“Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Several teachers have written me asking about the scheduling of readiness groups and the vigor with which the readiness groups should be taught. As I wrote responses to those teachers I thought it might be helpful to some of you to write about what I think is most effective with the students who have not mastered the concepts you are studying.

A few years ago an administrator challenged me to inspire her teachers to improve their pedagogy for working with students who were labeled “at-risk” by the school district. I pondered the topic for weeks and struggled with how to inspire the teachers to change their current approach to working with those students. At the same time I was thinking on this topic, my husband and I were also working on our financial peace using the methods recommended by Dave Ramsey.

I woke up at 2am one night with the most logical connection between Dave Ramsey’s beliefs and my beliefs in students. When most people begin to pay off debt they start with the credit card or loan which has the highest interest and try to pay that one off first. Then they go to the credit card with the next highest interest. Dave Ramsey calls his approach the “Debt Snowball.” You pay off the least amount first then tackle the next one. The idea is to form an effective financial habit and to see the results of paying off the debts. It worked with us and now the only debt we have is our mortgage.

Here’s how I used Dave’s ideas…I entitled my workshop, “Overall Opportunity.” I settled on this title because I used the following quote to begin the training.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it’s dressed up in overalls and looks like work.” -Thomas Edison

At the beginning of the workshop I drew an outline of the side of a mountain. I asked the teachers to visualize this mountain as the conceptual understandings and skill set of an at-risk student. When a student reaches the top of the mountain, then he or she is on grade level. I asked them to think about a specific student and describe some of their deficits and some of their assets.

I placed x’s at the bottom of the mountain which represented all the understandings the student was greatly lacking and the concepts the students should have mastered years earlier. There was a large deficit clump and it was at the very bottom of the mountain. At the top of the mountain we placed their assets. Near the top were the concepts the students had almost mastered. Half-way up the mountain were the concepts that were attached to interests of the student so they were easier to learn.

I then asked the teachers which concepts we began with when we were instructing these students. They all indicated that they began with the concepts that were the most challenging for the students—the ones at the bottom of the student’s mountain of success.

I asked them to think about teaching those students in a different way. First of all, I asked them to call them “At-Promise” instead of at-risk. I heard this term used by Carol Ann Tomlinson. It sounded so much better when I said it and I know it made me look at them differently.

Next, I asked them to think about starting in a different spot on the student’s mountain. Why not start at the top and then come down? I piggy-backed on Dave Ramsey’s term and called it the “Student’s Snowball of Success.” If we begin helping them with concepts they have almost mastered and help them understand the concept with automaticity, then they have almost immediate success. They have started their snowball down the mountain.

As the student goes down the mountain, they take their successes with them and build on them. Their challenges aren’t as big because their attitude has changed. Their self-esteem is changing. We are giving the student the opportunity to build on their assets instead of trying to push up the hill to the next deficit. It’s much harder to push a huge snowball up a mountain instead of rolling it down.

I could tell by the nodding in the audience and the “aha” looks on their faces that the teachers were beginning to visualize what I was saying. I continued the workshop with examples from history who built their snowballs of success: Wilma Rudolph, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Giesel. I told them about several of my students whose lives were transformed by beginning with their “close to the top” understandings/assets instead of their “at the bottom” misunderstandings/deficits. We used an Overall Opportunity Graphic Organizer to help us organize our strategic thinking differently.

What would happen if intervention groups spent at least 1/3 to 1/2 of their time working on what the students do well or the “least of their challenges”?  Would a snowball of success begin its way down the mountain of achievement? I’d really like it if every educator who doubts this idea would work REALLY hard to implement it and prove me wrong!

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” –Mark Twain

Thanks for the inspiration, Dave!