Combating Student Failure with the Glasser Quality School System

I have taught for many years in traditional public high schools. I know what they are like. The reason I've been teaching at Murray for so long is because I grew tired of not having a say in how the large schools were running, so that we could improve them as a whole, rather than just making improvements in my own little classroom. However, there is hope for the large schools choosing to implement some of the ideas we offer.

I have worked closely with a principal, Harold Maldonado, at Stevens High School in San Antonio, TX, to implement these concepts in a school of over 3,000 students. He said to me, "We know how to implement the system we currently have. We have successfully implemented it in 7 high schools in North San Antonio. I'm not interested in replicating this system, with its apathetic students and faculty, its violence so that a private police force is needed to deal with the student conflicts, and its lack of respect for all concerned. I want to try a new system, one based on Choice Theory." So, together we worked out a way to do many of the most important aspects of Murray's system in a very large high school. Six of our students and several of our staff members journeyed to San Antonio and worked for several days teaching these ideas to his staff of 170 educators. Most of them were entirely enthusiastic to try them out.

At this point, they are moving steadily toward declaring themselves a Glasser Quality High School, a goal that is still six or seven years away at a minimum. They were not successful at eliminating failing grades, one of the key components of any Glasser Quality School. During their first year, their superintendent allowed them to experiment with that concept. However, once the media in Texas found out that there was a public school in San Antonio that didn't give failing grades to students, the public ridicule was so intense that the superintendent backed out and now they are working again with the same A - F system that most schools in America still use. Nevertheless, they are teaching Choice Theory and they emphasize using respect with one another. They have systems in place to help with the problems Harold described. They are happy with their school and expect that in five or so years, when their test scores allow them the freedom to request it, they are going to implement the non-failure part of a Glasser Quality School.

I can't overstate the impact this policy has had at Murray. Again, this is a MINDSET CHOICE. In 1988, we read Dr. Glasser's Schools Without Failure and we decided to make it the cornerstone of our new school. We would just make it impossible to fail. We use mastery learning to help students realize that learning is completely THEIR CHOICE. We can invite them and encourage and support them, but we cannot FORCE them to learn. The power to learn is completely theirs. In fact, we can remove all coercion from the system, so that even if they do no work at all, they cannot fail. They will not earn credits until they start to take ownership of their learning, but they cannot fail. Once they realize that they are among friends, teachers who respect their ability to learn so much that they refuse to give them failing grades, refuse to say that they cannot learn, refuse to punish them for not learning yet, they usually stop resisting and start working toward graduation.

When a student refuses to work, we say, "John, I'm really glad that you came in today. It's a good step toward graduation. Do you intend to graduate from high school?" Almost always, the student says, "Of course. Why else do you think I came in?" We say, "Well, I hoped that was why you came in. I am interested to hear your graduation plan." They student usually says, "What do you mean?" And we say, "Well, how many English credits does it take to graduate from high school?" They usually know that it takes four and they say that. Then we say, "So what is your plan to earn this English credit?" At this point, the student will "get it," that it's impossible to move toward graduation without actually getting work done. We offer to meet privately with the student to create some individualized assignment that will help them move forward. But whatever they do, we don't get angry at them. We realize they are making the best choices they know how to do at this point in time. Our job is to help them learn how to make more and more choices that will lead to their successfully achieving their own personal goal of graduation.

This is a beautiful, complicated process for each one of these kids who have been hurt by the failure system in our schools. I am so blessed to get a chance to watch this system work miracles over and over. For instance, we have a young lady this year who sat through my English class for the entire 1st 1/2 of the school year (her first at Murray), drawing in an artbook and occasionally participating in discussions and projects. However, she didn't turn in a single assignment. She finished my English Through Social Justice class (In mid-January) without having earned even 1/2 credit. Throughout the rest of Jan., Feb., and March, I kept seeing her in the halls and reaching out to her, inviting her not to give up on her English credit, reminding her of her graduation goal and telling her that I was willing to work out some alternative assignments that would help her move toward credit. Here we are in June and she still hasn't earned 1/2 English credit.... yet. But this is what she has accomplished: She has begun meeting with me individually after school every Wednesday. She's worked out with me an entire English credit that she's going to do on her own. One project, for instance, completely of her own choosing, is to read Milton's Paradise Lost (which is on the school Kindle she has borrowed -- I got 24 of them this year with a federal grant for $9,000) and to choose four important moments in the book to illustrate (she's an artist). Then, she's going to write an analysis of her work, explaining what she was hoping to achieve with her artworks. She is happily working away on this project and I'm sure that she is learning much more than the traditional English class would require of her. I'm sure that with another year at Murray, she will be taking AP English courses and churning out work because she has now convinced herself that learning can be meaningful and challenging in a good way. We call that, "putting learning back in your Quality World."

In the system in a regular school, in just about ALL American schools, this young lady would have received zeroes on missed assignments. She would have received very low F's on the projects she didn't finish. Even if she had suddenly found the will to work, she would have had to overcome all these failures, which had been written down indelibly in my gradebook, so the best she could have done by the end would have been a high F or a D. Somehow, the traditional system would argue, through receiving low grades, she had just learned a lesson about getting her work turned in and we had figured out her skill levels and documented them. So, the next English teacher would believe that this girl (who is now happily lapping up Milton by her own choice -- a 10th grader this year), had low English skills and she might even be put into some kind of low level class where she wouldn't have the chance to be challenged or excited by her intellectual curiosity.

At Murray, it's okay to make a mistake. You can't get hurt by it. We believe our students arrive at our school with enough hurts in their emotional backpacks. So, when a student chooses not to turn in work, we're not going to punish them by giving them zeroes or F's. However, we're not going to award credits for doing nothing, or for doing less than B work. All Murray students, to receive credit for any projects or assignments, have to do them to at least a B level. So, when a student throws something mediocre at me, and says, "I'm done!" I can say, "Well, you've done this well. I really like this line, but you haven't yet achieved a B mastery of the skills this assignment is designed to teach. To achieve a B, you'll need to do....." and then we give specifics of what needs to be done next. Often, students put this work off. They get involved in the fun things we're doing and the tough things, like learning how to write compelling and logical essays, get put aside for awhile. But we've found that when a student completes a project they love -- for instance, when their section of the video yearbook is finished -- the energy and happiness that come from achievement of a tough goal carry them forward. They think to themselves, "I WANT this credit. I worked hard on this project, so I'll be darned if I don't get this credit." This leads them to come seeking out the help they need to get complete.

Not all students learn this in their first year here. Some students keep resisting learning and we work hard to help them get past their habitual mindsets of "not caring." We don't make it with everyone. We run out of time with some, but not many. Most students eventually "get it" that their educations are gifts they are giving to themselves. Right now, in the next two weeks, we have several seniors who may bail on all the work that needs to be done to walk across that stage, but they are pulling out all the stops now and turning out some incredible work because suddenly, they realize how MUCH they want to graduate. I've seen some students work all night long the night before graduation to complete work that had to be done to earn a credit and emerge exhausted, but elated, because they saw proof that they can work as hard as necessary to achieve their goals. They have the strength and the ability to do what they set their minds to. They also see that they went through the pain of an all-nighter because they didn't learn this lesson early enough to make it easier on themselves. This is a great mindset for them to carry with them to college, where managing their own time is going to be of paramount importance. They will have learned a great deal about this in the last moments before graduation.

This happened last year. Several seniors were still working on various projects and assignments when the bell rang at the end of the day before graduation. The principal asked me if I would mind staying after school with them to oversee their work. She was worried that so many seniors might not graduate. I said I would stay and work as long as they were willing to work with a good will. Two of the boys who stayed had been a true handful, discipline-wise, all year. They had come to us from one of the big traditional high schools in the area and their past principal had told them he didn't believe they would ever graduate, but that if they went to Murray, they might have a chance. They asked him if he would give them their diplomas if they graduated from Murray and he agreed. All year, their successes were touch and go. It seemed that every time they did something to exceed their own expectations, they immediately crashed and burned over something else.

As they worked that night, one finished before the other, who still had massive amounts of math to complete. He said to his friend, "Who would ever have believed that we'd be sitting here at school together at 11pm, working on math? No one who knows us would believe it!" And rather than going on home, he stayed to help his friend figure out the math. I had the high honor of sitting and listening to him teach some of the more difficult concepts to his friend. Then, at 11:30pm, another Murray teacher who was returning home from an engagement, stopped by the school to see if they needed any help understanding the math. They worked together until after midnight. Finally, he finished and they left school so happy that we were all smiling from ear to ear.

This is a success of the mastery learning concept. Without it, both boys would have failed out of their senior years. With it, they discovered that they were willing to achieve graduation. On graduation day, their previous principal showed up and good naturedly gave them their diplomas, reminding them of how narrowly they had missed dropping out of school. The whole place came alive with applause for them.

Now, certainly, working a very late night with seniors who had procrastinated getting their work done sounds, on one hand, like a chaotic and possibly harmful way to teach someone that learning is their own possession. But I would argue that mastery learning and the real world deadline of graduation made it possible for them to rise above their habits of failure, of giving up on themselves and on their educations. The mastery learning mindset gave them the ability to move forward and not be stuck in failure.

Some critics of our program, when they hear about our mastery learning system say, "But this is not preparing students for the real world, where they will be allowed to fail." We argue that what we are doing is helping students develop the skills they need to succeed in such a tough "real world" by giving them the time and a safety net in order to heal and grow.

Our at-risk students are the ones who didn't profit by the failure system. They rebelled and/or crumpled under its demands. We believe they need a place to recuperate and to think through their decisions to resist their own educations. We believe they need time, love, and a lot of respect to pull themselves back from the brink, to become someone who deserves to achieve and who knows that they can achieve.

Love, Charlotte Wellen