What Beliefs Serve Children and Youth in Poverty?
The word “beliefs” here refers to people’s core values and attitudes on which they base behaviors. Star teachers and administrators gather their beliefs from a variety of sources — upbringing, faith, philosophy, and life experiences. Regardless of the source, star teachers share certain unshakeable beliefs about their mission to serve children in poverty. In Dr. Haberman’s observations and interviews with successful teachers, the same practices and principles repeatedly arose. These core beliefs predict who will succeed in the classroom with under-resourced youth. Persistence. The first core belief is that teachers must be endlessly persistent.5 Star teachers will not say, “Some get it; some just don’t.” They will search repeatedly, using every tool in a very large toolkit, to find a way to help each child learn. The belief that it is the teacher’s job to keep trying until they are successful is widely accepted in the research: Teacher persistence helps foster effective teaching. Spe
