Teaching = Removing Obstacles for Students
Recently I witnessed how removing a small obstacle for one of my students led to a powerful transformation in how this student sees himself. A few days ago I asked my AP CS Principles students to add themselves to my class on the College Board Digital Portfolio so they can submit their Explore and Create performance tasks as part of the AP requirements for the course. In order to do so, they need to log in with their College Board account and then click on the class code of their corresponding class period.
When I shared with my students the link to the Digital Portfolio, the vast majority of my 97 students were able to add themselves within a couple minutes. Those who couldn't remember their College Board password had to reset their password and were able to add themselves by the next day.
There were a handful of students who had never created a College Board account, so they had to create a new account before adding themselves to the Digital Portfolio. Out of 97 students, only Francisco (not his real name) had not added himself to my roster a week after I assigned this task. It was not from lack of trying. During class, he asked me sheepishly to help him find the US in a list of countries as he was creating his account. I could not find it listed either! I asked another student if she could help, and she replied that she was never asked to enter her country of residence. Strange... I told Francisco that perhaps this is a system glitch and let's try again the next day.
The next day he came to my classroom during lunch and showed me as he was trying to create an account that his zip code was not found! I looked carefully at his registration and realized he misspelled "Houston" as "Houson". I showed him the typo, and he replied "Oh! There's a t in Houston?" Once that was straightened out, he logged in for the first time and after a few minutes, he came to my desk and showed me his SAT scores since he is a junior and took the SAT earlier this year. He asked "Miss, are these good scores?" Then he shared that his mom had been urging him to think about going to college. I said that it depends on the colleges he is interested in attending, and that his scores are definitely high enough for lots of colleges. I encouraged him to talk to his counselor who is more equipped to help him with questions about the college application process. Francisco said he'd never talked to his counselor about college before, so I set up an appointment with his counselor. A couple days later, I checked in with him and asked how the meeting went. He said it went well and that the counselor directed him to visit the college center at our high school.
The misspelled city name had prevented Francisco from accessing all the resources and information College Board offered, and once he was able to gain access, it opened up future options to him in his mind's eye. He began seeing himself as college-bound. There is a well-known quote that "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire" (William Yeats). But in this case, my role as educator was to remove an obstacle, small as it was, but preventing the lighting of Francisco's fire. Witnessing this transformation made my week, if not my year.
When I shared with my students the link to the Digital Portfolio, the vast majority of my 97 students were able to add themselves within a couple minutes. Those who couldn't remember their College Board password had to reset their password and were able to add themselves by the next day.
There were a handful of students who had never created a College Board account, so they had to create a new account before adding themselves to the Digital Portfolio. Out of 97 students, only Francisco (not his real name) had not added himself to my roster a week after I assigned this task. It was not from lack of trying. During class, he asked me sheepishly to help him find the US in a list of countries as he was creating his account. I could not find it listed either! I asked another student if she could help, and she replied that she was never asked to enter her country of residence. Strange... I told Francisco that perhaps this is a system glitch and let's try again the next day.
The next day he came to my classroom during lunch and showed me as he was trying to create an account that his zip code was not found! I looked carefully at his registration and realized he misspelled "Houston" as "Houson". I showed him the typo, and he replied "Oh! There's a t in Houston?" Once that was straightened out, he logged in for the first time and after a few minutes, he came to my desk and showed me his SAT scores since he is a junior and took the SAT earlier this year. He asked "Miss, are these good scores?" Then he shared that his mom had been urging him to think about going to college. I said that it depends on the colleges he is interested in attending, and that his scores are definitely high enough for lots of colleges. I encouraged him to talk to his counselor who is more equipped to help him with questions about the college application process. Francisco said he'd never talked to his counselor about college before, so I set up an appointment with his counselor. A couple days later, I checked in with him and asked how the meeting went. He said it went well and that the counselor directed him to visit the college center at our high school.
The misspelled city name had prevented Francisco from accessing all the resources and information College Board offered, and once he was able to gain access, it opened up future options to him in his mind's eye. He began seeing himself as college-bound. There is a well-known quote that "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire" (William Yeats). But in this case, my role as educator was to remove an obstacle, small as it was, but preventing the lighting of Francisco's fire. Witnessing this transformation made my week, if not my year.
Comments
Post a Comment