Great post, Marcus. We've all been there. I like the image call-out from your notes - "Ideas do not help students --> actions do." You have to do something and, for non-teachers, this is what they may not realize is that one kid will keep us awake and trying to figure it out, probably all year long. The other advice is crucial - talk to other teachers, counselors, administrators, and coaches - anyone else who has contact with a struggling student. Early in my career as a younger teacher, the idea of a kid not doing well in my class felt like I was the failure. With many more years under my belt, I know it's far more complicated. We have a mantra at our school (applied to students and adults alike) - asking for help is a sign of strength and not weakness.
I don’t see or hear any contradictions between anyone you have quoted nor your approaches and thinking not aligning with one or the other.
I don’t think we can do this without hope, high expectations is hope, and meeting the student who refuses to do anything day 1 is hope, and reaching out to others is hope.
I did have a student like that two years ago. Because she was not disruptive, we agreed that as long as her head was not down on the desk the entire time, she could write or draw whatever she wanted. She wrote and drew nothing that would give me or her any insights. There were no parents. One aunt. Eventually, she had to move since she was not supposed to be in this district to begin with. It was an 8-10 person job daily —all resources on her— to make sure she was not disruptive to others etc.
Two years later she came by to see us all. She wanted us to know it mattered we cared, that she didn’t know any strangers who had ever cared for her. She was planning on dropping out of high school after 9th grade. The work was too hard, she said.
Last year we also had a boy like that.
Those are the ones I know and interacted with. There are so many more who have not done a single thing since 5th grade despite team meetings, and guardian conferences.
I have hope that we will start to address this in 3rd grade when it begins. That perhaps we will have schools within schools for students who throw in the towel starting in 3rd grade .
Appreciate this post! And while I think Doug Lemov and I have considerably different ideas of what a classroom should look like, I do think that there are mostly-parallel intentions behind his and like-minded messaging—including a responsiveness to where education has not met students in the way they needed to be met.
And I agree with you that it starts at a young age, though of course as a high school teacher I'm quite reticent to speak with confidence about how to address that in school settings I have zero experience in.
For me, it's a matter of how to show up myself as a teacher in a high school setting—in the final stages of their journey—and how to check myself and my mindset first, I think, more than anything else.
Thank you for such a thoughtful post. When you began to write about hope, I swear you were in my journal and in my head. Hope is absolutely adversarial - I think it's that lack of hope that leads to teacher burnout. They lose the hope that keeps idealism alive. I started year 31 last week, and it was one of our talking points in class. I teach 7th grade ELA, and it came up over and over again when we did our core values survey (thank you). For many of my students, hope was their number 1 value; with everything going on, they still believe in us and in possibility. It also came up again when we designed our classroom non-negotiables. We are still wordsmithing them, but it's definitely there; they fought for this word specifically.
What a great question about kids who don't do work. It really is a struggle; don't be too hard on yourself. Reflection is important (one of your strengths), and how we address what happens in our classroom reveals our priorities. We all want 100% participation, but our reality is that sometimes it happens, and other times, we need to have those sometimes difficult conversations with the kids. Knowing we care doesn't always conquer the other pressures in their young lives, so we have to listen to their behaviors and their words. On a separate note, this has been an issue for years - I have taught private, public, high school, and middle school - and I can't think of a year that I didn't have students that needed a little more attention to make sure all the work was done. I wish I could say I was 100% successful in getting all their work, but I can't. All I can say is that I've tried with varying degrees of success, and I vow every year to do better.
I agree that coming from a place of curiosity/questioning is the way to approach it. And, notes work wonders when students refuse to do the work. One thing I do at the beginning of the year is an activity where the students and I communicate. They have a little chart with boxes for them to write me notes/questions/comments; they give it to me at the end of class each day, and I respond each night the first week. The kids love it, and I learn so much. I can address those who don't write to me in this low-stakes "assignment" (an early indication of work refusal), and also add a note of my own to that student who wasn't doing the work. After the first week, kids can write me a notecard note, and I will respond. I don't get too many, but when I do, it's usually an answer to a question I didn't always know I had. Journals are also a good way to communicate (I have about 100 kids each year). Sometimes the kids will leave their journals on my desk with a note for me to read an entry. There is so much we can do behind the scenes - talking with other teachers, greeting them by name with a handshake at the door, finding time for a quiet talk - hope and persistence.
"All I can say is that I've tried with varying degrees of success, and I vow every year to do better." The ballgame!
Really, really appreciate all that went into this response—such a boost as someone who writes/shares a lot about the classroom, too, so thank you for this generosity and wisdom 🙏 this is the standard!
Thanks for sharing this and it's a such a rich prompt and engaging article! I find myself having many opinions :))... I resonated most with your first point... I like to ask myself an additional embodiment question: what would it be like to consider that students may be engaging of and on in your classroom for the rest of your life? There may never be a first day where you don't have a student that shows up in the way you described, or in an even worse way, or on and on.
Personally, I think we air too much on the side of coercion and not seeing students when we try to disregard that is ALWAYS AVAILABLE to choose not to engage. It could be not engaging by throwing a book across the room or not engaging by just quietly zoning out....the possibilities are endless... I don't think its a problem to desire high classroom engagement AND to be totally accepting of whatever is the reality of the level of engagement of students... That is the best starting place in my opinion to allow our innate sense of creativity and problem solving to kick in and see what happens! My favorite line of your piece was to remember that Doug Lemov isn't in your classroom YOU ARE! That's the best part...you get to be there.
While I enjoyed your post on what to do with a student who doesn't respond, I didn't read that throughout your essay, especially speaking to that issue in the first days of school. Teachers shouldn't expect that all students will be ready and willing to settle into a new class with a new teacher. Because a student doesn't become engaged on those first days doesn't mean they don't want to be there. For a teacher, like yourself, to become so enraptured as to desire most to make him engage is folly. Many students act like that and a first day is not a signal that it won't change. I find your points well taken but how you want to resuscitate this student is overdone. The student may leave the class for any reason. Also to put that much effort into saving him is non-productive. Many students just need some time to adjust, so let go and concentrate on the other students. After fourteen years of teaching, feeling failure is not an option for you. It should be second nature as to how you will relate to it.
Thanks for the feedback! A bit confused where the words "enraptured" and "saving him" comes from—as I feel like at multiple points in this post I was clear that [a] my goal is not to overreact and be too demanding and instead to [b] better understand how they're doing. While the anecdote I open with is about the first day, the general framing of this post is meant to apply pretty much all year, with an emphasis in the early weeks.
And I guess we also just disagree, too—which is 100% okay!—as while I believe we need to be flexible and patient with students early in year, at the same time I don't think it is the right choice to ignore a student who is disengaged and not participating. That sends a message, too, and not a positive one, in my book. There's without question a better and worse way to respond, but I believe that a non-response is not a solution at all.
Great post, Marcus. We've all been there. I like the image call-out from your notes - "Ideas do not help students --> actions do." You have to do something and, for non-teachers, this is what they may not realize is that one kid will keep us awake and trying to figure it out, probably all year long. The other advice is crucial - talk to other teachers, counselors, administrators, and coaches - anyone else who has contact with a struggling student. Early in my career as a younger teacher, the idea of a kid not doing well in my class felt like I was the failure. With many more years under my belt, I know it's far more complicated. We have a mantra at our school (applied to students and adults alike) - asking for help is a sign of strength and not weakness.
I don’t see or hear any contradictions between anyone you have quoted nor your approaches and thinking not aligning with one or the other.
I don’t think we can do this without hope, high expectations is hope, and meeting the student who refuses to do anything day 1 is hope, and reaching out to others is hope.
I did have a student like that two years ago. Because she was not disruptive, we agreed that as long as her head was not down on the desk the entire time, she could write or draw whatever she wanted. She wrote and drew nothing that would give me or her any insights. There were no parents. One aunt. Eventually, she had to move since she was not supposed to be in this district to begin with. It was an 8-10 person job daily —all resources on her— to make sure she was not disruptive to others etc.
Two years later she came by to see us all. She wanted us to know it mattered we cared, that she didn’t know any strangers who had ever cared for her. She was planning on dropping out of high school after 9th grade. The work was too hard, she said.
Last year we also had a boy like that.
Those are the ones I know and interacted with. There are so many more who have not done a single thing since 5th grade despite team meetings, and guardian conferences.
I have hope that we will start to address this in 3rd grade when it begins. That perhaps we will have schools within schools for students who throw in the towel starting in 3rd grade .
Appreciate this post! And while I think Doug Lemov and I have considerably different ideas of what a classroom should look like, I do think that there are mostly-parallel intentions behind his and like-minded messaging—including a responsiveness to where education has not met students in the way they needed to be met.
And I agree with you that it starts at a young age, though of course as a high school teacher I'm quite reticent to speak with confidence about how to address that in school settings I have zero experience in.
For me, it's a matter of how to show up myself as a teacher in a high school setting—in the final stages of their journey—and how to check myself and my mindset first, I think, more than anything else.
Thank you, Marcus. Reflective teaching is 99% of what’s needed, and I appreciate your dedication to reflecting and helping others do same. 🙏
Thank you for such a thoughtful post. When you began to write about hope, I swear you were in my journal and in my head. Hope is absolutely adversarial - I think it's that lack of hope that leads to teacher burnout. They lose the hope that keeps idealism alive. I started year 31 last week, and it was one of our talking points in class. I teach 7th grade ELA, and it came up over and over again when we did our core values survey (thank you). For many of my students, hope was their number 1 value; with everything going on, they still believe in us and in possibility. It also came up again when we designed our classroom non-negotiables. We are still wordsmithing them, but it's definitely there; they fought for this word specifically.
What a great question about kids who don't do work. It really is a struggle; don't be too hard on yourself. Reflection is important (one of your strengths), and how we address what happens in our classroom reveals our priorities. We all want 100% participation, but our reality is that sometimes it happens, and other times, we need to have those sometimes difficult conversations with the kids. Knowing we care doesn't always conquer the other pressures in their young lives, so we have to listen to their behaviors and their words. On a separate note, this has been an issue for years - I have taught private, public, high school, and middle school - and I can't think of a year that I didn't have students that needed a little more attention to make sure all the work was done. I wish I could say I was 100% successful in getting all their work, but I can't. All I can say is that I've tried with varying degrees of success, and I vow every year to do better.
I agree that coming from a place of curiosity/questioning is the way to approach it. And, notes work wonders when students refuse to do the work. One thing I do at the beginning of the year is an activity where the students and I communicate. They have a little chart with boxes for them to write me notes/questions/comments; they give it to me at the end of class each day, and I respond each night the first week. The kids love it, and I learn so much. I can address those who don't write to me in this low-stakes "assignment" (an early indication of work refusal), and also add a note of my own to that student who wasn't doing the work. After the first week, kids can write me a notecard note, and I will respond. I don't get too many, but when I do, it's usually an answer to a question I didn't always know I had. Journals are also a good way to communicate (I have about 100 kids each year). Sometimes the kids will leave their journals on my desk with a note for me to read an entry. There is so much we can do behind the scenes - talking with other teachers, greeting them by name with a handshake at the door, finding time for a quiet talk - hope and persistence.
I hope you have a blessed and peace-filled year.
"All I can say is that I've tried with varying degrees of success, and I vow every year to do better." The ballgame!
Really, really appreciate all that went into this response—such a boost as someone who writes/shares a lot about the classroom, too, so thank you for this generosity and wisdom 🙏 this is the standard!
This was an amazing post—one that I will reference continuously whenever I need a reminder to choose hope. Thank you for this!
Thanks for sharing this and it's a such a rich prompt and engaging article! I find myself having many opinions :))... I resonated most with your first point... I like to ask myself an additional embodiment question: what would it be like to consider that students may be engaging of and on in your classroom for the rest of your life? There may never be a first day where you don't have a student that shows up in the way you described, or in an even worse way, or on and on.
Personally, I think we air too much on the side of coercion and not seeing students when we try to disregard that is ALWAYS AVAILABLE to choose not to engage. It could be not engaging by throwing a book across the room or not engaging by just quietly zoning out....the possibilities are endless... I don't think its a problem to desire high classroom engagement AND to be totally accepting of whatever is the reality of the level of engagement of students... That is the best starting place in my opinion to allow our innate sense of creativity and problem solving to kick in and see what happens! My favorite line of your piece was to remember that Doug Lemov isn't in your classroom YOU ARE! That's the best part...you get to be there.
While I enjoyed your post on what to do with a student who doesn't respond, I didn't read that throughout your essay, especially speaking to that issue in the first days of school. Teachers shouldn't expect that all students will be ready and willing to settle into a new class with a new teacher. Because a student doesn't become engaged on those first days doesn't mean they don't want to be there. For a teacher, like yourself, to become so enraptured as to desire most to make him engage is folly. Many students act like that and a first day is not a signal that it won't change. I find your points well taken but how you want to resuscitate this student is overdone. The student may leave the class for any reason. Also to put that much effort into saving him is non-productive. Many students just need some time to adjust, so let go and concentrate on the other students. After fourteen years of teaching, feeling failure is not an option for you. It should be second nature as to how you will relate to it.
Thanks for the feedback! A bit confused where the words "enraptured" and "saving him" comes from—as I feel like at multiple points in this post I was clear that [a] my goal is not to overreact and be too demanding and instead to [b] better understand how they're doing. While the anecdote I open with is about the first day, the general framing of this post is meant to apply pretty much all year, with an emphasis in the early weeks.
And I guess we also just disagree, too—which is 100% okay!—as while I believe we need to be flexible and patient with students early in year, at the same time I don't think it is the right choice to ignore a student who is disengaged and not participating. That sends a message, too, and not a positive one, in my book. There's without question a better and worse way to respond, but I believe that a non-response is not a solution at all.