It's nearing the end of the school year here in Japan and as such the teacher's meeting season is in full swing and my school has been gracious enough to offer me the chance to sit in on the meetings and so of late I've been doing a bit of thinking about exactly what you have to do to be the kind of teacher who really moves lives. There are a ton of teachers out there, we've all had a few of them, I suppose, and I think we could all probably agree that while there's nothing worse than a bad teacher, there's nothing better than a great one. What does it take to be a great one? What do you have to do?
There's different ways to be a great teacher, but lately I've been thinking about what to do with the kids who just don't really give a shit. In every class there are a few kids who are all-stars, a lot of kids who are doing alright, a handful of kids who are floundering a little, and then a few kids who either have no chance or prefer to be a wrecking ball. As a teacher, those last one's are the most frustrating because they are not only bringing themselves down but it seems like they're on a mission to tear down the whole production. All people are pretty much consistently engaged in ranking themselves (unconsciously, most often) upon various social totem-poles, but no humans are more attune than middle school aged kids, and so if the big dogs on the top of the pole are out there ready to take a bite of your hide if you step up then you're far more likely to sit quietly, take your notes, keep your nose clean and get out of there. Which isn't the way to greatness.
Oftentimes it seems like there's nothing you can really do about this, but I'm not satisfied with that answer. There is something you can do about this, there has to be, and first you have to start with trying to understand why class clowns and bullies and dropouts to be act the way they do.
I believe that all behavior can be understood. With the exception of people who have serious cognitive disorders I think there is reason why people do the things they do and if you look hard enough you should be able to figure it out. Why is it that some students don’t do their homework, don’t care about their grades, and in general do far more to disrupt the learning environment than to contribute to it? There are many factors, of course, but I think it all boils down to this: they don’t consider themselves the type of person who is a good student. In every class there are some kids who will succeed regardless of the task placed in front of them.. Regardless of the teacher, regardless of their classmates, regardless of all external factors they will turn in their homework on time, perform on tests, and be generally positive forces in the classroom. Why? Because, consciously or not, they base their identity upon it. When I was in school, especially high school, my identity was probably too powerfully linked to my image as a good student; the thought of not doing homework or performing poorly on a test or paper would make me sick because it was not who I was. I considered myself a perfect student and getting less than a perfect grade would have been an assault to my identity. As a result, I did the things necessary to get the grades I considered acceptable.
Where did that identity come from? By the time I was 15 it was firmly in place and nobody had to tell me that I had to do my homework because I was incapable of doing anything else, but why? That sense of self had to come from somewhere. I guess there are a lot of places such a thing could come from, but in my case it was pretty simple. From as long as I can remember my mom wouldn’t accept anything less than the highest results. At first I was motivated almost assuredly (at least partially) out of fear that my mom would yell at me if I got less than the best, but what I didn’t realize was going was that my little mind was being programed to believe that it was capable of the best. For that I can only be eternally grateful because that pressure, that expectation to perform at the highest level was slowly ingrained into me until it became natural and unquestionable. While I could come up with some counter examples (once I got into college my expectations and standards dropped some, I didn’t believe myself capable of science so those grades weren’t so good, etc) for the most part, least as far as school and studying was concerned I never went into any endeavor expecting or even accepting less than the best.
The problem for me now is expanding those expectations to all aspects of my life, a process which is fully in process.
But how about those kids don’t give a shit about school? It’s likely that they either a) were never really pushed to think that school was important, or b) were never really told that they were capable of exceeding at it. What’s going to result in that? A kid who either sees no value in the stuff presented in school (and therefore only hassle and pain), or a kid who doesn’t think he or she is smart enough to get anything out of the stuff presented in school. Either way, that student is not going to view him or herself as an “A student” and so, or course, will not exhibit any “A student” behavior. None of this stuff is relevant to my everyday life, why should I care about it? I can’t do it anyway, so what’s the point of frustrating myself and making myself feel stupid and worthless by trying? My parents and friends don’t care anyways so why put in the effort for no reward? These are the kinds of excuses for not studying that teachers hear on a daily basis, and while they are frustrating, in order to move past them I think it is vital to realize that they are also very defensible and rational from such a student`s perspective. If in fact those are the beliefs towards school that a kid brings into the classroom, you will have no success getting him or her to learn unless you FIRST CHANGE THOSE BELIEFS. It’s that simple. You can keep kids after school and punish them for not working and yell at them all you want but if none of these things change the way the kid thinks about school (and in fact it seems like few of these methods ever do) then you won’t get the results you want. You might get the kid to turn in his homework, though it’s likely to either have been copied from a friend or done sloppily, neither of which is a good way to get to actual understanding, or you might just make a kid hate school more, reinforcing her image of it as a place of tormentors and bullies to be rebelled against at all cost. I think for a lot of kids school seems like just such a place, but it’s not because teachers like to be mean to kids. They’re not being mean and in the vast majority of circumstances they have no malicious intent; the reason they are harsh is because they think that is the best way to make their students better. Don’t get more wrong, I’m not saying that there is never a time for a harsh word; sometimes there most certainly is. However, and from working at a school for a few years I am convinced that all of the teachers at my school believe this, a teacher’s job is to get the most they can out of their students, to help them see their weaknesses and get past them, to be a bigger and better person when they leave the school then they were when they came in. It’s that simple. Sometimes, though, the prescribed method for changing a student is far from the most effective one. All teachers want to help.
Kids have to know that school is a place for them to grow, not a place for them to be yelled at by an annoying adult. Sometimes it turns into a place to be yelled at by an annoying adult, however, and once you get into that frame learning sort of stops and resistance takes over.
One last thought. Everybody is pretty much looking for how they can get the least pain and the most pleasure out of any given environment they are in. Humans are complicated but I think it’s a highly defensible claim that all human behavior stems from this dynamic. Why then, do some kids play dumb in class, or in some cases even take pride out of being dumb? In some classes I go to it’s a recurring theme that some kids will puff up over getting single digits on their test scores, or in not understanding vocabulary words, or in making the topic and the teacher presenting it seem weird and/or stupid. Why? First off, think about what they get out of that. Mocking the subject matter or the teacher, feigning stupidity. In some ways, not being emotionally affected by things makes someone seem cool. If a kid doesn’t know the answer to a question and breaks down and cries because of that he’s not going to be labeled as a cool kid for obvious reasons. However, if he doesn’t know and clearly doesn’t give a shit that can be seen as kind of cool because it conveys the image that he is above English or above the teacher’s demands. A free spirit. A freedom fighter standing up to the Man. He (this character is usually a he) also gets laugh. His peers think he’s funny, and in the short run he gets a lot of value out of refusing to study. If, on the other hand, he tries seriously to study, because he’s not smart, he goes from being the funny rebel to being just a failure. If you’re that kid and you don’t think you have a chance in hell to actually be successful, which option are you going to choose?
If your options are to evaluate your sense of self by standards that will make you small, or by standards that will validate you, most people are going to go with the latter. Of course, in the long run choosing ignorance is the worst choice you could ever make; however, the problem is getting kids (and people in general, myself included) to think in the long run.
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