For once, blame the student

[bandnerd]

I received this email from a friend of mine who is also a teacher. I found it interesting, even read it to one of my classes. While my students disagreed that a poor teacher shouldn't reflect on their learning as little as the article implies (they felt a bad teacher could be really detrimental to their education while a great teacher could help) they agreed that a lot of our educational downfalls from the last couple of decades really stem from laziness on the student's part.

Read on.


From USA Today, Tuesday, March 7, 2006. See http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion...students_x.htm
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For once, blame the student

By Patrick Welsh

Failure in the classroom is often tied to lack offunding, poor teachersor other ills. Here's athought: Maybe it's thefailed work ethic of todays kids. That's what I'm seeing in my school. Until reformers see thisreality, little will change.

Last month, as I averaged the second-quarter grades for my senior English classes at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., the same familiar pattern leapt out at me.

Kids who had emigrated from foreign countries - such as Shewit Giovanni from Ethiopia, Farah Ali from Guyana and Edgar Awumey from Ghana - often aced every test, while many of their U.S.-born classmates from upper-class homes with highly educated parents had a string of C's and D's.

As one would expect, the middle-class American kids usually had higher SAT verbal scores than did their immigrant classmates, many of whom had only been speaking English for a few years.

What many of the American kids I taught did not have was the motivation, self-discipline or work ethic of the foreign-born kids.

Politicians and education bureaucrats can talk all they want about reform, but until the work ethic of U.S. students changes, until they are willing to put in the time and effort to master their subjects, little will change.

A study released in December by University of Pennsylvania researchers Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman suggests that the reason so many U.S. students are "falling short of their intellectual potential" is not "inadequate teachers, boring textbooks and large class sizes" and the rest of the usual litany cited by the so-called reformers - but "their failure to exercise self-discipline."

The sad fact is that in the USA, hard work on the part of students is no longer seen as a key factor in academic success. The groundbreaking work of Harold Stevenson and a multinational team at the University of Michigan comparing attitudes of Asian and American students sounded the alarm more than a decade ago.
Asian vs. U.S. students

When asked to identify the most important factors in their performance in math, the percentage of Japanese and Taiwanese students who answered "studying hard" was twice that of American students.

American students named native intelligence, and some said the home environment. But a clear majority of U.S. students put the responsibility on their teachers. A good teacher, they said, was the determining factor in how well they did in math.

"Kids have convinced parents that it is the teacher or the system that is the problem, not their own lack of effort," says Dave Roscher, a chemistry teacher at T.C. Williams in this Washington suburb. "In my day, parents didn't listen when kids complained about teachers. We are supposed to miraculously make kids learn even though they are not working."

As my colleague Ed Cannon puts it: "Today, the teacher is supposed to be responsible for motivating the kid. If they don't learn it is supposed to be our problem, not theirs."

And, of course, busy parents guilt-ridden over the little time they spend with their kids are big subscribers to this theory.

Maybe every generation of kids has wanted to take it easy, but until the past few decades students were not allowed to get away with it. "Nowadays, it's the kids who have the power. When they don't do the work and get lower grades, they scream and yell. Parents side with the kids who pressure teachers to lower standards," says Joel Kaplan, another chemistry teacher at T.C. Williams.

Every year, I have had parents come in to argue about the grades I have given in my AP English classes. To me, my grades are far too generous; to middle-class parents, they are often an affront to their sense of entitlement. If their kids do a modicum of work, many parents expect them to get at least a B. When I have given C's or D's to bright middle-class kids who have done poor or mediocre work, some parents have accused me of destroying their children's futures.

It is not only parents, however, who are siding with students in their attempts to get out of hard work.
Blame schools, too

"Schools play into it," says psychiatrist Lawrence Brain, who counsels affluent teenagers throughout the Washington metropolitan area. "I've been amazed to see how easy it is for kids in public schools to manipulate guidance counselors to get them out of classes they don't like. They have been sent a message that they don't have to struggle to achieve if things are not perfect."

Neither the high-stakes state exams, such as Virginia's Standards of Learning, nor the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act have succeeded in changing that message; both have turned into minimum-competency requirements aimed at the lowest in our school.

Colleges keep complaining that students are coming to them unprepared. Instead of raising admissions standards, however, they keep accepting mediocre students lest cuts have to be made in faculty and administration.

As a teacher, I don't object to the heightened standards required of educators in the No Child Left Behind law. Who among us would say we couldn't do a little better? Nonetheless, teachers have no control over student motivation and ambition, which have to come from the home - and from within each student.

Perhaps the best lesson I can pass along to my upper- and middle-class students is to merely point them in the direction of their foreign-born classmates, who can remind us all that education in America is still more a privilege than a right.
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Patrick Welsh is an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.
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I think the blame should go both ways. I was in many classes in high school where the teacher was extremely lazy. Since she was under tenure, there was nothing the administration could do about it. Came every day to class, the teacher handed out a work sheet, then she did whatever she wanted. She didn't teach anything. How is a student to learn if the teacher doesn't teach?

[bandnerd]

Of course there are bad teachers...there are bad attorneys, bad doctors, etc. as well.
Basically the point of the article was to say, hey, all we ever do is blame all this other stuff but we never look at our kids and say "are they really trying?"

There were so many things that happened during my first year of teaching that really caused this article to hit home with me. I will not disclose where I taught, but suffice it to say that I saw a lot of wasted talent and intelligence and it was not on the teachers. The administrators were HORRIBLE that year, and regardless of how hard we tried, our students were so against us. A lot of it stemmed from their home lives (I've never seen such horrible home lives in my life) and the kids just never thought that teachers could be on "their side." So they made it very hard for us.

I'm rambling at this point, just trying to put a new perspective out there.

I completely agree with you bandnerd. Sure, there are lazy teachers out there. But, lazy students never seem to get the blame. Regardless of how good the teacher may be, it's extremely difficult for a teacher to train a student that doesn't want to learn, doesn't do his or her homework, refuses to participate in class, etc.

[Midtowner]

In law school, when we have a poor teacher, there is only one choice -- study harder. I completely agree -- if we spoon feed these kids in HS, they'll expect the same in college. The expectation that our teachers will miraculously turn poorly bred and raised students into first-rate pupils is ludicrous. These kids -- each and every one (with the exception of those that are born with special needs) have all the tools they need to get through the college-bound HS curriculum.

If they can't get through, screw 'em. They'll be great Wal-Mart employees.

Originally Posted by Midtowner

If they can't get through, screw 'em. They'll be great Wal-Mart employees.

Maybe that will improve service at Wal-Mart.

[shadow713]

i have been in many classes and seen many different teachers. There are many factors involved in school.

Most of the time blame goes on the student and should because most of te time they dont do what they should be doing and are more focused on socializing, even though it is an important aspect it gets in the way of acedemics. then there is the teacher. i have met many lazy teachers and they are to blame in those circumstances, along with the students who do not do anything about it.

[Midtowner]

shadow, as a student, you should always hold yourself responsible. If the teacher is not teaching, that does not excuse you from learning. You usually have a class book, and the teachers give tests and homework. If the teacher's teaching is inadequate, you have to take it upon yourself to be your own teacher.

[shadow713]

if my previous post was confusing then i apologize because everything you said i agree with yet the teacher is never blamless for anything ether.

i love getting lazy or non-working teachers. As long as they tell me what there tests are over, i can give the matieral a quick looksie and use the rest of the massive amount of time in that class simply studying for other classes, or finding ways to prove the teacher wrong, thats a favorite passtime as well.

Originally Posted by Midtowner

shadow, as a student, you should always hold yourself responsible. If the teacher is not teaching, that does not excuse you from learning. You usually have a class book, and the teachers give tests and homework. If the teacher's teaching is inadequate, you have to take it upon yourself to be your own teacher.

My son is a senior in high school this year, and he has had some big time problems with his Algebra II class and the teacher. He says his teacher does not explain things well, and that over half of the students in his class are failing. We have spoken to his counselor with no success. We decided it was time to take action on our own.

So, he is now attending night school two nights a week to get his grades up so he can walk across the stage at graduation. He is an excellent student, and algebra II has been a pain in the neck for him.

FYI......His teacher took a leave of absense for a month, and he has had a substitute. His grades have improved drastically since his normal teacher has been gone.

agreement reached!

[bandnerd]

Of course there are teachers out there who would probably be better suited for other jobs. However, I think that sometimes teachers become scapegoats for bad parenting or teenage laziness. As a teacher, it is frustrating for fingers to point at you when you have done everything right as a teacher. I'll never forget a phone call last year informing a mother of her daughter's detention in my class and I asked if she had any concerns or questions and she said, "I have no concerns or questions about my daughter, but as for you, I think you are a pathetic excuse of a band director."

I wanted to respond, "Well, you're a pathetic excuse of a parent," but she hung up too quickly to hear even my gasp of shock that she said that.

Why was her daughter getting detention? Sleeping in my class. How was that my fault? Her section was working, all of them except her. She decided to sleep that day instead, and it was a bad decision.

I haven't had any problems at my current school. Most of the parents realize that the teachers are working as hard as they humanly can and I appreciate them noticing.

Now if only city and federal government leaders would notice that instead of focusing on the bad all the time...

In my experience the student is ALWAYS responsible. However, different teachers can (and do) have different effects. Some use memorization and others stand by critical thought. I prefer the latter but I understand that if I do have a teacher that requires memorization that I have to devote that much more time. Many of my teachers now use a mix between the two and for that I am grateful. But once again if the student is making bad grades, unless the teacher is somehow the Wicked Witch of the West, then it is the student's/parent's fault. As long as the teacher covers the material the stuent has NO excuse other than laziness (which isn't a very good one) of course barring disasters and other severe issues.

Absolutely not correct. Although students should always use a bad teacher as a roadblock to overcome, many times a teacher is at fault. For example i once had a teacher that covered the matieral, told us what was important and what we didnt worry about, and then gave us a final exam, the only exam she had given, over either matieral that she had not gone over or matieral that she had not covered. When this was taken to the principle by five or six of the students, she openly lied and said that she had covered the matieral. Then said students presented there pristine notebooks and got an A because they showed that she had not coverd said material.

Other problems are that teachers do not cover the material enough or tell you whether or not it is important in the overall scheme of the class, or simply a passing factoid.

[shadow713]

absolutely captain america. I had a similar experience.

now obviously people with experience can say that sometimes but not always the teacher is at fault. i know of a teacher that was horrid, we worked our arses off has much as she told us too and she only made it harder. people as a result began to slip for unnecessary reasons as they were worked too hard and believe me it was hard. we even had our grades manipulated by him/her from As or Bs to Ds or Fs. that is when a teacher is at fault not the student.

I also had a teacher that refused to give anyone an A. He believed that having a student get an A off of him was a sign of weakness on his part

[bandnerd]

And those people shouldn't teach. Our job isn't to fail students, it's to teach them and ohmygod, sometimes students are going to PASS and sometimes even EXCEL.

You can be a hard teacher without sacrificing the principals of being a good teacher.

Yes i understand that, i was simply saying that you are always going to have bad teachers, no matter what your scholastic career is, and to simply say that it is all your personal fault is not a correct way of thinking.

[GrandMaMa]

Originally Posted by CaptainAmerica

Yes i understand that, i was simply saying that you are always going to have bad teachers, no matter what your scholastic career is, and to simply say that it is all your personal fault is not a correct way of thinking.

And then, sometimes teachers get sick and tired of students that attempt to study other subjects during that teacher's class time and frequently or always trying to prove the teacher wrong for their own amusement. Get my drift?

[shadow713]

agreed. who is the professional? the teacher. not you. although that doesnt always make them right it also doesnt mean you can and should prove teachers wrong intentionally. you may correct them but you do not sit there and prove them wrong. it is very disrespectful to a teacher no matter who it is, nor do they like it.

If a teacher is wrong and a student knows it, there is only one option- RESPECTFULLY bring attention to the problem then move on. Teachers aren't always right but nowadays I typically give the benefit of the doubt.

[shadow713]

Originally Posted by {la_resistance}

If a teacher is wrong and a student knows it, there is only one option- RESPECTFULLY bring attention to the problem then move on. Teachers aren't always right but nowadays I typically give the benefit of the doubt.

RESPECTFULLY telling teachers they are wrong is correcting them. i mentioned that above.

[GrandMaMa]

Originally Posted by shadow713

RESPECTFULLY telling teachers they are wrong is correcting them. i mentioned that above.

But you gotta admit, doing it to kill time or to make a game of it (and I quote: "As a favorite pastime".)

[bandnerd]

I actually had a student the other day ask if they could do their English homework in my class (Computer Applications). It was the beginning of class, I had just handed out an assignment, and that's what the student decided to ask. I was livid. I kept it in, though, and explained that his english teacher wouldn't let him do homework from my class while he was in her class, and I wouldn't allow it either; however, if he actually finished his assignment in my class early, then he was more than welcome to read his book for English class.

Where do kids get off thinking they can do that? I mean, yes, we're there to educate you, but there are structured classes and you get plenty of time to do your homework if you don't procrastinate. Asking a teacher to do another teacher's homework in their class is one of THE most disrespectful things I can think of a student to do.