Re-commit to Higher Expectations

It's time to start the countdown. You know how you start to think about "back to school" in terms of the hours remaining? So what will you do with these next few hours? How will you prepare yourself to take charge of that first day back? What expectations will you set for yourself and your students so that you can take charge of the growth you will see in 2015?

Let's start with expectations. If returning to school after a long vacation is like starting fresh in September, how will you start with your students? What do you expect in terms of their work ethic, their behavior, their interactions with their learning community, and their achievement? If we expect students to have certain attributes as a learner - such as applying a certain level of effort to written work or expressing ideas completely to partners - then we must model and practice those attributes with our students until they have mastered them. Returning after a vacation means we must "start from scratch" in terms of modeling, teaching, and reinforcing those skills in order to help our students master them.

The power of our expectations is outlined in much of the book, Teach Like A Champion, by Doug Lemov. Chapter One (linked here http://teachlikeachampion.com/wp-content/uploads/TLAC-Chapter-1.pdf) gives powerful examples of how we as teachers set our expectations for our students in every day interactions in our classrooms. Sometimes we are not aware of the subtle messages we send our kids - apologizing for what they are about to learn because "we have to get through it," answering for them rather than pushing them to persevere and find the solution, and allowing students to answer questions incompletely or not at all - all set our expectations significantly lower than we think they are.

The challenge for 2015 is to re-commit to having higher expectations. Making a resolution to have higher expectations would mean that we didn't have high expectations in the first place. Reflecting on our practice and realizing that we need to have higher expectations - and that our students can achieve those expectations if we stack them for success in our classrooms - that takes re-committing to the work at hand. If each of us re-commits to higher expectations for our classrooms and for our students, we will see great gains in our students' learning and achievement. Let's make 2015 the year for higher expectations. Let's make 2015 the year that our students achieve and we create classrooms where children love learning, thinking, problem-solving, and creating in community with others. We have the power - are you willing to re-commit to that vision?