Looking for Potential

Energetic. Enthusiastic. Hyperactive. Uncontrollable. Impulsive. Eager. Rambunctious. Vibrant. Wiggly. Kinesthetic. Athletic. Rowdy. Unfocused.

Curious. Questioning. Challenging. Defiant. Inquisitive. Searching. Intrigued. Intrusive. Disrespectful. Interested. Complaining.  

Chatty. Talkative. Verbal. Charismatic. Mouthy. Communicative. Motor-mouthed. Conversational. Social. Gregarious. Interactional. Unreserved. Rude.

Everyone has a series of lenses through which they view the world. We see what we want to see. We identify good in the things we value or that match our own viewpoints, preferences, and experiences. We frequently overlook the positive in what is unfamiliar, is different, or challenges our own ideas and views. What one person sees as a negative could be viewed as a positive by someone else.

Does society place the same value on an assertive man and an assertive woman? Do some groups of people receive praise for questioning or challenging authority while others are criticized for it? Do you look differently at a person who speaks passionately about political ideas you agree with while disparaging those who oppose your stance?

I worry that as educators we allow ourselves to get in the way of seeing the potential in every student we teach. Worse, we find fault in places where we could be looking for greatness. What if we could train ourselves to look for potential in spots where we previously ignored it? What impact could that have on the kids we teach and how they view themselves?

I am not a confrontational person. I tend to avoid conflict, hate engaging in an argument, and am more likely to back away from any kind of disagreement until I am able to speak calmly. Furthermore, I’ve never been especially physical. Horseplay was never my thing. I wasn’t one of those kids who squirmed. I’d rather sit for hours with my nose in a book or at work on a creative project.

As a teacher, it’s easy for me to see the greatness in a student who comes to class, engages, and plays along. I can find a million positive things to say about students who are eager readers, thoughtful writers, and deep thinkers. I appreciate student creativity, especially if it makes me laugh because of its cleverness.

When things get heated in class discussion, however, my first inclination is to retreat into my shell. When students get uber-competitive in a game or get a little rambunctious during a class activity, I become a little nervous. I have to remind myself that the students who seem argumentative, confrontational, rowdy, and unruly to me during those activities could be passionate, principled, persuasive, engaged, energetic, and eager if I view them through a different lens.

  

Identifying and acknowledging our own biases is the first step in learning to seek the potential in everyone we encounter. Some biases are easy for us to spot; others exist on a deeper, unconscious level.

A 2016 study found that students of color are underrepresented in gifted programs nationwide. More specifically, black students are about half as likely to be identified as “gifted and talented” as their white peers with comparable standardized test scores. The researchers crunched all sorts of numbers to try to determine the cause for this disparity. Only one factor made a significant difference in identification of “gifted” black students: the race of their teachers. The put it more bluntly, white teachers aren’t good at spotting giftedness in non-white students.

This study has so many implications for the world of education. Not only does it underscore the importance of having teacher demographics that mirror student demographics, but it also invites all of us—regardless of our race—to examine our own implicit biases. It’s easy to shift the blame for this inequity to other people, but the data indicates that those of us who are pointing the fingers also need to take a look in the mirror.

Implicit biases are natural. Everyone has them. And because they are implicit, we usually don’t know we have them. These biases exist on an unconscious level. I’m not sure we can ever identify every bias we hold, but I do think that the important work for each of us involves acknowledging the existence of these biases, trying to become more aware of them, and then taking action to correct them.

Project Implicit, a non-profit research project led by professors from University of Washington, Harvard, and University of Virginia, has a number of tests you can take that are designed to help identify implicit biases. The information they gather from participants helps further their research. Always one to contribute what I can in the name of learning (but mostly because I was curious), I took a few of their tests. Of course, I was certain that the results would indicate that I was without prejudice or bias. That’s what we would all like to believe about ourselves, right? I was wrong. The tests pointed out some things that I’d never even considered to be biases I held. I have since shared the website with others, and what we uncovered made us uncomfortable and uneasy but opened up some extremely worthwhile conversations about our biases and, more significantly, what we should do about them. It was easy to beat ourselves up for having those biases, but we soon realized that our self-criticism was counterproductive without taking steps to change.

Trying to make the shift toward actively looking for potential in others—students, coworkers, strangers I meet at Kroger—has positively altered the way I see the world and the results I get from those around me. I’m not always great at it, but I’m working at improving. I’m sure it’s something I will have to keep working on forever. If it leads to finding more of the good in others and helping them find the good in themselves, the perpetual work will have been worth it.

Thank you for all the work you do to look for potential in places where it’s not easy for you to spot.