Hidden Embers :: Igniting Academic Excellence in Low Performing Students

By Dr. Clarence Alston

Hidden Embers is a book for teachers who work expectantly with some of our schools’ lowest performing students. These students live disproportionately, in our country’s inner cities and poor rural communities. This book boldy declares that some educators and policy makers are making erroneous judgements about the ability of these students. Hidden Embers… cautions educators and policy makes to sweep away the ash of hopelessness, distrust and anger which has been heaped upon the children due to largely to factors beyond their control. In school they have just learned to roll with their perceptions of reality. Before we toss them onto the heap of failure employ some of the strategies collected in this insightful yet practical guide. There are burning embers hidden beneath the ashes. Embers of motivation, creativity, excitement and hope for the future. It requires pure educators, willing to run a soft brush over the heavy ashes, the students’ delayed potential. Discover glowing embers: dreams in the student’s delayed potential. Discover glowing embers: dreams in the student everyone else thought had been extinguished

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664184671

Book preview

HIDDEN EMBERS :

Igniting Academic Excellence in

Low Performing Students

DR. CLARENCE ALSTON

Copyright © 2021 by Dr. Clarence Alston.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/13/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

830999

I want to thank my wife, Sylvia, for her untiring support

and encouragement as I pursued this writing project.

I also thank my children for their faith in me. A

confidence which is so undeserved. Finally, I express my

appreciation to my grandchildren for reminding me of

the value of youth—and how fleeting and delicate it is.

CONTENTS

Introduction

What is the Point?

What is Motivation?

External Motivation

Economic Impact

Bibliography

Glossary

Considerations from My Fair Lady:

Igniting Academic Excellence in

Low Performing Students

To the Reader

The concept of this book has been nurtured over years; prior to the declaration of the Coronavirus pandemic of March 2020. However, the rearrangement of life’s priorities and schedules due to stay at home compliance and social distancing, provoked this project to completion over several months.

My thirty plus years in public education as a teacher and administrator allowed me to interact with beautiful talented students from pre-k programs to college freshmen. Most of those interactions were among students from economically underprivileged circumstances in urban or rural school districts. I have tremendous respect for all students, though I possess an affinity for students who struggle to overcome personal disadvantage to acquire a good education. Having hailed from personal disadvantage of an inner city environment as well as southern sharecropping life myself, I discovered that ability alone is often insufficient for students to succeed in selected public schools. A significant amount of internal motivation and humane support are required. That kind of motivation is frequently stimulated by gifted teachers who insert themselves into the lives of students who need it.

This book is not a debate. It is a suggestion that public education has permitted too many students to languish on the cusp of educational failure because of substandard performance. Something different must be done immediately. Our country is wasting enormous human potential by tolerating substandard performance among its diverse public school population. Financial investment in ineffective experimentation has not altered the dismal outcomes.

Early childhood research indicates that intellectual ability appears equitably across race, gender and ethnicity. This equity is also consistent across economic status when controlled for factors directly associated with exposure or experiential treatment. In conclusion, there is no acceptable explanation why children born with similar capability should perform more poorly than their counter parts.

In addition to eliminating sustained aspects of discrimination, our education system must attract teachers and administrators who will insert themselves into lives of needy students to help activate the latter’s internal motivation. Perhaps in a fantastical way My Fair Lady illustrates how that is possible.

As a reader, keep in mind, students who experience greater personal difficulties may require a higher level of internal motivation; they have more than enough reasons to give up.

INTRODUCTION

The following message is taken from Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope by Johnathan Kozol:

Birds in the morning, Thomas Merton writes, ask God if it is time yet to begin the day. He speaks of the first chirps of the waking birds at dawn outside the windows of his hermitage. They begin to speak, he says, not with a fluent song but with an awakening question that is their state at dawn. They ask God if it is time for them to ‘be.’ God, says Merton, answers Yes. Then one by one, they wake up to be birds.

Good teachers do not approach… children with overzealous or destructive conscientiousness. They are not drill masters in the military or floor managers in a production system. Teachers are specialists in opening small delicate packages.

This book is about how to make our instructional approaches for struggling students more considerate. It is also a guide on how to maximize students’ natural ability and desire to succeed.

My Fair Lady is not the only literary work used to impact pedagogy. Throughout educational history themes derived from imaginary characters have become central to educational reform and ideology. Classics such as Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer confronted views about race relations and friendship. Gulliver’s Travels provided intellectual fodder for discussions of class and privilege. While The Lord of the Flies offered examinations of human nature, survival and the role of government in a civilized society.

In an era of tremendous distractions and social challenges, teaching underperforming students has become more complicated. Educators must strive to incorporate ideas from the world of fantasy, if necessary, to help students reclaim their love of learning. For most of them that motivation coupled with caring teachers will take care of everything else.

Excellence in education, presumably, is a goal of public education in the United States. We assume correctly, I believe, that most educators strive to achieve that goal. Unfortunately, there appears to be a clique who questions if all children can indeed learn. Some individuals in that circle defy the idea that teachers should be concerned with motivating students. Their attitude is, I am paid to teach; not motivate students. Many of these individuals describe themselves as pragmatists. All are not educators, but view education from a distance. Some are politicians with significant influence over programs and finances in public schools. These power brokers, aligned with skeptical educators, can spell failure for students who lack a strong support system. Some of these students frequently earn the label disaffected.

One objective of this book is to remind educators what years of research has replicated: The single most important factor in the classroom impacting learning is the teacher. This is a critical challenge for teachers. Nevertheless, they cannot avoid the challenge. This task cannot be relegated and viewed a mental burden. Teachers who work in schools with large numbers of unmotivated students may experience the challenge more frequently and more significantly than other