ah yes, the students

Now that I’m into the school year and I’ve met my students, I am once again confronted with the real issues that teachers face in New York City public schools.  And they have nothing to do with standards, curriculum, evaluation systems or anything else that can be reduced to paper.  It’s the students and why it is such a struggle to educate them well.

The two main issues are attendance and what may be termed “student resistance.”  Attendance rates at public schools such as mine hover around the 80%-85% mark.  While that may sound okay, it isn’t, for it means that on average students will miss about 15 days per semester, 30 days per year.  And the 80%-85% figure does not include cutting classes or other absences after the third period attendance, on which official attendance rates are based, is taken.

Aside from not showing up to class, student resistance takes many forms: disruptive behavior that hinders instruction, defiance of teachers’ authority, coming late to class, not doing homework, and exhibiting an apathetic or hostile attitude toward education in general.  Here are some theories I’ve heard or read about to explain this behavior.

One theory is that the educational system is insensitive to urban students’ needs and culture. Students feel that instruction is irrelevant to their lives or an attempt to impose on them mainstream (read: White) society’s cultural mores.   Student resistance is thus seen as a conscious or, more likely, unconscious rejection of the educational system at large. 

Another theory holds that teachers and administrators view urban students as incapable of being educated.  Students are the victims of low expectations.  They are neither challenged nor expected to succeed academically.  The teachers’ union, by protecting these lousy and indifferent teachers, makes it all but impossible to improve the quality of teaching.   Student resistance could be overcome by holding students to high expectations and getting rid of bad teachers. 

The third theory cites the problems of poverty and lack of privilege.  Urban students have so many challenges in their personal lives—high stress, single parent homes, health issues such as asthma and obesity, poor diet, exposure to violence—as well as lack of parental support for education.  These factors undermine students’ ability to achieve academically, in turn undermining their confidence and leading to a disassociative response to education.

            Yet another theory, one I’ve often heard in teachers’ lounges, pins the problem at lax enforcement of school rules.  Students are not held accountable for breaking rules, whether disrupting class, violating the dress code and the like, and therefore get the impression that they, rather than the administration, run the school.  If only rules were strictly enforced, this theory goes, students would be forced to shape up and get with the program.

            There are truths in all these theories, and I hope to explore these more fully in future blogs.  But now I must return to figuring out how to keep my classes from spinning completely out of control.