Motivation.

Or lack there of...

Published on February 1, 2005 By evilPidge In Misc

So, as I stated previously , I am currently student teaching. One of my major hurdles to over come between now and May will be motivation. To put it simply, the students have none. I have see more motivation on soldiers that were detailed to sort trash after 30 days in the field at JRTC. I would like to share a short story to demonstrate what I'm dealing with.

John was a student in my 5th Period Algebra class. This was John's 3rd time taking algebra. He failed it his freshman year, he failed it at summer school, and he is currently failing it in his sophomore year. One good thing you can say about John is that he shows up to class every day. Yep, he shows up to class every day, sits down quietly, and goes to sleep... every day. Now on Wednesday John wasn't in class. That was unusual. He also wasn't in class on Thursday or Friday. That was unheard of. This afternoon my mentor teacher explained to me why John wasn't in class. Apparently, John did, in fact, pass Algebra during summer school, but due to an error, it was on his schedule again back in September.

Now let me ask you this, if you had had to go to summer school, wouldn't you have paid at least enough attention to find out whether you passed the class or not???

The one bright point in this story is that John hasn't really wasted any of his time, because his cumulative grades in Algebra since September are 0%. All it seems he missed out on was sleeping in a Geometry class every day...

Whee! 14 weeks till graduation!

Comments

Themissociijuris

on Feb 01, 2005

'Motivation' is:
"Make a person want to do unto himself what he wants others to see him as doing".
You are welcome, please, to my blogs at:
themissociijuris.joeuser

evilPidge

on Feb 02, 2005

uh.... Thanks for the vauge reply, and an incorrect link to a completely unrelated blog...

greywar

on Feb 02, 2005

I recommend ball-peen hammers applied vigorously to kneecaps and testicles... (for comment spammers not the students you freaks!)

xtine

on Feb 02, 2005

There's just so many things wrong there that it boggles my mind. So what now for him? He transfers over to a geometry class that's got a head start on him. Not that it matters for him because he would've just slept through the geometry class instead of the algebra. Oh man...What more can the school do for him? What more SHOULD the school do for him?

I can see with someone like this why some teachers would just throw their hands up in the air and give up on him. I don't know that there's a right answer.

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