Sharing is caring

Of course, there are times when they don’t want to run their mouths, at least not about theater arts. Who are these students? Why are they unengaged? You mean to tell me they don’t like factoring binomials? You’re crazy!

Sad, but true, not every student likes your content area (I’m looking at you math), but sometimes it goes deeper than that. Students may not be on grade level for their reading ability, have a disability, or they could be suffering from some emotional distress. I had a lot of problems with this my first year, and being honest, I didn’t do such a hot job all the time in dealing with these situations. There’s a lot at stake here for those kids and you, and the best advice I can give is to be understanding. They will try your patience to be sure, and you might even blow up at them, but one of the easiest things to do is check up on them in their other classes. There were a lot of times where I didn’t know how to help a student, so I asked my more experienced peers and sometimes they offered a more seasoned perspective.

Another way to promote check in on students and utilize content literacy is through writing assignments, journals, or projects that they have a voice and a story that deserves to be heard. Granted, my class was Language Arts, so we journaled everyday, but that doesn't mean that journal couldn't be kept in Math class. Journals could be the springboard to great discussions, write about problems they have in class, or just gauge their opinion on a topic in the news. If I had used small groups the discussions may have even been better. As I said earlier, sometimes I had a lot of students write some shocking things and I was down in guidance every other day with journals in hand, and I probably got a reputation for it. It was a reputation I was happy to have, students knew they could come talk to me and that I was there for them, but that's why we're there, right? Okay, that and the summers.

Sadly, I had a student write about she she used to cut herself. To make sure all was well, I sent her journal to guidance, and they checked up on her. She was not pleased about this and confronted me with in ear-shot of another student I had sent to guidance who had written about being abused. One girl told the other: “Mr. C isn’t getting you in trouble, he just cares about us,” and she was right.