In your mailbox today

“They just don’t care”
A proposal giving them a reason to care

  At our last faculty meeting, you may have noticed (or not) the framed student presentation centered on the floor of the library, the looping version of that slideshow on the lobby-facing large monitor, and later in the week, handsome handbills in the halls advertising the exhibit; celebrating the incremental improvement of a reluctant student, motivating him to continue on that upward path.

   While the content of the exhibit; or even the caliber of it, might have escaped your attention, the opportunity that it represents for motivating students “who just don’t care” should not.

   Like the several student art shows in the library this year; along with their handbills, their presence in our school website banner and galleries, and their inclusion in a hard-copy illustrated book in the library collection, this celebration of student accomplishment required NO extra time of the classroom teacher.

   Do you understand? Other than toting the drawings down, or emailing me the PowerPoint, teachers went back to teaching within the minute.

   Year after year I wonder: why aren’t teacher sending me examples of an improved DBQ essay from a beleaguered student, a better-than-usual poster from a usually dormant student, an insightful conclusion in a science lab, or the best (fill in the blank) they have seen in their many years of teaching; saying, “Mr. DeVona, do something with this on a schoolwide-scale to let the student know we ALL think this effort is special.” Why wouldn’t we be making this stab at recognition/motivation when the problem seems so pervasive. (If I’m noticing this, I’m betting the students have always noticed it too.)

   Look, I am well aware that in recents years your professional relationship with me has been torqued by the technology continuum and the teacher-assessment debacle. Who wants the librarian muddying the waters when its your name attached to  student performance in the NYSED archives, not his.

   But this is different.

   However quaint you think my role at ACS, I’m asking you to look and act beyond it for the sake of your students. Don’t hold it against me that I have time or make time to celebrate student accomplishment… and maybe, just maybe, give the student a reason to move up the ladder of classroom engagement. What’s to lose?(In fact I will go so far to say that if you haven’t included me in the ensemble of colleagues who you have called upon to help you with a particular student, then you haven’t tried everything.)

   So send me stuff to make a fuss about. Lets try; not worrying about failing. That’s what we want our students to do, right?

Let’s try it ourselves. Thank you,


Dan

P.S. And if you think your type of course-work does not lend itself to posters, exhibits, etc., you’re giving up on them and me way too early.