Many of our marginalized students today have been raised with a “You can’t” mentality. From the cradle the people who are most important to them have told them they can’t succeed for reasons they have no control over.
They can’t because of their neighborhood!
They can’t because of their race!
They can’t because of their gender!
They can’t because of their income level!
They can’t because they come from a single-parent home.
Later, when they start school the “you cant’s” continue, except now they are lumped into a group. It’s “these kids can’t”.
Occasionally they come across a teacher who tries to change things by telling them they can, but you can’t has been burned so deeply into their subconscious by the people who are most important to them and the people who have had the greatest influence on them that the few individuals who tell them they can really don’t have a whole lot of effect.
So, what can we do?
I was raised in a you can’t environment. I was so convinced that I couldn’t do anything that for a very long time I was very successful at failing. Finally, as a single parent, raising 2 kids on little more than a high school education I decided I had to find a way to reach for the dream I had been told I couldn’t do. I wanted to be a teacher.
I was told I couldn’t.
I went against all the naysayers, enrolled in college, and said “maybe I can’t, but I will”.
Even I didn’t know the effect the simple change of saying “I will” would have. Not willing to give in to the possibility that I might succeed, I was then told “ok if you have to do it don’t worry about your grades, you don’t have to get A’s you only have to get C’s.”
And said, “Maybe I can’t get A’s, but I will”.
And I did.
In fact, I graduated with highest honors.
You see, I discovered that I couldn’t change the I can’t that had been burned deep into my very being. But I could replace it. Instead of I can’t, I started saying I will.
As an English teacher, when my student didn’t believe they could, I said then fine, maybe you can’t, but try, and I bet you will.
And they did.
Little by little they began to believe in themselves, and they began to prove that when others say they can’t they need to reply “I will” and then prove it!
This became the motto for my classes and is now the motto for YOU Life Skills and Leadership.
They said, “you can’t”, I replied, “I will”, I’ll prove “I did”!