Four of My Seniors Not Graduating: How To Motivate the Unmotivated

Yesterday, was the last staff meeting of the year at Gunderson, the High School where I work. Now, at this point, you're probably thinking to yourself, "Are you kidding me? He's going to post an entry about a staff meeting?"

No.

Okay, yes.

It was weird yesterday because they announced who is going to be leaving next year, and thanked them for their contribution. There are 57 teachers on campus, and 9 are leaving. I didn't do the math, because quite frankly I can't, but that's almost 20 percent.

Some of those losses are good things. There are two teachers in particular who needed to change careers, and they knew it. So that's a good thing.

But we lost three teachers who I considered pretty good teachers - to private high schools. They were sick of the fight - sick of dealing with Gunderson-type students. I don't hang around other high schools, but I would really like to know if teachers at other schools complain as much about their students as the teachers at GHS do.

And I wonder if our kids really are worse than kids at other schools. I have four of my students who aren't going to graduate this year because they didn't pass government, which is a required course. They knew if they didn't pass, they wouldn't walk. They had been warned with letters. Their parents had been called. They had been brought into conferences with administrators and the teacher. They knew. And yet they still failed. Now, I talked to the teacher, who is my friend. He said:

"Tieche, I gave them the test during review week. I gave them the freaking test. Cut it up, put it on index cards. We got in groups. We went over the answers. I had 19 people fail with 50 percent or lower. I gave them the freaking test."

Hard to argue he's not being fair.

And yet, I had four students not pass that test. It does leave you wondering, "What the hell?"

One of my colleagues, who is honestly one of my favorite people on campus, kind of lost it in front of his kids. They weren't doing their work, or didn't come prepared with a project, and he just exploded on them. He was like, "You're the reason this school is in the crapper. Students like you. All of you. You wonder why people are convinced that Gunderson sucks? It's because of you. You don't do any work. You don't care about anything. You're going nowhere, and you don't even know it. You need to do everyone a big favor and just stop coming to school. Stay at home, and stop dragging down the rest of us."

I don't know how effective that method of motivation is, per se. But my point in that story is to show how much anger there is in some staff toward the students. I have a feeling that sentiment is boiling right under the surface in a lot of folks.

I wonder if that's the same at every school. I've always enjoyed learning because it's fun. And one of the common denominators in all my friends is that they like to learn. Not that they've necessarily gone to Stanford or even taken any college classes - but they love to learn. They ask questions, listen, read, talk. They're inquisitive.

Lot of kids in high school now don't particularly care about school.

I wonder why. And I wonder what to do about it.

Psychologist say that everyone is highly motivated to do something. Some students are highly motivated to play XBox. Some students are highly motivated to talk to the opposite sex.

But when you're faced with not graduating, and the consequences are clearly outlined for you, and you still fail a class where the teacher gave you the test?

What can you do with that?