Why don’t students like school?

I was reading a very interesting article in USA Today and was struck by something I read and wanted some input from teachers, especially AP teachers.

Daniel Willingham the author of the book ‘Why don’t students like school?’ was interviewed and got me thinking with this quote, “School is all about mental challenge, and that is hard work, make no mistake. Still, people do enjoy mental work or, more exactly, people enjoy successful mental work. We get a snap of satisfaction when we solve a problem”.

I started to wondering again about students taking AP classes who are failing. Are we setting our students up for failure by not allowing them to have that ‘snap of satisfaction when they solve a problem’ and only see failure?

Then I read the statement “But solving a problem that is trivially easy is not fun”, and I have to ask. Is traditional curriculum enough to keep students engaged and learning, or is it trivially easy?

And then I am brought back to my original thought in my first question by the statement “Neither is hammering away at a problem with no sense you are making progress”. If students are not capable of passing an AP classes or AP exams, are we creating an environment for our students where they feel like they are ‘hammering away at a problem with no sense of making progress?’

The author then goes on to say “So the challenge for a teacher is to find that sweet spot of mental difficulty, and to find it simultaneously for 25 students, each with a different level of preparation. To fight this problem, teachers must engage each student with work that is appropriate for his or her level of preparation. This must be done sensitively, so that students who are behind don't feel like second-class citizens. But the fact is they are behind, and pretending that they are not does them no favors”.

This seems to be the impossible dream. I don’t see how realistically this can be achieved. With all of the state and federal mandates and current curriculum we are using in Hillsborough County, are we giving our teachers the flexibility they need?

Read the USA Today article here and tell me what you think.

Do top teachers avoid schools with large minority populations?

Do highly qualified or better yet, highly effective teachers avoid schools with a large populations of minority students?

A Journal of Labor Economics study suggests that highly trained and effective teachers tend to leave schools that have a high number of minority students. The study focused on the Charlotte-Mecklenberg school district in North Carolina using data supplied by the North Carolina Education Research Data Center.

The study found that "schools that had an increase in black enrollment suffered a decrease in their share of high-quality teachers, as measured by years of experience and certification test scores. Teacher effectiveness, as measured by teachers’ previous ability to improve student test scores, decreased in the black inflow schools as well. The change in quality for each school generally occurred in the same year that the busing program ended, indicating that teachers moved in anticipation of more black students".

Read Chicago Journal article here.

Pew research shows widening generation gap

A recent poll shows that we are facing the largest generation gap since 1969. From the fast paced, ever changing world of technology, to religion, relationships, manners, and morality; we are seeing larger differences in the way we view the world between younger and older people.

Does this generation gap affect teaching? If so how can we overcome these differences and meet our students on a level where they can understand the curriculum and meet the rigorous standards mandated by the state and the federal government?

Are we headed in the right direction? Or do we need to re-assess the direction we are headed?