For schools, as for other organizations, there are no alternatives to standards, Lorraine Monroe told her General Session audience at ASCD's 2000 Conference on Teaching and Learning. "The higher you make those standards, the better the organization," said Monroe, who is known for her success at transforming a failing urban school into a model of academic excellence. Today she is executive director of the School Leadership Academy at the Center for Educational Innovation in New York City.
Monroe illustrated how educators can teach children to reach high standards by describing some of her own teachers. First, she recalled an incident that occurred when she was a 3rd grade student in Manhattan. "Mr. Cooper, who was the head of the student council, came up to me out of nowhere and said, 'I want you to run for secretary of the student council.' I had no idea that there even was one." But because she was infatuated with Mr. Cooper, Monroe agreed to run for secretary—and won. "And my life changed," she said.
Mr. Cooper taught the student council members to use Robert's Rules of Order during their meetings, Monroe said. She still marvels at "the assumption of this man, that we—students 9 to 12 years old—would be able not only to 'get' the rules, but to use them to run our meetings."
From Mr. Cooper, "I learned about the standard of holding high expectations and teaching children to reach them," Monroe said. The trick is not just to have the standards, she emphasized, but to find ways to teach children to reach them—to "escalate expectations" so that all will succeed.
Monroe also recalled her 8th grade English teacher, a "school-marmish" young woman who taught Julius Caesar in the face of her students' initial reluctance. "We did it line by line by line," Monroe said. The class also memorized chunks of the play. As a result, "We all learned to love Shakespeare."
The most important lesson she learned from these teachers, Monroe said, is that educators get what they expect. "When we teach hard, when we demand hard, kids give it back," she asserted. "The hunger kids have for being smart is there."
Teachers should look at their students' deficiencies as a challenge, Monroe urged. "You do not know where they will go; you only know where they are at this moment," she pointed out.
The best teachers have the biggest egos, Monroe said. "The power and passion of great teachers is to say, 'You have me, and because you have me, you will become brilliant. You will astound yourselves.' Our work is to make children astound themselves by how much they can [learn], every single day."
Besides teaching students what they need to know to do well on tests, educators should teach them "enriching things," Monroe said. They should foster students' spiritual growth and help them to be good and do good. "Our business is children and transforming their lives," she declared. "You want children to come into your classroom electrified because they know you are someone who is going to change their lives."
The teachers we remember are the ones who were passionate about their subject, she said, the ones "who grabbed you by the throat and didn't let go, who said: This is what the world is saying you need to know."
For Mr. Cooper, it was irrelevant whether students lived in a community mired in poverty, Monroe noted. "He didn't ask where you came from—he said, 'This is where you are going.' And that's what the standards are saying: This is where children have to go if they're going to have access to lives that mean anything."