Academic Rigor

(light music) - Hey y'all. It's Ayo here. Let's talk about academic rigor. The idea of academic rigor is directly connected to the concept of least dangerous assumption. That notion covered extensively by Anne Dolan suggests that we should always act with the base assumption, which, if proven wrong later would have the least dangerous effect on a student. We get that, but what does that mean in practice? It means we can't wait. We can't short change. We can't accept perpetual less than I did a student visit once with a very frustrated teacher. Her student had been working on the same math goal for three years and was not making any progress and the teacher was starting to get worried. The parents of her student were gonna bring this up in the IEP meeting. So I went out for a visit. I met the student during math and they were sitting all alone removed from the curricular lesson so they could work on this specific IEP goal. I walked over to see what the student was working on. I picked up a quarter and asked the student what it was. And without prompting without any assistive technology devices they said 25 cents. I tried with the dime, the penny, the nickel, heck. I even tried with the 50 cent piece that I have not seen in like a decade. The student got them all. I was confused, so I conferenced with the teacher because it looked like the student had mastered the skill. The teacher explained that the IEP goal was written for the student to identify the name of the coins not to identify their value. This student had been repeating the same coin name IEP goal for three years because somewhere the idea of readiness hijacked the standards based approach. And unfortunately, the student was removed from the content related lesson because the IEP goal had become the curriculum for them. That is the most dangerous assumption. This student had the capacity to learn the ability to engage in the material and they could have benefited from the academic rigor by excluding them and truncating their learning. We were doing the most harm. We'd made the most dangerous assumption at the cost of this student's educational progress. So what does that mean for you back in the classroom? First, the Texas essential knowledge and skills are the curriculum for all students in Texas. For those with and without disabilities all students should have access to lessons and activities related to the curriculum with appropriate adaptations, modifications and supports. Second, exposing students to challenging concepts and skills is part of making the least dangerous assumption. We never really know what knowledge is being absorbed by some of our students because of the nature or extent of their disabilities which makes assessing learning progress more challenging. Have some academic rigor in your classroom. Third, remember that an IEP goal is not the curriculum. The curriculum is the curriculum. And the IEP goal is what we measure as the student makes progress in the curriculum. Don't exclude a student so they can work on their IEP goal instead. Promote that academic rigor. I'm Ayo Jones reminding you to stay strong and teach on. (light music)