When I first became a teacher 14 years ago, my professors and mentor teachers all stated that having lunch in the teacher lounge was a poor idea. There are nothing but naysayers, and pessimistic complainers who put down students. For years, I followed this rule, until I was forced into a position of having lunch with my fellow teachers. My classroom had to be used during the 3rd period by another teacher, and so I was offered the opportunity to spend my planning and lunch time in another teacher’s classroom. After three years, I have realized that as the group has gotten larger, we aren’t complaining about students per say, but we are discussing trends we see in our classroom, and all of us are seeking solutions to our larger problems.
Recently a master teacher (someone with years of experience, education, and at the top of their game) gave an assignment that used AI. She had her students look at myths, and then they could create their own. After creating their own, they would take a prompt that she had already written about myths, and plug it into an AI generator. They could then analyze how their myth compared to an AI generated prompt. There were multiple grades attached to the assignment, but one grade was just to put in the prompt into the generator. Out of 25 students, only 9 bothered to copy and paste in the prompt, and then copy and paste the response back into their document. This wasn’t some first year teacher who doesn’t know how to get students to respond. This is a teacher that is beloved at our school, and students beg to take her courses. And yet, only 9 students bothered to complete an easy assignment. For the other grades associated with this task, the teacher received even less participation.
When our fellow teacher mentioned how devastated she was by the lack of response, other teachers pipped in with their own stories. One teacher had done a similar type of assignment, and only got 2 responses. Another teacher had her students watch a documentary, stopping at various points to discuss the details, and then the students had to write a two sentence response to the documentary. Not one student turned in the assignment. It was an Honors class. Going around the room filled with eight teachers, all various levels of experience and abilities, we all had similar tales of woe on turning in assignments.
The simple answer was cell phones are the cause. Students are too distracted by technology to accomplish actual work. However, in my classroom, I make students put cell phones into a cubby (and I make sure that all students comply with that rule), and I didn’t get more participation than the other teachers. So what is the underlying cause that is making students not turn in the work? We chatted about pandemic policies, our different teaching styles, grading systems, and structure of classrooms.
As a small group we concluded that apathy was our biggest problem with our students, and yet none of us can figure out how to change that apathy within our classrooms. How do you get students to critically think when they won’t engage with the material, even when you play an audio book versus reading the real text? How do you get students to speak to one another when their main form of communication is a cell phone, and students view actual talking as antiquated? As teachers we have even asked students what they want to see in our classrooms; what they would want changed, and what they want to learn. Recently another teacher and I created a classroom survey for our students about engagement. When asked if our students avoided work in class 67% strongly disagreed or disagreed with that statement. And yet, they are not turning in the work. In that same survey, we asked what engaged them as learners, and by far the highest percentage (82%) was video game like quizzes (Quizizz and Kahoot). But oftentimes, those games are not critical thinking games. They focus on multiple choice responses, which is not the learning needed for today’s workforce.
As a lunch time group, we are still working through the problem, still trying multiple solutions, and struggling. We are facing the greatest educational crisis our country has seen, and as a teacher on the front lines it is terrifying to realize that this is our next generation of citizens. So how can we change our student’s apathy?
Out of a group of eight lunch teachers, none of us have the answer, but we are still trying. I encourage you to use the comment below to talk about your ideas or your struggles. Maybe we will find the answer together.
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