BY Sheiveh Jones, Ed.D.
I have had the privilege of working with a wide range of education professionals throughout my career. As a former math teacher, and a lover of research and statistics, I am always a little taken aback when I come across a colleague who makes decisions based on conclusions drawn from unusual examples that are not representative of a situation (what I also call non-examples). In these particular situations, I have also seen individuals taking action and making decisions that may very well perpetuate an unhealthy cycle that can negatively shape a child's school experience.
We all have our own personal experiences that impact our world view, our interpretation of events, and our reaction. These personal experiences also impact what data we look for to support our reactions. There is a term for it: The Ladder of Inference.
The conclusions we draw from what we observe cause us to then look for more data supporting our conclusions which were interpretations to begin with! This can lead to making decisions and taking action based on biased interpretations of data that depend on our own world view. The actions lead to more data supporting the initial conclusion. This can become a never ending reflexive cycle where action leads to more data leads to more action etc.
For example, if Jane grew up in an upper middle-class household where her loving parents were very involved in her education and created a highly structured environment that supported Jane's completion of homework assignments, studying for exams, and getting good grades. All of this eventually helped Jane accomplish her goals of going to college and eventually completing graduate school.
Flash forward. Jane is now a teacher. She has a young male student named Eddie who has only turned in one assignment out of seven in the first month of school. She has asked Eddie about this, but he has not given her a reason for the missing assignments and promises he will be better at turning in his work. Since Eddie is not keeping to his promise, Jane interprets Eddie's lack of assignments as a sign that his parents do not care about his education and are not providing structure at home. Based on this interpretation, Jane decides that calling home would not be beneficial because his parents don't care anyway. Instead, Jane begins to assign detentions to Eddie and uses that time to make Eddie complete his assignments. As a result, Eddie feels that he is continuously punished when he is at school and so he begins to dislike school and Jane's class. He finds that if he misbehaves, he will get sent to the office which allows him to avoid being in Jane's class and getting more detentions. When Eddie comes to Jane's class, she is now focused on Eddie's behaviors that are worthy of a visit to the office.
This situation could have been completely avoidable. How? Let's rewind this scenario and start over to look at a more positive outcome.
Jane asks Eddie about why he is not completing his assignments, but Eddie does not give a reason and promises he will be better at turning in his work. A week has passed and Jane notices Eddie is still not keeping to his promise and interprets Eddie's lack of assignments as a sign that his parents do not care about his education and are not providing structure at home. As she draws this conclusion, Jane stops her thinking and asks, "What data am I basing this conclusion on?" As she thinks back to the missing assignments and broken promise, she asks "How does that data directly correlate to his parents not caring? Is there other data I'm not considering?" Through this reflective process, Jane recalls that on the first day of school Eddie's mom was pregnant and looked very tired. She also recalls his parents taking photos of Eddie and giving him a kiss goodbye. That data is indicative of parents who do care about their child. Through this reflective process, Jane realizes she needs to collect more information and decides to call home. During the phone call she finds out that Eddie's mom just had a baby three weeks ago and is overwhelmed by the new addition and the start of school. Eddie, in turn, has been excited about his new baby brother and just wants to play with him when he gets home from school, claiming he has no school work. Together, Jane and Eddie's mom come up with a plan to make sure Eddie finishes his assignments and still has time to play with his brother.
We started with the same data and ended with two very different outcomes. The key was to break the reflexive cycle of drawing conclusions and taking actions based on limited data that may not tell the whole story. To break this cycle, start with two questions: 1) What data am I basing my conclusions on? 2) Is there additional information I'm not considering that I should consider?
I have had conversations with educators who, in going through this process, uncovered additional data including a student's sibling recently died, a parent was recently incarcerated, the student recently became homeless, and most commonly, the student is taking care of siblings because the parents are working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Now more than ever, students are dealing with extremely complicated situations. We owe it to young people to be reflective about our actions and to think beyond our limited frame of reference based on our personal experiences. Asking oneself the two aforementioned questions can open up a whole realm of possibilities that honor those we work with.
Sheiveh Jones, Ed.D.
Director, Teacher Effectiveness and Preparation, San Diego County Office of Education
