By Jane Roberts - The Commercial Appeal -

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 -

The idea that only a few people in a room are smart and the rest have a lot to prove is on trial this week in camp designed to change hearts and minds and eventually the culture of Memphis City Schools.

It all comes down to some simple brain theory, which 15 middle schoolers are soaking up at Douglass Elementary and five other city schools.

"Smart is not just something you are but something you get," says Barbara Logan, director of School Services and Training at the Efficacy Institute in Waltham, Mass.

With $1.1 million this year from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant to Memphis City Schools, Efficacy plans to train several hundred "student envoys" responsible for preaching the gospel of discipline and self-esteem, and delivering the message that smart isn't by chance.

In three years, the district expects to have 3,000 envoys, who will be "impacting 100,000 students in five years," Logan said.

The first downer in the weeklong camp arrived early Tuesday in the form of large silver spheres.

Logan, "inducing failure," directed the students to move the spheres simultaneously clockwise and counter-clockwise in their palms and walked off like it was easy.

Brows were knit in frustration and then despair.

"Of course, you can't do it the first time, but you can if you practice," Logan said, asking them to describe their feelings in the experiment, and then what those feelings made them want to do.

"Quit," was the popular idea.

"We all get negative messages, but these children get more of them because of their background," Logan said, referring to under-privileged students in Memphis City Schools.

By fall, the district intends to have student envoys in 50 city schools, the idea being that change needs to come from the students themselves, says Logan, who noted the idea originated in Memphis.

"We've never worked this way before," she said. "Let me tell you, everybody is watching what's happening in Memphis right now because of the Gates grant and Race to the Top."

With $90 million from the Gates Foundation, the district is trying to improve the learning climate in several ways, including beefing up teacher skill and nearly six-figure salaries.

In a 2009 survey, 61.9 percent of children at Douglass Elementary said they concentrate in class, but when responses from all students in the northeast region are added in, the number plummets to 37.1 percent.

"If you think about it, there is a culture of failure in a lot of urban systems," said Dr. Jeff Warren, school board member.

"By the time students get to middle school and high school, being smart isn't cool anymore. We need to stay in the educational game, keep the enthusiasm for learning all through life, including middle school and high school.

"It is going to definitely help student achievement."

In a second-story classroom, with a wall fan buzzing in the background, middle school students in T-shirts reading "Ask Me How to Get Smart" talk about how hard it is to stay in the game when you see yourself as "sorta smart" (SS) or "kinda dumb" (KD) but not "very smart" (VS), Efficacy's key categories.

"If you believe you can get smart, then you can move up," said Mary Makee, 13, grasping the language and the logic.

"But you have to have confidence that you can do it."

-- Jane Roberts: 529-2512