Returning to the world of public high school was a strange experience this week. After graduating from high school almost 25 years ago, it seems that most things have stayed the same. Students still act like students (and wear silly clothing although I still wear my belt above my hips, the old-fashioned way); teachers still work hard to teach within the chaos. But my perspective has changed. After only one day in class, I am questioning the effectiveness of the whole framework of our public high schools. Specifically, does it make sense to ask a teacher to teach Physics to 133 students each day in 5 large classroom groups meeting just one hour per day? That seems overwhelming to me right now.
Maybe even more important than this teacher to student ratio is difficulty in overcoming some student's lack of motivation. If the student doesn't want to learn Physics, does it make sense to have a system that requires this subject? My high school is struggling with a high drop-out rate. The teachers are highly motivated to fix the problems, but it seems to me that the students also need to bring at least a modicum of their own motivation. The adage, "You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink," seems to apply here. Some things don't change.
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Michael, you have made some very astute observations and comments. I think teaching that many students per class is a problem in and of itself, and clearly as you say is overwhelming for the teacher. One solution is to get more money into the schools so they can get either more teachers, more schools, or both, but that doesn't seem to be happening in most places right now. The other option that you seem to be advocating is to come up with a curriculum that is tailored to each individual student. That would certainly help a)lower the number of students taught by one teacher and b)have all your students be motivated to take your course and do well. However, there are some students that are just not motivated for school at all, no matter what the subject. What happens to them in such a system? Do we want to focus on rooting out the unmotivated students in a given subject or do we want to increase their motivation to learn a given subject? I think that is part of a teacher's job: to make the course exciting and interesting so that it arouses the interest and motivation in a given class no matter how unmotivated a student may seem. There are ways of teaching to engage all learners so I would suggest observing different ways that your mentor teacher engages with your students and I would also suggest trying different methods of instruction yourself in the classroom. I hope things improve for you and your mentor teacher and that you find yourself to be a highly motivating teacher.
ReplyDeleteIt seems you have hit on an area that my mentor-teacher and I have also been discussing in great depth: student's motivation. My high school is also struggling with drop-outs and a less than stellar graduation rate. From the experiences I have had with high school to date, it seems as if there are three different types of students: those motivated to get good grades, those motivated only by a certain teacher or subject, and those that seem to lack motivation altogether. Assuming this generalization, it seems there will always be a group of students unmotivated to learn regardless of how great the teacher or content is. As fresh teachers looking to make a change we might ask ourselves, what can we do to lessen the amount of students in that latter group?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately it seems this lack of motivation is often brought on not by anything said or done in the classroom, but rather by the lifestyle taking place inside these students' homes. Students lacking parental support with regard to academics seem to have a natural tendency to not be motivated by academic subjects. On one hand, there is nothing we can do to change the home lives of any of our students, but on the other, is it fair to write unmotivated students off because of their home circumstances?
This is a question I'm struggling with daily as we progress through the beginning of the school year. If you stumble upon any strategies that seem to be somewhat effective in motivating these types of students be sure to share, and I will do the same!
This is a very interesting, and a very important discussion. I would add in the point that what can appear to us as an issue of motivation is sometimes a matter of confidence. It is the sad truth that many of our students don't see themselves as capable learners, whether generally, or in a given subject area. Sometimes our task is to try to reach the students where they are and to offer them experiences wherein they can gradually come to see themselves as having some tools with which to approach work that they has previously seen as being beyond their capacity.
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