Summer Reading: Part 3 of ? - The Value of Time
TL;DR: Students miss school because the time spent in it, is not accurately valued by students. In their minds, minutes and even hours can be wasted with no adverse consequences. One way to change this mind set is to treat every second in your class like gold. This gives your students more time for learning.
I remember when a misadventure in elementary school left me with three days at home to think about what I had done. I don't know much about other 11 year olds, but I know I wasn't exactly the "self-reflection" type. I was a ninja turtles type, so that's what I did. I watched TV, I read comics, and I played video games. Oh sure, there was homework assigned as punishment, but that took me 15 min and then I was free to do what I liked. To make matters worse, I completed two weeks worth of work in the three days off. This was likely the most damaging event in all my schooling. Essentially, I was given very clear evidence that my time in class was a waste. This attitude lasted until my first year of university, and very nearly cost me my place there. I can't help but wonder, are any other students getting this same evidence anywhere?
1) What do we want!? Student accountability for their own learning! When do we want it!? When parents stop sabotaging our attempts at instilling it!
So cheeky title aside, the area I teach has a fair number of students whos' families hail from lands far from where they currently call home. Normally this is a fantastic addition to the classroom because it provides me a variety of viewpoints and opinions to draw from. All too frequently however, it presents a significant problem for myself and my students. Visiting the homeland. Any time we have more than a few days off, I lose at least one of my 150 students to visiting a far flung land. Not for days, but for weeks, and occasionally months. On this, I am torn.
On one hand, it is an opportunity of a lifetime. I grew up not knowing my heritage (not that it is all that exotic) so for my students to experience a new culture, and to be able to relate that to where they came from? That is something that I couldn't give them in a lifetime of classes. However, that isn't what I have been tasked with teaching them. I have a detailed set of learning outcomes that I have to assess at the end of the year. If a student misses a month of school, what are the chances that they will achieve all of the learning outcomes demanded by the ministry of education? What am I to do with a student that is gone that long. As previously indicated, I am very much on the fence. Theoretically, students are intended to get a form filled out for any extended absences, I could simply refuse to sign it until a student has shown me they have the minimum skills / knowledge from the unit/s they will be missing. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the time these students don't get the forms signed, and if they actually do bring you the form, it is considered a fait accompli. I don't want to be the road block stopping them from seeing where they came from, but I also don't want to be complicit in them sacrificing their education. I am often confused as to what the parents are thinking when they book these expensive and extended vacations. I have a strong suspicion they don't value my class time. That might be my fault...
2) Time use: Waste Not Want Not
Hands up if you have ever had this experience. You have given the students a task to complete, most of the students remained on topic and are now finished whatever it is you have assigned. There is five minutes left in class, and one student starts the avalanche of "pack up time". With an efficiency typically reserved for military parades, all your students have packed up and are now fully, and completely off task, regardless of the completion level of their respective assignments. Not a big deal right? 5 minutes?
5 min / class X 180 classes per year = 900 min. That is 15 hours of lost time, or in other words, 11 full classes missed.
I routinely communicate this to my students, but unsurprisingly, I get few results. Here is my theory on why.
Some students will complete assignments fairly quickly, it is just the nature of the game. Often, I don't have meaningful work ready for those students. By the time I drag out something for them to do, their lack of attention / activity has spread like wildfire and wild horses couldn't drag their attention back to whatever it was I wanted them to do.
Doug Lemov in his book Teach Like a Champion has a fairly simple solution. Always have deep and meaningful work in your pocket (literally or figuratively) The moment a student completes an assignment, you pull out something new for them to do. Taking it a step further, I would prefer to have an ongoing, weekly assignment, that students would work on in their spare time. There is no waste on transitions, no confusion, and no opportunity for tom foolery.
This communicates to students that your time, and their time is valuable, and not to be wasted. Sometimes enforcing the "work to the bell or past it" mentality is exhausting, but anything less communicates to students that the time in class in not of value. I suspect this bleeds into their parents' opinions of school and is a contributing factor in why they think they can pull their child out for a month and have no consequence.
In my next post:
3) Deep thinking requires deep knowledge
4) Wait time, and why do we ask for hands?
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