Educational Leadership - November 2011

Lawyers who finally pass the bar exam on
their second or third attempt are not limited

Suppose a teacher allows retakes
as important. Whether a student was ini-

Not Soft, but Tough

frequently. Will colleagues, students,
tially irresponsible or responsible, moral
When we graduate from school, we
and parents consider that teacher soft in or immoral, cognitively ready or not is
gravitate toward those things we are
some way? No—quite the opposite. In
irrelevant to the supreme goal: learning.

good at doing. When we’re hired, we
the hallway just outside my own class-
There are far more effective strategies
have a skill set that matches a job’s
room years ago, one of my students,
for teaching responsibility than to
skill needs. We don’t have to be good
unaware that I was nearby, announced
simply label a student as immature and
at everything the company does. To
to a classmate, “Mr. Wormeli makes you deny that student learning. We can
be considered successful in school,
do it over and over again until you learn honor Carla’s effort by giving her the
however, we have to be just as good at
it. It sucks!” (Pardon the vernacular.)

extra time and attention she needs to
all subjects and skills as everyone else
My reputation was not one of being soft, master the content. We can handle
is, and on the same schedule. We have
but one of “Slackers, beware.”
Marco’s sloppy homework and Jarrel’s
to be good at graphing inequalities,
Making students redo their learning
plagiarism wisely by demanding that
conjugating irregular verbs, setting up
until it meets high expectations demands both of them redo their work properly.

websites using HTML, identifying liter-
ary devices in Dante, playing the con-
far more of both students and teachers
than letting them take a failing grade—
These students will then realize that
they get more of what they want in life
certo with the right timing, determining but it also results in far more learning.

if they pay attention, keep up with the
valence, recognizing nuance between
Maturation occurs in the fully credited
work, and do the assignments well the
artists, offering pithy insights in the
recovery from unsuccessful attempts, not first time around. Scholarship dawns;

cafeteria, and dealing with hormonal
by labeling those attempts as failures. If there’s hope. EL

issues while navigating the hallways— and that’s all by lunch on Tuesday.

It’s no wonder that, in order to meet
our mission is to teach so that students
learn, we don’t let their immaturity dic-
tate their destiny. Irresponsible, forget-

1Florian, J. (1999). Teacher survey of
standards-based instruction: Addressing time.

Washington, DC: Office of Educational
the needs of increasingly diverse stu-
ful, and inattentive students need us to
Research and Improvement; Kendall, J. S.,
dents and the demands of an overloaded be in their face more, not less.