As I age, students "perspective" on education seems to be wearing me down. It seems as though many students (and perhaps their parents) view their high school education as an inconvenience. Their education is something that is an obstacle to doing all the other more important parts of their lives - extra-curricular activities, their part-time jobs, their social lives, their favorite TicToc celebrities, their video games, etc... There just isn't time or interest to fit their education into their lives.
We have been working on a research paper for about a week. Students legitimately should be completed with a rough draft by tonight. And since yesterday, I'm including a private comment in their Google Classroom account to record what has been accomplished so far. A couple of students already have their rough drafts completed, so now I can review their work and offer suggestions to help them improve their work. More importantly, I can review their work and warn them of potential plagiarism violations.
Today, my first period students were required to complete the Illinois Science Assessment, so they weren't in class. Keep in mind, I've been telling the students that this requirement was going to be occurring today for over a week. They were going to miss first period English III today, but that wasn't going to change the due date of the research paper - it's still due on Friday.
While the students were completing the science assessment, I checked over the first period research paper, and since first period yesterday, many students had not even revisited their research papers at all. So in their private comments, I supplied a message - something like, "draft only partially completed". I had one student reply to my comment with the following statement.
how do you expect me to have a draft done when i’m not in class?
And therein is the struggle. Apparently this student thinks that the only time to complete any work on this research paper is when she's in class. And if class isn't held, then there isn't any other opportunity to work on the paper. So in her world, English III only exists from 8:10 a.m. - 9:05 a.m. on days when she is present on scheduled days at school. There isn't even an iota of a thought of, "Hey, I don't have first period tomorrow, so in order to keep pace with what I need to complete for the research paper to be done by Friday, I need to spend some time OUTSIDE OF CLASS on the research paper to be up-to-speed.
And this "perspective" exists in a world where it's NEVER BEEN SIMPLER to complete a research paper in the history of mankind, even for the most reluctant student. There are works cited generators, sample MLA papers, YouTube videos, Google Docs, real-time comments from teachers, access to frequently asked questions, a Google Classroom designed specifically for students to help each other with sources, and on and on and on. The only thing that is really needed is for students to be willing to spend time with the assignment.
And there's the struggle...time is a rare commodity because education seems to get to be a lower and lower priority. Education is just too inconvenient anymore. The only time students can fit in an opportunity to work on an assignment is the designated class period that they are forced to attend. Anything more expected than that is just unreasonable and ridiculous. When I retire, I won't miss this struggle. I won't miss the real struggle of how a high school education is so inconvenient these days.
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