High Card - Low Card Neutral Card Mentality

Imagine a deck of cards. Imagine a face card a #6 card and a #2 card. We all have a card by which we go into assessment. For example, I may know the student I am about to observe is a sibling of Johnny. I have a flashback moment and remember Johnny from the past. He was the one kid who gave me the start of grey hair. I remember him jumping on top of desks, tearing down the hallway and screaming Im going to key your car. Needless to say, as I go into my first observation of Johnnys sibling I have a low card mentality. I may view this sibling as another potential Johnny. The flip side can be true as well. I may go into an assessment situation with a high card mentality. I may like the family, like the kid and in my own way assume during an observation that there will be nothing wrong with this student. It must be a conflict with that difficult teacher. How we view kids (high card, low card or neutral) prior to assessment and especially observations, impacts the outcome of the assessment/observation. Kids are often what we look for. It is our ethical responsibility to train ourselves to go into assessment with a NEUTRAL card mentality. We need to be factual and unemotional. We need to be non judgmental. Thanks to the grace and mercy of our savior Jesus Christ who died for our sins and then rose again and lives we are all high cards! We will be judged, but found to be as clean and white as snow all our sins are wiped away and forgiven. At times, we and the students we work with act and behave like low cards. However, in the realm of a SPED teacher, we must view kids at the start of assessment as neutral cards. Only in that way can we be objective as we assess and observe. As you begin your observations and then your curriculum-based measurement or other informal assessment pieces, remember to train yourself to keep a neutral card mentality. You may be amazed at what God reveals about the students you assess, if we dont pre-judge.