Field of Expectations

In the movie Field of Dreams, a struggling farmer, Ray Kinsella, heard voices that encouraged him to “build it and he will come.” People around him thought it foolish to plow under his crop and build a baseball field. Despite the skeptics, he persisted and continued following the guidance of the voices/spirits/ghosts (it’s a fantasy, so those characters could be any number of apparitions). The farmer expected the voices’ prophesy would come to pass, and at the conclusion of the movie, what he expected happened.

Sometimes in education it is too easy for us to hear the skeptics and let our experiences of failure dominate the plans we make for the future. With multiple years’ history at a particular institution, we claim we know what the staff and students will and will not do. More harmful, we claim we know what the staff and students can and cannot do. More often than not, we can find data to prove those claims.

 

If asked, every almost every educator will say we hold high expectations for all students. Administrators say the same thing about their staff. Nevertheless, when we use comments like will/can and will not/cannot we admit to accepting lower expectations for our students and staff.

The data proves us correct.

It does not make us right.

The campus where I work serves a majority of students who come to us with significant deficits in skills. Their skill levels are measurable. We often mistakenly equate skills with ability. When we accept this false connection, we begin to lower the expectations we have for our students. Without the skills, surely they cannot (insert activity here).

Skills though, are what we teach. When we know what skills our students are missing, we have researched strategies to help them gain the skills they need to be successful. Keeping our focus on skills instruction rather than the skills deficit offers a way for us to maintain high expectations for all students.

The rules that apply to students apply to educators – teachers, counselors, administrators. Lack of success in the classroom likely reflects missing skills. Just as skills can be built in students, they can be built in the educators who work with them.

Skills though, are what we teach. When we know what skills our staff are missing, we have researched strategies to help them gain the skills they need to be successful. Keeping our focus on skills instruction rather than the skills deficit offers a way for us to maintain high expectations for all staff.

In the movie, Kinsella resisted the naysayers and followed his belief. He risked his livelihood and triumphed. The movie is a fantasy with the courageous protagonist coming out ahead in the end for sticking to his belief.

How often do we as educators risk our livelihood and stick to our stated belief of high expectations? The accountability game may guide our decisions which give us the opportunity to allow some students to slip through the cracks. As a result, our actions do not match our stated belief. Systems and skills combine to let us off the hook without us even realizing it.

At least I did not realize it until I started looking closely at systems and data this summer. I always prided myself in doing all that I can do to ensure high levels of student success, but digging more deeply, I found that I too sacrificed certain students for program acceptability. Acceptability cannot be the standard we accept if it allows us to fail any student.

To live up to the expectations we claim we have means we need to adapt our systems and vocabulary to match the expectations. Our systems must allow us to teach with the strategies to help even the most skills-deficient student reach skill proficiency. Our vocabulary must abandon the will not/cannot mentality. As far as the skills go, we do need to honestly understand and identify the skills our students are missing, but instead of focusing on the skills our students do not have, we change the focus to building the needed skills.

Educational research and practice has proven methods for increasing students’ skills. Equipping teachers with the skills to facilitate learning through those proven methods empowers them to achieve high skills attainment for all students.

When we adapt our system and shift our vocabulary we will find a new spirit of education transforming our schools into integrated learning communities with students and staff benefiting from healthy high expectations. Fulfillment of dreams does not only happen in fantasies, it happens in real life when we do the right thing. Kinsella heard a voice telling him to “build it and they will come.” If we expect it, they will learn.