JH & HS Principal - Cherokee ISD By Rebecca Sharkey
Former basketball coach and math teacher extraordinaire, Stephanie Bond, once used the term “feigned incompetence.” This has been a phrase that has stuck with me. I believe this phrase struck a chord with me because it immediately caused me to think of my own nephew. He is the master of feigned incompetence. I can distinctly remember plenty of times where the family would all be doing yardwork and yet there was no expectation put on him because “he can’t do that” or “doesn’t know how to do this.”
He masterfully established a low bar, and the rest of the family just quit expecting anything of him when it came to work. He is kind of a genius and hemorrhoid all rolled into one.
Aside from that fun fact, the idea of feigned incompetence does remind me that we do have to be certain that we are all cognizant of the fact that all students can and must learn, which means that we are responsible for ensuring that what we expect of our students is something meaningful and challenging. This means that we must pay attention to our lessons and the products that are to come from the lessons. Do they challenge all of our students? But, we also must ensure that we expect all of our students to appropriately struggle through the learning process rather than allow them to remain mediocre. We have to raise the bar, which means we have to raise our level of expectation. As inventor Charles Kettering informed us, “High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.”