At my former school, failure, or simply low or just meeting standards, is non-acceptable. We encourage students to reach beyond what they think they can do or what they tend to settle with. In fact, we had a problem with so many "lazy" students, that we often discussed at staff meetings how to change our student's mentality of their own learning success and classroom participation. We shared what type of actions we took in our own classrooms and what the results were from its implementation. Personally, along with many other of my colleagues, we do not accept incomplete work or even completed work that has been rushed or messy etc. We send the work back, and expect improvement before having it handed back in. We give opportunities to make up tests as well. When we expect more from our students, they expect more from themselves.
The protocol for students to put more effort and time into their work is an emphasized requirement for their own investment. They, the high school students, need to understand that if we, their teachers, are putting time aside for them, they need to give, at the least, the equivalent time and attention to their own work. Vice versa, if it's important to them, it is important to us. This is one mindset we try to have our students build, we don't just give up on each other. However, we do face some students, who end up not handing in their work at all. They fall behind in their coursework, and they follow the footsteps of their peers who choose not to aim for success. The problem we find in these students, are the lack of support from home, where their parents or family are too busy to monitor or reinforce school expectations in their learning; and they lack any positive influence from their social circle. Students who have completely "checked out" are more likely the students to stop attending school, skip classes, and make other unhealthy choices that they cannot get away from with their own power. They need the assistance that they believe they didn't have, an intervention has to occur. Although learning still doesn't stop at this point, and this is not a state of failure. From my teaching career, I've seen students relocated to different schools to break up "gangs" and the dangerous situations that they may be facing. Parents have even moved cities and countries so that their child could be in a different learning system. Furthermore, students have been moved to programs that better support their needs that the regular classroom had failed to provide. In smaller cases, I have made plans with the students to work out alternative paths to meet the goals, such as extending time frames or modifying the assignments. One incident that affected me personally, was of a grade 11 boy who became addicted to marijuana. He was often late to class, or absent altogether, to serve his cravings. I had a few talks with him, inquiring if there was any way I could assist him to be in class as his first steps to self control and to still be successful in class. He was evidently a capable student in his studies, but was quite affected by the drug. I noticed his effort lasted only a day. I tried meeting with his counsellor about my concerns and to see if anything was being done to help him. Her response was a bit disappointing. She simply stated that she had laid out the options for him and that was that. She can only do so much. In my head I thought, there must be so much more we could have done to help this student than to give up. If I was in a position to make a difference, I would check in weekly, if needed, with students who are listed on the radar. I would encourage staff to make phone calls home for positive reasons other than negative ones. I would also try to get the staff to understand the importance of their role in building positive relationships with their students so that they know there is always someone there to aide them and help them build a plan away from failure. Workshops by workers who are in the field with "troubled teens" should be mandatory for all staff instead of optional, so that a student's actions are not their only leading factor to fail a student. Generally, students who slip through the cracks are the ones unnoticed and shouldn't be. It is "never too late to learn" as a student and as a teacher. We need to relearn behaviors and recognize both positive and negative efforts in each other. Today, I could commit to the following: 1. Give students a break during long seated work time, this allows students to vent off any stress and to perform better upon returning to their work 2. Ask further guiding questions, expand their perception with reference to more relational topics to reach understanding 3. Inquire about my student's day or check in to see how they are, learn about them and be flexibly to accommodate assignments 4. If students get caught off task, simply remind them to get back to work and spend some extra time to assist them 5. Have high expectations but avoid using downgrading terms when low level work is handed in, instead point out what the expectations are again and ask them to explain their own thought process and their interpretation of the expectations |
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