Expanding learning potential for all students: students must be taught the five skills vital to expanding learning potential as they move through the grades

Leadership, Nov-Dec, 2002 by John Jay Bonstingl

"Here I am again," Charlie Brown mutters to himself with a sigh as he drags himself toward the pitcher's mound. "The start of another season, and everybody knows we're not going to win even one single game."

Charlie has been here before, many times. "Rats!" he quietly exclaims, with yet another deep sigh of resigned hopelessness.

Students Sam and Maria also know this feeling all too well. They both remember their exciting first days of school, when they were two wide-eyed kids filled with eager anticipation. They had such a burning desire to do well and to please their teacher.

But now, just a few years later, things are different. Maria and Sam have both discovered that school is not a place for them. In spite of their best efforts, they're not succeeding in school. They are Charlie Browns in the making.

Maria and Sam are not alone. Every day, millions of kids walk through our schoolhouse doors prepared for failure because they have not been given the tools and strategies they need to succeed.

The standards and accountability movement has resulted in more and more tests designed to find out what kids know and are able to do. We take the test results very seriously. Those numbers are used to determine which schools are succeeding and which ones are designated as under-performing schools.

The media eagerly publish school rankings from top to bottom, based upon standardized test scores. Administrators' and teachers' jobs are on the line, dependent upon the results of standardized tests--even those tests that are "off the shelf" and not necessarily directly related to state and local curriculum designs and content.

We determine what to teach by deciding what kids need to understand and be able to do. Then, we teach the material. Finally, we test the kids to see whether they have learned it. Is anything missing in this sequence?

We know that some kids learn what we want them to learn. Many kids do not. Without developing the necessary skills to be able to learn effectively, how can our children succeed in understanding and doing what we teach them?

Every year, from kindergarten through 12th grade, more and more kids opt out. Some opt out physically, dropping out of school and becoming a burden on society. Many more opt out mentally, as their spirits are numbed by their seeming incapacity to succeed in the work their teachers put before them.

It doesn't have to be this way. Our research, reported in my book Schools of Quality, has shown that all children are eager to learn and explore, at least at the beginning of their school careers. But, as early as second and third grade, most kids already have the game figured out. At such a young age, they already know whether they are destined to be "bluebirds" or "redbirds," winners or losers in the system.

If we truly believe that all young people can and should succeed in school, and that "all" means ALL, then we must take action now to prevent more and more kids from falling between the cracks.

At the twice Baldrige Award-winning Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., the highest-per forming hotel company in the world, they have a mission that is at the heart of all they do: "We move heaven and earth to never lose a customer!" What would happen if we, as educational leaders, dedicated our schools to a similar mission: "We move heaven and earth to never lose even one student, for every young person--in the right environment and with the right kind of coaching and support--has unlimited potential for learning and growth."

Our research has shown that, when young people fail at school, it is most often not because they are stupid, lazy or psychologically incapable. Rather, it is because they have not been taught the developmentally appropriate tools, skills and strategies every child needs to succeed in school and in life.

The five essential skill areas

In our national pilot project, entitled Expanding Learning Potential, we have discovered that young people most often fail when they are in family, school and community systems that fail to support them. Our research has shown that most students who fail do so because we have not taught them crucial skills in five essential areas required for them to succeed and improve on an ongoing basis. As a consequence, in our work with teacher cohort groups, we focus on teaching teachers how to develop in their students these five essential skill sets:

* Personal management

* Effective studying

* Thinking, reasoning and problem-solving

* Graphic organization

* Information processing

When students learn these vital skills to expand learning potential as they move through the grades, the results are predictable--and highly desirable. When we ignore the deficits our young people accumulate as they pass from teacher to teacher and from grade to grade, the results are equally predictable--and disastrous.

I call it the Geometry of Unwarranted Assumptions. At kindergarten and first grade, we assume that all kids have certain requisite skills unless our observations and assessments inform us otherwise. When we spot these early learning gaps, we speedily plug them up with effective remediation. By second and third grade, the skill sets become more numerous, more sophisticated, and more crucial for survival. Unidentified skill gaps widen from year to year. The damage increases geometrically from grade to grade, until finally the propensity to fail is overwhelming and the young student's hopeful quest for school success is buried permanently beneath the weight of our unsupported assumptions.