How To Succeed When Failure Is So Much Easier

Today proved to be a difficult day in summer school. For the past week or so, we've been working on multiplication with the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. Today, they were given their multiplication test. At least half of the kids (collectively) failed - meaning they received 60% or lower. If they don't pass all three of their summer school classes (English, social studies, and math), they won't pass at all and they'll be held back. Statistics have shown that retaining a child will significantly decrease their likelihood to graduate from high school or succeed in general. But these kids are not ready to move on. I don't know how they're doing in the other two classes, but their math skills are not up to par, even for elementary school. I don't think that holding them back is the answer, but they definitely need a significant amount of extra help in the necessary subject areas. Many of the kids who are having difficulty have problems at home, and their parent(s) are unable to help them study for tests or help with their homework. This is when the school system needs to step up. These kids shouldn't have been allowed to fall this far behind. Granted, it's partially the kids' faults for not caring or even trying to get the extra help, but the school system shouldn't have let so many kids fall through the cracks. When they reach summer school, it seems too late to help. Many kids are making progress, but many more just refuse to try. They should have been given extra help during the regular school year; they should have been pulled out of whatever class to get help. Maybe this did happen. I can't say one way or another, but my guess is that most everybody gave up on these kids.

There is one boy who I've been working with nearly every day, and he's showed little improvement. I knew he would fail the test, and he did. He got every single problem wrong. From his desk, he watched me correct his test and when I looked back at him, I saw sadness and zero hope in his eyes, and when he met my glance he knew how he had done on the test. I honestly felt like crying. When I sat down and talked to him he immediately said, "I got all of them wrong, didn't I?" It nearly killed me to show him that he was correct. This kid qualifies for special ed in at least math - probably other subjects as well, but his failure isn't justified, and my heart broke when I saw him so upset. Luckily, he asked if he could re-take the test, so the teacher is having him practice more (what I was trying to get him to do in the first place) before he re-takes it. But if he has to do extra work, he'll have to do so outside of school, and he probably won't do it. A majority of the kids in summer school are just lazy and will hardly do work in class, let alone at home.

There was another girl that raised some issues today. She's always had problems with completing and turning in work. The hardest part to comprehend is that she can actually DO the work; she just won't, and she won't try. She'll just sit there during class and only pretend to do the work when a teacher walks by. On her last test, she did half of it - the addition - and got it all right. The other half was subtraction, and when she reached that half, she shut down and hardly tried any of the problems. On this multiplication test today, she hardly tried; she did two problems and got them right, but she just sat in her desk doing next to nothing. She didn't even bother turning in her test at all, and the teacher had to track her down. The girl said that she didn't have the test, but when the teacher went through her binder, the test was found, incomplete and crinkled. This girl got out exactly what she put into the test. And then she broke down and cried in the hall way for the last hour - after she was out of the math class.

These are kids that have fallen through the cracks and are continuing to fall. They need massive amounts of extra, one-on-one help. Individual teachers cannot offer that extra help and time in a regular day, but leaving these kids alone is hardly an option. These kids are failing, and they'll continue to fail, but how can they be helped? How can I help these kids when I'm a teacher?

What scares me the most is how easy it is to walk away from these problems. If there's a kid who won't try, fine. Walk away. If they won't try, you can't make them. It's their loss. But to be a successful teacher (or a decent person, in my opinion), we can't let these kids go. We need to keep nagging at them to work. The principal and parents need to be contacted. Absolutely every single effort needs to be in place, and I don't think this is too much to ask. This is why teaching is so challenging. One can so easily just walk away, especially when the other option is working ridiculously hard on specific students in order to make them reach minimum requirements.

--Ms. Hartman