Teaching selflessness -- an essay, and request for ideas

[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.

[CMcG]

<snip>
This year they've mandated teaching to the TOEIC test, which, while not an unreasonable request, is 90% business English-related. The tools the students need to succeed on a TOEIC are not found in the things THEY would prefer to discuss, unfortunately.

...

Again, that's not to say that you don't have a point about catering to what the students like and what gets their gears going... I have done so, and continue to do so. As I said, I've seen mixed results, some quite good -- but it does have some very real limitations as well.

Good to know that you try to cater to the students' interests, but that must be especially difficult if you are bound to teaching a TOEIC curriculum. What are the students hoping to get out of this class? Have you asked them what their own learning objectives are?

<snip>
Punishments in Japanese schools are also VASTLY different than those administered in the West. And in my 9+ years living and teaching here, I've found that it's highly ineffective to try and impose Western discipline here -- it's just not appropriate, nor is it effective.

In order to teach to the willing or even get a minimum through to the unwilling, there cannot be disruptions in the classroom. If the students ARE selfish then you will have to force them to at least ACT selfless. What are culturally appropriate punishments in Japan?

For a Canadian university, the threat of failure -- or at least poor grades -- is a real one. Apparently in CDNSushi's case, this is not so. I have been known to kick people out of class, which counts as an absence. I have also been known to shout and berate as necessary. Works for me

On the other hand, there are other pedagogical techniques being espoused by my university's Teaching and Learning unit. The two biggest ones recently have been integration of technology and participatory learning.

Students today can be thought of negatively as having no attention span or positively as being good multitaskers. In order to deliver sufficient stimulation to keep them engaged, effective use of technology becomes necessary.

This means two things. The first is that a traditional oral-only lecture is boring and a multimedia delivery of course material becomes more effective. In some cases, teachers are nearly doing away with lectures in order to focus on participation: small group work, class discussion, exercises, etc.

The second is to use social networking, smartphones, and the internet -- the typical modern youth's natural habitat -- as teaching tools. Are the student's talking in class? Make them text or instant message each other instead, especially if you get them to do it in English. The required text is not interesting to the students? How about including some internet-based work that can be tailored to individual interests? My university even has a software environment sort of like an internet forum with the prof as the mod. At the minimum, this keeps the slackers quiet, so the willing students can work...

Never having been in CDNSushi's situation, I'm just throwing some stuff out here. My lass is doing English as a second language teacher training as part of her linguistics degree, so I fear she may soon know exactly what he's talking about

[CDNSushi]

Some really good reflections. Let me address a few of the questions.

What are the students hoping to get out of this class? Have you asked them what their own learning objectives are?

I have done this before, but just not with this particular group, where I've had 1-on-1 meetings with each student to discuss their goals and hopes. It's really difficult to say how effective it was, but it did require a lot of time. To generalize though, the GOOD students have a fair idea what they want, the not-so-good ones don't possess enough tools to really know what they could or should want.

But just last week, (because of the new TOEIC curriculum that was newly instituted just this year) I actually got a student to complain. I was THRILLED (because Japanese students NEVER complain. At least not to their instructors). He told me that he wished there could be more speaking and conversation taught (rather than the TOEIC goal of listening comprehension). I told the student that I would see what I could do in the second semester -- I have a few things I plan to try. But I've been looking for an alternative test to the TOEIC that the higher-ups would be satisfied with as a quantifiable metric, but that didn't focus on just one skill so unilaterally. Again, I've got some thoughts on this too.

In order to teach to the willing or even get a minimum through to the unwilling, there cannot be disruptions in the classroom. If the students ARE selfish then you will have to force them to at least ACT selfless. What are culturally appropriate punishments in Japan?

For a Canadian university, the threat of failure -- or at least poor grades -- is a real one. Apparently in CDNSushi's case, this is not so. I have been known to kick people out of class, which counts as an absence. I have also been known to shout and berate as necessary. Works for me

I agree. We are on summer break now, but when second semester begins, ALL my students will find that their seating assignments have changed so that they are no longer sitting with their groups of friends.

Threat of failure is highly ineffective here, as are poor grades. Kicking people out of class is not unheard of, but very rare, as it is culturally not permissible to do so. The Japanese see education as a fundamental right, and they interpret removing a student from class as taking away that fundamental right from them (in spite of the fact that they are neither learning themselves, nor allowing others to learn). But I HAVE sent students to speak with the principal during class in a few extreme cases.

I've used other different tactics at different times. In spite of what I see as selfishness, most Japanese students are still sensitive to their cultural norms. One of these is belonging to a group, and that the needs of the group supersede those of the individual -- a very Eastern mindset. As such, the most effective methods of punishment involve censorship by the group. A very powerful motivator in Japan is the fear that one's actions might inconvenience another.

I've taken a few lessons from the Sgt. Hartman school of education (Full Metal Jacket). Remember the scene where "Private Pile" has a doughnut in his foot locker? He has to eat it while the entire group has to do push-ups to "pay" for it. Yeah. Like that. One causes problems, and the whole group gets punished with extra homework, for instance. Then I don't have to discipline the student at all. Either the student realizes very quickly that he's become a burden to the group and will change his behavior, and if not, the rest of the class takes care of letting him know that they don't appreciate his crap causing THEM inconvenience.

Let me tell a story... At the beginning of this year, I had a student who consistently refused to pay his textbook fees. Each day he would come up with some stupid excuse why he didn't have the money. Finally, when he told another instructor with whom I share the class (we teach on alternate days) that he didn't have the money because he didn't have time to go see his mother, I got mad and called him into my office.

I sat him down, and asked why he wasn't paying his fees. He apologized and said he would pay next week "for sure" -- the same story he had already been telling for several weeks now. So even as angry as I was, I calmly and quietly explained to him ALL the people he was inconveniencing. I wrote out a list, actually. I put the list on the table... It said this:

Dunlop-sensei
Kobayashi-sensei
Akazawa-sensei
the bookstore rep.
the college
Kocho-sensei
the bookstore
the supplier
the publisher
the author

I explained it like this: When you don't pay your fees, it's a burden on me because I have to waste time (like I am right now) talking to you about this -- time that I don't have because I've got a lot to do today. It inconveniences Kobayashi-sensei because I charged her with collecting the money from you to give to me, and she had to take time to try and do that, and then write me an explanatory note why she couldn't when it didn't happen. It inconveniences Akazawa-sensei because he has to waste time HE doesn't have to translate this to you (my Japanese is alright, but I will call in some help when I need to explain long, complex, or difficult things). It inconveniences our bookstore rep because he's been charged by his company to collect our school's fees and he cannot until everyone's paid. Not to mention the fact that he is forced to apologize to his superiors when he can't get the job done. It inconveniences the college because when companies cannot get paid from us on time, we develop a bad reputation for non-payment... Which inconveniences the kocho-sensei (Japanese word for principal) because he has to deal with the fallout of this bad reputation and apologize on our behalf (Yes, he actually does a LOT of apologizing to local businesses, the community, parents, etc)... It inconveniences the bookstore because they are expecting this money in order to pay their monthly "accounts payable" account. You should know this from your bookkeeping class how important that is. When they cannot clear accounts payable, that causes a delay in their payment to the distributor, which inconveniences them. That delay in payment inconveniences the publisher, who actually had to special-ship these textbooks from the U.K. at OUR behest. And it even inconveniences the author you see on the cover of the book because he won't get paid (with royalties) until the rest of the value chain is satisfied. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? (He said he did. But at this point I was on fire, so I kept at it a bit longer). Do you believe that it is fundamentally right for people to get paid for the work they do? (He said yes). Do you believe that it's proper for them to be paid on time? (Again, he said yes). Do you have a part-time job? (Yes). Where? (7-11). So, how would it make you feel, if on payday, your manager walked in, apologized to you, and said he couldn't pay you because he didn't have time to speak with his mother? (I'd be angry). Exactly. In the real world, people don't care about excuses and WHY they can't get paid... Even if we here at the college were sympathetic that you didn't have the money because you didn't have time to speak with your mother, do you think the bookstore rep. cares about that? Does the publisher care? Does the author care? If you receive a credit card statement, do you think they care that you can't pay it because you didn't have time to talk to your mother about it? How do you think that conversation would go down if you called their customer service department and told them that? As adults, we have to take responsibility for taking care of our obligations to others. If I know that I have to speak with my mother to get the money I need, then I make SURE to schedule myself in such a way that it gets done. (At this point he looked about 2 inches tall, so I figured he got the message). Okay. Now that you understand what's at stake here, I will ask you again. When can I expect your textbook fees? (Tomorrow). Great. Before you go, please take this list that I wrote to remind yourself why it's important.

He took the list, and indeed, the very next morning, wouldn't you know it, 0900 on the NOSE he was in the office paying his fees. The neat thing is that since my co-worker did the translation work for me, he took in my entire "motivational" speech, and told me later that he used it (pretty much verbatim) in one of his own classes, and managed to mow down all the non-payers in one fell swoop. They also all paid the very next day. He was chuffed! So yes, sometimes it's possible to come up with novel methods to deal with problems that no one has tried before, but that prove to be quite effective, especially given the cultural context.

On the other hand, there are other pedagogical techniques being espoused by my university's Teaching and Learning unit. The two biggest ones recently have been integration of technology and participatory learning.

I am a huge believer in participatory learning. I would say that about 50-75% of my classroom content is done as group work, and only the remaining portion is spent in "lecture mode." The biggest challenge is getting them to listen and understand long enough during the "lecture" portion in order to be able to do the group work correctly and properly. But I do have some potential strategies that I hope to be able to implement come next semester.

[cormacmacguardhe]

I am not sure how this will apply, but I have been of the opinion that, at least in western culture something is missing. There is no longer an initiation into adulthood. We have created this artificial being, known as a "teenager". Our younger citizens are not transitioned into adulthood from childhood, they are instead dumped into teenage, they are not taught about the responsibilities of being an adult, nor what their place in adult society will/should be. We kind of let them drift, to find their own place within the societal structure. Tribal cultures had their ceremonies after which the individual knew where they fit in that culture. Except for some religious groups, these ceremonies are gone from today's western society. We also no longer have apprenticeship programs starting at the young ages that they used to. I am not advocating a return to child labor, but we did lose some structure when programs like that were eliminated.
It is possible that at the age of late teens early twenties it could be too late to instill the values that we are talking about, but something like enlightened self interest could taught.

[Rob Wright]

I would say, based on my experience in the classroom in the American southwest, that it is not selfishness, though that is one of the symptoms, but entitlement. I see it in the parents of the students, it crosses ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic backgrounds, and political and religious backgrounds. An extremely small handful of students have been taught by their parents any kind of work ethic. I have had students and parents tell me there kid shows up to class so they have earned an A. I've had parents demand I call home to remind their kid to do their school work. There is no sense of responsibility on the part of the students and parents. Those that do take responsibility, are few and far between.

I avoid group work(except my theatre classes) simply because students view it as permission to just sit around and visit, they flat out will not work in groups, they just talk. Partners I have a lot of success with.

When I did a long term sub history position I had a lot of success with telling stories and teaching the students how to research, with one of the end projects being the students had an iPad template (same size as an iPad) that they then created a New Mexico history app covering a topic of their choosing(from a list I provide partly based on the enthusiasm the students showed toward certain topics) and providing me a list of the resources they used.

When there are no consequences for ones actions there is no incentive to put out an effort.

Rob