B.A. Social Studies
For the past two years, I have opened my room every morning at school at 7:30 with the purpose of creating a place for my students to work and have open access to me as a resource and offer an opportunity to get clarification or to discuss topics in class or outside of class. Friday morning, I did the same, and gave it the title, “Coffee Hour with Mr. Anton” with the intent of it becoming a question and answer session about the test that they had later on in the day… Here’s the issue: NONE of them attended. I had a brief discussion with one student in the hall about the material, but that was the only student that showed up to take advantage of the opportunity to make any sort of effort to improve their chances of success.
So, I asked myself: “What could I have done differently to get students to attend?”
As a result, these are the questions that I have for my peers, and for my students:
I think that we can all agree that student motivation is a major issue in education today, and I would argue that this generation of students will not meet their potential unless something changes. Obviously, the way that we do things is not working in regard to teaching the value of effort. I would also argue, because of discussion with work supervisors and articles that I have read, that these students do not have the skills as employees when they enter the work environment or higher education. The college educators that I communicate with also feel that students generally are not as prepared as they used to be with the skills to be successful. For the sake of our students’ future success, how do we change this? Here are my thoughts: #1: Teaching students the value of learning and education: Somewhere along the line, the opportunity of being provided with a public education has lost its value. The primary purpose of the education system is for students to learn content and be prepared with the skills necessary to be successful when they enter the work environment and be conscientious citizens at the local, national, and global levels. The fact that most students only do the work to achieve a certain grade is the main issue here. In general, students lack the intrinsic motivation for taking advantage of the opportunity to meet their potential because they will work to achieve whatever is “good enough.” So much can be said of the ideas of “grit” and “growth mindset.” Teaching students the value of exceeding expectations should be one of our focuses. I think that we need to focus as educators on the process of creating, and not so much on the end product. The fact that we are beginning to look at the value of grades is a start. I still have mixed feelings about this topic, but I definitely agree with the fact that we need to restructure the way that grading is done. We should focus on personalized and individual growth, but measurement and comparison of students is not necessarily a negative thing in my opinion. After their education careers are over, students will be measured and compared with their peers and be in direct competition with them in the workplace for jobs, promotions, and pay raises. Our focus on grades needs to change though whether it is by determining what they actually measure, or by getting rid of them and going to a standards-based, proficiency approach. The purpose and value of school needs to be a primary focus from the beginning of our students’ educational experience in order to get them to buy in throughout. #2: Teaching students to “never settle:” We need to focus on teaching students the, “get a little better every day” mantra. How do we do this? I think that we are taking a step in the right direction by creating student-centered classrooms with real-world implications and applications. We need to focus on teaching students to reflect on their learning in order to achieve intrinsic motivation, not on the extrinsic motivation of receiving whatever grade is the minimum in their eyes, their parents’ eyes, or the school system’s eyes. This is where it all gets muddled. What is the best way to achieve this in our classrooms and in the education system as a whole? As teachers, we all have students that are on the brink of failing multiple courses and have struggled throughout the entirety of the their education as well as those students that have excelled in all circumstances. By focusing on teaching the growth mindset in our classrooms through modeling, application to our lessons, and discussion, we can do all of our students a service that they will hopefully be able to apply to their futures, whether they are the at-risk student, the “average” one, or the the gifted one. Teaching students to strive to get better may not be the answer to all of our motivational issues, but I think it could have the largest impact in the long-term for their success and the improvement of our education system as a whole. #3: Teaching students “what it takes:” Finally, we all have those students that have plans for their future that don’t mesh with what they are achieving currently in school. For example, the “C” student that plans on going to med school, the “barely passing” student who plans to go on to a four-year college, or the “I get A’s without studying but plan on being really successful at the next level” student. In many cases, we are doing a disservice to our students by allowing them to believe that they can achieve their goals by doing the status quo. To be clear, I am not saying to limit goal setting. I am a "hard to achieve" goal setter in most circumstances. The issue that I have is that we typically encourage setting goals, but forget to discuss the most important part: what it takes to achieve them. When I left for college, I had the same experience. I failed because I had set a goal, but was not prepared (on my own account) for accomplishing that goal. I had breezed through high school and had settled with meeting expectations, but not wanting to get better. I did not learn what it takes to get to where I wanted to be. That is a key disconnect, and if we can make those connections with our students, I think that we can see them make strides in regard to motivation. In conclusion, implementing these ideas and combating student apathy are easier said than done, but we have to address this somehow and we have to start somewhere. We are raising a generation of students that are struggling when they enter the real world because they have not learned or been taught the value in the process of learning, hard work and sacrifice. The key is to teach that the status quo is not enough, and effort can make up for many of the issues that they are facing after leaving school. Leave a Reply. |
AuthorBrian Anton currently serves the Purdy R-II (Missouri) School District as the 7-12 Principal after working in the PK-12 Assistant Principal and Athletic Director roles for two years. In the 12 years prior to moving into administration, he served as an award-winning high school social studies teacher. Archives
September 2018
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