I know it has been a long time since my last post. I have found myself in a state of disillusionment with my job, my goals, and my purpose. Perhaps that is when I should have turned to writing first, but it seems that I was so utterly confused that my thoughts seemed to be making me speechless. Below is one of the many thoughts I was finally able to turn into words.
I met today with one of my students at the public library. She could only meet for one hour, though, because she had practice. Because of an earlier field trip, I was able to drive her to practice. As I was heading back towards school she told me, “No, we’re at the park.” I realized at that point that she was not headed to an athletic practice, but to practice for Powder Puff, the annual football game of senior girls versus junior girls. And I found myself utterly disappointed.
Our students seem to be growing more and more concerned with things that do not matter in the long run. Sure she was showing dedication to her class and the event, but when the event ends, what will she have gained? With an athletics team the student works towards an ultimate goal, small goals, and learns valuable lessons in failure, teamwork, leadership, success and humility. A team can work towards a season filled with success and championships, or just improvement. But with a one time event? What is the ultimate goal? What are the students working towards? What long term lessons are they learning? Are they building character? The list of questions that stem from my confusion goes on and on.
It is as though our students have no clue what long term goals are, what builds character, leadership and responsibility. The time and energy focused are less and less on academics, clubs, athletics and school organizations, but on somewhat trivial pieces of high school social activities. Our students are filling their minds with minutia. They have a hard time completing simple addition problems in their head, but can tell you all the benefits of having a PS3 gaming system over the Wii. They are not aware of their incomplete and run-on sentences, but know the relationship ups and downs of the latest Hollywood couple. And this knowledge is not even useful in building healthy relationships or positive social skills. If anything, it seems to be making our students more apathetic, anti-social and shallow. How do we, as educators, use the constraints of state standards to pull our students back in and show them the joy in being a deeper human being?
I feel exactly the same way as your second sentence... "in a state of disillusionment with my job, my goals, and my purpose." It freaking sucks, but maybe it's part of the journey, and normal for this part of our lives?
ReplyDeleteAs for your students, that must be frustrating. But I think what you are doing... thinking about these issues and trying to figure out solutions or ways to help steer your students in the right direction, is the best thing you could be doing. You alone will never be able to fully convince the importance of school, athletics, and extracurricular activities to these kids, but your endless trying makes a difference, even if you can't see it now.