Permission to Fail

Reluctance to Read and Write

There is a reluctance to read and write in our school system today. One reason for this is that some students just don’t like to read and write. They think it is boring and pointless. A lot of people can relate to this, even educators. Many of us had a least favorite subject (mine was math and science), and to have someone tell us that we had to learn something in that subject area was like pulling teeth. As educators, we need to find a way to help students that reluctant to read and write. Educators should respect their students’ opinions. They shouldn’t take it personally when someone states “I hate English,” “I hate math,” and so on. Instead, the educator should ask “why do you hate English?” The answers can vary from “because I don’t like to,” “because everything we read and write is boring,” to “I get frustrated reading and writing because I’m not good at it.” That was my reason for hating math and science; I never understood it and I used get frustrated because I didn’t understand it. If an educator encounters a person that doesn’t find the material interesting, have them list a few subjects or genres that are interesting. For example, if a student states she is interested in Greek Mythology, try incorporating a section of Greek Mythology into the curriculum. If a student is interested in science, assign a project that connects English to science. When the student states “because I’m not good at reading and writing,” extra help could help the student understand. An educator may also be able to connect it to something that the student may understand. For example, a student could be very knowledgeable in the American Revolution. If you give that student a reading and writing assignment he may be able to grasp different concepts than perhaps a worksheet.

Educators need to accept the diversity of students. A student may be reluctant to read or write because an educator may have told them that what they read and write isn’t worthwhile. Many educators frown upon magazines; however, the student is reading. A student may like to write personal essays. In school students are often told to leave any personal references out of essays. Some students may not want to write because they can’t make a connection to the essay.

Many times a student is reluctant to read and write because they don’t find the material interesting, they don’t understand the material and they get frustrated, or that educators have told them that what they are reading and writing isn’t worthwhile. An educator can help overcome a student’s reluctance to reading and reading if they help connects reading and writing to various subjects that students enjoy or understand and if they praise their students whenever they read something—whether it is a magazine, a canonical novel, or a blog on the internet.

Permission to Fail

In Ladson-Billings article “I ain’t writin’ nuttin’: Permissions to Fail and Demands to Succeed in Urban Classrooms” we are introduced to Shannon who refuses to write. The answer that she gets from her teacher is “That’s okay. Maybe you’ll feel like writing tomorrow.” The answer from her teacher is allowing Shannon to fail. Permission to fail is when educators allow students to not do their work. Many times when someone is refusing to do their work, they are hiding the fact they can’t do it. If educators fail to have the students do their work, then we are allowing them to fail. Ladson-Billings states three propositions that every successful teacher should have:

• Successful teaching focuses on students’ academic achievement,
• Successful teaching supports students’ cultural competence, and
• Successful teaching promotes students’ socio-political consciousness (110-11).

Educators should focus on the students’ academic achievement. That means educators should demand that every student learn something and not allow them to refuse to an assignment because they don’t want to or because they don’t know how to spell a word. Educators should also support cultural competence and diversity. In every classroom, there are going to be twenty to thirty different students who have different beliefs and cultural backgrounds. Educators should support the diversity in the classroom. A socio-political consciousness environment will help students to come together and eliminate inequity and injustice. If Shannon’s teacher support socio-political consciousness than Shannon would most likely want to write. Her classmates would also probably encourage her to write. Instead Shannon doesn’t write because she “covering up her inability to read and her lack of phonemic awareness” (110). If teachers possess these propositions then we wouldn’t be giving our students permission to fail.