Maintaining high standards

The greatest accomplishments of any Educator must then become  fundamental pursuits in order to climb the hierarchical ladder of greatness. For instance, a commitment to establish high standards and Expectations for all students must first be accomplished, then maintained. Like any of our educational ideals and guiding principles, establishing high standards and expectations for all students is not something to be attained, then placed on a shelf, or checked off on a list of things to do. The following anecdote from a Windsor public schools educator will serve as an illustration.

Reflecting upon this event helped the teacher identify the point of tension. The student clearly felt that the expectations for him were too high while the teacher believed his expectations for himself were too low. This tension became the impetus for further reflection and perhaps more questions than answers. Was there a common standard by which to measure both the teacher’s and the student’s expectations? How does the excellent educator reconcile their student’s expectations, with their own expectations? Does the educator accept the student’s self serving standard and then lower the bar? Or, does the educator do the hard work and maintain high expectations working with each student until they succeed?

Thomas Aquinas once wrote, “The straight line rules both itself and the crooked line.” This simple statement has provoked deep thinking regarding the nature of standards. C.S. Lewis In essence it boiled down to two questions. What is the standard? And, what is its nature, relative, or absolute, movable or fixed? If the standard was relative, then the answer would be simple, lower the bar and allow each student to “be successful in his own way” using what he could do at the moment as the standard. However, the relative nature of standards continues to undermine the very idea of a standard. If standards are relative then the status quo would be perfectly acceptable.

In this particular case, the standard the teacher held was that a perfectly healthy seventh grader should be able to draw a straight line using a ruler. Anything less would be unacceptable. The reason the teacher volunteered to work with the student after school was not because he could not draw a straight line with a ruler. It was precisely the opposite; it was because the teacher believed he could draw a straight line with a ruler. The student ultimately demonstrated that he could draw the straight line with a ruler during the next class. The excellent educator is able to see student potential and is not willing to lower the standard.

Even if a student truly believes that they cannot accomplish a task, and has adopted a set of low expectations, the educator must not participate in accepting their low standard. Instead, the educator should be true to their commitment to establishing and maintaining high expectations for all students. This particular case illustrates a worthwhile principle; it is often as we work through these points of tension, between high and low expectations, and are finally able find resolution that real, significant learning takes place for the student and the teacher.