‘About Me’ Profiles
3 years ago
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Excluding kids??
A teacher I know is planning a read-in for her students. Sounds great, but not everyone will be allowed to participate. There will be two students out of 27 who didn't get their work done, so while everyone else is hanging out on the floor with their friends, eating snacks, reading and having fun, these two will be working at their desks. This really bothers me. I think a read-in is something everyone should be allowed to participate in. Excluding these two students (who usually have some degree of difficulty completing assignments on time as it is) will make them stand out even more. The teacher said that she told these students all week that they needed to get their work done in order to participate; even with knowing the expectations, the students were unable to finish. I think they already miss out on so many things because they are constantly behind. There has to be a better way to motivate and help struggling students....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I agree with you that punishing the students for not finishing their work is counterproductive. Instead I think that the teacher should try to explicitly teach better orginizational skills to the students. I know that as teachers, we will have more than enough to do, but teaching the kids skills to manage will have a lasting effect. Like the old adage "give a man a fish and he'll be hungry tomorrow, teach a man to fish and he'll be fed for life."
I think leaving students who struggle out makes it even harder on them and motivates them less. These students are generally dealing with multiple issues behind the scenes anyhow. Many students I have seen struggling in school do not have a strong support structure. These are the students we need to reach out to the most and I agree teach them additional skills, like orginization, which many of us take for granted. I find this practice discouraging, but I also try to keep in mind that I have not walked in "teacher" shoes yet. So, I am try to keep an open mind just in case when I run into these scenarios.
I've been observing my master teacher a lot in my dyad placement, and notice that he seems to deal with each class, and each student, according to where they're at, academically, linguistically, and even regarding attitude. He just tries to take each student as far as he can, without criticizing the slow ones, or even the ones who don't seem to pay much attention. He seems to accept the fact that some kids are just never going to be great scientists. So he says encouraging things to kids who say helpful things, and pretty much tolerates the attitude cases, while still trying to encourage them to participate more. At first, this seemed like living in denial, but increasingly it seems like doing the best he can with reality. I think everyone feels valued--even the kids who don't do very much. That seems like a pretty good approach, overall.
Post a Comment