It is no exaggeration to make the claim that many students in urban schools come into our buildings with little motivation. Academic excellence is often not a top priority in their lives, but who can blame them?
Urban students walk through metal detectors as they enter dilapidated buildings each morning. The temperatures are wildly inconsistent in many of these buildings, old radiators harness little finesse and air conditioning is practically non-existent. At my school, were approximately half of the janitorial staff was laid off last year, tidiness and upkeep are an apparent issue. Don't get me wrong, these janitors work extremely hard and take pride in their craft. However, our administration deems their positions widely expendable as their union president sold them out last year without an honorable fight (word is that he walked into negotiations already giving up half of his department's positions). If our janitors aren't motivated to support our district, our students cannot possibly be motivated to attend school each day.
Telling students that we are training them for future work environments is a lackluster ploy. We can do better for our students. With an average poverty rate above 30% and unemployment rate double that of suburban areas, that prospects are bleak. Students may not be so concerned to understand the full weight of this statistical data, but the questions they ask demonstrate their keen sense of persistent inequality. They wonder why their buildings are shoddy, why classes without a teacher go on for months with a substitute teacher, why their school lunches are inadequate and disgusting, why we lack funds for field trips and copy paper. The cards are stacked against them and politicians in power seem not to care.
What we as teachers can do, is offer a meaningful curriculum, create safe and inviting environments, and engage in active learning experiences that create lasting understanding of concepts and issues. Most traditional curriculum are alienating and superficial. The amount of material that must be covered is ludicrous. If one was to cover every standard of the New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards, there would be no time left for projects, historical movies, enrichment, or reflection. You would have to teach out of outdated textbooks supplemented with PowerPoint lectures each day. A curriculum with less breadth and more depth - focused on student centered issues and essential questions - creates interest in learning. Essentially, we must make numerous connections between topics and students' lives.
Safe and inviting environments can be a welcoming safe haven for our students. Fighting, abuse, offensive language, and bullying should be banned with consistent consequences. Students need to feel comfortable with outing their true identities, so they can express their true feelings in class discussions and writing. This type of self-realization will not occur under any other climate. Items in the classroom such as air fresheners, tissues, plenty of spare pencils, and even extra pairs of headphones make students feel comfortable and relaxed. The walls should be filled with appropriate artwork, colorful posters, student work, and bright background colors. This space should feel like a shrine for learning.
Most importantly, student activities must be active and engaging. Although they may be convenient for teachers, book work and long lectures deprive our students of the love of learning. Activities should involve moving around the room, working in groups, handling manipulatives, and thinking critically. With cell phones at the palm of their hand, memorizing information is increasingly meaningless. Critical thinking should be the staple of each classroom, as we teach our students how to interpret and make sense of information that they encounter. Each day, students must talk more than the teacher in order to feel ownership over their classrooms. The old adage "because this is my classroom" is long gone. For students and teachers alike, these are OUR classrooms.
Urban students walk through metal detectors as they enter dilapidated buildings each morning. The temperatures are wildly inconsistent in many of these buildings, old radiators harness little finesse and air conditioning is practically non-existent. At my school, were approximately half of the janitorial staff was laid off last year, tidiness and upkeep are an apparent issue. Don't get me wrong, these janitors work extremely hard and take pride in their craft. However, our administration deems their positions widely expendable as their union president sold them out last year without an honorable fight (word is that he walked into negotiations already giving up half of his department's positions). If our janitors aren't motivated to support our district, our students cannot possibly be motivated to attend school each day.
Telling students that we are training them for future work environments is a lackluster ploy. We can do better for our students. With an average poverty rate above 30% and unemployment rate double that of suburban areas, that prospects are bleak. Students may not be so concerned to understand the full weight of this statistical data, but the questions they ask demonstrate their keen sense of persistent inequality. They wonder why their buildings are shoddy, why classes without a teacher go on for months with a substitute teacher, why their school lunches are inadequate and disgusting, why we lack funds for field trips and copy paper. The cards are stacked against them and politicians in power seem not to care.
What we as teachers can do, is offer a meaningful curriculum, create safe and inviting environments, and engage in active learning experiences that create lasting understanding of concepts and issues. Most traditional curriculum are alienating and superficial. The amount of material that must be covered is ludicrous. If one was to cover every standard of the New Jersey Core Curriculum Standards, there would be no time left for projects, historical movies, enrichment, or reflection. You would have to teach out of outdated textbooks supplemented with PowerPoint lectures each day. A curriculum with less breadth and more depth - focused on student centered issues and essential questions - creates interest in learning. Essentially, we must make numerous connections between topics and students' lives.
Safe and inviting environments can be a welcoming safe haven for our students. Fighting, abuse, offensive language, and bullying should be banned with consistent consequences. Students need to feel comfortable with outing their true identities, so they can express their true feelings in class discussions and writing. This type of self-realization will not occur under any other climate. Items in the classroom such as air fresheners, tissues, plenty of spare pencils, and even extra pairs of headphones make students feel comfortable and relaxed. The walls should be filled with appropriate artwork, colorful posters, student work, and bright background colors. This space should feel like a shrine for learning.
Most importantly, student activities must be active and engaging. Although they may be convenient for teachers, book work and long lectures deprive our students of the love of learning. Activities should involve moving around the room, working in groups, handling manipulatives, and thinking critically. With cell phones at the palm of their hand, memorizing information is increasingly meaningless. Critical thinking should be the staple of each classroom, as we teach our students how to interpret and make sense of information that they encounter. Each day, students must talk more than the teacher in order to feel ownership over their classrooms. The old adage "because this is my classroom" is long gone. For students and teachers alike, these are OUR classrooms.
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