Goal 10 – Beware of the “Michelle Pfeiffer Effect”

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Goal 10 of these 30 goals deals with BELIEVING.

Since I teach Special Ed., starting new pupils off with challenges I know they are able to succeed at is a given. Success leads to self confidence and motivation which leads to success.

But these 30 goals are called challenges and the true challenge is that belief alone is not enough. You have to beware of what I call the “Michelle Pfeiffer Effect”. I phrase it that way based on many readings of  Dr. Robyn R. Jackson’s fantastic book “Never Work Harder Than Your Students” .

Michelle Pfeiffer in the film “Dangerous Minds” is  wonderful and inspiring. She walks into a very difficult high-school classroom and just believes in the students. After a few hard times , they all become amazing students.

Classroom reality is not like that (and not only because many of us don’t look like she does!). You can believe in the students and make them believe in themselves. But if you don’t figure out what the skills needed to bridge the huge abyss of knowledge they didn’t acquire till now are (when they weren’t such awesome students) they still won’t be able to reach their graduation goal. Belief must be combined with a good look at the reality and identification of the bare necessities they will need in order to deal with the level they are supposed to attain. Pupils who have missed years of REAL learning have huge gaps!

Dr. Jackson mentions  math skills as an example – if you can’t add or subtract you won’t pass calculus. My examples are from languages, I have to teach 10th graders wh questions even though they should have learned this a long time ago. I really recommend reading Chapter 3 of Dr. Jackson’s book – she explains it so clearly!

In short – belief is CRUCIAL but it can’t stand ALONE!

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