My Kids Aren't Lazy. My Assignment Was.
I may get a little rant-y here, but I can't tell you how much it drives me nuts to hear teachers say that kids are just getting lazier and lazier, or that they don't know the value of hard work. Students don't turn in an assignment, and teachers think they're going to teach kids how to work hard by giving them and F and somehow that magically will teach them what it means to work hard.
What it really does is make them hate school even more than they already do. I'm not going to get into the whole grades as compensation element right now, but I will say this: IF YOU ARE USING GRADES AS A CARROT OR STICK, KIDS DON'T VALUE LEARNING IN YOUR CLASS.
Don't believe me? Ask your students if grades help them learn. No, really. Do it. It's horrifying to listen to them talk about the effect grades have on their social-emotional health. You'll get like one kid who says that grades help their learning, but when you ask how, they'll say that it helps them turn in work...which shows that they don't even know what learning means anymore. They think it just means doing things.
Okay, I realize I said, "I'm not going to get into it," and then I got into it. I can't help myself. Grading practices are a touchy subject for me because we do it SO FREAKING TERRIBLY in most classrooms.
*deep breath...deep breath...deep breath*
Moving into what I really wanted to talk about today: let's stop blaming kids when we try to make them do lame assignments and they don't do them.
This blog hinges on a video I happened to stumble across. Take a couple minutes to watch, not just for the sake of the blog post, but also because it's just genuinely really impressive and fun to watch.
Ten bucks says these students all have late or missing assignments in one or more of their classes. I'd also bet there was a teacher sitting in that audience looking at those students thinking, "Wait...THAT kid put this much effort into this and has a C in my class?"
That's honestly one of my favorite and most concerning thoughts I run into with my own students. My third year of teaching, I had a student who was doing just okay in my class, but when another student asked if I knew about their YouTube channel, I had to investigate.
IT. WAS. AWESOME.
He essentially had Minecraft tutorials that ranged everywhere from the basics of getting started to super complex structures he was building. He was animated and got me laughing a few times. I would have had absolutely no idea that he had that in him based on how he was in class. For the rest of the year, I would give him an assignment and then we would talk about how he could complete the assignment by creating a video. His engagement in class skyrocketed, his level of effort went way up, and the coolest part was that it really helped us connect.
It was really eye-opening for me, but not necessarily practice-changing right away, unfortunately. It took a while for me to really understand the value of what happened with that student and to start applying to it to all of my students.
In a very simplified way, the change that happened for that student is that my class went from a place where he wasn't allowed to be himself and had to sit, down, shut up, and do what he was supposed to do (in other words, a place of compliance) to a place where he was allowed to bring in his passions and use them to be creative and make something meaningful for himself and others.
Those elements were what really stood out to me when watching the video above. The performance those students put on is what we would love to see from all our students. They demonstrated true mastery, they probably learned from multiple failures, they worked hard together, and maybe most importantly, they loved what they were doing!
But why?
That's the real question. Why were these students and my student from the beginning of my career so passionate about what they were doing?
It's not rocket science to figure out the elements that created the environment they needed to thrive. The hard part is being willing to make the necessary changes in our own classrooms to create that experience for our own students.
So what made that experience so meaningful for the students, and what does that mean in the classroom?
What it really does is make them hate school even more than they already do. I'm not going to get into the whole grades as compensation element right now, but I will say this: IF YOU ARE USING GRADES AS A CARROT OR STICK, KIDS DON'T VALUE LEARNING IN YOUR CLASS.
Don't believe me? Ask your students if grades help them learn. No, really. Do it. It's horrifying to listen to them talk about the effect grades have on their social-emotional health. You'll get like one kid who says that grades help their learning, but when you ask how, they'll say that it helps them turn in work...which shows that they don't even know what learning means anymore. They think it just means doing things.
Okay, I realize I said, "I'm not going to get into it," and then I got into it. I can't help myself. Grading practices are a touchy subject for me because we do it SO FREAKING TERRIBLY in most classrooms.
*deep breath...deep breath...deep breath*
Moving into what I really wanted to talk about today: let's stop blaming kids when we try to make them do lame assignments and they don't do them.
This blog hinges on a video I happened to stumble across. Take a couple minutes to watch, not just for the sake of the blog post, but also because it's just genuinely really impressive and fun to watch.
Ten bucks says these students all have late or missing assignments in one or more of their classes. I'd also bet there was a teacher sitting in that audience looking at those students thinking, "Wait...THAT kid put this much effort into this and has a C in my class?"
That's honestly one of my favorite and most concerning thoughts I run into with my own students. My third year of teaching, I had a student who was doing just okay in my class, but when another student asked if I knew about their YouTube channel, I had to investigate.
IT. WAS. AWESOME.
He essentially had Minecraft tutorials that ranged everywhere from the basics of getting started to super complex structures he was building. He was animated and got me laughing a few times. I would have had absolutely no idea that he had that in him based on how he was in class. For the rest of the year, I would give him an assignment and then we would talk about how he could complete the assignment by creating a video. His engagement in class skyrocketed, his level of effort went way up, and the coolest part was that it really helped us connect.
It was really eye-opening for me, but not necessarily practice-changing right away, unfortunately. It took a while for me to really understand the value of what happened with that student and to start applying to it to all of my students.
In a very simplified way, the change that happened for that student is that my class went from a place where he wasn't allowed to be himself and had to sit, down, shut up, and do what he was supposed to do (in other words, a place of compliance) to a place where he was allowed to bring in his passions and use them to be creative and make something meaningful for himself and others.
Those elements were what really stood out to me when watching the video above. The performance those students put on is what we would love to see from all our students. They demonstrated true mastery, they probably learned from multiple failures, they worked hard together, and maybe most importantly, they loved what they were doing!
But why?
That's the real question. Why were these students and my student from the beginning of my career so passionate about what they were doing?
It's not rocket science to figure out the elements that created the environment they needed to thrive. The hard part is being willing to make the necessary changes in our own classrooms to create that experience for our own students.
So what made that experience so meaningful for the students, and what does that mean in the classroom?
- Element 1: A Meaningful Audience
- Want to know why kids don't turn in work? Because they could post something on social media or YouTube and reach thousands of people who are going to give them feedback that matters to them. Yet, we're confused when we ask students to turn in an essay that will only be seen by us and get feedback that doesn't really matter to them. I mean, given the choice between option one and option two, who would choose option two?
- So what can we do? Give students and audience. Writing an essay? Have them send it to someone on Twitter who would care about it. Creating a project? Have them explain the project on a YouTube video and then publish it. Doing a math worksheet? Have them make a screencast tutorial about the problem and then publish it somewhere. Audiences are the easiest thing to find in the digital age.
- Final thought: Not giving students an audience because we haven't taken the time to learn about the platforms that allow them to share their voices is harmful to students and, honestly, just plain lazy. I know our schedules are busy, but we have plenty of time to vent with our colleagues during our plan, scroll through Instagram during lunch, or read another article about something that doesn't really matter after our last students walk out the door? There's time. It's not a time problem; it's a priority problem.
- Element 2: Connected to Their Passions
- How many of us like doing things we hate? If someone told me that my workouts had to consist of actually going to the gym, I'd be in terrible shape because I'd never go. However, if someone said, "You have to workout, but you can do it in a way that excited you," and then actually gave me time to do it, I'd be out hiking every day, doing hard landscaping around the house, and going for runs and rides. Why? Because I'm passionate about those things. Am I still meeting the outcome? Yeah, I'm staying active and in shape.
- What does this mean in the classroom? If you've predetermined everything about a project, you're asking students to follow a recipe, not learn. If possible, think about what is truly necessary for you to require and what you can leave open. Want students to learn to organize their ideas? They could demonstrate that in a podcast, video, blog blog, graphic representation, etc. More importantly, if students are supposed to demonstrate that they know how to organize their ideas, why would we dictate the topic? That's closing doors that don't need to be closed (and it's opening a lot of doors for plagiarism and copying).
- Final Thought: The rubric is the make-or-break element of creating choice and allowing students to pursue their passions. A rubric that is too focused on the product, as opposed to the learning taking place, will stifle creativity and passion. A rubric too loose and abstract will result in students engaging in unproductive struggle and frustration. The rubric must clearly specify what learning they need to demonstrate and the different levels of that skills or element that students can use to think deeply about how to show their learning.
- Element 3: The Secret Element - Mastery
- Here's the deal: if those students in the video had never been successful or had always received a C in drumming, they would have never been willing to engage in such an incredible performance. When we aren't confident about our skills, we shy away from challenges around them. Giving students a C and allowing them to move on is the worst thing we can do for motivation. "Oh, but we don't want students to feel bad about being behind, so we have to let them keep up with the rest of the class." Really? Because to me it sounds like we're telling kids they can't learn it and that it's more important for them to just fit in and follow the crowd. The best thing we can tell students is, "This is the next thing you should learn, and I don't want you to move past it until you have mastered it."
- Okay, so how do we push mastery in our classrooms? This doesn't have a simple answer. The real answer is to restructure public education so it doesn't follow the fallacy that age ranges are the determining factor for what content students need to learn. However, for our classroom, the key is to really focus on true differentiation. There will never be a whole-group lesson that meets the needs of every learner in your room. (Scary reality there.) As such, if we want students to master content, we need to be vigilant in tracking skills and allowing students the space and time needed to revisit and master those concepts. Moving students forward when they aren't ready isn't good for anyone, but especially not the student.
- Final Thought: There's something called the confidence-competence loop. That basically says that when we allow students to feel truly successful at something, it gives them the confidence they need to approach the next challenge. If we are never allowing students to feel that competence, of course they won't be confident enough to go out on a limb and do something amazing.
Are there more elements that matter in motivating students to do amazing things? Yes, like a million more elements, but what if we just started with one of these? Why wouldn't we? What's holding you back?
You can come up with a million answers to those questions, but if you aren't trying to engage your students in meaningful ways, there's only one reason why: YOU.
It's time. It's well past time. Education isn't about making adults comfortable; it's about teaching and empowering students. Full stop.
As of writing this, we have almost another full week of break to get this done. No more excuses.
Make the class you've always dreamed of. Let's kick off the new year the right way in our classroom, in ways that empower students to want to be the students they can be.