The moment that leads to incredible student performance

No sudden moves, please. (Image by Kelly Rudland)

As a teacher, there’s a moment I’m always waiting for. Before this moment, we’re just going through the motions. After this moment, everything changes.

It’s when my student says to me, “I don’t really understand this. Can you help me?”

When I consider the circumstances in a typical school classroom, I appreciate just how big a deal it is for a student to be able to take this step.

Many of us have been in classes so big or intimidating that we don’t want to ask a question. We figure everyone else probably gets it and we’ll be holding everyone up.

We’ve had teachers say, “You all know how to do this part, right?” and not really listen for the answer before breezing right through.

There are the teachers who get annoyed when you approach them for help, since they have 175 tests to grade and forty minutes to do it. They may try to hide their exhaustion and frustration, or they may yell at you to go sit down — either way, further interaction is too anxiety-inducing.

Then there are the teachers who believe that students who take longer to understand things must be stupid or lazy. All it takes is one such teacher to make you work hard to cover up, forever, what you can’t do and what you don’t quite grasp.

It’s bizarre, when you think about it, that teachers usually function as judge, jury, and executioner. They teach you the material, but they also design the tests and give you your grade. If you study for the test and fail, whose fault is it: your own, for not understanding the material, or the teacher’s, for failing to help you understand it?

I work with many students who have absorbed the message that any failure they experience is due to their own lack of effort, intelligence, or both. Unpacking this is challenging, to say the least. If I advocate for the idea that the student is full of potential and can be successful, I’m just another teacher to be wary of. Perhaps other teachers have expressed this in the past but showed through their actions that they didn’t really believe it. It takes time and consistency to break through.

Students learn that they need to be on guard and on their best behavior with teachers. This is too bad, because as a coach, I’m deeply interested in the messy processes that are happening behind the scenes. I want to know if a student kept clicking over to other browser windows in the middle of completing an assignment — or if they are doing that 50% less than they did a month ago. I want to know if someone cried in frustration before finally completing the assignment — or before scrapping what they had so far and then returning to school empty-handed.

Students have very good reasons for keeping evidence of these behaviors away from a teacher who will judge or scold them — but when it comes to understanding a student’s progress and identifying ways to support them, this is the very information that is most useful. If a student is procrastinating, that’s often evidence that they are working on something that is too hard (and we already know that they won’t ask for help). If a student is staying up late to finish assignments, they may need better strategies for doing the work more efficiently. And if a student is getting really frustrated, that means that the work matters — gentle guidance might be incredibly helpful.

Whatever the situation, if the student is unwilling to talk about her own process, all I have to go on are the tiny clues I have. That’s why it’s so powerful when the student finally trusts me enough to ask for help, or even to share something like, “This problem was okay, but this one was really boring.” All of a sudden, we’re collaborating rather than competing. In that conversation, I have an opportunity to build on the trust that student is demonstrating and reward her for her courage. As we move forward, we can strengthen the connection.

Rapid growth will happen as a result — it always does. When the student believes that I’m a trustworthy source of information and support, she will turn to me again and again instead of avoiding me or telling me that everything is great. She will involve me in her process, and together we can create ambitious plans to achieve her goals. In this way, we can go beyond what is expected, manifesting incredible results.

Shame has no place in education, yet students are still suffering under its weight. It takes patience and consistent generosity on the part of the teacher to begin to eradicate this problem. Removing the emotional barriers to learning and growth is an ongoing process that rewards everyone involved and results in dramatic leaps forward in skill and insight. Those of us who are teachers and coaches should remember that slowing down and being gentle are underrated tools that pay off significantly. When a student trusts her teacher instead of fearing him, great things happen.