Teaching selflessness -- an essay, and request for ideas

[ForresterModern]

I keep coming back to the old adage "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." Your students come to you already pre-formed by a severely flawed system that does not appropriately prepare them to move on educationally but simply adjusts the bar ever lower with grade advancements. You cannot repair that. All you can do is your own part to teach and motivate those that will be receptive and interested. I do and have taught for over 20 years. I also was the rare self motivated learner in my highschool full of dropouts and predominantly vocational education graduates, with a flawed school focus on graduating as many of the students as possible, not on truly educating those who were interested in learning. As such us higher achievers were literally left on our own to scavenge from books and teachers what the school knew would be an adequate but not spectacular education, while the schools aimed at teaching to the lower ability students just to get them a diploma and push them through the system. They taught to the lowest abilities and did not really help the high ability students. I have learned through experience that it is better to teach to the higher ability interested student and let them drag along the less capable or less interested students. The latter will either follow or fail ultimately. You must always do your best to teach those that are willing to learn, and attempt to motivate the small population of others who may be willing to under the right circumstances. Focus on these groups and realize that in the flawed system you are forced to teach in there will simply be those who only coast along without a care in the world. The only way to teach selflessness at your level is to do it by example, as many of your efforts to go beyond the norm with your lessons demonstrate. Just realize there will be times when you will "cast pearls before swine," meaning that you may find the majority of your efforts in vain. However, even if you only move or motivate one mind, you have accomplished a portion of your mission in life. You cannot fix all the problems. You are a teacher----not an "enforcer of learning". So teach, creatively and enthusiastically, aiming high and nurturing any signs of a stirring interest in your students, but always realize that you cannot effect great change on a lot of your preformed preflawed preordained preoccupied students.

Good luck.


jeff

[CMcG]

<snip>
Thinking long and hard about why students could not set aside their cigarettes and cars and sports for even 30 seconds, I've come up with this hypothesis. These things (cigarettes, cars, and sports) are what's important to them, and really, at this point in their lives, very little else is.

...

This is where I turn to my friends, colleagues, and other educators. Is it possible to teach / learn the importance of selflessness and sacrifice? Can it be done in a way that students adopt it and put it into practice? Or is it a lost cause? Are we just banging on a drum, making noise and not achieving anything? Further, if you DO believe that these lessons are teachable / learnable, is it possible to do in a secular context? Or are we obliged to turn to spirituality, religion, and a belief in shomething greater than ourselves?

I think that selflessness and sacrifice can be taught, but not in the situation you have described. In fact, I don't believe that teaching those things is within the purview of an English teacher. CNDSushi, I commend you for your efforts but you are probably barking up the wrong proverbial tree.

I guess I will dissent a little. Your students do not lack in motivation. They are simply motivated in other ways and by other ideas than you. You can try to force them to accept your views or you can teach and lead them by using theirs.

In my experience teaching electronic music at the university level, I've found a lot of truth to what mull has written. Students today are highly motivated in regards to the things that they care about.

CNDSushi has made it clear that his students are quite interested in cars, cigarettes, and sports. They might also be interested in technology, popular music, movies, fashion, and the opposite sex. The pedagogical question at hand might better be framed as: how can one teach English using the interests of the students to motivate them?

When it comes to electronic music, my students are generally not interested in the theories of acoustics, art music, or audio engineering. They are, however, really into rock, hip hop, and dance music. I have had to find ways to teach them the theory that I want them to understand by couching it in ways that they are willing to engage with.

I keep coming back to the old adage "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

Or as my University Teaching and Learning professor would say "you can lead a student to knowledge but you can't make them think."

One of the newer education models being promoted these days is to focus on learning as opposed to knowledge. The basic premise is that if an educator can help a student learn how to learn, they are set for life. Sort of like teaching someone how to fish (a life skill) instead of just giving them a fish (one meal).

Within this educational paradigm and specific to CNDSushi's situation, the goal would be to help students learn how to learn English. The motivation is there in terms of their existing interests but must be harnessed towards the goal.

[TheBrus]

You don't mention their parents. Tell us about them, please.

[Cygnus]

Well and nobly said, Jeff! I agree!

It may seem odd that I agree with Jeff after my somewhat draconian recommendations in my previous post, so I feel I should explain their compatibility. It would seem that a classroom setting as disruptive as the one described in the first post would be a nearly impossible place to learn, even for those that are motivated to do so. If I were in CDNSushi's place, I would do everything I could to remove those disruptions (even if it means allowing some students to fail) so that I could properly teach the few that have a desire to learn.

[Father Bill]

Hi.

I was going to stay out of this at first because I've moved on in my first career seven years back, but I just can't stay away, I guess.

I taught and led schools for much younger children, Sushi, and one of the things we were always aware of was the research that told us that by age 3, 80% of the "bulk learning" that was going to take place already had - things like "there are toes down there." "They're attached to me." "I can wiggle them," etc. Now obviously and assuredly, what you are teaching, and what we were teaching even at a kindergarten level is far more advanced than that, BUT, it's only the last 20% Pareto's principle: 80% of the work takes 20% of the effort, and vice-versa. That means that in a very real way, even at the kindergarten level, my teachers were doing mostly remedial and enrichment work, and attitudes towards society, self, and learning are definitely in the first 80% Take a look at the work of Dr. Morris Massey http://www.enterprisemedia.com/produ...hen_again.html for a rather scary but humourous look at that.

What you're fighting, as were we, is the vast amount of teaching that has already been done by parents, peers, and society. They'll be interested in whatever they'll be interested in, and selflessness is not something easily taught... but there is a fledgling program here in Ontario that has shown some real success called "Roots of Empathy." http://www.rootsofempathy.org/en/wha...r-program.html and other search items will bring it up fairly quickly. It's designed for much younger children, but you might be able to adapt the concept.

Other than that, taking a look at the theory behind it may give you some other ideas too. I wish you well - it's a problem which has bedevilled educators and will, for a long, long time. If I think of anything else, I'll get back to you.

[MrLion]

I've been reading this large book by Charles Colson, "How NOW shall we live"
I think it covers the root of the problem (and answers) extensively.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Now-Shall-.../dp/0842318089

[AKScott]

Not sure that selflessness can be taught. Am sure not everyone learns it.

One of my sons has taken on a second full time job so he can buy more J-pop CDs. He washes dishes in a resturaunt fulltime, and has a new rather menail retail sales position several evenings a week.

When his mother and I talked about it I was and still am of the opinion this might be the life experience he needs to bite the bullet and end up in college or a trade school so he can get a single higher paying job later.

I am sure that I can not show him he is wasting his time, it is something he is going to have to figure out for himself.

In all fairness, he doesn't have a dream or a passion to pursue. He wants more DVDs, and those cost money, so he knows he needs more money. Second job is the only option currently open to him that does not decrease his consumptive ability/ capacity short term.

Interesting qaundry. Thanks one and all for your responses.

[Cowher]

I was the kid in class who you describe. I could care less what that unqualified dumb **** up in front was jabbering about. I was not dumb but I failed every test I took. When the teacher would yell at me for not doing my homework I would laugh and inform them "I don't DO homework". Teachers HATED me. I was the student that teachers loose sleep over.
Until one day a teacher named Mr. Hitov came into the classroom stood on a desk and started teaching us. It was freshman year of highschool and because of my poor grades I was in a math class that was teaching addition and hopefully by the end of the year we would get to multiplication. Mr. Hitov did enough to get one of my classmates to say who cares why would anyone want to learn about math that's why we have calculators.
He got off of the desk and asked the student to stand. He did. He smiled at him and said I will show you why you will care and I will show you why you care now. He challenged us he engaged us and told us that by the end of the year we would be doing trigonometry.

To make a long story short we all passed that class. I found that I needed to be in advanced classes. I thrived. I was bored befor and I looked at my teachers as being inferior to me. Once I was put in the advanced classes the teachers were smarter they made it fun I learned and I graduated with really good grades. I wasn't top of my class but I was being pushed. In one of my advanced classes I had a teacher take the approach of focus on the best forget the rest. I almost failed that class. I believe that most students don't have goals and are not challenged to meet those goals.

Ask the surgeon mask boy what he is going to do after school. What does he want out of life? Perhaps he needs more help than what you can offer but that's a step in the right direction.
You dont have to change the world to change a life.
You can't help every student but you will have some guy 14 years after he was in your class telling people how you changed his life.
They must have the desire and goals to reach for… You must have the same.

[EagleJCS]

I wonder if it's not so much selfishness as a lack of respect, self-respect in particular. The attitude "I don't care about this class" can be hiding "I don't care what happens to me" (because no one else seems to either).

The budo comment kind of leads in that direction as well. Budo can teach a degree of respect for the other person, for oneself, for one's environment/surroundings. It also inculcates a degree of self-reliance. (I studied Aikido for 6-7 years until I lost my income and couldn't pay for dojo time.)

I've been a volunteer leader for nearly 25 years with the Boy Scouts, ages 11-18. My experience* is that kids that age can be taught some selflessness and/or self-respect. The trouble is, it takes more than just one semester or even one year. It takes several years of delivering the same message consistently and demonstrating that message yourself through your own actions. Kids pay attention to what we adults do more than we realize. If we say one thing and do another, the kids might then conclude that since we aren't consistent ourselves, what we say doesn't really matter and they can do as they please themselves.

I have heard that most of our thought processes and ideas of right/wrong and self-worth are formed by the time we reach adulthood. Additional information is still learned in adulthood, but the underlying framework into which that new info fits has already solidified and is very difficult to restructure. As was mentioned before, it would take a life-altering event for that basic framework to change.

Jim, I don't think you'll have a great deal of success making much of an impact on the unmotivated students at this point, no matter how hard you try. I think it would need to be addressed in a systematic fashion on a large scale much earlier in their academic career. Best of luck.


*Granted, I'm not dealing with kids in an urban environment or kids that 'the system' has given up on - most of the kids I deal directly with on a regular basis are from a very narrow demographic with parental/family support.

[Mipi]

CDNSushi!

I had an idea to select topics to learn English the way you could gain there focus, but I see you've already tried this with not much success.

Sorry for that.