Peeling Back Labels
Discover more about our students
My cursor arrow hovered over the folder of emails as I looked around my living room, racking my brain for one more trivial task to help me procrastinate. A pillar of light shining through the window revealed a colony of floating particles. Could I dust the air? Pluck out each granule? Was I that desperate to avoid my dreaded task?
I rested my head back against the couch, closed my eyes, and listened to the whip-nu-nu of a nearby cardinal. Gentle breezes from the screened door wafted by. I tried to relax, but all I could think about was that folder of emails I’d been ignoring. They were messages regarding my students with special needs. Meant to be helpful, each one included a snapshot of a student’s IEP or 504 Plan. I’d told myself this year I’d be a good teacher and review all this vital information before school started. But each time I had seen one of those emails — easily identifiable by its subject line — I dragged it to the folder without opening it. So on The-First-Day-Of-School Eve, there I was, looking at a folder of 34 unread IEP and 504 snapshots.
I yanked myself out of my delay and opened the first email. As I made my way through these plans, I created my own set of notations organized by class period.
Must have printed copies of notes. Okay, that’s do-able.
Allow extra time to complete work. No biggie; I’m not a fan of late penalties anyway.
Should sit at the front next to model student. Wait, that’s the fifth one for this class period. That’ll be interesting.
Must provide oral option for all written assignments. How does that work for a writing class?
Extreme dyslexia. Extreme?
3rd Grade reading level.
2nd Grade writing level.
Needs frequent brain breaks.
Requires additional — -
AAAAAAHH! How was this going to work? I’d been talking big about planning ahead so little, about waiting to plan with the students, about giving them more voice and choice in what we do. According to these legal documents, half of my students couldn’t even choose their own seats.
The emails are well-intended. The official IEPs and 504s are accessible in our student information system, but if you’ve ever read through one of those, you know there’s a lot to wade through. These snapshots get to the point. While they include a nice photo of the student and a list of their strengths, I know I’m supposed to look at the accommodations section — the problems I need to worry about. By law.
By the next morning I had shelved my concerns and allowed the excitement of the first day to wash over me. As I greeted my new Modern Literature students, we couldn’t help but smile at each other, the air of possibility floating around us. Before I knew it, I was in the middle of my second class, simply enjoying the presence of these lovely humans. They were Charli and Brennen and Lauren. Not Extended-Time Kid and Dyslexia Boy and 2nd-Grade-Level-Writing Girl.
Shame rose in my chest for having labeled my students the night before based on perceived deficits. I know a student’s disability does not define them. I KNOW that. But I had so easily slipped into that lens as I prepared for the new school year. I am not suggesting to ignore IEPs and 504s; they do provide valuable information, but there’s so much more to discover about each student.
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Lesson learned. The shame dissipated as the joy of that day won out and swelled within me like a helium balloon that carried me home. We can do this, I thought. Together.
And then day 2…
The room is silent, save for the scratch of pencils and pens on notebook paper. Some sit with straight backs. Years of piano lessons or ballet? Some slouch in their seats. Should we get up and stretch? All wear masks, so I observe their eyes. I do not see furrowed brows of concentration or bottom lids pushed upward by smiling ideas. They have deadpan stares as they write, as if I have just told them, “Instead of having a big fun party, you need to write 500 pages describing the carpet.”
What is going on? Yesterday’s Modern Literature classes had yielded such a gift, but today’s Creative Writing classes (our high school has an alternating block schedule) have burst yesterday’s joy balloon. In my experience, Creative Writing almost automatically comes with its own positive energy, but I feel none of that. Both of my classes today have been so quiet. Not a honeymoon-phase quiet, but an eerie quiet. No one talks to their classmates or jokes around or makes eye contact with each other. It’s eerie.
Has the pandemic broken them? Why these students and not yesterday’s students?
Is it because it’s a Friday? Maybe, but normally Fridays mean more boisterous behavior.
What about those IEPs and 504s? No, let’s not go down that road again.
I am looking for excuses.
I need to get to know them. Same is true of yesterday’s students. One good first day does not remove that responsibility. I can’t explain why each of these first days has yielded such different experiences, but my years of teaching have taught me that a class’s collective personality can easily overshadow the range of characters that make up that class.
I can’t know an individual student by their class’s vibe any more than I can by their IEP. I must look beyond these labels.
Labels. I suppose our brains need them so they don’t explode trying to make sense of the endless complexities of our world. We are always labeling, but while we might consciously acknowledge labels as temporary placeholders until we learn more, the more we use the same labels, the more they stick.
I had labeled my creative writing students as apathetic and immediately feared a dreary semester. Since then, we’ve begun our one-on-one writing conferences, peeling back that label, allowing me to see these individual humans. Their ideas and interests. Their talents and struggles. The sparks in their eyes I couldn’t see during that first class.
I’ve seen a change in the overall atmosphere of my Creative Writing classes. The eerie silence is gone, and they are at least humoring me with their laughter when I tell jokes. Our eyes connect. I can’t say for sure that our individual conferences caused this change, but they have certainly affected how I conduct class. When I see some students disengaged for a peer review activity, for example, I don’t admonish them as slackers; I’ve removed that label.
I encourage Joe, who has told me all sorts of phenomenal character ideas but only has one short paragraph, to work with Alexis, who’s convinced she’s not creative and has changed her protagonist four times. They can talk through ideas together.
I notice Kale’s looking a bit nervous. He has written something personal, but his best friend is absent. I tell him it’s okay to wait to share his story with Conner next class, but for now he should read one of his other group-mate’s stories and give them feedback.
Joe and Alexis and Kale might look like apathetic slackers, students who aren’t even trying to write. Lazy. How many times has my mind jumped to that label? But a few minutes’ conversation with each of them has told me otherwise. They are not lazy; each is just in the middle of trying to solve a problem. I wouldn’t have known that from the front of the classroom.
Sometimes the list of what we can’t do seems easier to write than the list of what we can do. I’ve unfortunately seen this tendency increase among students, labeling themselves with their perceived deficits: I’m ADHD. I’m not a math person. I’m not creative. I have anxiety. I’m an introvert. The label provides a false answer in a way. An explanation of the cause of something they don’t like about themselves. And they throw these labels around so freely, as unquestioned facts and permanent barriers.
The beginning of this school year has taught me I must be more conscious of resisting labels so my students and I can focus more on the can-do list. Otherwise, I am only reinforcing those can’t-do labels. From the perfectionist teacher-pleaser to the kid who hasn’t turned in any assignments yet, all my students are capable of so much. They just might need my help to believe it.
