A couple of weeks back I wrote about “The Unknown Students" and outlined a simple process for discovering which students are flying under the radar and are unknown by adults at the school. In discussing solutions such as having adults linked to students as mentors to get to know them, it was made clear that the key factor is that the students believe that their teachers and other adults at the school know them. It’s not enough that we may think we know them—it has to be from the students' perspective. In this situation, the students' perception is their reality.
But, this doesn't automatically mean that teachers need to do more, engage more, or try more. For some teachers, it means that they should actually keep doing what they are doing, but be more aware of wha