Mirrors

To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: DOWNLOAD

We learn who we are by the feedback that is reflected to us. While reading a book that uses the metaphor of humans as mirrors, I realized that the three most critical mirrors in a child’s life are parents, teachers and peers.

Students who can’t read well have failure and shame mirrored, on a daily basis, when they try to read to their parents. I wonder how these reflections affect their self-talk. While re-reading my journals, I found an entry that expresses my compassion.

I am overwhelmed this morning with the thought of how children and adolescents who cannot read must talk to themselves. They are too full of shame to discuss their failure with others, but they must be tormented with negative self-talk. What hope do they have in a literate society? They are usually led to believe their inability to read is their fault and that there is something wrong with their brains. This makes it even more difficult to have hope.

Report cards are the school’s official mirrors. We treat them as mirrors for parents, but they cast an even more important reflection for students. They become a measure that both family and the child use to determine the student’s worth; moreover, they are often used as a basis for punishment. I remember the tears of a young mother when her grade six son’s report card reflected the success and excitement he was experiencing with the projects we were doing. She said it was the first time she felt he was worth anything because all he had ever received were bad report cards.

Teachers are between a rock and a hard place. We strive to build confidence as student’s skills improve but he is still behind the rest of the pack. Comparing him with more capable children, we must be honest and give an inferior grade. Confidence is easily destroyed but not easily restored. The only reason I am glad not to be in a classroom anymore is that I don’t have to suffer the heart-wrenching task of rank-ordering children for report cards.

It is unconscionable to assign grades to young children, especially in reading. For those who can read, the joy of reading is reward enough. For those who can’t, low grades tell them they are inferior when they may not yet be capable of grasping what they need to do to succeed. This ensures that the task of achieving literacy will become increasingly difficult.

Photography is a mirror image transferred to paper. If we took an image of a butterfly as it was emerging from a cocoon before its wings had time to dry, and used it to judge future performance of the butterfly, we would be considered foolish.

A grade one teacher from a low socioeconomic school came to me in tears. It was the first year her school district had required letter grades rather than anecdotal report cards. She was forced, in October, to assign numbers for all subject areas before she had a chance to know her students and before they had a chance to be even vaguely aware of what was expected of them. To anyone who stops to think, this is just as ludicrous as placing judgment on the emerging butterfly, and yet it continues to happen millions of times every year, the world over.

I read an account of a school that was featured in a magazine because of its many success stories. The principal credited much of her success to her policy of never mentioning weaknesses to students, while striving to identify strengths and to build on them. Mirroring inadequacy breeds inadequacy. We wonder why some misbehave, go into depression, or show lack of interest in school when we mirror failure to them three times a year. Everyone yearns to be inspired and cherished.

Peers mirror the images created by the school. Students become aware of the labels used to single out a student. They often create their own names to tease and sometimes to bully him or her for not keeping up.

As a teacher, I discovered that when I focused on strengths in children who were being shunned or picked on, and I identified their gifts to the class by helping them to do or produce something that others admired, peers began to value them more and to treat them differently.

Teachers need to keep education policy makers aware of specific examples of the damaging effects of policies that make early labeling and sorting necessary. We have to be extremely careful that early intervention doesn’t become early interference.

Vera Goodman B.Ed., M.A., lives in Calgary, AB. She taught grades one to nine for 27 years and continues to teach adults as a consultant and as a professional speaker to a wide variety of audiences.
www.readingwings.com