Since I deal with kids with special needs, I oftentimes have students that make less than appropriate decisions about how to spend time during "silent" work time. After discussing various strategies with colleagues, one of them said this:
"We are entrusted to make academic decisions for those students who refuse to make successful academic decisions for themselves."
In the real world, however, these students won't have us around to rely on. I'm not working with moderately- or severely-disabled kids anymore. The students I'm working with are "normal" but have a few learning difficulties. Is it really our place to make these decisions for these students, as my colleague suggests, or is it more of our responsibility to model proper decision-making techniques? Is it even our job to do that much? Should we just let the kids who don't care fail? Should we just let the kids who are too distracted to do their work fail?
1 comment:
Indeed, one of the more frustrating aspects of being a teacher in these situations is knowing that there won't be professionals there to hold these kids' hands once they enter the real world. To some extent I think that they have to make their own decisions and learn the hard way...like everyone else. That's not to say that we can't offer suggestions along the way, or that we should be unavailable if they actually seek help.
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