As mentioned in this thread, I have recently started student teaching.
My kids all live in the metropolitan Philadelphia area. They all come from lower-class families and exhibit traits that are considered stereotypical of the area - they don’t respect authority, don’t care much about their education, get in a lot of fights, etc. Most troublesome for me is that they just don’t listen. I could tell the class 10 times to write their name, date, and assignment on their paper and maybe half will do so. I know it’s not just me, because my cooperating teacher (the woman who would normally be teaching the class had I not come into the picture) has the same difficulties that I do.
A big reason for why these kids don’t care is that what we are teaching them (math) doesn’t seem meaningful to them. What I want to stress then is how what we do can relate to their lives and even help them become successful later on.
I would like to do a lesson with my kids on how skills they are learning in the classroom (listening, following directions, respect of self and others, etc.) directly relates to skills they will need later on down the line when they have a job.
For example:
Following directions the first time they are spoken is essential at work if you want to be regarded as a good employee who cares about their job. If you don’t do this, you will probably get fired.
I am primarily looking for suggestions for this activity, but any other help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I am about at wit’s end with these kids.
How the heck does a teacher teach her kids to care?
Look where they are going to be in two years. The stuff you are talking about doesn’t apply. Your reality is not their reality.
Yes, yes, in a perfect world, even a tolerable world it would. But you are not teaching in that world.
Yes, if they have those skills it will help them, but you will not convince them of that, you will have to trick them to do that and after time, they will discover it. Trust me, however, it is easier said then done.
I don’t personally have any advice because I don’t student teach until the spring, but have you checked out A to Z Teacher Stuff? It’s a site dedicated to teaching with several active message boards, including one related to student teaching. You’ll probably get more responses over there than here. Also, have you read the book A Framework for Understanding Poverty? I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard teachers say that reading it really helped them to understand their inner-city students. I have to say that I’ve also heard that the book is nonsense and unfairly blames poor people for their condition, so your mileage may vary. However, it might be helpful. Good luck!
TV Time is exactly right: they can’t even imagine relevancy, and even those that can figure they have time to pick up skills anyway.
Things I would try:
Learn to care about THEM. Figure them out. Be a little wowed by something in each kid. Quit being scared of them (this takes time!).
Make your classroom disciplene your first priority: at this point, spend at least as much time thinking/planning/reflecting on classroom management as you spend thinking/planning/reflecting on lesson planning. Because if your classroom is organized, they will learn almost any way you teach. If it is disorganized, they will never get it.
Consistency, consistency, consistency. Once you set the rules, follow them exactly the same for everyone. If you haven’t been consistient in the past–perfectly consistient–start tomorrow. They will learn. When you show that the rules are negotiable, you set yourself up to negotiate everytime.
Someone in that building can handle these kids, can teach these kids–if it isn’t your mentor teacher (and it sounds like it isn’t), find out who it is and go watch them. Take them out to dinner and pump their brain.
Games, games, games, and competition. This is often about the only thing that will motivate incorrigibles. Put them in groups, make them compete.
Remember that you get to start over with a new group at semester, and leave all your mistakes behind you!
I see what you’re saying. In talking to my kids, a lot of them mentioned getting jobs in the near future (in Pennsylvania, they can get working papers starting at age 14). Because of this expressed interest in working and making money, I was hoping to connect to that. Maybe it is too early for that sort of connection, though.
Since discipline is such an issue for this school, my co-op and I have decided that I will spend the majority of the first week and a half (Sept. 6 - 16) doing just what you mentioned. I live only 10 minutes from the school, so I know how these kids think, act, and some of the problems they face. Because of this along with my younger age, I am perhaps more equipped than my co-op to be able to “figure them out”. I genuinely care about every one of these kids and I let them know this on a regular basis - both through words and actions. The only kids I’m still sort of scared of are those that would scare anyone else. In the past, these kids have been responsible for literally beating up other kids to the point that they were barely recognizable and had to be hospitalized.
This is where I my co-op and I are having some difficulty. We are working together to formulate a plan that will provide that consistency and discipline that they so desperately need without making them feel as though we are attacking them. For so many of these kids, the only feedback they get (or at least remember) is negative. Without a firm structure, we spend more time reteaching a lesson to the kids who weren’t paying attention than we did to teach the initial lesson. Also, we have to constantly repeat the assignment. These kids can’t do something as simple as write down the assignment let alone actually complete it!
As a part of my university’s program, we are required to observe other teachers in action. I am hoping to pull ideas from them along with ideas from my co-op to use in my lessons.
We currently spend a lot of time playing games, but I would like to make this a more regular occurrence.
I am definitely looking forward to this. I will be able to start over knowing all that I will know at the end of this placement.
This has been a hard lesson for me to learn, TV time.
I’m finding that a lot of things are easier said than done when it comes to teaching.
Thank you so much for the link. It’s getting late, so I haven’t checked out the site in full, but I will tomorrow. It looks great so far!
I will also check out that book. I have had some experiences that are similar to my kids, but nothing this extreme. Hopefully, the book will help me see things a little better through their eyes.
We always do both. Write the directions on the board - Say them out loud - Reiterate where the directions are on the board if a student happened to miss anything the first time.
I’m not trying to be argumentative or nit picky…oh, like hell I’m not.
I guess it depends on your situation. I’ve found that giving directions orally (hee hee) means everyone needs to be quiet. How can they hear if it’s not quiet? But, a quiet classroom doesn’t mean everyone is listening.
My students know that when they come in the class, they check the board for exactly what they need, and what to do. I go around the room and help kids out. This is a GREAT time to make one-on-one contact with kids. My students who act out 99% of the time just need attention.
When it comes to in-class assignments, I write the directions on the board, or write them on the handout.
If you are giving directions out loud and even one kid is acting out/not listening/etc…you’re sending a bad message to the class.
All of this is part of classroom management. And there are MANY philosophies on this. I run away screaming from any type of reward/punishment system, and instead lean towards the “demystifying education” philosophy. I explain what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how it will affect them, using as many relevant examples as possible.
I teach English. You said math. Personally? I think math would be 10x harder to teach than English.
For some reason, I had no management problems student teaching. This turned out to be bad. My student teaching was at the high school level. My first job was a the middle school level.
My aunt was a teacher in northern Manitoba in an isolated community with high unemployment and substance abuse problems. She said that she had to have a frank discussion about why what they were doing was important.
She asked the question “What do you want to do when you finish school?” and answered her own question to which the students responded favourably, “Party!”
She then described how school and subject being taught was important to them even if it didn’t seem to be. ie. They need to be able to pay for partying, and somewhere to have the party, and money to pay for everything. They need a good way to get the money, which means a job and doing math or speaking correctly, or understanding another language, or reading instructions or writing orders for other people, etc. And they probably wouldn’t want to be stuck in that town for the rest of their lives, so they needed to be able to have the skills to be independent.
It seemed to work for her. I don’t have any follow-up to see if it lasted…I’ll have to ask…
I would guess that in your situation, the kids would be cynical of you befriending them or having an interest in their well-being, so I think you’ll have to try to do it without being all touchy-feely. Maybe telling them that you want them to have the skills to fend for themselves to do whatever they want without getting screwed by their friends or ‘the man’.
BTW, you might decribe a job as doing some activity for somebody else in return for money. The fewer people who do that activity well, the better the pay for it. Right now, school is the practice for doing that. It is doing some activities for YOURSELF, which will pay off when you get hired for a job.
Oh, I don’t know, it sounded good rolling around in my head, but it doesn’t look right here…good thing I’m not a teacher…
You might find some helpful info here, at mathforum.org’s “why study math?” link. I found many of the external links on that page don’t seem to work anymore, but the ones to the Dr. Math Archives are all in working order and contain some interesting guidance. Their main page has other links that could prove useful, too, like a “Teacher 2 Teacher” forum.
Just don’t go after the big activity that will make it all clear to them and make things better: it never happens like that. You aren’t going to logic them into learning. You’d be better off earning their trust, and then when you tell them that they need this stuff, they will sorta kinda almost believe you. And that’s a start.
Do they have sports? Go to games. And eventually you aren’t even scared of the scary ones.
As long as you LIKE them–and kiss ass all day–and as long as you are CONSISTIENT (i.e., don’t show favoritism by ever making exceptions), you can be as strict as you want and they won’t take it personally. It isn’t you, it’s the rules. Trust me on this. Just keep your rules simple, and your consequences LIGHT so that you aren’t shy about applying them, even if there are extenuating circumstances.
Put a cost on reteaching: teach them a lesson, have a competition that the kids that were paying attention win a prize (tootsie rolls are cheap) and don’t give pity candy. THEN teach it again if you must. If they know you are willing to keep reteaching the same thing, they have no reason to learn it the first 17 times. And it’s funny to watch you get so frustrated!
This is the best part of teaching–all your jokes are fresh again, too.
Trust me when I say that it does get easier, and that teaching is the most fun you can have in public.
