So Proud of You

A few weeks back, one of my struggling readers stayed after school for a behavior conference. Julia* and I had a relaxed conversation while she helped me clean graffiti off the desks.

"Tell me how it is for you in my class," I said. "I know you don't like it. What's going on?"

"Well..." she said, hesitating as she scrubbed off a SnapChat user name.

"Go ahead," I urged. "Be honest."

"Well, usually I'm just bored. I don't get what we're doing. Sometimes I want to try, but it's too hard. And then my friends tell me to do things to make them laugh, so..."

"So you do things to keep them entertained?"

"Yeah."


I drug two desks together and invited her to have a seat. "Let's look at the test from last week," I said.

"Oh, I remember that day," she said. She pointed at the first of three reading passages. "On the first story, I really tried. I read it, but when I got to the questions I didn't remember anything. I tried to read it again, but I still didn't understand it. So I guessed on all the questions. And then on the next story I was just tired, so I gave up."

"Remember how we talked about annotation?" I asked. "I think if you will write those short summaries for each paragraph, it will help your mind hold onto what you read. Let's try it."

I read the first paragraph out loud and then asked her what the paragraph was mainly about.

She scrunched her forehead. "I think she was with her family. Yes, she saw her father."

"You're on the right track," I said, "but what about this word? What does this mean?" I pointed at the word photograph.

She stared at me blankly.

"What's a photograph? I retrieved the Spanish word from a far corner of my brain. A foto?"

"Oh, a picture."

"Yes. So was she with her father in this paragraph?"

"No. She was looking at his picture."

"That's right. So what should your summary be? Remember, keep it really short. Just three or four words."

She wrote, "looking at dads picture."

"Great! You chose the most important idea and kept your summary very focused."

She grinned.

"Now you read the next paragraph," I said.

Julia couldn't make it through the first line. She recognized candle but stumbled over incense. She gave up when she got to anniversary. "Ann... ann.."

"Ann-ee..." I prompted.

"Anni... I don't know," she said, shoulders slumped in defeat.

Oh, Julia, I thought. No wonder she hated reading. No wonder she'd acted up during this test and any other assignment that required her to read at the seventh-grade level. According to her latest Lexile score, she was reading just below the second-grade level.

I wished I could shield her from these repeated reminders of her inadequacy, but in our state, standardized tests are the center of our universe, let alone the curriculum.

On Friday morning, I thought of Julia and so many others when I set the latest campus assessment on the shelf by my door. How would they feel when they picked up that test? Could I do anything to make the experience less painful?

I picked up a dry erase marker and wrote my daily affirmation on the board. "If you do your best work today, I will be so proud of you." Next to that, I scrawled a heart.

At my door, I greeted each child with my usual handshake and a warm smile. "You're going to make me proud today," I said over and over.

When David* arrived for my second class of the day, I braced myself. He'd created a severe disruption the last time we'd taken a test, and I knew that this day would be particularly trying for us both.

"Good morning, David," I said. He slapped my hand and quickly cupped my fingers. I touched his shoulder lightly to stop him from passing by. "Today I know you will make me proud. You'll make good choices, and I'll get to send your mom another nice note."

He peered around my shoulder. "What are we doing today? Oh no! A test? I hate tests."

"I know, dear. But you can make a good choice like you did last week when we did the i-Station test. You can sit by yourself so you won't be tempted to talk. And as long as you give me your very best, I'm going to be so proud of you. I'm looking forward to telling your mom about it."

"Okay," he said grumpily, and trudged to the back corner of the room. I nodded my approval.

I repeated the same message to all of the students during Good Things, a time set aside for sharing good thoughts at the beginning of each class. "I know that most of you hate taking tests," I said. "I know that this test will be very difficult for most of you, but I don't want you to worry about the score. What I'm mainly interested in is your annotations. I want you to pause after each paragraph and write a very short summary, just three or four words to help you remember the most important idea."

Several of them groaned.

"I know you don't like doing the annotations. But I promise that those summaries will help your brain hold onto what you're reading, and then the questions will be easier."

"But what if we fail?" one student asked.

I thought about this class's 38% average on the last district assessment. "If you fail, we will have information about areas that we need to work on. Honestly, I don't care about your score," I said. "I do want you to try, but I don't want you to worry about that. If you do your annotations, I'm going to take care of you. All I'm asking is that you give me your very best today. If you do that, I'm going to be so proud of you, and you should be proud of yourself, too."

Once they'd gotten to work, I noticed that David was sitting quietly and frowning at his test. I walked to the back corner and knelt beside his desk. "Give me your best today," I whispered. "I'm going to be proud of you."

"Yes, ma'am," he whispered. It was all I could do to keep my face nonchalant. This boy had called me several choice words in the past weeks, but never once did he refer to me as ma'am.

Day after day, David had walked into my class spewing foul words in English and Spanish. "I hate this class.... This class is f-ing boring.... I want a schedule change."

On one of those days, I had a brainstorm. Instead of shushing him, I scribbled two questions on a sheet of notebook paper: "1. Please tell me what you don't like about this class. 2. Please tell me what I can do to make it better for you."

Handing him the sheet, I whispered, "Thank you for your feedback about this class. I need your help. I can't talk to you about it right now because we are testing today, but please write down your thoughts for me. Let me have it. Tell me everything you hate about this class."

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, raising one eyebrow.

"Really," I whispered. "I want to know."

A minute or two later, he bent over his desk and scratched out his response with the stubby pencil he'd borrowed from me. When he'd finished, he raised his hand.

"I'm done," he said loudly.

I touched a finger to my lips. "Thank you," I whispered. "I look forward to reading your thoughts."

I walked back to the front and unfolded the sheet. It read, "1. Your class is really boring. "2. Stop being such a boring teacher."

It was all I could do to suppress a giggle. Nodding at David across the room, I summoned my most earnest expression and shot him a thumbs up.

The next day, he came into my room spouting more complaints, peppered with expletives. I calmly held out my hand for a handshake. "Good morning, David. It's a blessing to have you in class today."

"I hate your class," he responded.

I smiled. "Write it down, please. Tell me how I can make it better."

He stepped closer to me, bowing out his chest, and stared at me intensely. His eyes sort of popped out, so that he resembled a bug. I bit my lip to keep from laughing. I was pretty sure he was trying to intimidate me, but his head only came up to my chest. It was like a Chihuahua snarling at a German Shepherd.

I smiled at him calmly. "You know, David, it almost seems like you are trying to make me not like you."

"Yeah."

"Or even hate you-"

" 'Cuz I hate you," he agreed.

"Well, I'm sorry, but it isn't working. I still love you. Nothing is going to change that. I love you and I want you to learn."

"Hmmph," he said.

Later in the period, and again the next day, he gave me that same look. "Still not working," I said with a smile. "Still love ya."

I think it was on that second day that the tide started to turn. David had been particularly disruptive, walking around the room and pretending to box with his friends while I was trying to teach. I wrote down all three of the students' names and told them each to expect a parent phone call.

A couple of minutes later, David asked if he could talk with me in the hall and then waited patiently while I helped a couple of his classmates with their assignment. Once we were alone, he said humbly, "Miss, please don't call my mom."

"David, I have to be consistent. When I say I'm going to call home, then I'm going to call home."

He literally clasped his hands and gazed up at me with puppy-dog eyes. "But my dad said if I get another bad phone call from any teacher, they're going to break my phone. Please, miss!"

"Wow," I replied. "Then I guess you know what you have to do right now."

"Behave?"

"Yes, and what else?"

"Do my work?"

"Exactly. Go back in there and do what you need to do. If you do that, I'll make a good phone call home tonight."

"You will?"

"I'll be happy to. Just give me something to work with, David. Deal?"

He nodded and shook my extended hand.

Back in the classroom, he put his name on his paper and answered two questions. Considering his usual habits, I was able to honestly tell his mom how he'd worked so hard that day and behaved much better.

The next day, his attitude was dramatically different. He still didn't do a lot of work, and he still walked around the room a lot, but he stopped griping about my boring, stupid class. Over the next couple of weeks, I sent about four positive messages to his mom, and only one negative one.

So by the time he started that test on Friday, we were on much better terms than we'd been at the start of the year. As I watched him quietly staring at his unmarked test sheet, I thought back to Julia's struggles with the last test.

"I know this is hard," I whispered. "What I want you to do is just read the first paragraph and give me three or four words to describe what it's about."

He flipped to the second page and frowned. "There are so many paragraphs."

"Just do one for now," I said. "Can you do that?"

"Maybe I could do two."

I smiled broadly. "That's great! Just do two for now."

Upon returning to his desk five minutes later, I rejoiced to see two neatly lettered summaries. At the start of the year, he'd only been willing to write his name--on a good day.

"David, this looks great!" I whispered. "Do you think you could do a couple more?"

He shrugged. "Maybe I could do the first page."

"Yes, the first page would be wonderful. I'm so proud of you, David."

The grin that passed over his features was so ephemeral that I nearly missed it. My heart throbbed with an intense affection for this little imp who had driven me batty for weeks on end.

When he raised his hand to turn in his test 15 minutes later, I was shocked to see that he had annotated both pages, about 20 paragraphs. I touched my heart. "David, I can't wait to tell your mom about this. She will be so happy."

"I was just bored," he muttered. "I didn't have anything else to do." I suppressed my chuckle; naturally, he had a reputation to protect.

I half expected to see some random scribbles on his paper. Sometimes students try that before they realize that I actually read their annotations. David's summaries were all relevant even if they didn't always capture the most important ideas.

I held my breath as I held his answer document up to my laptop's camera... 25 percent. I exhaled heavily and wrote the score on page three, where the questions started. Maybe I wouldn't mention his score today. We would just focus on his exemplary annotation.

I walked back to his desk, test in hand. "David, your summaries are excellent, very focused," I whispered. "I decided to give you 10 points' extra credit because you did twice as much as I asked you to do." I held up the test, pointing to the annotation score on the front page.

His eyes widened. I wondered if he'd ever seen a 110 with his name on it.

"What did I get on the answers?" he asked.

I showed him the 25, and his triumphant grin evaporated.

I knelt by his desk and looked into his downcast eyes. "David, this was a tough test. You got two answers right, and that's great. Did you give me your best effort today?"

He nodded.

"Then I am so proud of you. Keep focusing on your reading like that, and your scores are going to come up."

"Can you send my mom a message before seventh period?" he asked.

"It will be my pleasure," I said.

Throughout the rest of the day, I used the same strategy with other struggling students. Several students who barely do any work completed all of their annotations--before answering the questions. The scores were significantly higher, though the average for all five classes was only 53 percent. I have no way to quantify it, but my gut tells me that the improvement stemmed from the power of love and positive expectations.

I'm excited to see where that power will lead David, and all of us.

*Names of students have been changed to protect privacy.