Giving Students Responsibility
Teaching Students Responsibility
Both of these articles can help us as teachers evolve into effective educators who place responsibility of education on the students. I always tell my students that they can learn from a book or they can learn in my lab doing hands on projects that promote leadership, ethics, learning, responsibility, and higher-level critical thinking skills they may not necessarily get in other classrooms. However, the buck has gone too far in the wrong direction of allowing students to not be responsible for the education or their actions. National and state laws now dictate that a failing student is the responsibility of the school, the administration, and even worse, the teacher. The last time I checked, I was not the student, nor did I raise them, if they cannot do well in my class after everything I have done to make it interesting, accommodate their needs, and even assist them, then something needs to be done with the student. Students in special programs such as ESOL or Special Ed or have BIPs or IEPs now know they cannot fail. Even if they are the biggest butt in the world all year long, don't do a darn thing in the class, and cause disruptions every day, they are promoted. This sense of, "I can do whatever and still pass through" has to stop. We are entitling children, CHILDREN to run our classrooms. We do not become teachers to be promoters or passers of the weak and insufficient. Instead, we are supposed to be raising up the next generation that will take over some day after we are too old to do so and bring in a revolution of change or progress. Instead these students now know they will be passed even if they have not accomplished basics so teachers don't have to deal with them another year, or we don't want it to look bad on our Adequate Yearly Progress reports. Rules, laws, and lack of understanding and support for education has tied our hands as educators to make it the responsibility of the student to learn. It was a privilege to be in a nice classroom, with nice books and a great teacher back a few years ago. Now its demanded. When did we become so insignificant? Yes, there are students who have no parental involvement and have basically raised themselves. But they are at school from age 5 or 6 to 18. That is more than half of their known life spent in a scholastic setting where we as educators can make a significant difference only if we try to get it through their heads at an early age they have a responsibility to themselves and to everyone around them to do something better than their parents did or are doing. We teach these kids it is okay to fail because someone will give you a pass. There are so many government programs that support individuals that fail for free its ridiculous. The attitude of acceptance for failure must change and we need to set a standard high that it is not okay to fail. The U.S. is falling behind in education because of our acceptance of failure and it is only worsening.
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You hit on a frustration that we as a high school staff have had for a long time. Our middle school has made a policy of promoting basically everyone, whether they should be promoted or not. Policies have decreased the accountability of students, so when they start high school and are held accountable, they have been set up for failure. The frustration of the high school teachers has been the lack of skills of the students we are getting from the middle school, as well as them understanding that they have to take accountability for being on time, getting assignments in by the due date, studying at night, just to name a few. This is a difficult transition time for students anyway, and it becomes more difficult because the students aren't being properly prepared for taking accountability for their own education.
ReplyDeleteWe used to have a saying that was accepted at our school, even the special needs teachers: "Every student has a right to fail". It was understood that every student had to do the work and make an effort if they expected to pass. For special education students, teachers are required to follow any modification found on a student's IEP. The student was required to make their best effort to learn using the modifications to help them, not as an excuse. Teachers must be held accountable for their students learning and achieving. I agree with you, however, the teachers and the school should not be the only ones held accountable for student progress. When you have a student that doesn't try to learn and succeed, often there is nothing a teacher or school can do to help that student succeed. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink" says it all.
The middle school should have a saying as well. “Every student has the right to be coddled.” These kids are being spoon fed what they need to do and when so often that they seldom are able to make simple decisions. I understand that plenty of kids need some accommodations. I also understand that plenty of kids need to swallow a zero from time to time. If kids are shielded from failure in school how prepared are they going to be when they experience a failure in other parts of life. I don’t like saying “Real life” implies that school is fake in some way. Perhaps I just stumbled onto something. School is far too fake. Failure is nurtured and the consequences are stopped. I would like to know when responsibility for learning shifted form the student to the teacher?
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