Doing Poorly on Purpose

Strategies to Reverse Underachievement and Respect Student Dignity

James R. Delisle

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781416625384
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Metodi di insegnamento

With Doing Poorly on Purpose, veteran educator James R. Delisle dispels the negative associations and stereotypes connected to underachievement. By focusing on smart kids who get poor grades—not because they're unable to do better in school but because they don't want to—Delisle presents a snapshot of underachievement that may look far different from what you envision it to be.

There is no such thing as a "classic underachiever." Students (and their reasons for underachieving) are influenced by a wide range of factors, including self-image, self-concept, social-emotional relationships, and the amount of dignity teachers afford their students.

Helping "smart" students achieve when they don't want to is not an easy task, but you can reengage and inspire students using Delisle's insights and practical advice on these topics:

• Autonomy
• Access
• Advocacy
• Alternatives
• Aspirations
• Approachable Educators

Smart, underachieving students need the reassurance that they are capable, valuable, and worth listening to despite their low academic performance. If these students—who are otherwise academically capable—don't feel they are getting respect from those in charge of their learning, then the desire to conform and achieve is minimized.

In a word, they want dignity. Don't we all?

---

Chapter 1

---

Underachievement: Viewing It from a Student's Perspective

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Let's begin with a quick word association. When I say underachiever, what other terms come to mind? My hunch is that words such as lazy, unmotivated, bored, and slacker are near the top of the list, none of which is positive. Now imagine that you are this smart kid who doesn't do well in school. Teachers, counselors, and parents all come together with collective anxiety that you are "wasting your potential" by not doing work that you are certainly capable of completing.

This is an important point. It's not that the schoolwork you are being asked to do is too challenging or difficult—in fact, it's just the opposite. The mind-numbing assignments you could finish off in minutes remain undone because you see no point in doing them. If you continue to get As and Bs on quizzes and tests—which you most often could do—then why do you have to complete homework and in-class tasks that are really designed for students who haven't yet grasped the content as well as you have? You feel like you're being punished for knowing stuff that classmates are still trying to master.

And this issue didn't just appear suddenly in middle or high school. No, the genesis of your dissatisfaction began long ago, in situations such as the following:

In 2nd grade, I had already read the Harry Potter books, and circle reading in class was painful for me. "Animals live all over the world. Some places are cold while others are not. The Arctic is cold and snowy." Sentences like these just don't compare to sentences like "The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane."

But in 2nd grade (and 3rd and 4th) you likely keep much of your academic dissatisfaction to yourself. You might tell your parents and friends that school is "boring," but hey … everyone thinks that, right? So you continue to turn in addition and subtraction worksheets even though you've been doing complex multiplication for a year already. Spelling words such as world and planet come easily to you since you are in the midst of watching Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos on YouTube. Needless to say, your perfect spelling tests don't matter to you at all.

So you begin to wonder, "Maybe it's me." If almost everyone else seems satisfied with the level of work he or she is being asked to complete, maybe you're the one who has a problem. But as your body and mind continue to mature and you enter middle school, you begin to realize that your academic desires are higher than those of many of your classmates'. You want your education to be relevant and interesting: two qualities sadly lacking in the curriculum you are expected to complete.

With that in mind, you begin to disassociate from classmates whose knowledge base is lower than yours, and you tune out most class lessons and only listen to your teachers when a topic seems intriguing or important to you personally. You long to be anywhere but in English class, and your reactions become unmistakable. That's when the anxious teachers, counselors, and parents convene on your behalf. You're told that when you finish school and begin to work, some elements of your job will be boring, too, yet they still have to be done. You think to yourself, "Yeah, but if I'm bored every day like I am now in school, I'll look for a new job." But leaving school in 7th grade? I don't think so.

The downward spiral continues, and everyone in this situation ultimately ends up frustrated. Where do you go from here? Before we get to some possible solutions, let's dissect this thing called underachievement in more detail.

Special Education of a Different Sort

Although the first book specifically targeting underachievement—Bright Underachievers (Raph, Goldberg, & Passow, 1966)—was published more than 50 years ago, the issue of smart students getting poor grades has certainly existed long before then. Logically speaking, it's only to be expected that when you put a diverse group of people in any learning situation, some individuals will be more skilled and attentive than others. And if modifications are made so that people are allowed—indeed, encouraged—to learn at their own pace while exploring topics of personal interest, then underachievement is not likely to be a big issue.

However, when this set of diverse learners happens to be students in a classroom where individual needs and abilities are not accommodated fully, then it's the students on the edges—those with learning difficulties and with intellectual giftedness—who most often lose out on learning at levels that are personally appropriate. To address this reality, our nation allocates billions of dollars annually to help students with disabilities and learning difficulties, hoping that adequate interventions will help them achieve at levels they might not otherwise reach. This money is both well spent and well deserved.

But money for smart students—those who score in the top 5 percent on standardized tests of achievement or aptitude—is sorely limited by comparison. Unfortunately, virtually no federal funds exist specifically for educating gifted children, and only modest state and local funds—if any—target this population. Whereas students with learning difficulties get sympathy and empathy from a generous public that wants them to do well, the most academically capable students—especially those who do poorly in school—are often told to "get over themselves" and just buckle down and do their assignments. Very little sympathy or empathy is extended to these students. Why? Because the public in general thinks that gifted students are smart and can "make it on their own."

But perhaps our dismissal of students who underachieve is misplaced, as evidenced by this quote from educational pioneer James J. Gallagher (1975):

Failure to help the gifted child reach his potential is a societal tragedy, the extent of which is difficult to measure but which is surely great. How can we measure the sonata unwritten, the curative drug undiscovered, the absence of political insight? They are the difference between what we are and what we could be as a society. (p. 9)

Our nation and our world are not so well off that we can readily dismiss the very real needs of smart kids who do poorly in school. Just as students who underachieve may need to cut educators a little slack when it comes to making every lesson as exciting as an episode of your favorite show, so must the adults in these kids' lives be willing to listen to the legitimate issues often raised by kids who do poorly on purpose.

A Little More History

What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur—other (nations) are matching and surpassing our educational attainments…. If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might very well have viewed it as an act of war. (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, p. 9)

This observation, from the landmark A Nation at Risk report, offered a scathing indictment of much of America's educational system and practices. Among the findings specific to the topic of underachievement, the Commission found that

• More than half of identified gifted students did not match their tested ability through their school performance.
• The majority of secondary school students had mastered 80 percent of the content of their textbooks before ever opening them for the school year.
• School curricula, for the most part, focused on memorization and acquisition of low-level skills, not on problem solving and analysis.

Stating that American education offered a "rising tide of mediocrity" (p. 9) to its students, the Commission determined that much curricula was about a mile wide and an inch deep, barely scratching the surface of in-depth analysis that many highly capable students desire. Given this situation, one might say that underachievement is learned by many because it is taught so well in schools.

I know. I'm going to be criticized for highlighting these generation-old data, but if you presented today's underachieving students with these findings and asked them to guess when they were compiled, many might assume it was last week—not last century.

For a while, A Nation at Risk caused eruptions of anger and no small amount of hand wringing from politicians and educators over how to address the issues it raised. However, as often happens with government publications and initiatives, very little actual long-term progress was made. In 1995, David Berliner and Bruce Biddle actually took exception to the Commission's findings, calling them politically motivated results that engineered a manufactured crisis in education. John Goodlad (2003) disagreed with this assertion and supported the Commission's work, yet he commented that the report had plenty of smoke but no flames. And in a 25-year retrospective offered by former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Department of Education (2008) maintained that "we remain a nation at risk, but now we are a nation informed, a nation accountable, and a nation that recognizes there is much work to be done" (p. 1). You'd think that after 25 years, Spellings could have offered more specifics and fewer platitudes.

What do these findings have to do with the topic of underachieving students who brought you to read this book in the first place? Just about everything. Indeed, smart students who do poorly on purpose may be the educational equivalent of canaries in a coal mine—students who, despite being academically capable, refuse to do schoolwork that lacks both challenge or relevance and, in doing so, are warning others to "get out fast." As averse as some educators may be to taking guidance from smart students whose academic performance is minimal, these very students may be the ones whose ideas for improving education can offer some positive paths forward.

Underachievement is more than getting lower grades than you are capable of achieving. Indeed, it is a complex issue that involves personal interpretation and nuance, as described in the rest of this book.

More Conundrum Than Consensus

My Aunt Peggy was a sweet woman, but when it came to my career decision, she was not shy about telling me that she thought I had really underplayed the cards I'd been dealt. Always a smart kid in school, I earned a PhD in educational psychology at the age of 28. I was thrilled (if tired), and my parents were equally ecstatic—I was and remain the first and only member of my extended family to receive a doctorate.

At my celebration party, Aunt Peggy sat me down and told me how proud she was of me and how much good credit I had given to our family name. Then she dropped her bombshell: "You were always a smart kid, Jimmy, so it's a shame you didn't decide to become a real doctor. You know, a medical doctor—the kind of doctor who really helps people."

Until the day she died, Aunt Peggy considered me an underachiever. Mind you, she had never ventured beyond high school herself, but her opinion of my doctorate was undercut by her unwillingness to consider a PhD a worthwhile degree for "a smart kid" like me.

Issue 1: Underachievement is often a phenomenon based on personal opinion rather than established norms.

Consider this: in your life as an educator (or counselor or parent) I'm sure you have known students who consider a grade of B+ to be low, whereas another student who gets a D– will remind you that it's still a passing grade. So, when it comes to grades, where does underachievement stop and achievement begin? And does context matter? Is a lower grade in an honors or AP class "better" than a higher grade in a standard class? How proud should students be when they get high grades in a class where they didn't learn anything new?

These issues are often sidestepped when we discuss grades with students who are not performing academically at levels their intelligence indicates they are capable of achieving. Instead, we tell them to "try your best" or to "work up to your potential"—two statements that are banal suggestions with absolutely no specificity. Students need specificity.

Issue 2: There is no such thing as a "classic underachiever."

Every so-called underachiever with whom I have worked is good at some things that either don't get recognized or acknowledged as important by adults. Yes, they may be doing poorly in regular school classes, but ask about their National History Day project they've been working on for almost a year and you'll see eyes widen and ears perk to attention. They may be earning a C– in Algebra II, but the Internet business they began on their own? It's up, running, and successful.

Repeat this mantra: "no one—no one—is good or bad at everything." When we use the term classic underachiever, the presumption is that this lack of success is pervasive, not content or situation specific. Nevertheless, I would say that 99 times out of 100, underachievement is dependent on factors other than intelligence. The same student who will walk on nails for a teacher who asks, "What are you interested in learning and how can I help you achieve your goals?" will dismiss a teacher who says, "I don't care how smart you think you are, all of my students need to turn in their homework. Review and practice are good for you."

The word dignity appears in the subtitle of this book for a reason. If smart students don't feel that they are getting it from those in charge of their learning, then their desire to conform and achieve is minimized. By asking capable students to complete assignments that are several strata below their abilities, we ignore the very qualities that got them identified as intelligent in the first place. Where's the dignity in that?

Issue 3: Underachievement may be caused by one or more of the following: lack of interest, lack of challenge, lack of self-esteem, or a desire to receive negative attention over none at all.

A third reason why underachievement has been so hard to address successfully has to do with its genesis—its origins. In some ways, underachievement is akin to a skin rash. The symptoms may look the same on different people, yet the underlying causes of the rash (or the underachievement) might be very different. Alternatively, underachievement can be like an onion, a multitiered phenomenon with so many layers that the more you peel away, the more you find underneath. Underachievement also often appears as a labyrinth, with so many paths to go down that you don't know which ones will lead to success and which will lead to dead ends until you try multiple possibilities.

The lack of interest or challenge has already been addressed, and the low self-esteem issue will be dealt with in a later section, but the desire for negative attention over none at all is one of critical importance that is seldom addressed.

Let's go to a classic movie as an example: The Breakfast Club. During a weakly monitored Saturday detention at the fictitious Shermer High School, a group composed of an athlete, a "smart kid," a stoner, a rebel, and a princess reveal just how much they have in common despite their outward personae that scream "I'm different than all of you." The rebel, John Bender (played by Judd Nelson), has a dad who beats him, a false and scary bravado, and no positive relationships with any adult. Why should he? He's been written off by practically everyone as a loser, yet the desire to be included—to be somebody who matters—is as much a part of his human nature as it is for the school's most successful students. Since he can't get positive attention, he decides to get as much negative attention as he can. He'll do anything to feel relevant.

With some underachievers, their quest for relevance is not fictional but very real. Why not address it directly? Jean Peterson (2008), a school counselor and author who understands underachievers from the inside out, suggests having "Breakfast Club–like" discussions with teens that focus on questions such as these (p. 32):

• Where in your life are you letting your intelligence show?
• Who in your life believes you are an intelligent person?
• What is the most comfortable part of school? The least comfortable?
• What are your feelings about being labeled an 'underachiever'?
• What would happen if you started achieving in school?
• When you underachieve, who gives you attention?
• Who are you being loyal to by underachieving?
• What are you sacrificing by underachieving?

Almost more than an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Chapter 1. Underachievement: Viewing It from a Student's Perspective
• Chapter 2. A Little Light Research
• Chapter 3. Getting to A: Autonomy
• Chapter 4. Getting to A: Access
• Chapter 5. Getting to A: Advocacy
• Chapter 6. Getting to A: Alternatives
• Chapter 7. Getting to A: Aspirations
• Chapter 8. Getting to A: Approachable Educators
• Epilogue. A Story with Chapters Yet to Be Written
• References
• Study Guide
• Related ASCD Resources
• About the Author
• Copyright