I was speaking with a parent this week and she had such concerns about her child, I thought we should at least think about the issues. I may take several blog messages to do this.
Her concern was about what is causing her son to fail in school. This is a multi-level problem. However, there are a few things to know. In this country every year nearly three quarters of graduating seniors cannot read or do math at their grade level! This is according to our national report card. Please note…these are the students who are graduating…it does not account for failures and dropouts. We can logically assume this is part of the problem with these groups of students as well.
We see on the national level strikes by teachers who are not given the supplies the students need, buildings in need of repair and upgrading, and sufficient income for teachers to actually make a living. These wonderful teachers are marching and striking for our students as well as themselves. Now, that said, let’s consider other possibilities.
When a student presents with issues related to school difficulties, we must first rule out the physical problems associated with learning, the visual perception problems possible and this is not just vision testing. And then we need to consider environmental issues such as home or family problems, neighborhood or friend relationships which might be influencing the student.
Then we need to look at what is going on in the student. Failure to learn, succeed in school can be associated with boredom, depression, anxiety, fear of failure or success, shyness, lack of self-esteem, needs for additional support which are not recognized, drug or alcohol usage, some abuse to the student which is unnoticed and not verbalized, or even failure to identify oneself as a capable student. Many students think of themselves as unable when they actually are. This is associated with a history either within the family or school being reinforced that this child is not able to learn. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Finally, the statement, “I don’t care….about school…learning…reading….anything.” Is not true. In order for anyone to make the negative statement “I don’t” means they have to consider they DO care and then say they don’t.
