The Twenty Percent
In a workshop for new teachers that I attended before my first year of teaching, I remember hearing this: “You will spend eighty percent of your time on twenty percent of your students.” I found that statement hard to believe at the time, but I was not many weeks into the school year before I heartily agreed. I even thought to myself that perhaps the numbers were more extreme, like ninety and ten. And it has held true almost every year of my teaching career, that I have thought to myself wryly, If I didn’t have (insert two or three students’ names) in my class, my job would be so easy this year.
Well, if you are looking for an easy job, I do not recommend teaching school. Making provisions and adjustments for those students who struggle (whether academically or behaviorally—the two often go hand in hand), is a normal and expected part of the job. The more we can look at it as an exhilarating challenge and not as an interruption or hindrance, the better off we will be.
This post is not intended to be an overview of the many different types of learning difficulties and the resources available for helping students. But if you have found yourself lying awake at night, unable to turn off your brain because you are at your wit’s end to know how to help a student better, I hope to offer you some encouragement. As we do our best to help every student learn well, here are some things we should keep in mind:
Perfect systems and solutions do not exist.
Sometimes I find myself thinking, If only I could find that one key to this student’s brain. . . While it is important to explore different resources and to adjust our classrooms to different students’ needs, we need to avoid a “savior mentality.” You are not going to find that one big solution that will suddenly make things easy for that student. We can celebrate the small victories, the little light-bulb moments that happen for students. Having a professional evaluator do testing with students can sometimes yield helpful insights, but even experienced professionals do not have magic cures. Most progress happens in patient, step-by-step guidance, one day at a time.
They’re going to be ok.
It is easy to worry about what will become of struggling students. How will they function when they are out of school? Will they be prepared for the adult world? As I think of my own schoolmates, and of the many students I have taught who are now adults, I can reassure you that most of those struggling students are going to be just fine. Sometimes it is easy to focus on the negative stories, but I could tell you many stories full of hope. One of my own classmates had a very difficult time in school (and made our teachers’ lives difficult too), and now I teach his children. He is a faithful Christian husband and father who takes good care of his family. In a conversation with him about his difficulties in school, he told me, “As soon as I got into the work world and my job was hands-on, I was fine.” (This makes me wonder how we could change our schools to be more accommodating to those hands-on, non-academics, but that is a topic in itself). I can think of many others too who might still not know the difference between a noun and a verb, but hand them a hammer or screwdriver, and they are in their element.
Struggling in school can actually be an advantage.
Hear me out on this one. I think “doing well” in school is overrated. Some students who have always found school easy end up being unequipped to handle challenges later in life. They do not know how to fail and try again. Students who need to work hard to learn in school are used to trying and failing, so it doesn’t faze them. I think of a friend of mine who never did well academically, but she is much better at trying new things than I am. Also, some of the kindest people I know are people who did not do well in school. They are good at cheering others on, because they know exactly what it feels like to struggle for success.
When students are supported in their difficulties and not ostracized or belittled for what they cannot do, they are able to thrive in their own way. As we work to accommodate “the twenty percent,” let us do it with joy and love, always envisioning a bright future for them.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
