Education Week - November 17, 2021 - 20

16
Schools Can't Hide
From Climate Change
17
A Radical Approach to
Student Mental Health
18
Letters to the Editor
Stop Telling Students 'You Belong!'
W
By Greg Walton
WALTON is the Michael Forman University Fellow in Undergraduate
Education and an associate professor of psychology at
Stanford University, the creator of wiseinterventions.org, and a
co-founder of the College Transition Collaborative.
hen I began studying students'
experience of belonging 20
years ago, people weren't
talking so much about
belonging. But now, we're
constantly told we belong. A
notepad on my desk assures
me, " You belong. " A button I was handed at a school meeting
says the same. And the other day, I saw yet another sign, firmly
planted in an elementary school garden: " You belong! "
Hooray! Kudos to us!
Make no mistake, belonging is important. My colleagues
and I have developed strategies to support a sense of belonging
for students and have shown its effects in experiment after
experiment with control groups to identify causal relationships.
Through this work, we've found that, in middle and high
school, a lack of belonging causes worse attendance, lower
grades, and disciplinary problems. In college, belonging
concerns sap motivation and contribute to inequality in
achievement-and life success.
Why then do I feel a pit in my stomach every time I hear,
" You belong! " ? It's because that phrase doesn't do the job.
It might even make things worse. As we stumble through a
pandemic, with all the worry, isolation, and grief it has caused,
and as we try to rebuild our communities in schools, that's the
last thing we need.
I'm teaching a first-year seminar at Stanford University now,
and my students are thrilled to be on campus. But they left new
student orientation bruised and battered by the onslaught of
" You belong! " One student said, " The constant reiteration of
'you belong here' made me doubt that it's true since they felt
the need to repeat it with such fervor and frequency. " Thou
doth protest too much, dear Stanford.
In general, when students wonder whether they belong, they
have excellent reasons. School transitions are always taxing:
Friendships and ways of learning are disrupted. Questions of
belonging also often fall along group lines. Students of color
confront the legacy of racial segregation in American schooling
and racist stereotypes that imply lesser intelligence. Lowincome
students hear their group described as " vulnerable "
and experience a cultural mismatch in school settings
organized for their wealthier peers. And girls and women
encounter negative stereotypes in math and science. These
are realities. They provoke students to ask again and again, " Is
school really for me? Is this a place where people like me can
truly belong, learn, and succeed? "
Simply telling students, " You belong! " ignores their
legitimate concerns. Worse yet, it shifts the onus to the student:
We've assured you that you belong. If you still don't think you
belong, that's your problem.
It's especially touchy when the message seems targeted at
just those students with the greatest reasons to question their
belonging-the lone woman in an engineering class, the Black
student surrounded by white peers, the low-income student
among wealthier classmates. These are the students who need
sensitive support, not glib reassurance.
How can we provide this support? It takes wisdom, planning,
and hard work. Here are three lessons, all drawn from research.
First, we should talk about how difficult school transitions
are. As a graduate student, I interviewed 7th graders about
their experience coming to middle school. They worried they
would forget their locker combination, that they might get lost.
For African American students, these worries were laced with
a growing awareness of racial stereotypes. Would people treat
them fairly?
What can we do? We can make it obvious that worries
about belonging are normal, that they are felt by everyone,
albeit in their own way, and that the worries can wane with
time. The teachers of both my 6- and 9-year-olds read Julie
Danneberg's First Day Jitters to their classes early this year. It
tells the story of how even a teacher is anxious on the first of
school. (One wonderful teacher even shared her own feelings
of nervousness!)
Research finds that talking about belonging as a process, as
improving even if never quite complete, can ease transitions to
middle school, high school, and college, raising achievement
and reducing inequalities over years. One way to do this is
to host well-structured conversations: how belonging worries
20 | EDUCATION WEEK | November 17, 2021 | www.edweek.org/opinion
are normal, why they come up, and how students and teachers
can work together to make things better.
Second, we should support students' diverse identities and
recognize them as sources of motivation and success. The fact
is many students we serve have identities that cast them in
pejorative terms, that pose them as weak or dumb or violent
and therefore as undeserving of educational opportunities. So,
it's important to honor and support positive representations
of students' groups and identities. Well-done ethnic-studies
courses can raise attendance and grades in high school.
Tiffany Brannon at the University of California, Los Angeles,
emphasizes a " pride and prejudice " approach to belonging-
support the pride students feel in their groups and reduce the
prejudice they face.
Third, we should be explicit that school is about learning
and growth, not identifying who's smart. The latter " fixedmindset "
message, even if implicit, is terrifying for students
who face the stereotype that people like them aren't as smart
as others. The " You belong! " chorus my students heard was
especially harmful because it was interspersed with praise for a
select few-like the one student who had invented a new form
of gene coding.
When we welcome students to school, we should focus on
the future, not the past-on the amazing things students can do
learning and working together. When we evaluate students' work,
we should praise their progress. When we give critical feedback,
we should be explicit about our growth-oriented goals- " I'm
giving you this feedback because I have high standards and I
know you can meet them. " That's telling students why you give
them feedback-not just " I think you can do it. "
The Student Experience Research Network, which provides
research-based resources to education stakeholders seeking
student well-being, offers more ideas.
If a close friend shared a difficulty in your relationship with
you, you wouldn't say, " Don't worry. We're great! " No, you'd
talk with them. You'd listen. You'd try your best to understand
how they feel, knowing that however they feel is legitimate.
Together, you'd chart a path of growth and you'd do your part
to follow that path. So it is with students who question their
belonging in school.
It's not our job to tell students how they feel. It is our job to
create ways of thinking, cultures, and personal relationships
that make school a place of genuine belonging for every child.
Laura Lannes for Education Week
http://www.wiseinterventions.org http://www.edweek.org/opinion
Education Week - November 17, 2021

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