The lesson from “tough love” teachers is that if you don’t do the work, you can’t master the subject and you fail. Most kids have already learned how to fail. What they need to learn is how not to.
I recently participated in a discussion/debate on a friend’s Facebook page. Another teacher in the discussion, who was arguing against grade inflation, pointed out that in one class, he had an unusually high incidence of failures during the most recent quarter—more than 50%. He was dismayed by this, but held his ground, calling it “tough love.” I don’t doubt that this teacher loves his students, and I don’t disagree with his message—that you can’t earn the grades if you don’t do the work. The problem is that his message is lost on his students.
The phrase “tough love” entered the mainstream English language in 1968 via the book of the same title by Bill Milliken. Milliken used the phrase to mean refraining from engaging in enabling behaviors when dealing with loved ones who had substance abuse problems. However, in many people’s minds, the phrase has evolved to mean standing firm while dishing out some sort of punishment. Over the course of the four decades since the book’s publication, “tough love” seems to have mutated into “Tough shit!”
Tough love is, by definition, an act of love. It carries the intent of helping the recipient improve his/her life by forcing the recipient to go against the status quo. Simply kicking your drug addict child out of your house is an example of “tough shit”. Tough love is packing a suitcase for him, dropping him off at a rehabilitation center, and saying, “I’ll pick you up when you’re clean. In the mean time, call me if there’s anything from your room that I forgot.” Tough love includes an ongoing commitment to helping the recipient, not letting him/her give up. Tough love is supportive, and is hard work. By contrast, “tough shit” is easy. “Tough shit” has no commitment beyond the act of punishment.
In the classroom, the teacher’s ultimate task is for their students to acquire the skills and understanding needed to master a given subject area. Almost all of us use some combination of presentation (often lecture and/or demonstration), exploration (often hands-on activities and discussions), and practice (problems for students to solve that require the newly-acquired skills). Once our students are expected to have mastered a topic, we measure their understanding through some sort of assessment (usually a written test). As teachers, we understand the connection between all of these. If any of the presentation, exploration, or practice pieces is left out, the student fails to master the content. In a high school, there is generally enough class time for two of the three pieces. (In college, there is generally enough class time for only one.) Most teachers choose to do the presentation and exploration in the classroom, and to assign practice for homework. (There is an idea gaining popularity called the “flipped classroom,” in which the presentation piece is done through videos, which are assigned as homework.) Unfortunately, in both the traditional and flipped classroom, the homework piece is essential, and students who omit it fail.
I agree that all three pieces are necessary for mastery, and I agree that students who do not master even the rudimentary aspects of a topic (or course) should receive a failing grade as a result. Otherwise, the grade is meaningless. However, one of the problems that seems to be endemic in our schools is that students do not believe that they can ultimately succeed. As soon as they believe that success is impossible, they shut down and don’t do the homework. As a result, they fail, which reinforces their belief that they cannot succeed. To be successful with these students, teachers need to find a way to break the cycle, which requires a sustained effort against a kid who wants to give up at every step of the way. This is where the teacher’s efforts go from “tough shit” to tough love.
One of my students, “Loretta” (not her real name) suddenly gave up on herself last quarter. She did nothing for about a month, racking up a string of zeroes and missing a test on thermal physics. One day after school, she had detention for being tardy. I sprung her from detention to talk with her, trying to find out what might have changed.
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“I don’t believe you. If you don’t want me to pry, I won’t. But I suspect you want me to know, but you don’t want to tell me. Is that right?”
“Maybe.”
As soon as she said “Maybe,” it was clear what she wanted. She wanted me to know. She wanted me to help. She wanted out of her dilemma, but she had no idea whether it was possible. She knew that it wasn’t her place to ask for help, but I had shown her that I wanted to anyway. Having me pry the information out of her was a test she had unconsciously devised to see whether I was determined enough to provide the amount of help that she knew she was going to need.
With careful prying and intuition, I eventually figured out the main problem, which was that she hadn’t applied to any colleges and she had no plan in place for her life after graduation. She had started the application process, and has good SAT scores, but she has a low GPA. (She had spent part of last year hospitalized for depression and ended up with poor grades to show for it.) The killing blow was that one college’s application asked for an explanation for every suspension. My school suspends kids for all kinds of relatively minor infractions, such as getting caught with a cell phone anywhere on their person, being tardy to school more than six times in a quarter, or any kind of arguing or back-talking to a teacher. She decided that she didn’t have any chance of getting in, so she dropped the application process and went into a tailspin.
She stayed in my room for half a hour longer than the detention. In that time, she had made up (and aced) the test she was missing, had gotten the data for the lab write-up she owed, and went home with copies of her missing homework assignments. More importantly, we agreed on a couple of colleges that I would help her apply to after April vacation. The next day, she came to class with all of her missing work completed, and she ultimately earned a B in physics for that quarter. I asked her how her other grades had turned out. “Not so good. I don’t have a Mr. Bigler for any of my other classes.”
Loretta desperately needed some tough love. She didn’t need someone to remind her, “If you don’t do the work, you’ll fail.” She already knew that. But she didn’t need or want someone to excuse her from anything. What she needed was a path to success that required her to earn it. She needed someone to say, “I’m not giving you any option except to succeed, because I know you can do it. This is your path. If you falter, I’ll pick you up, but you will make it to the end under your own power. What I won’t do is to stand aside and let you fail.”
In schools, whether we like it or not, grades are used to define success. This means that attempts to make success more attainable amount to adding pathways for students to demonstrate mastery of the concepts and earn good grades. (Note that this does not mean grade inflation or meaningless extra credit. If grades become meaningless, students will not do meaningful work to earn them.) So one of the things I do is to give students additional opportunities to practice and demonstrate mastery.
I allow students to turn in late homework for 70% credit. 70% is enough credit for them to believe that it’s worth bothering after the fact. (This actually has a long-term benefit. About half of the students who turn in most of their work late at the beginning of the year are turning in most of it on time by about mid-year.) I let them retake tests (same breakdown of topics; similar-but-not-identical questions) for up to 90% of the original credit (the better grade replaces the worse one), provided that they’ve turned in all of the homework that relates to the test. (Also provided that I think they’re ready for the test. If they come in after school and they’re not ready, I’ll say, “I don’t think you’re ready for the test yet. How about if we review for it today and you come back and take it tomorrow?” A few who know they won’t come back the next day will opt to take the re-test then and there anyway. Most take my advice and end up doing well on the re-test.) My belief is that learning something and demonstrating mastery at any point is much more important than doing so according to my somewhat arbitrary schedule. (The realities of assigning grades to specific quarters of the school year already imposes some hard deadlines. I think those are enough.)
When I want to stretch my students, I give them more challenging tasks, but allow them to collaborate. One of my favorite ways to do this is through what I call “open friend” quizzes. These are “challenge” problems—much more so than the ones I would normally give on homework or tests. I allow them to work in groups of up to three (plus help from me if they need it), and the result counts as a quiz grade. Another strategy I’ve used successfully is to have groups of students make up problems for each other to solve, with some sort of recognition for groups that come up with particularly clever problems. Both strategies have a built-in means of getting recalcitrant students to participate, and give me as the teacher an opportunity (as I circulate among the groups) to make sure every student feels like he/she contributed something worthwhile and got something out of the process. The strategies create an environment where a successful outcome is guaranteed (because I’ll help them as much as they need, but no more than they need), and where the problems are challenging enough that none of the students starts the process already knowing the answers. The solutions end up being combinations of ideas and skills that reward the kind of intuition that can be (and often is) provided by a student who might have a good high-level grasp of concepts but be lost in the details. The ultimate message is that success takes some work, some brain power, and working through some frustration, but everyone can attain it.
Whenever I’m in a one-on-one conversation with a student (even if it’s just while I’m checking homework), I try to notice which students look like they might be out of sorts and ask them if things are OK (which they’re usually not). If there are circumstances that might warrant it, I offer them extra flexibility.
“You look really stressed. Is there something in particular that you’re stressed about?”
[Student briefly explains issues going on at home that are the source of the stress.]
“I want you to ask me right now if you can postpone tomorrow’s test for a day or two.”
[Student asks.]
“Now that you’ve asked at least one day in advance and provided a good reason, I can let you take the test a day or two later if you need to. Tomorrow, you can decide whether or not you need to take me up on the offer. If you decide not to take the test tomorrow, I’ll send you to the library while everyone else takes it, and you can make it up after school.”
Sometimes, when I know a student needs to come to my room to make something up but won’t remember after school, I’ll hand the student a Post-It note and a locker pass. “Write yourself a reminder on this Post-It right now and go put it on the inside of your locker where you’ll see it at the end of the day.” Sometimes, I’ll drop by the detention to see if there are students who owe me work. If there are, I offer to retrieve them so we can spend the time catching up on their physics.
Tough love, the way I try to implement it, is a combination of compassion, flexibility, and unrelenting insistence on success. My students need to believe that I’m a good person, that I’ll make their time worth their while, that I’ll do what it takes to help them succeed, and that I won’t let them fail.
It works, at least for me. Every quarter I have one or two failures, and more often than not one student does end up failing for the year. I appreciate the years when my students attain a 100% pass rate. The years when it drops to 99% are a little disappointing, but I guess I can live with 99% tough love and 1% “tough shit,” in order to maintain the standards that enable the 99% to take pride in their success.
Jeff, I’ve really been enjoying reading your teaching posts. It’s great that you take the time to give these students a chance.
I wish all of Elley’s teachers were like you. What’s great is that some of them are. She went from an F to a C in History (over three quarters). What’s not so great is that at least half of those who have been working with her had to be prodded by me. But, then, they have over 100 students – how can they really know or care for them all.
It’s definitely a challenge. I make a point of letting all of my students know that I’m available to listen if they ever need it. When any of them seem out of sorts, I ask specifically if they want to talk. But I’m sure there are quite a few who fall through the cracks because they never make it onto my radar.
On the other hand, quite a few problems in my students’ lives cause a decline in grades, which brings the conscientious ones in for re-tests. Once they’re in a one-on-one situation, it’s a lot easier for them to talk to me, and quite a few of them do. (In fact, when I ask semi-privately in class, it’s not uncommon for them to respond that they want to talk, but not in front of other people.)
I like having a name put to why I have my students re take tests, why I change my approach when obviously something wasn’t working and why I think showing my students their successes is way more important than letting them prove to me they can fail.
I too love your posts Jeff!
ktb
How do you deal with students who dislike working in groups? I know that in high school I hated working in any sort of group, which was only reinforced when I was forced (in chemistry) to work with someone else the entire term. I would have been much happier to be a lab group of one, but that was not offered as an option (though I didn’t ask). I suspect that if I’d been put in a group for one of the challenges, I would have probably worked things out myself or otherwise segregated myself from the group.
For things like “open friend” quizzes and other pencil-and-paper tasks, I don’t force kids to work in groups and I do have a couple of them who prefer to work by themselves. For hands-on labs, we’re limited by lab space and equipment. The kids understand this and it’s not an issue.
You’re a good person Mr. Bigler, because you care, and put in the effort to make a difference. Thank you for sharing your tips and techniques with us. My son has ADHD and it’s a constant challenge, but I’m learning a lot from your blog. My son’s biggest challenge is getting paperwork from school to home, and getting it from home back to school and being turned in. His most common grades are 100 and 0 as a result.
We’ve had some really good teachers who have made sure all homework is available online and will accept scanned and emailed homework the evening after he forgot to turn it in, and they have made a big difference. The teachers that insist he learn how to transport pieces of paper back and forth “because that’s how it’s done” don’t see his best effort because he gives up. You’ve articulated the difference very nicely in your post.
One way to demonstrate that he is doing the homework on time is for to scan it and email the scans to his teachers (return receipt requested) the night before (or in the morning before he leaves for school). That way, you can say “I’m sorry your policies don’t allow him to receive credit for his homework, but as a parent I’m glad to know from the return receipts that you’re at least receiving it on time.” (For added effect, you can copy his guidance counselor and the principal on that email.)
I’ve learned to put a lot of breadcrumbs in place for my ADHD students. I have a box of (quiet) fidget toys and a water pitcher in the classroom. Kids who need to get up during class can quietly go get a drink or fidget toy without having to ask. I use a web calendar that sends an automatic email with a link every time I add an assignment or schedule a test. Class notes are available for download in advance, so students can print them and annotate them in class when I’m presenting a new topic. (They’re formatted with Cornell notes margins to make annotating easier.)
All of my class notes and worksheets have the unit name printed on them, so ADD students with exploding backpacks can sort them easily. And while I don’t grade students’ notebooks, I do offer help organizing them after school if needed. The system I recommend is to sort only by unit name. Don’t worry about sorting by topic within a unit, or separating notes, worksheets, tests, quizzes and lab reports. This lowers the organizational bar to something achievable, and in practice, as long as everything from one unit is together, it doesn’t seem to hurt them for the individual papers to be jumbled. (Besides that, the kids who want the higher level of organization and can manage it will do it anyway.)
I put pictures on the corner of each paper I hand out. It’s easier to say, “Get out the Superman paper from Tuesday” than to answer 14 questions of, “What do the electrostatics notes look like?” Each unit has a different theme: foods, superheroes, cartoon characters, transportation, etc., so that when review time comes, I can tell them to use all of the superhero papers to work on the review. Or if they need some help solving problems, I can tell them the Spiderman paper with the Coulomb’s Law examples will help them. And strangely enough, kids will request pictures for papers… “Can you do Baby Taz?” When they see it on a paper, they feel like they had some tiny bit input into the class, and it lets them know I am listening to them.
Hi, Jeff. One comment. I started the year with my lower level Chemistry classes (none of these issues are ever a problem with upper level or with any level of Physics) trying to implement the same 70% credit for late work policy you use. As augmented by the corrections on any of the problem set-type assignments restore points. As augmented by “see me with a good excuse and we’ll work something out.”
It didn’t work. My kids’ home lives are just too chaotic. Way too high a percentage of the time, they can’t psychologically or logistically get the work done. But with the coaxing and goading and calling parents and seeing what’s really wrong with the kids and talking to guidance counselors and one on one help after school plus a complete abandonment of the 70% policy (just get it done one week ahead of the end of the quarter and I’ll count it), I got a reasonable amount of buy-in.
As we’ve discussed, my kids are one step lower on the socioeconomic scale than yours. Enough to make me fail with the 70% idea.
The counterargument is that I get blind copying of homework as soon as I drop the 70%. My successful idea to counter this was to start problems with a unique number (Tim has 4.02 g, Juan gets 4.67, and then calculations start there, so they can’t copy each other). I encourage working together on problem sets, so that’s about the only way to avoid blind copying. Lab writeups have that built in–nobody’s measurements will be the same.
The real problem here is the increase in workload. So every once in a while, an assignment just gets a check for completion so I can catch up and focus on the most critical ones.
Did the 70% issue work well for you when you taught the low-level Chemistry classes? Did you hold rigidly to it (“tough shit”) or when a kid came by two weeks later with a sob story (or without any story), if they were holding the homework in their hands, did you take it (what I ended up doing a lot)?
I prefer 70%, but I must admit that it crept up to 80% now that I’m teaching in Lynn. 80% seems to be enough to motivate them, and like you, I’ll accept a late homework for 80% right up to the day I have to submit grades. As you’ve observed, for a lot of kids, that extra flexibility is often the difference that enables a kid to pass the course.
With homework, I only ever check for completion. I know there’s a lot of blind copying going on with my homework assignments. I live with it. Also, the kids who turn them in late are just copying down the answers when I go over them. I simply remind them that on homework, they should write down the answers in the margins, then when they’re studying for the test, cover up the answers and try to work the problems. Other than that, homework counts for a small enough chunk of their grade that it’s not worth worrying about.
I do use multiple versions on tests. I usually create four versions, using a single LaTeX source, that are identical except for the numbers. I shuffle three versions and hand them out in a sort of checkerboard pattern, which results in a low likelihood that two adjacent kids will have the same version. I save the fourth version to use as the re-test. (There is no identifying mark on my tests to indicate which version a student has. When I want to check, I look at the value of the quantities given in one of the problems.) If I get a number that comes from another version, the student gets zero credit. I don’t go crazy when this happens. I just point out that the appearance of a number from the other version indicates an irregularity that means I can’t use the grade, and the student needs to come in after school for a re-take. I apply a maximum grade of 80% to academic irregularity (cheating) re-takes.