Engaging the Disengaged Student
- Spinning Their Wheels
- Lights, Camera, Announcements?
- It's Magic!
- Getting in Gear
- Animals in the Classroom
- On the Road
- B is for Beanie Baby
- Building School Culture
Learning is a lot like bike riding. Once you have the knack, you never really forget the skill. Nor do you forget the thrill of learning a new ability or understanding a complex idea. You are a lifelong learner and you love it.
Why have so many students never discovered this thrill? Why are they coasting when they could be racing along in the educational Tour de France with their peers? What can teachers do to engage the disengaged student?
Spinning Their Wheels
Kevin Harrison
Kevin Harrison wants to shatter the lazy teen stereotype. "Give a teen a meaningful task that is relevant to them and you'll see sparks fly!" He believes that structuring the curriculum around teen interests and then mentoring teens' innate sense of rebellion results in amazing and productive energy. If you can then reflect that powerful work back to the school and community, you will create a culture in which it is cool to be a competent teenager.
"There's a sickness in our schools called boredom," says Kevin Harrison. Harrison is the media studies and career preparation teacher, as well as vice-principal of rural education and alternate delivery, at Timberline Senior Secondary in Campbell River, British Columbia. His television production and video production courses have seduced (his word) a number of students out of boredom and back into learning.
That it is hands-on production courses that have done this is key. Harrison believes that students - boys especially - are opting out of programs, and school in general, because they are bored. The traditional educational system does not capture boys' interest effectively. Making them sit at a desk just turns them off, he explains. Boys learn best through gross-motor activities and lots of active exploration, the kind of experience they gain in his courses.
Patti Sebestyen thinks the problem of disengaged students has more to do with attitude (and the choice of that attitude) than boredom. Her Opening Doors Program in Saskatoon is an alternative school program for students in grades 8 to 12 who have been chronically truant or out of school for more than six months. "These kids don't see that school has anything to do with their lives," she comments, "and they don't see that it's up to them to figure out why it should.
"Being disengaged, bored, discouraged or whatever you want to call it doesn't start when a kid is 14," Sebestyen adds. Disengagement begins early when a student doesn't fit into our moulds, she suggests, and when too many labels, such as attention deficit, high-risk, disabled or disruptive, keep us from seeing the individual and his or her abilities.
Marie-Chantal Vanier, who teaches students with learning disabilities at École Lac-des-Fées in Gatineau, Quebec, agrees with this assessment. "My kids have severe learning disabilities. When they arrive in my class they have already accumulated more than three years of failure and a record that shows this."
Lights, Camera, Announcements?
"Good morning, Timberline. Welcome to today's show. Here are your morning announcements." In most schools, students listen to a similar message over the public address (PA) system every morning. At Timberline, students watch a 10-minute student-produced news program instead.
Timberline Senior Secondary was built in 1996 as an integrated high school and college. Since the college and high school programs run on different schedules, the school has no PA system at all. "Instead, there are closed circuit televisions in the halls and every classroom that keep everyone informed," explains Kevin Harrison, who designed the system and teaches media studies and career preparation at the high school. For example, three minutes before each class period starts, a clock face appears on the television screen and begins a silent countdown. "You see students stop in their tracks, look at the television screen and go rushing off to their next class."
Each daily announcement program incorporates news items, announcements from the office and two student-made videos on school-related topics, such as a recent sports event or bullying. Students enrolled in the television production course meet every morning to critique the previous day's show and create that day's script. An hour and 15 minutes later, the show goes to air.
Five teams of students, one for each day of the week, handle all aspects of production: cameras, audio, anchors, location and direction, rotating regularly. Students quickly learn to work together, be flexible, find solutions to problems and develop time management skills to meet deadlines.
It's Magic!
Sherry Taylor
"Three elements that I believe are essential to growth (and to life itself!) are love, honesty and adventure. If children know you love them, you can hold up a mirror so they can see themselves honestly. They can see their strengths with appreciation, and their weaknesses with understanding. Then the greatest adventure of all begins: discovering the best they can be. (And I'm having the same adventure right along with them!)"
Imagine a glass pie plate filled with water placed on a lit overhead projector, the water's surface sprinkled with pepper. Now, what is the magic word? Ah, yes. "Abracadabra!" With a touch of the wand, the pepper zooms to the edge of the plate.
Magic? To Sherry Taylor's Grade 5 students at George H. Luck School in Edmonton it is. It is also a great demonstration of surface tension. "In between trying out different magic words, I sneak a bit of soap onto the tip of the wand," Taylor admits. (Soap weakens water's strong molecular bonds in the area where the soapy wand is dipped. The stronger bonds in other areas of the pie plate pull the soapy water molecules toward them. The pepper is pulled along by the surface tension "skin" on the top of the water.) In their science unit about water and surface tension, Taylor's students learn several magic tricks involving surface tension, including the floating strawberry basket (the surface tension of the water supports an empty strawberry basket), to amaze their family and friends.
To Taylor, of course, it is more than magic. It is a wonderful way to engage her students' hearts and emotions and create a sense of wonder in learning.
Getting in Gear
What can be done to help these young people, who are coasting through school or leaving altogether?
"It's our responsibility to reach out and connect with the disengaged," because they are the ones who really need it, Harrison explains. The majority of students - about 70 percent in his estimation - will learn successfully through classroom instruction and homework assignments. Another 20 percent need and seek out more direction, perhaps through individualized exercises or extra tutoring. The remaining 5 to 10 percent are the kids in the danger zone, says Harrison, the ones who need everything you can give them.
Build a relationship with students, give them your interest, your time and your commitment, even as they push you away, says Harrison, and then seduce them into learning with relevant, interesting and challenging hands-on projects.
Just as importantly, do not let challenging students lead you into indifference. Sebestyen will advocate for a student at a court hearing or come to students' houses to drag them out of bed when they are late for school. And, "if they're really working hard at effecting some kind of change in their own lives, I'll walk on broken glass to make it happen."
Her students know it, too. Sebestyen's no-nonsense manner convinces the students she cares about them and believes in their capabilities. This school and this teacher want a place in their lives, they realize. It helps them believe in themselves long enough to re-engage with learning and take the first steps towards a better life.
It is all about taking it step by step and gradually building a relationship with the students, explains Vanier. "I meet them on their own ground," she explains. "I identify their strengths and what makes them struggle and then work from there," she explains. Part of Vanier's relationship with her students is built on their confidence that she will not give them work that frustrates them but that she will challenge them.
She has broken the learning for her students into a step-by-step process, too. "This does not come naturally to the kids. They have short attention spans and, naturally, want to do everything quickly in one big step. For them, the bigger the step the better." Yet taking big steps when you are not ready is a sure recipe for failure, she says.
Understanding this tendency about her students helps her understand how to engage their interest. Vanier sees the children's responses and actions during an activity as important clues to how their brains work and what learning styles they use. All these clues then help her devise teaching strategies that lead them to success.
For example, in one activity, she and her students set out to create a game. She encourages them to think of all the stages they should follow. Her students realize that they need equipment for a game, that there have to be rules in a game, and that there has to be a goal, and so on. The students define the steps and outcomes for their game. They also, without realizing it, break the larger task down into smaller, more manageable ones.
Vanier also supplies her students with "planning grids." When they finish a stage in an activity, they can colour in the appropriate square. Capturing their interest with an enjoyable activity, such as colouring, helps students connect the concrete completion of one task with the larger, more abstract task, and with the notion of planned sequential steps to learning.
Animals in the Classroom
Not only is Sherry Taylor's Grade 5 classroom at George H. Luck School in Edmonton filled with plants - "it's like a jungle in there," she smiles - and lizard cages, it is enlivened with the cheerful chirp of crickets and, occasionally, birds. (Recent school policies about fur and feather allergies mean she cannot keep mammals or birds in the classroom permanently, so her pet birds visit the class on occasion.) Making the classroom seem more like the real world helps connect her teaching to the real world, Taylor explains.
This is especially true for inner-city children, she remarks, many of whom have never seen a seed grow into a plant or held a living animal. "It brings a sense of wonder to their lives and makes them curious about what else there is to know."
Plants and animals help calm the children, too. Many children today live traumatic lives, she notes. Nothing slows a pounding heart, quiets a child's fears, instils trust and helps clear their mind for learning like a quick cuddle with a pet. "I call them my little therapists."
On the Road
Pat Shedden
"Learning should be an adventure, an interactive, lifelong process that creates wonder and promotes exploration and self-discovery. Learning is its own reward when it is purposeful and enjoyable. As teachers, our challenge is to make learning come alive by capitalizing on our students' strengths and interests and to provide experiences and interventions that allow each child to reach for the stars and become a successful player in the great game we call life."
It is to everyone's benefit to get the disengaged student back on the road to learning, these teachers agree.
"It's often easier to leave kids disengaged than to take the risk of making the effort to get them engaged," notes Blake Seward, a history teacher from Smiths Falls District Collegiate Institute in Smiths Falls, Ontario. "But it's worth it! Taking the risk is empowering and invigorating; it makes learning and teaching much more enjoyable for both the teacher and the student."
Not only that, the changes a teacher and school make to reach out to the disengaged student change the culture of the entire school, remarks Harrison, and it is a change for the better. A program he introduced to Timberline Senior Secondary (see "Building School Culture," below) has improved school morale and drastically decreased the number of disciplinary problems.
"I have to tell you, when my kids first come to me, they are often dull and listless," muses Vanier. But with little steps of success the children's wounds heal. "This opens an inestimable richness in the child. Each child is a treasure; some are just harder to reach than others."
Learning to learn - as with learning to ride a bike - is not always easy. There are many tumbles and scrapes on the way to proficiency. But it is worth the effort, say these teachers, when you see formerly disengaged students excited and energized, well on their way to lifelong learning.
See also "Reaching and Teaching the Autistic Student".
B is for Beanie Baby
Pat Shedden uses the popular plush toys known as Beanie Babies to develop literacy and math skill games for her autistic students at Queensville Public School in Queensville, Ontario, including these.
- B is for Beanie Baby. Toss the Beanie Baby back and forth to students, who say words beginning with the same letter as the name of the Beanie Baby.
- Alphabetical Order. Ask students to arrange letter cards in alphabetical order and then match the Beanie Babies by name to their correct letters.
- What's Wrong with My Sentence? Ask students to write a sentence about a Beanie Baby, and then cut a copy of the sentence into separate words. Mix up the order of words, and then ask the children to fix the sentence.
- Ordinal Positions. Line up several Beanie Babies, and then ask the students, "Which is first, second, last, third from the end?"
- How Big is a Beanie Baby? Find out how many Beanie Babies equal the weight of a book. Guess how many Beanie Babies it takes to fill a container. Record students' estimates and then count. Discuss predictions and answers.
Building School Culture
School culture is more than team spirit, says Kevin Harrison. It is a positive, respectful attitude in the classrooms, safe hallways and stairwells, and a sense of pride and ownership in the building that is shared by all.
To promote a positive school culture at Timberline Senior Secondary in Campbell River, British Columbia, where he teaches media studies and career preparation, Harrison helped implement a program based on effective behaviour support.
Effective behaviour support (EBS) is a system of positive behavioural interventions and supports developed by Dr. George Sugai, an associate professor in the Department of Special Education and Community Resources at the University of Oregon, and Director of the National Center on Positive Behavioral Supports.
EBS proposes that clear behavioural expectations and positive reinforcement are more effective than negative discipline for the problems that plague most schools, and that a system-wide approach is better than punishing each infraction as it occurs.
At Timberline, Harrison helped develop a program to ease the transition for Grade 10 students entering the school. School staff give short presentations about typical problem areas in the school and correct behaviour. (For example, cafeteria staff talk about proper cafeteria behaviour and janitors about littering and washroom etiquette.) These are followed by school spirit games in the gymnasium.
As a result, discipline referrals to the office of Grade 10 students have been reduced by 50 percent, and teachers report better student behaviour in the classroom. The school culture is improving, says Harrison. "It's a great place to be."