CAROLYN
BEITZEL
Diary #5
How
Do I Help My 'Low-Level' Class
Learn to Believe in Themselves?
In my traditional educational upbringing I was a passive learner, listening to lectures, taking notes and participating in minimal discussion. I walked into a classroom everyday and opened my notebook waiting for a teacher to tell me what to write and think.
I am a product of that classic pedagogy described by Paulo Freire as the "banking theory" of education – the teacher is the depositor and the student is the bank. Whatever knowledge there was to be learned would be given to me by the teacher. I was not to seek it on my own.
This experience has shadowed me in my life as an educator. If one of the goals of schooling is to foster development of the students' minds, then teachers need to motivate and engage them in their own learning process.It has become quite apparent to me that motivation is often isolated from thinking and learning. I want to break down that isolation. I try every day to bring to the plate lessons that I think are fun, active and participatory and also require my students to think and learn.
Since learning is a lifelong pursuit (John Dewey) I need to strive to not only give my students insights into American History but to help them develop skills and knowledge that will make them successful in life.
Social construction of learning is suggested by Dewey to mean creating environments in which people can be stimulated to think. By taking the lives of my students into account during lesson planning, I can then make the lesson relevant to their lives. Providing option and choice during lessons allows students to express their own interests, which will enable them to define problems that they feel they can "own." Using alternative methods to motivate my students so they THINK then LEARN (as opposed to just learning) has been one of my top goals in becoming an educator. So why then don't I feel it is working?Why aren't they spell-bound?
I give the students options in assignments so I meet all their multiple intelligences. I gear my lessons toward problem-solving, and I throw inquiry and cooperative learning into the mix as well. These methods center my pedagogy and help me to focus on cognitive objectives for my students. So why then do I feel like I spend 80% of my time re-focusing the class?
I am preparing earth-shattering lessons and the students should be spell bound!
This week I used Listening Teams (Kellum) during a lecture to teach and hone listening and classifying skills. The students were placed in groups of five. Each student was given a colored index card and instructions as to their role:Yellow The Questioner had to ask two questions about the material covered. Green The Agreer had to give two points on which they agreed and state why. Pink The NaySayer had to give two points on which they disagreed and state why. Purple The Example Giver had to give two examples or applications of the material.The fifth student was The Recorder. As I lectured, the students were given instructions to only take notes in their role area, as their Recorder would have a complete set of notes. After the lecture, each group shared what they found and small debates cropped up. For instance, one student could not understand the relationship between two events. Before I could interject, another student, The Example Giver, gave an analogy. The student who was The Agreer then went to the board and drew the explanation. Wow, this was a prime example of what Dewey referred to when he said that the students should own their own knowledge.
There's one class...
So why does this great lesson bother me? Because it worked for three out of my four classes. The last class couldn't get past handing out the index cards. Making them responsible for their own learning seemed like too much pressure. I truly believe they have the ability to perform as well as their higher-level counterparts, but they are so stuck in behavioral roles they find it hard to take a risk.
I know each of my four classes is different. I know they are leveled according to math ability. I know that not all strategies are going to work for all classes. Experienced teachers have told me time and time again that I "can't" teach this class the same way I teach the others. They just don't have the skills. I need to put notes on the board and have the students copy them down. I need to keep discussion at a minimum because they cannot focus and refocus. Blah, blah, blah. I don't want to teach them like they are too dumb to "get" anything. I am confident that they CAN do the work. I get frustrated when they prove me wrong and the other teachers right. So how can I get this lower level class to learn those higher order-thinking skills?I have already decided to throw out my scope and sequence for this class. I am not overly concerned that we reach 1980 in our curriculum. I am more concerned with how they are going to possibly cope in high school. How many of them will actually graduate? How can I get them to begin to believe school might actually be a good thing?
Most of the
adults in my school think this group of kids is unmotivated and unteachable.
I believe different, but feel so unprepared and incompetent when faced
with this dilemma day after day.
