Friday, February 29, 2008

Teaching With No Allies


One of the difficulties with teaching teenagers, is that they have minds of their own. If a student doesn’t feel like completing assignments, there’s actually very little an educator can do to rectify the laziness-situation.

Case in point: I have a bright 16-year-old in my class who is fully capable of completing assignment, but comes in three days a week between 10 and 11 and is failing all his classes except gym. Previously I had phoned several times to speak to N’s family to give them a heads up, often with phones being disconnected or no one picking up the phone. Today I reached N’s sister who didn’t speak English, but with my poor Spanish she was able to give me his brother’s phone number.

The following conversation clued me in to why N was lazy in the classroom:

Ms. C: Hi there, I wanted to talk to you about my concerns for N.

Brother: What he do now?

Ms. C: Well, I’m concerned for N’s grades….he’s struggling to complete work, and often won’t make the attempt. Of the last 15 assignments N handed in 4.

Brother: Yeah, this has been a problem for a while.

Ms. C: Is there a way you can talk to N this weekend? If this keeps up, he’ll have trouble passing the marking period.

Brother: All I can do is make him go to school, if he doesn’t want to work, I can’t make him. Just fail him.

The conversation went for another minute or two, but I was schmoozing on autopilot while my brain floundered. Just fail him? What, as long as Child Services doesn’t cite you for neglect because the kid is technically attending school it doesn’t matter if he succeeds or not? It made perfect sense why the student didn’t give a damn if he did the work or not…because no one cared at home.

While I’m not going to give up I find this situation very challenging; if the kid doesn’t care, and the guardians don’t care…how can I approach N and increase his productivity?

3 Comments:

Blogger The Vegas Art Guy said...

That sucks and happens far to often. Sometimes kids have to fall on their face and fail before they get serious.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008 8:58:00 PM  
Blogger Duez said...

This is the reason that I call home so infrequently. I would rather deal with the student one-on-one. When that doesn't work, I go to their principal. Failure to complete work at our school is insubordination. We have just been trying it this spring and it is working some.

Motivating students is always the great challenge for an educator. And the parent of this student is right, in a way. There is only so much everyone else can do. It is entirely the student's choice. I just like to make the student's life very difficult when they do not do work... and very comfortable when they do.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008 8:21:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi! I am a 23-year-old first year teacher in the Bronx and I am really struggling in my first year as a 6th grade English teacher. I searched first year teacher in google to see if I could find something that would make me feel I am not alone and I am SO thankful that I have found this blog. Thank you so much for documenting your journey . It is inspirational!

Friday, March 02, 2012 11:35:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

eXTReMe Tracker