54 Things Wrong With…how kids have been talked about!
Some books when you read them break your heart. This summer I read all of the Surrey School Book of the Year nominees and one of them was called 54 Things Wrong with Gwendolyn Rogers by Caela Carter. I ripped through it in a day. I cried. I was gutted. I saw some of my childhood and I definitely saw so many of my students or student experiences reflected in the text. I had a feeling it would have an impact on students.
My class yesterday voted on the read aloud and they chose this book. I was not surprised. Today I introduced the book a little more and my heart was broken—I felt like I needed to share what happened.
The Book
The main character of this book is named Gwendolyn Rogers. She is a kid who has regulation challenges and a very hard time at school—because school has not found ways to help her see herself as a learner, a human, or as successful. She wants to do the right thing…she knows what the right thing is…but her body betrays her: she yells out, she has to stay on a swing to pump her anger out, she misses instructions….
Gwendolyn gets nothing but negative feedback from…well…everywhere. When she was younger, she had an IEP meeting and a list of 54 things that were ‘wrong’ with her were compiled. She found the list, copied it and obsesses over it. Gwendolyn has internalized all of the horrific things on the list and feels like if she can just fix everything, she can be a better daughter, student, friend, and human.
This book is a powerful exploration of discovery. It sheds light on so many things including the complexity of neurodivergence, sexism, challenging family dynamics, and the utter desperation kids feel when they are making/trying so hard and feel like they are failing.
I warned you…gut wrenching, powerful, beautiful.
Introduction Activity
This book starts with the list of 54 things that Gwendolyn ‘learns’ are wrong with her from the list she found. Throughout the book, Gwendolyn references the list constantly through her internal dialogue. I decided to photocopy the list onto a page of 11X17 paper and made enough for one between two kids.
I talked about how the list was written with deficit-language and used phrases/ideas that should never be used to talk about a kid. For example, no kid is attention seeking—every single behaviour is communication! Think ‘connection seeking’ like Dr. Jody Carrington suggests and see the kid—help the kid. No kid is lazy. No kid has illogical fears…any fear that someone has can be explored and understood, but it is a valid feeling and saying a fear is illogical hurts the child. Unfortunately in my years of teaching, I have heard all of this language used to describe kids. I have heard it from educators, parents, and people who aren’t in education. Everyone has an opinion about ‘kids these days’. I have seen it in IEPs and heard students use the language on this list as a label for themselves. They internalize the ideas and these insidious thoughts chip away at who they are.
I asked each student to pull out a highlighter. I asked them to read the list in their heads and/or listen as I read it. I asked them to highlight every single item on the list that fit one or more of the following categories:
Heard an adult say it about them (to them or eavesdropping)
Heard a peer/friend say it about them
Thought in their heads (self talk)
As I read through the list, I explained what a few things meant. I heard lots of ‘yups’ and saw many heads nod—which worried me.
When we finished the list, I asked the students to pick one that they had highlighted to tell me about. We did a 5 minute quick write about how that particular word or phrase made them feel or how it impacted their learning/lives. I have not read all of the responses, but the few I looked at were heartbreaking.
I asked the groups to hand in the highlighted sheets. Between the sheets and the conversations I had, I was deeply saddened by the truth of the experiences my students have had.
Student Responses
I was not prepared for how many of these kids highlighted >20 of the items on the list. A few highlighted all. A few conversations started…
“I hear most of these all the time. I just ignore it now, because what can I do?”
“I know I am bad at school. If I could just concentrate more, I would just learn the stuff and be smart’”
“OMG, I have heard so many of these. She could be me!”
Page one, day one and my heart breaks. This books will be a deep dive into self talk, self efficacy, and self acceptance. We will explore ablism, sexism, and access to supports. We will discuss self advocacy and growth mindset. We will get messy. We will get real. We will learn together. I am grateful that I have this powerful book to use as scaffolding for important discussions.
Final Thoughts
Whether my students were actually called all of these things or they just think they were, it doesn’t matter. They identified so many things from the list in themselves—so the impact is real. The internalized negative self talk and self imposed rules for ‘getting better’ or ‘being a good student’ are so harmful.
This simple book introduction gave me so much information and has now shaped the direction of my SEL programming for the next several months. I have a year to deprogram some seriously negative thought patterns before I send my students off to high school. I hope I can help all of them on their journey.
This lesson also made me really think about the language used to talk about kids. The humans we teach internalize what we say and what they overhear. We need to be so careful and work towards strength-based language and strength-based IEP goals. We need to see the kids in front of us as kids and help them along their journey by building them up.
Remember that no child is a ‘lazy attention seeking kid who is being defiant’. No kid wants to have a hard time at school and hurt people, including themselves. All behaviour is communication. We as the adults need to work as a team to figure out what the kiddos in front of us are trying to communicate and then work with that same team—including the kid—to build a plan for success. A strengths-based whole child respectful plan.
If we all do this, maybe I won’t see so many items highlighted the next time I read this book.