Growing Hope in Denton, Texas, Pt. I: High Expectations for All

In 2010-2011, Bob Barr had the great fortune to work with a number of Title I schools in and around Denton, Texas. While many of his notes made it into Author journals in the book, many had to be drastically shortened, and many were left on the editing floor. Over the next few weeks, we'll share some of these vignettes from the front lines of Cultures of Hope in Texas..... Here is the first one.
 
While working in Razor Elementary School, I was so impressed with the school faculty’s efforts to be formally recognized as an International Baccalaureate feeder school. After two years of working toward that goal, and two or three years more work needed to achieve I.B. standards, significant strides have already been made in improving the intellectual level of instruction in the school.

For example, the IB Program emphasizes a number of “personal traits” as essential learning goals for each and every student in the school. After reviewing these traits, I was skeptical that elementary students, especially low-income and ESL students could really master these extremely complex personal traits. The school counselor smiled and encouraged me to check it out, to go out into the hall, select a few students at random, and see if they have learned any of the traits. I stepped outside the office and quickly picked three different students representing different ages and ethnic groups. When the counselor told them what we were doing they all looked at one another, smiling. One student spoke right up and exclaimed, “Try us out! Ask us a question.” 

Beginning to feel a little embarrassed, I said, “Okay, can any of you give me an example of living a ‘principled life?’” Immediately, all three students threw up their hands and jumping up and down each cried out, “I can! I can.” I pointed at each student, one after the other and was delighted that all could give an excellent example of a principled life. One said, “It is like if you find money in the hallway, you don’t just keep it, you try and find the owner.” I then asked about the meaning of the concept “integrity” and while two of the students were puzzled, the third student explained, “It is being good, even when you are alone and there are no teachers around.” 

The counselor explained that integrity was the new concept teachers had been working on and clearly some of the students had not yet mastered the concept. " Try another," she encouraged. I selected the concept “balanced life” from the list of traits. Once again, all three students eagerly showed a fine example of living a “balanced life.” One said, “It’s when you don’t do school work all of the time, but you leave sometime to play.” Another example was “Don’t just eat junk food; be sure and eat some healthy food… but some junk food is alright.” Clearly these students were learning and applying extremely sophisticated concepts and able to give good examples of the concepts in their daily lives.

While at the school, I also observed a chart where grade-alike teachers had met, discussed and planned cooperative inquiring lessons that reflected high levels of cognition. Slowly the school was developing a growing number of common lessons demanding high-order thinking and sophisticated concepts.

After a very brief visit, I came to the conclusion that this school was treating the entire student body, rich and poor, English-speaking and ESL students, as if they were each and every one gifted and talented. It was truly exciting to see this occurring. To see the enthusiasm of the teachers working together to develop common lessons and see the growing confidence of children who were learning difficult concepts and learning them well.

One of the oldest principles of effective, individualized instruction has always been: "treat all students as if they were gifted." Here in Denton, Texas, at Razor Elementary School, I saw this principle in action. And what a wonder it was to behold. Throughout my experience in this school, I was amazed that the students were learning such sophisticated concepts.

--Bob  Barr