The Rhetoric of “They Don’t”…
Fair warning: this is mostly a rant.
“They don’t do their homework”
“They don’t take notes”
“They don’t pay attention”
“They don’t come to class prepared”
“When will they start to become better students?”
I hate this language – this phrasing – this rhetoric. I can’t stand it. It chills me to the bone to hear other teachers say this.
It’s irresponsible. It’s passing the buck. It’s dodging the issue.
Step deflecting, take ownership, and say this instead:
“My students don’t do their homework”
“My students don’t take notes”
“My students don’t pay attention”
“My students don’t come to class prepared”
“What can I do to make them better students?”
If you want to inspire change in your students, you’re the thing that needs to change.
This is one of the reasons teaching stresses me out – because if I don’t like something about my classroom, most of the time it’s something I can change. Management issues? I need to add more structure. Comprehension issues? I need to tighten up my lessons. Retention issues? I need to change my assessment strategies. Case and point: see my whole 1st year of teaching, documented on this blog, and all the stuff I tried so my kids would get better. Most of it falls on me.
So I hate this language because it says that you’ve stopped taking responsibility for your classroom. That you can’t be the agent of change that you want in your students. That you’ve convinced yourself that all classes have students who won’t let you raise your standards, which absolutely isn’t true.
And I don’t understand it. I honestly do not understand how someone can stop wanting to be better at what they do.
When I talk about my classes, I say ‘my students’, because then I know the next question I need to ask is “what can I do to change it?”
End of rant.
Update 3/16: Most of the discussions I’ve seen that come from this post have to do with the division of responsibility between teacher and student, and how I take most of the responsibility on myself. In the comments, Kate had a thought on this that I appreciated:
“I think there’s a middle ground between blaming the students and blaming the teacher… I don’t think there’s any problem in dividing the responsibility between the students and the teacher as long as it is done in a positive way”
This is really interesting– I’m in my third year teaching now, and I feel like one of the main reasons that I’ve been able to reduce the HUGE amount of stress that teaching brings on is recognizing that students have a big effect on what happens in my classes. For example, I had a class of 28 kids last year that was just crazy, and suddenly was very in check when one specific student was moved to another class. I’ve had to learn to zen out a little bit and understand that I can’t possible be the perfect teacher for every kid.
Although I definitely get rather annoyed when teachers blame their failures on kids. It grosses me out when I hear that. But then flipping it completely in the opposite direction, as I tried to do for awhile, is too stressful to be sustainable — I think figuring out how much of an effect you have is really difficult. This is the main thing I’m working on this year.
I agree with this a lot! At a certain point, taking responsibility for every single thing a student does in my classroom becomes too much. There has to be a boundary, otherwise you will go crazy!
It is important to think about things more as action & reaction:
“They don’t do homework, THEREFORE I will start a homework competition/reward system”
NOT “My students don’t do homework because I have created a homework-optional classroom environment.”
Certainly I have the FEELING in the second statement, but it is neither healthy nor productive. There are too many things I could take full responsibility for that really are more a product of the school culture, past teachers, current discipline system, etc. And no one can handle all that!
I think there’s a middle ground between blaming the students and blaming the teacher. As long as you make it “They don’t do homework THEREFORE I AM GOING TO…” I don’t think there’s any problem in dividing the responsibility between the students and the teacher as long as it is done in a positive way.
This post reminded me of my first principal. So much that I decided to write about it, unfortunately it wouldn’t fit in the margin so I posted here:
https://jason-roy.squarespace.com/news/2013/3/3/shining-eyes
Thanks! Love the blog.
I would love it if I could take complete ownership of all of the poor choices my students make. I just don’t have the emotional strength to do it. Maybe that makes me a worse teacher, not sure.
I’ll agree with Meghan that it’s critical we as teachers find a balance so we don’t burn out.
Yes!! I could not agree with this more. You have perfectly put into words exactly what’s been on my mind a lot recently. I get SO frustrated listening to teachers constantly complain about their students. Even worse is when people try to one-up each other which stories of whose students are worse.
I am with you on taking ownership of everything that goes on in the classroom. Sure it can be stressful and exhausting, but it’s also crazy satisfying when something you did changed things for the better. Keep it up