Monday, January 01, 2007

Unethical teaching? Maybe. But I'm over it

I have this student who never does his homework. I know there is something bigger than homework going on at home, but the school psych and I can't figure out what it is though we know it is something, and I can't wait around and let him fall behind by not doing anything until we figure out what is making him so lacking in motivation.

Anyhow, I have tried everything to get this child to do his homework. I hate that it brings his grades down so much. We have tried motivational things, getting to visit the counselor, blah blah blah. Many of the things we tried I didn't even really agree with, but I felt I had to do something.

Well then I decided I would threaten him with retention. I even made up fake retention paperwork that he had to sign. It listed the reason for him being retained as failure to complete assignments, and he had to write up an explanation. I even pretended to have to take it into our assistant principal. I felt pretty deceitful about it, but I got over it when he brought in the entire week's worth of homework completed perfectly. I didn't even check on Friday, I just took the homework home to grade from all the students, and since school starts again on Wed. I thought I had better get to it. WHen I pulled his out I practically did a back flip. Hopefully this will happen again next week. Cross your fingers.

Malisa Johnson

2 comments:

edluv said...

i like the new look.

Adam said...

You two should also get your own IDs so we can tell who's who when you're posting and commenting.