by Edna Attias


I stood there trying to tolerate the deafening silence. I finished a Mississippi countdown in my head, to make sure I was giving students enough call time, but there were no responses to my question. Were they paying attention? Did they understand the question? Was I an alien who just landed from space? I thought my lesson was engaging and fun, but my advisory group was not grabbing onto its hook.

Lately, I had noticed that during my teaching time and class discussions, students were very quiet, yet when it was time for partner or group work, the classroom buzzed with voices that were a few notches higher than what I would have wanted. There was also more giggling and off-topic conversations (such as who was dating who) than necessary. Our CPRs were no better. Side conversations and attention-seeking behaviors started to cloud and poison our meetings. I couldn’t help but feel discouraged. I’d tried to isolate each of these behaviors and address them with my students. I was sweating the small stuff, yet I was failing to make an impact on my social butterflies.

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We'd had numerous problem-solving meetings about side conversations, giggling, homework completion, classroom jobs, transitions, and the list goes on. My advisory students echoed that these were real issues that affected our advisory in negative ways, and they offered explanations and solutions. Nevertheless, their behavior did not change.

Now that it was nearly the end of the year, and the pressure was higher, I too was feeling the end-of-the-year teaching stresses - standards, assessments, report-cards-while also putting out all the little fires. Finally in a quieter moment, I realized that I was missing the big picture.
Over the weekend, I made a list of all the little behaviors and problems I had noticed. I decided to have another meeting, but I knew this one had to be different. I invited my principal to show up for the meeting in his formal attire. He mostly sat there, but his presence sent an implicit message. They saw that this meeting different.

I started by saying that I was highly concerned about their readiness to move on to the seventh grade. I wanted them to end the year strong, but this was not going to happen if their negative behaviors overshadowed the many good things they had accomplished. As I said this, one of the kids giggled, and my principal immediately asked him to take a break. I was a little taken aback, since I was so focused on my words that I was about to let that giggle go. Two seconds later, another student pulled out his chap stick and started to apply it in repeated and exaggerated circular motions. I quickly asked him to take a break. Based on the improved body language around the circle, I could tell that the rest of the advisory got the message loud and clear: this meeting was serious business.

Next I focused the meeting on their identity as learners. This was the big picture. Instead of being a bad doctor who treated one symptom at a time, I needed a more holistic approach. Yes, the disruptive behaviors were in the way, but they were just symptoms of my advisory losing track of their identity as scholars. I wrote on the board “How can we restore a culture of scholarship and learning to our advisory?”

At that moment I felt I had captured their attention. It was time for the final hook, which was for them to get inspired. I knew this from the process of creating goals and declarations. Students need to make personal connections—otherwise they don’t see the relevance. How many times do we tell our students, “You need to do well in school so you’ll go to college and get a good job?” The truth is that it is hard for students to think of who they will be ten years from now. Developmentally, the now is so powerful and hard to resist. I needed to make their now relevant and accessible.

We watched a ten-minute inspirational video clip with words of wisdom from Will Smith about the power of becoming, including the following quote: “We didn't grow up with the sense that where we were was where we want to be. Where we were almost didn't matter because we were becoming.” Then I asked them to share what resonated with them about the idea of “the power of becoming.” One of the other nuggets that Will Smith shared was that his “biggest fear was to be afraid of fear itself.” I was surprised to hear my students say that school scares them, because if they do not do well, they will disappoint their families and have a bad future. They were afraid of failing, and yet their now behavior was not reflecting it. I think they did not see how it connected to their becoming. We talked about how the now does matter and how their scholarly behavior will make a difference today and tomorrow.

Over the next few days, I used the Table of Two and Table of Four structure to enable students to work together to share their ideas of how they could restore a culture of scholarship to our advisory. As I was eavesdropping on their conversations, I realized that they saw quiet behavior as scholarly, so no wonder they were subdued during my teaching time! But I wanted them to also understand that, while attentive behavior is important, there is more to being a scholar. It took some scaffolding to get them to see that constructive habits included asking questions, acknowledging and reflecting on new ideas, sharing ideas, actively listening, and pushing oneself to work at a risk zone.

This was not the first time we had discussed scholarly attributes, and I had seen them displayed throughout the year. Yet somehow they had gotten lost and needed to be brought back in a new context. A week after our meeting, I was already seeing changes. Students made a visual reminder of what it means to be a scholar. And most important, what it means to be a scholar for the here and now, even though I know it will help them . . . to become.

The following is a link to Will Smith’s inspirational video clip that we watched.

About Edna Attias 
I am currently a 6^th grade science teacher and advisor at Paul Cuffee School, a public charter serving a diverse urban population in Providence, RI. I have been implementing the Developmental Design approach since 2007 and recently became a nationally certified Developmental Designs facilitator with The Origins Program. Previous to becoming a teacher, I worked in the legal field and I obtained a Masters degree from Brown University in the psychopharmacology of pain. I also hold a Masters degree in Elementary Education from Brown University, and I am currently working on my doctorate degree in Educational Leadership with a concentration in curriculum, teaching, learning from Northeastern University.