Conclusion Ruminate and Respond ........................................................... 20

from their academic toolbox. Every student has the tools; they just need the right supports to learn to use them.

In a practical classroom, teachers modify their language from a deficit model to the not-yet approach, which focuses on language that is explicit and empowering and language that is useful in showing students how to move forward versus language that chastises where they have been. ELA, mathematics, and special education teacher Alyssa Nucaro (2017) explains how practical language empowers students and enhances classroom productivity: “Communicating to students that you believe in them and their abilities gives students the confidence they need to collaborate with others, become respectful learners, and work competently by reiterating positive behaviors and encouraging all students to do the same.” In this context, practical language expresses belief in students and their abilities, the confidence to collaborate with them around their learning efforts, and the value of a growth mindset.

See Not-Yet Language for Learning Success (page 86), in this chapter, to explore more examples of empowering language.

Deficit Language in Disciplinary Instruction

Although simply building a general vocabulary for a practical classroom is important, teachers must further reflect on the language they use when engaging in disciplinary instruction. Education author and consultant Rick Wormeli (2020) cautions, “Judgement and evaluation tend to invoke ego and self-preservation, not useful reflection and personal growth.” As students confront skill deficits specific to particular content areas, it’s very easy to inadvertently adopt deficit-minded thinking and language that are contrary to the ideas you learned about in chapter 3 (page 37) regarding a growth mindset, grit, and abolitionist teaching.

When teachers see a student struggling in ELA but not mathematics, or in chemistry but not physics, there can be a tendency to believe the student lacks skills in these specific areas. This leads to acceptance of student struggles (“He just can’t do .”) and causes lasting harm. Judgment and evaluation reflect fixed-mindset thinking, which discourages students from engaging in productive struggle as they endeavor to stick with it through problems and try new strategies to overcome a setback or roadblock. Wormeli (2020) reminds us that “the goal is for children themselves to see the errors and how to fix them.” That goal aligns with the not-yet approach—helping students to build their capacity for growth and understand they can overcome struggles in a particular content area if they have time and the right supports.

For example, when I was a sophomore in high school, I took geometry. For as long as I could remember, I wasn’t “good” at mathematics. I didn’t see mathematics as practical or useful in my life. Geometry was a painful struggle; if it weren’t for my neighborhood friend, I’m sure I wouldn’t have passed. I received a D−, which you could argue I didn’t even earn given that my friend let me copy her mathematics homework. I turned in all my homework and received satisfactory grades, but I miserably failed every test. Obviously, there are many pedagogical things wrong with this scenario, not the least of which was the feedback I received from my teacher, who encouraged me not to take any more mathematics! He said I “clearly wasn’t a mathematician,” and since I didn’t need any more mathematics to graduate, why take something I would most likely fail? Truthfully, I was thrilled with the prospect of being done with mathematics. However, Responsive Classroom (2012) reminds us how deeply problematic this guidance was: “With our words, we convey our assumptions and expectations about children, which, in turn, influence children’s assumptions and expectations about themselves.” The teacher had conveyed to me I was never going to get any better in mathematics, and I believed him. To call such language almost right is being charitable, and it certainly wasn’t productive.

The insidious component to this scenario is that I’m sure this teacher thought he was giving me sage advice meant to be useful to me and my future (after all, my mathematics career was over). However, it’s telling that the conversation happened in 1975, and I still remember it, highlighting the long-term effects of failure I wrote about in chapter 1 (page 11). A teacher told me I would never get better at mathematics, and I needed to accept that fate. While my teacher never specifically mentioned my lack of engagement, motivation, respect, or responsibility, he certainly inferred I didn’t have any motivation to continue in mathematics since I would never be a mathematician. In addition, while he didn’t explicitly mention my lack of academic knowledge, my absence of mathematics skills was obvious. The language he gave me wasn’t language I could use because it wasn’t practical for me. Instead, it was deficit language that magnified every mathematical gap I ever had.

Consider for a moment your students’ past experiences, no matter what age they are. Maybe they’re high school students who’ve had an experience similar to mine. Maybe you teach U.S. history and have a student for whom a previous social studies teacher said, “It might be best if you stuck to science.” Maybe you’re a sixth-grade ELA teacher with a student whose elementary teachers passed him or her up—grade to grade, without an intervention—because the student is exceptional at mathematics while still lacking essential grade-level language skills. Or maybe you have a firstgrade student who simply doesn’t believe he or she can learn due to never receiving positive reinforcement or scaffolded supports at home for basic number and letter