Why is it that students, parents, and politicians expect teachers to be nearly mystical and certainly mythical forces? Today, I felt ambushed by a parent who showed up at the end of the day without a confirmed appointment, and then suggesting that I had somehow not communicated expectations clearly.
With all the forms of communication we teachers use today, whether it's verbal communication, photo copies, e-mail, or classroom web pages, how is it possible for students or parents to be in the dark when a report card arrives reporting a grade suggesting that the student accomplished little or nothing for weeks on end? I'm not talking about a difference between 90 and 80 or even 80 and 70. We give students agenda books and they refuse to write assignments down. Within a few weeks, a large percentage of those assignment books have been discarded, left aside.
Sometimes, however, students learn from these experiences and grow. I have a 10th grade student who failed my class in the fall. He took it upon himself to redo the class, to check in with me on his own, to accept feedback, to be responsible for his learning.
Did he have set backs during this project? Did he require frequent prompts to make consistent progress? Did it take him longer than expected to complete the project? The answer to all of these questions is yes. Still, here is his response to the project:
"This project forced me out of my comfort zone several times...It was very uncomfortable learning about something I had never experimented with or even used before...I have to say, this project was a lot to put together and involved a lot of research and subjective thought. I enjoyed it thoroughly and while it was tough and somewhat tedious in parts, overall I liked the experience."
When students and teachers work together and communicate, a different kind of learning is possible: Roots of Rock
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment