This week has been crazy. Brad had to leave early on Tuesday due to a family emergency, so I had to 1) teach his two calculus classes that day, and 2) administer a test to D band (algebra 2) the next day (Weds). Unfortunately, office hours Tuesday afternoon were cancelled, so students from D band were frustrated and upset about missing out on that study time the day before the test and expressed this frustration to the entire class immediately before the standards quiz was distributed on Wednesday morning (8:15 am).
That is pretty much what happened. The next day, Brad told the class that whatever material they did not answer on the test would be graded as is, and that students could proceed with retakes moving forward like normal. One student, Darlenny, was so upset by hearing this, that she put her head down on her desk and kept it there for the majority of the rest of the 65-minute period. We learned new material during that lesson, and Darlenny missed most of that new information, presumably because she could not handle her emotions well enough. I walked over to Darlenny, unaware that she was in rebellion mode, and asked her if she wanted to take a walk around outside and grab some water to wake up. She replied (without lifting her head) saying that she already had standards to retake and now all of the new standards (which were left blank and will be graded as a 1/5 aka 20%) will be impossible to retake. I tried to provide whatever assistance I could, by reminding her that since she was late on the day of the quiz and did not provide an excuse or a note, that if she could that could potentially help her. She refused this scenario, and instead chose to keep her head down for the remainder of class. It was a shame to see, not because I like Darlenny as a person and am disappointed in her, but because she missed valuable information moving forward over the course of this lesson which she refused to participate in. Even though she was physically present during class, she was not mentally or emotionally present. How do teachers help students who are absent from school or absent from partaking in the content like Darlenny was? Is there a difference in how teachers help students such as these? Do their approached differ?
1 Comment
Sarah Poncz
2/25/2018 03:26:39 pm
Thank you for your prompt post.
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Alex KoroljowStudent teacher at SLA @ Center City, Philadelphia. Archives
January 2018
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