Last weekend I had the privilege of hearing the National Teacher of the Year Andrea Peterson from Washington State. One of her comments caught my attention especially. She asked if we knew about the new 3 “R”s – Rigor, Relevance, and Relationship. Andrea said that we needed to change it around to Relationship, Relevance, and Rigor. Her point was that when we build relationships with students we know how to make learning relevant to them. When learning is relevant to students, they apply themselves rigorously. It struck me as interesting that her speech should cover the very topic we are addressing in this newsletter.

Last week we talked about students who can’t do their work and how to identify those students. For those of you interested, I read an article today by Thomas E. Brown, Associate Director of the Yale Clinic for Attention and Related Disorders at Yale University. This article discussed a new approach (and in my case new understanding) of Attention Deficit Disorder. As I read it, I realized this is another instance of students who “can’t,” but are treated as though they won’t. The article was published in Educational Leadership magazine put out by ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) in February 2007. If you are able to put your hands on this article, I highly recommend that you read it. It is an eye-opener.

However, this still does not help us with those students in our classroom who “won’t” do their work. This is very frustrating as a teacher and often our response is one of irritation. We may throw our hands up in despair or worse yet, give up on that student and allow him/her to coast through class. All of these actions are a disservice to the student. Instead, take some time to dig deeper into the situation and try to determine the problem. What is causing this student to not get work done?

There can be many causes to a “won’t” attitude on the part of a student. Below are a few:

·         Protection of reputation – the student does not want his buddies to know he is smart, wants to learn, etc. because it would lower his status among the group.

·         Not motivated – the student feels that the work is too easy or she has already completed similar assignments a million times and is tired of the same old thing.

·         Feels inadequate – the student, over the years, has been unconsciously or consciously told he is not performing well and has decided that rather than continue to feel like a failure, he’d rather just not try at all.

·         Bored – the student is bored with the lessons and assignments and gets in the habit of daydreaming or writing notes to her friends instead of doing class work.

So what can we do when faced with a student who has decided not to participate, turn in homework, or complete class assignments?

·         Start by getting at the root of the problem. What exactly is going on with the student? Take some time and talk with the student one-on-one (away from friends). Talk with the parents to see if this has always been a problem or a steady decline. Talk with the counselor (or the counselor of the previous/lower school) to see what patterns he/she has noticed about this student.

·         Offer more student choice, when possible. Rather than assigning the same writing prompt, set of questions, project topic, or class activity to all students, offer several options. Allow students to choose the activity, prompt, topic, etc. that is most appealing.

·         Take time to talk with your student on a daily basis. Ask about his day. Find out what is going on in his life. This is a great way to discover hidden interests and abilities. It also shows the student that you care about him as a person. When students feel that you care, they try harder.

·         Make learning relevant to your students. This is hard to do when you don’t know your students very well. However, we are all motivated by those topics, events, etc. that interest us. I know that I’m much more likely to spend time and effort on something that is important to me as opposed to something I’m told I must do.

It is exactly as Andrea said – when we get to know our students as people (build relationships), we discover what is relevant to each. With that information we are able to make our lessons and projects meaningful for students. When students have work that is meaningful to them, they tend to work rigorously to complete it.

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