To piggyback off what I wrote in "Holding Students Accountable 3", I have a few students who have been absent from class over 50% of the time. They are now asking me for make-up work to help them pass the semester. The problem is that I can't say no. I need to say yes, even though I know they won't be able to produce high-quality work because they missed the better part of four months of class instruction and practice. I know that their work will have glaring errors and misunderstandings. And I know that while they are scrambling to complete these assignments, they will have hope that it'll give them the passing grade they need. And I feel so shitty about giving them false hope when forced to accept late work by the Department of Education's policy. I think this is a lose-lose-lose.
The students lose because they are conditioned to think you don't need to show up to get a job done. They lose because they think that a soft deadline isn't meaningful. They lose because they think that if you work hard in the days before a hard deadline, it is the same as working hard for the weeks or months leading up to a deadline. They lose because many teachers will just pass them despite their work being of low quality, because the student in question is frustratingly difficult to teach and it'd be easier on the teacher if the student didn't repeat the class. The students lose because instead of improving at their skills and learning content, they don't. But they think they did, because of their passing grade. And then, later on, when they NEED those skills or knowledge (in a college class, a conversation, for a licensing exam, etc.) they won't have it. And in that moment, they may not even remember why they failed to learn it in the first place.
The teachers lose because we are forced to suddenly grade extra assignments at the end of the marking period. The teachers lose because our deadlines for assignments are made to seem meaningless when the REAL deadline is the end of the semester. We lose because word will spread to lower grades that you don't need to do the work on time, because you can just do it all at the end of the semester. The teachers lose because they have to give students false hope and then seem like liars when a student does a large amount of work and it still results in a failing grade.
The school loses because rather than condition students to come to class and work on time, we condition them to skip class, do work at the last minute, and maybe even cheat. Because let's be honest - if I missed an assignment in October, and now in January I'm making it up, why wouldn't I ask a friend to see theirs and copy it? It's not like the teacher will remember it, right? Right. The school loses because it awards students credits who may not have learned enough to equate to a satisfactory level of mastery. And then the school graduates students and sends them into the world with an inadequate education, but a diploma nonetheless. And how does their reputation fare due to this?
But ultimately, this comes down to a problem that I have within me: I'm just not that effective at teaching students who have been turned off to education. I'm not talking about the 70ish% of my students who always pass with grades that are C's or better, due to their effort being high or their skills being developed (all the "intrinsic interest" students and most of the "extrinsic compliance" students). I'm speaking about the rest of them.
I don't make them want to learn that much.
I don't make them want to work that hard.
I don't make them want to come to school that often.
I'm just not good at getting that desire to bubble up within them. And then, we end up with people, citizens, workers, parents, friends, pedestrians who are just not interested in schooling or education. For many of them, learning triggers negative feelings, whether they are mere boredom and apathy at one end or trauma and depression at the other end. I haven't figured out how to create a classroom where I give students the following, all at the same time:
So at my school, we are focusing on project-based learning, which I think is a remedy for this. Students begin with a question that they NEED to answer and requires them to make their answer a public solution to a problem. Here are some ideas I'm just rattling off right now:
We need to do better. I need to do better. Right now.
The students lose because they are conditioned to think you don't need to show up to get a job done. They lose because they think that a soft deadline isn't meaningful. They lose because they think that if you work hard in the days before a hard deadline, it is the same as working hard for the weeks or months leading up to a deadline. They lose because many teachers will just pass them despite their work being of low quality, because the student in question is frustratingly difficult to teach and it'd be easier on the teacher if the student didn't repeat the class. The students lose because instead of improving at their skills and learning content, they don't. But they think they did, because of their passing grade. And then, later on, when they NEED those skills or knowledge (in a college class, a conversation, for a licensing exam, etc.) they won't have it. And in that moment, they may not even remember why they failed to learn it in the first place.
The teachers lose because we are forced to suddenly grade extra assignments at the end of the marking period. The teachers lose because our deadlines for assignments are made to seem meaningless when the REAL deadline is the end of the semester. We lose because word will spread to lower grades that you don't need to do the work on time, because you can just do it all at the end of the semester. The teachers lose because they have to give students false hope and then seem like liars when a student does a large amount of work and it still results in a failing grade.
The school loses because rather than condition students to come to class and work on time, we condition them to skip class, do work at the last minute, and maybe even cheat. Because let's be honest - if I missed an assignment in October, and now in January I'm making it up, why wouldn't I ask a friend to see theirs and copy it? It's not like the teacher will remember it, right? Right. The school loses because it awards students credits who may not have learned enough to equate to a satisfactory level of mastery. And then the school graduates students and sends them into the world with an inadequate education, but a diploma nonetheless. And how does their reputation fare due to this?
But ultimately, this comes down to a problem that I have within me: I'm just not that effective at teaching students who have been turned off to education. I'm not talking about the 70ish% of my students who always pass with grades that are C's or better, due to their effort being high or their skills being developed (all the "intrinsic interest" students and most of the "extrinsic compliance" students). I'm speaking about the rest of them.
I don't make them want to learn that much.
I don't make them want to work that hard.
I don't make them want to come to school that often.
I'm just not good at getting that desire to bubble up within them. And then, we end up with people, citizens, workers, parents, friends, pedestrians who are just not interested in schooling or education. For many of them, learning triggers negative feelings, whether they are mere boredom and apathy at one end or trauma and depression at the other end. I haven't figured out how to create a classroom where I give students the following, all at the same time:
- Comfort and patience to overcome insecurity and anxiety around the work and general school skills
- Choice in what and how they learn such that they master necessary content and skills, but use their own interests and entry points
- Scaffolds to access difficult material without making them feel so dumb that they give up
- Purpose for working in class (many students will work hard, but because they can do the work at home, they use class time to socialize or just don't come, since being in the room is not a necessary step towards learning the material)
- Motivation to complete the work and improve it so that students aren't just doing work for the sake of getting a credit, but because they REALLY want to learn it and present a polished product they are proud of.
So at my school, we are focusing on project-based learning, which I think is a remedy for this. Students begin with a question that they NEED to answer and requires them to make their answer a public solution to a problem. Here are some ideas I'm just rattling off right now:
- (World History Class) Why are museum exhibits about the Byzantine Empire so boring and how can we improve them? Students go to museums to see these exhibits, critique them, explore different ways to make them more interesting, and then arrange meetings with the curators at museums to pitch their ideas.
- (English class) How can we make The English Language Arts Regents Exam better at evaluating students' knowledge and showcasing their skills? Students find the patterns in the ELA Regents Exam that make it a poor assessment of student knowledge and skill and then re-write the test (making several versions of it) to present to the Board of Regents as ways to improve the test.
- (Government class) How can we improve voter turnout in our districts? Students analyze why people don't vote as often as they could, register people to vote by going door to door in their building/neighborhood, and then analyze which students' methods were most effective and why. hey share this data with voter registration organizations and their elected representatives.
- (Chemistry Class) Why don't students drink water from school water fountains and how can we get more of them to do so? Students research why students don't drink from school water fountains, do their own chemical testing of the water to establish its safety, and then create a public-relations campaign to get students to drink more water, using survey data at multiple points in the project to evaluate the effectiveness of their own efforts.
- (Math Class) How can the MTA improve service at my station? Students do field research of people who take the subway to and from their home station to establish the problems that commuters see and experience. They measure these issues in terms of time (wait and travel time), distance (ease of getting to and from the exits), area (platform, train, stairway, elevator, and station size), and frequency. Then, students input this data into tables and charts and graphs, analyze it, and develop solutions that they share with the MTA in a meeting.
- (Earth Science Class) Why are movies about natural disasters and earth science so inaccurate and how could they be improved? Students student movies such as 2012, Twister, Volcano, etc and analyze what they get right and wrong about the earth science involved. Then, they write blogs and letters to the director/producers about how to improve the science in movies without sacrificing entertainment value.
- (Earth Science Class) Should people in my school recycle and how can we get them to do it? This obviously would need to only be the plan if they researched and concluded that, yes, we should recycle. If no, how can this information be useful to our city government who is using our taxes to pay for so much recycling? Should we say something? And to whom? Then we arrange meetings with any elected officials with jurisdiction over this issue of recycling in the city.
- (English) How can we write a grant to get money for our classroom/grade/school? Students decide some thing or things they want funding for, research if there are grants available (several people can be in a group and do independent research), and then decide on one or more than one to write. Then they write and submit it. We hope it wins! If so, hell yeah! Then we make a guidebook for future grant-writing students at the school to use. If not, rats! We make a guidebook of what NOT to do for future grant-writing students at the school.
We need to do better. I need to do better. Right now.