So! To begin, this week was much better than the past few weeks, thank heavens. Had it not improved, I might have lost my mind. The "bad stuff" has been so stressful and so...frequent...that it had begun to feel like a nearly physical weight. I would come back from school no earlier than 6 p.m., grade and plan, and then collapse into bed hating myself knowing I'd have to do it all over.
This may seem exaggerated, but it's truly the way I've been feeling. I toss and turn at night, stressing at what I can do differently to reach more students more effectively; I lose sleep knowing that most of my classes actively dislike me; I feel sick every morning knowing that half my classes are going to continually disrespect me to my face and, on top of it, not learn a stinkin' thing.
So. My frustration may have reached a maximum level, so for the sake of me completing my student teaching I am glad that I didn't push it any farther this week. However, the "bad" that happened this week made me come to a certain realization (perhaps that I already knew, in a way). Here it is:
1. My general students use that label as a crutch.
I think a vast amount of the differences I see between my Honors students and my General students comes from this tiny sentence. I have been consistently amazed/overwhelmed/frustrated by the motivation and effort that the H students display while the experience with my G's are the complete opposite. My H students work hard and are motivated to do the work I ask of them.
My General students are like anti-matter; not only do they not do the work, they will actively try anything to make time in class as unproductive as possible. (This corresponds to their attitudes as well.)
For example, while my Honors kids have almost all A's and B's, roughly 3/4 of all of my General classes are failing.
I have approached several different individuals to discuss the issue, and I get advice like this:
"Make sure they have time in class to do work."
"Do they know how they're being evaluated?"
"Don't give them too much work outside of class."
"Structure the class time very specifically so that students are on task."
This, of course, is frustrating when I have given one homework assignment in the six weeks I have taken over the classroom. I remind them nearly every day that I grade them (daily, for participation) based on their work ethic and attentiveness. I rarely give outside work, unless they are unable to complete something in class. I give them self assessments daily where they are required to write down a goal for the day to work towards, and their participation points will correspond to the effort towards that goal.
Even after following this advice, I still see stupid stuff like this:
Last Friday, I gave the Generals an assignment as they wrapped up their research for their term papers. They were required to write down their topic, thesis statement, three sources, and a quote from each source that they would include in their paper. This assignment was a quick, small point value "check" to ensure that students were on-track.
Because none of them finished on Friday, I extended the deadline to Monday...where roughly half of my students turned in the assignment.
Or, like yesterday...when I passed out the assignment sheet initially, in large, bold letters it said when the rough draft of the paper was due. On Monday, I wrote it on the board in giant letters and reiterated every day that their rough drafts were due on Friday.
Yesterday rolls around and roughly half of every General class is unable to complete the peer review because they don't have enough of the rough draft. My favorite excuse?
"We didn't have enough time in the lab to do this stuff!"
...after they had been in the lab for two weeks.
Sigh. The problem is, these students must be responsible for their own behavior. I simply cannot be sitting next to every student at every computer to ensure that the work is getting done. I would need precisely 23 more of me in order to do that.
What baffles me most is the students' complete lack of honesty when they look at their grades; none are willing to admit that they are failing because they don't read, don't study, don't use class time wisely, and don't take activities seriously. Somehow, it's all my fault. And while I'm willing to accept responsibility, to a degree, this is getting so ridiculous that I am almost beyond caring (and while I realize that that is a very harsh statement, that is really how I feel sometimes).
On top of it, midterm grades just came out this week and, apparently, confused the living daylights out of my atomically-failing students. One girl, a petite, tiny-voiced thing who is never on task came up to me in the hall and squeaked:
"Why am I faiiiiling this class??"
"Well, how did you do on your test?"
"Bad I guess."
"Did you turn in the homework that went with the novel?"
"Well...no."
"How are you doing on participation?" (Here, the girl becomes indignant.)
"Well I'm here every day!!"
There is this unspoken consensus that simply being in class equates to them passing, or that they are not responsible for their own behaviors. These kids are so incredibly embroiled in a school culture that allows them to read short stories with half their brain turned on, immediately take a quiz over it to assess low-level comprehension, and throw it out forever. Now, since I'm asking them to do "real" work and to be accountable for their actions, they act horrified.
What the heck am I supposed to do about that?
2. Having fun...for once.
I thought I'd document an actual, real-life success story with my teaching (since those are apparently few and far between). I know that designing activities is one of my stronger points, but this activity was just too good not to share:
My Honors classes' papers are due on Monday, and I left the Works Cited page formatting until the students had gathered all their sources. So on Thursday, I developed an activity to get them involved in creating a Works Cited page without boring them to tears or requiring me to need to know how to cite everything under the sun (I don't...when I need to know how to do something, I look it up).
On Thursday, I brought a bunch of random print sources from home; a couple collections of essays, a book of poetry, some fiction, some non-fiction, a magazine, etc. In the classroom, I had already brought in my MLA Handbook and printed off several copies from the Purdue OWL website. Here were the instructions:
1. Split up into groups (3-4 students/group).
2. When released, run up to the board and grab a book/magazine/etc. (the idea of physical competition in the classroom excites them to no end).
3. Write down on sentence from that specific text.
4. Using that sentence, correctly do a parenthetical citation.
5. After that, create the works cited reference for your source (using the MLA Handbook or style guides around the room).
6. Once you have finished, one person goes up to the board and copies it all down.
7. Be the first person to have the parenthetical citation and the WC citation done correctly.
It's amazing what kids will do when an activity is prefaced with the phrase: "The winning team gets candy." Of course, the entire class got candy for participating, albeit 75% off Halloween candy (what they don't know won't hurt them).
And, honest to gosh, most of their works cited pages look great!
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