Tuesday, March 26, 2013

I Struggle with Students

The Slice of Life Story Challenge is hosted each March by authors, Stacey Shubitz and Ruth Ayres.
Check it out  and serve up your slice at Two Writing Teachers on Tuesdays and everyday in March.


"You just don't get me like other teachers do," he said to me  one afternoon after school. "Other teachers, they make it easier. They go along with my dumb jokes. You don't like me."

Ever hear that before? What are the problems in what this ninth grader is saying to me? He thinks I don't get him. He thinks I work him too hard or expect to much. What else? He is spending time with me after school. He's either come for detention  or academic intervention (help session/make up time after school for students that need it). He's blaming his academic performance on his perception of my attitude toward him. He has an external locus of control.

One truth, from my perspective, is he has not been doing school work: in class or at home. He wanders. He watches. He waits. He won't write, much. He told me during that same conversation that his, "writing sucks." He said, "I can't write. I can't write a novel (we tried NaNoWriMo this year). I can't write an essay. When I try to write a paragraph it's terrible." I told him the first time he served a tennis ball cross court it was probably terrible too. He disagreed. I replied with the idea that we can work with a terrible paragraph, but we can't work with nothing on a page. Again, he disagreed. He's thirteen.

A team at school has looked at ninth graders who are failing. In terms of our school data, thirteen year old ninth graders have the largest percentage of Ds and Fs during the first and second quarters.
These young ninth graders have 29% of all Fs earned in the first quarter and 54% of the Fs earned in the second quarter. Wow. There is practical significance for teachers and parents in the relationship between age, achievement and the transition to high school.   In terms of Ds, passing grades nearly worthless to a student's grade point average, these students garner  23 % of the market. This same age group only earns 8% of the As for the second quarter. See how the colors shift in the distribution below.

What's happening here? What kind of pressures are these children facing? Why the steep failure rates?  What does it mean?  It's a problem I continue to puzzle over and research.

Especially as I sit after school with this student. He pretends to read. He scans the page. He stars into space.  He's thinking about something, but he's not enamored by story.  He's not enamored by school either. I don't mind that, but he's sometimes mean. I can understand how repeated failure could harden your heart.

He's social. He likes to talk about what he wants to talk about to his friends or acquaintances in class. He uses the garbage can and pencil sharpener and sink often in class. He perambulates. He hasn't engaged in academics, yet. I often ask him to come for academic intervention--it's a time I offer students who have work to make up even long after due dates or grades. I've mentioned the afternoon sessions to his parents. He rarely comes.

I am trying to figure it out. I've talked to his parents. We've conferenced after school. I've asked him more than once what I can do to support him.

The day after our conversation I tried to listen more, so that I could catch a joke or two and play along as he'd asked. Unfortunately, his idea of a joke ("Want to suck my d...?") to a girl sitting across from him doesn't match mine at all. Seriously. So now what?

He's angry. He has a difficult home life. He's acting out. He's under the stress poverty creates.  I'm trying to have honest conversations with him, but they aren't working, obviously. We'll see what happens.

What do you do with students like this? What's worked in your room?

16 comments:

  1. Wow! Scenarios like this make me grateful I'm in fifth grade. I have no idea what I'd do here. I mean, you're right, he's obviously angry. His home life has intruded. I'm sure poverty is a factor. But how do you get him to care? My usual tactic would be to strengthen the relationship between myself and the child, but looks like you've tried that to no avail. Good luck with this kid - he obviously needs some success!

    And I love the data about age and grades at your school. I think that is fascinating!

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    1. I loved helping out in my son's fifth grade classroom. Fifth grade is a great year! Thank you for the luck and good wishes. I am not giving up!

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  2. Once you've got his little problem worked out, you'lll have your next book. I think you've probably nicely summed up why 9th grade is my least favorite grade to teach. I felt like it was difficult to engage even the best students in the same way that 10th graders will. That transition is so difficult. But, if the student actually comes to school, that's a great start. (I felt like attendance was one of the big problems for my 9th graders.) Then I just looked for anything that we could be successful with. I know you already do this. For me, it was usually a whole-class novel that they didn't hate (like Among the Hidden). Among the Hidden is fairly easy for 9th graders, but even my most difficult students were interested and then they felt like they had actually finished a book. It was a place to start. But as you know very well, there are no easy solutions.

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    1. Ha! Next book, indeed. You know the difficult part of this scenario is that teachers with students tracked into regular classes have large percentages of a class that can be like this. Imagine, as I know you can, a class with 50% apathy. Terminal apathy, or nearly so, for the remaining students (because it spreads) and the teacher (who continues to try but will burn out without intervention or additional support). I am teaching all honors students this year and have far, far fewer issues, but I have survived those years too (and don't have answers yet).

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  3. Your data on grades matches what our high school sees as well. Ninth graders have the bulk of low grades and discipline problems. I don't have any easy answers. Our school is trying many of the things you are working with. I have had this student in my 8th grade classes, year after year, and I often wonder if I make any difference at all. I remember the student who had an issue with being a bully. Our anti-bullying program required students to lose social privileges for 1 week, then 2 weeks, then 4 weeks. This student went through all the steps up to four weeks. One of his teachers had to meet him at his bus, escort him to his locker where he put all his books for the day in a crate. He was escorted to class before or after passing period, and then escorted to his locker and bus at the end of the day. Since I had him twice a day, I spent a lot of time walking the halls with him. I reached out to him every time, but progress was slow. I remember being thrilled when he first asked about my plans for the weekend. Then he left school before the year was up. I often wonder if we made a difference in his life. I hope so.

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    1. My first question is how many times did you have that 8th grader? We are a large enough school that in English, a student does not have to have the same teacher two years in a row if she has failed, but most of our kids do a virtual school (online class) to recover lost credits.

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  4. Sometimes I need to be the acting "dean" for discipline when our current one is absent, & a couple of weeks ago I had to spend the day with a boy who is younger, but is acting out as you described. Since I really didn't know the boy, I tried to engage, tried to talk, but one-word answers is much of what I got. It was a long day!
    One thing in the past I've tried with some success is to get the parents to help the students find a service they can do, like volunteering at a shelter on weekends, etc. I know you mentioned poverty was an issue, but is there someone this boy can help at school? Is there an adult who might need an "assistant" that would give this boy a real purpose? When we have students who are struggling just like you've described (not doing work, pretending in class, saying awful things, mostly out of earshot, but we hear about it) we try to find an adult in school that will pay special attention, get them interested in helping, i.e. get them thinking of others instead of themselves. I don't know if any of this will help your guy, but often I think those students see school as absolutely meaningless, & want "real" work. Best to you, Lee Ann. We've certainly all been there. The data is something to be addressed, don't you think?

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    1. That is a good reminder,Linda. I haven't tried giving him responsibilities and seeing if that would engage him. And yes, we need to do something about that data, I'm just not sure what yet. That gives me an idea though to have some of those 13 year-olds talk about what they think would help them. Maybe I could get help in figuring out how we could video or record those sound bytes and use with 9th grade teachers to plan supports or interventions for next year..

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  5. No easy answers, of course, but if there is a chance, however slim, we know well that the only way it can happen is through relationship. It sounds to me like academics needs to be put relatively to the side so the focus can be on relationship, on trust and getting over "you don't like me" (which is clearly just a defense mechanism). It is the end of March, so there might not be the time to get where you need to be, but the starting point is getting him to open up a bit and seeing you as someone who genuinely cares (again, he probably already sees this, which is why he's being so defensive).

    When kids have put up such daunting walls, they want us to try and scale them and give up because it's too much effort. What we try to do instead is dismantle the wall, brick by brick. Just as much work, but a more lasting result. Persistence, patience, and in extreme cases putting what we want/need out of a student aside are all we've got, really -- and no guarantee of success. Tough work, this teaching thing. It sounds like you're doing what you can, doing the right things in your own good way and with your own deep wisdom. I hope you start to see a few bricks fall away by June!

    On a related note, thanks for the statistics. We are seeing many grade 11 students take the grade 12-level English course a year early, and most often not with good results. This puts me in the mind to compile some statistics on grade 11 performance in the senior-level course, in an attempt to dissuade students from what usually isn't the best educational choice for them. Thanks.

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    1. I think age and maturity or development matters when we frame it in terms of readiness and ability or motivation. I wonder what your data will show.

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  6. I have a sixth grader just like this, except for the ninth grade language. I have struggled with him all year, trying this and that. Poverty is not the issue here and the parents seemed to really care - especially his mom. Then, during a recent child study team meeting, it was discovered that his father was an alcoholic who had just returned from rehab. That single piece of information explained so much. Sometimes it's matters far beyond the reach of the whole team of teachers and school psychologists and learning specialists .... But we must still try, as you do with this ninth grader and I do with my sixth grader.

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    1. Oh man, that's a hard one...will take a lot of love to heal. I hope his Mom has counseling and support in place.

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  7. Wow! I have a similar 9th grade student in my class this year (minus the language). We have all tried to talk to him and his parents (when we can get hold of them). He seems to improve for a few days, but then he falls back into his old habits again. We talk to him again, he gets better for a few days. Then there is the other one, who is always on time, smiles, and says, oh, I didn't do that. After this, I am so happy to go work with the younger students. That way I can come back again tomorrow with hope for these boys. Maybe one day I will figure out how to help them.

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    1. It does take every day efforts and that is hard, you're right. I wonder what changes in students as they mature that turns some this way--too many variables to point to one or another.

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  8. This is my first year teaching high school, but I've found that my freshmen are the toughest as well. (Your data about YOUNG freshmen specifically is fascinating!) There are several who just don't understand how important their choices now are for their future, even after repeated private conversations, referrals to counselors, phone calls home, etc. Let us know when you have the answer, because I could sure use some help too! :-) (By the way, you can't imagine how comforting it is to know that even experienced, wonderful teachers like you have these same problems reaching these kinds of kids!)

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    1. One thing a teacher of seniors did that I thought helpful was to have seniors prepare their stories (from failing to passing) and share with freshmen classes. We spent an entire class period, every class period, one Friday having seniors visit, share and answer questions. Some lessons we learn the hard way though.

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