Under the Influence of Teacher Talk

At the start of my career as an eighth-grade language arts teacher, it never bothered me when students were described by teachers as “low,” “middle,” or “high” as a way to label their abilities. No disrespect was meant toward our learners; it was just a fast and easy way to describe our kids and get to know them when we had so little time with them.

A few years later, I found myself in the middle of a chummy conversation in the school’s mailroom with another teacher. At some point later in our discussion, the other teacher referred to our struggling learners, or “low” students, as “the grunt and scratch kids.”

This shocking and disappointing experience made me think about how this type of talk, even in the most informal situations and places, like in the teacher’s lounge or the parking lot, has the ability to influence our overall view of students. I started to ask myself questions that were bothersome and painful to answer honestly. Did the way I talked about students change and lower expectations I had for them? Did that, in turn, eventually change how they performed? The answers were a disappointing “maybe so.”

Of course, there are many factors that complicate this association between how teachers talk and how that talk affects kids. An argument can most certainly be made that I’ve oversimplified the complex issue of teacher expectations and student performance. But for me, it helped to reexamine choices I made in my classroom that were not necessarily thoughtful—decisions done out of convenience or to meet past precedents. 

As I thought about how my talk changed the expectations I set for my students, I knew that one of the ways I ran my classroom was not matching up with my teaching philosophy. I wanted to give all students the same access to resources and experiences in all classes. I wanted this regardless of how they were labeled before coming to me or what scores they received on standardized tests. I quickly found that I could not provide equity with my current plans. That was because dividing students into “low,” “middle” and “high” classes had created “low,” “middle,” and “high” expectations for students.

I still have days when I struggle with how I talk about my kids, especially on those days that prove to be a challenge to think positively.  However, one of the most important things I learned is that I must always push myself to look at my students as growing and searching individuals [2]. If I don’t allow them the opportunity to be something great every day, I’m denying them access to meaningful experiences. So I am careful about how I talk about them at the lunch table. I’d rather not give them a quick and easy label that clouds their true potential.

Timm is a middle school language arts teacher and creative workshop instructor in Iowa.