“Assuming the best is essential for long-term learning and positive connections to take place in our classrooms.” (Smith & Lambert, 2008)

In order for students to succeed in the classroom and for teachers to succeed as well it is important to assume the best of our students. As a teacher, this can be particularly difficult when dealing with challenging students because sometimes it is just easier to say “it’s because they don’t care and they don’t want to learn” and contribute the student’s challenging behavior to them not wanting to learn and just brush it off. When in reality teachers should be doing the exact opposite.

As Smith and Lambert mention, although it sometimes may be counterintuitive, it is more beneficial for teachers to assume the best in students and assume that students want to learn and that we have to teach them how to behave and how to be “good” learners. I don’t think that when teachers write off a student’s bad behavior to them not wanting to learn that it comes from a “bad” place but rather that it comes from self preservation because teaching can be very challenging and especially when teaching challenging students it can be difficult when we take those student’s behaviors to heart and take it personally. Therefore, as a way to preserve our sanity we sometimes as educators have a tendency to write it off as something that the student doesn’t want to do therefore there is nothing we can do. However, Smith and Lambert mention that this can actually be detrimental and that instead, assuming the best out of students will in fact help teachers in dealing with difficult students because then they can find a way to work with the students to get them to the learning that they are willing to participate in. Smith and Lambert mention some very useful strategies in dealing with challenging students and one of them that I found particularly interesting was the two-by-ten strategy where teachers talk to their challenging students for 2 minutes a day for 10 days straight and have a personal meaningful conversation with those students. This is important as teachers to remember because more often than not, students who are acting out want attention and if we just show them that we care about them, they may gradually change their behavior because they hopefully will realize that we value them as not only a student but as a person as well.