Of course. But I’m the adult in the room, and I don’t blame them, my students are 13 years old and generally, they don’t know anything. I meet them where they are at and then move them forward from there. I don’t take it personally, and I don’t use it as an excuse not to try. If they don’t see the value in the work, then I’m not doing my job.GloryofGreece wrote:Have you ever encountered teenage students being disruptive, defiant, and disrespectful? Its not the teachers responsibility to convince the students classwork is necessary or important. Its their responsibility to present the material using a variety of technique, and assess the students on said material. It is the student's responsibility to learn the material. It is both the student and teacher responsibility to behave in a decent manner throughout instruction. That's about it. All people can be lazy that is not what I was addressing.Zero wrote:I disagree.GloryofGreece wrote:
To do those things (which are decent examples of assignments but those activities will not lead to success in an of themselves) you have to have a basic solid foundational level of the subject to begin with. Students need to be able to read, write, and research. They cannot. They cannot b/c they do not want to and/or they do not have the discipline or the desire to. These things come from the parents. There are multiple reasons for the failure of American education. One of the primary ones being outlined above.
They can, it just takes concentrated effort. The most resistance (beyond a bit of moaning at the word ‘essay’) I’ve encountered is from parents and teachers. Parents want their babies to get all “A’s” and have little patience for the process. Too many teachers I’ve met (among social studies) resist because they don’t want to put in the time, either due to laziness, or due to an obsessive focus on, and fear of, standardized testing. People screamed for ‘accountability’ and bureaucrats found the cheapest way to do it (multiple choice assessments) and now we’re paying the price.
Students will, by and large, do what we ask, provided they see value in it. After a year of seeing the process modeled and seeing their own progress (in the reading, writing, research model), they do eventually see growth and purpose. It’s the adults that have been cutting corners for years.
A large chunk of students across society do not accept any responsibility nor do the school districts enforce most guidelines. They do however fire teachers that have less than 80% of their students passing the standardized tests. Particularly in the 30+ states that are right to work states and particularly for teachers that have been with the district for less than four years.
Also, they are not who they are going to be, and I can choose how to react to their adolescence. If I constantly bemoan “these kids today”, then I’ll never have their attention. We can waste time complaining about how we think they should come to us, or I can build them up from what they bring.
