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Old 08-05-2012, 06:15 AM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,405,144 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sharingan99 View Post
oh please, are you serious?

I have taught for one of the lowest and most ghetto district in my state. While yes, I keep a positive attitude most of the time, the vast majority rests on the student. I have always been there for my students and told them if they ever needed help I would be there.When it came time to utilize that help(extra credit, tutoring, etc.), how many do you think came? I think the most that I ever had were 5 students and they were football players that were forced to come by the coaches! When I failed the ones that were making F's then they decide that they want to do the make up work and stuff. Well guess what? Too bad. I'm not grading it. We are doing these kids a horrible disservice. Do you think professors are going to put up with this? The majority of them do not so why should we? The students attitude is to do the least amount of work and earn the highest grade possible.

And that's just academics, I have been cussed at, threatened physically, yelled at, been told that I should not go out, should not have a life or facebook, shouldn't date and that I should just stay home and read books. I'm serious. They totally dehumanize me. I finally had to explain to them that I am a person just like them. I live in a small area and sometimes it is hard to avoid them. I guess what I am trying to say is that this whole coddling mess and "it should be our responsiblity since we are an adult" attitude is crap. Am i strict? Yes. Mean? Maybe..but I will tell you now, I had only 4 students fail for the year out of 136. As long as you are CONSISTANT and let them know what your expectations are and follow through, you can make a difference. But if you baby them, throw the blame at other teachers, then you will get young adults acting like babies, because that is the kind of behavior that they are imitating and we all know that young ones imitate what they see and hear.
I have the same issue. I'm there after school yet students don't come. Then they complain to the management that they're failing because I'm not available to them. Maybe I'm supposed to go to their houses. There just comes a point when the students MUST help themselves.

Unfortunately, kids, today, have been conditioned to expect trophies just for showing up so they want high grades for little work. They don't know what failure is because no one ever let them fail. Failure is not an option because they don't believe it an happen. They believe someone will fix it for them. I understand colleges are having to change their game as these kids come through. Sadly, this has resulted in further dummying down of education.

In the charter school, I was threatened physicall and had one student dump chemicals down my back when I was bent over getting something out of a lower cabinet. In the first case I was told, by mom (the school did nothing), that he has anger management issues and I needed to quit making him mad. In the second he got a week's suspension and then I got two weeks detention because I had to stay after school and reteach everything he missed. There has been one incident at the school where I now teach. It was a facebook assault (on me and other teachers) and the student was given a 180 day suspension. This prompted his family to move him to another district.

When I look at my students, I can tell you which ones will succeed in life. They are the ones who are taking responsibility for their own educations and actions. They will go far in life. I'm not sure about the rest, which, unfortunately, is the majority. The ones who will only pay attention when things are entertaining and only participate when things are fun. Jobs are rarely entertaining and fun but I wish them the best finding that job.
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Old 08-05-2012, 06:21 AM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,405,144 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jazzii View Post
As a high school student I believe that a large part of learning does fall on the teacher. Typically I am an A+ to B student but there have been classes that I get lower grades in because of lack of motivation and that I feel is something teachers should help with. For example my bio teacher was amazing, he played guitar and wrote songs about mitochondria and bones, and everyone could tell that he genuinely loved his job. This has been the only teacher that I went to visit every day just to say good morning and I looked forward to class - I don't even like science. The lowest grade any of his students received on the state test was an 85 compared to other teachers who had students whom failed and the next year those students were placed with my teacher and they all passed. And they had a good time.

Prior to this year I wasn't a big fan English, always did well but I never enjoyed It my teacher however, made it worthwhile and she made it her priority to show that she truly did care about us, and truly loved her job- she was open with us and shared what she did as a teen and how she doesn't want us to end up like her.


Well now that my rant is over i just want to say that I do think teachers play an important role in students success.
I would suggest you work on this. Your motivation shouldn't be depenent on someone elses actions. Here you admit that YOUR motivation was the problem but then turn around and blame the teacher for that. You have far more control over your motivation than anyone else.

Reality is, you are not going to click with every teacher/boss you will have and you need to figure out how to motivate yourself when you don't.

I would like to ask a serious question. Do you remember the material taught through those songs that got you through the test? I don't use strategies like this because I find that the material is simply memorized to music, never understood and forgotten as soon as the melody is out of the student's head. I hate mneumonic for the same reason. It seems once I give my students an easy way to get to the answer, they're done thinking. They no longer care about the reasons behind what is happening.
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Old 08-05-2012, 11:04 AM
 
919 posts, read 1,682,174 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
I would suggest you work on this. Your motivation shouldn't be depenent on someone elses actions. Here you admit that YOUR motivation was the problem but then turn around and blame the teacher for that. You have far more control over your motivation than anyone else.

Reality is, you are not going to click with every teacher/boss you will have and you need to figure out how to motivate yourself when you don't.

I would like to ask a serious question. Do you remember the material taught through those songs that got you through the test? I don't use strategies like this because I find that the material is simply memorized to music, never understood and forgotten as soon as the melody is out of the student's head. I hate mneumonic for the same reason. It seems once I give my students an easy way to get to the answer, they're done thinking. They no longer care about the reasons behind what is happening.

What I meant by that comment is that it's hard for me to be motivated when I have a teacher who doesn't want to help me, because they don't care.

And actually yes I do remember the song... I was singing it the other day while helping my sister with her HW. and I remember the concept behind it. (despite it being 3 years ago)

And for the person who said they're in the most ghetto school or w.e... I am in one of the WORST districts in the state as well as the murder capital.... probably half of my school is in a gang. It's not like I go to a school where everyone wants to learn, or cares about learning, but our teachers (the ones who understand or attempt to, and show that they care) do help the students at my school.

I understand everything isn't the fault of the teacher, I have experience working in classrooms and daycares and such, and I understand that there are just some students who do not care, and will not ever care. I understand that You cannot reach every student and that isn't realistic. However what I am saying is that if a teacher makes a class enjoyable and creates an environment where a student feels that they aren't just worsening a teachers mood, then IMO that could affect how a student responds
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Old 08-05-2012, 01:10 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,405,144 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jazzii View Post
What I meant by that comment is that it's hard for me to be motivated when I have a teacher who doesn't want to help me, because they don't care.

And actually yes I do remember the song... I was singing it the other day while helping my sister with her HW. and I remember the concept behind it. (despite it being 3 years ago)

And for the person who said they're in the most ghetto school or w.e... I am in one of the WORST districts in the state as well as the murder capital.... probably half of my school is in a gang. It's not like I go to a school where everyone wants to learn, or cares about learning, but our teachers (the ones who understand or attempt to, and show that they care) do help the students at my school.

I understand everything isn't the fault of the teacher, I have experience working in classrooms and daycares and such, and I understand that there are just some students who do not care, and will not ever care. I understand that You cannot reach every student and that isn't realistic. However what I am saying is that if a teacher makes a class enjoyable and creates an environment where a student feels that they aren't just worsening a teachers mood, then IMO that could affect how a student responds
Good. I find that while some students will remember, they don't understand if I just give them some cutsie way to remember something. One example is a teacher in the middle school does a dance to show the kids the movement of atoms. Yet when I teach it, they cannot connect that movement with increased/decreased reaction rates. This baffles me. If you have the movement down it should be a short hop from there to collision theory. I always end up telling them and then the light goes on. Yet they remember the dance. It's even named after the teacher in question.

I see more parroting answers with the singing, dancing, silly and mnemonic devices. They work when you only need to memorize what is being presented but I find they become a stumbling block to understanding. The second I teach my students LEO the lion says GER, most of them are done thinking about what is really happening in RedOx reactions. They have a mnemonic to get the answer. I just hope they remember LEO as well as you remember that song on the state tests.

Could you give some examples of how teachers make class enjoyable? I'm very serious in my class because of safety issues. I find if I EVER let kids goof off, they will during labs and their exucse is "We normally can do _____________". I can NEVER allow horseplay, goofing off or eating in class because then kids will "forget" on lab days. I find that students don't like the seriousness but my experience is if I give them an inch, they take a mile and then I've got someone cut, burned, eating potentially contaminated food or a chemical spill.
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Old 08-05-2012, 04:23 PM
 
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Sorry, I can't(and won't) do that.

This whole "entertain me" culture is total bs. When you get a job, do you think everything is going to be fun? When you are working taco bell, cleaning toilets, or at walmart in the back room stocking shelves(very boring), do you think your managers are going to sing, dance, draw pics, and shake their rump just to make sure you get the idea?

I flat out tell my students, I don't sing or dance. I do however try to use real world examples or tv shows to jog their memory and this makes it somewhat enjoyable for all of us, but this whole singing a song and catering to people that just DO NOT WANT TO LEARN, is unacceptable. People like that to me are just dead weight, if you don't want to learn, then drop out and go get a job working in a factory so the ones that DO want to learn, can. All I know is that an educator(and tax payer), I am tired of seeing my tax dollars going to students that do not want to be there and think that everything in the classroom has to be fun and entertaining when that is not how the real world works.
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Old 08-05-2012, 04:31 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,405,144 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by sharingan99 View Post
Sorry, I can't(and won't) do that.

This whole "entertain me" culture is total bs. When you get a job, do you think everything is going to be fun? When you are working taco bell, cleaning toilets, or at walmart in the back room stocking shelves(very boring), do you think your managers are going to sing, dance, draw pics, and shake their rump just to make sure you get the idea?

I flat out tell my students, I don't sing or dance. I do however try to use real world examples or tv shows to jog their memory and this makes it somewhat enjoyable for all of us, but this whole singing a song and catering to people that just DO NOT WANT TO LEARN, is unacceptable. People like that to me are just dead weight, if you don't want to learn, then drop out and go get a job working in a factory so the ones that DO want to learn, can. All I know is that an educator(and tax payer), I am tired of seeing my tax dollars going to students that do not want to be there and think that everything in the classroom has to be fun and entertaining when that is not how the real world works.
This is what I struggle with. That and the fact that once entertained students seem to stop thinking and I want them to think. Life is not entertaining. Jobs are not entertaining. If we train our kids to require entertaining (which someone else is responsible for) in order to do what they're supposed to, we fail to teach them how to succeed in life.

This whole mentality that it's the teacher's fault if I am bored and choose to not learn because I'm bored is just more generation special at work. We act like kids have no responsibility to learn or even pay attention. School today is way more exciting than it was in my day but we wouldn't have dreamed of blaming the teacher if we failed to pay attention. We knew that was our part of the education process. Today I wonder if kids even have a part in the education process that they are responsible for.

I'm sure I could come up with some cutsie little song to teach the periodic trends (but I play the piano so this could be tricky...) but I'd rather my students UNDERSTAND why the trends ar what they are. I don't want them to memorize that reactivity increases going down the periodic table on the left and going up the table on the right. I want them to understand WHY this happens. I don't know that it's possible to set understanding and critical thinking to music. Setting things to music is a good way to memorize WHAT happened but I find that once students have the means to get the answer to the question on the test, they're done. (Unfortunately, standardized testing is pushing us towards multiple choice tests which don't lend themselves to explaining why.)

I also try to use real world examples when I can. Unfortunately, it's half way through the year before I can really do that and they can see the application. Before that, it's atomic structure, bond types and periodic trends. The ground work for understanding chemistry. During those sections, I just have to count on my students internal motivation.

Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-05-2012 at 04:44 PM..
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Old 08-05-2012, 05:16 PM
 
919 posts, read 1,682,174 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sharingan99 View Post
Sorry, I can't(and won't) do that.

This whole "entertain me" culture is total bs. When you get a job, do you think everything is going to be fun? When you are working taco bell, cleaning toilets, or at walmart in the back room stocking shelves(very boring), do you think your managers are going to sing, dance, draw pics, and shake their rump just to make sure you get the idea?

I flat out tell my students, I don't sing or dance. I do however try to use real world examples or tv shows to jog their memory and this makes it somewhat enjoyable for all of us, but this whole singing a song and catering to people that just DO NOT WANT TO LEARN, is unacceptable. People like that to me are just dead weight, if you don't want to learn, then drop out and go get a job working in a factory so the ones that DO want to learn, can. All I know is that an educator(and tax payer), I am tired of seeing my tax dollars going to students that do not want to be there and think that everything in the classroom has to be fun and entertaining when that is not how the real world works.

I do not expect teachers to sing and dance- that was just the biggest example I could think of- he's the only teacher I've ever seen do that....
What I put in bold is all I have been trying to say, just a little, I don't expect teachers to act like he did; but when I have a monotone teacher just spitting fact at me, without giving examples or connecting it to something I understand simply b/c his job is "to tell me the facts" It does affect me.

And what i put in red, is something I agree with,
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Old 08-05-2012, 06:37 PM
 
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Just for the record, those teachers who "sing and dance" maybe using actual learning style research to help students who have a more musical learning style remember things. It is not just an entertainment issue but actually using a multi pronged approach to help all learners get the material.

Now I am not a aural/musical learner, and as such I would not likely be comfortable teaching through song but that does not remotely mean a teacher who is comfortable teaching a lesson or two that way is less of a teacher.

As for "dead weight" students are children (even teens), they are not adults, and as such they are not always capable of understanding the permanence of their actions. I am by no means saying that there shouldn't be real consequences for their actions, but the idea that those kids should just get thrown away is wrong.
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Old 08-05-2012, 06:41 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,405,144 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jazzii View Post
I do not expect teachers to sing and dance- that was just the biggest example I could think of- he's the only teacher I've ever seen do that....
What I put in bold is all I have been trying to say, just a little, I don't expect teachers to act like he did; but when I have a monotone teacher just spitting fact at me, without giving examples or connecting it to something I understand simply b/c his job is "to tell me the facts" It does affect me.

And what i put in red, is something I agree with,
While I think teachers need to try and make things interesting (it's boring teaching boring stuff too), if what they do isn't found to be interesting by a particular student, it falls on the student to figure out how to pay attention and learn. That's the part that is missing today. The student who fails wants to blame the boring teacher.

I had one professor in college who could bore a pot of coffee to sleep but he was a wealth of knowledge. I struggled in the class in the begining but I worked at it and, in time, started seeing how things fit together. The class was much easier then. While there were more interesting teachers who could have taught that class, it would have been a shame to not have experienced his 60+ years of experience at the forefront of his field. He wasn't hired for his ability to teach. He was hired to pass on what he had learned before he died. He died 3 years after I took his class.

Making things relevent is a bit different. All engineering students have to take an electrical engineering course. Traditionally, the chemical engineers do so poorly compared to the other engineers that we took the class by ourselves during an off step semester from the other engineering students. It was one of my hardest courses. Right after I graduated, I was assigned to work with an electrical engineer on a project and I confessed that my understanding of electrical engineering was rudimentary. He then proceeded to reteach electrical circuits using analogies to pumps, pressure, valves and flow rates (things I understood very well). I would have had a much easier time learning had he taught the class. However, it became my responsibilty to figure out how to learn the material once it became clear the prof wasn't going to do it for me.

I do try to find ways to make things relevent for my students. I will use mnemonic devices with concepts that are confusing, but I don't like them because I see this wave of relief pass through the faces in my class and then most tune me out as I go on to try and explain why things are the way they are. I've tried putting the mnemonic devices at the end but someone finds them on line and then thinks they've introduced me to this wonderful easy way to learn the material. At best, I have one class period before I either introduce them or the students bring them up They're always looking for short cuts. I've dubbed them the "google, cut and paste" generation. If they don't like the way the teacher teaches something they look for an easier way. Unfortunately, sometimes, I'm doing what I do to try and lead them to understanding and those short become a detour that avoids the road to understanding.

Now, I can see using songs and mnemonic devices for classes like biology where you need to simply memorize vast amounts of information. If I required my students to do something like memorize the periodic table, I'd probably come up with one myself. I think this works for bones of the body, systems within the body, classifications of organisms, colors of the rainbow...things you just need to memorize. I'm not big on memorizing in my class. I don't make my students memorize solubility rules or the periodic table. I expect them to be able to use a periodic table and a solubility table. I see no real point in memorizing these things because if you do work in a lab, you're going to use a reference chart anyway just to make sure.

Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-05-2012 at 06:52 PM..
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Old 08-05-2012, 06:51 PM
 
919 posts, read 1,682,174 times
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Originally Posted by Ivorytickler View Post
While I think teachers need to try and make things interesting (it's boring teaching boring stuff too), if what they do isn't found to be interesting by a particular student, it falls on the student to figure out how to pay attention and learn. That's the part that is missing today. The student who fails wants to blame the boring teacher.

I had one professor in college who could bore a pot of coffee to sleep but he was a wealth of knowledge. I struggled in the class in the begining but I worked at it and, in time, started seeing how things fit together. The class was much easier then. While there were more interesting teachers who could have taught that class, it would have been a shame to not have experienced his 60+ years of experience at the forefront of his field. He wasn't hired for his ability to teach. He was hired to pass on what he had learned before he died. He died 3 years after I took his class.

Making things relevent is a bit different. All engineering students have to take an electrical engineering course. Traditionally, the chemical engineers do so poorly compared to the other engineers that we took the class by ourselves during an off step semester from the other engineering students. It was one of my hardest courses. Right after I graduated, I was assigned to work with an electrical engineer on a project and I confessed that my understanding of electrical engineering was rudimentary. He then proceeded to reteach electrical circuits using analogies to pumps, pressure, valves and flow rates (things I understood very well). I would have had a much easier time learning had he taught the class. However, it became my responsibilty to figure out how to learn the material once it became clear the prof wasn't going to do it for me.

I do try to find ways to make things relevent for my students. I will use mnemonic devices with concepts that are confusing, but I don't like them because I see this wave of relief pass through the faces in my class and then most tune me out as I go on to try and explain why things are the way they are. I've tried putting the mnemonic devices at the end but someone finds them on line and then thinks they've introduced me to this wonderful easy way to learn the material. At best, I have one class period before I either introduce them or the students bring them up They're always looking for short cuts. I've dubbed them the "google, cut and paste" generation. If they don't like the way the teacher teaches something they look for an easier way. Unfortunately, sometimes, I'm doing what I do to try and lead them to understanding and those short become a detour that avoids the road to understanding.

Now, I can see using songs and mnemonic devices for classes like biology where you need to simply memorize vast amounts of information. If I required my students to do something like memorize the periodic table, I'd probably come up with one myself. I think this works for bones of the body, systems within the body, classifications of organisms, colors of the rainbow...things you just need to memorize.
Haha, that made me laugh xp. But yeah; the figuring it out is the issue
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