In my last blog entry, I talked about the problem with apathy in our children and the need for the village to be accountable in working together to tackle this problem. In addition, I touched on the problem with student apathy in schools and the lack of attention it is receiving in the education reform debate. While school dropout is nothing new, the new statistics are discouraging, yet alarming:
- 25-30% of American high school students fail to graduate
- 12% of American schools have produced half of the dropout rates
- The dropout rates in many urban and rural schools are as high as 60%.
As mentioned in my last blog entry, student apathy is rooted in three causes:
- Carelessness of others (including the student themselves)
- Burden of problems (e.g., poverty, family breakup, jobs, babysitting obligations, illness, any form of abuse, etc.)
- Privileged attitudes (i.e., unorthodox sense of entitlement and overconfidence)
A student will not learn unless that student is MOTIVATED TO LEARN. The motivation to learn is a cultural phenomenon or social process. Peer pressure, family history and appreciation for academia, family income, culture, etc., are many of the factors which bear upon a student's MOTIVATION TO LEARN.
Without the proper motivation to learn, no student will learn, regardless of who is teaching.
~ D. Trotter of MACE
The larger cause of failure is almost unmentionable: shrunken student motivation. Students, after all, have to do the work. If the students aren’t motivated, even capable teachers may fail. Motivation comes from many sources: curiosity and ambition; parental expectations; the desire to get into a “good” college; inspiring or intimidating teachers; peer pressure. The unstated assumption of much school “reform” is that if students aren’t motivated, it’s mainly the fault of schools and teachers. The reality is that, as high schools have become more inclusive (in 1950, 40 percent of 17-year-olds had dropped out) and adolescent culture has strengthened, the authority of teachers and schools has eroded. That applies more to high schools than to elementary schools, which helps explain why early achievement gains evaporate.
Motivation has weakened because more students (of all races and economic classes, let it be added) don’t like school, don’t work hard, and don’t do well.
~ R. Samuelson from "Why School 'Reform' Fails"
In a 2008 survey of public high school teachers, 21 percent judged student absenteeism a serious problem; 29 percent cited ‘student apathy.’ ~ R. Samuelson (as cited by T. Friedman from "We're No 1(1)!")
There is a lot to Samuelson’s point — and it is a microcosm of a larger problem we have not faced honestly as we have dug out of this recession: We had a values breakdown — a national epidemic of get-rich-quickism and something-for-nothingism.... ~ T. Friedman from "We're No 1(1)!"To reverse this, it will require the cooperation and collegiality of the adults within the village, with a spoonful of some tough love.
As educators, we know that the development of the whole child extends beyond the walls of the classroom. We must harness the coordinated power of social services, parental engagement, service-learning opportunities for students, extended learning and after-school programs to ensure our children’s success.
~ D. Van Roekel, NEA President from "Prioritizing Family, Schools, and Community Engagements"
Ask yourself: What made our Greatest Generation great? First, the problems they faced were huge, merciless and inescapable: the Depression, Nazism and Soviet Communism. Second, the Greatest Generation’s leaders were never afraid to ask Americans to sacrifice. Third, that generation was ready to sacrifice, and pull together, for the good of the country. And fourth, because they were ready to do hard things, they earned global leadership the only way you can, by saying: “Follow me.”
~ T. Friedman from "We're No 1(1)!"
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