This week in class we have had many a talk about setting goals and working towards them. In my weeks that I am in my placement I lead the morning meetings, and this week the theme was doing things that are hard and working until you achieve your goals. This is something of a problem with my group, many of them have quite explicitly told me that they do not like work and would rather give up than try something hard. This includes both academic work, and the work of improving ones behavior. I think that this is perhaps one of the most important lessons we can teach the children, that one can change their behavior and can accomplish their goals if they are to work hard, and very little of value come without hard work. I sometimes feel as though these types of lessons I try to teach them fall upon deaf ears, in the more cynical moments that I am wont to have I wonder if the students can ever really change or improve at all.
In these moments I am confronted by the reality of progress though, and in this week two cases were most noticeable. One is a boy whom I will call L. L has been something of a trouble maker this year, and has not been performing well in school. He is easily distracted, and he has admitted himself that he lets his feelings get the better of him, especially when he is around his friends. Last week though, my CT and I decided one thing we can do to support him was to move him front and center in the class, where we can keep an eye on him. We decided to do this because I got a gut feeling that L is a very naturally curious child, who really loves to learn but is distracted by his friends and the quest for their approval. I think I was right, because this last week, he was on fire, he was full of questions, and full of answers, not all of which were correct, but they were genuine. He has also started self monitoring, on one of his homework sheets he wrote, "I need to check whether I am distracted more often so that I can learn." When we had the students in the class set a behavior goal and a way to achieve that goal his goal was to not let others distract him so much, his solution was to, "ignore [his] senses." Quite zen for a nine year old I think. I am incredibly proud of the boy and I am excited to see what happens next for him.
The other case is more subtle, and has been fraught with more frustration than the last. I will call the girl S, she has a difficult life. As I understand it, she almost never sees her family, and they are not the most well balanced of sorts. She herself is the lowest performing student in the class, and frequently needs to be re-taught the most basic of concepts, like addition. Part of this is that she refuses to do anything hard, or that she has not done before, and if she decides she does not want to do something, she will fight tooth and nail. In one instance, my CT asked her to stay in from recess and do her home work, she even made a compromise, do two review problems and then she can go. S yelled and screamed and started throwing items in her desk before she would do it. Then she fumed for fifteen minutes until she finally did them. I could go on with incidents like this, but it would be indecorous. On Friday I was ready to give up on her, I really was. Then I talked to one of the special ed teachers at the school who knows S quite well, and considers S to be quite dear. According to her, this year has been a time of monumental growth for the girl in her own way. We did not have long to talk, but it was enough to get me thinking. S will have a hard time in school, but she is better now than she was, and she has those who love her.
I am left this week considering the virtue of hope. Hope can be hard, otherwise it would not be a virtue. The future of my class can go any number of ways, but I will hold onto the thought that a good one is attainable. It will be hard, and I will fail often and spectacularly, But I am thankful for this too, and I hope to, with ample help, communicate this to my students. To rejoice in difficulty, and even the suffering of failure, for this produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
tl;dr: Hope=Failure+Time
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