Each of my students have their own
little personalities and quirks: some love to read graphic novels and give large
hugs, some run in yelling about Zootopia and extra terms for President Obama,
and others are more reserved and quietly brilliant. However, there are always a
couple of students who are more of a struggle to connect with and get excited
to see every morning. One of my boys in particular, doesn’t do his work when asked,
shows off for the class with his charm and smile, and then spends time asking
what he’s supposed to do after not listening to instructions. It is so
frustrating to try to help him when he doesn’t put forth much effort to help himself.
He seems to be a candidate for the growing epidemic of learned helplessness, or
the state of not knowing how to do work without a teacher constantly beside
you. This is showing up with kids all over, and I believe a lot of it stems
from teachers and parents being unwilling to give up control of their children
enough to let them learn to express their own thoughts. If every time a student
is struggling we swoop in to save the day, they slowly grow accustomed to just
waiting until we swoop. So how can these habits manifest themselves, and what
can we do to stop it?
In my research, a lot of learned
helplessness didn’t match up with what I was seeing in my classroom. For my
student, it seemed almost an act of defiance, a battle of wills to remain
looking cool. In an article about the origins of learned
helplessness, Jordan Catapano describes it as the students losing confidence in
who they are as students, internalizing their failures and feeling like they
are bad at all things school because they had a bad grade attributed to them.
That, in turn, leads to a cycle where they stop trying. It said we as teachers
needed to change the way we relate to students and their grades, setting
individual goals and giving positive feedback for effort rather than just the letter
grades.
Another
article took a less
touchy-feely approach, saying that the reasons for the students’ struggles are
that teachers are just over-helping and not allowing the students to fall and
make their own mistakes. This article recommends to let other resources besides
you teach the class, from outside adults to community organizations. In
addition, they emphasize the importance of asking questions that dig into why
and how they think about their answers rather than just inquiring for the
answer specifically. Over all, the freedom to make mistakes can teach students that
they have the strength and capability to explore their own original thought
away from the structures and aids from the teacher.
So what does
this mean for my student? Does he have a deeper emotional issue and fear of
failure? Has he just been taught that his work would get done for him by a
teacher if he waited and smiled long enough? Or does he truly just not care
about doing his work and is content to pass with a C-? I have not figured all
of that out yet, but my mentor teacher and I are working to turn every stone
and cover every base in order to find out, from trying various strategies in the
classroom to conferencing with his mother. I will continue learning what I can
about students who freeze up at the thought of independent work, and will refuse
to let a student slip through the cracks, regardless of how frustrated they may
make me. As my mentor teacher told me today, our job is to give each student
the tools and techniques they need to succeed, no matter what it takes.
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