On Ramps to Education – 5 Things Stopping Students from Initiating
In education, the conversation often revolves around achievement and finding ways to get students to achieve. We have in depth discussions about what achievement looks like, how to measure and report it, and interventions for when students don’t meet this ideal. From my experience, these conversations usually overlook the most important aspect. Students who aren’t “achieving” are usually the students that aren’t engaging with the class. The question we should be asking more is how do we provide these students a pathway to achievement?
I’m currently working on a larger project, “On Ramps to Education”, that will dive deeper into the role of executive functioning, emotions, equity, and other influences on education and more importantly student learning. As I was putting together thoughts for this project, there were 5 clear reasons students weren’t engaging with me and the course. In this first part of a 6-part blog series, I will outline what I observed. In subsequent posts, I will dive deeper into each and detail examples of how I addressed them in the classroom.
The following challenges are in no particular order. Every year sees different students with different challenges. However, these always appear to be the top 5 reasons students don’t engage.
There’s no point in trying
It is not uncommon for students who have historically not done well in school to have the feeling that it is futile to try. Putting in their best effort resulted in poor grades. Students would rather say they failed because they didn’t try than say they got a D because they tried their hardest. They are acutely aware that their courses are “the dumb class” and they wear that label. “You know we can’t do this because ….” They have been conditioned to think they are not worthy of success. Once they accept this false notion, that is the persona they will project. They see no viable pathway to be successful within this system, which compounds existing challenges.
Something else is more important in this moment
As much as we love our content and understand the importance of it, getting all students to see our content that way in the best of times is a challenge. For the longest time, we tried to isolate cognition from emotion, and for many this is still the case. We assume students can put their personal lives aside and focus on the task at hand. Take a step back and think about how unrealistic this is. Think about a day you showed up to work not feeling well or after you received bad news. I’m sure you weren’t at your best that day, which is completely understandable. However, we expect students to be on their ”A game” for 180 days. There will be days/weeks/months that they don’t feel well. They will deal with illness and loss at home. Maybe they have a big exam in another class. And if you’re a high school teacher, you know how hard the breakups hit. In those moments, to them your content is irrelevant. While some students will play the game and do just enough to get by, others feel it’s not worth their time.
They haven’t yet attained needed skills
When we design our courses, we make assumptions about a base level of skills students have acquired prior to entering the class. Our assignments, resources, assessments, rubrics, and instruction are all built on these assumptions. They learned how to do this in ______, so I’m going to start with _____. Not to disparage any teachers because there are many reasons why students don’t carry the information forward, but assuming that because a student was exposed to a certain skill they completely understand and can apply it is flawed logic. And if we’re designing our courses without space to refresh or reteach these skills, we run the risk of excluding students. When they look at the scoring criteria and the entry level on a rubric is something they aren’t familiar with or haven’t mastered, they tend not to engage with that assignment.
They don’t know the content yet
This is related to the last point but deserves its own section. It is important to assess skills and content independently. While at advanced levels of competency the two are intractably intertwined, during development of skills and knowledge it is impossible to determine which one is keeping students from progressing. For example, I am confident in my ability to format a coherent explanation on a topic I’m familiar with. However, if you were to ask me to explain how geo-political tensions impact the global economy, I wouldn’t even know where to start. In order for me to engage with that question, I would first need to do some research to become familiar with concepts that are outside my expertise. Even then my response would be rudimentary at best. If we are not providing this space for students to be novices with the content, it can discourage them from responding.
They feel like it’s a waste of time
We’ve all sat through presentations or professional development that we felt had no relevance. In those moments we shut off and disengage. I know personally I’ve sat through hours of a presentation where I couldn’t tell you one word that was said. I struggled to keep my eyes open. Students are no different. There are some students that are very good at playing the game of school and will look past this to gain their points or grades and move on. There are others that must find meaning to engage. How will this help them in the future? Why is this important? And if the answer is because they’ll need it in the next course that they find equally irrelevant, they will not be engaging with that assignment or course.
Final Thoughts
Our decision to become educators comes with a responsibility to every student that enters the classroom. It is not always easy, and it is not always successful. However, we must make every effort to reach students where they are and provide a pathway forward. Often times, small changes to our structures and approaches can pay enormous dividends with students. There will still be challenges. There will still be frustration. But when you see a student believe in themselves for the first time, it’s all worth it. It starts with us and a simple question. What do I value?
