fact is, humans can and do change. One of the more relevant properties in the human brain when it comes to teaching students is neuroplasticity. This property allows the human brain to make new connections, develop whole new networks, and even remap itself so that more (or less) physical space in the brain is used for a particular task. For example, there are changes in brain activation specifically associated with the practice of high-level cognitive skills (Mackey, Singley, Wendelken, & Bunge, 2015). Even just two hours of cognitive training shows changes in the brain (Hofstetter, Tavor, Moryosef, & Assaf, 2013).
When people don’t change, it is often because others have given up on them, their daily environment is toxic, or others are using an ineffective strategy that doesn’t help. Often, teachers feel helpless to help students if there is a lack of support at home, but the truth is the classroom teacher is still the single most significant contributor to student achievement; the effect is greater than that of parents, peers, entire schools, or poverty (Hanushek, 2005; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005; Rockoff, 2004). Research also shows that above-average teachers (those who get one and a half years or more of student gains per school year) can completely erase the academic effects of poverty in five years (Hanushek, 2005).
The stories at your school that are told and retold shape students’ expectations. When the stories are upbeat, affirming, and hopeful, the students and staff reinforce a positive message. In successful schools, staff members try to redefine their new normal. Mindsets matter a great deal, especially when addressing poverty. This book will help you identify the useful and powerful mindsets that can accelerate positive change to alter the future for your students.
Before we dig in, there is one last thing you should know about the strategies that enforce these mindsets. In most sports, the team that scores the most points (or goals, runs, and so on) wins. This scoring system is simple and easily understood. In our profession, the scoring system that decides a winning classroom strategy is called the effect size. This number is simply the size of the impact on student learning. In short, it tells you how much something matters. The mathematics on it is simple: it is a standardized measure of the relative size of the gain (or loss) in student achievement caused by an intervention (versus a control) (Olejnik & Algina, 2000). See figure I.2.
Source: Vacha-Haase & Thompson, 2004.
Figure I.2: Effect sizes made practical.
Researchers simply measure the difference between doing something and doing nothing. Ideally, one uses an experimental group (using a new strategy) and a control group (using an existing norm). The strongest analysis includes large sample sizes and multiple studies with varied population demographics. Then, you know your data are very, very solid. This is important to you, and I connect many of the strategies in this book to their expected effect size, so please lean in and read closely.
This is all about your teaching.
Effect sizes are a common research-based way to measure the impact of a strategy or factor. While any intervention could have a negative effect size, most classroom interventions (teacher strategies) are positive. Classroom interventions typically have effect sizes between 0.25 and 0.75 with a mean of about 0.40 (Hattie, 2009). One full year’s worth of academic gains has a 0.50 effect size, and two years’ worth of gains have a 1.00 effect size. This means that effect sizes above 0.50 are just the baseline for students in poverty. Teachers have to help students catch up from starting school one to three years behind their classmates, and it takes good instructional practices for effect sizes to be well above 0.50.
To ensure students from poverty graduate, you’ll want to teach in ways that give them one and a half years’ worth of gains (or more) in each school year. What if, by just replacing one strategy you already use (for example, saying “Good job!” to a student) with another (a far more effective one, like “Your steady, daily studying really paid off. That’s going to help you graduate on time!”), you could get five to ten times the positive effect on student achievement? I show you how to do that in this book.
Think about the impact you can have every single workday by switching out less effective strategies with more effective strategies. In fact, I’m going to invite you to slowly replace those things you do that are sort of effective with strategies that are ridiculously effective. If you want even more support in effecting this change, with real tools you can access and use to implement these strategies, I provide them in The Handbook for Poor Students, Rich Teaching (Jensen, 2019). Yes, I am on a mission to help you become so effective that it changes the course of history for your students.
With this goal in mind, and a wealth of strategies at your disposal, it’s time for you to take stock and reflect on your own mindset.
An amazing journey is about to begin. Are you game?
PART ONE
WHY THE RELATIONAL MINDSET?
In this part, we begin with building the narrative of relationships as the core underpinning of high-performance teaching with students from poverty. Sometimes we find it easy to connect with students who share our own background, but it becomes much more challenging with students who don’t; yet it’s essential to build relationships with those students before any real learning can happen. If you’re not connecting by giving respect, listening, and showing empathy, you risk losing your students. When students lose interest in school, they will most likely find somewhere else to invest their energy and may make poorer choices. Some will get their respect and connections through peers and sports, others through drugs or even gangs.
All of us are in this together. When your students succeed, you succeed. There is no us (teachers) and them (students). Maintaining an erroneous narrative of separation will ruin your chances of success in teaching. The relational mindset says, “We are all connected in this life together. Always connect first as a person (and an ally) and second as a teacher.”
The relational mindset says, “We are all connected in this life together. Always connect first as a person (and an ally) and second as a teacher.”
Do not confuse this mindset with me telling you that it is impossible to succeed with every student unless each likes or respects you. Some students (those from strong, intact families) come from such stability at home that they need less relationship time at school. When a student has an emotionally stable family, good friends, and positive relatives, the need for relational stability at school is less. However, those students are increasingly becoming the exception. You may know teachers with a mindset of, “I wasn’t hired to be their parent; I was hired for the content I know.” However, the more you think you are separate from your students, the worse the relationships. The more students feel separate from you, the greater the problems you’ll have with them and the greater the likelihood they’ll achieve less. Instead, ask yourself, “How can I show my students I care about their home life as well as their classroom life?”
Your students will care about academics as soon as you care about them.
A Hard Look at the Evidence
The Commission on Children at Risk (2003), a panel of thirty-three doctors, research scientists, and mental health and youth service professionals, concludes that the need to connect is hardwired. Separation is an illusion; in fact, we are mathematically connected to anyone within just six relationships (Todd & Anderson, 2009). See figure
