As a teacher I have seen some of the saddest things. I grew up in a home in which education was considered important and I had parents who actually cared about where I was and what I did. Saddly, this is not the case for MANY of today’s youth.
I teach a guitar class. Half of the students in the class are currently failing. Another third of the class had a D or C. Very few have B’s or A’s.
Now, keep in mind that this is an elective course. There is NO homework and 80% of the points come purely from coming to class and participating (trying on some level). Still, kids just don’t care, and it breaks my heart to see it.
Example 1: I ask “Stephen” to come up and play a 4 measure melody for me that we’ve been working on for 2 straight class periods (3 hours). 4 beats per measure equals about 16 notes the he had 3 hours to learn to play in order. He gets there, stares at the music and has no idea where to start. “I don’t know how to do this,” he says. “Okay, what is the name of this first note?” I ask. “Oh, that one… I can’t remember that one,” he responds. “That was the very first note we ever learned in this class at the beginning of the 1st semester and we’ve played it unceasingly every day since then,” I explain. “I’ll just take a zero,” he decided.
Sad. Just sad.
Example 2: Every day my students have to do a journal. Basically I put a few questions on the board for them to answer. What is the name of this note? How many beats are in a 4/4 measure, etc. They write down whatever they think are the right answers and then we review them. At the end of the month we turn in all the journals. Note: the student gets FULL credit for turning in the journals at ALL. All the answers could be made up and have nothing to do with the question and they will still get full credit. I have told them this many times. I’ve pleaded with them to understand that right or wrong they get ALL the points for just turning it in.
…you guessed it: only about 1/3 of the class turns them in. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!?!? It’s a full 10% of their grade and they CHOOSE not to turn them in.
I have so many students like this (mostly in guitar, my choir students are pretty good). They don’t care about their grades and it stems from their home life. They obviously have parents who aren’t involved in their lives, and THAT’s what saddens me the most. These poor kids don’t have parents who check their grades or explain to them what responsibility is. I wonder if their parents even know they still live in the same house with them.
Now I understand that there are students whose parents do care and they still fail. But when I’m offering a FREE passing grade just for handing me a notebook regardless of what’s in it, and they choose not to do it… it goes to show that they don’t care, and obviously nobody else does either.
