Monday, November 2, 2009
Student Responsibility
This came to mind a couple of nights ago when I was thinking back about our super stellar observation period. Student accountability and responsibility is something that needs to be promoted by all teachers. As i'm sure all of us will agree that as upcoming high school teachers we are all gonna be pulling for our students to keep their "stuff" in a pile with handing in assignments and coming to class on time or whatever. No student wants to be nagged at or constantly reminded that "they need to grow up and start taking responsibility for their actions" (this of course would be said in a very grown-up type of voice) that is so invasive and irritating for a young person to hear over and over. So I was considering the alternatives to promoting responsibility, work ethic, etc... in another manner. One great alternate approach that I saw on observation at SMUS was that the school has actually turned the majority of club and extra curricular program responsibility onto the students and the teachers and or volunteers play a more passive role and just are their for support. I think this was a brilliant method as it injects kids full of responsibility and they may not even see it in that sense, and I believe that this could carry over to a whole mass of other things. Ok this is getting lengthy and I doubt anyone is that interested in what I have to say but just because I love sports I have to throw this at you, athletics is another great way to develop good work ethics and discipline. Being involved in sports and committing to a team I believe is another way to discretely develop those hard work and discipline skills that will most certainly carry over into the rest of life.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Ryh, I completely agree with you. As someone who struggled to gain a sense of responsibility growing up sports kept me in line (somewhat). I didn't care about school or what my teachers thought, but as the captain of both my high school soccer team and Div 1 city team I love the responsibility I had. I thrived to be the best I could in these situations.
ReplyDeleteI think our job is to try and guide our students to get involved in something/anything that will bring out those leadership skills they are capable of displaying, even if it isn't in the classroom.
Tara
Rhy - good topic, and good point about sports as vehicle to accountability and responsibility. In my experience, students who choose to participate in athletics, school teams...etc. are 'usually' the ones who don't have a problem in this regard. I struggle with opportunities to challenge the 'non-athletes, non-school council' in the school. How can we motivate those kids in this way?
ReplyDeleteChris
In terms of actual classroom responsibilities i have a question I've been wondering about. I've heard that in High School you can no longer deduct points if something is late... you instead have to accept work right up until the last day of class. Does anyone know if this is true? I saw examples of both at my observation school.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like it could be a pro and a con for responsibility, the students aren't working to a job-world-esq schedule but they are still accountable for the work in the end and have been given the responsibility of completing the work at their own pace... thoughts...