Sunday, October 11, 2009
Test time
Let me first say that my second block class tends to be my most challenging. This group is supposed to be my advanced class Carpentry I. As a whole the kids are not too ill behaved, but are very sneaky and childish for their age. Regularly, they will make every attemp to divert the attention away from the curriculum and activities or just sneak out alltogether. Most have real difficulty reading and most have IEP's. These students are from my predecessors. They even had a substitute for the entire year in my subject two years ago. These students are used to being able to slip out the back and no-one cared. I attempted my best effort to prepare them for a module exam on concrete footings and foundations. We even created a concrete form to better analyze the terms we would be covering. One student passed. I felt terrible. I don't like when my students don't do well. So, I also attempted new methods of approach. When I attempted to root out the lack of connection most of the second block students tell me that they don't care about construction and don't care about the information. Out of the whole class there is only one student who considers the information useful and he is the only one who passed. Very frustrating.
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2 comments:
I understand where you are coming from. I find myself questioning what happened when my student's don't do well. It sounds like your heart is in the right place. You appear to really care for the students and want them to do well. I too took over a program where there was a long-term sub for over 2 years. Before, I came the students literally wrote definitions and did word searches everyday. When the sub tried to "teach" them something, the information she told them was a flat out lie. I think, if you just keep up what you are doing, the students will eventually come around. They may surprise you and end up being your best class! However, with that being said, don't beat yourself up too much. You can't save everyone and you just have to hold on to the ones you can...see the positive in the little successes.
The only thing you can do, is to do your job to the best of your ability. I have students that sya he same thing. "I dont want to be a cop!" It is frustrating when NOBODY passes a multiple choice test that I gave the answers to 3 days ago!! I have come to the point several times where I thought that "If you don't care, then I don't either". Then I relized that these are children that thing they know everything but don't know NOTHING. You can and will reach someone.
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