What's your standard?

 Student learning has become a contest.  As we look for solutions to the deliberate disengagement of students and ways to help all students achieve, we begin to look at why some aren't, and search even harder for solutions. 

How could each situation listed here be turned into an opportunity for the student to leap the standard and find success?

A.  A student blows the last 3 problems on a test.  She comes to you after class and asks for help and the opportunity to re-take the test. Do you spend 1-2 hours with her after school and then let her re-take? Do any other variables enter into the picture?  What would they be?

B.  Suppose the student had been absent for 10 days due to a medical situation making it impossible for her to attend.  Would this change your perspective?

C.  Alternatively, the student had been in class for 7 of the 10 days preceding the test, had completed no practice and did not actively participate in learning activities.Would you help the student, glad that she had chosen to learn, and pass no judgment?

D.  Perhaps this student had been present most of the semester already, but spent most of her time doing everything possible to NOT learn, and to distract those around her? (Obviously, this student did lots worse than to blow the last 3 problems.) Do you inflict detentions, which she will likely skip and receive in-school suspensions, or do you look for a more creative and beneficial solution to the girl's situation?  What would it be?

How much time should each student have to make up the work?  How would you handle the natural consequences around each student being "behind" classmates and having difficulty mastering new learning?  More importantly, how does the alternative learning opportunity look to the student?

Comments

[Kristin]

Great conundrum Luann, it's one any teacher with a diverse group of students has to face.

I know a teacher who claims to be absolutely fair. This teacher treats tardies the same no matter their cause, same for late work, same for the retake policy. I'm all over the place in how I respond to kids. One child may get an extra week to do an essay, one child's tardies are overlooked because he's responsible for getting little brother to school, and elementary school starts after high school.

I think equity is more important that equality. What one child needs to succeed may be different from that of another child.

Most children in D's position have bigger problems than a teacher can address in 50 minutes a day while ALSO teaching 31 other kids the content area's skills in order to bring them all up to standard as we have been told is our contractual obligation. And while I'm willing to work hard to help a child who is trying her best, I'm not willing to give unlimited chances for a child who wastes everyone's time. I'm willing to tutor, I'm willing to keep hope alive, I'm willing to steer a child towards support services and I always expect a child to succeed. But let a child retake a test who goofed off every day and so bombed? I'd tell that child she learned an important lesson. Then, I'd make sure she understood what to do in order to avoid making the same mistake again, and I'd be there to help her succeed.

[teachin']

PS Mark - could you go to the student, say you thought it over and changed your mind, and offer him the chance to retake it? That way you've dealt with perhaps having been unfair, and it's up to him if he wants to take the opportunity.

[teachin']

Honestly, for me, if ANY kid wants to come in for extra help and redo an assignment, I'm freakin' delighted. Too many of my students seem to just....accept the situation as final, and not try to change it. Whatever that situation is. So I push them and push them and push them to take ownership for their work and find opportunities to learn more and then demonstrate that learning. If they can prove they learned, they should get the credit for it (in my opinion).

When Student C came in, I'd probably take the opportunity to have a conversation with her about how wouldn't it be better to focus IN class so she doesn't have to lose her own personal time outside of class, but I'd still help her.

And I'm dealing with my own personal Student D right now (I tried to link but I don't think it's working - check out the Antagonizer tag on my blog). Some days he drives me crazy (okay, most days, to some extent), but I really, really, really would like to see him succeed and I'm refusing to give up on that. Though he and I have a lot of conversations in the hallway about his choices and how they're impacting other students' learning and how that's really not an acceptable thing to do, he's....improving. He's a little more focused; he's trying a little harder; and he's actually staying after school periodically for extra help (which he desperately needs).

I believe every kid deserves a chance to realize that they've screwed up and to try to fix the problem. Wouldn't we want the same chance ourselves?

[Mark]

This post really made me think, and realize that I would act differently in each of those situations you've described, Luann...and I see that I probably shouldn't. In fact, just this last week I treated two students differently: one has been coming in every day after school to get help, but froze on a test so I let her retake. The other, a kid who "came down" to my class from AP (his own words), wanted to retake the test after school and I wouldn't let him. Is it fair? I don't know... I guess the key is this: I really know that girl who has been coming in after class, I understand her struggles, her home life. I didn't take the time to do the same for the boy who "came down" from AP. Instead, I just made assumptions about him. Not good, and I'm not sure how to remedy it other than handle it differently next time.

[Luann]

Those things happen in schools that are not Title I as well. I've had high achieving students ask for an extension on assignment for reasons like their mom got mad at their dad and set his car on fire and their backpack was inside, their mom was taken to a mental hospital last night and before the police arrived had held a loaded gun to student's head for almost an hour, they missed school to take their dad to a mental hospital when he collapsed because the mom left him for another man, the student is receiving chemotherapy and her hair fell out last night, they are living in their car at Walmart with their brother because dad and mom split and neither new boyfriend/girlfriend wants them in the house, and the list goes on. It's a fallacy that Title 1 kids are the only ones with serious problems, or that have enough money, food, and a place to live.
And note that those Kids are the ones who said, "I have an issue and need an extension." They may not elaborate on the issue (and I don't press), but they ask and deliver. A student once got a text message right before school about her mother's arrest at their home (alcohol and drugs, repeated violation) and after a moment in the hall when she found out, and I asked how I could help and what she needed, she replied, "I need to go into class and do my lab," and she did. This student has learned that she cannot control the others in her life, but that she can control her own success and that is her lifeline. Those students who don't achieve are often not achieving because that is their choice. I want to figure out how to make them want to achieve and get out of their situations.

How do those students labeled in a Title I school as expected not to achieve get out of that situation? How do we help them to learn in order that they may do so?

[ricochet]

I teach in a Title 1 school. I have had the situation listed above - only to find while they were in class, they were dealing with date rape or the rape by an uncle, death of a parent or sibling, being kicked out of the house by parents and grandparents, repeated emotional abuse - and it goes on and on.

And there are so many who will not tell you what is going on in their lives. Knowing this is the community, does that change your opinion?