37At least to some degree, the special ed student
doesn’t feel different and everyone else has equal
access to tools. It just never occurred to me that
I might be expected to hold support back from
non-IEP/504 students in honor of the special ed
student. Sabotage some to elevate one? Are we
back in comparison hell?
If I am going to nurture my growth mindset, I
must be allowed to support students in their effort
to become the successes I am trying to believe they
can all be. That also requires having high stan-
dards for all students, absolutely regardless of their
ethnicity, but also regardless of their past failures,
lack of interest, short attention span, even regard-
less of whether or not they actually do manage to
rise to the occasion. Sometimes, students catch up
with the learning after they’ve matured, dealt with
family problems, gained some confidence, or just
started caring. Some students will choose to fail
for varied reasons, often way beyond my control.
Nonetheless, I have a responsibility to believe in
all my students and to push them to learn. Re-
structuring a class to accommodate the lowest
levels shortchanges the others. It feels a little bit
like sabotaging all to elevate some.So while teachers consider lightening the work
load or grading isolated skills or differentiating
instruction, perhaps some thought should be
given to universal expectations. Canning’s study
certainly suggests that a teacher’s belief in his/her
students’ ability to grow into expectations makes a
huge difference. I have seen this work even though
it doesn’t always. I do not want to lower standards
for or because of some students. They all deserve
the respect of my high expectations.Works Cited
Atehortua, Ysabella. “Coffee Blood.” See Beyond Magazine, Jan. 2018, vol. 2, issue 8, pp. 22-
23, Aura Imbarus, http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1399825.
Canning, Elizabeth A., Katherine Muenks, DorainneJ. Green, and Mary C. Murphy. “STEM
Faculty Who Believe Ability Is Fixed Have Larger Racial Achievement Gaps and Inspire
Less Student Motivation in Their Classes.” ScienceAdvances, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, 15 Feb. 2019, vol. 5, no. 2. Doi:10.1126/sciadv.aau4734. Accessed
2 June 2019.
Sparks, Sarah A. “Building Growth Mindset in the Classroom: Assignments from Carol Dweck.”
Inside School Research, 26 May 2019, Editorial Projects in Education, blogs.edweek.org/
edweek/inside-school-research/2019/05/building_growth_mindset_in_the_classroom.
html. Accessed 27 May 2019.Stefanie Elwood is a high school and college English instructor, with an MA in English Lit-
erature, Composition and Rhetoric. As the editor-in-chief for See Be-
yond Magazine, Stefanie enjoys guiding articles through submission
to publication. She presents instructional workshops at education
conferences, writes educational articles, enjoys teaching, all types
of writing, traveling, watching movies, and spending time with her
amazing, hilarious and supportive husband, Dan.
Website: ElwoodEducation.com
Email: [email protected]July/August 2019