When I first started this journey, I used the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE Study) as my reference point for advocating that we include an option for students struggling with abstract concepts. The ACE Study is focused on how stress and trauma in childhood link to chronic disease, mental illness, being a victim of violence or violent behavior in adults. Harvard University researchers have a long history with solid brain research that supports the ACE Study on stress and the harm it has on brain development. Dr John Medina has done some incredible research on the impact of stress on our brain as well. When I first began to share this information, it was dismissed as just giving students another excuse to not be held accountable to the math standard. It did not take long for me to see that the research and integrity of this study was not going to be accepted.
I would like to share one of the research findings that is so tied to the state math standard. The brains of children growing up in homes with toxic stress and traum are constantly adapting and adjusting to their environment. The research is very clear that for many of these children, their brain development is hardwired differently. They have no control over their home environment in which they were born, and no control over their brain development. What the brain research has discovered, is that in those children whose brain development gets hardwired differently, it can have a significant impact on the part of the brain that is needed to process abstract concepts. Dr. Martin Teicher, one of our country's leading brain researchers from Harvard, actually calls it a neurological disability to understand abstract concepts.
An example is a young lady that has a 3.8 GPA, but has been denied her diploma over our state math standard. She comes from a very traumatic childhood. She and her mother are amazing survivors and champions of resiliency, but neither one of them is able to understand abstract concepts. Her mother shared with me that it is very difficult to even explain how overwhelming and paralyzing it feels when she or her daughter is faced with trying to process and understand the abstract needed in order to demonstrate knowledge in our math standard. This young lady has been labelled a failure, and was told she should have tried harder and taken the math exam more seriously.
This young lady is such a gifted writer, the university who accepted her is honoring her scholarship despite the math and no high school diploma. She is so gifted, she is spending her first semester of college studying in Florence. Mom's last email to me was nothing less than heart breaking. She fought at every level to get her daughter eligible to graduate with her class and she was denied at the school level, district level, and from OSPI. Her comment, "Jim, I am raising the white flag! I do not have the energy to fight the system that should be fighting for my daughter." How many more students are experiencing the same rejection? With 2,000 at-risk in Washington State for not passing the math exam, there are likely to be similar experiences. And I would guess that most of these families can not afford legal action or support.
Another example: During her senior presentation one of our students shared how difficult it has been growing up with a mother that has told her she is a failure, a loser, that she will never make it in life, and that she would never graduate from high school. On top of that, the mother tells her that it is her wish that she fails everything. As you can imagine there was not a dry eye in the room. This special young lady with tears streaming down her face, thanked her Lincoln family for believing in her, encouraging her and helping her get her confidence back. She thanked the staff for supporting her and cheering her on to reach her greatest goal.....to graduate from high school. Her ending comment at the end of her presentation, "I am going to graduate, I am going to be the person I know I am on the inside, and now I can say, I am not the person my mom has labelled me my whole life."
The tears were streaming down our faces, but it went deeper than that. All of us in the room knew that if she didn't pass the state math exam, she would be denied her diploma. I can't tell you how much anxiety we were going through. We were beside ourselves with worry about being put in a position to tell this champion who broke through her adversity, "Sorry, you failed and now you have to deal with becoming what your mom has been labeling you all your life." Thank GOD she passed! We had one big celebration for all our kids, but were so incredibly grateful that we did not have to deliver the most dreadful things you would ever have to tell a student at the finish line: "You failed."
My fear is that, although there are kids who passed, there are also kids in the 4,200 at risk who were told they had failed. For these kids, their lives have been shattered into so many pieces they will have a very difficult time putting them back together again, if ever. Washington State ranked No. 1 in the nation for most rigorous high school graduation requirements......but at what cost?
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