Stop Talking About Potential

Potential: It's a dirty word in our business and almost always misused. When it's said that a student isn't working to his or her potential, there's a good chance that this claim has more to do with our expectations than any student's ability.  Maybe it's not that students aren't working hard enough, it's that somehow we aren't reaching and activating their potential. Maybe we need to rethink exactly what it is we want our students to "know and be able to do." 

Piaget's quote points to our students' shared potential, and it's from 1964!  Good teachers have always been challenging both their students and their leaders to make teaching and learning transformational. Good teachers have always taught kids first- content second. Medfield's Neal Sonnenberg wisely states that teachers need to be taught "attitude and aptitude" when taking he plunge with integrating new content, tools, or techniques. Why stop with staff?  Attitude is a growth-mindset, initiative and a willingness to stretch. Isn't that what we ask of our students if they are to grow to become critical thinkers? 

Why would we expect every student to meet the same objective in the same way? That's why we modify, accommodate, differentiate, personalize.  Knowing what to teach (and how to teach it) is critical, of course, but it's also meaningless without understanding the recipient of your effort. Personalize learning has to begin with the person first and the content second.  To be clear, Differentiated instruction and Personalized Learning are intersecting models with many shared goals, but one is more student-centered while the other is more Teacher-centered. Just look at the names- one model is about teaching while the other is about learning, but even the consideration of the direction or flow of content can dramatically shift the way a teacher approaches his or her craft. The overlap is the sweet spot, because it's about the connection,  and the relationship is always critical.

Personalization begins with empathy and is maintained by relationships.  Consider the message and commitment expressed by joint goal-setting,  shared reflection and collaborative evaluation. It tells the student we recognize their uniqueness as a learner and want to partner in identifying and helping to teach their "potential".
Jed