attended my grandson Gabriel’s Meet the Teacher Night last year, and I have
yet to recover from the negative experience. His fourth-grade teacher proudly
announced that this was the year the teachers “cut the umbilical cord.” Not
once did she mention that she cares for the children who are entrusted to her or
that she provides accommodations for children with special needs. She focused
exclusively on content, curriculum, and standards.
As the school year progressed, things became worse for my grandson, who
has special needs. One day he wrote an extended response to a book in R.L.
Stine’s Goosebumps series in which he indicated why he loved the book. He
struggled with this assignment because he has severe issues with fine motor
skills and with ADHD. Yet he was happy with the outcome. Regrettably, his
teacher’s only comment was, “Well, doesn’t everyone like Goosebumps?”
Another day, Gabriel spent 90 minutes writing a required poem for
homework. Again, he struggled with manuscript print and with his poor
focusing ability; yet he persevered despite his challenges and was proud of
his accomplishment. After reading his poem, his teacher’s only comment was
criticism of his grammar. Not once did she compliment his efforts.
That night, Gabriel cried uncontrollably for two hours and said his
teacher didn’t like him. He most certainly was right. Imagine being a child
and sustaining a 40-week school year with an insensitive teacher who
demonstrates favoritism toward other children who excel academically.
Negative incidents like these continued throughout the school year. Whenever
Gabriel’s mom voiced her concerns to the teacher and the principal, the teacher
denied behaving unprofessionally and then made hurtful comments to Gabriel
in class. This content-driven teacher knew little about the struggles of a child
with special needs. Worse, she didn’t seem to care about getting to know him
and finding ways to reach him, even though this type of caring is inextricably
connected to learning.
Needed: a different teacher response
Let’s reflect on how a caring teacher would have responded differently to the
above scenarios.
When children write a response to anything, the first teacher
consideration is to compliment them for their efforts. Compliments related
to specific accomplishments go a long way in helping children to be receptive
to subsequent, constructive criticism. The teacher could have said that she
and others also love the R.L. Stine books and that she was impressed with
aspects of Gabriel’s writing, such as how he organized his thoughts, developed
his ideas, used a variety of sentences, included interesting vocabulary
and synonyms, and persevered with his assignment. She also could have
recommended other titles in the Goosebumps series. Specific compliments
are great ways of opening doors to improving literacy, as children are more
Meaningful connections with students come down to the
simple act of caring
LITERACY
LEADERSHIP
THE ROOT OF
CONNECTION
Joseph Sanacore
(jsanac@optonline.net), an
ILA member since 2003,
is a student advocate,
researcher, and professor
at the Post Campus of
Long Island University in
New York. A prolific writer,
he is a former department
editor for ILA’s Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy
(JAAL) and a peer reviewer
for both JAAL and The
Reading Teacher.
By Joseph Sanacore
8
literacyworldwide.org | January/February 2017 | LITERACY TODAY