Ugh.
So I was grading essays yesterday, and I found out something uncanny:
The Europeans didn't get anything out of the Crusades because Europe was a much more advanced city than Muslim.
Woah.
For the benefit of all of you that aren't history geeks, the things the Europeans brought back from the Middle East after the Crusades settled down pretty much pulled Europe out of its dark age.
Also, uh, Europe isn't a city. Neither is Muslim.
My fellow student teachers discovered that Teddy Roosevelt freed the slaves and that Thomas Jefferson started the Trail of Tears.
I keep telling myself that these kids aren't worthless or terrible. They aren't. They may be a little inattentive, or maybe they just didn't study. While it's possible that they're just a little dumb, writing them off as dumb really doesn't inform my teaching. It's pretty tough to not get mean and sarcastic, though. Sarcasm in the classroom may be acceptable sometimes to lighten the mood, but it shouldn't have a target or anything. I found myself being a little sarcastic with my students the last couple of days and decided I should probably stop. It doesn't work as a classroom management tool, and if you convince a student that he or she is dumb, then it gives them an excuse to stop caring. It also gives them permission to be a punk -- while I may be able to be judicious about how I use sarcasm, many of them aren't.
So, shoot, here I am going to bed at 10:30 every day, packing brown bag lunches, wearing khakis, shaving every day, and swearing off sarcasm. Too bad being an adult sucks.
3 comments:
Yep, being an adult is a little different from how you sort of dream it will be as you're growing up. I remember thinking when I was a kid that it would be fun to do taxes.
The kids you're teaching aren't dumb at all. They just don't have a reason to care about that particular material (and maybe they feel like they don't have a reason to care about very much). And as we all know, if you don't care, you won't learn. Can you convince them that they should? Aside from being material that will be on college entrance exams, what is there in this stuff that really will matter to them? Not a tall order or anything.
There are probably a myriad of ways in which the kids are really smart, like surviving tough home situations--or maybe they've put their brains on the back shelf because they don't believe they matter, or because they have a lot of other problems and the Trail of Tears is at the bottom of their list.
Like all jobs that matter, this is a tough row to hoe, but you're a good man for the job.
you might wanna fix your about me on the right...
well, I know what I would do. I would type all these up, anonymously, and hand them back to everyone, asking what is wrong with each one.
Hang in there, Russ. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. We don't always get through to our students, even when we make our best efforts.
I don't mean to lecture you on pedagogy (particularly since college instruction is largely different than high school), but my own experience working with 1st-year college students has led me to believe that some of the so-called "slackers" will become more cooperative (or at least less resistant) if forced to reflect on how they contribute to the learning process. Let me know if you want me to expand on this, though I suspect you already know what I mean.
Peace out.
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