Poor Students, Rich Teaching. Eric Jensen

you! Now, let’s grab a few more ideas.” I always thank students for their participation but never criticize, judge, or evaluate their efforts. I realize they’re a fraction of my age and are unlikely to have the same coping skills.

      After you call on many volunteers (thanking them for their effort), you should share the rest of the story. How did you decide what to do about the problem, and what did you learn from the results?

      Even if you can’t connect this exercise directly to an ongoing lesson, it is not a waste of time; it is an investment in your students that will pay off later since you’re role-modeling three things for your class. Yes, adults do have problems, and how they deal with them can be useful. Just because a problem is tough, big, or stressful doesn’t mean it is unsolvable. Finally, it is a chance for you to share the process of problem solving. You share your values, your attitude, and the procedures it takes to be a success.

      Share Progress on Goals

      The last tool for creating a culture of personalization is sharing your personal goals. Many teachers struggle to find a separation between their personal and teacher lives. However, all students, especially those from poverty, love the idea of goals. Setting personal goals and sharing them with your students is an effective way to foster the relational mindset. Post your personal goal in the classroom (since you are asking students to do the same), and share your progress all year (or semester) long. In addition, you’ll also post your class goal too. (You’ll learn more about setting gutsy class goals in chapter 4, page 43.)

      Sample goals include:

      • Participating in community projects

      • Starting healthier eating and exercise habits

      • Completing a teaching improvement list

      • Running a 5K

      • Mentoring someone

      • Growing a garden

      • Learning a skill or sport

      • Helping change the culture at your school

      Along the way, share your key milestones and celebrations and how you overcame. When you share all the micro steps forward and the nearly predictable setbacks you experience, students will see that mistakes are OK and make way for improvement. Your journey over the course of the year will be a drama akin to must-see TV. In short, as you make progress through obstacles, students can see themselves succeeding and as contributors to your growth. If you don’t have any goals, it’s time to start. It benefits you as well, and your students want a teacher that has kept learning and growing. This is an exciting way to influence students.

      CHAPTER 2

      CONNECT EVERYONE FOR SUCCESS

      In this second of three powerful chapters on the relational mindset, we’ll strengthen our skills in connecting everyone. Psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman (as cited in Brockman, 2012) cites connecting with people as one of the few elements that genuinely make people even happier than money. To help foster these connections, this chapter establishes the fifty-fifty rule for in-class interaction and supports that with five collaborative strategies that are sure to make your classroom a richer learning environment.

      The Fifty-Fifty Rule

      Two key social elements have a strong effect on academic success: (1) belonging and (2) cooperative learning. As students mature from the K–2 years, the genetic drive to connect unfolds. Students want to affiliate with likeminded peers (Lewis & Bates, 2010). Research suggests an especially positive and significant relationship between academic achievement and school belonging, and for minority students, a feeling of acceptance (Adelabu, 2007). In fact, a strong feeling of acceptance in class and school helps protect minority students from damaging environmental and social threats (Cook, Purdie-Vaughns, Garcia, & Cohen, 2012). Therefore, to effectively impact academic achievement, teachers should split class time equally between social time and individual time—that’s the fifty-fifty rule. On any given day, you might split social and individual time seventy-thirty or even ten-ninety, but over a week, it should all even out. Let’s dig deeper.

      One of the more salient differences between the high-achieving students and the underachievers is the presence of supportive peers. Researchers note that even high achievers often experience lulls in their academic success. The high achievers likened having a strong peer network to the experience of trying to walk backward down a crowded staircase: “If students started to underachieve and tried to turn and walk down the staircase, many other students pushed them back up the staircase” (Reis, Colbert, & Hébert, 2005, p. 117). Now get ready to get blown away: sixteen of the eighteen high-achieving students told researchers they had strong peer support networks, compared with just one of the seventeen underachievers.

      Second, when cooperative learning is done well, it has an almost magical effect. The effect size of cooperative versus individual learning is 0.59 (Hattie, 2009). This gain is solid; over a year’s worth of difference. Additionally, cooperative learning supports the critical feeling of belonging. Most high-performing teachers use one or more of the strategies in table 2.1 to create social time for students and balance it with individual learning time.

Table 2.1: The Fifty-Fifty Rule

Social Time	Individual Time
Cooperative groups and teams	Solo time for journaling and mind mapping
Study buddies or partners to quiz each other	Practice self-testing
Temporary partners for summarizing time	Goal setting and self-assessment
Learning stations for social data gathering	Reading, reflection, and writing
Group projects for brainstorming and discussion	Seatwork for problem solving

      In the next section, we’ll take a look at the collaborative activities that enhance social time to connect for success.

      Collaborative Strategies

      Much of what makes social activity work (to the degree it does) is our own biology. We are not just driven to be social; we are genetically primed for it. As you can see in the following list, it’s a steady progression that begins from birth.

      • Ages zero to three: A baby’s entire focus (security) is locking in the best caregiver around (mom, dad, grandma, aunt, or so on), which continues through the toddler years.

      • Ages four to nine: By age four, children still don’t care much about their peers, but they still care a lot about their parents (connections). By mid-elementary school, our genes tell us to start affiliating by making friends. The meanest thing a fourth-grade student can say to another student is, “I’m not going to invite you to my birthday party!” Friends are becoming important, and peers form cliques, clubs, and teams. Students badly want to belong.

      • Ages ten to seventeen: By middle school, we want more than to belong; we want to differentiate. That’s the role of status. Secondary students will do (and have done) just about anything to say, “I’m important,” “I’m special,” “I’m good looking,” “I’m smart,” or “I’m tough.” Why? Social status is hardwired (Zink et al., 2008). The beauty of knowing the biology of your students is that this biology gives openings for building interdependency.

      Why does social time work so well? For elementary students, it is fun. Younger students are just learning to have friends, and social learning usually builds connections for social skills as well as academic skills. Students like their friends or peers