Teaching the Poor Child From a Dysfunctional Family (Part IV): The Need to Communicate Absolute Confidence in the Student's Academic Ability

Most people are smart as a matter of native ability. Human beings are highly intelligent creatures. Some people have dramatically lower intelligence than most of their fellow humans because of some genetic flaw, and as a result these people have a degree of mental retardation that will make mastery of some academic material unlikely. But everyone with an IQ of about 95 or above can learn anything, given proper instruction and an appropriate amount of time.

So as I lay out an appropriately sequenced course of instruction in math or reading for a given student, I do so with a vision of total mastery. Some students take longer than others to master certain material, but everyone can do so over the course of time. I do not think very much in terms of one student being smarter than another. I just think in terms of the length of time that it is objectively going to take a given student to move through a sequenced set of assignments so as to reach the academic goal that everyone will reach in time.

At a certain point of content mastery, a student of objectively average intelligence starts to function very much like those who manifest intellectual quickness well above the norm (corresponding to IQs rising to the 120-150 range and above). This is the importance of ensuring that a student has mastered certain skills and aubject area content to the point of automaticity. When a certain skill or knowledge set is mastered to the point of automaticity (e. g., instant recall of multiplication tables, or immediate and unhesitating understanding of grade level vocabulary), the advantage of natural mental quickness becomes less acute, because a large skill and knowledge base becomes a surrogate for a high IQ: The learning process gets faster as skill and knowledge sets continue to accumulate.

The excellent teacher is highly conscious of the great intelligence that generally comes with being human. This is an especially important attitude to convey as a teacher greets a student from an impoverished and dysfunctional family. That student may have an IQ in the 120-150 range or better but not give much evidence of such keen intellect at first. Life distractions, a growling stomach, not knowing exactly where one may lay one's head at night can be powerful impediments to the ability to think clearly. There have been many times when I thought that I might be dealing with a child who was not very naturally quick, but then sat with mouth agape as that young person got comfortable in the setting that I provided, got firmly focused on the tasks at hand, then reached a take-off point from which learning started to proceed at a torrid pace.

And then there have also been cases in which the initial impression was correct, and the designated material was mastered only gradually. But over time such a student will master a given amount of material, reach the take-off point, rise to grade level performance, and then start to rise even above grade level. It really is just a matter of time, patience, and elbow grease on the part of the student and myself. And once again my faith is bolstered that although rates of skill and knowledge acquisition vary, all people are smart.

So if educators are not successful in imparting strong skill and knowledge sets to all students, regardless of family economic circumstances and degree of functionality, educators have failed. They have taken on the task of educating a variety of human beings, all of whom are smart. It is not acceptable for an educator to say that some students bring into the school problems that are not of the school's making. We know this. But we should understand that the true teacher's role is to find strategies that move such a student along a continuum of success until that student has mastered material at grade level or better. The genuine professional finds ways to overcome obstacles by forging a pathway to success.

The excellent teacher must have absolute confidence in each student's academic ability. The importance of this is magnified in the case of a student from an impoverished and dysfunctional family. Such a student is likely to have experienced many setbacks in life and to have her or his education thrown off track at one or many points. The excellent teacher builds the student's confidence by designing a program that will ensure incremental success, keeps goals high, and guides the student along a pathway for reaching the established goals.

Absolute confidence in each student's ability to learn must be felt in the gut, must be part of a long-established set of convictions. The student must always feel that the teacher knows heart and soul that she or he can learn. Once a student from an impoverished and dysfunctional family begins to believe with the same ferocity in her or his ability to succeed academically, a revolution in intellect and spirit is achieved. Success builds on success, goals are reached, interest quickens, all things become possible, and the end of a familial cycle of poverty results in a very smart person leading future generations into the fullness of human potential.