Not Allowed to Play Small in My Presence

Up analyzing student data to determine each one's lesson plans for next week. Watching the movie Coach Carter while doing this. Saw so many parts that made me realize just how special the things happening in class really are.

I've been telling these kids not to focus on the grades but on the learning. As this has been happening the grades have risen like a rocket. We went from 7 students with all A's and B's the first grading period to 14 this quarter. My grading doesn't get easier as the year goes on, it gets harder. I expect more.

I don't spend all week going over the reading story anymore. I consider this spoon-feeding them. Instead I teach them how to think and learn, and give them the test cold, meaning not even looking at the story until they get the test.

They're not going to see the state test stories until test time. In their real-world jobs they're going to get the questions and problems first and then have to do a lot of reading and research to be able to answer and solve them. Why not prepare them for this, instead of teaching to the test?

If I put a math problem on the board and then show them how to do it, IT NO LONGER IS A PROBLEM, but a formula or algorithm to be memorized. Instead we take the time to struggle together to figure it out.

An A in my class means true mastery, not a master at memorization.

Last year we went from one student with all A's the first quarter to 13 all A's the fourth quarter. At first I was criticized for being too hard, then I was criticized for being too easy. I hadn't changed. The kids had BECOME MORE, rising to the high standards I had set for them, and not one student had a D or F by the end of the year.

Not one of them were failures, just temporarily failing, so I absolutely could not allow any one of them to see themselves as failures.

One student this year who has gone from C's and D's to all A's and B's from the first grading period to the next is calling me Hancock after the name of the superhero Will Smith played in the movie. What this young man needs to realize is that HE is becoming the superhero. I give them super human effort so they can become the superheroes of their own lives, period.

We all sometimes feel that nothing we're doing is working, that we're trapped and helpless.

We panic and give up.

That's when we need someone to step in and protect us from what seems impossible to stop, to show us just how powerful and unstoppable we really can become,

....giving us the courage to grow stronger ourselves.



Another student who has never received all A's just received straight A's for the second report card in a row. And it gets even better. She scored a 100% on this week's reading test, but guessed on two of the questions. Even though she got them right, she didn't feel she deserved the credit, and asked me to change her grade to a 92%.

I told her she made intelligent guesses and deserved the 100%. She said, "Mr. Stuart. I only want grades that reflect my true knowledge", and stepped past me and changed the grade herself.

I looked at her in amazement and asked why there couldn't be more people like her. Then I said, "That's a terrible question. HOW can there be more people like you?"

Two other students wrote such inspiring essays after watching Obama's Inauguration they were read to a school in New York, positively affecting a large number of people they have never met. I told them they didn't throw a pebble in a pond making a little ripple, they threw a big ol' rock in a big ol' lake making a big ol' ripple!

And another kid made a HUGE splash in his own internal lake. He began the year way behind the 5th grade level. He's finally turning in all his homework, and this week for the first time turned in a test with no questions left unanswered.

He scored an 87%, without it being "taught" to him beforehand. Instead he was taught how to think, and based on his other tests is predicted to score on grade level on the state tests.

This may not be the easiest way to teach, but it is definitely worth it. Just this week a parent threatened to have me arrested for expecting too much out of her son and pushing him too hard. I told her she didn't expect enough out of him, and if I was going to bring out his best I couldn't worry about what she or her son thought of me, but put everything I had into what he thought of himself, even if it meant I went to jail or lost my job. At least it would be a job worth losing.

What is happening again this year IS very special, because the kids are feeling and acting very special.....which is exactly how you BECOME MORE THAN YOU ARE, instead of remaining just full of potential.

I refuse to play small in my belief in every student I teach. And I refuse to be the best thing that's ever happened to them. THEY MUST BECOME THE BEST THING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED TO THEMSELVES. And they are not allowed to play small in my presence.

Be sure to read the last lines at the end of this video.