How can we expect them to concentrate on school work?
Their lives are falling apart and it feels like the world is on their shoulders, but we expect them to complete vocabulary for chapter 6 and study for a science test. No, they must forget the fact that someone close to them died last week. They are expected to stay focused when their best friend is being mistreated at home and they don’t know what to do to help. They are expected to complete their homework and study for the tests even though their parents were fighting all night. They are expected to come to class with their homework and be prepared for the test today even though two people jumped them in front of their house and left them bruised, battered, and humiliated the night before. These are just a few of the situations students deal with on a daily basis. It isn’t even the worst of the worst. So what do we do? They have to be accountable for their schoolwork. They have to pass if they hope for a better life. Can we really expect them to just suck it up and move on? In their shoes, could we? We can’t just say put your head down and you are excused from work until it is all better. Many will not face a better life unless they claw their way out of their current tragedy of life. Somehow we have to teach them that life sucks sometimes, but you still have to keep pushing forward. It doesn’t mean we don’t care. It doesn’t mean we let them wallow in their tragedy. It means that we face each day with the understanding that life is not perfect for the students. It means that we have to know when to push, when to pull, and when to carry the student to the next level. It may be as simple as walking the student down the hall to the counselor. However, this is education…is anything really simple?
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:20 pm
your students are blessed to have you as a teacher with your concern and conscience.
September 22nd, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Thanks, but more credit than I deserve Sage. With so much pressure to have students achieve more it is difficult to avoid losing sight of the concerns I stated. It is a tight rope to walk, because you don’t want to be insensitive, but you don’t want to say that it is OK not to do your work.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
But kids are resilient, right? I remember going to school with a girl who no longer lived at home — and had no parental support whatsoever (her father had died, her mother was a drug addict). She lived in a caravan 30min out of town. And yet she went to school and got reasonable grades. I remember always being impressed by her stamina and jovial nature despite the bad hand she’d been dealt.
PS> Michele sent me.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:44 pm
They are, but sometimes the confusing life is overwhelming and we expect them to be adults about things when they are just kids.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:51 pm
I have to admit that I sometimes struggle to not be hard-hearted to the . I was essentially abandoned by my mother, mentally when I was very young and then in my teenage years physically as well. That’s not to say that I ever lacked for necessities or for love, but I was always keenly aware that the relationship is not the same with an aunt or a grandmother as it is with Mom.
I very easily could have wallowed in my own misery. Nonetheless, I knew that if I wanted to make my dreams a reality, I had to work harder than the next kid, and I did it. I don’t believe in making excuses; as you said, “you still have to keep pushing forward.” Life doesn’t wait for anyone. But that’s not to say that we as teachers can’t be there to offer a kind word or a smile or a hug if we can tell they’re needed.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Looks like I left some words out of my first sentence, although I’m not sure what they were supposed to be now!
September 23rd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Similar life story Tense. Our circumstances in life either make us fight harder or send us to the wallowing pool of self pity. Our students think we don’t understand. They can’t imagine that we have had to work hard for where we are and nor that we understand their life isn’t easy. I have the toughest time giving them a break because I’ve been there and it wasn’t easy, but I did it anyway.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:43 am
Of course, you have to balance this concern against the pressure to have your kids do will on those standardized aptitude tests, or the school gets bad marks, and the administrators get cranky and it rolls down to the teachers.
Everyone has their own pressures. As much as you need to be empathetic to the kids, it’d probably be a lot easier on everybody if so many students didn’t see the teacher as an opponent, or the enemy.
September 24th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
That would certainly make the job easier Steve.