High Expectations

Welcome. Anita here with you this week. Today’s post will be about high expectations. If you were to ask an educator about their beliefs about student achievement, she would likely tell  you that it is important to have high expectations for students. To me, that definition is too vague. It assumes everybody is in agreement about what high expectations mean, and that is not true. People tend to have different views on ability based on various factors, including race, religion, sex, disability, and so on.  Consequently, these beliefs set the point on their expectation gauge. As a result, a limitation is set.

Imagine you  need to cross a huge river. How would you do it? Take some time to think about this answer, and write down your ideas. On your list, did you write you would fly across the river by using your physical strength? I am guessing the answer to that question is no. You don't expect you have the ability to fly, and so you don't even think to try it. You might be thinking: "Well, silly, everybody knows people can't fly. We don't have wings." I agree with that, but that doesn't mean we should accept that as a fact. Before we get too blown away, let's turn to a more realistic goal.

Imagine you are a teacher. A student comes into your class. He cannot see. He wants to be a heart surgeon  someday. He's enrolled in your college chemistry course in order to work toward that goal. Does he have a realistic goal? What do you think he will be able to do when it comes to experimenting with chemicals and recording data about them? Write down what you think will be easy for him. Write down the challenges you feel he might have. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being not at all and 10 being definitely, do you think he will succeed? Would you let him operate on you, assuming he graduates and manages to get a job? Why or why not?  Don't worry; I won't be collecting your answers. So please be honest.

 What you have just done is to set a limitation for this student. You have done the equivalent of filling a glass beaker to a certain mark. How high is that mark? I know you would like for it to be near the top of the beaker, but let's face it; it probably isn't. Unintentional though it was, you have set the expectation point using your experiences and what you think you know about the topic. To reach the top of the beaker, in other words, to achieve the highest expectations, what you will need to do is to step back and write down the skills necessary to perform heart surgery. Then, you will need to determine which of those skills your chemistry class addresses. You will then need to assess the student who is blind  to see what he knows. Your goal is to teach him all of the content and to assume he possesses the ability to learn the information. He may never succeed, but if you don't expect him to learn all of it, he will never do it. Remember, you didn't fly across that river because you thought you couldn’t.

It is ok if the student never masters all of the skills, as long as he strives to do so and as long as the teacher supports him and believes in his abilities by teaching the content and having a positive attitude about the capabilities of the blind, in other words, by expecting him to do the same Quality and level of work that is expected of other students in the class. What is important is that you start with what he knows and begin by teaching the subskills. If you do that, then he will master more of the material then you or he expected him to master. It may be that, at the end of the course, he realizes heart surgery isn't for him, but also, it may be that he succeeds in his venture.

I've used a very serious example here to show you that, if we want people who are blind or visually impaired to succeed, then we must assume they can do what their normative, in other words, sighted, peers can do. We break down a large task into its subskills, and then we teach those subskills beginning at the point where the student's instructional level is and progress until we reach the highest point which the student is able to master. An instructional level is the level above independent--the level at which the student can accomplish the skill with no help--and the frustrational level--the level at which the student is so frustrated he cannot benefit from continuing to work on the skill. At the instructional level, the student can succeed with guidance from an instructor.

While we're talking about skills,  I want to mention that students who are blind or visually impaired must be taught expanded core skills, in other words, skills to help them accommodate for their disability. Children with vision learn through vision, and can do so easily. Children who are blind must be physically shown and taught how to do the same things that other children learn. They must also learn special skills, such as how to read braille or how to use a cane. After they learn expanded core skills, students with blindness and low vision are then able to accomplish their goals. I hope that, after reading this blog, you will not limit your self or others by thinking that you are setting high expectations when you decide what a student with blindness or a visual impairment can do. I hope you don't say blind people can't... Rather, I hope you say what do I, Or the person who is blind or visually impaired, need to do to accomplish this goal, and then you begin working toward those goals by beginning with small steps and by learning the sub skills so that you will be able to master more than you ever imagined! ,

Thanks for being with me today. Be sure and come back next Thursday, when S.J. Wells will be honoring all you moms out there. Be blessed.