as to what it meant and asked lots of questions, and they subsequently started to alter their body language to match the expectations of a scholar. Students came to recognize that I expected a lot from them, but only expected so much because I genuinely believed that they could do it. I would walk into a room and students would immediately transition their bodies into “scholarly” postures, showing me that they were read to learn. Students felt empowered by my belief in them, and they began to believe more in themselves. All because I made a shift with one powerful word.
This got me thinking about other ways in which my language influences student behavior and performance. I began referring to my students as writers and authors during Writers’ Workshop, and the same thing happened – they began to identify as writers! No longer was writing a strain for them, but rather an opportunity to show off. I called them readers during Readers’ Workshop and students began to believe in themselves as readers. They wanted to be who I believed they could be. This direct, honest expectation of students was consistently conveyed through my continuous reference of them as scholars, writers, and readers.
I began to consider what other language secrets I had been missing all these years as an educator, bringing me back to scholar and researcher, Lisa Delpit. Her book entitled Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom inspired me to consider my perspective and positionality within the classroom. Culturally and linguistically diverse students crave direction; they want and deserve to be clued in to what they are learning, why they are learning it, and how they are expected to show they have learned it. They want teachers who are direct, honest, and clear, teachers who earn respect and authority by showing they can command it. Lisa Delpit shares powerful testimonials of students who thought their teachers were “clueless” and “didn’t know how to teach”, all because of the language the teachers used. Instead of telling students to sit down and take out their books, teachers were saying, “Would you like to take a seat now?” Students were interpreting this as a genuine question, not a rhetorical one, and curiously scrutinized the teacher’s judgment and ability to control the class. Students respected teachers who were direct, clear, and concise, and did not falter in their expectations of their students. The students in Delpit’s anecdotes shared that they always felt their teachers cared for them, but they felt the most cared for and respected by those teachers who did not waste time with linguistic “fluff”. They felt if the teachers felt confident enough to straight-talk with students, then the teachers must also respect them and believe in their capabilities. Students want teachers who champion for them, push them, and inspire them to fulfill the expectations placed around them. Our choice of language has the leverage to propel students forward, even if at first they do not believe in themselves. We believe. That is what matters and that is the message we must convey.
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