Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Caring About Education
I feel like I have been more negative this year about my students than I was my first year teaching. I have a quite a few students who dont want to do anything for me this year. Last year, I didnt struggle nearly as much as I am this year with getting students to do work. It seems that no matter what I try, these students would rather fail and just waste their time taking up space in the classroom. Calling home has not been help to the situation either. Some of the parents I've contacted in this case have told me its better to give up than to try and help. Some parents have gone as far as to tell me "They dont care", "They are in my hands". I know I am supposed to keep my students engaged in learning, but its exhausting when you dont see any results. I've heard many students say that they dont have any future goals to work towards, and other students think that what they want in life will just be handed to them. I wish I knew the answer, but for now I will just continue to keep on these kids who constantly refuse.
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Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI was one of these kids and I did have goals. I had goals but could have cared less about high school and many of my classes. EXCEPT for the classes that had teachers that I could tell actually cared. THe ironic thing is in reading the Star Trib this weekend is that I saw that one of those teachers is up for Minnesota's teacher of the year. He cared. He had me in for talks about nothing that had to do with his class. He listened to me vent about everything and nothing and never judged. So, I cared about his class. I had an photography teacher as well that did something like this for me. He gave me an assignment that had nothing to do with his class and wouldn't let me do anything else for his class until it was done. I saw him this fall and reminded him of this. He said he has no recolection of the assignment, but he did remember being worried about me. Some kids don't care and probably won't because of things going on outside of school. Just care.