In education, it’s essential to see beyond labels and believe in every student’s potential. When we unlock student potential and align our expectations with the belief that every child can succeed, we create opportunities for growth.
I believe in accommodations. I believe in the critical role of special education.
I believe in trauma-informed teaching, scaffolding, and all the ways we work to meet students where they are.
I believe in grace. In compassion. In honoring what students carry with them into the classroom.
But I also believe in something else.
I believe in belief.
I believe in the power of expectations. In the quiet message we send students when we hold them capable. In the radical idea that labels should never define a child’s potential.
The Kid Who Changed Everything
My very first year teaching, I was just 22, barely older than the sixth graders sitting in front of me. I took over mid-year for a teacher who didn’t return after maternity leave. I was green, idealistic, and completely unaware of what I didn’t yet know.
That year, I had a student named Josh.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that Josh had an IEP and was supposed to be receiving special education services. Somehow, it slipped through the cracks and wasn’t mentioned for months. I didn’t fully understand what special education even entailed, but what I did see was a child who wanted to learn. He was bright, thoughtful, and just a little slower to finish things. Not incapable.
So we worked together. Day after day, in the regular classroom. I taught. He learned. And he didn’t just improve – he excelled. By the end of the year, Josh was earning A’s across the board. After a reprimand for not following his IEP, he was formally exited from special education.
He made such an impression on me that I later named one of my sons after him. And even now, decades later, I wonder where he is and what he’s doing. You don’t forget kids like that.
The Year I Overcorrected
The very next year, I overcorrected. Determined not to miss anything important again, I studied every permanent record before school started. I created a spreadsheet tracking grades, behavior notes, test scores – every possible piece of data.
I thought I was being responsible. Proactive.
But it was, in truth, my least successful year as a teacher.
Because I walked into that classroom thinking I already knew who those kids were. Without meaning to, I had written parts of their stories before they even stepped through the door.
This one will be a behavior issue.
This one will struggle.
This one has difficult parents.
Information matters. But assumptions destroy.
I learned to look at data without letting it cloud my vision. I started waiting a few weeks before reading student records just long enough to let kids show me who they were first. Eventually, I got good at seeing the paperwork without letting it color the child.
A Student They Didn’t Expect
Just last week, I found out that one of my former students had been inducted into the National Junior Honor Society.
Years earlier, he had been placed in a Life Skills class surrounded by students with significant disabilities. But something about him stood out. He had limited reading ability, maybe at a 1st-grade level, but he was bright. Curious. Capable.
His teacher approached me in October of that year and asked if I’d be willing to take him into my math class. I agreed. With very specific, scaffolded instruction, he was able to follow along. In fact, he could recall his multiplication facts better than some of my general ed students.
When it came time for the test — an entire page of word problems — he couldn’t access it independently due to his reading level. So I sat with him, reading aloud one problem at a time. It took days. I likely guided him more than I realized. But he only missed one question.
It was a turning point.
We tackled double-digit division next which was a notoriously difficult concept for 5th graders, and again, he succeeded. Other students did too. The scaffolding I provided for him helped more than just one child. I began to change the way I approached small group instruction.
And something else changed: him.
He began to thrive – socially, emotionally, academically. My class embraced him with heart and empathy. He became one of us. I collaborated with the Life Skills and Special Education teachers, and we advocated for him to join more classes. Slowly, he transitioned into general education for every subject except ELAR.
And still, the system said: He doesn’t belong here.
When he moved to middle school, they placed him right back into Life Skills. “The content is too rigorous,” they said.
We pushed back. His teachers, the principal, and I all fought for him. Eventually, the middle school agreed to a trial placement.
They expected him to fail.
He didn’t.
Years passed, and I lost track of him – until that text. He had just been inducted into NJHS. Several teachers from his early years were stunned. “How is that even possible?” they asked.
And the response from the assistant principal who knew the full story was simple:
“Because someone saw him. Because someone believed he could.”
What Are We Really Saying?
Labels can help, but they can also harm. Sometimes the quiet messages we send through accommodations, through modifications, through low expectations whisper something else entirely:
You’re not on grade level.
You’ll need support to succeed.
The rules don’t apply to you because your life has been hard.
We say these things with compassion. I’ve said them myself. I’ve adjusted. I’ve offered grace. But there’s a line, subtle and different for every child, where grace becomes a ceiling instead of a bridge.
In trying to protect students from failure, we can also shield them from growth.
Instead of opening doors, we lower the bar.
Instead of grace and growth, we settle for survival.
A Different Kind of Success
I don’t believe success is measured by a title.
Not every child is going to college. Not every child needs to. Some of the most successful people I know run their own businesses, work with their hands, or live lives of quiet integrity.
What we are should never define who we are.
Every child – every single one – deserves to leave school believing they are capable. That they are valuable. That they are seen.
That they matter.
That they’re not broken.
That they don’t need to be fixed in order to be worthy.
Final Thought
What if we led every conversation about student needs with the quiet assumption that they can?
What if the labels we use to support kids become the very thing that holds them back?
What if, in protecting students from failure, we also shield them from growth?
What does success look like for a child who never fits the mold? For a child whose brain works differently? For a child whose story is heavier than most adults could carry?
What If We Choose to Believe?
Because when we believe in students — even when it’s hard — they begin to believe in more than just themselves — they begin to believe in possibility.
They learn to carry that belief with them, long after they’ve left our classrooms.
And in that belief, we unlock the potential they didn’t know they had.
They start to believe in themselves. And that belief can change everything.
