Today, as I was beginning my lesson at East Side High School in Newark, NJ, I asked my students who had completed their homework. A resounding number of hands flew into the air--one. We have a little more than a month left of school, but my students have "checked out". When I mentioned this story to other teachers in my school, the most common response was that this happens and I should lessen the load for my students because this is how it works.
Well, this is not how it works for me. I let my students know very quickly that their homework load would increase everyday that they chose not to do it.
My students have been born into a circumstance characterized by low expectations, minimal opportunities for growth, and violence as commonplace as sunburns in a western Kansas summer. One of my mentors was telling a story of her recently deceased mother, a teacher, who told her students daily, "your circumstance is not your destiny." This is what I shared with my students when I told them their homework load would increase. Your circumstance is NOT your destiny, however, it will be if you concede to low expectations.
My students are passionate, compassionate, their ideas verge on brilliance, and their experience can be likened to dark poetry of a life most of us have not lived. They are fonts of potential who've had the bar lowered for them so many times that they have begun to accept their circumstance as their destiny.
Each of us are confronted weekly, if not daily, with chices that have the gravity to be considered make or break and the decisions we make in those moments define whether or not we have accepted circumstance as our destiny or have chosen to live up to and beyond our potential.
My choice today was to push my students past their comfort zone. My choice was not to accept the circumstance of my placement or their expectations, but to continually raise the bar so that their destiny might be different.
Motivation cannot be created, it must be inspired.
For the next month, I need to figure out how to inspire motivation in my students so that they realize that their neighbors in affluent districts 20 minutes away work until the final day. I need to inspire them to push past their perception of education as something we are doing to them and not for them.
The next month will likely be the most challenging one yet. Battling apathy is a much more trying battle than battling behavior, volence, anger, and adolescence.
However, my goal, as was my mentor's mother, is to ensure that my students walk out of my classroom on June 25 knowing that their circumstance is not their destiny. Success is a choice.
Well, this is not how it works for me. I let my students know very quickly that their homework load would increase everyday that they chose not to do it.
My students have been born into a circumstance characterized by low expectations, minimal opportunities for growth, and violence as commonplace as sunburns in a western Kansas summer. One of my mentors was telling a story of her recently deceased mother, a teacher, who told her students daily, "your circumstance is not your destiny." This is what I shared with my students when I told them their homework load would increase. Your circumstance is NOT your destiny, however, it will be if you concede to low expectations.
My students are passionate, compassionate, their ideas verge on brilliance, and their experience can be likened to dark poetry of a life most of us have not lived. They are fonts of potential who've had the bar lowered for them so many times that they have begun to accept their circumstance as their destiny.
Each of us are confronted weekly, if not daily, with chices that have the gravity to be considered make or break and the decisions we make in those moments define whether or not we have accepted circumstance as our destiny or have chosen to live up to and beyond our potential.
My choice today was to push my students past their comfort zone. My choice was not to accept the circumstance of my placement or their expectations, but to continually raise the bar so that their destiny might be different.
Motivation cannot be created, it must be inspired.
For the next month, I need to figure out how to inspire motivation in my students so that they realize that their neighbors in affluent districts 20 minutes away work until the final day. I need to inspire them to push past their perception of education as something we are doing to them and not for them.
The next month will likely be the most challenging one yet. Battling apathy is a much more trying battle than battling behavior, volence, anger, and adolescence.
However, my goal, as was my mentor's mother, is to ensure that my students walk out of my classroom on June 25 knowing that their circumstance is not their destiny. Success is a choice.
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