The Transformation of M Desrameaux
by High school student M Desrameaux is from a poor Haitian American family. As such, lacking much confidence in his own intelligence, he began his year in physics doing poorly. By the end of May of that school years, he was earning A’s and his whole outlook on life changed.
Everyone in academia has his or her success stories. This is one of mine….
In my 38 years as an educator, I have taught in many a school, from pre-K through Elderhostel, and all institutions in between. While most of my career has been at the college and university level, this particular success story came during one year that I was serving as a full time faculty member at an inner city Catholic High School
My role was, ostensibly, as a physics teacher. The subject matter wasn’t as important as causing the learning and understanding of my students. One particular student comes to mind as he became transformed intellectually during the period that he was my pupil.
Mr. Mandel Desrameaux is a first generation Haitian American. However, as a mentor, I always address my students as Mr. or Miss, or in this case, Monsieur, as his parents speak French. By showing a formal respect to my students, it immediately elevates them to a level of importance. Yes, I was M. Desrameaux’s teacher, but more importantly, I saw my role as someone to cause learning. If M. Desrameaux didn’t learn, then I failed, no matter what my title was. He immediately noticed that I was not going to patronize him and call him by his first name, but, rather, to accept him as a co-equal human, worthy of my esteem.
Initially, M. Desrameaux appeared to be a dim bulb1 or as dumb as a box of rocks2 as we often hear. His first few grades were quite poor. Noticing this, I elected to devote more attention to his mental needs. While not ignoring other students, often times many students can do quite well for short periods of time in directed study during class time. This allowed me to visit individual students, one on one, in the class.
Over the course of one academic year, M. Desrameaux not only was able to master some of the most complex concepts in physics, more importantly, he came to believe in himself. Eventually, instead of being a dim bulb, a light bulb came on over his head.3
He began to believe that he could do it. That this knowledge was not beyond his reach. By the year’s end, his papers were almost all “A” grades, and he began to spontaneously go around and help other students to understand the subject at hand. In other words, he figured out that persistence does, indeed, pay off.
M. Desrameaux’s success was not mere happenstance or revelation from the heavens. Rather, it was due to his teacher believing in him to the point of his believing in himself. That could happen only if I, as his teacher, would make it a priority for the young man to learn, i.e., for me, as teacher, to cause learning. And the techniques included, but are not limited to one-on-one instruction at times, assessing his level of understanding, asking him questions, allowing him to make errors along the way, being non-judgmental, helping him determine his goals, and finally, being able to make comments to him in his family’s own language, thus validating respect for his culture.
Of course, a teacher can do only so much with chalk and a board. In today’s world, we have the vast resources of advanced technology which seeming zoom forward at a rapid pace.
Besides using personal experiences, stories, and relevant anecdotes to help M Desrameaux, laboratory exercises we done regularly to re-enforce his understanding. Further, access to a “smart room” as a class room allowed all students to see, in streaming and living “color” real world applications, via the internet and other sources.
Rather than the traditional, and sometimes droll, methods of lecture, chalk, and board, instruction comes alive with fast computer technology, jpeg and mpeg files, PowerPoint presentations, online videos, and access to important websites.
With the combination of credentials, the styles of instruction mentioned, and technology, M Desrameaux didn’t stand a chance4 of failing. And I can’t think of any way to improve upon success.
Footnotes
1 dim bulb, attributed to the puppet dummy of American TV entertainer, Charlie McCarthy (1903- 1978), whose name was Mortimer Snerd
2 dumb as a box of rocks, attributed to National Public Radio commentator, and large animal veterinarian, Baxter Black (1945 – )
3 light bulb over my head, original attribute is unknown, but it was used as part of script dialogue in the 1988 film, Working Girl, spoken by character Katherine Parker, who was played by Sigourney Weaver
4 stand a Chance, attributed to Alexandre Dumas (1802 – 1870), French, and author of The Three Musketeers
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