"Today I sat down with a student who hasn't done anything in class so far (7 days in). All I told him was that I will give him feedback and another shot on it no matter what. Guess who turned something in today? It highlighted something important for me.
To everyone who's going to be like, "So we don't expect kids to try?! We just let them do whatever they want and get as many chances as they want?! How's that going to help them in life?!" . . . you are missing an absolutely crucial piece of what's happening here.
Are some students prioritizing other things and often doing a really bad job at it? Yes. There are a thousand other things kids may want to do instead of trying to learn. But, I've found that " "laziness" is rarely the real reason kids aren't willing to engage in an assignment. I've found two major reasons why students are afraid to even start an assignment (which is different than not finishing an assignment).
The first is this: If a student is worried they might not be successful on the task, then not attempting it allows them to hold onto hope that they could have been successful on it. If I don't attempt something, I don't have any evidence to support the fact that I am "not good enough," and for students who lack academic confidence, they are so afraid of confronting that reality that they attempt to preserve their own ego, their identity, their hope (or however you want to phrase it) by not attempting it at all. In this case, not attempting to try is a defense mechanism.
The other reason I see for not even starting an assignment is that they already feel like they've lost the ability to be successful. This typically comes down to grading practices that don't value growth. If my goal is an A and my teacher is averaging my assignments over time, if I get an irreversible D on an assignment, I might have already lost the ability to reach my goal. (Let's ignore the problematic aspect of using a measure as a goal for now.) While we would like kids to see growth as the goal, that's not the educational culture we exist in. when the possibility of meeting a goal gets taken away, it shouldn't surprise us that someone doesn't want to work towards the goal.
Does this mean we don't also include consequences? Sure, at some point, yes. But, I don't think we need to sacrifice the humanity of what we do with kids to get them to comply. There's a balance. There has to be a balance, but in that balance, humanity has to come first. If we can help a student course correct and develop different habits early, we have to try. Promising them that they will get feedback and another shot is one of the best ways I have found to help a student be willing to attempt something in our classes when they've lost the drive, desire, or ability to even begin."
- Tyler Rablin @Mr_Rablin, ELA Teacher
Important Information:
Faculty Meeting: We will have our first faculty meeting on Tuesday, September 20th at 7:25 a.m. in the high school library. We will have a few updates and our counselors will be sharing some classroom management tips/tricks. A light breakfast will be served.
Assistant Swop - The elementary had a handful of assistants already decide to do something else and move out of our school family, causing some changes for our building. Brandi Devillez is going to move to the elementary and we will welcome Charlie Baumeister on Monday to take her place. Charlie will actually work from 6:45 - 12:45 daily. There are a few other small changes that have taken place as well. You can find the assistant schedules on the table titled "assistant schedules" on the document HERE. This document is also a great quick glance of students with IEPs and 504 plans. Please remember it is confidential. If you have an assistant at any time of the day, you may check this document to make sure there are no changes! Thanks!
For your planning: To help you think ahead, I wanted you to know that our next PD day, October 24th, you will have a majority of the time to work in your PLC team on your curriculum (scope and sequence, assessments, table grading - whatever your team needs). You can use this time to plan for quarter 2. More details will be forthcoming, but thought it may be helpful to know.
* 1st Quarter Scope and Sequence and Power Standard assessments will be due to Jody the last Friday of October. (This is after you will have time to finalize everything at the PD day)
* Marzano Elements - reminder your personal growth goal is due in SFS by October 7th (this is what we worked on during our PD day last time, so hopefully you are finished already or have a good start!) All of the documents you need to track your progress can be found in the Teacher Resource folder under Marzano Elements!
* WIN Changes - reminder about our WIN changes and priority days: Monday - English, Tuesday - Math, Wednesday - Island, Thursday - Social Studies, Friday - Science Looking forward to hearing how you worked out two days a week to focus on reteaching bubble students!
Vocabulary Strategy - Emma Bettag has been working hard to build vocabulary in her math classes! She started a word wall for students and she adds to it as she teaches them the core content! Robert Marzano, educational researcher, talks a lot about the importance of building vocabulary for students in order to promote learning! HERE is a link to Marzano's 6 step process! Remember, you only do this process for the 20-25 words you are focusing on for the year!! Thanks, Emma, for sharing a best practice!
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