Education and the quest to be educated, like any other situation and event in a student’s life, may result to two things – victory and failure. Victory is a sweet moment for every student. Their ability to achieve their goals efficiently gives them a sense of pride and accomplishment. This goes beyond the four walls of the academe. The parents, the friends, and all significant persons in a student’s life share with him/her the fruits of her labor – success.
On the other hand, while there are students celebrating their successes, some students need to face yet a different result – efforts falling short thus leading to failure. Sometimes, its not what the students wanted, it maybe a combination of factors that lead them to failure. At this point of student’s experience, where are the teachers? What are the roles and responsibilities of the teachers? It is also important that teachers know that they are also to assist and help students not only during their successes and victories but most importantly during those times that the odds are not in the students’ favour.
Teach 4 the Heart provided strategies how teachers can help the students pull their selves upward and be back on track towards their own stories of victory and successes. According to them failing students tend to bring up a variety of emotions in us. We get frustrated, we get worried. We wonder if we’re a horrible teacher. We want to give them a mean look for not trying hard enough. So for teachers to be able to assist their students, they must do the following:
Get the parents involved early. Whether or not you think the parents will actually make a difference, go ahead and involve them early. The responsibility for teaching their children is ultimately the parents’, not ours, so they need to be informed about what’s going on.
Intentionally help the student whenever possible. How you do this will vary depending on your grade level and class structure, but make it a priority to help your failing students whenever you can.
Provide opportunity for self-reflection. Help the student walk through a process of self-reflection. This will, of course, vary depending on the age, but for middle school and high school give them a short questionnaire that ask them to 1) list all the reasons they think they were failing and 2) write down a plan for how to improve.
Look for underlying problems. Try to determine what underlying problems are causing them to struggle. Do they have a genuine learning disability? Are there problems at home? Often we try to correct the symptoms without ever getting to the root of the problem.
Don’t give up on them. Too often it seems like nothing is ever going to change, but we can’t give up on our students. Sometimes we won’t see the results for months or even years, but that doesn’t mean we’re wasting our time. We’ve got to believe in our students and show them that we believe in them. It’s a conscious choice – it does not depend on our feelings at the moment.
When all else fails, let them fail. When you’ve done all you can and it’s report card time and they clearly earned an F, give them an F.
As teachers, it breaks our heart to see students fail, mainly because it is not in our mission to make someone fail, because we are born to create and develop successful individuals. However, we also need to understand that at times, the concept of success and victories is sometimes beneath the path of failure. While failure is a sad event, it may only mean another path that may lead them to their success. Indeed, success belongs to the reality of their dreams.
Reference:
Kardamis, L. (2017, March 1). 9 Ways to Help Failing Students. Retrieved March 12, 2017, from http://teach4theheart.com/9-ways-to-help-failing-students/
By: DUSTY M. MANGILA | TEACHER II | LIMAY NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
