108 Global Education Review 3(1) Confronting Challenges at the Intersection of Rurality, Place, and Teacher Preparation: Improving Efforts in Teacher Education to Staff Rural Schools Amy Price Azano Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Trevor Thomas Stewart Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Abstract Recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers in rural schools is a persistent struggle in many countries, including the U.S. While rural education researchers have long lamented the struggle to recruit and retain teachers, there is relatively little known about intentional efforts to prepare teachers, specifically, for rural classrooms. Salient challenges related to poverty, geographic isolation, low teacher salaries, and a lack of community amenities seem to trump perks of living in rural communities. Recognizing this issue as a complex and hard to solve fixture in the composition of rural communities, we sought to understand how teacher preparation programs might better prepare preservice teachers for successful student teaching placements and, ideally, eventual careers in rural schools. In this study, we explore teacher candidates’ perceptions of rurality while examining how specific theory, pedagogy, and practice influence their feelings of preparedness for working in a rural school. Using pre- and post- questionnaire data, classroom observations, and reflections, we assess the effectiveness of deliberate efforts in our teacher preparation program to increase readiness for rural teaching. In our analysis and discussion, we draw on critical and sociocultural theories to understand the experiences of a cohort of teacher candidates as they explore personal histories, the importance of place, expectations, and teaching strategies for rural contexts. We conclude our article with recommendations for enhancing teacher preparation programs in ways that might result in significant progress toward the goal of staffing rural schools with the highly skilled teachers all students deserve. Keywords Rural education, teacher education, English education, place-based education Global Education Review is a publication of The School of Education at Mercy College, New York. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License, permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Citation: Azano, Amy Price & Stewart, Trevor Thomas (2016). Confronting challenges at the intersection of rurality, place and teacher preparation: Improving efforts in teacher education to staff rural schools. Global Education Review, 3(1) 108-128. Confronting Challenges 109 “I’m not rural. I don’t know how Theoretical Framework I will relate to the students.” At the center of our English Education program –Jenny is a focus on helping preservice teachers learn to enact a dialogic pedagogy (Stewart, 2010), which Jenny’s1 anxiety about teaching in a rural requires focused efforts by teachers to bring the school, as a non-rural native, captures one of content being studied into dialogue with many struggles in recruiting and retaining highly students’ lives (Fecho, 2011a). Russian literary qualified teachers in rural schools. Her response theorist Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of language to a survey, given during her English Education forms the foundation for a pedagogy based on program, represents a concern that growing up dialogue. His concept of heteroglossia focused in a non-rural environment will limit one’s on the ways that words and their meanings are effectiveness as a teacher in a rural school and, shaped by the context and contexts in which thus, one’s sense of preparedness for doing so. they have been used. He argued the “social This perception, among others, represents one of atmosphere of the word, the atmosphere that the many challenges facing rural communities surrounds the object makes the facets of the seeking to staff their schools with adept teachers image sparkle” (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 277). For (Azano & Stewart, 2015). Advantages for Bakhtin, words, in living conversation, are teaching in a rural school, such as small class directly “oriented toward a future answer-word” sizes and community closeness, fall short as true (p. 280). The connection causes understanding incentives for recruiting highly qualified to be directly linked to response. Simply put, teachers (Barley & Brigham, 2008; Monk, understanding and response are dependent 2007), while other challenges related to poverty, upon one another, which means that both the geographic isolation, lower teacher salaries, and speaker and the listener directly influence the a lack of community amenities (Miller, 2012) meaning of any utterance. Therefore, meaning seem to trump the potential perks of living in a making cannot occur without this dialogue rural area. between speaker and listener. We recognize that, as teacher educators, We apply this theory to teaching and we are not in a position to immediately address learning to highlight the importance of not these larger challenges. We can, however, placing teachers and school-based literacies in engineer significant changes within the privileged positions. Instead, we seek to flatten construct of our teacher preparation program in hierarchies and make it clear that preservice terms of preparing teachers for success in rural teachers and the students they teach have funds schools. By enabling preservice teachers to see of knowledge (Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005) beyond their apprenticeships of observation that can make learning and teaching dynamic, (Lortie, 1975) and helping them learn to make engaging, and meaningful, while still addressing dialogue, place, and culture the touchstones of the curricular demands teachers encounter in their teaching practices, we believe that we can standards era classrooms (Stewart, 2012; Fecho, make significant progress toward staffing rural 2011a). We bring this theoretical underpinning schools with high quality teachers – regardless of where they grew up – who can engage Corresponding Author: students in meaningful learning experiences. Amy Price Azano, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0002. Email: [email protected] 110 Global Education Review 3(1) to our work because we believe that connecting he began his teaching career in a one-stoplight curricula to students’ individual cultures is a Appalachian town. These experiences vital element of teaching and learning, especially significantly influence our beliefs about in the context of place-based education. Maxine culturally responsive pedagogy. Yes, our place Greene’s (1978) belief that students should be identities and upbringings shaped our knowing able “to encounter curriculum as a possibility” of the world. However, our master’s level (p. 18) guides our efforts as we work to help our teaching preparation and early teaching careers preservice teachers craft units. We want them to in environments significantly different from our see content as a tool that helps students think “home” environments reshaped that knowing. deeply, instead of the content being a Now, as teacher educators, we understand how decontextualized set of goals to attain. crucial it is that preservice teachers understand Moreover, we believe a focus on place is critical the nuances of place and culture. in this process. Place-based pedagogy refers to educational practices seeking to tie the realities Embracing and Exploring Difference of place and students’ lives to meaningful The methods courses in our English Education instruction, particularly for the purpose of program draw on critical (Delpit, 1995; Freire, student engagement (Azano, 2011). Paul 1970) and sociocultural theories (Gee, 2008) to Theobald (1997) writes about place-conscious facilitate the development of classrooms where education as a scaffold to make meaning of what “literacy is used to immerse teacher and he also recognized as the “decontextualized students in an ongoing reflective conversation stuff” of schooling. This framework shapes our with the texts of their lives” (Fecho, 2011b, p. 5). efforts to make students’ lives and individual We take this stance because we believe that cultural contexts a starting point for the learning is dependent on dialogue. Engaging in exploration of literature, writing, and dialogue. discussion and seeing meaning making as a collaborative activity engenders possibilities for Our Stance creativity and wonder to guide students and Although we might not have had the language of teachers as they encounter texts in the English these theories at our disposal, we developed classroom. This process is facilitated when these beliefs about learning and teaching long teachers build units of instruction and individual before we became teacher educators as a result lessons focused on conceptual units of our personal backgrounds and experiences as (Smagorinsky, 2008) that engage students in students in teacher preparation programs. Amy meaningful dialogue and connect their home grew up in the Appalachian foothills of Virginia cultures with curricular goals. As students in an economically depressed rural community. engage in dialogue with texts and with each Her preparation to become a teacher, however, other, understanding merges with response to was at a major, urban university, where she make new meaning. Instead of reifying accepted eventually began her teaching career. Her meanings, symbols can be called into question. experiences as an “urban teacher” served as a This dialogic space not only honors the home sharp contrast to having been a “rural student.” cultures shaping students’ understanding of Trevor had the opposite experience. He grew up concepts, but also provides a critical frame for in urban Maryland and was prepared as an interrogating how and why those cultural English teacher in rural North Carolina, where influences shape interpretations. Confronting Challenges 111 secondary licensure program in English Education. During the fall semester, students Methods were enrolled in two English education courses and a practicum. In the spring, they were Context of Study completing their student teaching requirement This study represents our efforts to understand and enrolled in their final methods course. This how teacher educator programs might better enabled us to study any potential shifts in their prepare preservice teachers for success in rural perceptions of teaching in rural schools based on schools. We have two questions guiding this what they were learning in their methods inquiry. First, what are teacher candidates’ courses and internships. Additionally three perceptions of rurality? Second, how can students (two male and one female) from next teacher preparation programs prepare year’s cohort, who were enrolled in one of the preservice English teachers for success in rural English education methods courses, completed schools? As a teacher preparation program at a the pre-questionnaire survey (as described in the land-grant university geographically situated in data generation section). Appalachia, we feel it is our responsibility to address this pressing need in rural communities. Elements of English Education Courses We hope by understanding students’ perceptions During the fall semester, the participants took a of reality and how our efforts to prepare course, Methods I, focused specifically on preservice teachers for work in rural schools are instructional design and lesson planning in the or are not influencing candidates, that we can English education classroom. During this make critical decisions in shaping the program course, students studied planning practices to somehow turn the tide on a longstanding and based on Smagorinsky’s (2008) work with stubborn problem in rural education. conceptual units. This focus was directly connected with seminars discussing Derrick English Education Program and Jensen’s (2004) text Walking on Water and Participants Fecho’s (2011b) Writing in the Dialogical We conducted this study with the students in the Classroom in order to scaffold the preservice English Education program at a large, research teachers’ efforts to learn how to teach from a intensive, university in rural Appalachia with dialogic stance. Students were encouraged to access to multiple urban and rural school question the traditional role of the teacher as districts. Our program employs a cohort model, sources of knowledge and view themselves as and preservice teachers typically complete collaborators or co-conspirators in the internships in both rural and urban schools in construction of knowledge (Appleman, 2000). the final year of their program. We recruited a From this perspective, the participants crafted purposeful sample (Maxwell, 2005) of students lessons and units plans and put them into action who were in the final year of the program. All 11 during their field placements. students in the cohort, comprised of eight female Also during the fall semester, students and three male White students, elected to were enrolled in Teaching Adolescent Readers participate in the study. These students all have (TAR) in which Amy incorporated a focus on a bachelor’s degree in English and are nearing issues related to teaching in rural schools. completion of their master’s in education and Throughout the semester students were 112 Global Education Review 3(1) challenged to consider how place, as a context concrete experiences of putting this theory into for one’s home culture, influences the reading of practice and enabled them to work together to a particular text. For example, rurality was one think about how to address the complexities they of the major themes in the discussion of John were encountering in their placements. Meyer Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Students and Sawyer (2006) noted the importance of considered how marginalized places influenced supporting students as they learn to participate and continue to influence the interpretation of in communities of practice that “foster “the American Dream.” Of note, this is the interdependence, peer support, reflectivity, second course students have taken with Amy. In multiple perspectives, and dialogue” (p. 49). We the previous course (Comprehension and drew on their framework for engaging in inquiry Content Area Reading), students viewed seminars to develop a Problem-Posing Protocol portions of Country Boys (Sutherland, 2005) (see Appendix A), which would help teacher and read “Ways of Being at Risk: The Case of candidates focus on specific issues and regard Billy Charles Barnett” (Barone, 1989). This their peers as a support network for navigating previous experience gave the class a certain the challenges they were encountering in their context for discussions about rural education. placements. We began this semester by The subject of Barone’s case study, “Billy modeling a Problem-Posing Seminar, focused Charles,” was an expert on coonskins and specifically on teaching in a rural school, which making turtle soup, and the article described the we discuss later in this article. This seminar ways in which the school curriculum failed him. created an opportunity for us to further Often class discussions would reflect on these understand how students were applying the texts with a question like, “How would we concept of cultural relevance and its application engage Billy Charles with this text?” for teaching in a rural school. In the final course in our English education sequence, Methods II, we draw upon Data Generation Meyer and Sawyer’s (2006) practice of inquiry Consistent with our social constructionist seminars to engage students in “Problem-Posing theoretical framework, which privileges dialogue Seminars.” As part of our efforts to help and the joint construction of knowledge, we preservice teachers make the transition from employed multiple modes of data generation to teacher candidate to practicing teacher, we strive ensure that the participants had multiple to create opportunities for them to engage in opportunities to share their insights and dialogue with one another to address the perceptions in three, distinct phases (Lincoln challenges they are encountering in their student and Guba, 1985). In our initial orientation teaching placements. The participants were phase, we administered a pre-questionnaire required to craft lesson and unit plans that put during the fall semester (see Appendix B) to the abstract ideas of a dialogic pedagogy into develop a basis of understanding of students’ practice in each of the courses in the sequence. perceptions of rurality and comfort level with During Methods II, specifically, the participants the prospect of teaching in a rural school. Based created lessons focused on writing learning goals on what we learned from that initial that required making connections between the questionnaire, we moved to our second phase of classroom context and students’ lives outside of “focused exploration” by designing a model school. These lessons provided students with Problem-Posing seminar to focus discussion Confronting Challenges 113 related to a potential challenge of teaching in a Posing seminar, and reflections), we used rural school (see Appendix C). Amy attended preliminary codes to establish evidentiary Trevor’s Methods II course and led the first warrants for developing assertions (Erickson, Problem-Posing seminar as a model early in the 1986). We then tested the validity of these spring semester. This seminar was observed and assertions by searching for confirming and transcribed by a graduate research assistant. disconfirming evidence across all data. For Finally, at the mid-point of the spring semester, example, an initial code of “insider/outsider” we conducted phase three of our data was used to describe concerns, like Jenny’s at generation, member checks and closure, by the start of this article, capturing how teacher asking participants to write short answer candidates might feel about teaching in a rural reflections (see Appendix D) designed to gauge school if they lack first-hand experience as a their take-aways from these experiences. rural student. However, applied to the data corpus, we found the data did not support this Data Analysis dichotomy and reframed the development of the We employed a recursive method for data assertion. For example, we found that despite analysis and used analytic induction (Erickson, some students’ feelings as an “outsider,” they 1986) to make sense of the data. After each were quite adept at offering solutions to a rural phase of data collection, researchers first challenge during the Problem-Posing seminar. reviewed data individually (after they had been Similarly, they were able to recognize in their de-identified by a graduate research assistant) reflections that they needed a rural placement to and then met to discuss initial observations and feel adequately prepared to teach in a rural to reflect on the experience. Once data school. Rather than “insider/outsider,” an generation was complete, we conducted another assertion capturing the nuance of cultural reading of the qualitative data corpus experiences and the influence they have on one’s individually and made observations toward feelings about rurality became a more fitting emerging themes. Data were then formally frame for thinking of this dissonance. Students coded to identify trends in the participants’ who had experience in a rural school in any perceptions of the affordances and constraints of capacity felt more confident than those who did teaching in rural schools and in their feelings of not. These more refined codes further delineated preparedness to teach in rural schools. We used thematic understandings of the data, as reflected a thematic analysis (Maxwell, 2005) in our in Table 1. However, those initial codes were coding process to identify salient themes for maintained as meaning makers that led to the further analysis. interpretation and application of those refined After developing an initial set of codes. We then arranged quotes from the categorizing codes reflecting participants’ participants into tables related to the themes we perceptions of rurality and their own identified. We used these tables and the themes preparedness, we met to discuss data and to further examine the data and consider salient further examine themes. Initially categorized by issues in light of the themes we created data groupings (pre-questionnaire, Problem- (Riessman, 2008). 114 Global Education Review 3(1) Table 1 Initial and Refined Codes Initial codes / Refined codes Interpretation of codes Meaning making Insider/outsider Cultural experience The degree to which participants expressed the belief that they had or lacked first-hand experience, which influenced their perceptions and feelings of preparedness. Close-knit community Rural benefits The ways in which participants Connection to nature identified perceived affordances of working in a rural community. Lack of resources Rural challenges The ways in which participants Low reading ability articulated perceived deficits associated with teaching in a rural community. Low expectations Student needs The ways in which participants Lacking motivation articulated perceived challenges Curricular relevance associated with working with rural students. Stereotypes Stereotypes Participants’ understanding of the influence or threat of rural stereotypes. Table 1 This process of coding, organizing, and reflecting evidentiary warrants. In keeping with analytic on the data led to our systematic and exhaustive induction, narrative vignettes and direct quotes analyses of the data, from which we developed “make clear the particulars of the patterns of findings described as empirical assertions social organization and meaning-perspective (Erickson, 1986) in the subsequent section. This that are contained in the assertions” (Erickson, inductive approach helped us examine the 1986, p. 149). Our assertions suggest generally participants’ perceptions and reflect upon how that teacher candidates initially regard rural we might improve our program to better prepare communities as idyllic place, rural schools as future preservice teachers. having limited resources (e.g., technology), and rural students as having many shortfalls (e.g., motivation). However, their training in a Findings dialogic pedagogy gives them a frame for In this section, we describe assertions from our understanding how they, as English teachers, analyses and provide supporting data from the Confronting Challenges 115 can address challenges to meet the needs of experiences among people. Bakhtin, however, rural learners. also argued that language and culture are subject to the centrifugal forces that decentralize Assertion 1: Participants’ beliefs about language, meaning, and, thus, experiences. This rural communities are grounded in the process of “centralization and decentralization” idyllic rural trope. (p. 272) results in experiences that are, at once, Grounding The Assertion in Theory common and unique. Meaning, that while rural Bakhtin’s (1981) notion of heteroglossia speaks students may in fact have experience with to a tension or conflict in language and how nature, those experiences uniquely shape any meanings of that language are shaped by context given student. This heteroglot nature of and contexts. When we applied that lens to the language and culture has important implications data, we saw a tension in participants’ for teachers. Understanding the nuances of understandings of rurality and how those students’ home cultures is a key aspect of understandings are shaped by their own preparing lessons that will be responsive to experiences and then reinforced by persistent students’ needs. beliefs that characterize rural life as consistently harmonious. Participants described rural The Idyllic Trope at Work The idyllic rural communities in ways that were consistent with trope is problematic not because it erroneously the idyllic rural trope. For example, Kyle said suggests that all rural communities are tight that the rural students he had worked with “had knit, harmonious places, but because it a lot of experiences with land and nature,” which perpetuates a Pollyanna view of rurality and is consistent with Trevor’s experiences teaching disarms efforts to address unique rural in a rural school. Many of his students wrote challenges. Participants in our study consistently about their experiences “coon hunting” in their identified the rural community as a benefit for journal entries in his ninth grade classes. This teaching in a rural school. Having extensive was also evident in the case of “Billy Charles” experience in rural communities, we believe this (Barone, 1989), who preferred hunting and to be true as well. As Sienna suggested, an trapping to school-based learning. These “everybody knows everybody” community can personal and text examples matched ideals be a benefit. This can have dividends in the described by participants who lacked first-hand classroom. As Robert noted, “The rural rural experience. As Robert noted: “If I am to communities I’ve seen tend to be more group assume that rural students have a connection to oriented, which could aid to student centered nature, then there is a chance for some really learning.” Or, as Katy suggested, “They are powerful nature-based creative writing.” That typically comfortable discussing with their peers experience in nature could even be generalized, as they are likely to know everyone in the class as Katina suggested: “Deep down, I think they very well.” have a desire to make a deeper connection to the The challenge then with this perception is world.” that it may serve as a blinder to rural realities The presumption here is that rural and cause frustrations for novice teachers who students are inherently more connected to encounter friction in those schools or nature than, perhaps, non-rural students. Or, communities. Consistently, participants relied that the centripetal forces (Bakhtin, 1981) of on this thinking about rural communities, as language and culture create shared and common suggested by Dawn who reflected on her 116 Global Education Review 3(1) personal experiences and offered, “I lived in that when teaching in a rural school. However, these kind of area for a time. I think the community is discussions become fraught with issues and the closer and parents typically have instilled potential for deficit model thinking to respect for elders in their children.” There was undermine one’s view of a student’s potential one discrepant case in which Alex reflected on when they turn away from resources and begin the community as a challenge to teaching in a to focus on the characteristics of a student rural school. He acknowledged that, “Remote population. areas could get pretty lonely, especially for The issue of a deficit model view can be someone just leaving college life.” We found this consistently seen in the participants’ responses to be a balanced expectation for work in rural to the pre-questionnaire. For example, Kailey communities. Also, we acknowledge that some moved the discussion in this direction when she preservice teachers may simply be more noted, “the students might not be as motivated interested in living and working in areas that are in class” when asked about perceived challenges not remote. They may decide that city life is the to working in a rural school. Kailey was not context that suits them best, which is okay. We alone in feeling this way. The issue of a lack of need good teachers who are able to make motivation was a common perceived challenge connections between content and culture amongst the participants. Faith echoed this everywhere. We simply want to ensure that we sentiment as she shared the belief that “most do our best to prepare them for success rural students struggle with motivation. Many wherever they choose to teach. Based on the times, in my experience, school isn’t a priority perceptions by the other teacher candidates, we because they don’t think it matters”. The goal, conclude here that meaningful exposure to a then, is to help preservice teachers learn to think disruption of this trope would be useful in the about perceived challenges to teaching in ways context of an English education methods course, that will not position students as having thus prompting the focus of the rural-based deficits—or characteristics that somehow define Problem-Posing seminar on the community these students as flawed individuals who need tensions in To Kill a Mockingbird. their teachers to “fix” them. During our initial analysis of the pre- Assertion 2: Participants’ beliefs about questionnaire data, we noted this trend in the rural students highlight issues often participants’ responses. Although we had spent a related to perceived deficits. good deal of time working with issues of deficit When discussing potential challenges to working model thinking in our methods classes, these with any student population, it is easy to focus issues were still present in participants’ on what is not present or things that are lacking; thinking; we believe this is a natural this is a natural response to thinking about progression. They were learning to confront challenges. This natural inclination is not so issues of stereotypes and perceived deficits, but problematic or offensive when discussing they were, at this point, novice teacher physical conditions or logistical resources. For candidates who were just beginning to wrestle example, Robert noted that he “would feel better with the challenges they might encounter in if we designed lessons around ‘low tech’ or ‘low working with students who were qualitatively resource’ classrooms” when asked (on the pre- different from them. Preservice teachers are, questionnaire) about what kinds of activities we typically, high performing students who bring a could do in methods classes to increase comfort unique level of motivation with them to the Confronting Challenges 117 classroom. In order to provide a scaffold and Assertion 3: Enacting a dialogic pedagogy help the participants begin to think about how to gives preservice teachers a frame for frame their understanding of these challenges understanding student difference. differently, the Rural Problem-Posing seminar To create an opportunity to discuss these rural included a specific focus on “stereotype threat” issues, we designed and implemented a rural- (Aronson & Steele, 2005), which is an identified focused Problem-Posing seminar (see Appendix construct explaining under-achievement or C). In doing so, we used To Kill a Mockingbird failure to reach full potential across multiple as the primary text for confronting issues of populations (e.g., middle school minority rurality in canonical texts, even ones that are students, white male university engineering revered. We frontloaded the conversation with a students and African American students at short description about stereotype threat: highly regarded colleges) (Aronson, Fried, & Everyone has many identities based on Good, 2002; Aronson & Inzlicht, 2004; Aronson, gender, race, age, place, etc. Stereotype threat is et al, 1999; Aronson, Steele, Salinas, & Lustina, when there is a situation in which students 1998; Steele & Aronson, 1995; Steele & Aronson, might feel at risk for confirming a negative 1998). Additionally, stereotype threat has been stereotype about their social group or one of documented as a factor inhibiting student their identities. Research shows that this sort of performance for those identifying as a stereotype threat can negatively affect school “Southerner” (Clark, Eno, & Guadagno, 2011). achievement. Only one participant, Dawn, spoke directly to Amy described a hypothetical secondary the influence of stereotypes on rural students English class in a rural high school. She read to prior to the Problem-Posing seminar. In her pre- the class: “I am worried the negative stereotypes questionnaire during the fall semester, she asked about rural people in the novel pose this sort of how teachers might aid in helping “break threat to my students.” The protocol document through to kids who constantly hear the rural = ended with several key quotations for the dumb stereotype.” students to consider as they thought about how Therefore, we wanted the Problem-Posing to teach a novel that might potentially insult seminar to serve a dual focus: to create a students’ lived experiences. For example, Lee dialogue about the deficit thinking teachers need describes the novel’s poorest family as having to be aware of in their teaching of rural students, “lived behind the town garbage dump. . . .The and to address the pervasive negative cabin's plank walls were supplemented with stereotypes about rurality threatening students’ sheets of corrugated iron, its roof shingled with perceptions of their own ability. Both undermine tin cans hammered flat.” This excerpt is typical and put at risk rural students’ achievement. We of the quotations used on the Problem-Posing believe this intervention was an effective means document. of helping these novice preservice teachers move The next step in the Problem-Posing in the direction of thinking about the challenges protocol involves having the group ask clarifying they might encounter differently. We argue that questions to help them frame the suggestions this is one of the chief tasks for teacher they will offer. During this step, the group asked educators, and we believe a focus on a dialogic, questions about the hypothetical high school culturally responsive pedagogy can be an students. They wanted to know more effective way to address this challenge. information about their socioeconomic status and whether or not these students had