Apathy, it’s an Epidemic
One of the biggest problems in our school is the hallway. The hallway isn’t just a long corridor that runs from one end of the building to the other with classrooms stemming from each side. The hallway represents something much larger. It is a pathway to a positive outcome, an education. If a student makes it down the hallway and enters the classroom, they have made the right choice that day. The hallway concept might not mean anything to you if you haven’t taught at a school where many students don’t reach the classroom door and enter on a regular basis. Considering those many students who don’t make the decision to attend class, what about them? What prevents them from doing so?
Many of the teachers and administrators want to make excuses as to why these students can’t come to class. They enable the students’ behavior by labeling the student as at-risk because of their neighborhood, socio-economic status, gang affiliation, criminal record, birth order or even the weather. Someone actually told me not to expect students to attend on rainy days. Every excuse they can muster up to put a band aid on the real big problem that know one wants to recognize, apathy.
Apathy is what prevents these students from walking down the hallway to attend their class. If someone really wants something, they’ll make sure that they get there and are accounted for. For example, income tax refunds. As soon as they are available you’ll see a whole block of people lined up around the building waiting to get their refunds. Nothing prevented them from getting there. Or, do I say without being called every name imaginable, the welfare line. No one would dream of not showing up to get government assistance. Standing in those lines can be an all day event filled with frustration, but people do what they need to do to survive.
It seems that it comes down to a value system. Money and food stamps are valuable, yet education is not. If it were valuable then people would show up to get it just like they do on the first of the month.
I bet pretty soon the government is going to start a program where they pay kids to attend classes and go to school. It’s just the next “logical” step in the gov. mentality to “help” the underprivilieged youth. Help=enable.
It’s funny that you mention paying the students because that is already happening in D.C. and Cincinnati. They are paying minority students with poor academic and behavioral records an hourly wage to attend school.
This is a great post and I agree that apathy may be one of our biggest hurdles, as teachers. I think part of it goes back to the entitlement idea. For some reason, I have met dozens, if not hundreds, of students in my years of teaching who feel as if they are owed something or expect to be able to do the least amount for the biggest reward. I’m not sure where that thought originates but it’s amazing to have a student standing in front of you, shocked …even out-right indignant at the fact that he/she has an F in your class even though he/she hasn’t done an ounce of work. “But, I was here in class everyday!” Annnnndd? What did you learn? What did you produce? I have a student now, who just last week, sat for 15-20 minutes while the rest of the class took a quiz. I watched him for a bit and then asked what he was doing. He said, “I don’t have a pencil.” I reminded him for the 20th time that week about accountability and to come prepared (blah, blah, blah) and then as I was handing him the pencil, I asked, “If I hadn’t said anything, would you have just sat there and taken an F on the quiz?” He shrugged his shoulders …REALLLY???? Yes, apathy. What can we do about it?
What makes it worse is that the more teachers are held responsible for each and every child “succeeding”, the more apathetic students will become. They’re not stupid …they are figuring out that teachers will pass them so they, the teachers, don’t get “in trouble” for failing students!! (Of course, I don’t do that but I do know many who do!)
I know what you mean. It’s very frustrating. How hard is it to bring a pencil to school? We wasted over half an hour at a meeting the other day discussing whether or not we should give them out. Should we ask for collateral, if so what type? Finally, the principal interrupted and said, “If you keep giving them pencils they’re never going to bring them. The new policy is that students must bring pencils. Teachers are not allowed to give or loan pencils to students”. I wonder if in your case you hadn’t given the student a pencil and he received an F on the quiz, would that have taught him a lesson to bring one next time? Clearly the nagging isn’t working either. I hear you with the blah, blah, blah. I annoy myself when I give the lecture over and over again. I always say, “Would a carpenter show up to work without a toolbelt? Would a police officer rush to a crime scene without handcuffs and a gun? Why would a student come to school without the necessary tools he needs to succeed?” They’re response, “They get paid, Miss”. Enough said.
We do give out supplies at the high school where I work. Especially to the SPED kids. It is a middle class, suburban school and yes that sense of entitlement is running rampant. I’m sure if it were an inner city school, the funding would run out for supplies before the 1st quarter. They also don’t respect property. Material items are disposable. I lent someone a pen and he got bored & broke it apart and made ink blotches on paper. Another student I gave a pencil and the next day he didn’t have one. I asked what happened to the pencil I gave him yesterday and he said he lost it. If it were a new iPhone would he have lost it? How do you teach respect?…value?…responsibility?
While I was reading this I thought right away about our ex-president Jimmy Carter. I am embrussed to say that I forgot the name of the program he tried to set up. I attended summer school one year though this program. It wa great I attended summer school and I got paid for going! I think I was going into my freshmen year of high school. It was great I got to attend a math class and I got paid for going! I just recall the name it was called the Cedar program. (I think!) For a person who had a hard time through school with my dyslexic I thought it was pretty cool to go to school even though I hated math! I got paid for going!!! This would help. I think then students would start to show up on a more regular basis!
What state was that in Cecilia?
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